How We Met

ONE

6 March 2008

Williamson’s Park, Lancaster

Mia put the brake on the buggy, walked around the front and checked on Billy. Thank God for that, finally he was asleep. His fat little cheeks red with cold, a puddle of drool collected in his chin.

With any luck, she might have time for a cheeky half outside the Sun on the way back home. It was her best friend’s birthday after all and, ‘be rude not to, Woodhouse, be rude not to …’ She knew what her best friend would have to say about that.

‘Hi, Liv.’

Mia took off her rucksack, sat down on the bench and took in the view for a second, once again congratulating herself on finding this corker of a spot, Ashton Memorial white and gleaming in the sun, like a provincial version of the Taj Mahal. The whole of the city laid out below; the River Lune a snaking, silver ribbon through the middle of it all and, in the distance, the Lakeland hills. She often thought they looked like big hairy mammoths from some ancient land.

She took the pint glass and bottle of water out of the rucksack and the tulips from the Morrisons bag. She set the glass down on the floor, poured in the water and tried to arrange the yellow flowers. She tutted at herself for not thinking to bring scissors, since the stalks were too long and so they didn’t sit in the glass at all, but splayed all over the place, most of them toppling out onto the grass.

She leant back on the bench and looked at them.

‘Well that looks shit, doesn’t it?’ Then she laughed, mainly at the predictability of it all. Where was Olivia Jenkins when you needed flowers arranging?

Mia moved right to the other end of the bench so she was nowhere near the buggy and took the packet of Golden Virginia and the Rizlas out of her jacket pocket. She pulled her hoodie over her knees – bloody hell it was freezing, why hadn’t she worn a coat?

She was often doing this of late, already being out somewhere before realizing she was wearing completely inappropriate clothes for the weather. Last week, she’d looked down in the Post Office to see she was wearing odd shoes.

She rolled a cigarette, glanced at the back of the buggy, felt a slight tug of guilt but pressed on. ‘Must press on!’ as Olivia would say. Frankly, what with Billy’s fascist policy regarding sleep lately (i.e. allowing her to have none, ever), it was either the odd fag to keep her sane, or adoption. Put like that, she felt much better and lit it.

‘So it’s your birthday today, Olivia Jenkins. Happy bloody Birthday.’

She blew the smoke up into the clear March sky, which seemed to hum, it was so cold.

‘Now, I know what you’re going to say. You should be ashamed of yourself, Mia Woodhouse, smoking now you’re supposed to be a responsible mother. But honestly, Liv, after the week I’ve had with David Blaine over there – the baby that resists sleep for so long, he should do a show so people could come and watch – you’d let me off. And actually I can now inform you with confidence …’ she inhaled enthusiastically … ‘this is what you would, at one time, have called a twenty-quid fag.’

She laughed, then began to cry when with no warning whatsoever – this was also happening more often of late – she had a sudden memory: Liv, lying on Fraser on the beach in Ibiza, topped by that ridiculous visor she’d insisted on wearing for the whole fortnight, so she looked like an OAP from Florida, coming out with just that: ‘Twenty-quid fag, this.’ A fag so good she’d pay twenty quid for it.

Everyone had laughed and laughed.

‘D’you remember how you always used to say that, Liv?

‘Anyway, I’ve got news on that front.’ She pulled herself together. It could easily go one of two ways up here, especially when she was suffering from acute sleep deprivation and she wanted to keep it light and entertaining. It was Liv’s birthday, after all. ‘Fraser’s given up! Would you believe it? I’d be happy for him if he wasn’t so smug. Honestly, it’s killing me. The other day, he called me at seven a.m. – just as Billy had gone back off to sleep; I could have murdered him had he not been two hundred and fifty miles away – to say, “Guess where I am? Go on, guess, guess!”

‘I was like, “Dunno, a police station? The zoo? Buckingham Palace?” And he was like, “No. Hampstead Heath.”

‘And so I said, “Oh, well done. So clearly you haven’t been to bed yet after some brilliant night out and are just ringing to nauseate me. That’s not very nice.” But he said, “No. I’m at Hampstead Heath Running Track.” Then he said it again, just in case I hadn’t heard: “RUN-NING TRACK. I’ve just been for a RUN.”

‘He didn’t sound very out of breath, which I pointed out, and then he hit me with it: “Ah, but then I wouldn’t be, would I? Because I’ve given up smoking. Three weeks, and five days!”

‘Which turned out to be the real reason he was calling me at that hour.’

‘Like I said, just unbearable. Horribly, horribly smug. It was all I could do not to be sick in a bag.’

‘So that’s Fraser.’

