‘Where’s Dad?’ Rosie asks, stroking back Guinness’s ears.
‘Having a shower,’ I reply. ‘He’s been gardening all day.’
‘Can’t wait to tell him!’ Her eyes are shining, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
‘Tell him what?’ Ollie mutters, zooming in for a closer look at the microscope.
‘I was scouted today.’
‘What?’ Ollie turns to face her. ‘By a model agency, you mean?’ Christ, even he is familiar with the term.
‘Yeah,’ Rosie says with a grin.
‘Like, they reckon you could be on the cover of magazines and stuff?’
‘Yes, Ollie.’
‘You, with your funny little sticky-up nose?’ He jumps up from his seat and mimics a supermodel strut across the kitchen. With a gasp of irritation, and with Guinness still clutched to her chest, Rosie stomps up to her room.
‘What’s up with her?’ Ollie asks.
‘Oh, she’s just excited and thinks you’re not taking it seriously.’
He pushes back choppy dark hair from his grey-blue eyes. ‘But Rosie’s not interested in modelling. It’s a crap job, Mum. They’re a load of bitchy anorexics—’
‘You can’t say that,’ I retort, still amazed that he has any awareness of the business at all. ‘You don’t know anything about it. Neither do I …’
‘Who’s a bitchy anorexic?’ Will strolls into the kitchen, all fresh and smelling delicious from his shower.
‘No one,’ I say quickly.
‘Dad, look at this,’ Ollie pipes up, beckoning him over to the laptop. Will peers at the microscope.
‘Yeah, that looks great. That’s pretty serious kit.’
‘… It’s got incident and transmitted illumination,’ Ollie explains, ‘and look how powerful that eyepiece is …’
I watch them, flipping from one image to the next, whilst attempting to communicate silently to Ollie that he mustn’t blurt out anything about Rosie being scouted today. That modelling thing, I urge him, please do not speak of it until I can be sure that Dad’s in the right sort of mood. In fact, I’m pretty certain he’ll view modelling as completely wrong and ridiculous for his beloved Rosie. Whenever I explain to anyone that Will isn’t her biological dad – she was eighteen months old when we met – I quickly point out that he is her dad in every other possible way. He’s been a brilliant father to her. Some women go for charm or money or incredible prowess in bed. I realised I’d fallen madly in love with Will Bristow when he appeared at my flat with the wooden toy garage he’d built for Rosie, complete with an actual working lift, for her collection of toy cars.
‘I know she’s not old enough for it really,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I had some wood kicking about and got a bit carried away …’ Sure, my heart had already been flipped by his wide, bright smile, his deep blue eyes and lean, delicious body. But it was that lift, that you wound up and down with a tiny handle, which made me realise that this kind, rather shy man, who cared about plants and the dwindling red squirrel population, could quite possibly be the love of my life.
Will glances up from the laptop. ‘What were you saying about bitchy anorexics?’
‘Oh, nothing, hon. We’ll talk about it later.’ I throw Ollie a don’t-say-anything look, then delve into a carrier bag and thrust him a present – the mini silver Maglite torch he’s been after.
‘Aw, great! Thanks, Mum!’
I smile, watching him admire its powerful beam. He is less enthusiastic about his other gift, and merely flings it over a chair. ‘Ollie,’ I prompt him, ‘could you admire your new sweatshirt, please? It’s for school. You said you needed one and I actually went into Hollister for that, because Maria said they do the nicest ones for boys and you complained that the last ones were thin and cheap-looking.’ I blink at him, awaiting gratitude. ‘I could have just gone to BHS,’ I add.
‘Uh-huh,’ he mutters.
‘D’you realise it’s completely dark in Hollister?’ I continue. ‘It’s like venturing down towards the earth’s core. They should issue miners’ helmets with lamps on for us ordinary people who don’t have special night vision …’
Ollie smirks. ‘It’s meant to be dark, Mum.’
‘Yes, I realise that. If I’d bought your torch before I went in, then I wouldn’t have been stumbling about, treading on people’s feet. Also, I can’t believe the looks policy they have in there. I mean, all the staff look like models …’ Damn, the M-word pops out before I can stop it.
Ollie turns to Will. ‘Guess what, Dad …’
Please, do not speak of it …
‘What?’ Will asks.
‘Rosie’s gonna be a model!’
Oh, bloody hell …
Will frowns at me. ‘Huh? What’s going on?’
I grab his hand and smile broadly. ‘Nothing, darling. Nothing’s going on. Well, not much. Come and show me what you’ve been doing in the garden and I’ll tell you all about it.’
It worries me, as we step out into the warm July afternoon, this occasional tendency I have of addressing Will as if he were about eight years old. It started after his redundancy, and I’m only trying to be supportive and kind. However, I fear it can come out sounding as if I might try to check his hair for a nit infestation, or arrange his pizza toppings to make a face.
Will seems more relaxed as we sit side by side on our worn wooden bench in the late afternoon sunshine. We bought this place – a redbrick terrace in dire need of an upgrade – when Ollie was a toddler, figuring that two children with limitless energy really needed a lawn to run about on. What we’d failed to realise was that if you own a garden, you actually have to garden it. But we’d had our hands full with the children and our jobs, and the previous owners’ immaculate borders soon ran amok, much to the consternation of Gerald and Tricia next door.
‘It’s fine,’ I’d say, whenever one of them peered over the fence and asked what our ‘plans’ for it were. ‘You don’t want precious plants with kids running about. We far prefer it like this.’ I talked as if it were an actual lifestyle choice, and not sheer neglect, that had made our garden that way. It grew even more jungly – with Tricia making the occasional barbed comment that we might ‘get someone in to, you know, give you a hand’ – until Will found himself with acres of time to tackle it. And when he’s not gardening, he’s out on his bike, foraging for wild food in the leafy pockets of East London; we’ve had elderflower, sorrel and armfuls of watercress. He’s turned into quite the hunter-gatherer, and it suits him. He looks like the kind of man who, should you find yourself trapped on a mountain in a freak storm, would be capable of knocking up a sturdy shelter from a couple of sticks and a bread wrapper and cook a hearty meal out of some lichen.
‘So,’ Will says now, shielding his eyes from the sun, ‘what’s this about modelling?’
‘Oh, a woman