Learning to Love Read online

  ‘Look, Andrea, I know I need to pull my weight more, and I’ll try. But I can only do so much with my own business to run. It might look as if all I do is organise a few client meetings and, hey presto, I make money, but it’s not that easy.’

  ‘It was your choice to give up management and go into investment planning, Jonathan,’ Andrea reminded him, resisting the urge to also remind him that she’d supported him every step of the way. ‘And you are making money, aren’t you?’

  At least he said he was. He was all for moving house and booking holidays six months ago. Thinking about it, he hadn’t been so keen to spend money recently though.

  ‘Jonathan, do you have a problem we’re not sharing?’ Andrea studied him carefully. If there were things he wasn’t telling her, whether to save her from worrying or to save face, then she needed to know.

  ‘Yes. No. I … Of course I’m making money. And, no, I don’t have any problems we’re not sharing, apart from … It’s stressful, Andy. We’re already stretched way too thin. And now you’re proposing some hare-brained scheme about starting a shop?’

  ‘It’s not hare-brained.’ Andrea stared at him, bewildered. She struggled to hold onto Chloe, whose little feet were reaching determinedly for the floor. Why did she have to keep trying to explain? Did he have any idea how stressful teaching was nowadays? Granted, starting a business would be hard work, but was it really so wrong to want a change of direction before it was too late? She wasn’t intending to stop working altogether and put her feet up.

  Did he want her to? Andrea scanned his eyes. Would he prefer her to be a stay-at-home wife, brush up on her Delia and serve his clients gastronomic delights? She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She could never be entirely dependent on a man, he knew that.

  ‘I’ve played it by the book all my life, Jonathan, mostly to support other people,’ Andrea let it hang, hoping he might understand. ‘I still have people to support, I’m aware of that,’ she went on, alluding to Chloe, whom she loved with her very bones, but who wasn’t planned at the end of the day, ‘but now I want to do it in a way that fulfils me. Why do you insist on putting me down?’

  ‘I’m not putting you down. You’ve just got too many balls in the air. It’s a fact.’

  ‘Right.’ Andrea felt her hackles rising. ‘So let’s look at the facts, shall we? Woman multitasks because she has to: fact. This is fine. Woman multitasking includes taking a slice of time for herself, this is not fine: fact.’

  ‘There are only twenty-four hours in a day, Andrea.’

  ‘Which is why I don’t want to spend eight of them doing something that no longer interests me. I need a change of direction. I can do this. I want to. Why do you think I can’t?’

  ‘Because there’s not enough of you to go around as it is!’

  ‘There might be if you’d help out more!’ Andrea snapped, and then nipped hard on her bottom lip. She was doing exactly what she didn’t want to do, arguing. Because he wanted to? She looked back into his eyes, eyes which had changed somehow, from tranquil to tumultuous, truculent even. Why? Was he that scared of change? Did he want to take off in another direction?

  ‘I know there’s not enough of me to go around, Jonathan,’ Andrea said quietly. ‘But that’s the whole point, don’t you see? I need to get a little piece of myself back for me.’

  ‘Fine, whatever,’ Jonathan acquiesced with a shrug, but his eyes were still set to do battle. Mustering up a smile, he trailed a finger down the length of Chloe’s nose, which had her back in wriggle mode in an instant, hands outstretched and whimpering, ‘Want Dad-dee.’

  ‘Later, baby,’ Jonathan promised, planting a kiss on her soft peachy cheek. ‘Daddy has to go to work, but I’ll bring you some sweeties back. How’s that?’

  ‘Choclat,’ Chloe said, somewhat subdued by the promise of sweeties.

  Andrea searched Jonathan’s face, trying to work out what it was he really wanted. His classic good looks seemed more chiselled somehow. He looked older, but still young for his age. Five years younger than her, she reminded herself, making him eligible marriage material for many less encumbered women. What was he doing with a woman with three children whose only hope of seeing a size ten again was to look at her daughter? ‘I’d better go.’ She glanced down and then back. ‘We’ll talk later, yes?’

  Jonathan looked at her, as if he was going to say something, but stopped himself short. ‘Yes, fine.’ He smiled, but it was a half-hearted attempt, Andrea could tell. ‘I’ve got a late appointment, so I’ll meet you at the restaurant, assuming we’ve someone to keep an eye on the kids, that is?’

