Sealed With a Kiss(2)

‘I think Ian and I might have split up. No, scratch that. We have split up.’

Kate’s mum stopped halfway through applying her lipstick, her mouth a startled O, and looked at her daughter in the mirror. Her eyebrows raised, she opened her mouth to speak.

‘I’m okay.’ Kate held up her hands in a gesture of protest. ‘In fact, I’m more than okay. Don’t say anything. It’s Emma’s day.’

‘Me? Say anything? Of course I wouldn’t. Now give me a cuddle.’ Elizabeth squeezed her daughter’s shoulder, not wanting to crumple her outfit. ‘And wipe those eyes. All that crying has made your eyeliner run. We’ll talk about this later.’

She popped her lipstick back into her bag, taking a deep breath and giving a decisive ‘That’s enough for now’ nod. Kate scrubbed at her eyes with a piece of loo roll. Never mind that her eyeliner was always smudged. Easier to smile and agree. She took a deep breath and returned to the bar.

Ian was holding forth about something in a corner, with a collection of their male friends. He looked at Kate, a questioning eyebrow raised, still concerned for her well-being. She knew he was right. They’d been treading water for the last year, clinging to the wreckage of their relationship. His sudden announcement was the lifebuoy they’d both desperately needed.

‘We’ll talk later,’ she mouthed at him. He raised his head in a half-nod of agreement. Kate turned to the bar and was swallowed up by the crowd. Five minutes later she emerged, wobbling on her unfamiliar heels, carrying a tray of gin and tonics. Checking that no one was looking, she ducked behind a pillar, knocked back a couple and returned – her smile superglued on – to the dance floor.

They made it upstairs at 2 a.m. Kate took off her makeup. Ian brushed his teeth beside her, avoiding her eye in the mirror. They didn’t talk, but wove in and out of each other’s way with the familiarity of routine. He folded his suit, neatly. She dumped her dress on the chair, topped with the tangled mess of her tights, complete with knickers caught up inside. They climbed into bed naked, out of habit. He looked down at their bodies and pulled a wry face. Together they pulled up the covers.

Ian was asleep in seconds. Kate lay awake, the room spinning slightly. The trouble was, she thought, that habit had characterized their relationship for so long they’d forgotten to notice that nothing was left. Ian rolled over in his sleep, draping his arm across her waist. She picked it up to move it, thought better of it and curled into him for the last time.

‘No, Mum, I don’t want to move back home.’ Kate shifted the phone from one ear to the other and rolled her eyes. She was standing in the garden, contemplating her half-dead herb bed. Not much point in salvaging any of it. In fact it was a rather unfortunate metaphor for the state of her relationship. ‘I have no idea where I’m going. Emma and Sam have said I can stay in their spare room.’

Kate lifted up a snail shell to see if anyone was living in it. Empty. Perhaps she could move in there.

‘And what would it look like? “Hello, have you met my daughter, Kate? She’s twenty-six and lives at home with us. Oh, and she doesn’t have a job, or any prospects.” I’d feel like something out of a Jane Austen novel. And I’d end up with you trying to marry me off to a vicar.’

No room for a dog in a snail shell, Kate reminded herself, and after all this time spent living with Ian, who was allergic to anything small, cute and fluffy, she was determined that a dog was part of her future. Who needed men? A dog and some cats would do. And maybe some sensible shoes and a tweed skirt.

She placed the shell back in the flowerpot, realizing that she hadn’t a clue what her mother had said.

‘Mum, listen. It’s not Ian’s fault – it’s not anyone’s fault. We should have split up after university, instead of taking the easy option. He’s taking over the lease, and we’ve sorted all the money – it’s fine. I need to pack. Call you later. Love you.’ Kate made a kissing noise down the phone and cut her mother off in mid-flap.

‘You off somewhere nice, love?’

Alan-from-next-door looked up from his begonias as Kate hauled her suitcase out of the garage.

‘Visiting friends.’ She couldn’t face explaining.

‘Ooh, lovely. Have a nice time, duck.’ Alan looked happy enough with the reply.

Standing on the front path, she looked up at the house as if for the first time. A red-brick semi on an executive estate, the house was perfectly pleasant and inoffensive. ‘Usefully situated on the outskirts of Cambridge, with easy access to public transport and motorways,’ the letting agent had told them – but after four years it still didn’t feel like home, and she wasn’t sad to leave. The house was soulless and sterile; or perhaps, thought Kate, looking at Alan and Barbara’s sweet cottage-style garden next door, it just echoed her feelings. Turning around the little cul-de-sac, she saw happy piles of colourful welly boots and ride-on toy cars outside the door of no. 23. Veronica-from-across-the-road had obviously returned from the stables, because her little 4x4 was parked in the driveway and the lights from the kitchen window were glowing.