The Nearly-Weds (22 page)

Tallulah glances at Ruby, who is now near-hysterical with laughter. ‘Um, okay,’ she replies reluctantly.

‘We won’t be long, Zoe!’ Felicity shrills, as they disappear round a corner.

Trudie bounds back to me, out of breath, as she pulls her tiny vest top over her belly. ‘Christ, are there any paramedics in here?’ she wheezes.

‘Never mind that,’ I say. ‘Now I’ve got you by yourself, I demand that you tell me about your night out with Ritchie. Did the “date of the decade” live up to expectations?’

Last night hadn’t been just any old night on the tiles. Ritchie had organized an overdraft-busting restaurant, booked a taxi and given Trudie strict instructions to wear the most glamorous item in her wardrobe.

The result was more feverish anticipation on her part than if he’d been flying her to Paris in his private Learjet.

Yet Trudie’s frowning. ‘I wish you hadn’t asked that.’

‘Why? What’s the matter?’ I ask, hardly able to believe she isn’t bursting to fill me in with every last micro-detail.

‘Don’t repeat this?’

‘Of course not.’ I’m a bit worried now. ‘What is it?’

She sighs and inspects her hands. Her bright pink nail polish has started to chip round the edges. ‘Ritchie asked me to marry him.’

‘Ohmigod!’ I cry. ‘Ohmigod, ohmigod! Wow, Trudie! This is great!’

Halfway through my frenzied monologue I pick up on her mood and pull back the reins on my congratulations. ‘Or . . . not great?’ I ask, trying to work out why she has the expression of someone on their way to identify a body.

‘Hmm, great or not great? Bloody good question.’

‘Oh, God, you’re right. It’s far too soon. I wasn’t thinking, I just—’

‘It’s not too soon,’ she interrupts.

‘Oh. Then why?’

She doesn’t say anything.

‘I know we’re good friends, Trudie, but my powers of telepathy aren’t quite as tuned as they might be.’

‘Sorry, love,’ she says. ‘Look, it’s good in one sense, obviously.’

‘In the sense that you adore him?’

‘Yeah.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Well, for God’s sake, what other sense is there?’

‘Ssssh!’ she hisses, glancing round to check that no one can hear. ‘I
can’t
marry him.’

‘You’re not already married, are you?’

She tuts. ‘No.’

‘Um – you’ve secretly signed up to become a nun?’

Trudie looks down at her vest top and hot pants, both of which appear to have been on a boil wash for the past six days. ‘What do you think?’

‘Okay . . .
Why?
’

‘First, let me tell you something about Ritchie. He loves kids. He’s great with Andrew and Eamonn – I mean,
really
great, better than their own dad. Even before he proposed last night, he’d been going on about us starting a family and stuff. I mean, Ritchie just cannot
wait
to have kids.’

‘And?’

‘Well, he thinks I’d make a great “mom”, as he says.’

‘You would.’

‘Well, don’t be so sure,’ she replies.

‘Don’t you want kids?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘I’ve seen you with Andrew and Eamonn. You’re amazing with them. How can you think otherwise?’

She bites a nail. ‘When I was little, I got sick.’ Her eyes blur. ‘I had leukaemia.’

It takes a couple of seconds for the words to filter into my brain. ‘You . . . you’re kidding?’

She shakes her head and continues so matter-of-factly we might have been talking about a bout of Chickenpox.

‘I was only four,’ she says. ‘Spent ages in and out of hospital. Nearly drove my poor old mum and dad out of their minds. Mum was convinced I wasn’t going to make it – I mean, you would be, wouldn’t you? Having your four-year-old daughter get cancer isn’t something anyone plans for.’

‘God, Trudie.’

‘Well, the really unbelievable thing is that I pulled through. “I’m A Survivor!”’ she sings, not quite as tunefully as Destiny’s Child.

‘You’re amazing, Trudie,’ I tell her. ‘I knew it the minute I met you.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she shrugs, ‘I don’t know about that. I beat the disease, got the all-clear and grew up to lead a completely normal life.’

‘So, what’s this got to do with Ritchie?’

‘I was just getting to that, love. Cancer’s a bloody cruel disease, Zoe, don’t ever doubt it. And although I beat the bugger at four years old, it left me with a memento. A little thing to make sure I never forget it was there.’

Somehow I know what’s coming next.

