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If You're Not The One
Jemma Forte


Ever wondered what life would be like if you'd made different decisions? Chosen another career? Said yes to that date? Or married someone else?Jennifer Wright is full of 'what if' questions.If she'd stayed with unconventional, carefree Aidan, would she be enjoying life in sun-kissed Australia?Should she have married fabulously wealthy, workaholic Tim?Could she have found happiness after all with kind, gentle Steve?Jennifer’s about to find out. After a terrible row with her husband, she runs out of the house and straight into the path of a car. Whilst in a coma she’s given the gift of seeing exactly how each choice she's made has dramatically altered her life.But maybe those answers leave her with even more life-changing decisions to make…Praise for Jemma Forte‘The most imaginative romcom we’ve read in a while’ – Now‘An engrossing and magical read with romance at its core’ – OK!‘An easy reading story that bristles with warmth and humour’ – Hello‘A witty account of rollercoaster events that will get you thinking about the “what ifs” in your own life’ – Heat‘A must read for all women' - Digital Spy‘Addictive, heartwarming yet funny' – Chick Lit Uncovered‘It’s clever, it’s innovative and I really enjoyed it' – Chick Lit Reviews‘The perfect mix of funny and emotional' – One More Page







JEMMA FORTE grew up wanting to write for Cosmopolitan magazine, be a famous actress or work in a shoe shop (she loved the foot-measuring device in Clarks). Her parents didn’t want her to go to stage school because, according to them, she was ‘precocious enough already’. However, they actively encouraged her obsession with reading and writing and she wrote her first book, ‘Mizzy the Germ’, when she was eight. She sent it to a publisher (unwittingly backing up the whole precocious theory) and was dismayed when for some reason they didn’t want it.

Years later, due to The Kids from Fame (and she blames them entirely), her desire to perform hadn’t abated. Hundreds of letters, show-reels and auditions later she finally became a Disney Channel presenter in 1998. After Disney, Jemma went on to present shows for ITV, BBC1, BBC2 and C4 and, when not busy writing, can still be found talking rubbish on telly to this day. If You’re Not the One is Jemma’s third novel. She lives in London with her children, Lily and Freddie.




If You’re Not the One


Jemma Forte






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For my nephew. Welcome to the world.




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#ulink_80923ee0-cc94-5bcc-8bbd-d5d2e8c01f5d)


Writing a book is a solitary activity. Getting it on the shelves, however, is a hugely collaborative effort, so I have a lot of people to thank. Enormous thanks must go to my publishers, MIRA. I am so happy to be with you and your enthusiasm and passion is refreshing and wonderful. In particular, many thanks must go to my brilliant editor, Sally Williamson, and fantastic agent, Madeleine Milburn. Like David Seaman, you are both a pair of ‘safe hands’. Unlike David Seaman, you’re pretty and don’t have big moustaches. Thanks must also go to Claudia Webb.

Writing this book has coincided with a pretty turbulent period in my life. Thanks to my family for seeing me through it. There are times when that ‘blood is thicker than water’ business really rings true and times when frankly your family are the only people who will put up with you. Of course, they don’t have much choice. You’re related, you’re not going anywhere and there’s no getting out of seeing you over Christmas. So thank you for steering me through to the other side and not drowning me along the way. I don’t know what I would have done without you all and will never forget your kindness, patience and support. Dad, Sally, Mum, Mauro, Jessica, Isabel, Paddy, Jim, Harry and Imogen, you are the best bunch of freaks known to man and I love you all to bits. As ever, thank you also to those of you who read an early draft, gave me notes and encouraged me to carry on.

Ooh, after that rather earnest bit I find myself suddenly overcome by a strong desire to dilute it by writing ‘big shout-out’, like I’m on the radio—I might go with it…Big shout-out to Lily and Freddie, the two best kids in the world. You’re both spectacular little monkeys and I look forward to embarrassing you for many more years to come. I know only too well how lucky I am to have children who people actually like inviting round for tea. Thank you for being so gorgeous and for being kind. Kind is good.

My friends. What a bunch! You’re all fabulous. I’d like to mention the usual suspects of course, my life-long friends Becky Rolfe, Alessia Small and Stroma Inglis. And very special thanks must also go to Fiona Wright, Nigel Mitchell, Charlotte Woodward, Laura Slader and Carmel Allen for various reasons, which mainly involve them being incredible, caring and/or helpful friends in one way or another.

As for Sarah Jane Wright, I don’t even know where to start, so we’re just going to have to go out for cocktails and take it from there. I love you loads and don’t know how I’ll ever thank you.

Now, last, but definitely not least, to Ross. Not a day goes by when I don’t think, ‘God, you’re tall.’ Then, after that, I ponder on how lucky I am to have you in my life and to have your friendship. You’re amazing, a one-off, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your input on this book (you were right about the ending, of course you were) and everything else you do for me, including making me laugh, a lot. I could go on, but know how much you hate compliments and how unbelievably bad you are at taking them, so instead I’ll just say, ‘Sofa’ and hope that that says it all.




Table of Contents


Cover (#u71ecbb32-4cfb-5201-9016-5a1410fbfbcf)

About the Author (#ub2adff13-7d75-5001-8c1b-a7545e5b281d)

Title Page (#ua1aaf679-aa79-5a75-8227-c8c1fa176f67)

Dedication (#u466bab14-061e-540f-abb3-80c35da87e6f)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#u9b78f831-2908-5e8a-9b94-a2634ea2c30d)

PROLOGUE (#u4d84ea30-78d0-548d-9eaa-73b065960f97)

ONE WEEK EARLIER—FRIDAY (#u6d1281a0-a297-5360-b46f-83818312a078)

THE PAST—AIDAN (#ud4252602-b90b-5921-8783-cfa4fbce1042)

PRESENT DAY (#uf3560575-97c7-56d9-9f6a-673db940cdc7)

SATURDAY (#u7cdaf767-f60f-54b9-89f1-acc1dbbfd38b)

THE PAST—AIDAN (#u959bc4cc-5c6b-5690-ac40-d7ff0216d791)

PRESENT DAY (#u6e28e436-904e-5d8d-8669-2058d16a6bc4)

TUNNEL NUMBER ONE (#ud31f5df4-88f7-58e2-bf30-97c0d2a40af9)

PRESENT DAY (#u899151ac-42e5-5187-a083-dcda51727c79)

SUNDAY (#u7cbd0c9a-1a7d-5e35-9b9c-0ba4acdf7a88)

THE PAST—TIM (#ud09f295b-b1aa-51a2-bd05-ebfaaa827b68)

PRESENT DAY (#ue73848dd-d965-5b22-b2f9-385ccd7e46e5)

TUNNEL NUMBER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—MAX (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—TIM (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—MAX (#litres_trial_promo)

MONDAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUESDAY (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

WEDNESDAY (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—MAX (#litres_trial_promo)

WEDNESDAY CONTINUED (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—STEVE (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

THURSDAY (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—STEVE (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

THE PAST—MAX (#litres_trial_promo)

FRIDAY MORNING—THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

TUNNEL NUMBER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

FRIDAY—THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT (#litres_trial_promo)

PRESENT DAY (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Author Q&A (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE (#ulink_c8eedae0-8a2d-560f-8e69-5b17f564b9e4)


Friday May 18th

Jennifer Wright slammed the door and ran down the road as fast as her ill-fitting footwear would allow her to, tears blurring her vision. She didn’t care who saw her. All she was conscious of was her need to get away from her husband and his ability to hurt her. Not that he was letting her get away that easily.

‘Jen,’ Max yelled down the road, clearly in no mood to consider what the neighbours might be thinking. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Come back. For goodness sake, you’ve made your point.’

Jennifer ignored him. If anything, she picked up the pace, wishing it was dark so her flit could go unnoticed. She’d always loved living in the suburbs of South West London partly because everybody looked out for everybody else. Today however, it would have suited her far better if she’d lived in a place where people didn’t give a damn about their neighbours. That way she could have wailed like a banshee and charged down the road without worrying she’d provided the man on the other side of the street (the dull husband of the quite nice woman at number forty-two) with a juicy bit of gossip.

She’d caught his look of alarm as he’d taken in her tear-stained face and heavy coat, which was far too warm for this unusually clement May evening. Not that there was any way she was taking it off, for what Jennifer knew, but the man from number forty-two didn’t, was that all she had on underneath was a bra, a G-string, suspenders and stockings. The killer heels she’d originally teamed the whole ensemble with had been kicked off mid-argument, replaced by the footwear that happened to be nearest the front door, a revolting pair of lace-ups, usually reserved purely for gardening purposes. Without woolly socks, her stockinged feet were slopping about inside them.

Panting with exertion, Jennifer finally came to the end of the street. Briefly she turned round to see what Max was doing. She could just about still make him out, hanging out of their front door, obviously in two minds about what to do given that their children were sleeping inside.

Screw him.

Karen.

That’s who she needed.

Fumbling in her pocket with shaky hands, Jennifer found her mobile which she’d had the sense to grab on her way out.

Half walking, half running now, she rounded the corner onto the busy main road and scrolled through her phone looking for her best friend’s number. Wiping her face with the back of her hand she managed to rub away some tears but was surprised by how persistently they kept on coming. Briefly she acknowledged that there was a huge possibility she was having a nervous breakdown.

As she headed for the zebra crossing she listened to Karen’s phone ringing and prayed she’d pick up. She did.

‘Oh Karen,’ Jennifer managed, speaking loudly against the traffic, choking on tears again.

‘Oh my god, what is it? What’s wrong?’

The concern in her voice almost floored Jennifer for a second. Thank god Karen’s house was only ten minutes away. She couldn’t get there soon enough. If only she’d chosen a less hot coat.

‘Oh Karen, it’s all gone wrong and I just don’t think I can do this any more…’ Jennifer broke off, half stumbling over an uneven bit of pavement. Wretched shoes. Then a bus whizzed past just as Karen was answering. It completely drowned out her response which forced Jennifer to say, ‘Come again Karen, I couldn’t hear you.’

‘I said where are you? Do you want to come round?’

‘Yes please,’ Jennifer wailed, putting one foot out onto the road.

‘Good,’ said Karen ‘Well just come straight away and I’ll open a…’

But Jennifer never got to hear what her friend was going to open (though forced to guess she would have gone with a textbook bottle of dry white wine), because at this point her phone was flying high up into the air and she was staring at it aghast, wondering why everything had suddenly gone into slow motion. At the same time, although she didn’t exactly feel it, she was also aware of the most enormous impact, of the most sickening crunching sound and of the metallic taste of fear, dread and regret coursing through her body which was now being flung skywards having been hit very hard by a car. For a brief moment, just as gravity was about to take command and begin Jennifer’s terrifying and brutal descent towards the hard ground and the bonnet of a Ford Fiesta, she was filled with an illogical, yet undeniable sense of embarrassment. For the thought entering her brain at that precise moment was that there was a strong chance that whoever was driving and/or an ambulance team were about to discover what she had on under her coat.

And that was the last conscious thought she was to have for a very long time to come…




ONE WEEK EARLIER—FRIDAY (#ulink_d3e736a9-d51b-5619-8634-6dd8e80b9646)


Jennifer Wright hadn’t been entirely sure for a while now if she really liked her husband any more. As a result she’d been suffering from a sort of creeping, low-level anxiety for months. The thought of living out the remainder of her days in the suburbs with him terrified her, and she’d lost count of how many times she’d been struck by one solitary thought: Is this it?

To some degree, it was less a thought, more a feeling. She was only thirty-eight but felt like she was hurtling in slow motion towards middle age and decrepitude, while swept up in an unstoppable snowball of routine, malaise and domesticity. Lately, she could be in the middle of any number of mundane tasks, when from nowhere she’d be practically knocked over by a violent urge to run barefoot through long grass, dance till dawn (preferably on some form of narcotic), sleep in a yurt, or, failing that, to have the sort of passionate, filthy sex with a stranger that would leave her panting and covered in a film of sweat.

But Jennifer was a married mother of two, with a part-time job, and was fully aware, not only of how wildly inappropriate these yearnings were, but also how…impractical. There’d be consequences, ones she didn’t have the heart to deal with, and besides, these days, if she danced till dawn it would take her at least a week to recover and quite frankly they couldn’t afford the childcare.

‘Is this it?’ whispered her subconscious, again. The thought it might be freaked her out to say the least. However, at a loss to know what to do about any of it, she’d decided simply to wait things out, to try and remain positive, keep taking the Prozac and not to jump out of a window, for the time being.

Until one Friday evening in May that is, when Jennifer decided it was time to take matters into her own hands.

All relationships went through patches, she thought determinedly, clipping on her suspender belt and adjusting her newly bought black and red bra whilst manhandling her boobs into it. She owed it not just to herself but also to her children to try and make things better. Although she’d been hovering round the notion of what might happen were she and Max to split up, it was too terrifying a prospect to face head on as an actual possibility. And besides, after eleven years of togetherness she still loved Max. It was just a shame it was such a familiar, unexciting version of love, which occasionally had the tendency to veer off into violent hatred territory. The fact they hadn’t had sex for over four months wasn’t helping matters either.

Feeling surprisingly nervous Jennifer pulled open her wardrobe door so she could appraise herself in the full-length mirror that hung behind it.

Wow. She hadn’t looked this tarty in a long time. The evening sunlight poured through her bedroom window, bathing the entire room in a golden glow, highlighting her cellulite and the fact they desperately needed a new carpet.

At first Jennifer felt incredibly self-conscious, standing there, trussed up in broad daylight. Eventually however, she grudgingly admitted that she kind of got away with it. She’d always had an hourglass figure and these days it was probably covered by less flesh than it had been even pre-children. In her twenties she’d taken her figure for granted. Post-partum however, not only had she been hit with the realisation that actually she wasn’t immortal, she had also worked out that she was stood at a fairly major crossroads. One way led to elasticated waists, one-piece swimsuits and never being able to reveal her upper arms again, the other to still being able to look good in the odd bit from Top Shop, skinny jeans and the vaguely hateful yet better than frumpy ‘yummy mummy’ moniker. Terrified by the prospect of turning into her mother Jennifer had jogged determinedly in one direction, started doing boot camp at the park twice a week and stopped eating cake.

