He smirks and continues ripping. ‘Not at all. Maybe your guy will do something grand. If he thinks he might get some action out of it, he probably will. I did.’
‘Well, he hasn’t called. Actually, come to think of it he’s never called – just texted.’
‘I used to call up Charlie on his home phone when he was at work and listen to his voice on the answering machine.’
Gordon and I both turn to look at Leanne, who’s practically bent over backwards, fiddling with her contact lens. ‘It helped. I got my fix without him knowing. Don’t you just yearn to hear his voice when you’re not with him?’
‘Of course I do!’ I lie. Leanne really is the type of woman Dylan wrote this book for; women I’d previously have argued don’t exist. Until now. Truth is, I think about Tom all the time, but then again I also think about Jake from Scandal – but do I want to stalk either of their answering machines? Not particularly.
I leave the office at lunchtime to interview a terribly unfunny comedian who somehow won best newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe. After about twenty minutes I literally can’t take it any more, so I heartlessly pretend he was late for the interview and I have to go home early to pick Grace up from school.
When we get back to the flat, we meet Helen and her suitcase in the hallway. Grace needs the bathroom so I hand her the keys and she goes inside.
‘Helen, have you been evicted?’
She puts her hand on her hip and waits for me to remember why she has a suitcase. When Adam also appears, passport in hand, it clicks. ‘Egypt! Damn, I thought that was next week!’ I didn’t. I’d totally forgotten they were even going.
‘Well done, Cat,’ Adam teases. ‘Flight’s at six, I cannot wait to fuck off out of here for a week.’ He hands me their keys – ‘For emergencies.’
‘Now remember, an emergency is NOT using all of my hairspray and hair oil, Cat,’ lectures Helen.
‘That happened seven years ago, Helen, and it was an emergency. I had ridiculous frizz that summer.’
A quick kiss goodbye and they’re off to sunny Sharm el-Sheikh, leaving me with no babysitters, but also with complete access to their well-stocked freezer.
If a week of 24/7 childcare wasn’t enough, I had forgotten it’s parents’ night tomorrow – an hour of playing happy families with Peter while we discuss Grace’s progress. The school have sent home several jotters for me to look through ahead of meeting with her teacher, Mrs Sharma. After dinner, Grace proudly presents me with her schoolwork to date: mostly textbooks I vaguely remember covering in old wallpaper at 1 a.m., filled with complicated maths problems like 3x3, and workbooks bursting with writing in a pencil Grace obviously couldn’t be bothered to sharpen.
‘Do you think you’ll get a good report?’ I ask her as I rummage through the cupboard in search of something to make for dinner. ‘Or have you been terrorizing your teacher with blunt pencils and making mischief all year?’
She giggles. ‘OF COURSE NOT. I like my teacher. She brought in a safari to show us. I tried it on.’
‘You mean a sari?’
‘Yes. It was gold. She’s really nice. We used to have Mrs Hall two days a week but she left. I hated her; she used to shout at us all the time for no reason. Kelly called her “Mrs Hell”.’
‘I like Kelly.’
My mobile rings from the other side of the room and Grace runs over to get it. Before I can yell, ‘Let me answer it!’ she’s swiped right and is shouting ‘Hello!’ unnecessarily loudly into the mouthpiece.
‘Mum, it’s a man called Tom. He wants to talk to you.’
She throws the phone at me before it’s dawned who that might be. By the time it’s in my hands, my brain has kicked in and I nervously move the handset to my ear.
‘Hi! Hello.’
Grace returns to the couch and sits beside me. ‘Mum, who’s Tom?’
‘He’s my friend, Grace. Sorry, Tom, give me two seconds.’ I cover the mouthpiece. ‘Gracey, go and play while I take this.’
‘Why is your face red, Mum? IS TOM YOUR BOYFRIEND?’
‘Stop it, Grace. Go and play.’
‘BUT IS HE?’
Oh sweet Jesus. I firmly point in the direction of the hall and she bounces off to her room, singing, ‘Mum’s got a boyfriend, Mum’s got a boyfriend!’
‘Sorry, Tom, privacy is a little hard to come by these days.’