She looked around just to check she was alone. She had to admit, she did feel moronic on occasions, sitting here, talking to herself. But it was the only real place she had to come – a place that was Liv’s (unless she wanted to traipse all the way to the cemetery in Peterborough every month. She knew what Liv would have to say about that too.) She also knew, if this were the other way round, Olivia would have rallied the troops, weeks in advance, marched them all up that killer hill to Williamson’s Park, bringing cake, candles – probably a personal choir, knowing her. She could picture them all now: Liv at the front carrying everything, Melody struggling behind in heels and a slightly too-tight skirt-suit, complaining that the cake was too chavvy, why didn’t we get one from Marks’s? Norm at the back, breaking into a light jog, Anna … Well, Anna probably wouldn’t be there yet, having only left some random bloke’s bed in Tooting about an hour ago, and finally Fraser – lovely Fraser Morgan … what would he be doing? Probably pegging it to the nearest offy, having decided right at the last minute that this occasion called for booze.

Mia thought of Fraser now, alone in his flat in Kentish Town – the one he used to share with Liv – and felt a rush of love. Poor Frase – she must give him a call as soon as she was finished up here, because today would be extra tough for him. She imagined him waking up, the date hitting him and then the aching absence of Liv in the flat and the memories, flooding back, more acute and painful than ever. It was at times like this that she wished Fraser would move back to Lancaster, just so she could keep an eye on him.

‘So what else is new …?’ Mia pulled her sleeves down over her hands and blew on them to keep them warm. ‘Oh, yes … Billy. My son. Almost forgot! He’s almost eight months old now, I can’t believe it, Liv. Where the hell has the time gone since July? I look back and I can’t remember anything. Must have blanked it out. Anyway, the good news is, he hasn’t got my bacon ears or prominent chin – yet … although it’s hard to tell since currently his entire jaw line is covered in fat. The bad news is, he’s got Eduardo’s everything else. Literally, he is his double, which as you can imagine, I am seething about: same beautiful green eyes, same Brazilian monobrow, same permanent look of wounded entitlement. I just hope to God he doesn’t inherit total disrespect for women, too.

‘Oh, Olivia, why didn’t I listen to you when you said never trust a man who wears sunglasses inside?

‘So, Eduardo has turned out to be a useless cock – no surprises there – although I suppose, in some part of my tiny pea-brain I did, at one point, think he might change. Sadly not. Since I’ve had Billy, he’s seen him eight times. Eight times in nearly eight months! Pathetic or what …?’

Mia could feel the familiar rage bubbling up inside her, the sort that made her want to punch a wall – no, actually, just Eduardo’s stupid, face; the maddening sense of injustice she always got when she thought about Eduardo. What really got her goat was that Eduardo was meant to be a summer fling, not the (useless-at-that) father of her child. She’d been seeing him for getting on a year by the time she fell pregnant, but Mia had always just thought he was ‘good enough for now’, that they’d eventually fizzle out. If she were really honest, she was kind of banking on that.

They rowed constantly for a start, but although she was ashamed to admit it now, part of her had thought that was cool and romantic. If she couldn’t have a tumultuous, impulsive relationship with a hot-headed Latino in her twenties, when could she? She imagined them in one of those black-and-white foreign films she dreamed of writing one day, where nothing much happened except for two, very beautiful people shouting at each other in a spartan room in Provence or Andalucia or, well … somewhere very hot, anyway. It didn’t quite translate into a flat in Acton that smelled permanently of ragù, but then she’d got pregnant. If it had been up to her she would have had a termination, but Eduardo’s Catholic upbringing had suddenly made an appearance. It made her feel guilty: It’s a life, Mia, as soon as those cells start to divide. She’d fallen for it at the time, she thought he actually wanted this baby, that it might even bond them. Now she realised he was calling her bluff. Well that backfired pretty spectacularly.

‘Anyway …’ She told herself to rein it in. She’d promised herself this birthday visit to Liv’s bench today was not just going to turn into a rant-athon about Eduardo but, look at her, she was at it already.

‘… The thing is, whatever I think of him, he’s still Billy’s dad, isn’t he? And I want Billy to have a relationship with his dad. It’s just I’m not that sure his dad wants to have a relationship with him, which is the most heart-breaking thing of all, do you know what I mean?

‘But hey, let’s see, he’s promised me he’ll be here at five p.m. today to take Billy off for the night because everyone’s arriving for YOUR do.

‘Which brings me onto everyone. I guess you’ll be wanting an update:

‘One. Anna. You’ll be glad to know everything is exactly as it was in Twelve Station Road days, Livs, except she’s gone north of the river now and inflicts it on some other poor, unassuming flatmates in Islington. She still has dubious hygiene, walks round with toothpaste on her spots, picks plaque from her teeth when she thinks you’re not looking and eats gherkins straight from the jar. And yet still scrubs up to look like Florence Welch – how is that?

‘She still reads The Economist in bed, too – like we were ever impressed – and I still maintain she hasn’t got the faintest clue what it’s on about, but we love Anna Spanner, she’s good value. Oh, and she’s still single, obvs.

