come back with ‘once a cheater always a cheater’, a phrase that had been like a knife in Deira’s guts. Because of course now she understood what it had been like for Marilyn when Gavin had left her. And though she’d always comforted herself by believing that his marriage to his former wife had been doomed from the start (we married too young, he’d told her; we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for), there was nothing anyone could say to her now that made her feel anything other than a fool.
‘That’s awful,’ said Grace.
‘I believed him,’ Deira told her. ‘When he said he didn’t want children because he didn’t want to make Suzy and Mae feel unwanted, I believed it. When he said he wanted to live in an adult home, I believed it. When he said he was happy, I believed it. I let his words influence me and what I wanted because I believed, I really did, that I couldn’t ask for more when I already had true love. How could I have been so damn stupid? I was there for him when he wanted me and then when he wanted something else he was quite prepared to get rid of me, the same as he did with Marilyn.’
She eased her hand from Grace’s hold and took another napkin. ‘And the thing is . . .’ She sniffed and blew her nose, ‘the thing is that I’ve wasted the best years of my life on him. The years when I could have had a child of my own. When it would have been possible. All that time he was saying no and my eggs were shrivelling up and dying, we could have had a baby. But he didn’t want it. Not then. Not with me. And now, with Afton’ – she almost spat out the name – ‘he’s “over the moon with excitement”, at least according to his Insta-fucking-gram page. Instagram! He never bothered with it before. He called social media “a window into the narcissistic soul”. But Afton is a PR woman, who frames her entire life in photographs, and of course he’s now completely into posting pictures of his perfect life. There was one of both of their hands on her fucking bump!’ At which point Deira started to cry again.
The sympathy Grace felt for her increased. It was so damn easy for people to tell you that you had plenty of time to start a family after doing the things you wanted to do, but life wasn’t like that. It hurtled past when you weren’t paying attention until suddenly you realised that policemen didn’t only look younger, they were younger, and that you didn’t recognise a single tune on the radio. And that somehow the exciting, energetic stuff you’d put off doing was now being done by other people while you rubbed Voltarol onto your aching back.
She could only imagine the depth of the hurt that Deira was feeling now that her ex-partner was doing what Deira herself had wanted, but with another woman.
‘Not just another woman,’ Deira said, when Grace made the comment. ‘A twenty-five-year-old woman. She’s the same age as I was the first time I met him, and younger than both his daughters!’
‘How do they feel about it?’ asked Grace.
‘Mae sent me a text after he moved in with Afton. She said that now I knew what it felt like. But she also said she was sorry about what had happened and that her dad was a complete arse.’
‘I can’t imagine it’s easy for them,’ said Grace.
‘No,’ agreed Deira. ‘I guess Marilyn will be OK – she’s been in a relationship for the past few years – but I doubt the girls will get the opportunity to tell Afton what they think of her or ruin her clothes and make-up.’
‘At least they can be a bit more mature about it, even if they hate it,’ remarked Grace.
‘Which is more than I’m being.’ Deira sniffed. ‘But it’s so bloody demoralising. He swans out of my life with a gorgeous woman on his arm, and she gets the one thing I sacrificed for him. And not that I want a man in my life ever again, but I’ve given up my chances of having a child for nothing.’
‘You’re still a young woman,’ protested Grace.
‘No,’ said Deira. ‘I’m not. Not when it comes to my damn eggs, at any rate. Fertility-wise, I’m a shrivelled old crone.’
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out,’ said