LITMIR.BIZ

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I show my client sample hair shades, the magazine photo appears to have been forgotten. She leaves, not as Angelina, but thoroughly de-frizzed and happy.

      ‘Lovely colour you did there,’ remarks Simone, my boss, as I check my appointments.

      ‘Thanks. She was pleased, I think.’

      ‘Fancy a quick coffee? I’ll make one.’

      ‘That’d be great. I’ve got a fifteen-minute gap, then I’m booked up pretty much all day.’

      In the kitchen, Simone hands me a mug. ‘So, good weekend?’ she asks.

      ‘Yes, I actually managed to get out on my own and do some shopping.’

      ‘Sounds great . . .’

      ‘Celeste popped in,’ I add, ‘while I was out.’

      ‘Oh.’ She frowns. ‘Were the kids there?’

      I nod. ‘I know – nothing was going to happen while they were around, and I’m probably being ridiculous and reading far too much into it. But still. I felt kind of . . . uncomfortable.’

      Simone regards me with striking blue eyes. Everything about her – the flawless skin, perfect nails, the fact that she looks around 500 years younger than I do – screams ‘child-free’. ‘You know what I think?’ she says, raising an eyebrow. ‘I reckon they’re just friends and that’s all there is to it. Maybe he’s just enjoying hanging out with a woman. You know – having a female friend instead of just the guys from football and school. Good for the ego and all that.’

      ‘Yes but—’ I stop myself. Simone’s probably right, and what’s wrong with having a close friend of the opposite sex? I used to, at school and college and in suburban hair salons on the fringes of North London. But they all drifted into relationships, as I did, and since we left London four years ago, we seem to have lost touch. I’ve never made any new male friends to replace them.

      ‘Know what you and Jed need?’ Simone adds, swilling her cup in the sink. ‘A weekend away, just the two of you. Something to put the spark back.’

      ‘Impossible,’ I say. ‘Mum’s brilliant with the kids, but having all three for the whole weekend would be too much for her.’

      ‘What about Jed’s parents? Or your sister?’

      I laugh darkly. Pauline and Brian live a five-hour drive away in South London and are, more to the point, beyond clueless. Kate would be willing to come down, but since she’s just set up her B&B in Scotland it seems far too much to ask. ‘I really don’t think—’ I start.

      ‘Why not?’ she cuts in. ‘A weekend in, I don’t know – Paris or somewhere would do you the world of good. It might even perk up your . . .’ She tails off and grins.

      ‘Simone,’ I say, sniggering, ‘anyone’s sex life would perk up if their children were in another country.’ She laughs her throaty laugh, and tosses her gleaming chestnut curls, as we go through to attend to our next appointments.

      Although I barely come up for air between clients, our conversation niggles at me all morning. A weekend away, I keep thinking as I cut, colour, blow dry and create an up-do for a party. It’s obvious that Jed and I desperately need time together but, even if I could arrange it, would he want to go away with me?

      Grace has three friends for tea after school, involving an impromptu cookie-making enterprise. One young visitor decides to liven up the proceedings by taking my dressing gown off the radiator in order to wipe her sticky hands on it, then places it on the hob and inadvertently turns on a gas ring. A sleeve is singed black, the gown is extinguished under the cold tap and the kitchen fills with bitter fumes, cancelling out the delicious biscuit aroma which has been teasing my nostrils. By the time Jed shows up, I’m scraping dough off the kitchen floor, a husk of my former self.

      ‘Don’t want to put pyjamas on,’ Toby screams, as if they were made not from the softest brushed cotton but laced with barbed wire. His cheeks are flushed, his dark eyes wet with furious tears.

      ‘You look exhausted,’ Jed points out, taking over with Toby. ‘Here, I’ll sort out the kids.’

      ‘Thanks,’ I mutter, sinking onto the sofa with a large glass of wine. As a parent, my husband is far more effective than I am. With Jed, the kids snap into action, whereas my voice drifts ineffectually around the house, no more significant than a light breeze.

      As I sip my wine, a mobile starts ringing on the coffee table. I pick it up, realising too late that it’s not mine but Jed’s. ‘Hello?’ I say.

      ‘Oh! Um, is that Laura?’ Celeste asks.

      ‘Yes, it is,’ I say lightly. Why is she calling him now? Hasn’t she heard of kids’ bedtime?

      ‘Is Jed there? Don’t worry if he’s busy, it’s nothing urgent . . .’

      ‘He’s just reading Toby a story upstairs. I’ll ask him to call you back when he’s finished—’

      ‘No, it’s okay,’ Jed cries, bounding downstairs all bright-eyed and smiley. ‘I’ll take it . . .’ With a ridiculous guffaw, he snatches his mobile from my grasp and marches through to the kitchen. I stare after him. I have never seen Jed move so fast, not even on the football pitch. Anyone would think Nicole Kidman was on the line.

      ‘Daddy!’ Toby roars from upstairs. ‘What are you doing? Come and finish my story. Come back!’

       Chapter Eight

      I stand dead still, still clutching my wine glass, fury fizzing through my veins as I try to make out what Jed’s saying. Ooh, yes, ma petite French angel, you can slather me all over in chocolate sauce as soon as I can get away from the dumpy old wife . . . zut alors, I’m sure the old trout’s listening . . . Okay, he doesn’t say that exactly, but he’s chuckling, yacking about God knows what. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he murmurs, adoration spilling from his lips. ‘That sounds fantastic.’ Perhaps we could extend the chocolate-sauce slathering a little lower, Angelcakes . . . ooh yes, just there . . . perfect . . .

      ‘Daaaad!’ Toby screams. ‘I want my story!’ I scamper upstairs to find him sitting up in bed, gripping his battered copy of Dirty Bertie and glaring at me. ‘Daddy was reading it,’ he says, jutting out his bottom lip.

      ‘I know, sweetheart, but Dad’s busy with a terribly important phonecall right now. I’ll read the rest, okay?’ I squeeze onto the bed beside him and pop Ted on my knee.

      ‘Don’t want you to do it.’ He shuts the book and tosses it onto the floor.

      ‘Tobes, don’t be like that. Don’t be so sulky. I told you Dad’s—’

      ‘I want DAD!’ he snaps, exhausted tears springing from his eyes.

      ‘Okay, okay.’ With a sigh, I climb out of bed and tuck in Ted next to Toby. ‘I’m going to say goodnight and put your light off now, okay? And if you’re still awake when Daddy gets off the phone, maybe then he’ll come up and finish your story . . .’

      ‘Why are you cross, Mummy?’ Grace calls from her room.

      ‘I’m not cross, love. I’m fine . . .’

      ‘You are. You’ve got a cross voice on.’

      ‘Well, that’s probably just because I’m a bit tired,’ I call back, trying to sound light and perky and distinctly un-cross. I prick up my ears.

      ‘Yeah, that’d be great, I’d love that,’ Jed warbles downstairs. Anyone would think he’d called one of those pervo sex lines.

      ‘Night, honey,’ I murmur. Toby flicks his head away as I try to kiss him, as if I’m the one who’s abandoned

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