‘Who else? Melody and Norm … Well, it’s all change in that camp, Melody having almost completed her total transformation from Indie mosher to hotshot lawyer (as you will know, Norm was far more impressed with the Indie mosher version). They’re doing really well for themselves: Norm’s ‘Entertainment Correspondent’ for the Visitor these days. I know! Get him. It pays peanuts, of course, and occasionally he has to go and cover groundbreaking front page stories about people turning a hundred, but the rest of the time he gets to go to free gigs, so he’s not complaining. They’ve got a swanky, three-storey townhouse up on that posh estate by the university. Clearly, it’s only a matter of time before all those rooms are filled up with mini-Normantons. Fraser reckons they’ll have twins: a boy who looks like Melody and a girl who looks like Norm.

‘It’s bizarre though, Liv, it’s like Melody came back from travelling and Ibiza, started her law course and said, “Right, I want to be a grown-up now.” The fags went, the drugs went – although you’ll be pleased to know she still drinks inordinate amounts of cider. Nowadays, if you go round to theirs, it’s like a beauty spa waiting room.

‘She’s got that room-fragrance, joss-stick thing going on – you can smell lily of the valley from half a mile away and everything’s beige, sorry stone. And I do not just mean the house. Gone are the Arctic Monkeys and Green Day and the Foo Fighters, now it’s Norah Jones all the way. Even I – musical Philistine – know you would not be impressed.

‘Oh, and she does these “Pampered Chef” parties now, sort of Tupperware parties but with kitchen implements where you’re forced to pay fifty quid for a garlic press. Norm’s still the same, thank God – he’s usually in some mild stage of intoxication to block it all out – but the “change” has already begun on him too. She’s started buying him clothes from places like Aquascutum and Gap (she calls it THE Gap) and so you’ve got Norm, 90s but cool with his lamb-chop sideburns in a chino and a moleskin jacket. Wrong, in so many ways.

‘Other than that, motherhood’s treating me well, even if it’s like living with a fascist dictator, and sometimes I actually catch a whiff of my own BO because it’s very hard to have a shower of a morning with a baby hanging off you, I can tell you. But he does make me laugh, Liv. And he is really cute, even if he looks like his dad. If I was to describe motherhood to you, I’d say imagine what it’s like to want to throw someone out of the window one second, and eat them up with love the next. And as Mrs Durham said to me the other day (Mrs Durham is an old dear I look after on a Tuesday. She’s pretty revolting. I found a pellet of cat poo in her knicker drawer the other day …) “You’re never—”’

Then Mia stopped. She stopped because what Mrs Durham had said hit her. ‘You’re never really a grown-up until you’ve had a child yourself.’

But then, of course, some people didn’t get the chance to grow up at all.

Billy was still asleep when Mia left the bench. It was 1 p.m. – he’d been asleep half an hour; if she played her cards right, she probably had another half-hour yet. She held tight onto the buggy as she walked down the steep hill from Williamson’s Park, the wind blowing so hard from behind, it made her break into a run. It was one of her greatest fears: accidentally letting go of the buggy and watching helplessly as Billy careered into the traffic. It made her breathless with panic just thinking about it.

She walked down through town. It was the start of the Easter holidays and all the students had gone home. Mia liked Lancaster best like this – vacated of eighteen-year-olds with far too much confidence for their own good. Then she could pretend this was her town again; their town, when the six of them had been brimming with confidence and it felt like they owned it all too.

Same day

Kentish Town, London

‘Sssh, don’t move.’

Still half asleep, Fraser Morgan had the vague notion that he was being held up at gun point in his own bed. Something was pressing firmly into his back. And he had an erection, which was a bit odd. He could even get an erection when his life was in danger?

‘That nice hun? Mm?’

It was only when the voice spoke again, whispered into Fraser’s ear, a warm flood of breathiness that Jesus Christ that stank of booze, that he woke up, with a start, the awful truth hitting him in the face. Or was that the back?

KAREN. Fraser’s eyes shot open.

Karen from the Bull was in his bed. She was naked, pressing her pelvis into him and playing with his cock, which went without saying was really quite pleasant.

Fraser lay there, motionless, blinking into the half-light, staring at the radio alarm clock on his bedside table: 10.53 a.m., 6 March 2008.

Sixth of March.

He closed his eyes again.

How? How could he have let this happen? Exactly at what point of last night did he ever think this was a good idea?

‘I said, is that nice …?’ She was purring, kissing the nape of his neck now. Breathing pure alcohol fumes into his skin. Fraser tried to speak but it came out a couple of octaves higher than intended, so that he sounded like a pre-pubescent boy on the brink of his voice breaking. He cleared his throat and tried again.

‘Yeah, that’s um, yeah, very nice.’

Fuck it. Fuck IT! Panic consumed him. How the hell was he going to get out of this? How had he even got into this?

‘Good, good, very glad to hear it. Well don’t go away, handsome, I’m just popping to the loo but I’ll be right back to carry on the good work.’