not Will’s redundancy, but something far scarier that’s driving us apart: that, quite simply, he’s stopped fancying me. I caught him glancing at me the other night as I undressed for bed, and he didn’t look as if he were about to explode with desire. By the time I’d pulled off my bra – a sturdy black number capable of hoisting two porpoises to safety from an oil-slicked sea – he was already feigning sleep.
I lay awake for ages, studying the back of his head. Do we still love each other? I wondered, not for the first time. Or are we only together for the kids, or because we’re too old or scared to break up and start all over again? It’s not that I expect full-on passion all the time, not when we’ve been married for thirteen years. But, more and more often these days, I find myself wondering, is this as good as it gets?
I glance at Rosie as we make our slow journey home through the outer reaches of East London. ‘You do remember it’s Dad’s birthday tomorrow?’ I prompt her.
‘God, yes.’ She pulls a horrified face.
‘You haven’t bought him anything?’
‘Sorry, Mum. I was going to today, but after we’d met Laurie it went right out of my mind …’ First whiff of modelling stardom and she forgets her dad’s birthday. Not good.
‘Could you make him a card, at least?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ she replies, pausing before adding, ‘D’you think they’ll take me on?’
So she really wants to do this. ‘Let’s see what happens. Maybe it’s best not to get too excited about it.’
‘Why not?’ she exclaims. ‘It is exciting, Mum! Why are you being so negative?’
‘I’m not, Rosie. We just need to think about what it might mean for you. And of course,’ I add, trying to sound as if it’s no big deal at all, ‘we’ll have to talk it over with Dad.’
We arrive home to find Ollie, who’s eleven, poring over his laptop at the kitchen table. ‘This is so cool, Mum,’ he announces without shifting his gaze from the screen.
‘Lovely. Anyway, hello, hon. Had a good afternoon?’
‘You didn’t even look!’ I glance over his shoulder – he’s studying a rather professional-looking microscope, with numerous levers and knobs – then stash the bags containing Will’s presents out of sight in the cupboard under the stairs.
Ollie shares his dad’s passion for science and nature – triggered, I suspect, by the sweetly entitled ‘field trips’ Will used to take the kids on, from which they’d return all excited and mud-splattered and present me with larvae and bugs. Sometimes he’d take them off camping for a couple of days. While Ollie still ventures out with him occasionally, Rosie hasn’t pulled on her waders for several years now. Maybe, I reflect, Will feels redundant in more ways than one.
I wave at him through the kitchen window. He grins from our back garden – his arms are laden with bits of shrub – and motions that he won’t be a minute. ‘I’d love this for my birthday,’ Ollie muses, still peering at the screen.
‘We’ll see, love. But it’s not until December and Dad’s is tomorrow, okay? So it’s slightly more urgent. Hope you’ve remembered.’
‘Oh! Yeah, yeah,’ he says blithely as Will strides in, dispenses a quick kiss on my cheek and says, ‘I’ll just get cleaned up. Did you have a good time at the shops?’ Without waiting for an answer he bounds upstairs.
Rosie, who’d wandered off to see her rabbit, emerges from the utility room with him snuggled in her arms. Sixteen she may be, and the proud owner of a Babyliss hot brush, yet she still adores her pet. Guinness is getting on a bit now, and Rosie insisted we took him to the vet (I suspect she wanted an excuse to nosy about at the surgery) for a bunny MOT. Being unable to find anything wrong with him, the vet suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t spend all his time outdoors, for which he charged a £45 consultation fee. And so Guinness now ‘divides his time’ between a luxury hutch and adjoining run in the garden, and a large hay-filled box in our utility room.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Rosie asks, stroking back Guinness’s ears.
‘Having a shower,’ I reply. ‘He’s been gardening all day.’
‘Can’t wait to tell him!’ Her eyes are shining, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
‘Tell him what?’ Ollie mutters, zooming in for a closer look at the microscope.
‘I was scouted today.’
‘What?’ Ollie turns to face her. ‘By a model agency, you mean?’ Christ, even he is familiar with the term.
‘Yeah,’ Rosie says with a grin.
‘Like, they reckon you could be on the cover of magazines and stuff?’
‘Yes, Ollie.’
‘You, with your funny little sticky-up nose?’ He jumps up from his seat and mimics a supermodel strut across the kitchen. With a gasp of irritation, and with Guinness still clutched to her chest, Rosie stomps up to her room.
‘What’s up with her?’ Ollie asks.
‘Oh, she’s just excited and thinks you’re not taking it seriously.’
He pushes back choppy dark hair from his grey-blue eyes. ‘But Rosie’s not interested in modelling. It’s a crap job, Mum. They’re a load of bitchy anorexics—’
‘You can’t say that,’ I retort, still amazed that he has any awareness of the business at all. ‘You don’t know anything about it. Neither do I …’
‘Who’s a bitchy anorexic?’ Will strolls into the kitchen, all fresh and smelling delicious from his shower.
‘No one,’ I say quickly.
‘Dad, look at this,’ Ollie pipes up, beckoning him over to the laptop. Will peers at the microscope.
‘Yeah, that looks great. That’s pretty serious kit.’
‘… It’s got incident and transmitted illumination,’ Ollie explains, ‘and look how powerful that eyepiece is …’
I watch them, flipping from one image to the next, whilst attempting to communicate silently to Ollie that he mustn’t blurt out anything about Rosie being scouted today. That modelling thing, I urge him, please do not speak of it until I can be sure that Dad’s in the right sort of mood. In fact, I’m pretty certain he’ll view modelling as completely wrong and ridiculous for his beloved Rosie. Whenever I explain to anyone that Will isn’t her biological dad – she was eighteen months old when we met – I quickly point out that he is her dad in every other possible way. He’s been a brilliant father to her. Some women go for charm or money or incredible prowess in bed. I realised I’d fallen madly in love with Will Bristow when he appeared at my flat with the wooden toy garage he’d built for Rosie, complete with an actual working lift, for her collection of toy cars.
