‘Faye.’
She shot him a look that said,Don’t talk.
Jake clamped his mouth shut, dismissing any notion of having a civilised conversation before he left.
He turned around and shuffled off down the street. Some young children ran past him, on their way to the local park around the corner, their parents calling to them to slow down and wait for them to catch up.
He imagined that Faye probably thought he was going to mention the faux pas at the breakfast table. He wouldn’t have done so. Besides, what could he do about it? In fact, if he admitted it, he felt chuffed that Natty considered him father material, not to mention the fact that she’d suggested he was her best friend, just like her friend Annabelle’s father was to hisdaughter.
I would have made a good father, he thought.
Of course he knew there was still time; oodles of it, in fact. Just a few days earlier, he had been reading about some actor becoming a father again at the age of eighty. The thought hadn’t made Jake feel any better, though.
He sighed, stealing a glance over his shoulder at Faye as she walked to her car. He slowed his pace, hoping she might change her mind and decide not to leave things on this note. But she did not look back.
Any thought of spending the day with Faye evaporated.
Chapter 4
It was Monday morning. Jake spotted Faye driving into the school car park just as he was trying to fasten his tie. He was standing by his bike and noticed she chose a parking spot as far away from the push bike stand as possible. Jake sighed. She knew he cycled into work every morning. He hadn’t heard from her for the rest of the weekend. They still weren’t talking about what had happened on Saturday morning.
She walked in the direction of the school building. Jake hurried after her and discovered that any attempt to fasten his tie on the go was futile. For somebody who didn’t want to be a suit anymore, Jake wondered at the irony of changing his career to one where he felt obligated, in order to make a good impression with his students, to still wear a blasted tie.
He caught up with her in the lift. Fortunately, the school day hadn’t officially started, so no children had arrived. They had the lift, which travelled up to the floor where the staff room was located, to themselves.
Faye stood with her arms folded across her chest, watching Jake’s increasingly frustrated attempts to fasten his tie. Finally, he held out both ends at her in anI could do with some help heregesture.
He caught a look on her face and decided he wouldn’t be surprised if she had the impulse to tell him to go and hang himself with it. He gave up and turned away. She was still annoyed over what had happened on Saturday morning.
If Faye had talked to Natty about her father, then the situation on Saturday would never have arisen. She obviously didn’t believe what Yousaf had written in his letter, even though Jake thought he had sounded genuinely contrite, and very sorry for what his family had talked him into doing. Jake didn’t want to take sides, but he did understand, coming from a wealthy, influential family like the Rosses, how much control they could have over your life. It did make Jake wonder whether, if his parents hadn’t died, and he’d never been taken in by the Rosses, he would have gone straight into teaching. It was a career he felt much more in tune with, and it came with a life he enjoyed – staying put in one place and forging links with a school community. He’d never had that in the past. The cliché of living in an ivory tower was not lost on Jake in relation to his life with the Rosses.
The lift shunted to a stop on the first floor and the lift door opened. Jake and Faye both sighed, aware that the lift stopped at every floor, whether someone pressed the button for the lift or not.
The door closed and the lift started up again.
Faye turned to Jake and rolled her eyes. He was still having trouble with his tie. ‘Do you need help with that?’
Jake turned to face her. ‘I thought you weren’t speaking to me?’
‘I’m not,’ she said, taking both ends of his tie. It was unfair of her to blame him for what had happened on Saturday – she knew that. She’d been mulling things over and had realisedthe mistake was hers. She had a golden rule, and it was quite simple – Natty was not going to pay for her mistakes. Natty had friends whose mothers were single parents like herself. One mother seemed to change boyfriends as often as she changed her wardrobe, which, on her substantial spousal maintenance, was often. To be fair, some boyfriends did last longer than a ‘season’, but sadly, the longer they lasted, the more unfair it became on Natty’s friend to sever the ties with her potential new daddy. So, Faye’s golden rule had translated quite simply into no dating until Natty was eighteen. She hadn’t told her friends this. They had already been after her joining a dating website. If they’d known why she hadn’t, they’d have told her that she was mad – ten years would make her in her early forties, and as time went on, it would only become harder to meet someone, start a relationship, find her soulmate.
Of course, she knew all this, but Natty came first. That was why she had found a way round her own golden rule, so she could enjoy some adult company after work and maybe even start a relationship. Her intention to remain celibate for years just hadn’t worked out.
It had started innocently enough – a drink after work with her single female friends, sometimes a girls’ night out at the movies; but where there were single women, there were single men. A compliment – surprisingly welcome – had led to a little flirtatious patter, goaded on by her friends, and before she knew it, her friends had ditched her, and she was on a live date. Although that particular date hadn’t worked out, dating had not just been a one-off occurrence. She’d got back into the dating game.
She had not broken the golden rule; there was no instant family about to happen. This was strictly a Natty-free zone. And Natty accepted this arrangement. They were Mummy’s grown-up friends – she had thought this explanation through carefullybeforehand. Just as Natty wouldn’t expect her mum to go and play with her and Annabelle at Annabelle’s house, Natty had to accept being babysat when Mummy wanted to go to a friend’s house to ‘play’. And just as she had anticipated, this arrangement had worked surprisingly well for the handful of guys she had dated so far. The trouble was that as soon as she had any notion that things might be getting more serious than a casual fling, that was always the end of it.
She did make Natty’s existence known from the start – how else could she explain her house being out of bounds? Of course, they all said they’d like to meet her daughter; it was only polite. When she refused point blank, only one had asked why. She imagined that a single young woman with a child was probably not what most single guys were expecting. She came with baggage.
But she wasn’t looking for commitment.
She was having fun.
She was having sex.
And she wasn’t hurting anybody.
No relationship had become serious enough to raise the issue of moving in together, which was just as well. She wouldn’t let things get that far. Love was never part of the plan. But if she were to cross paths with her soulmate, then she would have a dilemma on her hands.
