Page 39 of The Woman Who Said Yes

‘Who, Gideon?’

‘Your lovely Phil,’ she clarifies. ‘And you don’t want a broken home, do you?’

Fucking hell, is this what she thinks? That my little family, who I love more than anything in the world, is somehow damaged like poor eyeless Gideon hanging up there on the wall? Marnie and Jake are adults, I want to remind her. And I’m not the one with a wandering penis who decided to throw in our marriage over an affair!

Dad pulls off his jacket and encourages Trudy to shift a little so he can ease off her lilac trench. I whisk away their outerwear, eyeing my bed with a pang of longing as I pass my room. How I’d love to call it a night. But they’re leaving in the morning, and it would feel rude to bolt straight off to bed. So I return to the living room where Dad has retrieved one of Trudy’s gold teardrop earrings from between the sofa cushions.

I go to make them tea, and as I set out the pot and my best cups on the coffee table, Trudy tries a different tack. ‘D’you ever think you’d like to meet somebody again?’

‘Not really, no,’ I say neutrally, as if she’d asked, Have you ever thought of going to Menorca?

‘But you’re only, what – sixty? Still plenty of time!’

‘Fifty-eight,’ I correct her, my back teeth jammed tightly together.

She picks up a cup, crooking her little finger. ‘We all make mistakes, Andie. Why can’t you give him another chance?’ Why can’t you shut your croquembouche?

‘Shall we go to bed, love?’ Dad suggests mildly, but Trudy doesn’t seem to hear. ‘Me and Charlie had our ups and downs,’ she announces, ‘but we stuck it through, right to his last breath. We had to – for the boys.’

Ah, the vastly successful sons, one in wealth management in Boston and the other a yacht broker somewhere on the Kent coast. Well done, I think bitterly as we sip our tea. Well done, you, for managing everything perfectly. So what does that make me? A failure as a parent and a wife? Trudy knows that Phil had an affair and left me. I’ve told her that much. But perhaps that was my fault? Was it some failing of mine that drove him into the arms of the six-foot superintendent with a fine set of equine gnashers?

‘So, home tomorrow!’ Dad announces, in an attempt to swerve us into a different lane.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s been lovely having you here. The kids loved it too.’ The talk turns to Marnie’s forthcoming Paris trip, and her wholesome itinerary: bookshops, patisseries and exhibitions. Back in our twenties, when Sam, Eva and I went to Paris, we found ourselves at an all-night lock-in where vicious punch was ladled into plastic cups at the bar. How come my kids are so much more together? I’m in awe of Marnie’s life as a scientist, and of Jake, who teaches history at a tough urban school. Perhaps we did something right, Saint Phil and I? Despite my attacking him with a kitchen roll when his affair came out, we seem to have arrived at a situation where we can be together and even have a lovely time.

Finally – mercifully – Trudy’s shimmery eyelids are growing heavy, and Dad guides her off to bed. Yet even then she won’t let it drop. ‘Tell me one reason,’ her voice rings out from my spare room, ‘why Andie won’t get back with Phil?’

Because he broke my heart, I think, cleaning my teeth so aggressively I make my gums bleed. But also because he was never interested in how I was feeling, and in all of our years together, he never once managed to find my clafoutis. I spit out pink froth, sluice down the wash basin and escape to my room.

Next morning, with Trudy somewhat less than her usual garrulous self, I accompany them in an Uber to King’s Cross as they are laden with shopping bags from Selfridges and Harrods. ‘I hope they don’t get crushed on the train,’ Trudy frets – the bags treasured as much as their contents. We cross the concourse, Dad murmurs his thanks to me and adds, as a side note, ‘I hope you’re all right about last night. I’m sorry if⁠—’

‘Dad, it’s fine,’ I say truthfully. And it really is, as I hug them both tightly before waving them off. Trudy is right, in a way; from the outside, Phil comes across as an extremely decent – and I guess eligible – man.

I watch as they make their way towards their train. Briefly, Dad looks back from the barrier and raises a hand. I wave, conscious of my heart crumpling a little as they disappear. Then, making my way back across the concourse, I pull out my phone.

Eva has messaged:

Next Saturday okay for our shopping day? Hope so!

Sounds great!

Hope your dad’s doing okay? How was their visit?

Apart from being nagged to remarry my faithless ex? I reply:

All good! Will tell all when I see you. Can’t wait.

22

WEDDING COUNTDOWN: 28 DAYS

The truth is, unlike Phil in his fetishware phase, I’m not much of a shopper these days. However, I’m trying to appear enthusiastic each time Eva emerges from a changing room, expecting my considered opinion. ‘That’s amazing,’ I say as she bounds out like a glorious cheetah in animal print. ‘I love that,’ I declare as she appears in a teal trouser suit, then an apricot full-length frock which causes other shoppers to look over, and one to actually gasp in admiration and announce, ‘You have to get that!’ There’s a red pleated dress with a cute white collar. A swirly patterned kaftan like the dream wallpaper of a seventies teenage girl. Sleeveless, too. Eva has always worn whatever she likes, and has no time for age-related rules.

‘So what about you?’ she asks as we wander onwards, still empty-handed as nothing has felt quite like the one (I can’t help wishing she’d invested a similar degree of careful consideration in her choosing of a husband).

‘There’s that green Vinted dress,’ I reply. ‘And I bought a cape to go over it⁠—’

‘A cape!’ she says approvingly.