A Hundred Pieces of Me (36 page)

I wonder why I feel I know him from somewhere, she wondered. Is he
like
someone, or did I meet him once and not realise? Some party in London? Their worlds didn’t seem to overlap in any way.

Whatever it was, there was something about Nick that made her feel unusually relaxed in his company. Maybe, Gina decided, it was because she
didn’t
know him at all.

Nick returned with coffee and muffins, and they began to walk the longer lap around the park, looping up into Coneygreen Woods at the far end, where grey squirrels ran up the trees and small dogs stood at the bottom and barked at them. They stopped at a high point overlooking the park and the town beyond and sat down at the bench dedicated to ‘our dear friends, Max and Sam’, who were either a devoted married couple or a pair of Labradors, it wasn’t clear.

‘You didn’t go back to London this weekend, then?’ Gina asked, peeling the top off her coffee.

‘Decided not to in the end. I had some editing to finish here, more pack shots for Charlie’s website, and I’ve got a lot of series-linked telly to catch up on.’

‘And there was the plaster. Admit it. It’s like bubble-wrap. Once you start . . .’

‘You’ve got me. Lorcan’s letting me knock some walls down. He’s coming round later with his sledgehammer.’ Nick split a muffin and offered her half. When she shook her head, he gave half of her half to Buzz, who swallowed it in one. ‘What are your plans for the weekend? Oh, no, wait – you were seeing your ex last night. How did that go? Did he notice your nails?’

‘No, he did
not
notice my nails,’ said Gina. ‘He was too busy telling me all about how he’s going to be a dad.’

‘What?’ Nick paused, his muffin halfway to his mouth.

‘His new girlfriend’s pregnant. Didn’t say when, or how, but I’m not daft. There’s been an overlap somewhere.’

‘Wow. Was that a shock?’

‘Thinking about it, probably no. All his mates at football have got kids, and Stuart doesn’t like to feel he’s missing out, getting left behind. He’ll be a good dad, I’m sure.’ Gina shrugged. Saying it aloud to Nick, like saying things aloud to Buzz, took some of the sting out. ‘I can see him playing football with one. That was what he always used to focus on, the idea of playing football with his kids.’

Buzz nudged at Nick’s pocket with his greying snout, and Nick slipped him another small piece of the muffin he was eating. Gina wondered if Nick knew just what an honour it was for Buzz to be stealing food from him.

‘What if it’s not a boy?’ he asked.

‘In that case he’ll be the sort of father who won’t let his daughter out of his sight until he’s seen the boyfriend’s bank statement and driving licence.’

‘You’re making your ex sound like a real prize. Look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to spend the next ten years standing on the side of a pitch in the pouring rain while he does his competitive-dad act.’

Gina managed a small smile. ‘True.’ She knew how it would go, and she wouldn’t have to deal with it. Stuart with breast-feeding guides, Stuart with checklists at parents’ meetings. Stuart interviewing boyfriends. That was someone else’s future now.

‘I think what’s weird,’ she said slowly, ‘is the idea that he’s going to become someone totally different. A dad. Someone’s dad. And I won’t know him.’

‘I dunno. Did you
meet
his dad? That’s who he’ll be. I think what parenthood really does is fast-track you into being your own mum or dad. I hear plenty of my friends go on about how it’s totally altered their perception of their own place in the world, but give them a few years and they’re
surprisingly familiar
. . .’

Gina bit her lip. Nick had unwittingly hit one of her own sore points: what traits of her real dad would any child of hers have inherited? Would a baby have made Janet unbutton some of those memories? Would being a parent herself have made her understand her own parents’ blank relationship better?

‘It’s true.’ Nick was staring out over the park below. ‘I mean, Amanda – she’s convinced that if she can just crowbar another baby into her life in the next twelve months, suddenly she’ll be happy to walk away from her twenty-hour days and turn into some cheese-making super-homeschooler. I just don’t think it’s that easy.’

Gina had started to sip her scalding coffee but that sudden revelation made her stop. ‘
Another
baby? I didn’t realise you had children.’ She kicked herself immediately. Babies were minefields. They could be at school. They could be grown-up. Amanda and Nick could have lost a child.

