A Funny Thing About Love (8 page)

Back at her North London flat Carmen's instinct for self-preservation kicked in. She was suddenly exhausted,
barely able to put one shoe-booted foot in front of the other. The adrenalin which had been firing her up all day had drained away. There were several messages from Will on her mobile and on her home answerphone asking her to call him urgently, but she really wasn't up to speaking to him. Instead of hitting the vodka, which was what she had intended as soon as she left Marcus, she made herself a hot chocolate, put on her pyjamas and listened to her all-time favourite Victoria Wood CD, whose comedy always made her feel as if the world was not quite as bad as she feared it was, as she retreated under the duvet. Maybe in the morning her troubles would have melted away like lemon drops.

But in the morning her troubles felt like bloody massive boulders as not one but three bills landed on her doorstep – including the credit card bill with the unpaid jacket. ‘Bloody Marcus!' she exclaimed to Basil, who had pride of place on the desk in the living room. He did look a little lonely, though. Perhaps she should download that Motown track and get him a little friend? She was all set to google cacti pals when she stepped back. That way madness lay. She also had another new message on her answerphone. It was Nick. ‘Hi again, hope you're okay. I'm sorry to load this on you as well but when I get back from the tour we really need to talk about the flat. I'm sorry, Carmen. Speak soon.'

When Carmen and Nick had separated it had been agreed that she should have the flat for the time being. Somehow the time being had always felt as if it should
be longer than nine months. It wasn't as if she liked the flat that much, as it overlooked a busy main road and was in a sort of in-between place – on the borders of trendy Crouch End and the not-so-upmarket Hornsey. It was next to a fire station, so evenings were frequently punctuated by the beep-beep-beep of the station doors opening and the whoop-whoop of a siren. Though the location also had its perks as in the summer the firemen would sit outside playing cards and some were really rather lovely. The best features of the flat – a third-floor Victorian conversion – were the fire-places, high ceilings and a roof garden with a great view of the local park and of the aforementioned fire station (not that she was stalking the boys in uniform in any kind of pervy way, but pickings had been thin on the ground since her separation). For all its shortcomings, this was her home and she really didn't think she was up to dealing with Nick's baby news, leaving her job and losing her home all at once. That would surely count as stress overload.

She emailed her parents in Melbourne where they were staying with her twin brother, Toby, figuring it would be easier to break the news that she was unemployed that way and be spared the emotional phone call where her mum would be bound to go off on one. (How was she going to support herself ? Didn't she realise there was a pension time bomb coming up? Did she want to be an impoverished old lady? And so on.)

Carmen spent the next hour fielding calls from her concerned friends. First was Jess, one of her oldest
friends from uni: ‘Carmen, Marcus rang me, how are you?' Jess was mother of one son, married to Sean, also a friend from uni. She lived in Brighton where she worked as a part-time English teacher at a sixth-form college.

‘Oh, you know, just doing the usual positive things one does at a time like this – not getting dressed, wallowing in a pit of despair, watching daytime TV.'

‘I know things seem bad right now, and I'm really sorry about Nick and the baby. But you will feel better for leaving your job, I'm sure. Why don't you come down to see us at the weekend? Sean could babysit and I could take you out for dinner. It's been ages since I saw you.'

Jess was right, it was a good four months. Since she and Sean had moved to Brighton Carmen had seen much less of her friend. ‘Thanks, Jess, but it's Matthew's farewell party, and apparently mine. Another time would be great, though.'

The next call came from another good friend, Sadie, an actress. Given the roles were quite thin on the ground and she was yet to land a much-coveted part in
Spooks
or
Waking the Dead
, Sadie often worked for BBC Radio 4 as a freelance continuity announcer. She had a deep, sexy voice that conjured up dark chocolate and velvet. The news never sounded quite so bad when she delivered it. People, for that read men, always assumed that with such a voice Sadie was some kind of sex siren; Carmen had been to many a party with Sadie where married men were stopped in their tracks and came
over all dreamy when she opened her mouth. And she was forever receiving emails, letters, poems and gifts from her admirers, several of which were treated as suspicious packages by the BBC post room but were subsequently X-rayed and found to contain nothing more dangerous than racy underwired bras. But Sadie was no temptress. If you had to sum her up you'd say she was ditzy, obsessed with fashion and dating comedians. She was pretty, with wild, curly blonde hair, brown eyes and a dimple on her left cheek. ‘Darling Carmen, are you okay? I heard from Marcus. You should have called me last night, I would have come round.'

