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I chuckle, because it’s expected of me. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to, but it’s comments like that which have always made me feel small, stupid. It’s why I stopped telling her things about my life when I hit my late teens. It took me a while to find a career I was passionate about. I get bored easily. Distracted. I have tried my hand at many things. Some I gave up on, some I failed at, but I’d rather have given them a go than die wondering ‘what if?’
“Remember that time you wanted to write a book?” My mum asks, tipping her head back and giggling. She’s mocking me and I don’t even think she realises.
I catch Max watching me, and I think he notices that my smile is awkward, as I hope she moves onto something else. He changes the subject, and relief floods my veins. “So, how’d you do at Weight Watchers this week, Mum?”
“Ugh. Two on. It’s all Marie’s fault.” Marie is the friend in London she stayed with last weekend. “She took me out to eat every night, and you can’t eat out without having a pudding and a bottle of wine. I don’t think the chippy I had when I got home helped either to be fair. Or the bag of Maltesers. Oh, and the bacon was going out of date so I had to eat the full pack or it would’ve gone to waste.”
I find it remarkable she only put two pounds on this week. I daren’t say as much of course. I don’t actually feel like saying anything at all.
Not to the adults at least. Isobel is more on my wavelength. “Did you have a good day at nursery, princess?”
“No. I hate nursery.”
Her answer pangs deep in my gut. I hated nursery, too. They say you don’t remember much of your life before reaching four years old, but I remember sitting alone on the brown nursery carpet, littered with various stains and pieces of Lego, crying silently until my eyes ran dry, like it was this morning. Every. Single. Day.
“I’m so sorry, but I forgot to do something at the office. I need to go,” I announce. I didn’t plan to say it, to lie, but I need to get out of here. My mood is slipping. Fast.
Everyone seems to understand and Laura gets up first, kissing my cheek before starting to clear the table. My mother follows suit and makes me promise to call her in the week before kissing my other cheek. Isobel, however, clings to my leg.
I prize her off me and lift her up so her face meets mine. Holding her with one arm, I reach into my pocket and pull out the first note I lay my hand on.
Kissing her nose, I hand her the twenty. “That’s for your magazine,” I say, and then kiss her nose again. “And maybe some sweets, too.”
Seemingly forgetting my existence, Isobel wriggles until I lower her onto the floor. “Mummy! Mummy!” she calls, running out of the room. “Look what Uckle James gave me!”
“I’ll have to try and get that off her before she flushes it down the toilet,” Max says as he walks me to the front door. “It’s her latest thing.”
Taking the handle, I open it, and Max follows me out to my car.
“Thanks for dinner,” I say. “Sorry I can’t stay longer.”
“She hates nursery because another kid threw sand at her today. She’ll have forgotten all about it tomorrow.”
“Um…” I feel like this conversation has a deeper meaning but I can’t figure out what it is.
“Kids have bad days like the rest of us. I saw your reaction. You’re worried she feels the same way you did. But honestly, James, she’s had an argument with another kid and she’ll move on soon enough.”
I’m not sure how he can read me so well but that’s not important right now. Maybe ‘normal’ people, ‘normal’ kids, do have bad days. Maybe she will get over it, so to speak. Trouble is I only have my own experience of life to compare things with, so I can’t help putting myself in other’s situations and imagining how I would deal with them. I don’t know any other way.
All I know is that life can be exhausting, soul destroying, painful. For me, growing up, every day was a bad day. Even when I laughed that tinge of sadness remained, tormenting me, mocking my happiness as it tried to force its way to the forefront. More often that not, it won.
It still does.
“Take care of yourself, James,” Max says when I fail to respond.
“I’ll call you.” Sometime. Maybe.
I slide into my seat and Max pats the roof of my car as a goodbye. Driving off without looking back, I feel my happiness drifting away. I can’t allow it. Not again. I need to get it back.
I just don’t know how.
Chapter Seven
~Theo~
In bed, I roll over and bang my head on Tess’ elbow. I love her, but she’s the worst person to sleep next to.
“I’m gonna buy you your own bed,” I grumble, rubbing my forehead. “You practically live here anyway.”
She’s sat up against the headboard, reading a celebrity magazine. “Blame Naomi. It’s like she thinks this new guy she’s seeing is supplying her oxygen through his dick.”
“Must be serious. What is it now, a month?”
“Almost two. She normally gets fed up after a week tops. She’s in love apparently.”
I laugh and stretch my arms above my head. “So what are your plans for today?”
“Same as every Saturday. Move as little as possible. You?”
I can’t decide whether to reveal my plans, mainly because I don’t know if they’re stupid.
“Your silence tells me they involve David Gandy.”
“There’s a fair at Heaton Park this weekend. Thought I’d pick him up and take him.”
Tess snorts. “A funfair? You really think a funfair is David Gandy’s scene?”
Her reply makes me sigh. “Maybe you’re right.” I knew it was a stupid idea.
“Hey, I’m not saying don’t do it. So what if it’s not his scene? It’s yours. Whatever you two have got going on together shouldn’t be all about him.”