She peered at her face, wondering vaguely how old a complete stranger would guess she was. There was no denying she was in the midst of her fourth decade and yet it was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that was different about her face now to how it had been in her twenties. Yet that difference was undeniable. She still had friendly, warm brown eyes but nowadays when she applied eye-shadow much of it disappeared into a crease she was pretty sure hadn’t been there before. Due to her weight loss she had good cheekbones and her thighs looked good, yet she had to make sure she didn’t lose too much weight or her face was in danger of starting to look gaunt. She had faint crow’s feet round her eyes and a bit of a frown line which had deepened visibly around the time her babies had become toddlers at which point there had suddenly been more to frown about. But, she had a pretty face and, on a good day, could still scrub up well. She still had sex appeal, could turn a head and be whistled at by a builder and her wide smile, good, orthodontically-treated teeth (thank you, Mum) and long, thick head of brown (dyed) hair counted for a lot. Only for how much longer was anyone’s guess.

Turning round so she could glance back over her shoulder and examine what her bottom looked like in her new very uncomfortable G-string, she decided that if she squinted she didn’t look that far off the girl she’d been when she’d first met Max. Screw it, she thought, fired up by a growing sense of confidence. She was old and wise enough to know that any normal red-blooded man wouldn’t care anyway. Rather than scrutinising her for imperfections, surely he’d only see the naughty underwear, the effort she was making, the invitation.

She drew the curtains. Better. Direct sunlight and partial nudity were best kept apart. Across the room her phone was vibrating. She tottered over to it in her heels. The display showed it was her best friend, Karen, phoning to check up on her.

‘I feel like a right old scrubber.’

‘Good,’ said Karen. ‘You’re supposed to. You’re about to seduce your husband.’

‘Oh god,’ groaned Jennifer, returning to the mirror to examine herself from all angles again. ‘I’m not sure I can do this. I’m not sure I want to do it, truth be told. I’ve still got this week’s episode of The Apprentice to watch.’

‘You have to,’ Karen said frankly. ‘Not see The Apprentice, though at some point do, it’s hilarious, but have sex first. If you don’t do it soon he’ll start looking elsewhere.’

Jennifer wasn’t so sure. Karen had been flabbergasted when she’d admitted how long their dry spell had been and was clearly working on the proviso that no man could live without sex, but then again, Karen was married to a man who woke her up most mornings with something hard jabbing into her back. Whereas these days, Max seemed to have lost his sex drive completely.

‘Still on for a drink next Tuesday?’ Jennifer said, changing the subject. It felt weird making small talk while dressed as a sex worker.

‘Definitely. I’ll try and leave work a bit early and I think Lucy’s coming but Esther still hasn’t got a babysitter.’

Just then Jennifer heard the sound of Max’s key in the lock. ‘Ooh he’s back. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Good luck.’

Jennifer put her phone on silent then raced over to the bed and got herself into position. As she did, it suddenly occurred to her that instead of being consumed by lust, Max might find the sight of her trying to seduce him wildly funny. Oh my god, what if he laughed at her?

Quickly, she swerved her mind back round to the task ahead, acknowledging along the way that it was probably as much her fault as it was her husband’s that they hadn’t done it for so long. She was usually exhausted by the time he got home, busy trying to get the kids to bed and looking forward to nothing wilder than a glass of wine and some telly watching. Tonight however, with the girls at a rare sleepover at their grandparents, there was no excuse. They would have sex. Being physically close was what was required to lessen the emotional distance between them. She felt quite militant about it.

Downstairs she could hear Max taking his shoes off. She waited for him to call up the stairs, but instead it sounded like he was heading straight for the kitchen. Still, he’d come looking for her soon enough.

Minutes passed. There was no sign of him. Then she heard him leave the kitchen and go into the lounge. Damn. This wasn’t the plan. He was supposed to come upstairs and find her leaning back across the bed like a wanton sex goddess. Then, filled with raging desire caused by the fact she was wearing a bra that wasn’t flesh coloured and pants that weren’t large and from a Marks and Spencer pack of three, he was supposed to leap on her and ravish his way back into an intimate relationship.

Still nothing. Feeling irritated beyond belief, she now had no choice other than to heave herself back up and reach for the house phone, the suspender belt disappearing rather depressingly into the crevice of her belly. She rang his mobile.

‘Hello?’

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, making a monumental effort to sound less irritated than she felt.

‘Nothing. Got myself a beer and I’m watching a bit of sport. Why, what are you doing? What are we having for dinner?’

As Jennifer was treated to a crystal clear image in her head, of her husband in his usual position, lying on the sofa caressing his nuts, ‘relaxing’ with a bit of sport on, while waiting for dinner to magically appear in front of him, any vague urge she might have had to sleep with him evaporated. She was a woman on a mission though. The bra alone had cost forty pounds. She wasn’t giving up that easily.

‘Come upstairs.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Please Max?’ begged Jennifer, feeling the last vestiges of sex goddess slip away from her, like smoke.

‘Can’t you come here?’

‘Just come for a second please. I’d really appreciate it.’

‘Bloody hell Jen, I’ve had a long day and I’ve only just sat down. Ooof, great goal.’

Jennifer quietly put the phone down and stared into the middle distance for a while before slowly peeling off and unclipping her temptress outfit. Once she had, she shoved it all into the back of her drawer, and replaced the prohibitively expensive underwear with a pair of pyjamas before heading downstairs to cook lamb chops, baked potatoes and green beans, served on a bed of deep resentment.

Later, as she and Max sat masticating their overcooked chops in front of The Apprentice, Jennifer wondered if Max would ever desire or appreciate her body again, or whether that was it until she died.

Is this it?

‘Good day?’ she enquired feebly at some point.

‘Er, would be if I could actually hear what was being said. Why would you speak right over the crucial bit?’ He leaned over to get the Sky remote so that he could rewind.

Jennifer stared at her husband blankly, watching him ignore her.

In that moment it hit her that she couldn’t bear for things to continue as they were. She was physically and mentally frustrated, unfulfilled by her job and sad, all of which she might have been able to accept. Only she’d also been reduced to one half of a couple who were sat next to one another on a sofa, bodies present but souls millions of miles away. And that she couldn’t cope with.

Max continued to stare at the telly, oblivious to the maelstrom of potentially life changing thoughts which were swirling around his wife’s head, unaware his other half was questioning how all the decisions she’d made in life had led to this bitterly disappointing moment in time.

Meanwhile Jennifer began plundering the reserves of her memory, something else she’d been doing a lot of lately, searching for feelings she longed to relive, for there was enormous comfort to be taken from the fact that, of course, things hadn’t always been this way.




THE PAST—AIDAN (#ulink_02541d17-7284-56a7-87bb-d70b6cc96a8a)


Summer 1994

The alarm beeped, penetrating the deepest of sleeps.

‘Jen, wake up. It’s already 9 o’clock. We’ve got to get ready and if you want a shower you need to hurry. I said I’d meet Mark at The Pink Flamingo.’

‘Five minutes,’ Jennifer answered drowsily, idly scratching a mosquito bite on her leg. The whirring of the ceiling fan was in danger of lulling her back to sleep again so she forced herself to open one eye, enjoying the gurgle of anticipation that was already building in her tummy, despite her groggy state.

They’d only arrived on the island of Kos five nights ago after a fortnight of taking it relatively easy on the quieter Greek island of Santorini. Before that they’d been to Mykonos and Rhodes. There had been the odd moment of tension, but generally speaking, she and her friends had managed five weeks of travelling with no major disagreements and were having the time of their lives. They’d originally planned on visiting a few more islands before heading home but Jennifer had a strong feeling that they’d probably spend the remainder of their trip here, until either their money ran out or their livers packed up. Whichever came first. Kos had simply proved too fun to leave, what with Bar Street (self-explanatory), the outdoor clubs that stayed open till the sun was starting to rise in the sky, the sandy beaches and the biggest appeal of all, tons of gorgeous men.

They’d all slept with someone, though if she were being totally honest, Jennifer rather regretted her liaison at the beach with a handsome Greek guy on their second night. She knew she’d lived up to the reputation English girls seemed to have, of being easy. By the same token, she’d decided not to lose any sleep over it. She wasn’t proud of how little it had meant, but still didn’t see why girls should feel any worse than guys did, about what amounted to nothing more than a consensual exchange of bodily fluids. The only thing that had been slightly awkward was bumping into him from time to time. Neither of them could be bothered to keep up the pretence of interest now the act had been done.

‘Can I borrow your red dress, Jen?’ asked Esther, emerging from the bathroom in a towel, strawberry blonde hair hanging in damp tendrils around her face.

Since arriving on Kos the four of them had eased into a routine which consisted of sleeping until midday, at which point they’d force themselves to get up, no matter how much their heads were splitting, for tanning purposes. Then, after an afternoon of roasting themselves at the beach, they’d return to the apartment, shower, slather themselves in more after-sun than was probably necessary and have a sleep. Making sure first of course that they’d set the alarm so there was no danger of missing out on another night of partying.

Now, without waiting for a response Esther bent down to extract the dress, which was rolled in a ball and stuffed in Jennifer’s rucksack. Only the minute she did, the red dress became exactly what Jennifer wanted to wear that night. Esther borrowing her clothes was starting to get on her nerves, partly because with her long freckled limbs, she looked totally amazing in all of them.

Esther was the rare sort of girl who actually looked better with no make-up on at all. She wasn’t overtly sexy and yet was probably the most naturally pretty of the group. Back home in London, it was usually Jennifer’s more obvious sex appeal or Karen’s big boobs which guys noticed. However, whilst it might have taken their fellow students at College a few glances before they finally worked out just how attractive Esther really was, on holiday her tall physique and bare-faced beauty made her the instant star of the beach.

‘Um, sorry babe I think I’m going to wear it,’ Jennifer said sleepily.

Esther tutted. ‘Shit, what am I going to wear then?’

‘Don’t know, but hurry up,’ said Karen, drawing deeply on one of the two hundred Merit cigarettes she’d bought at Kos airport, before adjusting her dress straps in order to heave her considerable cleavage up as much as possible. ‘I am so up for it tonight.’

‘Makes a change,’ teased Jennifer.

‘Shut up,’ said Karen, grinning, teeth white against her brown face.

Normally her deep tan would have really suited her but sadly on this trip, the browner she got the more alarming she looked. Not for the first time Jennifer visibly balked at the sight of Karen’s hair. When they’d first arrived in Greece Karen had announced her intentions to go blonde with the help of a bottle of Sun-In. Typically, she’d ignored all her friends’ protestations completely, despite the fact Sun-In was never designed to be used on dark hair.

As a result, instead of the sun-kissed highlights Karen had been imagining, her reward for being so pig headed was patches of dodgy orange hair which looked like straw and was brittle and coarse to the touch. It had looked horrendous when she’d first done it but at least then she’d been pale.

Luckily for Karen however, what she had in her favour was her attitude. She’d always had incredibly thick skin meaning that it would take more than orange hair to ruin her holiday. Whereas, had the same thing ‘happened’ to Jennifer, it would have been a complete game changer. And as for Lucy, who’d always been self-conscious about her looks, partly because she’d never had brilliant skin and suffered from a bit of acne, if she’d had to deal with the Sun-In disaster she probably wouldn’t have left the apartment ever again, unless it was to go shopping for a burkha. But then Karen pretty much had a ‘fuck it’ approach to most things which would get her far in life, occasionally into trouble and lots of male attention.

Tonight she’d tried to mitigate the hair disaster by gelling it all back off her face. It looked seriously bizarre but, as ever, Karen preferred to concentrate on the positive so was reeking of confidence due to how good her boobs looked in her mini dress. Jennifer admired her for it.

As Jennifer looked at her friends, her best friends, getting ready for their night out, their biggest concern being what to wear, she was filled with the sense that this was a carefree time to be treasured. When they got home, A level results would be waiting for them and the next stage of education would begin. But for now they didn’t have to worry about anything except getting a tan, a task the girls had applied themselves to with more zeal than they probably had to their recently taken exams. Only Lucy with her pale, almost translucent skin and mousy blonde hair was still roughly the same colour she’d started out, though not for want of trying.

‘Do I look all right?’ she asked now, having slipped on a halter-neck top and a pair of shorts.

‘You look lovely,’ said Jennifer sincerely, lazily stretching one brown leg out over the white sheet she was entwined in. She loved having brown feet. ‘Those polka dot shorts are really cool.’

‘Come on,’ nagged Karen, who was dying to meet up with Mark. She’d met him four nights ago. He was twenty-four, from Wigan, and worked as a carpet fitter which had given rise to lots of predictable jokes about Karen getting laid.

‘Right,’ said Jennifer, finally heading for the shower.

Two hours, a quick pizza (they ate as cheaply as they could every night, preferring to save their money for drinks) and one bar later, they were in the best spot on the island. Club Kaluha. The club was huge, and outrageously expensive to get into unless you struck it lucky and got a pass from one of the PRs who scouted Bar Street looking for girls to entice in. Jennifer and her friends hadn’t paid to get in once so far, but poor Mark and his mates had had to stump up every night, much to their chagrin.

There was an inside section of the club but the majority of it was outside and in the middle was a massive pirate ship surrounded by palm trees. Walking in, having greeted the bouncers who by now they were on first name terms with, they were met by a wall of house music and what felt like an electrical charge of energy in the air, palpable anticipation. Then again, everything was always going to feel magical when there was a warm breeze, everyone had a tan and people’s biggest concern was who fancied them.

‘You all right?’ said Lucy to Jennifer, coming to join her on one of the outside seating areas where she had a good view of the ship and the main bar. She’d been sitting there for a while now, on her own, enjoying the music and watching the world go by.

‘Yeah, well happy. You?’

‘Good. Bit sad though. I don’t want this to end.’

‘I know,’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s been amazing. Still, I reckon uni’s going to be a right laugh.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Wish we were all going to the same one. You and Karen are so lucky.’

‘Look at Esther,’ interrupted Jennifer, nudging Lucy hard and laughing.

The two girls chuckled as they watched Mark’s mate, who for some inexplicable reason was called ‘Bonehead’, trying desperately to chat Esther up. Esther looked decidedly unimpressed as Bonehead advanced ever closer to her, shouting in her ear against the music. At the same time she was backing away, partly because he had a terrible lisp so was literally spraying her with his enthusiasm.

‘Mark’s a lovely guy but his mates are well annoying,’ said Lucy.

‘I know,’ agreed Jennifer. ‘I feel like we’ve slightly lost Karen to Mark too which is a bit of a shame. She’s bloody obsessed.’

And then, at exactly the same time, they saw him.

‘Oh my god,’ mouthed Lucy. ‘Are you looking where I am?’

Jennifer certainly was. He was absolutely gorgeous. Without even realising she was doing it, she suddenly found herself sitting up and angling her entire body in his direction.