‘Sorry,’ she added, ‘none of my business.’

‘What? Oh, no, don’t be. Amanda has a daughter with her first husband, Kevin, in New York. Vanessa’s at school there. It’s tricky. She went through a phase of not wanting to see Amanda. I try to stay out of it.’

‘You’re not into kids?’ Gina tried to angle the question tactfully; she knew herself how pointed it could feel.

‘No, I like them. I just don’t feel it’s helpful for me to get in the middle of Amanda and Kevin. It’s tricky. Two lawyers, you know? And a teenager.’ He pulled a wry face and held up a spare hand. ‘Shouty.’

Gina tried to imagine Amanda with a half-American teen daughter, and a former husband. She could see it more easily than the country Amanda with a baby on her hip. The family house in the countryside was starting to look more rational now: first find your nursery, redecorate it, relocate to the country, like a salmon going back upstream to spawn.

‘So is that why she’s so keen to get things moving here?’ she said. ‘House renovation first, then baby? Again, none of my business but it helps to know these things.’

‘Well.’ Nick shrugged and carried on staring out over the park below. ‘Not officially. It’s part of the plan, yes, but I’m not quite convinced that Amanda’s reasons for having another child are exactly what she thinks they are.’ He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. ‘I can’t see her giving up everything she’s fought so hard for at work.’

‘Would you be the one to stay at home and do the childcare?’ Gina felt as if Nick was almost leading her to ask questions, as if he needed to say things aloud to hear what he thought too. ‘You can both work from home, can’t you? Sort of.’

‘Probably. I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind. I’m just uncomfortable with the level of
scheduling
. It’s a human life you’re talking about. I don’t think you can plan it like a house renovation. You can’t assume things. Amanda was young when she had Vanessa, only twenty-two, so obviously she wants to do things differently this time round, but she’s thinking about it too much, and not enough. You’ve got to accept that you’re not completely in charge any more.’

‘You have to schedule everything,’ Gina pointed out. ‘Once you’re over thirty-five.’

‘It’s not just that. It’s . . . expecting everything is schedule-able.’

Gina glanced at Nick to check his expression and was surprised to see him looking pensive, his grey eyes cast down at the path, the soft lower lip jutted out in thought. He’d shaved: the line of his jaw was smooth, not speckled with salt-and-pepper stubble as it often was at the house. She could imagine him now in the Groucho Club, or on a magazine shoot.

She tried to make her voice cheery. ‘It’ll all work out for the best. That’s what people keep telling me. You can choose between “What’s meant for you won’t go past you” and “If it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be.” There’s a self-help platitude for every occasion.’

‘Cheers.’ He balled up his muffin bag and binned it. ‘How’s getting rid of all your stuff going? Flat empty yet?’

‘More or less. I’m supposed to be meeting my friend in . . .’ she checked her watch ‘. . . about half an hour so she can talk me through selling my clothes on eBay. I’ve been photographing them, actually – it’s like seeing my own history in clothes form.’

‘Really?’ Nick seemed interested. ‘You should make that into a little project.’

‘I like the idea of a project,’ said Gina. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you were saying, appreciating moments, and I’ve started taking one or two photos. Nothing amazing, just moments that made me think, Yes, this is nice.’

‘Show me?’

Gina hesitated, then got out her phone with the pictures she’d taken on it.

Buzz’s long nose laid gently along his narrow paws, his eyes closed and nearly invisible.

The fern-heart shape in the froth of the morning coffee from the deli on her way to work.

The sky over the park.

The sky over the park with clouds.

The sky over the park with a rainbow.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘so there are lots of the park. That’s the thing about walking the dog. You start noticing the sky a lot more.’

Nick laughed. ‘Everyone takes too many sky photos. What are you doing with these?’

‘Nothing. Just taking them. Getting them out when I feel stressed.’

‘You need to see them all together to get the full effect. The this-is-Gina’s-happy-place effect. Print them out. But don’t crop them or change the colours or anything. Keep them as exact moments.’

