As Good As It Gets? (28 page)

Seven years ago, I drove out to Essex to be interviewed for the position of Marketing Director of Crisps.
No need to be scared,
I told myself, having bought crippling black patent shoes and a rather uninspiring navy blue suit from Wallis for the occasion.
It doesn’t matter if you get this job or not. There are plenty of others. Even if they offer it to you, you might not want it.

I’d been a bag of nerves when I set off. My hands had been so sweaty I’d had to wipe them on the bit of old shirt I used to clean my windscreen. Miraculously, though, by the time
I pulled into the car park at Archie’s, I’d started to feel a whole lot better. I’d managed to shrink the interview right down in my mind until it had become a tiny, insignificant thing. Somehow, I’d wrung all the scariness out of it.

That’s what I’m trying to do right now. I am attempting to shrink meeting Fraser down to a tiny chore which must be attended to, and will be forgotten as soon as it’s done. No reason to feel edgy, I remind myself. As the train rattles along I try to picture a bloated Fraser, covered in warts with wiry hairs bushing out of his nostrils. Those posh teeth, I decide, will look weirdly fake against his battered old face, which has been worn to wrinkly folds from numerous exotic holidays.

When I knew him he dressed like a student in knackered old Levi’s or baggy khaki shorts, and faded T-shirts proclaiming his love for Bowie, The Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop. These have now, I decide rather gleefully, been replaced by stiff striped shirts and chinos, classic posh boy attire. He’s a Thomas Pink man, I reckon. As for shoes, I’m seeing moccasin-type things in quease-making mustard leather.
Fraser is a jerk,
I repeat in my head.
Fraser is a deserting bastardy arsehole.
I’ll tell Will all about him as soon as he’s back from Gloria’s. Yes, he’ll be annoyed, but I’ll explain that it was something I had to do, and we’ll delight in slagging him off together and discussing how hateful he is. It might even make us feel closer, united in our disdain of the dumper-of-pregnant-girls.

Anyway, it’s only coffee, I remind myself as I get off the train.

It’s drizzling when I step out of the station, and I can sense my hair frizzing instantly. Purple frizz, like a thistle. Attractive. No brush in my bag either (although what do I care about my hair being a mess?) and, for some reason, I didn’t think to bring a jacket or even a cardi, probably because my mind was on other things. Like being a sneak and a liar and deceiving my husband,
and
Rosie, and – oh, God …

Now I actually feel quite sick. Vomiting in Long Acre is not an ideal option (too close to Face Models, for one thing: that would be lovely, splattering out my breakfast on the pavement just as a supermodel – or, worse still, Laurie – swished by). Instead, I take several deep breaths to steady my nerves as I step into Caffè Nero.

I give the place a quick scan and order a flat white and an almond croissant which I know I’ll be unable to eat. As if I’ll be tucking into baked goods when encountering the man who fathered my daughter then proceeded to smash my heart to pieces. Finding a small vacant table right at the back, I mop up spilt coffee from my saucer with a paper napkin.

Thus settled, with a clear view of the door, I arrange myself to look as nonchalant as possible. My aim is to appear as if I am just having a brief pit stop in between shopping in Gap and braving Marks and Spencer’s food hall. The only signs that I might be slightly on edge are the fact that I keep glancing at the door, as if expecting the police to burst in and arrest me. Plus, I’m picking away at the pinprick on my thumb where they tested my substandard blood.

Don’t be nervous,
I tell myself.
He ruined your life, remember? At least, until you got over the cowardly dickhead mummy’s boy
–
which didn’t take long.

It doesn’t work. No shrinking is happening at all.

Maybe I won’t even recognise him? He might have lost all his hair, or grown a colossal beard; men change more than women as they grow older, don’t they? I remember my own frizzy hair and try to pat it down. And that’s when I see him, when I’m mid-pat, as if testing a cake for done-ness.

Fraser Johnson has walked in. He stops and glances around the café. Although it pains me to admit it, he’s not bloated or hideously disfigured in any way. There are no warts – at least, none are obviously visible – or nasal sproutings. He is just Fraser, looking anxious and a little older, but still the boy I loved madly. And it feels as if there’s a bird – something small and pecky, like a chaffinch – repeatedly hitting against my ribcage.
Be angry
, I tell myself.
Remember how deeply you hate this man.

