How We Met (21 page)

‘Have you told Mia about our weekend away, darling?’

Mia stared straight ahead so as not to catch Norm’s eye.

‘Liv’s gonna be so proud of us.’ She sat down on Norm’s lap, Norm making a little grunting noise, as though the weight of her had pushed air out of his mouth. ‘And this one’s not going to know what’s hit him.’ She nuzzled her nose close to his; the start, Mia feared, of a long and drawn-out foreplay session, starting now and finishing somewhere on a bed in a Thistle Hotel in Penrith.

Since Venice, no more had been said about the Patricio incident. Melody had simply said at breakfast: ‘We shall speak of this never again.’ Which was fine by Mia; the whole thing was gruesome.

‘So, when do you think we should get the buffet out?’ said Melody, and Mia, recognizing a get-out-of-jail opportunity, stood up.

‘Soon, I’ll make a start,’ she said, making towards the kitchen, just in time to hear Melody saying behind her, ‘Ooh, Jo
! Just the woman I was looking for. Do you have five minutes? I wanted to show you my mini-muffin tray …’

The afternoon grew close and hot and Mia stood in Melody’s kitchen, arranging the food on plates and cringing as she listened to her mother, drunk by this point and becoming sentimental and inappropriate about other people’s children.

‘Oh, she’s beautiful, isn’t she the most beautiful child?’ she was gushing to Suzy, mother of India. ‘And did you conceive her in India? Is that the idea behind her name?’

Mia was just about to go and physically remove the glass of Pimm’s from her mother’s hand, and possibly even her mother from the party, when somebody screamed.

Mia flung herself out of the back door, convinced she was about to find a drowning child, not that that was possible in a centimetre of water. Maybe it was the relief, then, that the situation was by no means life-threatening, but when she saw a thin, pale turd floating in the paddling pool and Billy looking wistfully out towards the fields behind the house (if he could have whistled, he would have), she started to snigger.

‘Daisy, don’t touch it, darling. Daisy, DO NOT TOUCH THE POO!’

Mia could not stop the giggles rising in her throat, so that by the time she’d got a nappy out of her bag, scooped up Billy and slid it under his bottom, she was actually crying tears. Then there was the sight of poor Melody, trying to fish out the turd with the kitchen sieve at the same time as balance on her wedges, shouting, ‘I’ve got it, it’s fine. It’s ABSOLUTELY FINE!’

Mia couldn’t take it any more, and was beside herself, whilst the other mums stared at the paddling pool as if they’d found a dead dog.

‘I did suggest she might want to put a swim nappy on him,’ she could hear Suzy say as she took a crying Billy upstairs to the bathroom. ‘I mean, it’s toxic waste, that’s the thing.’

She burrowed her face in his hair. ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ she whispered.

This was another thing that was happening a lot of late – she wanted to stick up for her son, even when he defecated in paddling pools. Maybe this was the incredible mother–son bond she’d heard so much about?

‘You just shat yourself. I mean, it’s not the first time, is it?’

As it happened, he went on to do another, spectacular poo, and Mia had to shower him twice and went through three nappies, until she finally got him clean, got all the dirty nappies bagged up and went downstairs as if she’d just killed and dismembered someone and was disposing of the body. She went outside and handed Billy to Eduardo, giving him her best daggers (God, would he just lift a finger? Just so she wouldn’t get her ear bent by her friends, if nothing else), and was just walking around the side of the house to put the bags in a wheelie bin when she saw Fraser getting out of his car outside the house …

With Karen.

Of course. Why hadn’t she thought he’d bring his girlfriend?

‘Fraser!’ She looked … she didn’t really know what she looked, but it wasn’t the expression she would have been going for if she’d been forewarned.

Fraser walked down the side path of the house and went as if to kiss her on the cheek, but then thought about it too much before he did so, so that they both panicked, wavered from side to side and finished kissing each other on the lips, instead. It was pretty dreadful, made worse by the fact that Mia was still holding the bags of poo and if she could smell ammonia, she was pretty sure they could too. Mia didn’t blush often but she knew she was blushing.

‘Um, Mia, this is Karen, Karen this is Mia.’

Somewhere in Mia’s peripheral vision, she could see that Karen’s hand was clasped firmly in Fraser’s.

‘Hi, Karen, I think we have sort of met before –’ Karen’s face was a blank – ‘and I would shake your hand now but, as you can see, I’ve got my hands full, since my son just did the most enormous shit you’ve ever seen.’

