It’s Not Me, It’s You

When Delia answered her mobile, she heard a soundtrack of ambient traffic bustle and the heavy breathing of someone walking fast. Emma’s whole existence moved at a different mph to Delia’s.

‘I can’t talk long! I’ve had a huge brainwave. You’re going to say no at first and then you’re going to think on it and say yes.’

‘Oh, kaaay …’

‘You know we were saying you should come down? Why not move in for a while?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, move in here with me. I have a spare room and you could resolve my guilt about not looking for a lodger. I didn’t want one and I can afford not to but Dad’s been on at me about it. Live here for free, sort yourself out, make me dinner. Do that mysterious thing you do where you make a place feel homely. We could be a comfort to each other, like the two old spinsters in ARoom with a View. Your room doesn’t have a view, by the way.’

Delia hadn’t yet seen Emma’s new flat in Finsbury Park. With the hours Emma worked, Delia suspected she hadn’t seen much of it either. Delia lifted her face to the sun and enjoyed being out of doors, not in her office, a place that smelled of carpet and disappointment.

‘The small issue of my employment? I can’t leave my job,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s the only job I have, and I need the money?’

‘You always said that job wasn’t a job for life thing, and how long have you been there now? Seven, eight years? When are you going to leave?’

Delia grimaced. True, but. You didn’t get two broken legs and then decide the time was right to do a parachute jump. Or something.

‘I know. However, having lost my home and my partner, I’m not in the mindset of binning the job.’

‘I knew you’d say that. It seems like the worst time to do it, when actually it’s the best time. Everything’s upside down, anyway. Also, if you want Paul back …’

‘That’s a big if,’ Delia said, thinking Emma had her sussed. Her eyes drifted to a woman bending down, fussing with a moon-faced churlish baby in a buggy.

‘If you do want him back, coming down here will ensure you have his complete attention. Trust my instincts. I know the difference between a small fix and a big fix. What’s happened between you and Paul needs a big fix. Make him miss you.’

‘Won’t I clear a path for him and the shag piece?’

‘False. You’re already out of the way, if he wants that. But while you’re in Newcastle, you can return to him any time. In London, you’re suddenly out of sight and very much in heart and mind. If there was maybe a little too much routine before …’

Delia’s stomach flexed. She’d thought that routine was what happiness felt like.

‘… You doing something dramatic and unexpected will completely focus his mind. He’ll be running after you. You’ll have the proof it’s you he wants.’

Delia tried this idea on for size. Paul would be startled, it’s true.

Domesticated Delia disappearing to the Big Smoke. She wasn’t sure that doing rash things because of how they’d look to Paul was very healthy, mind you. And it could backfire spectacularly.

‘My boss has a saying,’ Emma said. ‘When the fight comes, don’t turtle up.’

‘Turtle up?’

‘Go into your shell.’

Emma loved management-speak neologisms.

‘So you want me to be your housekeeper?’ Delia said.

‘No! Well, yes. If you want to be. Mainly I want you to keep me company and put yourself back on track.’

‘I couldn’t not work and live off you. That’s mad.’

‘Then look for a job! You’re qualified in comms, PR. There’ll be tons more opportunities here. I’ll start sniffing around.’

Delia nearly said they were plenty of jobs in the north too, they weren’t living in black and white. But Emma didn’t generally do that London superiority thing, so Delia forgave her the odd slip.

‘Don’t! I’ll think about it,’ Delia said, ‘I promise.’

She wouldn’t, she was pacifying Emma. It was nice to think she was wanted. And it had been nice to toy with the idea of making Paul sit up and take notice. Realistically, there was no way Delia was adding ‘unemployed’ to her tick list of life achievements. London intimidated her. It was so gigantic. You were supposed to feel like you were in the middle of things, but you were never in the middle of it.

As she rang off and raised her eyes from the ground, they met those of a girl with a liquorice-black pudding basin haircut, bright pink lippy and a nervous, expectant expression. She’d been waiting for Delia to finish her call. She could quite conceivably be twenty-four.

Delia felt she might faint. Not here. Not now.

‘Excuse me?’

Delia’s mouth was dry and her heart pulsing: zha-zhoom zha-zhoom zha-zhoom zha-zhoom.

‘… Yes?’

‘Where did you get your dress? I love it.’

Relief flooded out of Delia like rainbow cosmic energy.

‘URBAN OUTFITTERS! IT WAS AGES AGO THOUGH, SORRY! Hahahaha,’ she squealed, while the girl looked politely startled at Delia being drunk. ‘Maybe try eBay?’

The girl smiled, clearly thinking: and maybe Betty Ford for you.

Even if she wasn’t going to London, Delia thought, as she trudged back into the office, shaky with fight-or-flight adrenaline, she couldn’t pretend Newcastle felt the best place for her either.

Thirteen (#ulink_13fdff8c-c760-5a98-aca1-e3bb9a11372d)

Delia lay in the avocado bath and braced her toes on the taps, as she’d done a thousand times in her youth, looking at her burgundy nail varnish. She always wore dark red on her pale feet; it reminded her of a childhood fairy story about drops of blood on snow.

The house was quiet: Ralph was on a shift and her parents were at their weekly pub quiz.

In her reflection in the plastic-framed mirror at the end of the tub, she could see the hollows of her eyes as charcoal smudges, after flannelling off her black eyeliner. She’d worn make-up like it for so long, even she thought she looked peculiar without it, like a newborn mole.

Hmmm. Not so newly born any more. Not long till thirty-four. Delia hadn’t wanted to think about this until now, but there was something about being naked that forced her into stark honesty.

Here was the thought that had buzzed like a wasp at the edge of her thoughts, ever since the revelation about Celine.

If she wanted kids, Paul was still probably the safer option than re-launching herself back into the dating scene in her mid-thirties, hoping to find another solid prospect.