He was standing by the bar, to the left of the ship, and was nodding his head in time to the music, watching a group of girls who were dancing next to him. He completely stood out from the crowd. He was wearing a T-shirt and combat trousers but his body was that of a demi-god and to Jennifer he seemed to ooze testosterone, sex appeal and something more dangerous. His arms were muscular yet lean and brown and he put Mark and his mates in the shade. They were mere boys compared to this specimen of manhood.

Just then he turned and caught Jennifer’s eye and as he did, a number of things happened. Firstly, Lucy realised in a nanosecond she was out of the running. Secondly, Jennifer suddenly sensed that the next few days were going to be very interesting, and thirdly he gave her such a confident grin she suspected he was thinking along the same kind of lines as she was. It was as if he liked what he saw but more thrillingly, clearly knew he could have it.

‘He’s coming over,’ squealed Lucy all flustered.

‘Oh my god,’ panicked Jennifer, realising her friend was right. ‘I shouldn’t have had that slice with pepperoni on it. Quick Luce, smell my breath.’

‘Fuck off, weirdo,’ complained Lucy, shoving her away. ‘And no, you’re fine anyway.’

Quickly, Jennifer stopped breathing on Lucy, pulled her skirt down and rearranged her legs to look as slim as possible. Then, as he continued his approach, she flicked her long, brown hair over one shoulder, realising as she did how obvious she was being. She flicked it back again but then worried in case she looked like she was having some kind of attack.

‘All right, girls,’ he said, finally coming to a stop directly in front of Jennifer. His accent was broad and northern.

‘All right,’ said Jennifer looking him straight in the eye, acknowledging the instant flicker of attraction that she’d felt between them. This was going to be so much fun.

She frowned at Lucy who was making a silly face at her as if to say I see you flirting, Missy.

‘Drink?’

Jennifer nodded, her eyes never leaving his. Nerves dissipating, she concentrated on letting him know she was more than a match for him and felt her stomach flip as he grinned again and looked her up and down in a way that could only be described as filthy. Every nerve ending fizzing, Jennifer watched as he returned to the bar where the queue for drinks was three people deep, while Lucy elbowed her excitedly in the ribs.

‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,’ squealed Jennifer, eyes still glued to him.

Unsurprisingly, the barmaid noticed him at once and served him straight away. She obviously knew him and the easy way in which he bantered with her, made Jennifer briefly wonder what she was getting herself into.

A minute later he returned carrying three lethal-looking cocktails. Jennifer was pleased he’d got one for Lucy.

‘Here you go. B52s’

‘Thanks,’ said Jennifer, tossing her hair again and shoving her breasts out as far as she could until, that is, she realised Lucy was laughing at her at which point she returned them to their normal vantage point.

‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said, matter of factly.

‘Not so bad yourself,’ she shot back, thrilled by his flirting.

‘Thanks for the drink,’ said Lucy, giving her friend a large wink and slinking off to leave them to it and find some fun of her own.

Half an hour later, Jennifer had found out that his name was Aidan, that he’d been on Kos all summer and that he was the most exciting person she’d ever met. He didn’t seem to conform to any rules. He’d left home, was travelling the world, his only real plan being to permanently escape his home town of Carlisle and to end up living in Australia. They’d already kissed and it was so charged with sexual excitement it had practically blown her head off. Now he was sliding his hand gently up and down her thigh, which tickled a bit, in a gloriously shivery kind of way.

‘Do you want one?’ he said suddenly, pulling a little bag of white pills out of his pocket. He took one out and offered it to her. It had a picture of a dove on it.

‘Not sure,’ said Jennifer truthfully.

‘Your mates can have one too,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plenty and they’re very clean.’

Jennifer shrugged, determined not to display how much her mind was racing while she worked out what to do. She’d not had ecstasy before but everyone she knew who had, like Karen, said it was amazing.

‘If Karen’s up for it I will,’ she said, leaving Aidan behind to go and get her friend who was inside on the dance floor.

Once she knew she was out of his line of vision, Jennifer stopped trying to walk sexily and started practically galloping towards her friend, gesturing to Karen to meet her halfway. ‘Aidan’s got some e’s,’ she shouted into her friend’s ear over the deafeningly loud music. ‘Shall we have one?’

‘Oh my god, so not only have you pulled the hottest person on the island, he’s got pills as well?’ she shouted back, out of breath from dancing, eyes shining. ‘You are such a bitch. Why didn’t you say earlier? Make sure he gives one to Mark too.’

Jennifer nodded and turned on her heel to find Aidan, hoping desperately he wouldn’t have disappeared or met someone more interesting during the last forty seconds.

As she made her way back, she decided that with regard to the pill, she should probably just go with the flow. Her dad had always told her that in life it was better to regret something you’d done than something you hadn’t which sounded like good advice to her, even if he probably hadn’t had class A drugs in mind when he’d said it…

One hour later and Jennifer was standing in the middle of the club, with her hands in the air, feeling happier than she ever had in her entire life. ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ by Snap was playing, a tune which they’d heard on average at least three times a day recently but at this precise moment it sounded more amazing than it ever had before.

Jennifer scraped her hands through her hair and exhaled noisily, letting the rushes she was experiencing travel up her body. Right now there was not one place on earth she’d rather be.

Suddenly she felt Aidan’s hands on her shoulders, massaging her, kneading her. His touch was so firm and felt so good that she staggered a little bit, almost losing her balance. She turned round.

‘All right,’ he grinned, chewing gum, his eyes wide and pupils really black.

‘Yeah,’ was all Jennifer could manage to utter, but she grinned back at him and it didn’t seem to matter in the slightest that she’d lost the power of speech. She literally couldn’t care less. All that did matter was that she was with her best friends, and with Aidan, who happened to be the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her life, listening to music that was literally transporting her to another dimension. She looked over at Karen who was dancing at a hundred miles per hour as if someone had told her all human life depended on it, Mark watching adoringly from the side, a daft grin on his face. Meanwhile, Esther and Lucy had kicked their shoes off and were having a chat on the cushions, stopping now and again only to give each other a big hug. God she loved them all.

‘Good isn’t it?’ said Aidan.

But Jennifer was too fucked now to reply. Her jaw was trembling a bit and she could feel her eyes rolling slightly in the back of her head but she wasn’t remotely bothered. Quite the opposite in fact. Instead she was relishing every minute of the warm, soupy sensations that had taken over her limbs and merely wanted to enjoy them flooding over her.

‘Hey you, you OK? Come and sit down,’ instructed Aidan.

Stumbling slightly but happy to do as she was told, Jennifer let herself be led to the cushions where her mates were sitting.

‘Jen,’ they said delightedly as if they hadn’t seen her for a week, eyes huge and shining. ‘Come here, babe. Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ she said softly before lying down on the cushions. She was overcome by a desire to writhe around on them but something told her it was probably best not to.

Maybe she’d run that thought past the girls.

‘Don’t you feel like rolling around on the cushions?’

‘What?’ said Esther, whose jaw was quivering slightly.

‘I said,’ repeated Jennifer, suddenly desperate for some water, ‘don’t you feel like rolling around on the cushions?’

Lucy nodded. ‘I do, I feel like stuffing them up my top too and pretending I’m up the duff.’

This struck Jennifer as not only funny but wise.

‘And I feel like sticking one down my pants so I’ve got a massive butt,’ added Esther.

‘And I feel like…’ Jennifer tried to join in but was defeated once again by ever increasing sensations that were flooding her system. After a long pause, she uttered ‘sticking one up my arse’. Only by then, the thread had been rather lost so it came out as a totally random statement. However, rather than feel embarrassed, she was amused by how ludicrous it all was. Besides, what anybody thought just didn’t seem to be a problem.

‘Stick what up your arse?’ enquired Aidan, looking confused.

‘Nothing,’ muttered Jennifer, the notion of trying to explain her thought process far too daunting at this stage.

‘You girls are funny,’ said Aidan, head bouncing in time to the beat, and as they bathed in his compliment, it was like they’d known him for years.

‘Where did you all meet?’

‘School,’ said Esther looking really out of it and clearly loving the next tune that had just come on: ‘Everybody’s Free’ by Rozalla.

Karen came whooping over. ‘Come on you lot. Fucking tune! Come and dance Jen, on your feet now.’

‘Too wasted,’ She managed.

‘But happy?’ checked Aidan.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, flopping back onto the cushions.

Everybody’s free to feel good.

She waved her hands around, playing air piano.

‘Hey, you girls are great,’ said Aidan, continuing on the same theme, chewing gum frenetically.

‘We sure are,’ concurred Lucy, trying to pull her friends in for a hug, but Jennifer was too wasted. She just wanted to sit in peace, in her own space, without being manhandled.

‘Love you girls.’

‘Love you too,’ agreed Jennifer, hardly able to open her eyes, she was rushing so intensely.

‘Even Bonehead’s all right,’ said Esther, looking over to where he was busy stacking boxes.

‘I may have let Bonehead have a cheeky half, whereas this lunatic told me she definitely wasn’t coming up so she’s had a whole one,’ Aidan said, gesturing to Jennifer.

‘Have you?’ said Esther and Lucy in unison, slack-jawed.

‘Yup,’ said Jennifer, collapsing into the cushions again. ‘Oh my god this tune is amazing.’

‘Nutter,’ said Esther.

‘Can I have another one?’ asked Jennifer.

‘No you cannot,’ said Aidan, stroking her leg as her friends looked on, not knowing whether to be impressed or worried by how well Jennifer had taken to the drug. ‘I can see I’m going to have my work cut out with you, you little minx.’

And that was it. From that sentence forward, continuing in the vein of giving everything little or no real deliberation, choosing instead to be steered only by instinct and desire, as you do when you’re young, Jennifer and Aidan were an item.




PRESENT DAY (#ulink_751c0127-53a5-52e4-89d2-1e354cf3ed90)


Everything was very, very quiet, apart from the dull, ominous thudding in her head. She was aware that there was stuff going on around her, commotion, chaos even, but she could only very vaguely decipher what any of it was. It all seemed so far away and she wasn’t sure she had the inclination to tune in properly anyway, for instinct told her that if she were to, that suddenly everything would really hurt. So instead she let herself drift further towards a state of mental limbo, refusing to choose the path of either resistance or acceptance. Something terrible had happened. That was a certainty. Her entire body was like a piece of lead, and somehow didn’t feel like her own.

A scream pierced the warm, dense fog she was in. It was a guttural, horrifying sound.

‘Jen,’ yelled the same voice, its tone desperate and distressed.

Karen.

It was Karen.

And then came another voice, one she didn’t recognise, telling Karen to stay back. Not to touch.

She knew she should probably be feeling more than she was. Doing something perhaps, and yet doing anything was a complete and utter impossibility. She couldn’t open her eyes and yet still managed to be dimly aware of flashing lights and at one point of someone manhandling her eyelids and asking her things. She wished they’d all go away and let the cloudy haziness which was shrouding her, envelope her completely. That would be easier.




SATURDAY (#ulink_f18a6ea7-5d75-50a7-87ba-a0c0c850e69c)


While Max went to collect the children from his parents, Jennifer raced round the house trying to get it into a vaguely fit state. Friends were coming for lunch and she was running behind. If she was honest she wasn’t feeling a huge amount of joy about the fact they were coming. Lately they’d had a lot of people over and while it was nice to socialise, Saturdays were starting to feel as structured and routined as the rest of the week. What with the cooking, cleaning and never-ending washing up and putting away. Still, in reality, if it was Karen and Pete who were coming over, she’d be looking forward to it a whole lot more. Apart from anything else, Karen wouldn’t care if the house was a tip, or if she served up a bit of old spaghetti for lunch.

Whereas with Judith and Henry Gallagher, she felt obliged to achieve that ‘I’ve thrown this magnificent feast together effortlessly, à la Nigella, wearing an unstained silk dressing gown while simultaneously raising two angelic children in a house liberally festooned with fairy lights’ look, that actually requires tons of effort, perspiration, lots of shouting at the children and some swearing. But then, when it came to Judith and Henry, ‘friends’ was probably rather a loose term and therein lay the problem.

Judith was a work colleague of Max’s who was alright…ish, only she talked about work incessantly, in a way that tended to make Jennifer feel totally excluded from proceedings. With Judith always hogging Max, Jennifer was usually left feeling obliged to entertain Henry, who frankly was hard work. A quiet, uninspiring, humourless bloke, Henry was one of those people who liked to exist under an umbrella of shyness, as if by labelling himself thus, he was excused from having to make any effort on the conversation front. As far as Jennifer was concerned though, once past the age of twenty-one, no matter how bloody ‘shy’ anyone was, she felt they should at least pepper a chat with the odd question, thus making it a two-way thing. As it was, whenever Jennifer was doing her bit by talking to Henry she felt like she was interviewing him.

To add to the already non-enticing prospect of lunch with the Gallaghers, this was the third time in two years she and Max had invited them over for a meal and they’d never returned the invitation. Max insisted it was a good idea for him to ‘keep in’ with Judith, for work reasons. But Jennifer was starting to think it was probably Judith’s turn to spend hundreds of pounds in the supermarket on feeding their faces, and that furthermore, perhaps she didn’t give a shit if they ‘kept in’ with her or not.

Having finally finished tidying downstairs, even going so far as to squirt a bit of polish on the coffee table so at least the room smelled clean, she started on the children’s bedrooms. By the time she’d got to her and Max’s room though she’d lost the will, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the prospect of still having to produce a meal for four adults, three children and a baby. So, after she’d stuffed everything that was on the floor into the laundry basket, she stopped for a second and sunk onto the bed, taking advantage of the unusual silence. For a few minutes she reflected on how easily she’d given up on her mission to seduce Max. As she did, the disappointment from the previous evening washed over her once more, and she found herself wondering idly when and indeed if she should try donning her new underwear again. After all, Max wasn’t psychic, so to be fair to him how could he have known what she’d had in mind? If she’d been really serious about having her wicked way with him she probably should have gone downstairs and shown him what she was wearing because if he’d had the visual stimulation she suspected he definitely would have gone for it. So why hadn’t she done that?

She sighed. Marriage. It was such bloody hard work sometimes. Make an effort was all anybody said and it was an effort. That was the problem. She missed the days when being with each other wasn’t any effort at all. The days when not being together were the ones which felt like the effort.

Jennifer willed herself to get up and continue her attack on the house but it wasn’t happening, mainly because her thoughts had turned to a subject which had been occupying her mind a lot lately. Sex. Or rather, her lack of it. As soon as she allowed the thought in, she felt a lurch of possibility in her nether regions.