Fraser kicked at a stone and gave an embarrassed little laugh.

‘Oh, dear, has he had too many raisins, grapes or anything?’ said Karen, earnestly
. ‘My mum’s friend’s daughter always swears that fruit gives her baby the trots …’

No, he’s a baby, babies just shit all over the place whatever they eat, Mia wanted to say, but managed to avoid it.

‘Um, anyway, we brought Billy this …’ and Karen handed Mia a beautifully wrapped present with a card Sellotaped to the top.

We? WE? On joint presents already? It started with this and ended up in a joint grave, thought Mia, particularly darkly.

She arranged her face into a smile.

‘Thank you, guys, that’s really kind … Now, if I can just dispose of these,’ and she gestured, holding up the two small bags.

‘Oh, hun, look, let me take those. You and Fraser have a chat,’ said Karen unnecessarily, and there followed an awful, five-second tug of war with the bags of baby shit until Mia finally surrendered and let Karen take them, one in each hand, to the bins.

Fraser and Mia stared at one another.

‘Well, this is a bag of crap, isn’t it?’ she said, eventually. It was an awful joke, contrived and inappropriate, and Mia felt herself blush for the second time that day. Thankfully, Fraser saved her.

‘Well, we’ve all done it … Got overexcited on our birthday and lost control of our bowels. I know I have …’

Mia giggled and he grinned and she grinned back.

‘Anyway, how are you?’ she said, standing back as if to get a good look at him. ‘You look well. All that home-cooked food, the love of a good woman. It suits you, Fraser.’

Dear God, listen to her, she sounded like his middle-aged aunty.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and he held her gaze until she had to look away. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ he said eventually, ‘we had to call in on Karen’s relative somewhere in Hertfordshire. You know how these Home Counties types don’t half witter on …’

Mia pushed his shoulder but it felt fake and awkward.

‘Well, as I said, marriage definitely becomes you.’

‘Mia, I’m not married …’

‘And, oh, my God, are those slacks?’ she tugged at his trousers in an attempt to be amusing, when really she was genuinely alarmed. He never wore trousers!

‘Yeeeess. We got them at Brent Cross last week,’ he said, wearily and somewhat provocatively.

‘Bloody Nora,’ was all she could muster.

‘Anyway, where’s the birthday boy?’ said Fraser, craning his neck.

‘Oh, hiding somewhere, keeping a low profile after doing a crap in the paddling pool.’

Fraser burst out laughing. ‘No way. Nice one, Billy.’

‘Anyway, YOU should go and find your girlfriend,’ said Mia. ‘She doesn’t know anyone. You’re not looking after her very well.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Fraser put his hand on her waist as he walked off into the party. ‘Speak to you, later, OK?’

He turned back, and she was sure she saw him wink at her.

Mia headed inside to wash her hands, her heart hammering horribly inside her chest. God, that was awful. Truly awful. She’d never, in her life, had an awkward conversation with Fraser, and there they were, completely lost for words.

‘So
this
is the lovely Karen,’ she could hear Melody saying in the garden. ‘We’ve heard so much about you.’

Eduardo sauntered into the kitchen. ‘I see Mr Handsome’s here with his fat girlfriend.’ He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

‘Oh, Eduardo, for God’s sake,’ Mia snapped before she could help herself. ‘Don’t be so bitchy, you’re worse than a girl. Now will you help me with this food?’ She turned around and took his sunglasses off. ‘And take these off. Jesus. Honestly! This isn’t the Pacha closing party, you know, it’s your son’s first birthday.’

‘All right, chill out.’ It wasn’t like Mia to blow up like that these days and Eduardo backed away from her. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

She rubbed her face. ‘Nothing, sorry. Just, you know …’ and she kissed him, hard on the lips, as if she wanted to bruise him really. ‘Just help a bit, that’s all, OK
?’

‘Hey, babe, what do you think I’m here for now?’

The afternoon wore on, the sky turning a more intense blue, so it looked like it might eventually crack. Eduardo reluctantly helped Mia with the buffet, whilst occasionally throwing Billy up into the air when people were looking.

Mia helped Billy work through his mountain of gifts, made an effort to have mummy conversations with the other mums, whilst all the time keeping one eye on Fraser and Karen.

Apart from Liv, she’d never seen Fraser with a girlfriend; she’d only really seen him with girls who were friends, and he always did a lot of talking, crap jokes, getting naked for no apparent reason and arguing (Fraser was very good at arguing) – so she was intrigued to find he’d turned into a mute.