‘Is this a photography class?’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’ Nick grinned, and Gina was glad she’d bumped into him. She never seemed to have a boring conversation with Nick. Every time they spoke, something new occurred to her.

‘It’s working out better than the hundred things,’ she admitted. ‘That’s stalled a bit. I thought it would be very profound . . . you know,’ she put on a
faux
-pretentious voice, ‘seeing my personality summed up in objects, but it’s a bit depressing how boring the things I’m keeping are. I’m starting to think I’m just not a very interesting person.’

‘I don’t think that’s true. Far from it.’

Gina cut him a sideways look, and caught Nick looking at her with a perceptive glint in his eyes, a half-smile on his lips. What was he seeing that she wasn’t? she wondered, with a shiver.

She was saved from having to answer by the sound of Naomi’s voice. She hadn’t even noticed her approaching.

‘Hiya! I thought we saw you up here!’

Willow was in the buggy, wearing the bright-red coat Gina had given her for Christmas and a pair of gleaming black patent leather shoes. When she saw Gina she reached out her arms and laughed. ‘Gina!’ Then her eye dropped. ‘Doggy!’

Buzz slunk under the seat and Gina felt the lead go tight.

‘Is Willow OK with dogs?’ she asked. ‘I think he’ll be fine, but let’s keep them well apart.’

‘She’s
too
good with dogs, believe me. Nanny Carole’s got a doggy, hasn’t she?’ Naomi leaned over the buggy.

‘Rotty,’ confirmed Willow, solemnly.

‘He’s a Rottweiler. Don’t say anything. Hello! I’m Naomi!’ She offered her gloved hand to Nick.

‘Nick,’ he said. ‘Rowntree.’

‘Nick’s a client of mine. He’s the new owner of the Magistrate’s House in Langley,’ she said, gesturing between them awkwardly. ‘Nick, this is Naomi Hewson, my best friend.’

‘And dental-practice manager at the Orchards,’ Naomi added. ‘If you’re looking for top-quality dental care. But I can see you floss already!’

Nick stood up and shook her hand, and Gina could tell Naomi was impressed from the smile that curled the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t dissimilar to the toothy one Willow was directing at Buzz.

‘The Magistrate’s House, wow!’ Naomi said. ‘Gina
loves
that house, don’t you?’

‘
Do
you?’ Nick glanced over. ‘What have you been saying about my house, eh? It’s all coming out this morning.’

‘Nothing! What I think Naomi means is that my ex and I had a look around it last time it was on the market.’ Gina glared at Naomi but Naomi was beaming at Nick.

‘Is she being too modest, as usual?’ she asked. ‘Gina is the only person I know who can keep plumbers on schedule. And she’s a
brilliant
interior decorator. She did our house and it looks as if we had someone up from London to do it. Amazing.’

Gina mouthed, ‘Shut up!’ at Naomi but to her horror, Naomi had gone into the hard-sell mode she recognised from the brief period in which she’d been single before Stuart, and Naomi had felt it her duty to talk her up to her single male friends.

Her blood ran cold. She had no idea what Naomi would say next, and there was no way she could shoehorn Amanda into the conversation without it being very obvious now.

Nick’s face was deadpan. ‘I haven’t got as far as hiring an interior designer but I’ll definitely bear that in mind. If she’s as good with her swatches as she is with her spreadsheets, then she can do the whole house.’

Gina coughed. ‘No, it’s not—’

‘Anyway!’ He winked at Willow. ‘I can see you three ladies have a date, so I’ll leave you to it. Have a lovely walk.’

To Gina’s surprise, but not Naomi’s, Nick leaned over, touched her arm and aimed a friendly air kiss that nearly landed on her cheek. ‘’Bye, Naomi!’ he said, blew a kiss to Willow, who blew one back, then strolled down the hill in the direction of the gates.

When he’d more or less gone, Naomi let out a long, whistling breath and sank down on the nearby bench. ‘Excu-hoo-hoo-hoose me,’ she hooted. ‘I thought I was coming here to deliver a weekly pep talk about your divorce and I find you in the park with some gorgeous bloke. What’s that about?’