  Andrea decided not to incite yet more argument by insisting that Ryan, though so laid-back he was almost horizontal sometimes, was perfectly capable of babysitting Chloe, had they asked him, and certainly didn’t need babysitting himself. ‘Sophie and Ryan are out, if you recall,’ she repeated what she’d told him when they’d made the weeknight restaurant booking, which apparently suited Jonathan’s evening appointment schedule. ‘As I also mentioned, Mum and Chloe will be over at Sally’s watching animated films. She’s only just back from visiting her mum, but she’s usually reliable, so … we’re good to go.’

  Jonathan nodded, still not looking exactly overjoyed, Andrea noted. ‘See you later, then.’ She forced a smile and turned quickly away, a peculiar knot in her stomach as she wondered whether he’d rather not see her later.

  How does she do it? Sally wondered, noticing Andrea heading back to her house as she emerged from her own cottage two doors down to deposit a recyclable. How did a full-time teacher with three children always manage to look so fantastically put together when her clothes were thrown on? Literally. Sally had watched Andrea select her outfit in awe on the odd occasion she’d called for her to walk to school, rummaging blindly in her wardrobe, her mind on her family, then tugging on whatever came to hand.

  The result: casual, yet sophisticated with minimal effort. Who else their age in the village could wear retro Oxfam and get away with it? Her make-up would be minimal, too, Sally knew. She sighed and turned back to her door. No blending foundation, eyeshadow, or blusher for Andrea. ‘Until someone invents a one-pot potion one can apply whilst one pees, my face goes au naturel, broken veins, blotches and all,’ she’d said once. The amazing thing was Andrea wasn’t conceited. She was just plain pretty. ‘Effortless,’ Sally’s husband had once observed, his eyes roving over her as Andrea had circulated at her birthday party, ‘like she’s not trying too hard.’

  ‘Yes, well, a woman whose man obviously adores her wouldn’t need to try too hard, would she?’ Sally had retorted, watching peeved over her drink as Jonathan had walked up behind Andrea to plant a soft kiss on the nape of her neck, naturally, as lovers do. She hadn’t meant to be bitchy. Andrea was her friend. A good friend, but the thing was Sally had been trying to compete with the twenty-something slut she absolutely knew Nick was having an affair with at the time. She couldn’t hope to, of course, not without surgery.

  Dragging a hand over her own blotchy face, Sally tried to quell a pang of jealousy at Andrea’s apparent happiness. Things weren’t quite as picture-perfect as the fulfilled mother and baby scene would have one believe, Sally was aware. Chloe’s rosy cheeks were more to do with teething problems than contentment, Andrea had said a while back, confiding that, though she loved Chloe fiercely and never regretted for a second having her, sometimes a toddler on top of two teenagers seemed one child too many. Sally tugged in a shuddery breath, her hand straying to her midriff.

  She wished Andrea hadn’t confided, at least not that particular snippet. She’d regretted it immediately, distraught that she’d been so careless of Sally’s feelings around pregnancy and motherhood. Andrea was like that, sympathetic and thoughtful.

  Sally wished she’d been able to confide in Andrea then that her sham of a marriage had reached the tit-for-tat stage. That in some misguided attempt to get Nick’s attention, get anyone’s attention, she’d offered herself like a tart on a plate to
the first man who’d noticed her. She’d toyed with the idea of telling Andrea, but her pride wouldn’t let her – and she’d been hoping, she supposed, that her marriage might survive.

  It hadn’t, of course, because apparently she’d ended it. Hah! She follows her husband on a business trip she knows damn well is all pleasure and she’d ended the marriage? Sally’s anger rose afresh, like bile in her throat she couldn’t spit out. Just as it had when she’d caught him red-handed.

  She’d met her illicit lover that same night, in her hotel bar. After watching – like some sad heroine in a rom-com – Nick engaging in oral foreplay with his little tramp as he’d entered her apartment, Sally had returned to her hotel to try to wash the pain from her heart. She’d noticed him after a while, the man she’d met earlier when checking in. He’d seemed pleasant and easy-going. He was definitely easy on the eye. And there he was again, apparently also on his own. She’d joined him. Why not? she’d thought, several wines bolstering her confidence. He’d been amiable, receptive. And she used him, shamelessly. Yes, she had needed to be reassured, desired. Oh, and how. They were ships that passed in the night, that was all. She’d convinced herself of that as she slipped silently from his room the next morning. Two lonely people seeking brief solace from the storm of their respective rocky relationships. No one would ever know but her.

