Page 4

ONE

LONDON, JULY

Suzie

‘Blow a bit harder, a bit more. It’s still a bit flaccid,’ Beth instructs me, pressing at the soft bits.

I giggle. I’m not sure I have the breath.

It really is too hot for this, but I’ve raked through all my belongings and it seems that when I left Paul, I didn’t think to bring a pump with me.

I blow at strands of hair that stick to my face, wondering what shade of raspberry my face is as I puff out my cheeks.

‘Is this hard enough for you, dear cousin?’

She gives it another grope. ‘Perfect,’ she says, as she angles the hosepipe over the paddling pool, filling it with one hand, a Cornetto in the other, sunglasses perched on top of her head. I like the way she has her skirt tucked into her knickers, ready to jump in as soon as possible.

‘Where did you say you got this again?’ I ask her.

‘My neighbour may have given birth in it. She wasn’t clear. Feels a little shallow for someone to have given birth in though.’ We peer into it further, looking for what, I don’t quite know. ‘Think of it as a housewarming gift. ’

‘A used paddling pool?’

‘Upcycled, Suzie. Let’s put a posh twist on that…’ I laugh as she splashes me with the hosepipe. ‘And you’re sure it’s OK to do this here?’ she says, looking around the communal garden space.

‘I think it’s so bloody hot, no one will care,’ I tell her.

I may be right about this. Since the early heatwave in May, the temperatures have risen to the point where no one really cares about self-respect or modesty anymore.

I saw a man doing his big shop topless the other day – hairy man boobs out and no one even blinked.

It’s why I have no problem standing here in my communal garden, the road running adjacent to it, wearing a bikini top, denim cutoffs and a Mickey Mouse baseball cap.

Maybe that’s the theme of the last few months.

Learning to care less about things. Over the road, a woman waters her thirsty plants and watches us curiously.

‘It was this or we drink in my super-hot flat in the bathtub together with the cold tap on.’

She laughs. I made a joke. Three months ago, I often wondered if I’d ever be able to joke again.

Perhaps I was destined to spend the rest of my days sad, scarred and serious.

I thought the anger would sear itself into my veins and change me forever and it was petrifying.

So, I ran. I extricated myself from Paul and all that grief, all those big emotions I felt.

For so long, I’d invested my time and energy into my relationship, into our future, so I shifted that focus on to me.

I moved on. I came back to familiar London, my hometown, and found myself a new ground-floor flat near a train station where I worry about the crime but love not having to carry my shopping up many flights of stairs.

And to keep moving, I gave myself projects, and it’s the ridiculously small things that bring me joy now.

I’ve bought window boxes and started to grow my own herbs, I’ve got new bathmats, I’ve painted my bedroom yellow which is admittedly like waking up in the middle of the sun, but was something Paul would never have allowed. Fuck Paul.

Beth dips a toe into the paddling pool and shudders with delight at the coolness of the water.

She turns the tap off the hosepipe and does a little excited dance.

I laugh at how much delight she is getting from this simple set-up of two camping chairs angled around a pastel striped paddling pool, with a cooler box nestled in the yellowing, dried-out grass.

Such are the joys of a British summer – when the sun is out, we don’t care what we look like, we’re just desperate to get as much light and vitamin D as we can on our skin.

We both sit down on our respective chairs and place our feet in the pool, sighing with relief as we do so.

‘Oh, Lord, that is perfect,’ Beth says.

I exhale deeply. This isn’t Brighton. When it was hot in Brighton, the sea air was soothing, the beach never far away, but I can’t be near that place now without my heart hurting, without thinking of a place where I’d forged what I thought was a great love.

So this is the next best thing to perfect.

Summer in the city in my small postage-stamp garden where in the bushes, I think I spy an old microwave.

I tilt my head to the sun, searching for light, hoping my heart-shaped sunglasses won’t leave silly tan lines on my face.

Beth reaches down to the cooler box, retrieving two bottles of beer, snapping the lids off both. She passes me a bottle. ‘Suze, we need to drink.’

‘For the hydration?’ I ask.

‘No. That too, but we should toast the new job! Have you celebrated that yet?’

I take the bottle from her and shake my head, smiling.

‘Then…’ she says, clinking her bottle next to mine. ‘Here’s to my brilliant cousin, Suzie. Elle est une professeur magnifique. Oui, oui. Bien s?r…’

I laugh. ‘Did you Google Translate that?’

