35
‘What was Astrid like?’ Lou asked Aidan later, regretting the question even as she spoke it.
He was silent and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. ‘She was…’ he began eventually, considering. ‘Honestly, I hardly remember at this stage. She was very disciplined, I guess. Kind of hard-edged and unemotional. Very into self-improvement – and boyfriend improvement.’
‘Wow, she sounds like a right laugh!’
Aidan shrugged. ‘She didn’t have much sense of humour, to be honest. And she wasn’t really interested in food. Not like us.’
‘Weirdo!’ Lou loved the ‘us’ in that sentence.
‘I know. I mean, she was really into eating the right stuff – nutrition and food as medicine and all that sort of thing. But it was just fuel to her. She looked good on it, in fairness. She was a good advertisement for the wellness lifestyle.’
‘Ah! I was starting to wonder what you saw in her, but now it comes out.’ Lou tried to dismiss the jealousy that bit at her insides with a joke.
‘Yeah, I was shallow back then,’ he laughed.
‘Not the deep, sensitive guy you are now.’
‘We weren’t very compatible. We had nothing in common, really. And we fought a lot.’
‘Wefight a lot.’
‘Yeah, but we fought about petty things like what movie we’d go to or who threw their clothes on the bedroom floor.’
‘Let me guess, you?’
Aidan gave her shoulder a playful punch. ‘Busted. Once we had an epic argument about this jacket I was wearing that I loved and she hated. Stupid stuff like that.’
‘So not the big issues like fish soup?’
Aidan laughed. ‘No. Astrid wouldn’t have got that at all.’
‘Nothing like me, then?’
‘No, nothing like you.’ He fell silent for a moment. ‘I think we just fancied each other more than anything,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Looking back, I don’t think we were ever really in love.’
‘And you’re not in contact with her at all now?’
‘No. I haven’t heard from her in years. When she first left, she used to keep in touch occasionally and I’d write to her, tell her about Bo. But she moved around a lot and we lost touch. I’ve no idea where she is now.’ He paused, idly stroking her arm. ‘Last I heard she was living off-grid somewhere in Belize.’
‘Do you think she’ll ever come back?’
‘To Dingle?’
‘Yeah,’ Lou said, when what she was really asking was if she’d ever come back to him.
‘No. I don’t. And I don’t think it’d even be a good thing for Bo at this stage. She has no memory of Astrid. She’d be a stranger, and it’d just be disruptive, especially since she wouldn’t be likely to stick around. But it’s hard to know what to tell Bo about her. She knows she has a mother out there somewhere and I’ve shown her pictures. I don’t lie about it to her, but how do you tell a five-year-old that their mother just isn’t interested?’
‘I can’t imagine abandoning my child like that.’
‘I know. Me either. What about you?’ Aidan asked. ‘What was your ex like?’
Lou gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of Rob’s recent visit.
‘Sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to talk about him.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Lou shrugged. ‘He was your basic scumbag.’
