Can I come tomorrow? On my way to a party now. Iona from Little Bishop. Her sixtieth. Big black-tie affair.
Okay, yep, good, nice that her mother had a good social life, but also – her mother had amuchbetter social life than she did. Was it supposedto be that way round?
Okay, never mind. It did at least look like she’d be seeing people tomorrow.
Okay. Declan. They’d barely seen each other since her abortive be-nice-to-him-with-breakfast attempt. Maybe she should have another go at reminding him what he was missing. He liked her cooking. He was watching a rugby match on TV with friends this evening – that was his story anyway – and, assuming he actually was doing that, he obviously wouldn’t want to miss the game but maybe he’d like to have dinner with her afterwards.
Maybe she’d call him to ask.
He picked up on about the seventh ring, just as she was about to put the phone down.
‘Hello?’ He sounded oddly terse.
‘Hi. Just wondered what sort of time you thought you’d be home.’ She could hear a voice in the background. A woman’s voice. Was Declan watching rugby with awoman? ‘Oh. Who’s that?’
‘Oh, just, that’s… that’s Sally. Rory’s wife.’
If he was with Rory’s wife, why could Poppy also hear loud traffic? Why would he be outside next to a road with Sally? Why wouldn’t he just be inside Rory’s house?
‘Where are you?’ she couldn’t help asking.
‘At Rory’s, as I said.’ Still sounding terse, and blatantly lying, unless Rory had huge lorries rumbling through his living room.
Right.
No. Poppy was not going to go mad with him now. And she was not going to put Daniel in his car seat and drive over to Rory’s andcheck. She was… Well, she was… She was going to continue to think things through, for Daniel’s sake if nothing else. Plus she wasn’t going to humiliate herself in front of another woman. And, really, had anything changed if hewaswith the other woman now?
‘Why did you call?’ Declan asked.
‘Oh, nothing major. It’s just that I have a lot of extra food – I cooked alot– and wondered if you’d like any when you get home.’
‘Yes, great, or maybe tomorrow – I’d love some then – just going to be ordering a lot of pizza here I think and I doubt I’ll be that hungry later.’
‘Oh, of course. Yes, definitely leftovers tomorrow. Yum.’ She sounded weirdnow but really, who cared. ‘So, have a lovely evening. Hope Ireland win.’ She was impressed at how polite she’d managed to be.
‘You too. Say hi to your friends. Enjoy your dinner. Love you.’
‘Thank you. See you later.’
She was crying, she realised, as she ended the call.
She placed her phone on the table face down so she wouldn’t be tempted to go on any social media and see how perfect and busy and social everyone else’s lives were, and sniffed back her tears.
‘Just you and me,’ she said to Daniel, smiling, which took a lot of effort, ‘and we are going to havefunthis evening.’
She could watch something good on TV after she’d put him to bed. It would be fine. When she was working she’d always wished she had moretime to watch TV. She could totally pass this evening happily starting on a new box set. Something she hadn’t watched with Declan or discussed watching with him, so that it washers.
She might be doing a lot of solo television watching in the future.
Daniel beamed back at her and picked up his bowl and spoon and threw the whole lot at her head. She ducked sideways and it sailed behind her and splatted on the floor.
‘Well,’ she said, after she was sure that she wasn’t going to swear. ‘That. Is. A. Lot. Of. Clearing. Up.’
There was puree on the walls, on the kitchen units, everywhere. It was genuinely as bad as Declan’s fire incident. She needed to get cleaning. But first she was going to have to get some more food for Daniel or he’d be hungry. Fucking yay.
‘Morning.’ Declan rolled into the kitchen at nine the next morning as Poppy was finishing the clearing up that she should very obviously have done last night – the puree would have been alotless stuck on – but just hadn’t been able to make herself do at the time.
‘Morning.’ She couldn’t quite look at him after yesterday evening. She’d lain awake listening out for him last night, and had then pretended to be asleep while he slightly drunkenly tiptoed around the room shushing himself so that he wouldn’t wake either her or Daniel. (It hadn’t worked, obviously; shortlyafter Declan had sunk straight into a snory sleep, Daniel had woken up yelling.) And now she was very tired.