The next thing she knew, despite the fact the potatoes desperately needed peeling if lunch had any hope at all of being served for one o’clock, her hand had slid into her knickers. Right, she needed to be quick so who should she think about? Aware that time wasn’t on her side she turned to an old favourite, if you like, a golden oldie, though part of her detested the fact she was still dining out on sex she’d had nearly twenty years ago. However, when it came to fantasy, Aidan was still guaranteed to get her going. And fast.

Once again Jennifer returned to a hot, airless room, which had a bed with a squeaky mattress and a ceiling fan, and replayed the best sex she’d ever had in her entire life. Images of brown limbs entwined and his strong hard body pressing into hers, manoeuvring her into positions she hadn’t even known existed, swam into her head. An enjoyable three minutes later, and her very old flame was just on the brink of giving her an almighty orgasm when she became dimly aware of the key turning in the door downstairs. She couldn’t believe it…

‘We’re back,’ called Max up the stairs.

‘Muuuuummy,’ two little voices yelled in unison, feet charging up the stairs.

‘Shit,’ gasped Jennifer, withdrawing her hand, and springing into an upright position, feeling utterly frustrated. Thirty seconds more and she’d definitely have been there. ‘Hello-ooo,’ she called back, slightly screechily. ‘Have you had a lovely lovely time, kids?’

As she leapt up from the bed she experienced a bit of a head rush. Quickly she patted her hair down and did her jeans up, legs feeling slightly wobbly.

The children barrelled in. ‘Mummy.’

‘Hello my little loves, how are you?’ she warbled ‘I’ve missed you. Were you good for Grandma?’

‘Yes,’ said Eadie.

‘What about you, Pol?’

‘Yes,’ her youngest agreed, though she seemed more interested in trying to get her T-shirt off.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I need a wee.’

‘OK, well you don’t need to take your top off to have a wee do you? Come here.’

Just then Max called up the stairs. ‘Jen, what the hell have you been doing? You haven’t peeled the bloody potatoes. They’re going to be here soon and nothing’s ready. You haven’t even laid the table.’

Jennifer rolled her eyes so vigorously they actually hurt a little bit. ‘Well…feel free to go for it.’

‘All right, there’s no need to be sarcastic about it, it’s just you said you’d get things under control while I got the girls and nothing’s done.’

‘All right,’ said Jennifer testily, stomping onto the landing and into the bathroom so she could plonk Polly on the toilet before heading downstairs.

She found Max in the kitchen, peeling potatoes angrily. Whole chunks were coming out.

‘I’ll do that,’ she said, trying to grab the peeler off him.

‘No, it’s fine, I’m doing it.’

‘What are you so grumpy about anyway? Is it that much of a big deal that little wifey hasn’t done everything by the time you’ve got back?’

‘Little wifey hasn’t done anything, let alone everything,’ muttered Max.

‘Oh rubbish,’ disagreed Jennifer. ‘The house was a complete state if you must know, and besides, I’m getting a bit sick of having people over every single weekend when we don’t even enjoy it.’

‘Yes we do,’ said Max, shooting her a look of real disdain.

‘No we don’t,’ she replied petulantly, simultaneously acknowledging that now they were sounding like their children.

‘We do,’ said Max, oblivious.

‘Oh yeah, we’re having a great time preparing for the arrival of smug-arse, “high powered” Judith and dullard Henry. And it goes without saying I can’t wait to spend the rest of the day washing up after them while you bum lick her,’ huffed Jennifer.

Max wrinkled up his nose at her choice of words, which actually made Jennifer giggle for a second and broke the tension a little.

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuum,’ yelled Polly from upstairs. ‘I’ve got wee wee on my sock.’

‘Yours,’ said Max.

Jennifer tutted before turning on her heel, faintly wondering if she’d get away with quickly locking herself in the spare room, so she could finish what she’d started earlier. Hmm…probably not.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang meaning the people she couldn’t be bothered to see, let alone entertain, had arrived.

Taking a deep breath and summoning up a smile she opened the door.

‘Hello everybody, come in, come in,’ said Jennifer, ushering them all into the house and down the hallway. ‘It’s so lovely to see you all. Oh my look at James, hasn’t he grown and doesn’t he look so like you, Henry?’

‘He’s a chip off the old block all right,’ agreed Judith, immaculate as ever in tasteful navy, which she’d offset with funky ‘weekend’ jewellery and ballet pumps. ‘No questioning who his dad is.’

Jennifer agreed totally, because actually James really did look exactly like Henry, only given that he was only ten years old, looking like a gone-to-seed, middle-aged man wasn’t necessarily a good thing. ‘So how was your journey?’ Jennifer enquired brightly, snapping out of her reverie before anyone noticed her staring.

‘Fine,’ said Judith, kissing her on both cheeks and handing her a bottle of wine. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late. Work’s been sooooo manic this week I simply had to have a bit of a chill out this morning. I bet Max did too, we’ve literally been working like Trojans this week.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Jennifer, quite wanting to punch her.

An hour and a half later than planned, lunch was finally on the verge of being served up.

The children were all starving despite having been fed various ‘just to keep you going’ snacks and were getting fractious. Judith and Henry had polished off two entire bags of Kettle Chips and had already had an argument about who was driving home. Oscar, their eighteen-month-old baby, was having a sleep upstairs and they were well into a third bottle of wine. Meanwhile, Max was sucking up to Judith so much it was making Jennifer’s skin crawl. She herself was worryingly pissed given that she still had to get lunch on the table.

As Judith roared with laughter at yet another dull work anecdote of Max’s, Jennifer flinched. The way Max was giving her his undivided attention was grounds for jealousy quite frankly, only she couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss. Instead she just felt saddened that every time she tried to join in with a vaguely witty remark he barely looked in her direction. Perhaps she should get her tits out she thought wryly. Run round the kitchen with them jiggling about.

With little enthusiasm Jennifer replenished the crisp bowl (this time with Frazzles and Pom Bears instead of posh Kettle Chips—it was all she had left). As she did so she smiled weakly at dull Henry who was sat on a stool by the island like a fat useless turd. She was just about to ask him yet another question about how his work was going when she realised she didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered. So instead she turned her back on him, and bent down to open the oven to investigate what might be happening in there. As boiling hot air blasted her in the face, she realised she was one hundred percent, definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, drunk.

She was also glad, and a little bit smug, that for once she’d cut corners by picking up (on Karen’s recommendation) some small stuffed chickens from the local deli. Not having to cook a meat dish of some description meant all she’d had to do in theory was make the roast potatoes and cobble together a salad. So why did it all feel as stressful as though she’d been preparing a banquet for eighty under the same conditions as the Masterchef final?

Seconds later she emerged from the oven once more, red in the face, sweating, and clutching the ludicrously heavy tray in an oven glove only to realise that the island needed clearing before she could put it down.

‘Max,’ she called over, to where he was deep in conversation with Judith about something tedious.

‘Max!’

‘Hey, there’s no need to yell. What is it?’ he said, trying to sound like he wasn’t snapping when in fact that was exactly what he was doing.

‘Sorry,’ she said, not sorry at all. Her hands were practically on fire. ‘I was just wondering if you could clear a space for this. It’s very heavy,’ she grimaced.

‘Oh right,’ he said, finally realising her plight.

Once dumped on the side, one by one, Jennifer lifted the little chickens out of the roasting tray and onto the chopping board. They were less chickens really, more parcels of poussin, tied up with string and stuffed with pork and herbs. Jennifer immediately decided that she wouldn’t bother fobbing the meaty creations off as her own. After all, she’d never boned a piece of meat (fnar fnar) in her life and had certainly never been arsed to tie up anything you could eat with string.

‘Ooh, those look wonderful, Jennifer,’ said Judith, gliding over to have a look at what she was about to stuff her self-satisfied face with. ‘Aren’t you lucky, Max? That’s what comes of having a wife at home who’s got time to actually create things like this. Poor Henry is lucky if I remember to buy him a ready meal aren’t you?’

‘I do work,’ said Jennifer, probably a bit defensively.

‘Do you?’ said Judith, looking first surprised and then apologetic, as if she’d just realised her error. ‘Oh god of course you do, and it goes without saying that looking after children is probably the hardest job of all. I certainly wouldn’t have had another if I’d had to stay at home and look after them,’ she honked, loudly enough for her offspring to hear and therefore quite possibly need therapy in the future.

‘No, I mean, I do work. I have a job,’ explained Jennifer ‘And I look after the kids. I work at an estate agent’s on the high street three days a week.’

‘Oh god brilliant,’ said Judith lamely, ‘that must be really fun.’

Jennifer picked up the carvers and tried not to look menacing. She really needed to eat.

‘Those look good,’ said Henry, ambling over.

‘Right, well, why don’t you all sit down?’ ordered Jennifer with meaning, wanting them all just to get out of her face while she plated up. ‘Judith, get the kids sat down. We’ll do their plates first.’

‘Oh right,’ she said, looking startled at having been asked to do anything.

Jennifer didn’t care though. She was too busy trying to figure out if the chickens were definitely cooked through. To her alarm they looked a bit pinky inside and a bit…well…unappetising really.

‘So, what’s that then?’ Max asked, also looking mildly alarmed by the colour of the meat.

‘Oh, that’s just the pork they’re stuffed with. Don’t worry, it’s supposed to look like that,’ Jennifer assured him, secretly wondering if a night on the toilet lay ahead for them all.

‘They don’t carve very well do they?’ Max added, in a muted whisper.

Jennifer gazed hopelessly at the chickens which had sort of collapsed in on themselves and were looking less and less appealing by the second. Sort of like grey and pink mush.

‘Just get it on the plates,’ she muttered, feeling deeply stressed now and too pissed and hot to handle the situation. She was pretty certain it was just the pork stuffing that was lending them that strange hue so they were just going to have to go with it. Frankly she was past caring, though she did add as an aside, ‘But make sure you give the kids the bits from around the outside.’

Once the children had all been given their plates of food (which they unanimously declared they didn’t like before having even tried it) and their drinks (one beaker of juice being knocked over immediately as tradition required), the adults got on with helping themselves to lots of salad and potatoes.

‘You didn’t make these yourself did you?’ Judith asked Jennifer, looking slightly worried as she surveyed her plate of unidentifiable meat.

And here it was, crunch time, time for Jennifer to explain that no, of course she hadn’t made them and that yes, they did look a bit weird didn’t they? And this answer was on the tip of her tongue, and yet for some reason known only to the inner machinations of her befuddled brain, that isn’t what came out.

Instead, what she experienced in that moment might well be what happens to mass murderers when they hear voices in their heads telling them to do things. Or, to put it another way, the normal Jen, the one who was usually pretty down to earth about stuff, and who ordinarily felt strongly that not making other women feel less able was hugely important, was punched in the head, literally knocked out flat by the other part of her. That is to say, the part that felt belittled by Judith and who had been battling for hours with the desire to yell very loudly and directly into her smug face that actually she’d got a 2:1 in her degree and that giving up her career in order to play an active part in her children’s upbringing had been a choice (albeit one she struggled with sometimes) so shouldn’t be sneered at. The part of her who was exhausted by the daily grind, that was strung out, in need of a long holiday and some rampant sex, and who was also suffering from a monumental mid-life crisis and had been prescribed anti-depressants only a few weeks earlier. That Jennifer took over and said, after an unnaturally long pause ‘Yes I did…I did make them.’

At the other end of the table Max looked baffled and just stared at his plate.

‘Wow,’ said Judith tentatively. ‘They look really…complicated. How did you go about it?’

‘Well…’ Jennifer said gingerly, feeling suddenly drowned by her own lie. ‘I…er…bought them, boned them…and then stuffed them with pork and herbs before…kind of, tying them up.’

‘Right,’ said Judith and in that moment Jennifer knew that Judith knew that she was talking absolute bollocks.

‘Mum,’ piped up Eadie, looking miserable.

‘Yes, darling,’ said Jennifer, teeth gritted. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t like my beef. It tastes like cat poo. Can I have some toast?’

‘It’s chicken not beef and it’s please may I have some toast?’ replied Jennifer.

‘Please may I have some toast?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Jennifer faintly. ‘Anyone else?’

For a second Max looked sorely tempted but soon readjusted his expression when Jennifer glowered at him on her way to the toaster.

The rest of the meal was pretty torturous. Only Henry seemed blissfully unaware that he was eating something which resembled road-kill. Everyone else performed a sort of cutlery ballet-dance around their plate, consuming lots of potatoes and salad, and expertly leaving a pile of pinky grey mush to one side, with either their knife and fork, or a napkin, placed cunningly over the top.

After the meal Jennifer cleared away, scraping tons of discarded meat into the food recycling bin. As she did so, she wondered at what point she’d become so sad and pathetic that she couldn’t have admitted that she hadn’t made the disgusting food herself and that probably none of them should have touched it, in case they all got the chronic shits. When had she become the sort of person who cared what people like Judith and Henry thought anyway? When had she transformed into such a middle-class stereotype, desperately trying to impress? When had she turned into Max’s mother?

Much later that night as she climbed gratefully between the sheets, head thumping with a same-day hangover, she said to Max who was already half asleep, ‘The chicken was a bit weird wasn’t it?’

‘It was all right,’ he said, his eyes shut and his body turned away from her. ‘It just looked a bit like cat food. Why did you say you’d made it?’

‘Don’t know,’ she replied truthfully, staring at the ceiling, hot with embarrassment just thinking about it.

‘You did yourself a disservice anyway,’ he added. ‘Your cooking’s far nicer and I think Judith doesn’t cook much so it’s not like you needed to compete. She works too hard to ever get round to doing any domestic stuff.’

‘Oh, so now you’re having a go at me for not making something are you?’ she retorted defensively, because in truth she was feeling gradually more and more embarrassed that she’d passed off the stupid, dodgy looking ruddy chickens as her own creations. Her tone wasn’t helped by the fact that the mere mention of Judith’s name was starting to send shivers up her spine.

‘No,’ he sighed, now clearly wishing she’d shut up and go to sleep. ‘I’m giving you a compliment on your cooking really but I’m also saying I think they knew you hadn’t made it anyway.’

‘Really?’ she said, despite the fact she’d figured this out on her own, having it confirmed was mortifying, to the point where another bad night’s sleep was probably on the cards. ‘Why?’

‘Because you went weird and replied really slowly, so it was obvious.’

‘Oh god I’m so strange,’ she whimpered. ‘The thing is I’m very tired you know.’

