I was cutting your tutor’s hair and she told me you were third highest on your course. You should go out and celebrate. Get Hazel’s travel cot ready and she can stop the night here, give you a lie-in.
Aren’t you working tomorrow?
Don’t worry about that
I’d reached the school gates when he forwarded me one more message from his mum:
I’m proud of you, son
I had to turn away when Janet appeared in the playground so she didn’t see my tears and start worrying about me again.
Jonah was expecting me at seven. Dad was babysitting while I had dinner with an ‘old friend’, on the agreement that I was home by nine-thirty. He was going with Janet to a late showing at the Bigley Country Park outdoor cinema.
However, Mum was loitering at Nicky’s house when she arrived home from the surgery, so she turned up on my doorstep just after six.
‘Has she said any more about her plans?’ I asked, letting her in.
‘She managed to book a caravan at the Peace and Pigs campsite for the next couple of weeks, so I guess at least that long.’ Suppressed agitation propelled her into the kitchen. ‘Hey, this is looking fantastic!’
‘Maybe that’ll be long enough to determine whether she’s staying.’
‘I think that depends on us.’ Nicky stopped admiring my freshly painted cupboards and looked at me. ‘Let’s change the subject. You have a date. Please tell me that’s not what you’re wearing?’
Due to the fact that it wasn’t a date, but an evening spent discussing my first heartbreak with the man who did the breaking, I’d opted for my nicest pair of jeans and a simple teal T-shirt that brought out the blue in my eyes.
Nicky was having none of it, chuntering on about it being a Friday night as she ransacked my wardrobe, yanking out a cream playsuit covered in tiny daisies, which I’d forgotten existed.
‘That’s years old,’ I protested. ‘I was nearly a stone lighter when I bought it.’
‘It’s a timeless classic. And you were too skinny when you bought it.’
It turned out that it did skim my curves far better than it used to hang off my hipbones, and I didn’t hate the hint of cleavage at the square neckline. My legs had a faint tan from the hours I’d spent in the garden recently, and once Nicky had added a knotted headband and a swipe of mascara and lip gloss, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw in the mirror.
‘It isn’t too much? Jonah’s only seen me in dungarees and jeans.’
‘That’s Work Libby. This is Fun Libby, who happens to rock playsuits and summer dresses.’
‘I don’t own any decent dresses.’
‘Not a problem. You can have some of mine. Now, I’d better go. Theo’s away and I’m scared to leave Mum alone too long in case she decides to move herself in. Message me first thing in the morning to tell me how it went.’
My fears about giving the impression I was on a mission of seduction weren’t helped when Isla and Finn both burst into giggles when I walked into the living room, earning a nudge of rebuke from Dad, busy helping them set up a board game.
‘She looks weird, though!’ Isla squealed.
‘Like Georgie’s mum.’ Finn gasped.
‘Yes!’
I was making an about-turn, already undoing the belt on the playsuit when Finn said, ‘I didn’t know Mum could look so pretty.’
When your eight-year-old son says you look pretty, you listen.
I slipped on my white trainers, kissed all three of them goodbye and left.
Jonah lived in a compact, new-build brick house on the edge of Hatherstone, the nearest village to Charis House, the school where he worked. I stopped by the small patch of front lawn and took a couple of steadying breaths. I didn’t bother visualising my happy place to calm down because I was hoping this might become one of them.
A flowerpot stood by the black front door. That the boy I’d known as Jonah King would plant sweet peas made my heart ache. The difference our paths had taken in our twenties was disconcerting, to say the least.
