Page 66 of Just for the Season

‘How are you feeling?’ Marcus asks me when we take a break and Ellie goes outside to return a couple of calls. ‘About your mum?’

‘You know what.’ I haven’t really had a moment today to think it through calmly. I do feel quite serene, though. ‘I think sometimes in life something can happen – big or small – and be a real turning point in how you feel about something. All my life I’ve been desperate for my mum to care about me. And last night I finally understood that she really doesn’t and she never will and that I should stop trying. Like, if she does ever want to get in touch, spend some time with me, well, fine. I’m not going to go no-contact. I’ll carry on with Christmas cards. Or Christmas emails, since I don’t have an address for her in Italy. But, basically, it’s like she was an idea, you know; I wanted to think I had a mother who loved me, but I don’t. And I’ve finally let go of that idea.’

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying that I think that’s a very good thing.’ Marcus pauses and then adds, ‘I also hope you don’t mind me saying that I hope you don’t think any of this with your mum is about you. As in, this is one hundred per cent coming from her. It isn’t you. I obviously haven’t met her but I’m certain it’s the case that she would have been like this with any child of hers. And she might love you, just not in the way most people want and need to be loved by their parents. You are a very lovable person. A different mother would have adored you and your company.’

I stand under a big clump of ‘85’ helium balloons and wonder whether this is another one of those moments where the way you think about things is completely altered, or whether Marcus is just… wrong.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say.

‘Okay, so I need to tell you something about my family. You know how adorable, wonderful, perfect and amazing Ruby and Sam are? Entirely objectively.’

I smile. ‘Yes, they are.’

‘Their mother is German. She was living here. She was married to me. She could have stayed here forever. She didn’t need to go back. She chose to go back to Munich when Sam was three months old, because she preferred the life there and her friends there. But also, she preferred not having to do motherhood. If she’d told me she was deeply miserable here I would have joined her with the kids, even though my life is in England. I called her and told her that. I volunteered to go. I offered anything she wanted to keep our family intact. I also offered to go and live in Germany but separately from her, if that was what she wanted, so the kids could be near their mother. And she said no to all of that. She didn’t want to actively mother them.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘It must have been heartbreaking seeing them being…’ I can’t say the word out loud; it’s so harsh.

‘Rejected,’ Marcus finishes the sentence for me. ‘Yes. She rejected them and she continues to do so. She knows when their birthdays are because I email and text her with several reminders each time. Occasionally she sends a card and even more occasionally a present, which is actually more cruel in some ways than not contacting them at all, because they have hope each birthday that she’ll get in touch. Sam is currently okay about it, I think, as in he doesn’t seem to hanker after her, but I get the impression that Ruby thinks about her a lot.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeat.

‘It sounds like a very similar thing to your mother. I know that my ex-wife’s rejection of Ruby and Sam is not about them; it’s about her. They are extremely lovable, wonderful people. As are you.’

‘Oh my goodness, I was so caught up in thinking about Ruby and Sam – and you, because this must have been so hard for you too – that I didn’t realise that you were telling me all this in order to draw parallels.’

‘I know you didn’t realise.’ He smiles at me. It’s a very fond-looking smile and despite my resolve to try to be immune to him, it makes my insides melt and my breath catch in my throat. ‘And that is because you are such a lovable, and loving, person. You weren’t thinking about yourself at all. But, yes, I think there are huge parallels.’

‘Mmm.’ It’s a lot to think about. Like… turning everything I’ve felt about myself and my mum for a very long time on its head. ‘Thank you.’ I think I need to work things through in my head when I’m alone. ‘Maybe we should get back on with the decorating.’

‘Of course.’ Marcus looks around the room. ‘What next?’

‘Cobwebs.’ We have a big bag of Halloween décor that we haven’t done anything with yet.

As we discuss where exactly we should place the cobwebs – we do want them to be visible, obviously, otherwise what’s the point, but we do not want anyone to get their hair caught in them, so they do need to be high – I suddenly realise that maybe I don’t have any thinking to do by myself.

Maybe it is that simple: just like Ruby and Sam’s mother, mine just didn’t want to do the practical – or emotional – side of parenting, as in, in fact, she just didn’t want to be a mother, so she just… left. And she would have left anyone.

As in, I am a perfectly averagely lovable person.

And maybe… maybe the reason I’ve been in shit relationships to date is that I’ve been expecting to be dumped. So I’ve chosen the wrong people and I haven’t got close to them. I mean, the worst thing by far about being dumped by Rick was the no-home-no-job situation. I didn’t and don’t miss him.

Maybe… maybe now that I’ve realised all this, I could do a proper, functioning, romantic relationship. Because maybe I can be loved. Maybe I’ve just been choosing the wrong people all along. Maybe the right person wouldn’t reject me.

I look at Marcus, his handsome face serious as he focuses on getting the enormous fake cobwebs at exactly the right height, and I feel my heart expand at the memory of him telling me that I’m lovable.

He’s very lovable too…

22

MARCUS

As I arrive for Rose’s party, I’m looking forward to seeing how Frankie and Ellie have finished the decorations; I had to leave mid-afternoon to pick Sam up from his party.

I’m also, I know, looking forward to seeing Frankie and spending a lot of the party with her. And my other friends, obviously.

I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a great evening. Ruby and Sam are at Rob and Miranda’s for another sleepover. Miranda’s sister’s staying the night, to babysit Miranda’s four plus my two. (I gave her a huge box of chocolates plus a bottle of wine as a thank you, because babysitting six kids of varying ages is clearly no easy task.)

The first thing I notice when I get inside the hall is that, wow, it really came together in the last few hours. It looks amazing. Frankie and Ellie were both carving pumpkins when I left and they’ve done a fantastic job of giving them lots of different expressions. They’ve put them on window ledges and shelves all round the hall and it’s genuinely as though wherever you go there’s at least one pumpkin head looking at you. The Mona Lisas of pumpkins.