Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (50 page)

IN THE END
, when it felt as if everything she held dear was circling the drain, Hope decided it was easier to focus on simply getting to the end of the week. Or getting to approximately seven thirty on Thursday evening, when the Winter Pageant would be over and she’d be on her way to the Midnight Bell with Marta and Elaine (and respective partners) for their unofficial Christmas dinner.

Hope worked until eleven each night with only a brief respite from the never-ending Winter Pageant preparations on Wednesday evening, when she worked on Blue Class’s school reports instead, but that was almost like fun. Apart from Sarah from Year Six, all the staff gathered in the staffroom with a huge quantity of pizza and wine and pooled their resources and their expertise in writing the passive-aggressive double-speak that Mr Gonzales expected from them, rather than the plain, unvarnished truth.

‘How do I say that Stuart is a vicious bully who’d rather belch and fart than spend even five seconds paying attention to me?’ Hope asked the room at large.

‘Oh, just say, “Stuart continues to experience some challenges learning in a classroom environment but I’m confident that with the right home support, we’ll see a distinct improvement in his knowledge retention and interaction with his classmates,”’ said a laconic drawl from the corner of the room where Sunil, who taught Year Five, was leafing through his old reports so he could recycle his greatest work.

And then it was Thursday morning. Hope was up at six to bake fifty cupcakes, which she’d frost and ice when she got home, and present to Blue Class tomorrow. Then she packed frock, heels and make-up bag for the night’s festivities before she approached the slumbering lump under the duvet, whom Hope assumed was her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.

Jack had also been working like a dog and getting home either just before or just after Hope. There had been the faintest niggling doubt lodged at the very back of her mind that Jack was up to no good, until a motorcycle courier had come round at midnight on Tuesday with a Cromalin that had to be re-checked and sent back to the repro house. She got it: he really was working late.

Last night, he’d arrived home at two a.m., but the February issue of
Skirt
had been put to bed, and Jack had no intention of going into the office this morning, but was heading straight to the art department Christmas lunch at St. John Bread & Wine, where they’d spend the afternoon drinking away the pain of all the late nights. Jack had promised not to get too drunk and embarrass Hope by rocking up to the Pageant completely rat-arsed. He’d also promised to pretend they were still together because Hope couldn’t deal with telling Elaine and Marta the awful truth. Not tonight. Not when she’d most likely burst into tears and beg Jack not to leave her.

Hope quickly left Jack a scribbled note reminding him of his obligations, unpeeled the edge of the duvet so she could plant a kiss on his ear, because some old habits refused to die, then hurried out.

Blue Class were already so over-excited that Hope half-wondered if she needed to talk to the dinner ladies about cutting down their sugar intake at lunchtime. They spent the morning making Christmas cards for their parents, grandparents and primary care-givers, and after lunch, Hope shepherded them to the assembly hall for the dress rehearsal.

An hour later, Hope was sitting in the back row, rocking from side to side with her head in her hands.

‘Buck up, Hopey,’ Elaine said, patting her back. ‘You know what they say about a bad dress rehearsal.’

‘Yeah, it means an even worse opening night,’ Hope whimpered. She lifted her head so she could stare mournfully at Elaine. ‘I wrote left and right on everyone’s hands in indelible marker pen, so why do they all still insist on going the wrong bloody way?’

‘Frankly, you’re a lightweight,’ Elaine informed her. ‘You organise this Pageant for five years on the trot, and then you can come moaning to me about how primary-school children can’t take any direction. Five years!’

‘But you never had to do the junior school as well,’ Hope protested hotly. ‘I swear, Sarah’s right at the top of my list, and she’s going to stay there for quite some time.’

Elaine actually chortled. ‘I’m sure she’s quaking in her Russell & Bromley boots.’

‘You know, she’s not the only one on my list,’ Hope said pointedly. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw your name on there too.’

‘Am I on this famous list?’ said a voice behind her, and Hope twisted round, almost giving herself whiplash in the process, to see Wilson standing there with his camera bag.

‘What are you doing here?’ Hope asked in surprise, her voice breathless against the sudden slam-dunk of her stomach at the completely unscripted sight of him. ‘I was expecting Dylan.’ She looked at her watch. ‘About half an hour ago.’

Although Wilson always looked the same, right down to the old-fashioned camera slung around his neck, Hope was surprised that the way she felt about seeing him standing there was new and different. There was a nervy excitement bubbling up inside her, which was a welcome change from just feeling sick with stress and despair.

‘Dylan couldn’t make it. He had to go and see a man about a dog,’ Wilson said vaguely.

‘Nobody ever has to go and see a man about a dog.’

‘Well, he had to see a man about a pushchair, Moses basket and sterilising unit that he’d just won on eBay,’ Wilson explained. ‘’Fraid you’re stuck with me.’

‘Really?’ She needed to stop sounding so squeaky. ‘Are you sure that’s OK? Because in the end I could only scrounge thirty quid out of the PTA. Well, thirty quid and a box of luxury Christmas crackers.’

Wilson smiled. It was a tricky, shifty smile. ‘I suppose it will have to do.’

‘You going to introduce me, Hope, or do you only do that for people who aren’t on your list?’ Elaine asked. Hope had completely forgotten that she was sitting there. She’d also forgotten that she’d left Blue Class to Andy’s tender mercies, and he was probably boring them to tears with tales of deprived children in the Third World whose Christmas would be spent walking 20 miles to draw water from a rusty well. After the introductions were made, and Hope couldn’t leave Wilson cooling his heels in the hall any longer, she took him along to get reacquainted with Blue Class.