‘Thanks, Sadie, but I needed to sort it out in my head.'

‘And have you?'

Carmen sighed. ‘Not really, and especially not about Nick and the baby. I keep thinking about him and Marian going off to the first scan and doing all those things that expectant parents do and—' here her voice caught.

‘And it's really tough for you,' Sadie said gently. ‘Which is why we're all here for you.' Indeed, Carmen's friends had been there for her throughout the awful roller-coaster ride of fertility treatment. At times she must have driven them mad by going over the same ground, and she couldn't bear for that to start up again. She wanted to be there for her friends now, didn't want to be poor Carmen again, wanted to be the happy, carefree Carmen she had been some five
years ago, back in the day, when she imagined her future included a baby.

‘I know you are, and it means a lot. But I need distraction now, so tell me how things are with you and Dom.'

Dom was the latest in a long line of comics Sadie had gone out with. She had a weakness for them and persisted in a naive belief that because they made her laugh when they were performing, they would make her laugh in the relationship. They seldom did. Carmen realised that Nick had been an exception, as he was relatively well balanced, not prone to bouts of depression, and no more egotistical than any other man. But Nick aside, dating a comedian was rarely an amusing experience. As the girlfriend you were expected to go to all their gigs and hear them recite the same routine, massage their egos that were generally the size of a continent and invariably pay for everything because they were broke. Once Sadie had gone out with a comedian who had mined their sex life for source material, and even then it had taken her an entire month to dump him for it. Any other woman would have got rid of him on the spot, or sewn prawns into the hem of his curtains or cut off one leg of each of his suits – not that the comedian in question had any suits or indeed any curtains, and Sadie was allergic to shellfish, but that wasn't the point. A dramatic act of revenge had been called for, and Sadie had flunked it.

A deep sigh from Sadie. ‘Well, he asked me out for
dinner, so I was hoping for somewhere lovely, as I have paid for the last three meals. Guess where he took me?'

‘The Ivy?' Carmen said hopefully, knowing Sadie loved going there.

‘He took me to KFC because he was doing some research for one of his jokes. K fucking F fucking C!' Now that was a Sadie the Radio 4 listeners had yet to be treated to.

‘I had chicken in a bucket and I was wearing my brand new Miu Miu red suede platforms.' Sadie's velvety tones were turning a tad screechy-meets-estuary; she would end up on Radio 1 if she wasn't careful.

‘Just tell me you didn't go back and have sex with him after that?' Sadie's compulsion to pick complete and utter tossers as boyfriends never ceased to amaze Carmen. It was almost as if she had been genetically programmed to only ever go for the wanker.

Another sigh. Which Carmen took to mean yes.

‘Well, don't tell me you did that thing for him again, did you?'

That thing
involved Sadie recounting an imaginary shipping forecast, while Dom got down to business. Dom had apparently been fantasising about Sadie long before he met her, having heard her on Radio 4. Apparently he especially loved hearing her read out the shipping forecast and gale warnings issued by the Met Office. Carmen didn't like to imagine what Dom was doing as he listened but she bet checking the forecast for factual information was not part of it.

Another sigh. But then a giggle. ‘He only got up to
Rockall. And I felt like saying, at least you got your rocks off, which is more than I did.'

‘
Please
tell me you're not going to see him again,' Carmen implored, with all the hopelessness of King Canute trying to stop the tide.

‘Oh, he's quite sweet really.'

Carmen ended the call agreeing to meet up soon but felt that further warnings about Dom were fruitless.

Will called her mobile again but as soon as she saw his number flash up she switched her phone off. Along with her job at Fox Nicholson she might as well kiss goodbye to that little flirtation. She very much doubted Will would be interested in her now she was unemployed, and she wasn't up to hearing him trying to be nice but inside pitying her.