  She hadn’t wanted anyone to know then. She’d still wanted Nick. She’d even considered sharing him. Nick hadn’t wanted her though. Sally swallowed hard. Had she really thought so little of herself?

  When he had found out, when she’d blurted it out in her anger and frustration during the awful row they’d had a week ago, he’d packed his bags and left and she’d run to her mother’s for a shoulder to cry on. In truth, she was glad he knew. She’d wanted him to be angry, distraught, destroyed. Even then, she’d been clinging to the hope that another man finding her attractive might rekindle her husband’s desire. Pathetic. She’d handed him his get-out card. Nick’s reaction had been to finally, cruelly, crush any hope she might have had.

  One mistake she’d made. One tiny mistake, her pain driving her. ‘Can you really blame me?’ she’d asked him.

  Oh, yes. The adage ‘it meant nothing’ only applies to men it seems. ‘Women don’t do emotionally detached sex. They give themselves body and soul to a man,’ Nick had spat, quoting back what she’d told him when she’d discovered the nauseating truth about his affair when it had first started. She’d been hoping to make him see how deeply he’d hurt her, sleeping with his slut, even when she’d been pregnant.

  The look in his eye had been one of utter contempt. Sally stifled a sob as she recalled how he’d banged furiously around the bedroom, crashing drawers and slamming cupboards, stuffing clothes in bags, as if he were the injured party.

  And then, he’d gone. Permanently.

  What comes around goes around, Sally supposed, her heart wrenching afresh as she stood in the cold light of a new day feeling lonelier than she’d ever felt. ‘Cheaters’ don’t change their spots, she should have known. Nick had been married when she’d met him, after all. All he’d ever really wanted was an affair, uncomplicated sex, carnal desires satiated, no strings. It had been satiating too. Hot hungry sex, fired by the illicit thrill of it. Lips eagerly seeking each other’s, tongues searching, limbs entwining. The piquant taste of forbidden fruit as he’d made urgent love to her. And then, the bittersweet taste of tears when he’d left.

  Sally hadn’t been able to let him go, though. She’d been far too addicted to the man, too intoxicated by his touch to give him up. She hadn’t had to try too hard to keep him back then. She’d been younger. She’d loved him. She’d wanted him, and she’d won him. Nick had eventually left his wife and his children. He hadn’t wanted more children. She’d known that, too, deep down. Shackles with which to tie him down.

  Sally heaved out a sigh that came from her soul, and then squeezed her eyes shut tight, to no avail. The tears came anyway. Great, dollopy tears, rolling down her cheeks to splat onto her breast, no matter that she’d already sobbed until she’d retched dry tears and thought she simply couldn’t cry any more.

  It had been hard finally realising she had lost him. Sally ran a hand over the soft round of her tummy. It had been harder still losing her baby.

  Chapter Three

  Sophie emerged from Andrea’s en suite in her Cheeky Monkey slippers and her ‘Do I look like a morning person?’ T-shirt, which she’d pulled on over a zebra print bra and pants set she wasn’t sure her mother would approve of. Fashioning a towel into a turban around her hair, she padded along the landing, then stopped and did a double take. ‘Gran!’

  She gawked as Dee slinked from her bedroom to bop along the landing, with not bad rhythm, Sophie had to concede, for an old grinkly.

  ‘Gran!’ Sophie yelled again as Dee bopped on. ‘Oooh, Gran!’ Stomping after her, Sophie patted her firmly on the shoulder. And if she died of fright, serve the dotty old bat right. What was she doing, wearing her crocheted sequined top and cardigan? Unbelievable!

  Dee twizzled around to beam Sophie a smile. ‘Yes, dear?’

  Sophie circled a finger at Dee’s midriff. ‘What’s this?’ she enquired after the attire her gran had obviously stolen from her wardrobe to complement her own purple velour jogging bottoms.

  ‘Sorry?’ Dee blinked, the epitome of innocence.

  Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘I said—’

  ‘Can’t hear you, dear,’ Dee shouted, pointing a finger of her own to indicate Sophie’s iPod earphones stuffed in her ears.

  ‘I don’t flipping believe this. I SAID …’ Sophie plucked up the hem of the top between thumb and forefinger ‘… what … are … you … wear-ring?’

  Dee glanced down. ‘Oh, this old thing.’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘I’ve had it for ages.’

  ‘Old?’ Sophie almost had apoplexy. She’d blown all her birthday money on that top, along with her bra and pants set. It was brand new.