It was bedlam in the classroom. The children were meant to be having yet another run-through of their Lady Gaga homage but were mostly running around and screaming, until Hope walked in and purposely dropped the big
World Atlas
on the floor.

Then there was a ten-minute bollocking, five minutes spent reminding them that when they came back at half five they all had to be wearing black tights – yes, even the boys – then fifteen minutes of story-time. Wilson sat on the floor with them as Hope read
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
. It was either the floor or a tiny chair meant for a tiny person.

‘You’re very scary when you’re in teacher mode,’ Wilson remarked, when the last child had left for the day and Hope was walking around the room to check that the chairs were all firmly on the desks and that Herbert had enough water to last the night.

‘I’m not that scary,’ Hope said in a hurt voice, because it would be nice to find someone who didn’t think she was a belligerent bitch with a hair-trigger temper. ‘Usually ten minutes after I tell them off, Blue Class go back to raising merry hell again.’

Wilson walked over to the corner where the worst of the water damage was evident. Apparently, though Hope doubted it very much, it would all be fixed by the new term. He picked up a copy of
The Cat in the Hat
and started flicking through it. ‘So, how have you been? You look well. Very well.’

Hope didn’t look well, she looked like a girl who’d been dumped by the love of her life. Her complexion was muddy, her eyes were dull, and she was wearing a pair of sagging tweed trousers, a black polo neck with a stretched-out collar and scuffed Uggs. She’d also spent most of the day trying to tear her hair out of its thick plait and now had a halo of frizzy red curls, and not a scrap of make-up on. She felt frumpy and lumpy, even though she’d lost over a stone since she’d last seen Wilson and was a couple of pounds lighter than the usual 9 stone, 9 pounds where her weight usually stuck when she dieted and refused to budge any further.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled and gestured jerkily at him. ‘So do you.’ He looked the same as he ever did, but that wasn’t necessarily to say that he looked bad. ‘Shall we go back to the hall and I can talk you through the horror that awaits you?’

Wilson didn’t say anything. He put down the book and walked towards Hope, not stopping even when he was a foot away and she felt as if she should take a step back, if only for appearances’ sake, but she stayed where she was until he was standing so close that she could feel the wonderful comforting warmth of him. Though Hope knew she was far too battle-worn for Wilson’s brand of comfort to have much effect. Yes, she could remember what it felt like
to
be held by him, have his mouth on hers, but all she could really think about these days was that she’d never feel Jack’s arms around her or Jack’s lips on hers ever again.

‘So, is there anything you want to tell me?’ Wilson asked, right on cue.

‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ Hope said, screwing up her face in mock confusion, even though she knew exactly what he meant. But just as she hadn’t told Elaine or Marta yet, she certainly wasn’t going to tell Wilson. Not just because she knew she wouldn’t be able to get more than five words into her sorry tale without turning into a weeping mess, but because she couldn’t cope with him saying, ‘I told you so,’ or calling her a ‘bloody fool’ in that fondly exasperated way that he did – or worse, trying to kiss the hurt away. Right now, his kisses and his kindness would kill her. ‘You mean about the Winter Pageant?’

‘Hope?’ Wilson’s voice was a throaty murmur that made Hope take a teeny, tiny tiptoe of a step forwards, even though she’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t, until it would have been impossible to slide a sheet of tissue paper (left over from making fake snow) between them.

She dropped her eyes to the polished tips of his brogues. ‘What?’

‘Don’t fuck with me.’ It was a warning, but it sounded like a promise, even when Wilson took a step back. ‘So, where’s this set-list you were talking about?’

THE NEXT THREE
hours were both the longest and shortest of Hope’s life. She’d left a taciturn Wilson to set up the lights, but before she could fret about their tense encounter, volunteers started arriving.

Hope became the annoying person rushing around with a clipboard and issuing orders. She even heard herself say to two dads who were mithering about the dicky PA system, ‘Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!’ A little power was a very scary thing, but Hope felt as if she was in her element for the first time in ages. Maybe a little too much in her element, because an hour before curtain-up, when she’d changed out of her saggy work clothes into heels and her vintage bottle-green velvet wiggle dress that she’d only ever been able to get into on two previous occasions, she was grabbed by Polly, Sorcha’s mum, who owned her own beauty salon and was in charge of hair and make-up.

‘You’re doing everyone’s heads in,’ she told Hope, as she forced her to sit down at one of the makeshift make-up stations in the junior-school cloakroom. She also forced her to accept a glass of mulled wine. ‘Now sit down, stop getting in the way, and let me take the shine off your face.’

Hope had only planned to sit there for five minutes, but half an hour later, she had an even skintone plus winged liquid eyeliner (which she’d never been able to master on
her
own), her hair was in an elegant updo, and she was calm enough to marshal both her thoughts and her volunteers.

Wilson was busy doing things with lights and cameras and didn’t even look up when Hope asked if he had everything he needed, and maybe he’d like a mince pie. The dads were all assembled around the sound desk with screwdrivers held aloft and didn’t want any advice, but at least Blue Class were pleased to see her when Hope assembled them in a junior classroom. She looked like ‘a princess, Miss’ or ‘Cheryl Cole, Miss, when she was a ginger, Miss’, and they all wanted to know if her heels hurt, which they did, even though Hope had only been wearing them for forty minutes. And then it was ten minutes before show-time, and she had many things to cross off her checklist, and there were many people who were standing about doing nothing who needed to be given precise instructions.