My cheeks are sizzling hot, no doubt tomato-hued and clashing nicely with my aubergine hair.
Startling colour combo!
as Tricia might say. And now he’s seen me and his face bursts into a smile. It’s a genuine smile with no tinge of guilt that I can detect. He certainly doesn’t look mortified, or even sheepish. He wends his way between tables towards me. I try to fix on a
you-bastard-deserter
expression but I can’t. My mouth won’t do what I want it to do. And although I’m doing my best to beam disdain – hatred, even – that’s not happening either. I, too, am smiling. I can’t control my own face.

He walks towards me, all long, gangly legs and blue, blue eyes. The Japanese girl at the next table glances up at him in appreciation but he doesn’t appear to notice. He looks down at me and says, ‘God, Charlotte, it’s been so long.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘Yes, it has, hasn’t it?’ is all I can think of to say.

He glances at my half-empty cup and untouched croissant. ‘Er, can I get you anything? Another coffee?’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Fine, apart from the fact that I shouldn’t be here at all. Imagine, thinking I could make everything all right by stopping off to give blood and buying mangoes. What am I doing here, while my husband is on his hands and knees, scraping away at Gloria’s patio with a trowel?

‘Won’t be a sec,’ Fraser says, heading for the counter.
Please be longer than that,
I urge him,
because I need time to compose myself, to calm this chaffinch in my chest and remember how to breathe.
I twiddle with a hangnail, now picturing Ollie and Saul scaling the climbing wall in Victoria Park, urging each other to go higher and higher while Maria watches anxiously from a discreet distance. I push the image away but it’s replaced by Rosie, walking nervously into the casting and hoping to God her concealer hasn’t worn off.

Christ, what kind of mother am I?

Fraser returns with a black coffee. He takes the seat opposite and rakes a hand through neatly-cut blond hair. ‘I don’t know where to start really,’ he says with an awkward laugh.

‘Neither do I.’ There’s a pause, and it feels as if the whole of this huge, busy café has gone silent.

‘I hope you didn’t mind me emailing,’ he adds.

‘It was a surprise,’ I say quickly, ‘but if I’d minded I wouldn’t have replied.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Fraser glances down and fiddles with his cup. He looks younger than his years; I know he’s thirty-six, two years younger than me. But his face is unlined and his hair is showing no sign of retreating. He has the slim, rangy body of a younger man, and is wearing a smart red-and-blue checked shirt and dark jeans. I have already confirmed that his shoes are perfectly ordinary – shiny and black – and not some kind of mustard fiascos.

Fraser clears his throat. ‘So, er … your dad’s still into sailing?’

How odd that he remembers. But then, we’d filled each other in on every minute detail about our lives, during those long train journeys through Europe. ‘Yes, he is,’ I reply. ‘Can’t imagine him ever giving that up …’

‘That’s good.’ He inspects his hands. ‘And … Rosie’s a model.’

I nod.

‘Amazing.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I reply, wondering when we might stop speaking in small, simple sentences. We sound like a Ladybird book.

Tension flickers in Fraser’s eyes. This isn’t easy for him either, I realise. Well, nor should it be.
He
wasn’t palmed off with a cheque and a packet of bird seed. We fall silent and I catch the Japanese girl at the next table giving us a quick look.
Uh-oh,
she’s thinking,
date’s not going well.
Fraser sips his coffee, making a little slurpy noise because it’s too hot. He’s probably scalded his lip.

And then he says it. He fixes me with a direct stare as if seeing me properly for the first time since he walked in and says, ‘Look, I’m sorry about the way things turned out …’

I cough involuntarily. ‘Well, yes, I suppose you are. But it’s a bit late really. I mean, seventeen years too late. Which is quite a long time, don’t you think?’

The girl keeps swivelling her head around in our direction. ‘What d’you mean?’ Fraser asks, frowning.

I stare at him for a moment. ‘How can you say that as if you don’t know?’

‘But …’ He tails off. ‘From what I heard … well, I just thought …’

‘What did you think?’ I ask sharply.

