Over You (6 page)

She clicked the line dead and dropped the phone into her bag. She couldn’t help wondering where they were. It was odd, not knowing, not being in the loop. Had Pete taken them out to the park all day, perhaps? Or to the cinema? They’d be having a brilliant time together anyway, she was sure. She should have done this before – given them their own space, the three of them, to do boys’ stuff without her.

They got off the bus at the end of St Paul’s Road, a long curving street lined with genteel three-storey Victorian houses.

‘This way,’ Lisa said, leading them along. ‘Not far, promise.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Nell said. ‘My arms are about to drop off with all this stuff.’

‘See that silver Merc up there?’ Lisa asked, pointing ahead. ‘Well . . .’

‘Is it
yours
?’ Josie gulped. She knew Lisa was flying high at work, but she hadn’t known she was flying
that
high.

Lisa shook her head. ‘In my dreams,’ she said. ‘It’s Roger’s. He’s my neighbour. No, I was about to say, my house is just there, near the Merc.’ She laughed. ‘My car’s that really badly parked Honda.’

Right, thought Josie as they walked past it a few moments later. That brand spanking new baby-blue Honda must be the one then. O-k-a-a-ay. Lisa clearly
was
raking it in these days. She really had turned into alpha-minx of the pack while Josie hadn’t been looking.

Nell let out a long whistle as Lisa stopped in front of a house with a black-painted door. ‘Is this
all
yours?’ she asked. ‘The whole house?’

Lisa nodded. ‘Yep,’ she said proudly. ‘The whole shebang. Come in and have a look.’

‘Wow,’ Josie blurted out as she followed Nell and Lisa up the front steps and into the hall. ‘Wow, Lisa. This is so . . .’ She swallowed, not able to think of a suitable superlative. The hall was long and wide, laid with the original Victorian floor tiles – small black and white squares in a checked pattern. The walls were painted a warm cream, and there was a huge gilt-edged mirror on one side and an antique console table with elegant curving legs on the other. ‘So gorgeous,’ she said, with a sigh of envy.

‘Just dump your stuff and I’ll put the kettle on,’ Lisa said. ‘There’s a cloakroom under the stairs for your coats,’ she added, walking along the hall in front of them.

‘Bloody hell, Lise,’ Nell said. ‘I feel like I’m messing up your house just standing in it!’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Lisa’s voice floated back to them. ‘Come down to the kitchen and tell me what you want to drink.’

Josie unlatched the cloakroom door and hung her coat on a peg. There was a selection of Lisa’s coats and shoes in there, with several hooks still empty. Josie found herself thinking of her own coat rack, with the boys’ green winter Parkas on it, plus their navy-blue raincoats and a variety of hooded tops for warm days, all fighting for space with her and Pete’s things. That’s the pay-off, she was ashamed to find herself thinking. Lisa’s got a nice house, but she doesn’t share it with family. Not like me.

She shoved the thought out of her head as quickly as it had popped up. That was a horrible thing to think. ‘I am so jealous of this house,’ she confessed to Nell in a whisper.

‘Tell me about it,’ Nell said. She hung her coat on a peg, kicked off her boots and shut the door. ‘How do you think it happened?’ she asked as she and Josie walked to the kitchen. ‘I mean, we all started off the same, didn’t we? Fresh out of college, with our rubbish boyfriends, bad haircuts and crappy temping jobs. And now look at us.’

‘Exactly,’ Josie said. ‘Wow, Lise. If I had this kitchen, I would just live in it, I think.’

The kitchen was long and wide, and stretched down to French windows at the far end, through which Josie could see a decent-sized garden. The walls were whitewashed and had a rough, country look to them, as if they were really the walls of a farmhouse in Provence. The large windows were hung with cheerful striped roller blinds, with slate tiles on the sills. The units looked like solid oak, and were topped with black granite work surfaces. Everything shone like a Flash advert – the espresso machine, the chrome juicer, the silver Alessi kettle . . .

‘No, I mean, you as well, Jose,’ Nell was saying. ‘You’re a success story too, with your man and two kids and nice home. And Lisa’s shot off the scale in career terms, with—’

‘Hardly,’ Lisa said, filling the kettle with water.