‘I know,’ he said, and with that he fell fast asleep, as he had an annoying habit of doing when he was tired, leaving his wife to ponder in the darkness the fact that lying hadn’t really achieved anything. In fact, it was clear to her that the only thing she’d stuffed by doing so (and it certainly wasn’t the chickens) was herself.

Perhaps the whole debacle was a sign that she needed to be more honest about a whole load of things.

Two hours later, bored of her insomnia, head whirring, Jennifer slipped out of bed and crept into the spare room. Able to spread out she tried to relax, and then decided to finish what she’d started much earlier in the day in the hope that a good healthy orgasm might help her get to sleep. And so it was that she returned to that hot summer back in 1994 when, unlike now, food was of little or no consequence to her or her friends because they’d had far more interesting things to worry about.




THE PAST—AIDAN (#ulink_33375bb5-7774-51c4-8e25-62790ef6e549)


Summer 1994

‘Come with me,’ said Aidan, the green eyes she’d got so used to, boring into her, pleading with her. ‘I know we’ve only known each other five minutes but what we’ve got doesn’t come along every day. I’m telling you.’

‘How can I come with you?’ repeated Jennifer, who inside was in complete turmoil. Something was pulling her, like a magnet, telling her to throw caution to the wind, to follow her heart, or possibly more accurately, her loins. They’d barely come up for air since they’d met and Jennifer had never known anything remotely like it. She knew she was relatively inexperienced on the sex front, having only slept with three people in total (actually four, she kept forgetting Greek bloke on beach), but Aidan had made her feel things she hadn’t dreamed were possible. In bed they made total sense and as far as she could tell he was also an exciting person, someone who was creating his own path in life to tread, one which wasn’t constrained by parental pressure or some traditional idea of how things should be played out. And that was the problem in a way. Jennifer had always liked knowing how things should map out. It had never occurred to her to stray even remotely from the plan which she and her parents were in agreement was the right one for her. The right one for most people.

School, college, travelling. Next on the list was university, followed by career, marriage, babies. That was life. Wasn’t it?

And yet here was someone asking her to go completely off piste. And she was actually tempted. Sorely tempted. She was pretty sure she loved him, or was definitely on her way to falling in love with him and knew if she let him go she might regret it forever. The thought of never sleeping with him again and therefore not experiencing that unbelievably exquisite pleasure was unbearable too. She licked her lips and stared down at her green flipflops. Her feet were pleasingly brown. It was so hot.

‘Look,’ said Aidan, ‘I’m not going to beg. That’s not my style. And if you say no I guess I’ll understand, though I think you’d be making a massive mistake. Like I said, what we’ve got is special. I know it is, and besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I’m asking you to come away with me, but I wouldn’t be kidnapping you. If it didn’t work out you could just get on a plane home.’

‘But my university place…?’ questioned Jennifer, wondering if she could really deny herself the opportunity to be with him when he’d turned her entire world upside down in a matter of days. University was something she’d always wanted to experience but he was right. She could always change her mind, so maybe she needed to be more adventurous? But as this thought trailed away it was replaced by the feeling of absolute certainty that her parents would be beyond livid with her for being so irresponsible and for not consulting them. Then again, it was her life. She was so torn.

‘Look, the boat leaves in half an hour. I’m going to be on it,’ said Aidan. ‘If you’re coming with me, you need to say goodbye to the girls and get your stuff. What’s it to be?’

‘Oh god,’ said Jennifer. ‘I don’t know.’

And for precisely ten more minutes she still didn’t.

And then she had a chat with Karen who looked at her with such horror that she was even contemplating the idea of going off with someone she’d known for a total of seventeen days that something took over. Something irritatingly sensible.

And so it was that the boat sailed off with a hurt and more devastated than he’d imagined he might have been Aidan, taking him off for adventure and ultimately Australia.

She may have made what she thought was the ‘right’ decision but that didn’t prevent Jennifer from feeling utterly desolate and distraught. She wailed as that boat sailed off into the distance and at one point even contemplated throwing herself off the jetty and swimming after it. Anything to have just one more feel of those arms around her. What had she done and would she regret this for the rest of her life?




PRESENT DAY (#ulink_2043e452-ab07-5b4c-93b9-1687112b8154)


‘Stay with us Jennifer, come on love, you can do this. Hang in there.’

Why was everyone yelling? She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep. She was so close to being able to just slip away yet simply wasn’t being allowed to. She felt very muddled and had the vague sense of being bullied.

‘Patient’s suffering agonal respirations and has a CO2 of eleven. Probably in anaphylactic shock so let’s commence CPR.’

‘Jen, please hang in there, I’m so so sorry. I love you.’

‘Sorry, Mr Wright. Can you stay out of the way? It’s very important.’

What was Max doing here, she wondered. For a second she was tempted to open her eyes to have a look but she wasn’t able to because suddenly a burning sensation swept through her so violently she would have done anything to make it stop. It was pain on a level she wouldn’t ever have thought possible. Every cell in her body was on fire, doused in hot, white agony. Then, as quickly as it showed itself it subsided, and once again she reverted to her numb state of nothingness.

Then, someone was applying pressure to her which hurt in a different way. She didn’t really want to be awake any more. She craved peace and sensed a way she could achieve it. There was definitely a direction she could go in that would remove all the pain, plus any further possibility of it.

She reflected for a second, feeling as though she were suspended in time and space, floating almost. In all honesty she wasn’t totally sure she wanted to go that way either. She wasn’t ready, which meant there was only one option left available to her. So once more she submitted to the grey fog of nothing. And as she sank back into it, more cries of panic sounded around her.

Meanwhile, as the paramedics went about their frenzied business of trying to save her life, the strangest things were happening in Jennifer’s bruised brain.

None of us can really comprehend what the human brain is capable of doing, in the same way that Jennifer had no clue as to the true capabilities of her laptop. All she tended to use her PC for was to write emails, do a bit of shopping or social networking, meaning its dual core processor was never fully taken advantage of. She was always stunned when Max, who was far more tech savvy than her, did some simple task on her computer, in a way that made her realise she was only ever utilising around ten percent of what it could probably do, if only she knew how to operate it properly.

It’s the same with the human brain, only on a far grander and more mysterious scale, its true power being so tricky to tap. Most of its work and activity happens at a deeply subconscious level and yet even beyond that, there are areas of it which we never unearth even when dreaming.

Psychics do better than most. Whether you believe in them or not, they at least have more awareness of the various possibilities which we could perhaps utilise if only we tried.

Right at that second, within Jennifer’s skull, a series of lightning-fast connections were being made, ones which she never usually would have been privy to if her head hadn’t made contact with the hard ground quite as brutally as it had, thus flinging her software into disarray. Something extraordinary was happening.

As her synapses furiously connected and fused, three tunnels of white light suddenly showed themselves to her. There was one to the left, one straight ahead and one to the right. Was this what death looked like? Instinct told her it was something different though and suddenly she knew, without needing to be told, that rather than leading her to the afterlife, instead these tunnels represented different lives she could so easily have led. Parallel universes, ones which were usually buried and hidden, deep in the core of the brain.

What she was being given here was a gift. The gift of being able to see what life would have been like had she chosen another route, or made a different decision, at three separate points during her life. And so it was that Jennifer allowed herself to fall into a deep and very informative coma. As her own private miracle started, she began to glide towards the first tunnel, the one to the left which was swirling with clouds of light at its entrance. This was the one marked Aidan




TUNNEL NUMBER ONE (#ulink_20648f69-d11c-5054-962a-c05e431b8478)


What Could Have Been—Aidan

Jennifer slipped out of bed and padded across the room to pull the curtain back. Sunlight immediately poured in and though it was still only early, she could feel the heat of the day penetrating the glass. She gazed out at the view, loving the way the sea glinted and twinkled through the gaps in the rooftops. Their little one bedroom apartment in the bay-side suburbs of Brisbane was very basic, very compact, but it was also only a twenty-minute walk from the beach.

She opened the window a fraction and breathed in deeply. Then she tipped her face back and let the already strong rays bathe her skin with their warmth.

It was strange getting up every day knowing it was going to be hot and that the sky would almost definitely be blue. She’d always considered herself a total sun worshipper but having been away for so long now, the sense of urgency to get out there and work on her tan had started to fade a bit. Sometimes, if she were being totally honest, she even found the constancy of the temperature a little relentless, a tad monotonous, to the point where recently she’d found herself secretly craving a bit of grey sky. This was ironic given that she was always the first to moan about the abysmal climate in England and yet what she missed about the British weather was that subtle change of seasons. Nothing beat a glorious, breezy, spring day, or that first sniff in the air which told you that autumn had arrived, when the light became more golden and the leaves were falling from the trees, crunchy and brown.

‘Hey sexy.’

‘Oh, you’re awake,’ she said, turning round to see Aidan grinning at her from the bed. He was brown, toned and fit from all the hours of running on the beach he was doing most days. She still felt a lurch of desire every time she clapped eyes on him.

‘Yeah funny that, given that you’ve pulled the curtains wide open. Now, seeing as you’ve woken me up, get your sexy bum over here,’ he said, eyeing her greedily.

She was only wearing a small vest top and a pair of knickers.

‘I know what you’re after,’ she grinned back at him, knowing full well he’d have a raging hard on. He woke up with one every morning. In that way he was a bit like the Queensland weather, predictable.

‘Just shut up and come here,’ he said, flinging back the sheets to reveal that her guess was indeed correct.

Not needing to be persuaded, Jennifer approached the bed and succumbed to half an hour of intense passion. Before Aidan, she hadn’t been aware of ever having such a voracious sexual appetite but he’d definitely woken something up inside of her that she supposed must have been lying dormant before.

After what was, as ever, mind-blowing, energetic sex, they both lay flat on their backs panting, sated, sweating.

‘You’re amazing,’ said Aidan, idly tweaking her left nipple.

‘So are you,’ she replied. ‘Seriously amazing.’

‘Love you,’ he said, hugging her tight. As he did so Jennifer marvelled at how safe he made her feel. The chemistry between them was something she doubted could ever be replicated with anyone else, to the point that sometimes they were almost savagely passionate with one another. She didn’t think there was anything she wouldn’t be prepared to do with him physically and, as a result, she had never felt so confident in her own body or so empowered in terms of the effect she knew she was capable of having upon him.

‘Are we going to the beach then?’ said Aidan.

‘Not the building site?’

‘Nah, that can wait. It’s too much of a scorcher. Maybe tomorrow?’

‘OK,’ she agreed, flopping over to her side so she could get up and start getting the beach bag ready.

Just then the phone rang.

‘Yours,’ said Jennifer lazily, though a second later she regretted this when she remembered it would probably be the scheduled phone call she’d arranged with her parents before they retired to bed on the other side of the world.

‘Yup, here she is,’ Aidan was saying, in a fed up, vaguely unfriendly tone which simply confirmed it was them.

Jennifer sat up and reached over for her vest top which she pulled back over her head before taking the phone from him. It was such a small apartment that there wasn’t anywhere for her to go where she could talk without Aidan listening in, so rather than standing up in the tiny kitchen, where he’d be able to hear every word anyway, she just stayed where she was. Never having any privacy did get to her sometimes.

‘Hi Mum, how are you?’

‘Oh all right,’ said the so familiar voice, made tinny from the sheer distance it was travelling.

Jennifer pictured her parents, sitting by the phone together, probably ready for bed in their dressing gowns, in the lounge with the radiators blasting.

‘What have you been up to this week, Jen?’

‘Oh, this and that,’ she replied ‘Working, bit of beach action. You know? The usual really.’

‘I thought you were going to that Surfers Paradise place.’

‘Oh yeah, we were, but we didn’t in the end,’ said Jennifer, turning around so she had her back to Aidan. He was looking grumpy like he always did when she chatted to her parents. It was getting on her nerves.

Three months ago, at exactly the time her mum and dad had been expecting her to be landing at Gatwick, back from her holiday with the girls, Jennifer had rung them from Athens to break the news that she’d essentially decided to throw caution to the wind and take an unplanned gap year. In Australia…

To say they’d been furious had been an understatement. Her dad had shouted, her mum had wept though, as it transpired, it was less the fact she wasn’t coming home which enraged them so much, but more the fact she wasn’t coming back because of a man they hadn’t met.

Their reaction had been so bad that Jennifer had seriously considered giving up on her adventure altogether. Had even thought it might be best just to admit defeat and head home straight away, tail between her legs. In fact she’d just been about to tell them that she was sorry and that she would do exactly that, when her mother had interjected with, ‘One whiff of male attention and you go and lose your head, Jennifer. It’s pathetic when you think about it.’

And that one comment changed everything. For at that point, Jennifer’s mood had switched from apologetic and shamefaced to resolute and determined. She’d been utterly insulted by her mother’s accusation and had said as much to Aidan when she’d got off the phone a few minutes later in order to have a think, on the proviso that she’d call them back with a decision.

She’d left him drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette in a dusty roadside cafe in a busy square and as she’d approached, it was obvious to her that despite trying to appear nonchalant he was in fact really nervous.

‘What happened?’ he’d asked, as soon as she was in earshot.

‘They went bloody mad,’ she replied, still a bit shell-shocked from the whole experience. She jumped as a moped whizzed past, almost knocking her off her feet.

Gathering her wits and checking left and right she finally reached his table, mind whirling as she tried to comprehend what had just happened.

She’d always hated confrontation and miraculously had managed to avoid too many bust-ups with her fairly conservative parents up until this point, which was partly why she was so livid with them now. How dare her mother have talked to her like that? Like she was some stupid, dozy tart who was so needy of male attention she’d do anything to get it. She’d never given them any cause for worry or upset in the past and yet now she was deviating off the path just a little bit, they didn’t have the patience to at least try and understand her reasons. Yes, Aidan had been a massive part of the decision not to go home, but that was life. You met people and things happened and given that they hadn’t even met him it seemed ridiculous for them to have formed an opinion of him already. It was so unfair. They gave her no credit whatsoever.

‘So what’s the score then?’

‘I said I’d call back in ten minutes so we could all cool off,’ she’d replied, avoiding both the question and his stare.

‘And?’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ she’d replied truthfully, feeling unbelievably torn ‘They’re really mad at me, Aidan, and it was awful hearing them so pissed off. Plus, Mum’s desperately worried that if I defer I might lose my place altogether.’

‘Well she would say that wouldn’t she,’ suggested Aidan.

Jennifer shrugged, doubtful her mum was that manipulative. ‘I’m so thirsty I almost feel faint, have you got enough money for me to get a beer?’

