The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,18
my ears like a Brillo pad. Louise sprouted perky boobs at eleven; I was a tall and awkward giraffe endowed with melon pips until I was about twenty when they gave one last valiant attempt at filling an A cup. Louise bagged her first boyfriend at twelve and lost her virginity at fifteen. I on the other hand didn’t have a boyfriend until I was eighteen and we all know about the gory virginity matter. Louise got engaged at twenty-one, twenty-six and then thirty (to separate people), finally settling on Nigel. I had never been engaged and only had three boyfriends before Tom, and one-night stands were not part of my modus operandi. I’d attempted them a few times at university because it seemed to be what happened after getting drunk in the student union. I found they weren’t to my taste – the sex was mostly unsatisfyingly uptight, leaving me feeling vaguely emotionally bankrupt. I’d come to the conclusion I was plain white chalk to Louise’s fancy artisanal hens’ milk cheese.
‘It was just a kiss,’ I said focusing on what was unfolding in the kitchen. ‘It didn’t set in motion the chain of events that led to Nigel’s accident. You’d lost your way, dazzled by someone else – it can happen in a long-term relationship, that’s all. Now you need to let it go, concentrate on the kids, on getting through the days. I’m assuming Nigel didn’t know.’
She shook her head.
‘This James guy sounds like a flake and a tease. If he was a real friend he would be supporting you, not ignoring you.’
Louise roughly pulled out a drawer in the island and extracted a baking tray. She tipped up the pizza bite box and scattered the solid briquettes on the tray, shoving them harshly with her fingers into a more uniform pattern.
‘I know that! But there’s something else.’ She walked back over to the freezer, opening the fridge next to it, and pulled out some broccoli. Without looking at me she spoke. ‘I asked Nigel for a trial separation before he passed.’
‘What? Oh my God, why didn’t you say? Were you about to split up?’
She shook her head. ‘He was never here, and when he was, he spent all his time in the bloody garden.’
‘I thought you liked it like that,’ I said boldly. ‘I always assumed you had married him because he was always at work or off on the golf course.’
‘Why would I do that?’ she hissed, grabbing a knife from the magnetic rack.
‘I don’t know. Because you wanted your own space?’
She attacked the broccoli with some force. ‘No! I loved him. When we met, he swept me off my feet, not like all the other boys I’d been with… He was a grown-up.’ The crying resumed, quietly this time, tears just running down her already mottled cheeks. ‘He wasn’t mean, he was just older and set in his ways and I feel so awful saying this when he’s…’ More tears.
I reached over and grabbed her hand. He hadn’t been that old. He’d only been fifty-one when he’d died.
‘Did anyone else know you felt like this? Did Mum and Dad?’
‘No. James did though.’
‘And you told James you wanted to split?’
She nodded, wiping her eyes with her clenched fist.
‘Did you discuss a future together?’
‘No! He was just a shoulder to cry on initially. The whole thing was more about living in the moment. We were friends. It wasn’t until I said I wanted to leave Nigel that it took a funny turn and he kissed me.’ She bunched her shoulders up to her ears, as if scraping away the memory. ‘But when I told Nigel I was so unhappy and wanted some real time out, he was devastated. He asked if I wanted a divorce and I said maybe. He actually began to change. He started coming home at a normal time. Suggested we book a Center Parcs holiday without a golf course. Started asking me if I needed help getting back into work for my return to practice. Would we need after-school care for the kids and he would see about working from home… Then the car crash.’
‘So you didn’t want a divorce? Things were OK? You still loved him?’
She shook her head. My Skippy senses bristled and I had a feeling maybe the real reason Nigel was so distraught about impending divorce was that he would be forced to split his fortune and have to look after the kids every other weekend On His Own.