‘Darlin’, compared to me, you are in the outer stratosphere,’ Nell told her bluntly. ‘And here I am, having started in the same place as you two and look at me! I’m homeless, jobless, boyfriendless . . .’ Nell pulled a face. ‘What am I doing wrong?’

‘Nothing!’ Josie said indignantly. ‘Hello? Reality check! You’ve been all over the world, seen tons of amazing things, had loads of adventures . . . Nell! Not many people have had even half the exciting times you’ve had. And you’ve got no strings! You’re free! Nobody’s holding you back from doing whatever you want to do!’

Josie stopped abruptly, aware of the note of yearning in her voice.

‘I know that,’ Nell said, perching on the edge of the table. ‘And it’s good, being free, but it’s just . . . Well, I think I’m doing all right, but as soon as I compare myself to you two . . .’

‘Don’t even go there,’ Lisa said. ‘Yeah, so I’ve got a nice house and car, and can buy whatever I want to right now, but I’ve slogged in the City for years. I’ve worked late nights, weekends, I’ve dealt with shit from all the blokes there every single day. I’ve put everything on hold – family, friends, men, babies, all the rest of it – to climb the greasy pole. And take it from me, there have been plenty of times over the last few years when I’ve had a postcard from you, barefoot in Bali or Bolivia or Brazil or wherever, and I’ve thought exactly the same thing: What am I doing? Why aren’t I seeing the world like Nell, or having babies like Josie, or . . .’ She put the kettle down suddenly, and took a breath. ‘Maybe I should open some wine,’ she said. ‘This is all getting a bit serious.’

‘Maybe you should,’ Josie agreed. She was trying to catch Nell’s eye but Nell was staring out into the garden.

‘I just don’t know what to do now,’ Nell confessed, her blue eyes far away. ‘At least you two have some kind of game plan. You can see where it’s all going next in your lives. Me, I haven’t got a clue. Not a fucking clue.’

‘But that’s not so bad, is it?’ Lisa said, opening a cupboard door and squatting in front of rack upon rack of wine bottles. She pulled one out and considered it, then pushed it back in and selected another. ‘Red all right for everyone? This should be a good vintage. And would you really have it any other way, Nell? You’d hate my life. You’d resign from my job within seconds.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘And it’s all very well having a nice house but you have to keep up the mortgage payments. Which, let me tell you, are a ball and chain in themselves.’

‘I suppose,’ Nell said, nodding.

There was a silence while Lisa uncorked the bottle and poured three generous glasses full.

Nell took the glass Lisa handed her and held it up. ‘Cheers anyway. To all of our futures. Whatever’s around the corner – let’s hope it’s something exciting.’

‘Definitely,’ said Josie, raising hers.
Let’s hope it’s Rose
, she thought immediately, a hand stealing around to her belly. That would be the best kind of excitement.

Nell started talking rather more enthusiastically about the places she still wanted to visit – Sumatra and Zanzibar and Guatemala and a great long list of others – and Josie’s thoughts drifted homeward. Excitement wasn’t exactly something that her family did in spades, she realized, sipping her wine. She and Pete had been a lot more reckless before they’d had kids but now they existed in a safety chamber. They holidayed in the south of France now, or Cornwall, rather than anywhere tropical that required jabs or malaria tablets. Week in, week out, it was work for Pete, and playgroup, swimming lessons, gym club and trips to the park for her and the boys. Sunday dinner at the in-laws’. Maybe a child’s party to go to. It was all very . . . pedestrian, really. No excitement whatsoever.

Josie took a larger slug of her wine and leaned back in her chair, listening as Nell talked about the wide African skies she’d camped under, the vibrant coral reefs she’d scuba-dived, the noise and smells and bustle of her favourite market in India . . .

She was envious, she realized. She’d come here this weekend feeling as if she had the perfect life all wrapped up, but suddenly she was starting to doubt her conviction. There she’d been at lunchtime, worrying that her friends might think her smug, that they might covet her life, her husband and children. Now she wondered if they actually pitied her for taking the motherhood path while they’d flung themselves into adventures and professional triumphs instead.