‘Yeah, go for it,’ said Aidan pulling some ancient Drachma notes out of his pocket and signalling to the waiter.

A few minutes later, once Jennifer had had the chance to glug back some of her cold lager, he enquired again. ‘So what’s it to be then, babe? Sunshine, the land of opportunity and some hot romance with me? Or back to mummy and daddy and the rain?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jennifer had replied honestly. She felt really conflicted and a bit stupid. She’d probably been deeply deluded thinking her parents would just accept her reasoning for ducking out. Plus, deep down she really didn’t want to throw away her chance to go to university, even if it meant admitting she’d been rash. Their fury had knocked her though and treating her like a child made it harder for her to decide what to do. She was so cross with them.

Realising she needed time to think Aidan dropped the subject so they sat in slightly tense silence, watching the world go by, until Jennifer got up. ‘Right, there’s no point sitting here putting it off. I’d better go and ring them back.’

As she marched back across the busy road to the centre of the square where the phone booth was, her head was spinning. What should she do? She still had no idea, so decided it would probably be best just to see how the conversation panned out.

Her dad had picked up the phone. ‘Right, now I hope you’re phoning to tell us you’ve seen sense.’

This wasn’t a good start in terms of making her feel like returning to the bosom of her family.

‘I’ve phoned to discuss things like an adult,’ she shot back.

‘Well, that’s a start,’ he said. ‘So in that case, surely you can see that running off with some good for nothing beach bum, while ruining your life in the process, is entirely the wrong thing to do?’

It was a shame he’d taken that approach. It was a shame he hadn’t simply asked her how she was and how she was feeling because he might have got a very different response to the one he received and the conversation may have played out another way.

As it was, three days later Jennifer and Aidan boarded a plane to Australia and, although she was experiencing an underlying sense of panic as to whether or not it was definitely what she really wanted, the fact she was proving a point to her parents had become enough to prevent her from changing her mind.

If relations had been bad at that point they’d taken an even worse turn once she’d phoned them again from Sydney, where they’d stayed for the first few weeks before heading to Queensland, at which point her furious dad had demanded to speak to her boyfriend. At first Aidan had refused, which had made Jennifer feel very uneasy. Eventually however, sensing that if he didn’t Jennifer was going to freak out, he’d eventually acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, at which point her dad had given him very short shrift, venting all his frustrations and feelings of helplessness at the person he held responsible for his daughter’s unfamiliar behaviour.

Aidan hadn’t appreciated being shouted at though. Rather than taking the reprimanding on the chin, he’d retaliated with a few barbed insults of his own which hadn’t helped matters in any way. Now, a few months on, things had calmed down a bit but no matter how much Jennifer tried to explain that Aidan had only been sticking up for her, her parents wouldn’t budge on their opinion of him. Meanwhile, Aidan refused to understand that perhaps they were only feeling protective and worried about their daughter.

So here she was having yet another awkward conversation with them while Aidan glowered and sulked next to her.

‘So why didn’t you go to Surfers Paradise then?’ her mum asked now, in a way that sounded to Jennifer somehow accusatory.

‘Because we decided to go another time,’ she lied. In reality they couldn’t afford to hire a car or go at all but she certainly wasn’t going to tell them that.

‘Hmm, well it seems a shame since you are there not to be doing anything, or seeing anything other than Brisbane,’ remarked her mother pointedly.

Jennifer swallowed, determined not to have another row.

‘How’s dad?’

‘He’s right here, do you want a word?’

‘Please.’

‘Hello, love,’ said her dad and Jennifer blinked back a tear. She didn’t half miss them.

‘You’ll never guess what happened to Martin at work the other day.’

It was true, she never would, so Jennifer let her dad witter away, filling her in on the day-to-day minutiae of his life in a way that made her feel closer to home.

Afterwards her mother came back on the phone. ‘I saw Karen’s mum the other day.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Jennifer, rolling her eyes and wishing Aidan would stop staring and listening, while simultaneously preparing herself for the next dig.

‘Yes. Karen’s loving university apparently. She’s got loads of new friends and is really enjoying the course.’

‘Good for Karen,’ huffed Jennifer.

‘Oh don’t be like that Jen, I’m just saying. There’s no need to be so defensive.’

‘You’re not just saying though are you? You’re having another go at me for coming here, only I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I can go next year.’

‘If they agree to you deferring your place. We’ve still not heard yet have we?’

‘No, not yet,’ she agreed.

Minutes later as she finally put down the phone she swallowed hard.

‘Hey you, you OK?’ said Aidan. ‘Don’t let them make you feel like shit.’

But Jennifer’s previous good mood had dissolved entirely. Every time she spoke to them it was the same. It stirred up so many mixed emotions, doubt, fear and anger at both their handling of the situation and her own.

‘Listen, fuck ’em. Just forget about them, babe. Now let’s get up and head to the beach.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said flatly, wishing it were that simple. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t be going today you know. Perhaps it would be more sensible to head down to that building site to see if we can get you some work.’

Aidan rolled his eyes. ‘You’re such a killjoy you are. Don’t let your parents ruin our day. Just because they want to be miserable buggers doesn’t mean we have to be. I mean, look how gorgeous it is out there and you want to sweat into town because some idiot from the cafe says there might be some work going. That’s hardly making the best of the day is it?’

Jennifer despaired. ‘I don’t know to be honest. I mean, yeah, it is a beautiful day, just like it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that. But it would also be good to be able to tell Mum and Dad that between the pair of us we had a bit more money coming in. Besides, we’re not in England now you know? We don’t have to drop everything just because the sun’s out. I suspect it will be a beautiful day tomorrow too, only by then, if there is any work going it will have gone.’

Feeling decidedly grumpy now, in that second Jennifer wished heartily that it would start chucking it down with rain. A bit of damp and drizzle might force Aidan into doing something useful and they could have a day off from feeling required to be on the beach. She only had a couple of shifts in a cafe every week and he was working as a bouncer every Friday but that was the sum of their income at the moment. They were totally skint and their lack of a ‘plan’ bothered her greatly, though every time she raised the subject Aidan didn’t seem to understand what her problem was. As far as he was concerned, they were living in hot sunshine, near a beach and having a lot of sex so there wasn’t anything else to worry about. His needs were pretty simple.

‘Look, I’ll go tomorrow when you’re at work. There’s no point wasting a day when we could be together, hanging out,’ he said.

‘All right,’ she said, suddenly too hot and lethargic to protest. Besides, by now she was also keen to get out of the stifling apartment. She decided to make an effort to snap out of the mood which she knew deep down had been caused by speaking to her parents. She just wished they would be a bit more supportive. Aidan, who could see she was feeling tense and sad, came over and started to stroke her back in a way that instantly made her shiver with physical pleasure.

‘Hey baby, it’s OK,’ he soothed.

‘I know,’ she said unconvincingly.

His hands carried on lightly travelling up her back and then around to her front where he gently rubbed her breasts. His touch was incredible and never failed to arouse her.

‘Is that nice?’

‘Mm,’ she sighed, giving in to the sensations and reaching around to feel if he too was getting excited. He was.

‘Wow. We only had sex five minutes ago.’

‘That’s what you do to me, little baby,’ he whispered in her ear before pulling her around and kissing her passionately and deeply.

They fell into bed and gradually her troubles faded away. There was no point stressing about anything too much, she supposed. She was in Australia so had to just make the best of it and to enjoy being with this amazing man who had the ability to frustrate and delight her in equal measure. Had she done the right thing? Who knew? Ultimately, she guessed, only time would tell but for now she was lost in the moment, and the moment felt unbelievably good.




PRESENT DAY (#ulink_0f22d60f-e0f1-5438-82fc-71716a59a2e1)


Jennifer didn’t exactly emerge from the tunnel. The sensation felt more like an expulsion, one which was sudden, brutal, and delivered with precisely no warning whatsoever. She was left feeling confused and utterly depleted. Her brain desperately needed time to rest and recover from what she’d just experienced, which was frustrating because there was so much she wanted to absorb, mull over and digest. But for now she was nowhere near capable. She needed to sleep. Before she surrendered to the grey ether however, she quickly glanced around and noted that the three tunnels all still existed, though the first was definitely shining ever so slightly less brightly.

She knew then that she would have another opportunity to visit each of them and was swamped with relief. She wanted to find out more about how things would have gone with Aidan. This was the most fascinating, terrifying, yet privileged gift she could ever have been afforded. For now though it was time to regain some strength and with that final thought she allowed herself to slip away.




SUNDAY (#ulink_4d6fdef4-856e-5fc8-8279-a466e28b623a)


‘Polly and Eadie need to get out and burn off a bit of energy,’ announced Jennifer.

‘Take them to the park then,’ said Max, finishing the last bit of his toasted bacon sandwich, and only narrowly saving himself from being swatted with a copy of The Sunday Times by winking, to make sure his wife knew he was joking. ‘Come on then, let’s take them to the swings now, and then perhaps we should go out for lunch, so you don’t have to cook?’

Jennifer acknowledged that this was a kind thought but couldn’t help but wonder what was preventing him from rustling anything up.

‘Or should I say, so you don’t have to buy in any revolting stuffed chickens that don’t actually look or taste anything like chickens.’ Another wink.

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Jennifer, laughing despite herself. ‘OK, that sounds good. And there’s a pie in the fridge which we can all have for early dinner but not much more than that so hopefully it’ll be quiet at work tomorrow, so I can do a shop in my lunch break. Otherwise I’ll have to go later.’

‘Good,’ said Max, who didn’t really care. Food was his wife’s department as far as he was concerned. ‘Right, Po-lly, Ea-die, come and get your shoes on, we’re going to the park,’ he yelled in the general direction of the kitchen door, getting up to put his plate in the sink.

‘Let’s aim to wear them out as much as possible,’ said Jennifer.

‘Definitely,’ Max agreed. ‘Then we can plonk them in front of a DVD this afternoon totally guilt-free.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ said Jennifer, wondering hopefully if that meant that he was thinking they might be able to sneak back to bed for some canoodling.

‘Because I hope you don’t mind,’ added Max, looking sheepish, ‘but there’s a footy match on that I really want to watch this afternoon and I told Ted he could come round and watch it here. He still doesn’t have Sky Sports at his.’

‘Oh…right,’ she said feeling crestfallen and bored already.

‘You don’t mind do you?’

‘No,’ she lied.

Later that afternoon, despite having been run out in the park all morning, like dogs, Polly and Eadie were still full of energy. They usually got on pretty well but today were directing it all towards fighting with one another, forcing Jennifer to act as both bouncer and mediator. When she wasn’t stopping them from killing each other over, of all things, a broken Barbie, she was putting on washing, taking it out or shoving it in the mountainous ironing pile. All in all not the most riveting of afternoons and, as she took out load after load, she thought wistfully of pre-children days when Sundays meant lying in bed with a hangover, which would eventually be cured by a Bloody Mary and a roast dinner at the pub, followed perhaps by a movie and some lovely sex. God, she was becoming obsessed. This must be how people felt when they came out of prison, or the army.

‘Come on, you two,’ she said now, or rather yelled, because by this point both her daughters’ whining had developed into full-blown wailing. ‘Eadie, bash your sister again and I’ll bash you.’

Of course she would never bash her kids in a million years so the threat was rather empty which Eadie could tell.

Eadie eyeballed her mum through the wonky brown fringe Jennifer had gifted her with only the week before, as if weighing up how much trouble she’d be in if she ignored her. Then, obviously having concluded she could handle whatever was flung at her, proceeded to whack Polly again.

‘Right,’ growled Jennifer, who had now officially had enough. ‘That’s it, up to your room.’

As Eadie burst into noisy sobs, Jennifer sighed heavily, sick to the back teeth of all the squabbling but partly blaming herself for it. No doubt her children had picked up on her generally unenthusiastic mood? Perhaps if she’d been perkier today and more inventive in finding ways to entertain them, they’d be behaving fine but frankly she just wanted to be able to leave them to their own devices for more than five minutes. She was tired and would like nothing more than to get into her pyjamas and zone out to a bit of crappy afternoon telly.

Max scampered into the kitchen.

‘All all right in here?’ he said, charging to the fridge to get a couple more beers. ‘Did I hear wailing?’

‘Yes you did,’ snapped Jennifer. ‘They’re behaving like a couple of deranged chimps. I’ve sent Eadie to her room for bashing Polly.’

‘Yeah Daddy, she hit me really hard,’ said Polly, rubbing her arm to demonstrate how much it hurt.

‘Er, it was the other arm, Pol,’ said Jennifer wryly.

‘How could you miss that, you bloody idiot?’ Ted yelled from the front room at which point Max literally ran back out of the kitchen, bottles of lager in both hands and one under his arm, skidding on the wooden floor of the hall in his socks. As he disappeared he yelled over his shoulder, ‘Be good for your mother.’

‘Come on you, let’s get some colouring stuff out,’ said Jennifer to her youngest, ‘but hurry up because I need to go and make sure Eadie’s OK. And don’t think I’m massively happy with you either, Madame,’ she added, noting Polly’s smug expression as she gloated over how much trouble her sister was in.

Later, after thirty minutes spent with Eadie in her bedroom, who by now had worked herself up into such a state she’d needed soothing and stroking, despite the fact it had been her who had been in the wrong, Jennifer decided to join the boys in the lounge. That way if the children wanted anything their father might be forced to do something.

‘Hello,’ Max said, looking distracted and surprised to see her standing in her own front room.

Max was on one sofa and Ted was on the other. Both were sitting wide-legged on the edge, beers in hand.

‘You all right? Second half’s just started. Why don’t you see if there’s a nice movie on upstairs? There might be a rom com or something.’

‘Because Eadie’s watching Tangled on our bed and as much as I actually quite enjoyed it the first time round I can probably live without seeing it again,’ she replied, flopping onto the sofa that Ted was sitting on. He shuffled up, slightly reluctantly, to make a bit of room, his eyes never leaving the TV.

‘All right, Ted?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, great thanks,’ he said, reminding her of when Eadie’s friends came round to play and answered her questions about school politely, with enough clues in their tone to suggest they’d rather not be talking to her at all.

‘How’s Annabelle? Is she well?’ she continued, not really caring if Ted didn’t want to talk. She did. She was bored.

‘Not bad thanks. Bit stressed. Callum’s been off school with tonsillitis but other than that OK.’

‘Good,’ she said, flicking through Style magazine.

‘Hey, have you seen your ex’s latest chart position in this year’s Rich List?’ said Max, throwing the supplement in her direction.