  ‘My grandmother’s,’ Dee imparted, a nostalgic glint in her eye. ‘It’s hand crocheted, you know.’

  ‘It’s not.’ Sophie folded her arms and agitatedly tapped a monkey-faced mule. ‘It’s New Look and it’s mine.’

  ‘Pardon, dear?’

  ‘I said … God!’ Reaching up, Sophie twanged an earphone from under her gran’s curls. ‘I said … it’s mine!’

  ‘Is it?’ Dee said over the Black Eyed Peas drifting from the iPod.

  ‘Yes! And so is the—’

  ‘Could have sworn it was mine.’ Dee dropped her puzzled gaze to the top.

  ‘Well, it’s not,’ Sophie pointed out, not very patiently, patience not being her thing. ‘Now, could you take it off, please? I have to go to school. Like, today?’ Even with a free period first lesson, she was so going to be late.

  At which point Dee plucked up the hem of Sophie’s cardigan, arms splayed each side, and started swaying, startlingly. ‘They’re buzzing.’ She nodded knowledgeably, then emitted a noise like a slow-dying fly.

  Sophie curled a lip. Gone, she thought. Gaga. Mind has officially left the …

  Dee cut Sophie’s speculation worryingly short. ‘I’m a bee,’ she sang, turning on the spot like an inebriated ballerina. ‘I’m a bee on the next level. I’m a bee rockin’ over that bass treble,’ she sang on, accompanying the lyrics she was obviously listening to – and tottering forth.

  Towards the top of the stairs.

  ‘Mum! Quick!!’ Sophie bawled as Andrea came through the front door. ‘Gran thinks she’s got wings.’

  Andrea deposited Chloe in the hall and charged up the stairs – to find her normally obstreperous daughter arm-in-arm with her grandmother, both doing a waltz on the landing.

  Morning pandemonium over and crisis averted, thanks to Sophie’s quick thinking, Dee, Chloe and Andrea were finally fully dressed and on their way, though she was running very late, unfortunately. Thank goodness Nita, on work experience in the school office and, frankly, invaluable, h
ad managed to get someone to cover registration for her. Well, almost fully dressed. Andrea glanced sideways at her mother, and then bemusedly down at her feet. Drizzle on the air and damp underfoot it might be, but Dee was now determinedly eschewing wearing her wellies in favour of slippers. Ah, well, it was only a short walk to Chloe’s nursery, and from there a few yards up to the drop-in centre and at least the slippers were easy on her mother’s bunions.

  ‘Morning, Eva,’ Andrea called over to where Eva was hard at work on her prize vegetables in the front garden of her little half-bricked cottage as they passed by. Gosh, she was always at it, Hibberton’s very own eco-warrior. ‘Don’t overdo it, will you? Don’t want you straining anything.’

  Eva, a robust woman with cheeks the colour of ripe tomatoes, straightened up and scraped back a wisp of steely-grey hair. ‘Oh, I’m as strong as an ox, my dear,’ she assured her. ‘Bit of hard work never hurt anyone.’

  Dee, walking on Andrea’s inside, peered around her. ‘Should have been a sergeant major,’ she observed of the redoubtable ex-headmistress.

  ‘Mum, shush.’ Andrea glanced sideways, hoping Eva hadn’t overheard.

  ‘Well, she gets on my pip with her silly war effort mentality, as if growing mouldy old vegetables is going to save the planet. She’d have us all growing cabbage and swash up the trellis if she had her way. Once a schoolteacher, always a bossy boots, I say.’

  ‘Ye-es. Thank you, Mum.’ Andrea smiled flatly, aware of her mother’s propensity to forget her daughter was a schoolteacher, and hoisted Chloe higher in her arms. ‘And it’s squash.’

  ‘What’s squashed?’ Dee glanced at her, puzzled.

  ‘Not squashed. Squash, the vegetable growing up the … Never mind.’ Andrea stopped as Eva wiped her muddy hands on her yellow outdoor trousers and came across, her stride purposeful, bar a slight dip to her dodgy hip.

  ‘Andrea.’ She nodded and offered her a bright but efficient smile. ‘Any news on the SOGS campaign?’ she enquired after their Save Our Green Space efforts, vis-à-vis the open space adjoining the school. Builders had already applied for planning permission for fifty residential properties. It would be a terrible shame to lose what was basically natural woodland – ergo a rich source of education for the children – but lose it they might.