She had nothing to contribute to this conversation, she thought helplessly, no adventures of her own to report. She couldn’t join in knowledgably when Lisa spoke about boardroom dramas. She couldn’t add anecdotes to Nell’s travelling stories. Her life had become so safe, so predictable, so
boring
in comparison! She’d been somebody’s wife, somebody’s mum for too long, lost her sparkly Josieness, lost her bottle . . .

She sipped her wine again. Still, it wasn’t too late to change things, was it? She didn’t have to spend the rest of her life like this. Now that the boys were older, maybe she and Pete could afford to be more impulsive, take a few risks? Maybe they could all go on an adventure together!

She grinned to herself. Yes. She’d suggest it. They should definitely break out of the safety chamber and go somewhere exciting before Rose was born. That way, next time she and her friends met up, she’d have tales of her own to tell again, wouldn’t she?

‘Smile!’

Josie beamed into the camera and blinked in the flash that followed. She, Lisa and Nell were the only people left in the Italian restaurant now and their waiter had taken a break from pointedly sweeping up around their table to snap a photo of them with Nell’s camera.

‘Thanks. That’s one for the family album,’ Nell said, winking at him. ‘Could we have the bill, please?’

‘I’ll get this,’ Lisa said, skimming through a wedge of credit cards in a smart Mulberry wallet. ‘My treat.’

‘As if,’ Nell said, planting a twenty-pound note in the centre of the table. ‘We should be treating you, for being our hostess with the mostest tonight.’

Lisa batted away Nell’s money. ‘You two paid train fares to come to London,’ she countered. ‘So this can be my contribution.’

Besides, I’m loaded and this paltry bill is nothing to me
, a nasty little voice added in Josie’s head. ‘Well, we’ll pay for the cab back,’ she said quickly, trying to shut out her uncharitable thoughts. ‘Won’t we, Nell?’

‘Cab back? We haven’t started yet,’ Lisa said in surprise. ‘I thought we were going clubbing after this!’

Josie gulped. The thought of going to a hot sweaty club now, where you had to shout over the pounding music to make yourself heard and where everyone was fifteen years younger than her (and better groomed, and in sexier clothes), and where it cost a fiver for a single drink . . . Oh God! She really
really
didn’t want to go clubbing! But there was no way she could say that in front of the other two. No way! If Nell had the stamina to go on somewhere too, then Josie would just have to bite the bullet and join them.

She turned to Nell, trying to keep the desperation from her eyes.

‘Do you really want to?’ Nell asked Lisa. ‘Only . . . I was kind of wondering about getting some chocolate and having a cup of tea in our PJs back at yours, Lise. Like the good old days . . .’

‘Josie? How about you?’ Lisa asked.

Josie felt a wave of relief. ‘Chocolate and PJs have my vote too,’ she said apologetically, standing up to get her coat. ‘Sorry, Lise – is that really boring of us?’

‘No! Course not!’ Lisa said. The waiter came over and she handed him her credit card. ‘Put it all on there,’ she instructed.

‘Well, we’ll definitely pay for the cab then,’ Josie said. ‘And all the chocolate.’

Nell shrugged on her jacket. ‘And that alone will be a small fortune, if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ she laughed.

Once Lisa had paid, they strolled out of the restaurant, arm in arm. As well as aching feet and a feeling of having drunk far too much for one day, there was another reason Josie wanted to go back to Lisa’s – to check for messages. She’d called home a couple more times that evening, only to keep getting her own answerphone. Pete’s mobile had been switched off too, every time she’d tried it. Where were they?

Josie kept telling herself that everything was sure to be fine, they’d just got caught up having a great time somewhere or other and hadn’t managed to call her, but it felt horrible, not being able to say good-night to the boys.

She slipped her arm out of Nell’s and checked her mobile again for messages as they walked – ahh, and there was a text from Pete. At last! She must have missed the phone’s bleep when it came through. She read it quickly.

All fine. Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness! It was only then that she realized how much she’d been worrying about them, how tense she’d felt. She tried dialling his number but it switched straight to voicemail. Maybe he was having an early night. It was gone eleven now, after all.