- An empty washing-up bottle
‘Shit,’ I mutter, wondering how I’m going to break it to my mother that – as well as collecting, feeding AND giving a bed to both of my children tonight – I need her to gather that lot together too.
I open my to-do list and add: ‘Grovel to Mum about Gaudi’ before moving onto my next few emails. I deal with them far more deftly than I would in the office, which is just one of the reasons why I love train travel. I get so much done. I think it’s the peace, the anonymity, the—
‘Hello, Darling.’
I look up as my heart slams into my chest.
Zach reaches up to place a bag on the overhead shelf, revealing the soft underside of his biceps. I realise my mouth has parted and am about to say something – mainly as a reminder to close it – when he beats me to it.
‘This is Mila.’
A little girl wearing bright red dungarees and a rainbow cardigan climbs into the window seat opposite me, just as the train begins pulling out of the station. Even accounting for the fact that four-year-olds are cute by definition, she is beautiful. Zach’s daughter has inherited those expansive eyes, the wide smile and that little dimple. She has thick, dark hair – with a kink precisely where a bobble once was.
‘Hello there,’ I smile, gently.
‘Hi,’ she says shyly, looking up from beneath long eyelashes. ‘Are you doing some work?’
I look at my laptop as Zach sits down next to her. ‘Well, Iwas, yes.’
‘Me too,’ she says. Then she takes a pack of crayons and a pad from her rucksack and sets about colouring in.
‘We should do some introductions,’ Zach says. ‘Mila, this is my friend from work. She’s called Lisa.’
Her crayon stops and she looks up. ‘Like in the Simpsons.’
‘That’s right,’ I laugh.
Her eager little face prompts a wave of nostalgia for the time when my own kids were that adorable, all squidgy cheeks and bubbly giggles. While there’s a part of my brain that does remember the odd tantrum, picky eating and – in Leo’s case – a frequent desire to try to give me the slip in supermarkets, I refuse to think of those years in anything other than a blissful, rosy haze.
‘Mila’s with us until we get to Stafford,’ Zach says. ‘Her aunt lives in the Midlands. She’s been desperate to go and stay with her cousins overnight, haven’t you?’
‘They have a ping pong table,’ she explains.
‘Well then, I don’t blame you for wanting to go.’
‘Do you play ping pong?’ She sounds like one of those impossibly cute American children they cast in the movies at a young age, promptly ruining their lives.
‘Both of my boys love it, especially my eldest, Leo. Every time we go on holiday . . . vacation . . . I have to choose somewhere with a table so he can play all day long.’
‘I’d be friends with him then,’ she decides and, while my first response is to laugh, I quickly remember that, no matter how vile Leo can be towards me, he’s never anything other than sweet to his little cousins.
‘I think you probably would,’ I decide, as she goes back to her picture.
‘So have you been to these awards before?’ Zach asks.
‘A few times,’ I say. ‘Don’t expect the Oscars, but it’s fun enough.’
I’d fully intended to use this journey to finish off a presentation, catch up on emails and work out exactly where I can advise my mother to get hold of six elastic bands (any colour). In the event, I’m distracted. Because every time I try to focus on my laptop, my eyes are drawn to Zach as he helpsMila colour in a little pony and play repeated games of noughts and crosses. I find myself sneaking glances at his forearms, the direction of hair that feathers upwards into the sleeves of his shirt, and watching the trembles of his face as he laughs and kisses her on the temple.
This is the first time I’ve properly spoken to him since our kiss, unable this time to dive away and hide behind a potted plant. While in my head this forced proximity should – and indeed could – have been excruciating, in fact, it’s something else. As uncomfortable as this is, it’s also mildly electrifying, a sensation enhanced when I accidentally brush my calf against his and both of us jolt into eye contact, at which point a smile seems to soften at his mouth before I glance away.
‘Will you play “I Spy” with us, Lisa?’ Mila suggests, when we’re not far from Stafford.
‘Oh no, sweetie, Lisa’s working,’ Zach says.
‘No, it’s fine, I don’t mind,’ I say, deciding it’s easier not to explain that I’ve barely managed to get a thing done since they got on.
