Now I know why Robbie’s mum crossed the road when she spotted me the other day. I’d thought she hadn’t seen me, or she’d been in a hurry.
My hand clutching the phone is suddenly clammy, my forehead too. I’m having a hot flush, but inside I feel cold. Icy cold and empty.
Robbie in Wales is fine, Robbie with sheep is a bit weird, and quite funny.
Robbie married is not what should have happened at all.
How can Robbie be married? Robbie who less than a year ago had declared he didn’t know what he wanted; he didn’t even bloody know who he was.
How can Robbie have moved out and completely moved on? I’ve only just hit the ‘ready to try and date’ stage – and he is bloody married!
I wipe the palm of my hand over my face. When my palm rests over my mouth, it’s trembling.
How could he just move on so quickly? How could he be married? We’d laughed about weddings years ago, but it just hadn’t featured lately.
Maybe he’d gone off me a long time ago; maybe he did know who he was and what he wanted and what he told me was all a load of bollocks. He wanted to be a husband – just not mine.
‘Okay dear, you get off, I know you’re busy.’
‘Fine,’ I say numbly, still thinking about the life I’d thought I had. I can’t quite get it to make sense in my head.
We’d been together forever. We’d never dated anybody else. We realised that we weren’t as madly in love and as totally compatible as we always thought we were.
We parted by mutual agreement, and there was nobody else involved.
And he has a wife.
I feel queasy.
‘I’m not sure where your father is, but when he comes home, I’ll let him know you’re coming to the party,’ Mum carries on, totally oblivious to my current meltdown. ‘He’ll be pleased about that. He doesn’t see much of you.’
That snaps me out of my daze. ‘That’s not my fault, Mum! If he was there more—’ Most of my brain is still grappling with the Robbie-is-married scenario, but the remaining bit still makes me indignant when I’m blamed for not being there for Dad! For God’s sake!
‘Oh, I know it isn’t your fault, Rosie,’ Mum says in her ‘shh-ing’ tone. ‘But you know how busy he is, and the orchestra are so busy these days, and he has to practise and—’
I sigh. I can’t help it. ‘Please don’t make excuses for him, Mum.’ It comes out wooden. I feel awful, it’s Mum who has to put up with him never being there. Not me.
Our family life has always been on his terms. Brilliant when he’s decided to be there, crap when he’s decided to go and ‘practise’ out of hours with the latest violin player, or some groupie who’s been swept off her feet by his easy charm and glamorous lifestyle. Ignoring the fact he has a family. Grrr.
‘I can’t believe Robbie has got married – are you sure, Mum?’ It can’t actually be true. I must have misheard. I’ve got myself in a tizz about nothing.
‘Positive! I saw his mother in the Co-op, she showed me the photos on her phone. All hippy yurts and fields and flowers, and sheep.’
His mum used to chat to me in the Co-op, but now she pretends she doesn’t know who I am. ‘Of course. Mustn’t forget the sheep!’ I laugh weakly. Maybe the thing to do here is concentrate on the sheep. Sheep are nice, sheep are daft, sheep don’t walk out of a long-term relationship and declare to love, honour and obey a woman they’ve known for barely two minutes.
Would he have stayed if I’d had sheep? Or a yurt?
Oh gawd, I’m going bonkers. What have sheep got to do with anything? I didn’t want him to stay. We’d reached our sell-by date. But I didn’t want him to find somebody else that quickly! Somebody he loved enough to marry. Which means she is the right one for him, and I never have been. And he knew it. Long before he told me.
‘I’m glad you’re not still with him, darling. I would never have seen you if you’d gone to Wales sheep farming.’
‘I’m glad too, Mum.’
‘She’s pregnant I bet. She had a smockie dress, billowing it was! And lots of flowers, you know, distractions! I bet she was hiding a bump.’
‘Not necessarily.’ It comes out a bit grumpily. I’m trying to work out how pregnant