‘I can’t have kids, Zoe. I’ve had all the tests. No matter how much I want them – no matter how much
Ritchie
wants them – I can’t ever have kids.’

Chapter 50

Ryan’s no saint, so if I’d thought that what had happened the other week would turn him into the world’s greatest housemate overnight, I’d have deserved a reality check as big as the Isle of Wight.

But – and there’s a big but – since I put my first-aid training to use and his son came back from the brink of death, I get the feeling that a couple of matters have been put into perspective for him. And the manifestation of this is that he’s shown such an improvement that if I was writing his half-term report he’d get a gold star.

The downing-whiskey-like-it’s-going-out-of-fashion has stopped. The stomping-round-the-house has
almost
stopped. The arriving-home-at-three-a.m.-reeking-of-perfume
hasn’t
stopped – but what the hell? Nobody’s perfect.

In fact, last night he didn’t get in until about five thirty and I have ascertained – from the whiff I caught of his shirt when I was doing the laundry this morning (yes, I still do that) – he’s dating the woman who wears Estée Lauder Pleasures again. She hasn’t made an appearance for at least six weeks.

Anyway, crucially, in addition to most of his bad behaviour stopping, a load of other things have started. Like spending lots of time with his kids. Like having fun. Like, wait for it, laughing.

Yes, Ryan laughs so much now that he’s started to look like a man who has remembered how to enjoy life. He even manages to make me laugh regularly, something I’d once have considered as likely a prospect as Nicole Richie winning an international prize for her contribution to molecular science.

Ruby and Samuel have noticed a dramatic change. This week alone, he has been home from work every night before six, which has enabled him to play baseball in the garden, sit down to paint at the kitchen table, or even just watch a movie on TV. In fact, he’s done so much with the children recently, I’ve sometimes felt we’re living with a Butlin’s Redcoat.

The effect of all this on the children has been incredible. Ruby has a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and every night this week – with the exception of one wobble on Tuesday – she and Samuel have been tucked up in bed, blissfully exhausted and fast asleep by eight twenty.

And my job has become
so
much easier.

Tonight I’m considering what to give the children for dinner when I hear the door slam. My shoulders no longer tense involuntarily.

‘Daddy!’
shout Ruby and Samuel, as they dive into his arms like two overactive puppies.

‘Wow,’ I say. It’s just gone five. ‘You’re early.’

‘They let me out for good behaviour.’ He smiles.

‘Well, I was about to start cooking – you can join us for dinner, if you like?’

Ryan grimaces. ‘I tasted that HP sauce the other day,’ he teases. ‘I have a few doubts about your culinary tastes.’

‘What a cheek!’ I gasp, and the children collapse into giggles.

‘No, no,’ he protests. ‘I was going to offer to take you all out to dinner.’

‘Really?’ squeals Ruby, jumping about with such excitement you’d think he’d said we were relocating to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

‘Really? Really?’ adds Samuel.

‘Yes,
really, really,
’ replies Ryan, picking him up and throwing him into the air as if he were no heavier than a blow-up beach ball.

I dash upstairs and open my wardrobe to survey the options. What the hell does one wear to go out for dinner with one’s boss and young charges? Are we talking cocktail dress and heels? No, no, no. Cocktail dress and heels are definitely out – not least because I don’t want flashbacks to the last time I wore such an ensemble.

After an intensive search through my wardrobe, I settle on an outfit I bought recently that’s made for an occasion like this – that is, when I haven’t a bloody clue what to wear: linen trousers and a floaty, angel-sleeved print top, as worn by Kate Hudson in a recent edition of
Allure
magazine (although I bet hers wasn’t thirty-five dollars from H&M).

I set about applying my makeup, a demanding and subtle process by anyone’s standards. Overdo the Clinique soft-finish foundation and I risk being exposed as the sort of sad-act who gets so worked up at the prospect of a bit of dinner that she’s emptied her entire wardrobe looking for something to wear. Underdo it and it’ll look as if I’ve stopped off on the way back from Wal-Mart.

When I meet Ryan in the hallway, he looks at me as he opens the door for the children. As usual, my knees go wobbly.

‘You’ve lost weight, Zoe,’ he says.

I stop in my tracks. ‘What?’

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he repeats.

I’m stunned by this statement and almost buckle under the weight of my gratitude. Ryan might as well have informed me I have eyes like starlight, lips like dewdrops and the body of a Greek goddess.

‘Oh, do you really think so?’ I ask, as nonchalantly as I can, my cheeks glowing like the end of
ET
’s finger. ‘I haven’t been on a diet or anything . . . and, well, I used to be much thinner than this, honestly.’

‘You look great.’ He smiles, and my heart dances with happiness. ‘Now, come on, Ruby – hop in.’

Here’s the ridiculous thing. I
hadn’t
been on a diet. Which can only lead me to one conclusion: the more effort you put into slimming, the less weight you lose.

And Ryan’s right – I have lost weight. Granted, I’m still not back to my normal size, but I’d estimate I’ve shifted at least half a stone, possibly more.

I walk into the restaurant feeling like Miss World after a spa day.

Dinner is at Legal Seafoods, a Boston institution to which Ruby and Samuel have never ventured until now. Ruby rises to the challenge of being at a ‘posh restaurant’ by putting on a funny
faux
-British accent and holding her knife and fork so daintily she keeps almost dropping them.

She orders rainbow trout and seems disappointed when it comes. Rather than the exotic, colourful creature she’d imagined, it’s just a big fish. Now that I’m a successful, health-conscious slimmer, I decide to opt for a Lite Clam Chowder.

It’s Ryan’s west-coast oysters that create the biggest stir.

‘Euurgh! Daddy!’ cries Ruby, as Ryan picks one up.

‘Euurgh! Daddy!’ echoes Samuel.

Funny, but watching Ryan slip an oyster on to his tongue has quite the opposite effect on me.

‘Look, they’re delicious.’ Ryan grins. ‘Zoe thinks so too. Don’t you, Zoe?’

I blush. Not wanting to reveal that I’ve never eaten one, I slide an oyster into my mouth. ‘Delicious!’ I exclaim, swallowing what feels like a lump of salty slime. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

Samuel’s in fits of giggles, but Ruby couldn’t have looked more appalled if we’d eaten our own unwashed socks accompanied by a compôte of bathwater. ‘You guys are gross,’ she says, picking at a bread roll.

As the evening wears on, I come to the conclusion that eating out is such an unqualified success that Ryan should consider doing it every other day – and don’t hesitate to tell him so.

But it’s not just the kids. I’ve enjoyed it too. And at nine, when we’re still at our table, waiting to be picked up by our taxi, I realize what a nice warm glow I’m feeling tonight. I put it down to the bottle of wine Ryan and I have shared.

‘God, stupid me,’ he says, out of the blue.

‘You haven’t forgotten your keys?’

‘No, no. Something else. A toast. Raise your glasses, kids.’

They hold their glasses so high that Samuel nearly spills his orange juice on his head.

‘To Zoe,’ says Ryan. ‘Our life-saver.’

Chapter 51

At eleven o’clock the kids are fast asleep and I’ve retired to my bedroom. I’m just settling beneath the covers when I hear footsteps thudding down the stairs. When I hear it again I sit up in bed and frown. Only this time, Ryan – I presume it is Ryan – is running
up
the stairs.

He’s doing it so loudly I’m convinced he’s going to wake Ruby and Samuel. I jump out of bed to find out what’s going on. Except when I open the door the sight that confronts me is
not
what I was expecting.

Ryan is at the top of the stairs, his back to me, heading for his bedroom. Other than a towel so small it wouldn’t cover the modesty of Elmer Fudd, let alone that of a six-foot-two-inch man, he’s buck naked.

That he’s also dripping leads me to surmise that he must have been running downstairs for a clean towel. As he tramps across the landing, I find myself rooted to the spot.

Then he drops the towel.

I gasp.

It’s a silent, panicky, squeaky gasp, partly driven by the terrifying prospect that he might turn round and find me gawping at his backside, and partly because I
am
gawping at his backside.

‘Shit,’ he mutters, picking up the towel. He throws it over his shoulder and continues towards his room.

I clap my hand over my mouth as my eyes guiltily devour the contours of his naked wet body. I am horrified by myself but I can’t stop. I take in the beads of water clinging to his broad, tanned shoulders and –
oh, God, I can hardly breathe –
his bum.

Ryan’s bum is world class.

I mean, some bums are good, but this isn’t just good. Michelangelo at the height of his creative powers couldn’t have created a better one.

Suddenly, accidentally, I breathe out. It sounds like a short burst of gas from a helium balloon. Ryan stops. I bite my hand, squirming, praying he hasn’t heard me.