Friend Request(6)

I know! Gonna be great!! she replies.

My God, these exclamation marks are killing me. I can’t do this on email; I need to see her. I gather myself and begin to type.

Be great to catch up properly before the big day – fancy meeting for a drink?

I press send before I have a chance to change my mind. Up until now the messages have been flying back and forth like nobody’s business, but there’s a slightly longer hiatus after I send this one. I hold my breath.

Sure, why not? Why don’t you come over to mine for a drink – how about this Friday?

I exhale, shaking. I feel a bit strange about going to her house – I would have preferred somewhere neutral – but I can’t keep this up much longer so I agree. She gives me her address, a flat in Kensington, and we say goodbye with a flurry of kisses and smiley faces from her and a couple of selfconscious kisses from me.. Another notification pops up straight away. I’ve been tagged in a post by Sophie Hannigan: Looking forward to catching up with my old mate Louise Williams on Friday night! I click the like button with trembling hands. I am thankful that this first encounter with Sophie took place online, giving me time to compose myself privately afterwards. I’m an adult now, I think. I don’t need her approval, but I’m not even convincing myself.

Outside, night is falling. I close the laptop and sit unmoving at my kitchen table for a long time. First the Facebook request, then the reunion, now this meeting with Sophie… I feel as though I’m on a ride, or a journey, that nobody asked me if I wanted to go on. Although I am profoundly shocked by the turn events have taken, at some level I’ve always been expecting this to happen, or something like it. I don’t know who is driving or where we are going, but wheels have been set in motion and I don’t know how to stop them.

Chapter 4

2016
I notice the photo is missing just before the doorbell rings.

It usually sits on top of the freestanding shelving unit next to the fridge: a selfie of me and Henry on the beach, framed by an unfeasibly blue sky, our eyes screwed up against the brightness of the sun. The unit also acts as a holding area for unpaid bills, letters from the school, shopping lists and scribbled reminders to myself about things I need to do. I knew that adjusting to life as a single, working mother would be hard emotionally, but the practicalities took me by surprise. Sometimes I feel that I am hanging on to life by my fingernails, always just seconds from falling.

I leave Henry sitting at the table, painstakingly forking individual pieces of pasta into his mouth, and open the door.

‘You’re early.’

‘Yes, well, even though I have babysat for you a million times, I know there’s going to be a list of instructions as long as my arm: current favourite book, the precise angle he likes the door to be left open, the configuration and pecking order of the cuddly toys. These things take time. Can I come in then?’

‘Sorry.’ I step back and Polly whirls past me, divesting herself of an enormous striped scarf, which is practically the length of her entire body, and a Puffa coat, and unzipping knee-length leather boots to reveal greying leggings which don’t quite meet her mismatched socks, a stripe of unshaven leg visible in the gap between.

‘How’s things with you?’ I ask, hanging up her coat and scarf.

‘Oh, the usual. Work’s a nightmare; you were so right to get out of there, set up on your own.’

She’s said this pretty much every time I’ve seen her since I left Blue Door Interior Design three years ago, but we both know she’d go crazy after just one day of sitting alone at home like I do, with only the odd meeting to break things up a bit. She thrives on the chat, the office gossip, the vibe that thrums between colleagues in a busy, demanding workplace. Whereas I don’t miss it one bit. I go out for occasional drinks with some of my old colleagues, but apart from Polly I wouldn’t describe any of them as friends.

‘I know, although sometimes I wish there was someone else to share the load,’ I say pointedly over my shoulder as we walk to the kitchen.

Polly grins. I’m always trying to persuade her to leave Blue Door and come into business with me. We’d be able to take on some of the work I have to turn down.

It was hard at first, going it alone, but it felt like the right time. Henry was almost one, and I was due back at Blue Door after taking the maximum maternity leave. The thought of going back to work full-time, being out of the house the whole time Henry was awake, alarmed me. Sam had been worried about how we would all cope when I was back at work – in fact, he was keen for me to give up work altogether but financially it wasn’t doable; and actually I was ready to get back to work again, just not to rejoin the rat race. I think we all thought it would make for an easier pace of life if I was working from home, building up the business slowly. It didn’t really work out like that though.

I got in touch with someone I’d worked with years before, Rosemary Wright-Collins, and it turned out she was looking for someone to do the interiors for all her properties. Rosemary is a property developer with impeccable taste and a huge wallet, and it was a real coup to get her as my first client. The fact that I did, and that she is still using me for every new project she takes on, is a huge source of pride for me. She’s even written a glowing testimonial for my website. But it did mean that I had to hit the ground running, sort childcare for Henry, get straight back into professional mode.