‘You … you’d decided to go through with it,’ he goes on, ‘and seemed like you had everything sorted …’

‘So you just stepped away,’ I cut in, ‘
conveniently
.’ Fraser exhales and looks around the café. God, I could slap him now. I had it all sorted, did I? He makes it sound like buying a new kettle. He has no idea what it was like pacing around a tiny flat at 2 a.m. with a wailing baby and no one to turn to. None of my friends had children. I sensed that they were bewildered by the whole baby business, and who could blame them? One time, on a rare night out, I had a couple of wines and found myself raving about this amazing machine Mum and Dad had bought me, which gobbled up stinky nappies and turned them into odourless bricks. ‘Genius!’ I babbled, then caught Rachel and Gabby glancing at each other in a ‘What the hell’s happened to Charlotte?’ kind of way. Later, as I stood at the bar, I heard Gabby chuckling, ‘I hope to God she stops going on about those shitty bricks!’ And the two of them dissolved into laughter. None of this happened to Fraser. I pick up my croissant and take the tiniest bite.

‘I thought it was what you wanted,’ Fraser murmurs.

‘You thought I wanted to be abandoned like that? When I was
pregnant
?’ I must have blasted that out because I catch the girl at the next table staring openly. She quickly looks away.

‘Well, it’s what you said,’ Fraser replies, clearly trying to remain calm, ‘that time you phoned and spoke to Mum. You made that pretty clear. I mean, it’s not what
I
wanted but—’

‘What d’you mean, when I phoned?’ I cut in. ‘You changed your number, remember? Or at least, I assume you did because I couldn’t get through. Anyway, I got your mum’s letter and that spelled everything out for me and …’ I shrug. To my horror, my eyes are brimming with tears.

Fraser has turned pale. ‘What letter?’

‘You know, the one your mum sent – with the bird seed. Don’t pretend you don’t know …’

‘I really don’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Charlotte. What d’you mean, bird seed?’

‘You know – the stuff you buy to put in those little holders so the birds can—’

‘Yes, I know
what bird seed is,’ he says quickly. ‘I just don’t understand what it has to do with anything.’

I am sitting very still, aware of all the chatter around us and hoping that the rather stuffy atmosphere in this café will help to evaporate the liquid now wobbling dangerously in my eyes. Why am
I
upset, when he’s the one who ran away? I don’t care about him. I have Will, and we have gorgeous children and live in a lovely home with wonky walls and a beautiful garden. I need nothing from this man.

‘Fraser,’ I say, adopting an oddly patient voice, ‘your mum wrote to me and said that in no circumstances should I try to contact you again. She said you had great prospects, and I suppose what she meant was that sticking with me, and becoming a dad – a real dad, I mean, who was there and involved and actually
cared
– would ruin your life …’

He stares at me. ‘I … I had no idea.’

‘And she sent me the bird seed as an incredibly witty little joke,’ I go on, bitterness creeping into my voice now, ‘along with a cheque for ten thousand quid, which was very kind of her.’

Fraser leans towards me. ‘She sent you
money
?’

I nod. Miraculously, my eyes have dried up and I feel strong, perhaps fortified by that tiny nibble of croissant. In fact, I am completely fine. I pick it up and take an enormous bite just to show him how fucking fine I am.

‘What for?’ Fraser asks.

‘Well, for the baby, I suppose.’

‘For … the baby?’ he repeats.

‘Yes, to help us. But I didn’t want her money so I tore it up and sent it back.’ I use a finger to sweep up the crumbs on my plate into a neat little pile.

‘Charlotte …’ Fraser starts. Now, startlingly,
his
eyes are wet. Moisture is trapped in his lower lashes, like dew on grass.

‘Anyway, it’s been fine,’ I continue briskly. ‘My parents helped loads when she was little, and then I met Will and we had another child—’

‘
Another
child,’ he repeats, fixing his gaze on mine. ‘Honestly, I didn’t know.’

I frown at him. The Japanese girl has left, and her table has been taken by an exhausted-looking middle-aged couple whose copious carrier bags clutter the space around them. ‘What didn’t you know?’ I ask.

‘That you …
had
the baby.’ He half speaks, half whispers it.

And that’s when it starts to wobble: the towering stack of Jenga bricks I’ve held in my mind for all these years – his change of heart or sudden panic attack or whatever it was, and him asking his mother to write to me and then – the worst part – never once caring enough to get in touch just to ask, ‘So, how was the birth?’ Or, later, ‘How’s my child doing? Is she talking yet? What are her favourite things to do?’

At this moment, with the couple at the next table complaining that Hamley’s isn’t as good as it used to be, a tiny doubt starts to flicker in my mind. For the first time, I wonder if perhaps that’s not quite how it happened. I look at Fraser as he rubs at his eyes.