‘Hey, sleepy heads! Drunkards!’ Frankie opened one eye. Grace opened both, with a start. ‘Do you want to stay over? I can just throw a couple of blankets over everyone.’
Grace rose. Her Kim Basinger in 9 and a Half Weeks hair was sticking up everywhere and a stray piece of toast dangled from one frizzy ringlet. She had a smear of Marmite at the corner of her mouth.
‘No, thank you,’ she slurred, ‘I should get home. Daniel’s got football in the morning.’
‘Daniel’s with James, honey. Remember?’
‘Oh, yeah. I forgot.’ She looked devastated. ‘I want to go home, though,’ she said, like a small child.
Frankie reared up like a lovelier Frankenstein’s monster. ‘Me, too. I’m going home to my lovely empty bed. Thank you, though, darling.’
They hauled themselves up, with Imogen’s help and some exaggerated heaving, and staggered out the front door. Frankie had forgotten so much stuff – phone, shoes, cardi, all littered around the living room – and Grace scooted round and picked it all up for her, before shoving it in the carrier bag the bubbly had come in. Frankie could barely hold on to it.
‘I’m not kissing either of you,’ said Imogen, on the doorstep. ‘We all stink of booze and Marmite.’
‘I love you,’ slurred Frankie, going in for a hug anyway.
‘Love you too,’ said Imogen, turning Frankie like a spindle and pushing her up the drive.
‘Love you both,’ said Grace. She was veering on tiptoes up the drive. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Ditto,’ said Imogen, ‘you drunken idiot. Now get to bed, the pair of you. Text me in the morning.’
She watched them weave up the drive. God, they’d all feel terrible tomorrow. But they’d feel better, too. As she closed the door on her two best friends, Imogen smiled to herself. She loved those girls. They were the best.
They may not have men now, but they had each other and that was a lot.
Today was the first Sunday Frankie had spent on her own for years. It had been bliss, so far, despite the hangover. God, she’d enjoyed it last night, at Imogen’s: fun, laughter, a good old drink and lots of lovely food, and at the end of it, Frankie had staggered back to calm and order. No children. No Rob. For once her house didn’t feel like the polar opposite to Imogen’s trendy one or Grace’s ridiculously clean, ordered one. She’d got into bed alone and sighed with contentment. It had been fabulous and she’d loved Imogen’s plan for the three of them to be single for a year. That would work for her. Easily.
This morning, she’d indulged a slight headache without being leapt all over, or being begged to put bacon on, and ‘where are my socks?’ – all the usual chaos. She’d stayed under the covers reading until ten o’clock. The day stretched wonderfully before her.
On Friday evening, Rob had picked the children up at five o’clock for his first weekend with them. He was staying at his mum’s, but she was off to Tunbridge Wells for the weekend. They had all gone off with him quite happily, even Alice. There was no clinging, or hanging on to legs, or wailing. They’d waved cheerily; she’d waved cheerily back. She knew she should be feeling sad about her children leaving her for the weekend. Guilty, even. But she couldn’t quite conjure it up. Not at that moment. Shamefully, she’d just felt relieved.
This was really going to work. She was going to be a much better mum now she wasn’t with them all the time. And an even better one now that Rob was out of the house. She didn’t want to be the mum who wandered round the house flinging pants angrily into laundry baskets and crashing bowls into dishwashers. The children were going to really appreciate the new, less stressed her.
As soon as they’d gone, she’d cleaned the house from top to bottom. It was perfect, and she was going to enjoy the peace and quiet for the whole blissful weekend. No kids, and no Rob. She was ecstatic he no longer lived there.
It had not been pretty, the night Rob had gone. The night she’d told him she couldn’t do it any more. It had been three whole days after Escape to GetAway Lodge.
She had been in the shower, having just got Alice to sleep. That shower was the first chance she’d had since six o’clock that morning to have some peaceful time on her own, but it was hardly an advert-quality experience. First, Tilly then Josh had banged on the door, yelling about various things and she’d yelled ‘I’m in the shower!’ until they’d gone away. Then Rob hammered on the door loudly, startling her because she didn’t know he was home from work yet, asking her where his blue joggers were. She’d shouted back that she had ‘no bloody idea’.
When she’d come out, his work shirt, pants and socks were on the floor next to the laundry basket. She disposed of them. He’d also left a coat hanger on the bed along with a pair of smelly, rolled-up black socks, which were dangerously close to her pillow. She’d picked up the socks between finger and thumb and, with a look of disgust, got rid of those too. Same with the coat hanger. She’d smoothed the cover (she hated a messy, un-smooth bed) and went downstairs.
In the kitchen, three cupboard doors were wide open, and a drawer had been left so far out it was in danger of crashing to the floor. It was the drawer next to the sink where he put his keys, but his keys weren’t in it. They were on top of the fridge. An empty crisp packet was on the kitchen table. A half-empty bottle of water was on the worktop, its lid off.
Typical Rob. It was nothing he need worry about; he knew she’d be along at some point, on her rounds, picking up and clearing up after him. That was her job. She had always hated this sorry little argument of his: she didn’t help him with his job, why should he help her with hers?
‘Domestic services,’ he called it. ‘That’s your department,’ he said, as though it was a department she had ever remotely aspired to. It was certainly a department that never closed, she often thought.
Usually she would sigh and go round shutting all the drawers and doors and putting things in the bin and the recycling box. That day, she’d had enough. She’d already thrown Rob’s shirt, pants and socks, and a coat hanger, out of the bedroom window.
She’d systematically gone round and opened every single cupboard door in the kitchen, then all the drawers. Then the fridge door, the microwave door and the oven door. Then she’d walked into the sitting room where Rob was on the sofa with the football on, tapping away at his phone with a vacant look on his face. He hadn’t even glanced up.
‘What’s on the menu tonight?’ he’d said. Frankie had stood right in front of him.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she’d said, in a low voice. There was silence. He obviously hadn’t heard her. He didn’t look up; he didn’t stop tapping.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she’d said. Louder.
‘Eh?’ Rob had said, glancing up. ‘Can’t do what? If you’re going to get huffy about cooking dinner tonight – again – we could always just have a salad. I’m not that bothered. I had a big lunch out. Steak.’
‘That’s nice for you,’ Frankie had said. And a salad wasn’t less work, she’d thought. There was all that chopping.
She’d raised her voice an octave. ‘I can’t do this – us – any more. The mess. The lack of respect. The whole lot. I’m done. I want us to split up.’