On Monday morning during one of her classes Robert rang and left a message on her mobile.
‘Damn, of course,’ he muttered on the voicemail. ‘It’s Monday, isn’t it? I’d forgotten, you’re at work.’ Three years and he still couldn’t remember her schedule. ‘I just rang to see how you were. I was going to ring over the weekend, but I didn’t want to upset you again. Best to leave well alone, eh? I realise that it must have come as a little bit of a shock.’ The man was all heart.
‘The thing is –’ he hesitated. Susie could imagine his rather pained expression even on voicemail. ‘The thing is … sorry – maybe I’ll ring later, you know how much I hate these damned machines. I’ll be at home if you’d like to ring me when you get in, maybe that’s a better idea.’ He immediately sounded much brighter. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you give me a ring when you’ve got a minute? When it’s convenient, obviously.’
So, not much in the way of comfort there.
‘So?’ said Nina, carrying her coffee over as Susie deleted the message and dropped her phone back into her handbag. The art rooms were rarely empty but there was always a lunchtime lull, despite the end of term looming.
‘Come on then, tell me all about it. How did it go?’
Susie had deliberately arrived late to avoid any pre-class interrogation; leaving Jack at home in bed, or rather in his sleeping bag on the floor of the spare room. He had been snoring when she’d shut the back door. He hadn’t rung Ellie either. It had been a long, dark and painful weekend for both of them.
Come lunchtime Susie had scurried into town with the excuse that she needed to pay her council tax – but apparently nothing was going to put Nina off the scent, despite there only being ten minutes before afternoon classes started. And she couldn’t avoid Nina forever.
‘I’ve been thinking about you since Friday. I want to know all the details. What happened? What did he say? What did he do?’ Nina pressed, breaking out the custard creams.
Nina was Fenborough College Art Department’s senior technician, in her late forties, with hennaed hair, dreads, big glasses, a slightly wacky wardrobe, and probably – Susie often thought – more talent than the rest of the art department put together, herself included.
Nina had worked at the college since before dirt. She exhibited regularly, her work – huge abstracts painted in primal reds, ochres and blues with rich metallic threads twisted through them – sold like hotcakes. Over the years she’d been hailed as the next big thing, reviewed, featured and raved about in the broadsheets and had pieces in half a dozen famous galleries, and still she turned up every Monday morning bright and early to set up the studio for the next influx of students.
She and Susie were also good friends; they’d shared success and failure, suppers, sandwiches, bottles of wine, exhibition space, gossip, moans, groans and broken hearts for the best part of ten years.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t ring me. I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to interrupt anything, you know …’ Nina said with a sly grin, tapping the side of her nose as she settled herself down in a big purple armchair that one of last year’s upholstery class had left behind. Susie had taken the moss-green one, the one with the deep-buttoned back and the slightly wonky leg.
‘So, come on, how did it go then? Did he do the whole down-on-one-knee, a-dozen-red-roses thing? God, I hope so; I’ve found this fantastic suit in that second-hand shop in the High Street. They’ve got some really nice stuff in there. Anyway –’ Nina got up to demonstrate. ‘It’s cream, gold and plum silk, fitted, v-neck, bias cut, and I found this fabulous hat in Bows and Belles – you know, the one with the woman who looks as if she just smelt something rancid in her handbag? It’s like a cartoon top hat, with a feather –’ the mime continued. ‘Although actually I’m not sure now if it’s a feather or some kind of silk quill, it’s something curved, but it needs good weather so I was hoping you’d plump for maybe spring or summer next year.’ She paused, eyes wide. ‘So?’
‘So, he finished with me,’ said Susie, taking a sip of her coffee. It was cold and bitter although she refused to draw any parallels, and besides, Friday evening felt like a lifetime away and the woman who had been eagerly getting supper ready, all puffed and buffed and full of anticipation, waiting to be proposed to, a total and rather naïve stranger.
Nina stared at her, and her mouth dropped open. ‘You are joking.’
Susie shook her head. ‘Unfortunately not.’
‘Oh my god, but I thought –’ There was a little pause. ‘You thought –’
‘I know what I thought, Neen, but I was wrong, really, really wrong. Wrong about everything,’ said Susie, bizarrely feeling guilty for having deprived Nina of her fabulous hat-and-plum-silk-suit day.
‘Oh god. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry,’ said Nina, jiffling around with pure discomfort. ‘I feel awful now.’
Susie smiled, trying hard not to let her voice crack or break. ‘If it’s any consolation I probably feel worse.’
‘Oh, Susie.’
Susie held up a hand. ‘Please, Neen, whatever you do, don’t be nice to me – no sympathy, no hugs or I’ll cry.’
‘God, what a complete bastard,’ snapped Nina. ‘I mean, I could never really see what it was you saw in him myself, but – you know.’
Susie sniffed and nodded. ‘I know.’
Good friends might disapprove of your choice in shoes, handbags or men but they would defend to the death your right to have them.
Nina shook her head. ‘And just when it was going so well. Is it too soon for details or would you like to get it off your chest, bearing in mind we’ve got a life class in ten minutes and Electric Mickey will be arriving any minute now?’
‘He wants a baby.’
Nina’s expression crumpled like damp origami. ‘What? Who wants a baby?’
‘Electric Mickey; who the hell do you think I mean?’
‘Not Robert? Oh please, please tell me you’re joking,’ she hissed, eyes so wide now that she looked as if she had been electrocuted.
‘Yes, of course Robert.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Nina paused, features folding and refolding as she considered the prospect. ‘A baby. Jesus. Really? Who would have thought it? Bloody hell. Broody. With those ears.’
Ears? Susie stared at her. How come she had never noticed Robert’s ears? ‘Presumably you got them to put the suit and the hat on lay away?’ asked Susie.
Nina nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Till the end of the week. I mean it could have been an autumn wedding – or the Caribbean. That hat would never have travelled.’
‘There you go then,’ said Susie with forced good humour. ‘Problem solved. Oh, and by the way, Alice is having a baby apparently. I’m going to be a granny in January.’
‘Sweet Jesus, it’s been one hell of a weekend,’ said Nina, slumping back into the armchair,
