‘Cougar.’
We burst into laughter, my mood lifting.
‘I think I’ll be alone forever,’ she said, fiddling with her earring as she drained her glass.
‘You and me both.’
‘But you will always have Grace.’ She unscrewed the lid of the third bottle, and filled our glasses.
‘Yes, Grace keeps me going,’ I said, rubbing my forehead with the tips of my fingers. ‘Although I worry about her, you know, how my breakup with Lawrence is affecting her. Nursery said she’s been a bit quiet lately, but they have no concerns.’
‘She loves you both very much, and you love her. She’ll be just fine.’
‘I hope so,’ I said, my mind drifting.
And as though sensing she was losing me, Angela put down the bottle, looped her arm around me, and pulled my head in to her shoulder. She smelt of Chanel No.5 – Mum’s favourite. ‘Is there anything else bothering you, Rachel?’ she said.
‘Just Mum.’ But in truth it was more than that. It was Lawrence. It was the fact I was letting the friend request from David Green blow out of proportion. And I’d definitely had far too much wine.
‘I’ll deactivate my Facebook account,’ I said. ‘Then the friend request can’t bother me any more. And the truth is I look at Lawrence’s timeline far too often. That can’t be healthy, especially as he seems to be having more fun than me – which isn’t that difficult.’
‘Do you miss him?’
I shrugged. Do I miss him? ‘I miss bits of him,’ I said. ‘The good bits.’ And there had been good bits. We had a beautiful daughter together. He would surprise me with flowers and a bottle of Prosecco, and lead me upstairs where we’d stay for hours. Yes, there’d been good times. Lots of them.
But there had been bad times too, and his voice suddenly hammered in my head: ‘You always over-react, Rachel.’ ‘The place is a pigsty.’ ‘You’re a mess.’ ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old for bright red hair?’ ‘Your mum isn’t going to improve, and you have to accept it, and just get on with it.’ ‘I’ll be late tonight.’ ‘I’ll be late tonight.’ ‘I’ll be late tonight.’
I grabbed my open laptop, thumped it down on my knees, and clicked into Facebook, determined to close my account. ‘Oh God, I’ve got another friend request,’ I cried, peering at the little symbol at the top of the screen.
‘Don’t look at it,’ Angela insisted, trying to pull the laptop from me.
I tugged it back. ‘No, no, I’m not going to.’ But I was already clicking on the symbol with shaking fingers.
Relief surged through my body, and I let out a small laugh.
‘Who’s it from?’ she said, looking over my shoulder at the screen.
‘You, you doughnut.’
She’d said a few weeks back that she was going to sign up, to stalk the men on the dating site, she’d joked. I gave another laugh as my heart, which I hadn’t realised was racing, slowed to an even beat.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot about that.’ She laughed too. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll use it that much. It took me all afternoon to work out how to set up a bloody profile.’
I accepted her friend request.
‘But I thought you were going to deactivate.’ Her forehead furrowed.
I shrugged, confused. ‘To be honest I feel a teeny bit pissed – not the best time to make such a life-changing decision.’ I giggled, picked up my glass, and drained it in two gulps, even though a nagging voice in my head was telling me not to.
Angela yawned and, stretching her arms above her head, glanced at the time on her phone.
‘Oh my God,’ I said, looking at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s gone midnight. I’ve kept you up.’
‘No problem,’ she said, rising. ‘It’s been fun. Better than a blind date any day.’
Five minutes later we hugged goodbye and, from my front door, I watched her stagger towards her house. Once she was safely inside, I closed and bolted my door, hating that I was alone – and hating even more that I hated being alone. I flumped down on the sofa, and picked up my phone, moving my index finger over the screen. Would Lawrence be up? Would he mind if I called? He’d said we could be friends.
I squeezed my hand into a fist. It was a ridiculous idea. If I called him after midnight he would be put out. He’d always told me he needed his beauty sleep if I ever woke him in the night desperate to talk about Mum.
I reached for the half-drunk bottle of red, unscrewed the lid, and refilled my glass. As I drank, I couldn’t expel Lawrence from my head. How happy we’d been in the early days. We’d met at an art exhibition I’d put on for Mum, in a small gallery in London. He’d bought a study of Lough Gill in Ireland.
‘It’s the lake mentioned by Yeats in his poetry,’ he’d said, locking me in with his grey gaze.
‘You like Yeats?’ I’d asked.
He’d nodded, and there was something about him that had captured my interest. Maybe it was simply because my mother had read Yeats and other romantic poetry to me when I was young.
I finished the wine and, my good sense heading out the door, brought up his number on my phone. I pressed call. It rang and rang, and I was expecting it go to voicemail when it was picked up. ‘Lawrence Templeman’s phone.’
It was a woman. American. Why has a woman picked up his phone after midnight?
‘Hello,’ she continued when I remained silent. ‘Is that you, Rachel?’
Damn you, caller-ID. ‘Sorry, yes, who is this?’
‘It’s Farrah.’ It was as though I should know exactly who she was. ‘Lawrence is asleep, I’m afraid. I heard his phone and, well …’ She paused. ‘Is everything OK? Is your mother OK?’
I bristled. Why had Lawrence told this woman, whoever she was, about my mum?
‘Is Grace OK?’ The sudden thought of a strange woman in the same house as my daughter angered me.
‘Yes, she’s been asleep since seven, bless her heart. She’s an absolute delight. You must be so proud.’
I wanted to yell that I was coming to get my daughter, and how dare Lawrence let her into Grace’s life without my permission? But I said nothing.
Farrah clearly picked up on my silence. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Listen, I shouldn’t have called.’ My voice trembled, and I knew it carried a slur. ‘I’ll ring back in the morning.’ And before she could respond, I ended the call.
A surge of tears hit my eyes as my thumbs thumped the screen and I sent a text to Lawrence:
How dare you let someone new into Grace’s life without telling me!
Oh God, would Farrah read the text? I let out an exasperated wail, raced upstairs, chucked my phone onto the bedside unit, and threw myself onto the bed like a lovelorn teenager. The room spun.
Eventually sleep saved me from my chaotic emotions.
Later, I woke from a vivid nightmare, certain something had stirred me. I was thirsty, my head throbbed, and the quilt was tangled around me like a cocoon. I normally planted a glass of water on my bedside table if I’d been drinking, but in my silly stupor a few hours earlier, I’d forgotten. I was still in my clothes.
I lay for a few moments listening, but the only sounds were familiar creaks of