‘Oh god.’ Jennifer rolled her eyes. ‘Go on then, let’s feel sick for a second.’

‘reUNIon floated this year,’ Max informed Ted, almost proudly. ‘He’s worth a billion now.’

‘You are having a laugh,’ said Jennifer, though soon she knew it to be true for there it was in black and white, accompanied by a picture of him. Tim Purcell. The ex-boyfriend she’d put up with for two and a half years, now worth a billion quid. She scrutinised the picture of him. His blond hair was slightly silvery around the edges, but only slightly. He was a little more jowly but on the whole looked remarkably similar to how he had done fifteen years ago. He was good looking in a Nordic sort of way and had always had incredibly good skin, though his blue eyes were flinty and rather too deep set and his nose was a little too sharp. His face couldn’t have been more different to the one she’d eventually married. Max’s mop of brown hair and friendly face may not have been anywhere near as chiselled but it was one that overall she far preferred staring at.

She wondered what it would be like to see Tim now, after all these years. Would they get on? They’d had a strange relationship really. She’d always felt as if more than anything she’d amused him. She’d known he’d found her funny and sweet but she’d never got the impression that he massively fancied her. Then again, for her, it hadn’t necessarily been a relationship based on physical attraction either. She’d just been so terribly impressed by him, by his flair, and had liked being associated with someone who everyone on campus was aware of. If she did ever meet up with him again she’d love to ask him what he’d seen in her. She doubted they ever would though. They were hardly likely to bump into one another. They mixed in totally different circles. Plus they’d never kept in touch due to the fact that they’d broken up on such desperately bad terms, which ironically was the one time he’d demonstrated that actually she had got under his skin. Or had it just been his ego making him so angry and upset when she’d told him she wanted to split up?

‘What I’d do with a billion quid,’ mused Ted.

Buy yourself a Sky Sports subscription hopefully, Jennifer thought to herself, smiling blankly at him.

‘Perhaps I should get in contact with Tim and ask him if I can have a thousand pounds that I could use to get the tumble dryer fixed, pay some bills and have a splurge in Whistles eh? It would be pocket money to him,’ she joked.

‘Bet you wish you’d stuck with him, eh Jen? Instead of hooking up with this here loser,’ said Ted.

Jennifer smiled and shook her head. ‘Not at all, Ted. He may be rich but he was a bit of a cold shit really.’

‘Bloody clever though,’ said Max, ‘I mean, who hasn’t been on reUNIon at some point or another? Apart from my parents, who are literally the only people I can think of.’

It always struck Jennifer as slightly strange when Max went on about how clever Tim was. It was almost as if he was proud of the fact she’d gone out with him yet she’d have preferred it if he was a little bit jealous. As it was she suspected he’d probably love to meet him, have dinner with him, be able to discuss his career with him. In fact, given the choice, these days it wouldn’t surprise her if he were to choose going to dinner with him over dinner with her.

Jennifer’s phone beeped. It was a text from Esther, saying she was round the corner at the park with Sophie and could she pop in for a cuppa.

Jennifer phoned straight away. ‘Please come round. Max and Ted are here watching footy and I would love to see you. Also, Sophie can sort my two out and give them something more interesting to do than killing each other.’

Bored rigid of the swings, Esther was round in minutes.

‘I am so glad to see you,’ said Jennifer flinging her arms round her friend as soon as she’d opened the door. ‘Hi Sophie, how are you sweetie?’ she asked her goddaughter.

‘Good,’ said Sophie.

‘Go on then, Eadie’s upstairs and ah…here’s Pol. Have you finished colouring?’

‘Yes,’ said Polly, looking delighted to have a playmate that wasn’t Eadie.

As the girls scampered upstairs Jennifer ushered Esther into the kitchen.

‘Am I glad to see you? What a dull weekend I’ve had, bloody hell.’

Esther giggled. ‘Why? What have you been up to?’

‘Ugh,’ groaned Jennifer. ‘Well, we didn’t have the kids Friday night but we managed to totally waste that window of opportunity to have some fun by doing jack shit. Then on Saturday we had Judith and boring Henry round for lunch.’

‘Oh god,’ said Esther, who had heard enough about them to imagine what that would have entailed.

‘Quite, although I did nearly give them food poisoning which added a very small frisson of excitement. Then today I thought we were going to have a nice family day but it’s ended up being a day of sport watching and beer drinking with good old Ted.’ This last bit she said in a hushed tone.

‘All sounds joyous,’ laughed Esther, slipping off her jacket. She looked great as ever, but today she also looked tired. Under all those freckles she was pale, though as ever her naturally strawberry blonde hair was shiny and brushed and no matter how tired she’d always look attractive. She’d aged really well and always dressed in a way which made other women want to know where her clothes were from. She always bothered to add accessories and put outfits together in a way that told you she hadn’t just picked up whatever was on the floor and thrown it on. Today her printed scarf and Alex Monroe gold bumblebee necklace were the items Jennifer was coveting.

‘Sounds like you need a good night out with the girls.’

‘I do,’ agreed Jennifer. ‘You know we’re going out on Tuesday don’t you? Only to the Hare and Hounds but perhaps then we can get our diaries out and arrange something proper. Something which involves cocktails and dancing. Love that scarf by the way.’

‘Thanks, it’s River Island and yeah, I do know about Tuesday, although I’m not a hundred percent sure I can come yet,’ said Esther. ‘I still need to get a sitter sorted out.’

Jennifer suspected at that point she definitely wouldn’t be coming then. Such a shame and it grated ever so slightly that she wasn’t making it a priority.

‘Tea?’

‘Yeah please.’

‘Anyway, enough of my boring weekend, how’s yours been?’

‘Not bad actually,’ said Esther, a sly grin lighting up her face.

‘Go on,’ said Jennifer getting mugs out of the cupboard, happy that her friend was round. Her proper friend. It had restored her equilibrium.

‘Well, Jason and I are pretty skint at the moment and we’ve been in loads, but on Friday my mum babysat so we went out and got hammered. I’m talking properly pissed and when we got home and Mum had gone, we ended up…’ Esther grinned and started shaking her head ‘…doing it in the hall. And then we actually did it…’ again she had to stop while she snorted with laughter at the memory ‘…in the downstairs loo.’

‘You are kidding me,’ said Jennifer, full of mixed emotions. She was deeply impressed, terribly envious and strangely proud to hear that people were still having wild sex with their husbands, even if she wasn’t.

‘I’m not,’ said Esther, giggling. ‘It was hilarious. You know the type of sex you have where afterwards you’re almost a bit embarrassed.’

‘Wish I could remember,’ said Jennifer drily, grabbing the milk out the fridge. ‘By the way, they are brilliantly quiet up there aren’t they? Thank you so much for coming round and saving our day.’

‘Pleasure,’ said Esther. ‘Thanks for saving me from hours more of pushing Sophie on the swings.’

‘No worries,’ said Jennifer dolefully, her mind still on Esther’s exploits. ‘Do you know the last time I can remember feeling faintly embarrassed after sex was probably with Tim.’

‘Really? Why? What did you do?’

Jennifer grimaced. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Er, well that’s where you’re completely wrong.’

Jennifer wrinkled up her nose, embarrassed ‘Let’s just say he was quite kinky and leave it there shall we?’

‘No way!’ protested Esther. ‘I’m sorry but you have to spill the beans now, Missy. If you don’t I’ll end up imagining all sorts of things that are probably far worse than the reality.’

Jennifer sighed, knowing she was beaten. ‘OK, but tell anyone this and you’re a dead woman.’

Esther pretended to pull a zip across her mouth.

‘OK, so basically, towards the end of our relationship Tim was only really up for it if I was…um, pretending to be someone else.’

Esther’s eyes widened. ‘You mean he liked role play?’

Jennifer nodded, went red and chewed on a fingernail. Liked was an understatement.

Esther laughed heartily. ‘Oh god. I think I can vaguely remember you saying something about that at the time.’

‘Hmm,’ Jennifer said, wrinkling up her nose ‘Anyway, maybe I should have just put up with his weird ways. Let me show you something.’ She hurried into the front room and returned with the Rich List.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Esther, wide-eyed once she’d been shown the relevant bit. ‘That is a sick amount of money. God, I can’t tell you how much we could do with just a little bit of that. Things are really tight at the moment to the point where we’re struggling some months to make the mortgage payments. I certainly shouldn’t have treated myself to this scarf I can tell you. I feel guilty every time I put it on. Can’t you phone Tim and ask if we can have some?’

‘I wish,’ said Jennifer.

‘That could have been you,’ said Esther.

‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

‘It could. Don’t you remember how gutted he was when you broke it off? You could be that rich.’

‘Ooh listen to you, last of the feminists. I’d prefer not to be sponging off Tim Purcell thank you very much. Though, having said that, I’m not totally sure what the difference would be to how my life is now. I hate being so bloody dependent on Max these days. In fact I’ve been thinking recently about retraining in something in an attempt to improve my pathetic earning potential.’

‘Like what?’

‘Dunno, haven’t got that far yet,’ admitted Jennifer flatly. ‘Any ideas are very welcome.’

Esther giggled suddenly. ‘So, hypothetically, if you had stayed with Tim, do you think you’d still be friends with us lot now?’

‘Course I would,’ said Jennifer, insulted. ‘What do you take me for? Although I’m not sure Karen would have been popping round the mansion that often. She hated him didn’t she?’

‘She did,’ confirmed Esther. ‘I always thought he was OK though. He was so clever wasn’t he? Had an answer for everything. Oh and I’ll never forget that party he threw in your house that time. The one where Karen shagged Pete for the first time. It was awesome. Maybe even the best party I’ve ever been to.’

‘God that party was fun wasn’t it?’ agreed Jennifer. ‘Or are we looking back through rose-tinted glasses?’

As her mind returned to Tim, for once she allowed herself to be transported back to how life had been then, all those years ago. She always pretended she couldn’t care less, but in truth, being permanently reminded by the business section of the papers that one of your exes was doing amazingly well in life was a little galling.

And deep down she knew it probably could have been her enjoying the fruits of his labours, if she’d stuck with him. If she hadn’t let her concerns that he didn’t love her as maybe he should overwhelm her. Or, more to the point, if she hadn’t decided that despite his protestations, he cared more about work than any living human being, and that that in itself was a problem she’d never be able to overcome.

Still, that was all firmly in the past and besides, she suspected that no amount of riches would ever have made up for the fact she’d spent much of their time together dressed as a police woman.




THE PAST—TIM (#ulink_a42262f3-2e06-5f71-838e-0671b4b1f303)


April 1997

Jennifer was just about to pour her powdered Cup–a-Soup into a mug when she made the mistake (or not as the case may be) of glancing inside the empty vessel, at which point she retched violently.

‘Oh my god that is so disgusting,’ she exclaimed, stomach heaving.

‘What?’ said Karen, coming to join her in the small kitchen, opening the fridge and peering hopefully into it.

‘That mug’s got mould growing in it. I think I’m going to puke.’

‘Gross,’ said Karen, closing the door again. Neither a stick of limp celery, a jar of Pond’s Cold Cream or a Fray Bentos were really what she fancied.

‘Shall we just get some chips before we get there?’

‘OK,’ agreed Jennifer, unable to bear the surrounding debris a moment longer.

As a student you expected to live in a certain amount of squalor but the house they’d moved into for their third and final year of university, veered dangerously into unsanitary territory. From the outside it was amazing: a huge, grade-one listed, Regency terrace, located smack bang in the middle of a square just off the Brighton sea front. The paint may have been peeling (not helped by the saltiness of the atmosphere), but when you stood at the other side of the square, with your back to the sea, it looked exceedingly grand and still possessed the majesty of its era. Inside, however, it was a different story. The house had been adapted so it could be rented out with the student market in mind. On the ground floor there were three bedrooms and a bathroom, on the middle floor there was a vast communal lounge along with a further two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen. The third and final floor comprised three more bedrooms and another bathroom. Curiously there was no dining table anywhere in the house, something which all the parents who had visited at one time or another found baffling and commented on, but which none of the students cared about one iota. Meals tended to be consumed standing up or lying down.

Of course eight bedrooms meant eight housemates. Eight studenty human beings, whose priorities didn’t remotely involve anything like rubber gloves, cleaning fluid or tidying. As a result the mess was unprecedented. The house permanently looked like it had just been burgled and the kitchen existed under a coating of grease. Washing up was done on a need to eat basis and everything generally felt a bit…sticky to the touch.

The only part of the house which wasn’t completely grim to be in was Tim’s room. His was on the top floor and was by far the largest in the house, a privilege for which he paid £20 rent a week more than the others. Not only was his room the best in terms of size and view, but in startling contrast to the rest of the house it was also kept clean and tidy. Not that Tim was getting busy with the Marigolds. Instead he paid fellow student, Amber, a Chinese girl, £6 an hour for three hours every week, to come and clean his room and also to take away, wash and iron his clothes. This completely set him apart from his peers but then Tim was a rare breed of student altogether. The most glaringly obvious thing that separated him from the rest of the student community was the fact that he always had a bit of cash. Not just the odd tenner either, but wedges of the stuff which he kept folded in a money clip. He’d gone to a very expensive public school so undoubtedly had financial support from his family, but he also always had money-making schemes on the go, ones which tended to actually be successful, and this was reflected in his standard of living. Tim had his own fridge which was always well stocked with lagers and nice food, ready meals like lasagne and curries from Sainsbury’s and sometimes even M&S. He had his own desktop computer complete with Windows 95 and a two-seater sofa positioned against the window, meaning that when you lay on it you could fully appreciate the sea view. He also had his own hi fi and a kettle, making the room more like a self-contained studio apartment. Jennifer loved spending time in it. It certainly beat her tiny box room on the ground floor at the back of the house, with its own rather desultory view of a back yard which belonged to an unsavoury Mexican restaurant.

For Jennifer, climbing into fresh clean sheets once a week also felt like a huge perk of going out with Tim. Unless, of course, the night after Amber had been and cleaned it coincided with one of Tim’s ‘work’ nights or, as Karen referred to them, his ‘I want to be alone’ nights. Jennifer was used to Tim’s ways though, and in all honesty Karen constantly going on about how weird they were was sometimes more annoying than her boyfriend dictating when she could and couldn’t stay in his room.

