You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) Read Free

inviters
and play-date havers we’d begun to develop there.
    And
my own social circle was limited, to say the least. When I was working, I’d
occasionally go to the pub with my colleagues, but more often than not I’d have
to bow out because Jonathan was working. The few women I’d met through NCT
classes and nursery were the parents of my children’s friends, not my own.
Apart from Sadie, who rang for a chat once a week.
    Sadie’s
eleven years older than me, and although my mother never said as much, I’m
pretty sure she and Dad had intended to stop at one child. By the time I came
along, their marriage was a bit like the Cold War – complex negotiations
followed by long silences, and the threat hanging over us all the time that it
could all go bang.
    Sadie,
understandably, left home as soon as she finished school, and soon after that
she met Gareth, and the two of them have lived in happy chaos on their
smallholding in the Cotswolds ever since, surrounded by chickens, ducks, horses
and an assortment of cats and dogs.
    When
I was eleven I went off to boarding school, and I suppose Mum saw that as her
chance to escape, so escape she did – all the way to Seattle with her new
husband. I spent my summer holidays there for a couple of years, then put my
foot down and started spending them with Sadie and Gareth instead. And when I
was fifteen, Dad was killed in a car accident.
    So
it was Sadie who gave me away at my wedding. She was the first person I texted
when Darcey was born. Both our kids adore her, and she adores them, even though
she and Gareth have remained happily child-free. And it’s her I blame for Darcey’s
obsession with horses – terrifying death traps on legs, as far as I’m
concerned. She’s my family, and I suppose my closest friend. I missed having a
best friend, in some ways – but I’d learned the hard way to keep women at arm’s
length.
     
    Three
days later, I found myself lying on Owen’s bed, holding a book up above my head
and getting cramp in my arms. It was the only way to read whilst lying, prone
and immobile, next to my son. I’d hoped to flick through the final chapters
after I’d read Owen his bedtime story, but he was having none of it, insisting,
“No, Mummy, stay with me!” when I tried to sneak out.
    So
here I was, hoping that Owen would fall asleep before the final page, so I
could make my escape and not be late. Stealthily, I leaned over and brushed a
kiss on to his cheek, but he didn’t move. Silently, hardly daring to breathe, I
sat up, swung my bare feet on to the sheepskin rug, and crept silently out.
    “It’s
nearly your bedtime, too,” I told Darcey, who was slumped on the sofa,
transfixed by Charlie and Lola. “Daddy’s going to be home soon, and he’ll do
your teeth and your story, okay?”
    “Mmm,”
she said, her eyes not leaving the screen.
    I
flopped down next to her and skimmed the last few pages of the book at
lightning speed, in contrast to the meticulous, note-taking attention I’d paid
to the first chapter. It had been ages since I’d read anything more challenging
than Julia Donaldson’s latest opus, and to be totally honest I was finding this
hard going. Even at the best of times, the plight of unmarried mothers in a
Liverpool slum in the 1930s wouldn’t have been my thing, and I’d had to fit in
the final chapters in between the children’s supper and baths.
    I
dragged a comb through my hair, wound a scarf round my neck and put my coat on,
then hovered by the front door, resisting the urge to hop from foot to foot
like Usain Bolt on the start line. Where was Jonathan? He’d promised he’d be
home early so I could embark punctually on my debut into Clapham society. I
took a bottle of white burgundy from the fridge and stuffed it into a carrier
bag along with my copy of The Hard Road Home . If Jonathan wasn’t home,
like, five minutes ago, I’d be late, and my standing with the mummy elite would
be in jeopardy.
    “Mummy!”
Owen called