‘No,’ she says indignantly. ‘I remembered a little of my GCSE. But seriously, I am forever proud of you. You are going to be amazing at this. And we’re going to be working together so I couldn’t be happier…’

I pull a face, unable to handle the compliment.

When I ran away from Brighton, I escaped from it all – including my job in a school where I’d been teaching French for six years.

I hated Paul for that. Because to transplant myself into a new town meant packing some boxes.

But I know that transplanting my career to a London comprehensive is going to be miles harder.

‘Tell me about the bloke I’m replacing?’

‘Keith – old, bitter, moving to Northern France to go fish and spend the last of his good years eating cheese, he tells me. You are a million times better than him.’

‘And the bloke who interviewed me…head of department?’ I ask her, taking a sup of my beer.

‘Yes…Lee? Isn’t he the loveliest?’

I nod. For me it was the kind smile, the floral shirts and the lilting Welsh accent. It certainly beat the interview I had in a North London school where the man started talking to me in French and in a blind panic, I told him I was happy to be his wife.

‘I mean, I got that job on my own merits, yes? Did you put in a good word?’ I ask her.

She scrunches up her face. ‘I may have had a chat but Lee said you were by far the best candidate they’d seen. You were creative, engaging and personable…all the good buzzwords…’ she says.

I kick a bit of water her way and she giggles.

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ she says sincerely.

‘Did he mention that I hugged him?’ I ask.

Beth laughs, knocking her head back. ‘No, you hugged him? ’

He let on that I had got the job during the interview and, because I didn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes, like an idiot I just reached over and grabbed the man to cross those professional boundaries and give off a far worse impression.

‘I was overwhelmed by his kindness – I couldn’t help myself. And then I jabbered at him about running a French club and promised I wouldn’t be one of those teachers who takes the Fridays off sick before half term.’

‘Hate those teachers…’ Beth adds, laughing.

‘And don’t be the sort who puts little lines on their milk in the staffroom fridge to see if anyone’s stealing it.

’ She puts her drink down temporarily to spray some suncream on her exposed thighs.

‘Don’t worry about the hugging. Lee will see it as a genuine show of emotion. And that’s very you.’

I smile for a moment. In low periods of wobbliness, it’s sometimes warming to hear words that raise you up and recognise who you are.

Beth is one of five sisters, my cousins, who I grew up with in London in my formative years.

And when I ran back here, they helped piece me together, like some sort of group project.

Sanity and peace came from their sisterhood, and evenings helping me stalk Paul on social media and write him strongly worded emails about how our sofa was mine even though I knew we’d had sex on it and I didn’t really want to see it ever again.

‘Fancy another Cornetto? I bought a whole box,’ I tell Beth, reaching into the cooler.

‘A whole box just for us?’ she asks.

‘When I said I was making dinner, this is it,’ I say, laughing.

I reach inside the box and throw her a strawberry one.

Top-tier ice-cream choice, if I do say so myself.

I grab one for myself, peeling back the paper and licking the ice cream and strawberry sauce from the card insert.

The sheer joy of it makes up for the fact that the soundtrack to this escapade in the sun is a Tesco delivery man who’s blocking the road next to us and angering motorists.

The sun is out though. We do not care. We’re just going to sit here taking in the drama, sunglasses on, ice creams in hand.

I’ll stick them yoghurts up your arsehole in a bit if you don’t move that sodding van .

It’s good to be back in London. It really is.

‘Oh! Before I forget…Meg told me to tell you that you’re coming to Mallorca,’ Beth informs me, leaning forward in her seat.

‘Mallorca?’ I ask, glancing over. ‘But that’s Meg’s big fortieth birthday party with all the sisters. I’m not a sister.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘You may as well be. Come with us. The villa she’s rented is massive, apparently. There’s room and the more the merrier. You haven’t got a holiday booked, have you?’

I was supposed to be going away with Paul but I cancelled that without telling him, not really wanting to go on that holiday by myself. ‘No. I was maybe going to stay here, do some tiling work in my bathroom.’

Beth does not look impressed. ‘Well, now you’re coming to Mallorca. We’ll see if we can get you on our flight.’

‘How long for?’ I ask.

‘Five days.’

‘I’ll need to…wax,’ I say, searching for reasons not to go. I’m not sure why. Maybe out of politeness. I will need to wax though.