The Good Divorce Guide

‘They don’t,’ I lied. ‘What did they say to make you think that?’

‘They look at me as if I were the gamekeeper and you were Lady Chatterley.’

My parents’ class-consciousness melted in their enthusiasm for Zelkin, Jonathan’s profitable venture; but maybe their son-in-law never forgot it, or forgave them—or me.

Perhaps, I muse, Jonathan’s humble beginnings have played a role in his infatuation with Linda. My ex-husband has complete faith in meritocracy, and thinks that Britons have a great deal to learn from their American cousins. ‘If you’re bright, ambitious and hard working you can do anything there,’ he would enthuse after his professional trips to the States. ‘No questions asked about who your family is or what school or university you went to.’ Perhaps he sees Linda in the same way: someone who offers him a chance to be anything he wants to be. I, on the other hand, remind Jonathan of where he came from and what is expected of him. Linda is the stars and sky above, I’m a glass ceiling.

The door squeaks open: ‘Mum?’ Kat looks in. One day she almost looks grown up; the next, like this morning in her pink pyjamas, she looks like a baby. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Hmmm…’ I nod my head against the pillow.

‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’ My tousled-head daughter peers at me anxiously.

‘No, yes, I mean…I should get up now.’ I stretch, and smile to reassure her.

‘No, you stay there, Mum.’ Kat tucks me in as if I were an invalid and she a nurse.

‘Sweetpea, sit down.’ I pat the bed beside me. ‘Did you sleep all right?’

‘Hmmm…n-n-n-ot really.’ My daughter’s pretty face crumples. ‘Mummy, it’s all so terrible!’ She dissolves in tears.

‘Come here, my darling.’ I take her in my arms, and Kat, now sobbing uncontrollably, slips under the duvet beside me. ‘Don’t cry, my little Kat…’ I try to comfort her by stroking her back; ever since she was tiny this would calm her down. I feel her silky warm skin, and keep up a soft soothing murmur.

‘Mummy, is Dad never coming back?’ she sobs, and presses up against my T-shirt. I’ve taken to wearing Freddy’s, now that Jonathan’s are in some flat in Bayswater, and today I’m in a Spiderman red and blue: it rides up, so that I can feel her against my naked stomach almost as clearly as when I carried her twelve years ago. ‘It’s really over?’

I stroke her hair. ‘Yes, if you mean is my marriage with Daddy really over. No, if you mean fun, and good things, and our family and friends.’

‘Mum, if break-ups are this bad, I don’t want a relationship, ever!’

‘Not every relationship breaks up. Not every relationship breaks up badly.’ I lift her hair and kiss the back of her neck: a hot sleepy spot that I always go back to. ‘And a good relationship makes you your best.’ I stroke her back again. ‘Are you thinking about someone in particular?’

‘Mungo.’ She nods shyly, looks away from me. ‘We’ve been texting.’ I can’t help smiling: as if I hadn’t noticed. ‘When he doesn’t get back to me immediately, I’m scared it’s because he’s broken it off.’

‘You can’t run a relationship worrying about it breaking up,’ I murmur into her neck. ‘You mustn’t think like that.’

‘The great thing about texting is you don’t have to say anything to their face.’ Kat’s voice is low and soft. ‘It’s not as scary.’

‘But not as satisfying either.’ I ruffle her hair. ‘Sometimes you have to take risks.’

‘But if you do, you get your fingers burned.’

‘You mean—like your father and me?’ Kat nods. She is crying quietly, pressed against me. Did I take a risk with Jonathan? My mum would argue that choosing a man from a different background was a risk. My dad worried about our different interests. But to me, our love was an insurance policy: there might be a setback along the way, but the outcome would always be in our favour. ‘Some risks are worth taking. Anyway, you can limit it to texting for now. But after a while you really need to be in each other’s presence…nothing else will do.’ I shut my eyes, and remember Jonathan’s daily letters to me over that first summer, when we were apart, me in Somerset, him in Edinburgh because he’d found an internship at a big hospital lab. How can I survive without you? Jonathan’s letters always began. I feel as if I’ve been asked to do without an arm, or a leg. I can’t work, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat: everything is pointless without you.

‘Mummy…’

I look up to see Freddy. My son, in his pyjamas, blinks with sleep.

‘Mummy,’ he whispers, and then, as he realises his sister is lying beside me: ‘me, too.’ He climbs into bed on my other side.