Flopping down on the sofa, Carmen let out a long sigh. She felt so crushed by Nick's news, she just wanted to lie down and cry. It brought back so many unwelcome memories of the last two years of her marriage. The whole trying for a baby thing had left her feeling so drained that she supposed she had never really looked to the future and thought about what would happen to Nick. She'd been totally wrapped up in herself. And now as Nick made his way into a baby-filled sunset, there really was no escaping the fact that it had been her fault that she couldn't get pregnant. She was left behind feeling like a defective being, the reject.

On the second day of unemployment the reject finally got out of her pyjamas. She caught the W7 to Finsbury
Park. Carmen always remembered Nick pointing out that backwards Finsbury Park spelt krapy rubsnif – only a man would ever bother to work that one out. She caught the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus to find a suitably stylish leaving present for Matthew. She found it in Liberty's – always good for calming the soul even if she couldn't afford anything in there – in the shape of a wonderfully flamboyant tie which was over her budget but which she put on her card, because it was so Matthew. Then she decided to say goodbye to Rico and Mamma Mia.

As soon as Carmen walked in Rico exclaimed, ‘Carmen, is it true you have left your job? I have so missed seeing you!' His handsome face was indeed quite scrunched up with concern.

‘Yep, so there will be no more croissants and lattes for me, I'm afraid.'

‘Maybe not here, but somewhere else?' Mamma Mia joined her at the counter.

‘Yes, somewhere else,' Carmen said and suddenly felt terribly sad that she would no longer see Rico, even though his flirting had got on her nerves at times.

‘So you will sit down with me and have a latte?' Mamma Mia said. ‘It'll be on me now you're un employed. Temporarily, I'm sure.' She clicked her fingers at Rico. ‘
Un espresso e un latte
.'

Carmen slid on to the red leatherette bench at one of the white formica tables. Mamma Mia managed to wedge herself in opposite. Her girth was impressive but she carried it well and somehow looked formidable
and solid rather than, well, fat. Maybe it was the black dress.

Rico came over with the coffees and two glasses of Strega, hardly Carmen's first choice of a mid-morning beverage, but she was going to have to knock it back. Mamma Mia would be offended if she didn't. Rico hovered nearby, clearly expecting to be asked to join them. Mamma Mia shooed him away, with some more orders in Italian.

‘Children!' She rolled her nut-brown eyes. ‘Not always a blessing, Carmen. I know as an Italian I am not supposed to say that, but sometimes it is true.'

‘I wish I could find that out for myself,' Carmen replied sadly. The feeling of lethargy and hopelessness was once more settling on her like an unwelcome blanket.

‘Maybe you will one day,' Mamma Mia said wisely.

‘Not going to happen. Can't have them. It's a fact.' There, she'd said it. Usually she never told anyone, except her very closest friends, but there was something about Mamma Mia that demanded total honesty.

Mamma Mia smiled. ‘Nature can be a mystery sometimes. We think we have all the answers, but she can still surprise us. I see you with children, Carmen.'

If it had been anyone else Carmen would have been tempted to say, ‘Mind your own business', but Mamma Mia had at least seven stone on her. And so she simply smiled and sipped her coffee.

Mamma Mia held up the glass of Strega. ‘Cheers, Carmen, to your new future by the sea.'

Carmen was so intent on knocking back the liqueur without choking that she almost didn't register what Mamma Mia had said. But once her throat had stopped burning she asked, ‘What do you mean, by the sea? I live in Crouch End.' Mamma looked at her quizzically as if she knew that wasn't strictly true. ‘Alright, near Crouch End, more Hornsey, I suppose, but it's definitely not near the sea.'

Mamma Mia shrugged expansively, causing her massive bosom to rise up like a giant pillow. ‘I don't know, it just came into my head, these things happen to me sometimes. Ah, look, there is lovely Will.
Ciao
, Will.'

Oh shit, it couldn't be, could it? She hadn't returned any of his calls. Carmen turned round and saw Will at the counter. As soon as he saw her he raised his eyebrows and wandered over. The butterflies, which she had thought had packed their bags in the spate of bad news, came fluttering back.