Chances

When she was introduced, she knew in an instant that they knew who she was – as if they’d been briefed, as if her misfortune was manifested physically in the form of an unsightly blemish and they mustn’t stare. Talk about anything else. Steer clear. Don’t mention the scar. It was burdensome to realize that, for the time being, she was spoken about, albeit with affection, as Poor Vita who’s been through a Really Tough Time.

But actually, Corinne was sweet-natured and Annie was funny and Vita was heartened by their normalness; their self-confidence and good humour were compelling. Had their bad experiences made them stronger? Hers had made her feel feeble. Perhaps their poise and vivacity came from the passing of time. Give it time, dear – that’s what her mother had said. Everything passes, love, everything passes – she remembered still her late father’s mantra.

But the women were funny and spirited and bright and, as Vita listened and laughed, she wondered whether they had made a fundamental decision that at some point, introversion had to stop and a life apart was to be embraced. Did they close the door on their past one day, padlock it and seal it shut with a massive sign saying CLOSURE? Had they read the prescribed quota of self-help books? How many therapy sessions had they attended? (Vita hadn’t gone down that route.) Had they worn an elastic band around their wrist to ping hard when negative feelings surfaced? Did they take a physical step to the side when confronted by destructive reflection? Did they resort to evening classes to keep the loneliness at bay for just one night a week? A little voice whispered to Vita, See, this could be me.

Actually, the women didn’t bond merely because they were all single; it wasn’t weighty issues which attracted them to each other, it was discovering that they shared much softer common ground. They soon found out they all preferred vodka to gin and George Clooney to Brad Pitt. They all wanted Nadal to win Wimbledon. They’d all been to Lanzarote. They all loved loved loved the new Mark Ronson. They chinked glasses not because the aim was to knock the drink back, but because there was simply great geniality between them. And when they shared a puerile snigger at the expense of the bad-shoe lousy-laugh man Michelle had first singled out, it wasn’t because they’d been scouting the room for talent or that they were man-haters, it was because his shirt now had even more detritus stuck to it and he’d spilt his drink on his trousers which made him look as though he’d wet himself.

And at some point an opportunity arose for Annie to quietly say, ‘My ex used to get so hammered he’d piss in the kitchen sink and for some stupid reason, I felt too intimidated to confront him.’ And then she smiled sweetly at Vita. ‘You’ll be OK, chook,’ she said. ‘You need a distraction. I did pottery evening classes, joined a running group and bought myself a Wii.’

‘Like you needed any more wee in the house,’ Corinne laughed.

‘Mais oui!’ said Annie.

‘Bugger evening classes – though I have to admit I went to a macramé one,’ Corinne said to Vita. ‘What you ought to do is have a fling.’

‘That’s what Michelle says.’

‘Well, she’s right. Don’t look so appalled!’

‘I just can’t imagine it. I don’t think I’m interested. And anyway, how will he find me?’

‘He won’t,’ Corinne said. ‘You’ll come across him – and that, my dear, will be that.’

Annie looked at Vita. ‘You don’t believe her, do you?’

‘Nope,’ said Vita, ‘but I’m just going to nod – like I do when friends like Michelle say, You’ll so be OK, babe. Nodding’s good.’

‘How about the sappy half-smile I fix on my face at the start of an evening like this?’ said Annie. ‘When you’re not actually talking to anyone and you feel like a beacon but you don’t want people homing in on you and thinking, Aw, poor woman, all on her own, better go and talk to her.’

Corinne drained her glass thoughtfully. ‘It’s not easy,’ she said quietly, ‘but it’s OK. It always turns out OK.’

Though Vita thought, I don’t think I’ll bother with evening classes and flings and things, she was comforted that these women had been through much that she was going through. Their lexicon was so similar, they understood each other perfectly, despite very different circumstances. Best of all, they’d come through the other side without turning into boorish man-eating harpies or bitter man-hating harridans. And, for the first time, Vita thought that perhaps the task of getting over it was not so much an uphill struggle with no visible summit within reach, as some sort of crazy ride which, if she just held on tight, would be worth it.

Sipping Coca-Cola and taking a couple of Nurofen before bed to ward off a hangover, Vita thought to herself that, actually, none of this felt like a game. To see it as such demeaned the enormity of the journey, the rigours of the process. She thought about how she felt but she balanced it with what she’d thought about Corinne and Annie.

Actually, it wasn’t a game. It was a storm. A mighty one.

She heard her Dad’s words again. It’ll pass, sweetface.

‘Perhaps I’m currently passing through the eye of the storm. I’m like a scrap of torn paper being carried along and there’s nothing I can do about it. Corinne and Annie – they were once like me but they weathered it, they made it through. They emerged the other side, no longer scraps of plain paper – but colourful and vibrant now.’

It was OK to let a tear drop.

‘I’d like that to be me.’

She reached for pen and Post-it.

Calm after the storm

The Thorpe Arms

Vita had only had to travel twenty-five minutes to the George and Dragon. For Oliver, however, although the Thorpe Arms was over an hour’s drive, in the next county, he wouldn’t have wanted it closer.

‘Jonty – this party –?’

‘Told you, it’s at Mark’s. His mum’s going to be there – us downstairs, the olds upstairs.’

Oliver knew Mark’s mum. Much younger than him, so if the kids considered her old, they must think him positively ancient.

‘Would you like a lift then, Jont?’

‘Er – sure. Thanks, Dad.’

‘We’ll leave in half an hour?’

‘But it’s only three o’clock? Actually, that’s cool – I can help him set up. I’ll just give him a call.’

Oliver heard his son talking to Mark in a weird language of abbreviations and odd inflection.

‘Cool!’ said Jonty to his father which Oliver took to mean, Yes, please, I’ll have a lift in half an hour.

‘OK. Oh – and no smoking.’

‘I know, Dad. I don’t – you know I don’t – and I haven’t, not since I puked.’

‘OK – and no booze. Alcopops included.’

‘OK!’ Jonty was gently exasperated. There’d be contraband – they both knew it. But since the time that Jonty threw up his guts after half a litre of cider and five cigarettes, they both knew he wasn’t impressed by the effects of either.

Would DeeDee have let him go? Of course she would. If anything, Oliver was more disparaging of Mark’s mother than she’d ever been. A single mum, cool and sassy, with a tattoo on her arm and a nose ring and a groovy job in the music industry – all the kids loved her open-house policy and MP3 players in every room. She’s a really sweet girl, DeeDee had told him. Oliver had argued with her about suitable environments for Jonty to hang out in. And DeeDee had argued back that a rather nice home, not too far away, of a mother she knew from the occasional mums’ night out was a preferable location to some dodgy bus shelter or chippy.

As Oliver locked up and watched Jonty ambling over to the car, plastic bag containing his clothes and things slung over his shoulder like a nonchalant Dick Whittington, he thought how sometimes, co-parenting and the heated debates it incurred had been more fraught than setting the boundaries, establishing the ground rules and doing all the worrying solo.

‘Will you be all right then, Dad?’

‘Me?’

‘I don’t have to stay over. I could come back?’

‘Nonsense! It’s a party, it’s not a school night. And anyway – I have, well, not plans exactly but I’m off to meet someone about some work ideas. And then I have plenty of stuff I’ve been putting off which I’ll do. Including hoovering.’

Usually, Jonty would help without being asked. And he never minded evenings in with his dad. But recently, it had occurred to father and son that Saturday nights oughtn’t to be spent with one’s dad. So Jonty felt equally grateful to Mark’s mum and to his own father.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow then.’

‘OK. Maybe we’ll do something in the afternoon. I don’t know – bowling? Cinema?’

‘OK, Dad. Cool.’