Page 126 of The Bad Mother's Diary

I shouted, ‘WHAT HAS SHE SWALLOWED!’

Mum said it was just something brown she’d found on the floor and it would ‘all come out the other end’. Then she told me I used to eat gravel as a baby.

Panicked for a bit. Phoned back and made Mum put Daisy on the phone. Daisy was making her usual noises, so felt better.

When I got back to the balcony, Alex didn’t look at me. He didn’t take my hand again either.

He was quiet in the car on the way back.

Just as we were arriving at the village, Alex said, ‘Look, if you want to make a go of things with Daisy’s father, I’m not going to stand in your way. It’s the right thing. For Daisy to have a family.’

I said, ‘I don’t want to make a go of things with Nick. Not anymore.’

Alex said, ‘And yet you take calls from him at nine o’clock at night.’

Just to make things worse, Nick was WAITING OUTSIDE the Oakley Arms.

He looked pretty drunk, swaying around with a can of gin and tonic in his hand.

Alex’s jaw went all hard and twitchy and he said, ‘Sleep well’ in this really formal voice, like he was reading the news.

And off he went. Not so much as a goodbye kiss or anything.

As soon as Alex was gone, Nick came lurching towards me doing his big smouldering puppy-dog eyes.

He’d been waiting on the doorstep ‘for hours’ apparently.

I said, ