Private Lives

Chapter 7

It’s raining again, so everyone’s hurrying, not wanting to stop and chat, when Abi goes to pick up Margot from school. It’s sad – the community she once yearned for while living in London is now something she’s actively hiding from.

After the incident at Rosie’s house, and Anna’s stiff voice-note telling her that she no longer needs Abi to take Albie home after school, she wonders if she’s someone who could ever feel like they belong in a community like Waverly. Anna who had only the other day been overly matey and keen to be friends, now sounded like she was firing a nanny. Abi replied simply with a thumbs-up.

Why should she care about Anna’s opinion of her, anyway? It was odd, Anna asking for help when their kids aren’t even in the same year. It felt more like a ploy to get inside Abi’s house, a chance to get the scoop on the newcomer. She finds Anna uneasy, nosy in a way that feels untrustworthy.

But still, Abi spent the whole of yesterday afternoon cleaning the maisonette ahead of the visit, scrubbing the mouldy grout around the kitchen units with an old toothbrush. She even hammered a few framed prints on to the walls, including her favourite, a poster advertising a Picasso exhibition from the 1960s. While the flat will never be beautiful, it is at least clean and warm. It’s as good as she can manage. Better, she reminds herself, than anything she ever had growing up.

Margot takes the news about Albie with surprising stoicism, when Abi tells her by the school gates. She’d been so excited about having someone over, something she’d never been able to do when they lived in London. But Margot simply thinks for a few seconds, before shrugging her little shoulders and asking practically, ‘Can you do my shop with me, then?’

At home, she peels off her raincoat and school shoes in the tiny hall and thunders up the thin stairs to the cardboard shopfront she painted this morning, while Abi makes a start on the fish pie she’s planned for dinner. ‘Shop’s open, Mum!’

Abi spends the next hour carefully being instructed on exactly what to say when buying imaginary vegetables and being told off by Margot when she gets it wrong. When Abi was younger, being ‘nice’ was the most important thing and it meant being quiet and doing whatever someone else wanted. Abi learnt to play on her own, so she could make her own rules. She didn’t know then, of course, that these were skills she’d depend on as an adult.

It is this kind of moment, rain beating against the window, laughing with her kid while the delicious smells of dinner fill the flat, that Abi had dreamt about ever since Lily was born. Abi would take Lily out in the pram, given to her by a new mothers’ charity, and would ride the number 19 bus for hours. It was cheap and the rhythmic motion soothed Lily, allowing nineteen-year-old Abi to sit and flick through food magazines she’d shoplifted from Smith’s. She loved the shining photos of Christmas roasts and delicate canapés, art she could taste through the page. When she didn’t have a magazine, she’d stare out of the window, her gaze always finding the other mums who seemed like a different species, their designer prams laden with Waitrose bags, feeding their kids in expensive cafes and not caring if their toddler’s £10 macaroni cheese ended up on the floor. Those mums in their space-themed yoga leggings, sipping their green juices, made Abi hold Lily to her chest and whisper apologies into her tiny, curled ear. Because, somehow, this perfect child had been made by Abi. Abi who slept on a mattress on the floor in their bedsit, Abi whose own mum cuddled bottles of cheap Polish vodka and didn’t notice if Abi went to school or not. Abi who had tried to hide her pregnancy from the restaurant where she washed the huge greasy pans until she’d practically given birth on the floor. She apologized to her daughter for all those nights out when she hadn’t known she was pregnant, apologized to Lily for all that she was and all that she wasn’t, and then she’d stare at those other mums and her apologies would morph into promises. Promises about decorated Christmas trees, bouncy castles on her birthday and delicious, hot food made by Abi, in a real oven not a microwave. Abi promised Lily all these things, as despite her own lonely childhood she was still a dreamer and had started to feel the tug of possibility, the whisper of a better future for herself. She just needed to figure out how they were going to go from riding the number 19 for an entire day to taking a table in one of those expensive cafes.

While Margot is happily serving imaginary customers, the front door flies open.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Lily calls, the door clicking shut behind her.

Abi stops stirring the white sauce and watches her beautiful Lily, a flash of long red hair and silver jewellery. She waits until Lily’s ready before she opens her arms and holds her. She smells earthy and a little chemical from the art studio and Abi whispers in her ear the words that she never heard as a teenager, ‘Sweetheart, I’m so happy you’re home.’

Lily sits on the cheap plastic countertop, kicking her legs against the cupboards, and begins telling her mum about the other kids in art club, while Abi finishes up the fish pie.

‘You know that boy, Sam, I was telling you about?’

‘The quiet kid?’

‘Yeah, that one. Well, it turns out he’s the one who does those incredible architectural drawings.’

‘Nice!’ Abi says, passing Lily a pot of hummus.

‘And that football guy came by the art room today,’ Lily says, a little quieter, her eyes fixed on the hummus, smiling.

‘Oh yeah?’

Lily has mentioned him a couple of times already, said that the popular footballer had noticed her artwork up around the school, asked if she’d show him more.

‘What’s he like?’ Abi knows to keep grating cheese, to not look up; it’s such a fine line, showing interest but not making Lily feel pressured.

Lily pauses, thinks before she replies, ‘He’s sweet. I think lots of people think he’s just a football cliché, but, I dunno, I think Blake’s actually really cool, sensitive, you know?’

Oh fuck. Abi balks as she realizes who Lily’s first crush really is – Blake. Blake, Anna and Eddy’s son. Not only that, but Seb’s godson.

‘Ow!’ Abi shouts as heat slices through her thumb, the length of it white and clean where skin should be. Lily leans over, stares too as the blood starts to seep.

‘Owww,’ Abi wails as Lily jumps to the floor, turning the kitchen tap on and ushering her over. Abi grimaces as the cold water rushes over the cut.

‘Owwwww,’ she wails again and Lily fusses around, finding the wound spray and plasters. When Abi’s pulsing thumb is wrapped, Lily makes her a cup of tea before scattering the cheese over the top of the pie and sticking it in the pre-warmed oven.

An hour later the three of them are eating around the tiny Formica table that came with the flat. They’re taking it in turns to answer ‘Would you rather …?’ They are deep in a discussion about Margot’s question, ‘Would you rather have a tail like a monkey or kangaroo legs?’ when, on the side, Abi’s phone lights up with a call from Diego.

‘Hey, Diego,’ Abi says into her phone as the girls chorus behind her, ‘Hi, Uncle D!’

‘Hello, beautiful girls!’ His rich Mexican accent booms through the receiver. Abi tells the girls that she’ll just be a moment and moves to take the call in their boxy sitting room.

‘Have you arrived?’

‘Got to the restaurant about twenty minutes ago.’ Typical Diego, going straight to work on the day he’s moving. ‘Listen, sweetie, are you busy?’

‘You want me to come in, don’t you?’

There’s a pause before Diego says, ‘Nooooo,’ in a way that they both know means, ‘Yessss.’

‘All right. Let me finish up here, sort the girls out and I’ll be over in an hour.’

‘You’re the best.’

‘You’re the worst.’

‘Tell the girls I love them and that their Uncle D will be over soon, OK?’

‘There you are,’ Diego says, shoving a pencil behind his thick black hair before kissing Abi efficiently on both cheeks, looking her over like one of his beautifully made plates before service. He’s in work mode, not friend mode now.

‘You’re tired.’ He’s not asking, he’s telling her.

‘Hi, abuela.’ Abi hangs up her coat. It feels good already: having him here, calling him ‘granny’, the nickname they use for each other now their partying days are behind them and they both like to be in bed by ten p.m. on a day off. ‘How was the drive?’ But Diego isn’t listening; he’s walking to the kitchen and Abi knows he wants her to follow.

The issue is the flow of the kitchen, he explains. The largest pots and frying pans are stored too far away and the kitchen appliances aren’t organized properly. Removing his pencil from behind his ear, he leads her back into the dining area as he talks through the new plan he’s already sketched out. His way would mean having to bring the carpenter back in to make some cupboards larger and others smaller, but Diego just shrugs when she tells him this – so be it. Abi is going to have to get used to playing middlewoman between Diego and Lotte and Richard.

‘So that’s it,’ Diego says when he’s finished. ‘Can you let Madam know?’ Diego loves giving people nicknames; not even his employers are immune.

He pauses, distracted by a huge abstract oil painting that Richard insisted on hanging on the largest wall next to the toilets. ‘Apart from this absolute monstrosity.’

‘Don’t!’ She laughs. ‘They almost came to blows over it. At least it’s better than the photograph of a load of men in tuxedos surrounding a naked woman that was his first choice. That one was unbearably creepy.’

‘Jesus.’ Diego shakes his head, still staring at the weird bull.

‘We’re really doing this, aren’t we?’ he says, putting his arm around her shoulders, and Abi breathes out in a great sigh. She closes her eyes briefly and when she opens them, Diego is staring at her, his lovely brown eyes soft, thick dark eyebrows knotted.

‘We really are,’ she replies, giving his warm hand a squeeze as they both look around the empty, perfect restaurant. Their shared vision finally coming to life after so many years of planning, saving and sacrifice. Lotte and Richard had never been part of the dream, but when they approached Diego, and the negotiations began, Diego had been clear there was no way he was accepting without Abi.

They stand in the restaurant’s soft light in silence for a little longer, taking it all in, before Diego squeezes Abi’s hand and announces, ‘This is the right moment.’ He disappears briefly before returning, already opening the bottle of Moët he’s carrying. ‘It’s from Stephen,’ he says.

‘Oh, you should save it, really, have it with him later …’ Abi starts but it’s too late. The bottle opens with a loud pop.

They sit up on the bar top, their feet dangling like kids’, turned towards the restaurant as she pours the champagne into tumblers. Proper flutes are one of the things Abi has on her list to chase tomorrow.

They raise their glasses to each other and Diego says, ‘To dreams coming true.’

They talk shop for a while – discuss Diego’s concerns about the butcher Richard’s insisting on using and the need for another hire – before Diego turns to Abi. ‘How are you settling into this peculiar little town?’

Diego’s switched to friend mode and Abi takes too long figuring out how to answer. ‘Yeah. Fine.’

Diego raises his perfectly groomed big eyebrows. ‘Don’t lie to me, Abigail.’

‘It’s fine. I’m here for this,’ she says, gesturing to the restaurant, ‘and for the girls.’

‘Missing London?’

‘Missing being invisible, yeah.’

Diego winces. ‘Urgh. Are all the people here as boring as I said they’d be?’

Abi laughs, widens her eyes in a way that shows Diego he’s got it exactly right, and he groans. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ he says, putting a reassuring arm around her. ‘We’ve got each other. We’re not here to make friends.’

For a moment, she thinks about telling him the truth about Rosie, about Seb, and how this whole new life suddenly feels vulnerable.

But even though it could be her only chance, and even though she’s suddenly desperate to ask him what the fuck she should do, she knows Diego hates messes he can’t easily wipe away. Besides, the more she dwells on the whole thing, the bigger an issue it will become. She’ll stick to her plan: she’ll focus on work and the girls and stay out of Seb and Rosie’s way. In time, all this will be so buried it’ll feel as though none of it ever happened at all. The woman she used to be will fade and maybe one day Abi will struggle to remember what she was like, what her name even was. She kicks her legs, sips her champagne, forces herself to forget yesterday, and does what she’s always done best: she dreams about tomorrow.