Behind Her Eyes(12)

My resolve not to think about David had failed too. What had they done this weekend? Played tennis? Sat in their no doubt perfect garden sipping cocktails and laughing together? Had he thought about me at all? Was there any reason to? Maybe he was having problems in his marriage. The thoughts had been going around and around while I half-watched TV and drank too much wine. I needed to forget about him, but it was easier said than done. I sleepwalked on both nights, finding myself standing in the kitchen with the cold tap running in the sink, scarily close to the balcony door, at four a.m. on Sunday morning. I end up laying in until ten, eating the last dregs of leftover pizza for breakfast, and then forcing myself to Morrisons for the weekly shop before sitting and waiting for Adam to come home and fill the flat with life.

Adam finally gets back at just gone seven. I have to stop myself from running to the door, and when he races in past me like a whirlwind, my heart leaps at the noise and the energy. He exhausts me at times, but he’s my perfect boy.

‘No playing,’ I say, as he wraps around my legs. ‘Go and run your bath, it’s nearly bedtime.’ He rolls his eyes and groans, but trudges off towards the bathroom.

‘Bye son.’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ Adam shouts, his backpack barely across his shoulder as he holds a plastic dinosaur up high, ‘see you next week!’

‘Next week?’ I’m confused, and Ian looks down, giving me a brief glimpse of his growing bald spot. He waits until our son is out of earshot.

‘Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. You see, Lisa’s got the offer of a house in the south of France for a month. It seems stupid not to take it.’

‘What about work?’ I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face.

‘I can work from there for a couple of weeks and then take the rest as holiday.’ His face prickles with colour like it did when he told me he was leaving. ‘Lisa’s pregnant,’ he blurts out. ‘She – we – think this would be a good way for her to bond properly with Adam before the baby comes. She can’t really get to know him properly seeing him only every other weekend. For his sake too. She doesn’t want him to feel left out. Neither do I.’

I’ve heard nothing but white noise since the word pregnant. Lisa is relatively new, a vague name in my head rather than a whole person who is destined to be part of my life for ever. She’s only been around for nine months or so. I’d presumed, if Ian’s track record since our divorce is anything to go by, that her time was nearly up. I have a partial recollection of him telling me that this one was different, but I didn’t take him seriously. I was wrong. It is.

They’re going to be a proper family.

The thought is a knife in my suddenly bitter and black heart. They’ll live in a proper house. Lisa will reap the rewards of Ian’s steady climb up the corporate ladder. My little flat feels suffocating. I’m being unfair, I know. Ian pays my mortgage and has never argued over money once. Still, the hurt is overwhelming my rational brain, and the thought of them taking Adam from me for the summer to add to their little picture of perfect bliss makes me see red, as if my heart has burst and all the blood has flooded to my eyes.

‘No,’ I say, spitting the word out. ‘He’s not going.’ I don’t congratulate him. I don’t care about their new baby. I only care about my already growing one.

‘Oh come on, Lou, this isn’t like you.’ He leans on the doorframe and all I see for a moment is his pot belly. How can he have found someone new, someone properly new, and I haven’t? Why am I the one left alone, passing my days in some dull Groundhog Day remake? ‘He’ll have a great time,’ Ian continues. ‘You know it. And you’ll get some time to yourself.’

I think about the past forty-eight hours. Time to myself is not what I need right now.

‘No. And you should have spoken to me first.’ I’m almost stamping my foot, and I sound like a child but I can’t help it.

‘I know, I’m sorry, but it just sort of came out. At least think about it?’ He looks pained. ‘It’s the school holidays. I know they’re tricky for you. You won’t have to worry about childcare while you’re working, and it will give you a break. You can go out whenever you want. Meet some new people.’

He means a man. Oh good. Exactly what my weekend needed. Pity from my cheating ex-husband. It’s the final straw. I don’t even say no again, but close the door on him hard, making him jump back before it hits him.

He rings the doorbell twice after that, but I ignore him. I feel sick. I feel angry. I feel lost. And worse than all of that is the feeling that I have no right to any of it. Lisa is probably perfectly nice. Ian doesn’t deserve to be unhappy. I hadn’t even thought I was unhappy before the stupid drunken kiss. I rest my head against the door, resisting the urge to bang my head hard against the wood to knock some sense into it.

‘Mummy?’

I turn. Adam peers through from the sitting room, awkward.

‘Can I go to France then?’

‘I told you to run your bath,’ I snap, all my anger resurfacing. Ian had no right to mention the holiday to Adam before talking to me. Why do I always have to be the bad parent?

‘But …’

‘Bath. And no, you can’t go to France, and that’s final.’

He glares at me then, a little ball of fury, my words bursting the bubble of his excitement. ‘Why?’