Page 85 of One Night With You

We chop and cook in companionable silence, music playing, focusing on our tasks. Then Jackson says, ‘So, now all the dust is settling … how are you? Like … really?’

It’s been three weeks since the big bombshell.

‘I’m … I dunno. Still working everything out. I need to have a conversation with my boss and see what my options are. The job is actually the least interesting thing about my life down here so it’s the thing I would be least sad to say goodbye to – but, okay, so what? I ask my old boss for my job back?’

‘Does the prospect of that excite you?’ he asks, opening up the bag of mince we picked up from the butcher to addto the onions. I put the diced peppers into a bowl and start to slice the courgettes as thinly as I can without losing a finger.

‘Going back? Absolutely not,’ I reply. ‘I just keep thinking, surely there’s a way to do this that feels like a step forward instead of a massive leap back.’

He uses the spoon to point at me. ‘Now you’re talking,’ Jackson says. ‘I was about to say the same thing. You’ve loved being here because you’ve gotten to try new things, try on new parts of your personality, even try looking a bit different.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, slowly, because at first it feels like an accusation. ‘I’m not trying to be somebody I’m not though.’

‘I know that, idiot,’ Jackson says, firing up another pan to cook off the vegetables I’ve prepped for him. ‘But the things that did that for you – can you name them?’

My cheeks sting hot.

‘You know it started with Ruby,’ I say. ‘And to be fair, you, that night I got the sofa, inviting me over. I made my first friend, and it felt pretty easy. Everyone back home is coupled up, and not being part of a couple means I quickly felt like an outsider in my own friendship group. It feels more common to be single later down here.’

‘And the guys at your old job?’

‘Yeah, some of them were cool, but it’s not like I’m twenty-five. I’m management, now, so it’s frowned upon not to have a sense of boundaries.’

‘I get that,’ says Jackson. ‘It’s the polar opposite to my job where we’re out with the talent all the time and have to be almost like BFFs with them. It can be quite fake, really.’

‘Do you enjoy it though?’

‘It makes good money,’ says Jackson. ‘And I get to shape culture, in a way. I know that sounds wanky, but this newgeneration of influencers: they’re not just hawking handbags and spot creams, they’re activists and they stand for something. One of our clients has been on the bestseller list for nearly half the year with her book on gender theory, and another just went viral for a Ted Talk on helping new mothers back into the workforce.’

‘Okay, yeah – that’s pretty badass.’

He takes the veggies off the heat and boils the kettle, getting out a jug and some stock cubes once he’s finished.

‘Do you have to move back to Liverpool?’ he says. ‘Do you even have to leave London? It’s a quick train ride, all things considered.’

‘I know for sure I don’t want to be a part-time dad,’ I say. ‘I’d like to be a drive away, not a scheduled train trip away.’

‘So maybe the chat you need to have is with a recruitment specialist, not your old boss …’

I nod, enjoying what he’s saying.

‘That, I can do,’ I say. ‘Yes. That makes total sense.’

‘I’m not just a pretty face, see.’ He smiles.

‘Oh,’ I say back. ‘I thought people said you’re notevena pretty face.’

‘Ha, ha.’

The chilli needs time to simmer and so Jackson puts the TV on and I google recruitment agents on my phone, because it’s really not a bad shout. It’s important to remember I don’thaveto slip back into how everything was. I can get a new job, see about a dodgeball team up there. I could live in a nice apartment by the water, even, spend weekends and maybe some weeknights with the baby. I need to talk to Millie officially, but I assume we’ll be able to do a proper fifty-fifty arrangement. I’ve met Sandeep over FaceTime and I’m not worried about him taking over.

The more I talk about it, and the more time that passes, the more I can believe it might all be okay. I don’t feel as hopeless, now.

Once we’ve had our chilli and I’ve issued several overt compliments to Jackson confirming that yes, it really is sublime and world-class and should be featured in a recipe book, somewhere, maybe Jamie Oliver’s, or at a push Gordon Ramsay’s, we head out. Millie says she doesn’t want me holding her hand at her NCT class. She says it would be like a budget version of an ITV drama where she has her right hand held by her lover, and the left by the baby daddy she’s no longer with, and none of the nurses knowing who to refer to as ‘daddy’.

‘There must be something you can go to on your own,’ she said, her face as neutral and pragmatic as ever over Skype as I checked in to see how she’s feeling. ‘Or with a friend?’ she added.

And that’s how I end up in a cold, draughty hut in Bethnal Green with Jackson, who is laid between my legs pretending he’s in active labour.

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