Now, as Karen and Jennifer gave up the futile task of looking for anything that might be worth eating, they retreated to the lounge where Pete and Jim were playing Fifa on the PlayStation and listening to music. Empty McDonald’s bags littered the table and, with the curtains drawn, the only real light source other than a small side lamp came from the tropical fish tank which belonged to another of their housemates. Jim was only wearing his pants, which wasn’t a pleasant sight but one which the girls were used to enough that it didn’t warrant a comment.

‘Tim’s not coming out tonight is he?’ asked Karen, collapsing onto the sofa, her short skirt riding up her firm but chunky legs. Her question sounded more like a hopeful statement and told Jennifer everything she needed to know.

‘Don’t know,’ she replied, immediately on edge. She wished Karen would get over her dislike of Tim once and for all. ‘Why?’

‘No nothing,’ said Karen, ‘I don’t mind either way, I just assumed it wouldn’t be his bag. That is to say fun. Joking!’

‘You going to that karaoke thing?’ enquired Pete, his eyes not leaving the screen.

‘Yeah,’ said Karen.

‘Do you want some draw?’

‘Why not?’ said Karen.

‘OK, you sort that out and I’ll go and find out if Tim’s coming or not,’ said Jennifer, pointedly ignoring her friend’s dig.

She thundered up the stairs to the third floor, taking them two at a time in her platform trainers which she was wearing with a crop top which showed off her flat belly and an A line short skirt.

‘Are you coming out tonight or what?’ she panted, having banged on Tim’s door and received a ‘Come in.’

‘I’m not, my precious,’ replied Tim, not looking up from his desk. ‘Sean’s coming over to show me the code he’s written. We’re having a meeting.’

‘Ooh,’ she moaned. ‘Please come?’

Tim turned and gave her an approving look followed by a lopsided grin so endearing it made her want to run over and kiss him. Not that she did. Tim’s demeanour was generally one which encouraged people to keep their distance. But while they didn’t tend to go in much for spontaneous affection, what they both did relish was sparring with one another verbally.

‘Hmm, let me think about it. My options are A: stay here and see all my ambitions and dreams come to fruition. Or B: go out in the rain to watch you and Karen murder what were perfectly decent songs to start off with in a shitty karaoke gay bar on the sea front. You’re all right thanks.’

‘Vicky’s coming,’ joked Jennifer, grabbing the life-size cardboard cut-out of Posh Spice which Tim had pinched from Blockbuster Video the previous week when he was pissed.

Ms Adams was wearing the white mini-skirt and bra top she’d worn for the Brits. Ginger Spice was downstairs in the lounge too, in her iconic union jack dress, casually leaning against the wall, only with an extra black moustache and glasses which someone had thoughtfully drawn on.

‘Well, that’s a different story then,’ said Tim. ‘If old lovely legs is going.’

But he didn’t mean it. His attentions were firmly back on his computer.

Jennifer tried not to feel put out. She’d been going out with him long enough to know he wouldn’t change his mind and that there was no point grumbling given that his drive, ambition and clever brain were the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.

Admittedly half the time she didn’t entirely follow what he was on about when it came to his plans to cash in on what he felt was going to be a huge surge in terms of internet usage but his passion for the subject was infectious. His latest idea was to create some kind of platform on the world wide web for people to find old university, college or school friends, that then allowed you to find out how they’d done in terms of what jobs they’d gone on to, whether they were married or not, and if they’d had children. It would be called ‘reUNIon’ and was less a social networking experiment than a way for people to be utterly nosey. It would allow you to link up with people and then, once they’d given their permission, you’d be able to see their page which would be formatted almost like a CV. However, before you could see it, the site would ask you to predict what you thought those people were doing. In other words, if you’d signed up to it you might receive an email from an old classmate asking if you wanted to see what they had predicted about you. Tim was convinced that people’s natural desire to know what others thought of them would be the key to its success.

‘So what’s Sean bringing round?’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Tim bluntly.

‘Try me.’

‘He’s been developing some programs. I told you. He’s written some code.’

‘For reUNIon?’

‘Yes,’ Tim said, sounding exasperated, which in turn made Jennifer feel sad.

Just then, Pete yelled up the stairs.

‘Tim, someone here for you.’

‘Great,’ said Tim, bounding into action, brushing past her in his eagerness to get to Sean, practically flattening her as he did so.

Jennifer gave up and sighed. She’d lost him so she might as well get on with her evening. Karen would be pleased anyway, she thought, as she picked her way across the landing which had piles of dirty laundry strewn all over it.

Later that night, or rather, in the early hours of the next day, Jennifer and Karen staggered home. After five minutes of taking it in turns to stab the front door with their keys they finally made it into the house. Giggling like schoolgirls, cross-legged and clutching one another in an attempt not to piss themselves laughing, it took them an age to get up the stairs. Once they had they both raced to the loo and then reconvened in the lounge,they peeled their coats off and Karen got out all her skinning up paraphernalia.

‘I’m going to see if Tim’s still up,’ said Jennifer, who couldn’t be bothered with pretending she wasn’t dying to see him.

‘Fine,’ said Karen, only slightly huffily. ‘No doubt he will be because he hasn’t taken over the world yet.’

As Jennifer bounded up the stairs she decided it was probably time to have it out with Karen once and for all. Her constant jibes were getting on her nerves. It wasn’t her fault Karen was single at the moment.

‘Tim,’ she said, banging on his door, having seen light coming from beneath it. There was no reply but there was music playing, Oasis by the sound of it. She barged in.

Tim and Sean barely looked up, so engrossed were they, huddled over the wretched computer.

‘Er…yoohoo, hello, Earth calling my saddo geek boyfriend.’

‘Oh hello you,’ said Tim looking up. Despite looking exhausted and having the pallor of someone who hadn’t had any fresh air all day, his eyes were shining and he looked excited and thrilled. As he leaned back his shirt rode up exposing a glimpse of his lean hairless stomach.

‘How’s it going?’ said Jennifer, suddenly feeling slightly queasy. Running up the stairs probably hadn’t been the wisest of moves given that she had litres of various spirits swooshing around in her belly. She swayed across the room and sank thankfully down onto the bed. She reached down to pull off her trainers and once she’d manhandled them off, chucked them across the room. They made a huge thudding sound as they made contact with the wall.

‘Amazing,’ said Tim. ‘We’re doing fucking amazing, thanks to Sean.’

Jennifer smiled weakly in Sean’s direction. Sean had the social skills of a jellyfish as far as she was concerned and, if she were being completely honest, she was a bit jealous of him. Tim never looked this happy and satisfied after a night in with her, that was for sure.

‘Come downstairs and have a drink with me and Karen?’ she said, trying not to sound petulant but not sure if she was succeeding due to being so drunk. Ugh, now that she wasn’t breathing in lungfuls of sea air, the alcohol was making its effect well and truly known.

‘Um…’

Jennifer got up, rolling her eyes heavenward, bracing herself for the inevitable no.

‘…yes, why not, my little drunkard? I’d love to. And then you can tell me all about your evening.’

Jennifer smiled. ‘I’ll re-enact it if you like.’

‘Even better,’ said Tim pulling a face. ‘Come on Sean, we should have a break.’

‘Cool,’ muttered Sean, not moving.

Tim rubbed his face with both hands, then came over to where Jennifer was and regarded her with interest as she bent down to retrieve her clumpy shoes.

‘I can see right up your skirt,’ he said, in a way that gave Jennifer an immediate thrill.

He lightly stroked her belly, in a way that was a mixture of quite nice yet also irritating.

‘You are wrecked aren’t you,’ he stated, suddenly noticing how much she was frowning. Her brows were knitted together partly due to how much concentration was required simply to stand up straight.

‘I’m fine,’ she said defensively.

‘Good,’ he said, running his hands up her back.

It was the affection she’d been craving for days, only right this second being touched was making her feel vaguely nauseous. She needed to eat. She needed toast.

‘Can I have some of your bread?’ she said, pulling away and gesturing to his fridge. She lumbered over to it before he’d had the chance to answer.

‘But of course,’ said Tim. ‘Eat an entire loaf if you like, my sweet. And if reUNIon takes off like I think it’s going to, I shall buy you your very own bakers.’

Jennifer wasn’t really listening. She was too intent on getting at the sliced white which she had confidence would restore her sugar levels and hopefully make her feel less pissed. She had planned on toasting it but in the end was so desperate for some starchy carbohydrate, she just ripped a slice in two and shoved one of the halves into her mouth plain.

As she chewed, it stuck to the roof of her mouth.

‘Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not completely classy,’ joked Tim. ‘Third class that is.’

‘Come on, let’s go and have a drink then,’ she said, mouth full.

‘Yes,’ said Tim. ‘Because you look like you definitely need one.’

Jennifer tried hard to think of a witty riposte but it was too much effort so she gave up and staggered towards the door instead.

Tim followed her but seemingly Sean couldn’t be torn away from his computer for neither love, money nor vodka.

In the lounge Karen was reclining on the main sofa which was so threadbare and ancient it had pretty much collapsed in on itself a long time ago. Lying on it felt a lot like you were lying on the floor. She was doing some impressive recreational multi-tasking by building a spliff, keeping one eye on the telly and listening to music. ‘Don’t Speak’ by No Doubt was blasting.

‘Evening, Karen,’ said Tim, in a tone that suggested he was up for a bit of a wind-up session.

Jennifer sighed inwardly as she realised she’d now be in charge of keeping the peace.

‘Right…booze,’ she said. ‘Shall I make us all a vodka?’

‘Yeah,’ said Karen. ‘Where’s the bag, we didn’t leave it did we?’

‘No, it’s here by your feet,’ said Jennifer, extracting the plastic bag which had a half bottle of vodka and some orange juice in it from where it was wedged down the back of the sofa.

Of course it went without saying that there were no clean glasses or mugs to be found in the kitchen so she went downstairs to her room to fetch some paper cups which she’d purchased only the other week precisely for times like this.

Due to being so utterly rat-arsed, the effort of now having charged downstairs at high speed left her swaying in the middle of the room for a few seconds while trying to remember what she’d come down for. Her mind had gone completely blank and she could hardly keep her eyes open. Finally it came back to her. Cups. Paper cups. Now she felt smug. Well done her. She was conscious of getting back to the lounge quickly though, so as soon as she’d retrieved them she raced back, leaving her door wide open in her haste. It wouldn’t do to leave Tim and Karen alone for too long. They’d only end up sniping at each other.

It was too late though. As she approached the lounge her heart sank.

‘But wanting to know what people “do” is just blatant snobbery isn’t it?’ Karen was arguing, albeit from a lying down position which put Tim, who was sitting upright, at an immediate advantage.

‘Oh fuck off Karen, you should hear yourself. What’s snobby about being curious? About being interested?’

‘Because you’re suggesting that what we “do” defines us, like some middle-aged fart at a drinks party saying “And what do you do?” she said, in a voice like Maggie Thatcher.

‘Here are your drinks,’ said Jennifer brusquely, splashing liquid into the paper cups until they were pretty much two parts vodka one part juice.

Tim took his and slugged it back. As he did he winced. ‘Oof that’s strong?’

‘Poof,’ said Karen unnecessarily, downing hers in one and instantly looking like she deeply regretted it.

‘Anyhow,’ said Tim, ‘the point is, Karen, that if you think reUNIon is such a shit idea you won’t go on it, that is entirely your prerogative. And yet I’d bet good money that in five years’ time, if you got an email telling you that Ed Fisher wanted to find out what you were up to, and not only that, that he’d predicted what he thought you were up to, you’d be intrigued. Don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t have a look at that point.’

This was a bit below the belt. Ed Fisher had been, up until five weeks ago, Karen’s boyfriend. Then he’d dumped her, cruelly, by text, telling her it was because he didn’t really fancy her and saw her more as a friend. She’d cried pretty much for a week.

‘If that arsehole got in touch with me in five years’ time I’d be fucking livid,’ she yelled.

Jennifer slugged back her drink nervously. ‘You two,’ she interjected. ‘Can we talk about something else for once?’

‘Like what?’ said Tim sarcastically. ‘What do you want to enlighten us with, my angel?’

Jennifer gulped and as she did so she became aware of a horrid metallic taste in her mouth. This was swiftly followed by an ominous lurching sensation in her stomach. Horrified, she brought her hand up to her mouth.

‘You OK?’ said Karen.

‘Gonna puke,’ Jennifer just about managed, racing from the room as the cocktails she’d drunk earlier made an unscheduled reappearance.

‘I am one hell of a lucky guy,’ said Tim.

‘Yes you are actually,’ replied Karen loftily, though the sound of Jennifer puking violently into the kitchen sink wasn’t really helping her case.




PRESENT DAY (#ulink_da726dc3-0286-5225-b170-53f91ce1eb84)


‘What’s happening, Doctor?’ asked Max, the scraping sound of the plastic chair against the floor indicating he’d leapt to his feet the second the doctor had appeared through the door.

‘Well, we’re encouraged that she’s made it through surgery. At one point we were extremely concerned about the build-up of blood around the skull but it appears to have eased off. Having said that, she’s not completely out of the woods yet, although her vital signs have stabilised.’

A pause.

‘Perhaps we should continue speaking in the corridor, Mr Wright.’

Good, thought Jennifer. She needed quiet and wanted to be left alone. In sterile silence. Once more she felt herself slipping a little further back towards oblivion, only as she did so she was suddenly hooked violently back to reality again for the second time that day. As though a giant fist had gripped her purposefully, purely so she could address a thought which had been loitering on the periphery of her consciousness, tapping her brain, desperate for her attention.

Polly and Eadie. As maternal instinct took over and penetrated everything, her daughters were flung into sharp reality. Her babies, her girls. The stab of emotion she encountered in that moment as she thought of them was gut wrenching, panic inducing. She didn’t know if they were OK and during this rare moment of lucidity she fully understood that she was powerless to find out. She couldn’t be like this. They needed her. What was happening? She felt like a prisoner in her own body, helpless, petrified. If Max was here, wherever ‘here’ was, then who was looking after them? Her mum? Karen? But as quickly as panic and fear welled up, it subsided again as confusion swamped her once more.

She battled in vain to stay attached to the awareness of her daughters, but it proved too difficult. As quickly as their images had formed, they slipped away again, until within seconds she couldn’t remember anything. Instead, all that remained was the overriding sense that she was detached from whatever was happening, and that she was being encouraged to drift further and further from it. Perhaps she should? At first she’d been pleased to emerge from the fog but it was enticing her back again. And so she succumbed once more to the new murky world she now existed in. Furthermore, as Jennifer drifted away she let the falling sensation overwhelm her again, this time confident of what to expect. There they were, the tunnels of light, and for the second time she was carried towards the still open portal on the left.




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