1.
CARLY
PRESENT DAY
‘Carly?’
I look up from where I’m reading in the garden of the crescent. In the brightness of the Edinburgh sunshine, it takes a moment to see who’s there, and when I do, my heart sinks.
‘Paul!’ I say brightly, getting up, my mind in overdrive:When did I last see you? Why now when I haven’t showered or done my hair? Who is the beautiful woman and kid in the buggy beside you?
‘How are you?’ he asks, coming in for what I think is a hug, but which turns out to be an air kiss, leaving me to style out an awkward embrace. The scent of his familiar Hugo Boss fragrance takes me straight back to three years ago.
‘Good, you know,’ I nod over-eagerly, realising that very little has changed since he left. ‘Living my best life!’
Internally I cringe. The woman in the pretty dressbeside him actually does cringe though she’s quick to hide it.
‘Carly, this is Liv,’ says Paul, filling the embarrassing pause.
Liv reaches out an elegant, soft hand.
‘Nice to see you again,’ she smiles, her flawless teeth almost as perfect as her butter-blond hair.
I fixate on the word ‘again’.
Paul shifts where he stands, his brown brogues as polished as his wife’s teeth. Even on a Saturday he looks as if he’s about to head into the law firm.
And then it hits me where we’ve seen each other before. That night, three years ago, when I’d been late to arrive to one of Paul’s Saturday post-rugby drinking sessions. I’d entered the busy bar unable to find him, and I remember, as if in slow motion, one of his mates pointing to where he was. Before I’d taken another step, I saw him, and Liv, making out in the corner. I stood there for a moment, just staring, until Paul looked up. Then I ran.
What I remember most about that night is that he didn’t run after me, call or message. Just radio silence. After two years together, not even a half-hearted ‘Come back’. And even though I know he did us both a favour (rugby-playing lawyers weren’t my usual type then and definitely aren’t now – a classic example of opposites attract), there’s still the scar of rejection.
‘And who is this?’ I coo at the baby in the buggy, not wanting them to know that my mind is racing through the past.
‘This is Blair, he’s nine months old,’ says Paul,tickling the kid under his chin, who smiles, displaying four brilliant white teeth. Paul reaches out to squeeze Liv’s hand and it’s only then that it hits me.
‘He’s yours?’ I say, unable to hide the astonishment in my voice, the last three years having felt like three months.
‘Yes!’ laughs Paul, looking at me with his ice-blue eyes as if I’m from a distant planet. ‘Liv and I married a couple of years ago, and Liv fell pregnant not long after.’
‘Right,’ I nod, trying to keep up, trying not to show that I’m reeling from the punch of another person’s life effortlessly shaping up the way society wants it to, the way Paul always wanted his to, but which never felt right for me. ‘Good to see your life’s on track,’ I add, recalling how his plan was always a wife, three kids, and to be a partner by thirty-two. I assume from the size of the ring on Liv’s finger that he’s made that happen also.
‘How about you, Carly?’ asks Liv. ‘Have you found your happy ever after?’
I shake my head and scrunch my eyes, as if to imply it’s the furthest thing from my mind, when in reality it isn’t. Because even when you don’t quite fit the mould, who doesn’t want to be happy?
‘More of a career girl?’ she encourages.
Before I can answer, Paul guffaws. ‘Yeah, right! Carly, a career?’
Liv, to her credit, slaps his forearm with the back of her hand.
‘What?’ he protests, gesturing to my loose yoga gearand hair scraped up under a bamboo headband, the book on the bench. ‘Come on. Carly, am I right? Books and yoga hardly scream career-oriented. You were always one of life’s coasters. What was it you were doing? Something with books . . .’
‘Children’s literacy events,’ I remind him, recalling how ‘cute’ he used to think that was, something he thought I could easily drop should he ever convince me that marriage, kids and living for the weekend were a good idea.
‘That’s right,’ he nods, his eyes blank, evidently having no recollection of what ‘Carefree Carly’ used to do.
‘How that’s going?’ Liv asks.