Karen sat on his knee, they held hands – like all five fingers clasped together. Mia even caught them kissing at one point and looked quickly away. They can’t have exchanged more than a sentence in an hour, and yet they didn’t seem awkward, either. Maybe this is what a contented couple looked like, after all? Maybe muteness was a level a couple could only hope to reach in the higher echelons of loved-up bliss? Let’s face it, she and Eduardo were hardly the epitome of contentment, her giving him daggers from the other side of the garden.

‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’

Then suddenly, Anna was standing right beside her, leaning into her ear. ‘I think her and Fraser are perfect together, don’t you?’

Mia started.

‘Yes, definitely. Absolutely. They seem to be getting on, anyway. Can’t have been easy for him to bring her today, what with us and Liv—’

‘Well, I guess life moves on, doesn’t it?’ said Anna, briskly.

Mia smiled and stared at the floor. She briefly thought of having it out with Anna, of telling her that she was worried they didn’t seem to be bonding, how distant Anna seemed, how she really didn’t appear to be herself. She opened her mouth, but the moment passed.

‘Steve seems nice,’ she said eventually. Even though she and Steve hadn’t shared two words.

‘Yes, he’s amazing. He’s really changed my life.’

Mia blinked, hard.

‘Wow, that’s amazing, Span,’ she said.

‘I know. Also, and don’t take this the wrong way, but he doesn’t call me that and I’d like it if you lot didn’t either, any more. Is that OK?’

If Mia were taken aback, she tried desperately not to show it.

‘Sure. No probs. Just Anna from now on.’

‘Thanks, and also, Mia …’ Anna flicked her long red hair behind her and touched Mia’s shoulder, as if she was going to tell her a secret. ‘You know, I think it’s great you and Eduardo are back together. Really, really great.’

Mia screwed her nose up. ‘Really? You’re not just saying that?’

‘No. I mean, people change, don’t they? And I’ve been chatting to him today and he’s really grown up, and also, it’s great for you and Billy, isn’t it?’ She ruffled Billy’s hair, but sort of quickly, as if it might contain flammables. ‘You can be a proper family now, get on with your life. It always comes right in the end.’

And then she pecked Mia on the cheek before she could say anything and sauntered off in her bottom-skimming sundress, leaving Mia standing there with Billy, feeling, what was it? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t move for a minute or two, she was stuck so fast to the grass.

She took a deep breath. Still, Anna was right, Karen was lovely. She began to feel bad for dissing her now; all that, ‘Really, Fraser? A forty-two-year-old dolphin enthusiast?’ What a cow she must have sounded.

She must make an effort, so she stood up with Billy, and was just about to go and talk to her, when Karen made towards her, all bouncing smile and bouncing chest. (By God, that was enough to render any man mute.)

‘Hi. I thought I’d come and see how it was all going.’ Karen was standing beside her now, stroking Billy’s cheek. ‘Billy’s so cute!’

‘Thank you. I guess he has his moments. Perhaps not when he’s crapping in paddling pools.’

This was met with the same blank face as before and Mia resolved never to bring poo up again – clearly it wasn’t something Karen was comfortable with; some people just weren’t.

‘I’d have loved to have babies,’ Karen said suddenly.

Mia smiled sympathetically but she wasn’t comfortable with this soft of oversharing, not when she didn’t know the person.

‘But I couldn’t sadly.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

She looked at Karen: large, watery eyes, inoffensive features and yet plain in every way – the very opposite of Liv, who was striking and dark.

‘It’s OK, I’ve come to terms with it now. You see, I had a blocked Fallopian tube. A cyst on my right ovary to add to that, and then I went through the menopause at thirty-five. I think the universe was trying to tell me something!’

‘God, that’s terrible,’ was all Mia could say, doubly aware of Billy squirming in her arms.

‘I know, but the universe repaid me in other ways.’

Mia wondered if the ‘universe’ was a euphemism for something else, but she couldn’t think what so she said, ‘I really like your nails.’ A desperate attempt to change the subject.

‘Oh, thanks, they’re actually pictures of dolphins, see?’ And she held them up to the light so Mia could see they were indeed pictures of dolphins. ‘I have an adopted dolphin in Florida. I call her the baby I never had! I’m mad about dolphins, you see, which is so funny because Fraser is too, as I’m sure you know. He told me about swimming with them in Zanzibar. God, SO jealous!’