of her most endearing or her most annoying characteristics.
‘It was.’ I stuffed and licked my first envelope, hoping it might deter Daisy from further questioning. No such luck.
‘Sorry, was I interrupting something?’ she asked, grinning. ‘You needn’t have come in if you were busy.’
‘If I’d known that this was all you wanted me for, I’d have stayed with Owen,’ I replied, grimacing at the taste of the cheap glue.
‘Owen? Since when did you reach first-name terms?’
‘We’ve bumped into each other dog walking a few times.’
‘I always knew you were a dark horse, Mary Black. Under that calm, unflappable exterior, there’s a whacking great man magnet, isn’t there?’
We both laughed at that: Daisy knew perfectly well that I had been with Leo forever. No one had ever asked me out, or propositioned me, or made a pass or whatever it was called now. Not even Leo: as teenagers, we had drifted into something more than friendship, and I had been the one to push it to the next level.
‘Owen’s not bad looking,’ Daisy continued. She held up one of the leaflets, on which she’d carefully drawn a moustache, beard and horns on a photograph of her employer, and smiled as she pushed it into an envelope. ‘It’s a shame he’s so tall. We’d look ridiculous together. You should definitely consider him. He’s an art teacher, so you know what that means. He can do great things with his hands.’ She laughed. ‘Or has he already taught you that?’
‘Of course not. I’m married.’ I thought about the envelope sitting on my hall table. ‘Half married.’
‘Half married?’ Daisy paused in her licking. ‘You don’t mean the decree nisi has been granted already?’
I nodded. ‘Clark has some extremely efficient solicitor friends. Apparently we’re lucky that it’s all gone through so quickly. At least, I presume it’s gone through. There’s a letter from my solicitor at home. I couldn’t face opening it.’
‘Oh, Mary.’ Daisy reached across the table and squeezed my hand. ‘Ignoring it won’t make it go away. Why did it have to be so rushed? You’ve hardly had chance to get used to the idea. It’s not like Leo to be so unfair.’
‘It’s not Leo’s fault. I agreed to it.’
He had asked for a divorce two days after Christmas, on the day he had left our home and moved in with Clark. He didn’t want to be an adulterer for any longer than necessary; his relationship with Clark deserved to be more than an extra-marital affair. He had been generous with financial arrangements; I had been generous about sharing the children. I had signed all the paperwork and returned it promptly, in my usual calm and efficient way.
‘There’s nothing to stop you seeing Mr Ferguson, then, is there? Or someone else. Have you thought about online dating? I can help you fill out a profile, if you like. It will be fun!’
‘About as much fun as peeling off all my nails one by one. It’s too soon.’ I didn’t add that it would always seem too soon.
‘Too soon? Come off it. Leo was seeing Clark while you were still married. You’re being positively patient.’ She withdrew her hand and scooped up another pile of leaflets. ‘It’s been three years since James left me. Loneliness doesn’t become any easier with time, trust me on that. You might not be ready to look, but don’t walk round with your eyes closed, okay?’
Leo was waiting in his car when I finally arrived home with Dotty. She leapt on him as he got out, wagging her whole body and licking every part of him she could reach. Perhaps if I had ever greeted him like that, he wouldn’t have needed Clark.
He followed me into the house and immediately picked up the envelope from the hall table. The printed stamp from the solicitors’ office gave away what it was.
‘You haven’t opened it.’
‘Not yet, I …’ No excuse sprang to mind. I didn’t lie to Leo. ‘Is it about the decree nisi?’
‘Probably. It was granted yesterday.’
I couldn’t avoid it any longer, and it didn’t seem so bad with his gentle eyes watching me. I tore open the envelope, and there it was in black and white: confirmation that we were halfway to being divorced.
Leo took the letter from my shaking hand, dropped it on the table, and drew me into a hug. It was the closest physical contact we’d had for months.
‘Oh, Mary,’ he murmured against my hair. ‘I’m sorry. I never imagined we would come to this. You deserved better than me.’
‘No. I wouldn’t change a thing.’ I leant into him, feeling the soft squishiness of his chest, inhaling the scent of the Johnson’s baby shampoo he had used for as long as I had known him. I tightened my arms round him, and enjoyed the moment: but it was comfort I felt, not desire. Leo was a safe and familiar world. I missed it.
‘Will you be okay on your own tonight?’ he asked, pulling away. ‘I can come back for Jonas and Ava in the morning instead.’
‘No, they’re looking forward to seeing you.’ And to not seeing me for two days, at least as far as Ava was concerned. I could do no right in her eyes at the moment. ‘Besides, I won’t be on my own.’
‘You won’t?’
It was too gloomy in the hall to see Leo’s expression, so I was sure I must have misinterpreted the tone of his voice. He had no reason to be jealous, and even less reason to be cross.
‘Daisy has invited herself round for a drink later,’ I explained. I reached the study door and threw it open, so that the bright light filled the hall. Leo smiled.
‘It could never be a single drink with Daisy. Don’t let her lead you astray.’
‘I can’t afford to let her lead me astray.’
Leo let that go with a soft sigh. Even without a mortgage on this house, it had been hard to divide the wage from Leo’s university job between two households. I had no independent income: the research work I did for Leo’s academic studies filled much of my day and left no time for paid employment. I worked for love – of the subject, as much as of him. I had started off by supporting Leo’s obsession with Alice Hornby’s novels, but had soon come to share it, and I couldn’t give up the work now, however awkward it might be. We had spent years writing the new biography, with the prime intention of spreading the word about how brilliant Alice was. Now the stakes were raised: we needed the book to be a financial success too.
The study was exactly as it had always been: one large desk in the centre of the room, with chairs on either side, one for Leo and one for me. A battered sofa filled one wall, stuffed bookcases the others. I had hated this room growing up; my mother had used it to store all my father’s belongings, giving me false hope for years that she had known he was coming back. As soon as Leo and I moved in, I had hired a skip and thrown away everything that had been his or theirs. Now it was my favourite room in the house.
Leo sat in his chair and set up his laptop. We had a couple of hours to work before the children arrived home.
‘Is everything ready for the launch?’ he asked. The biography
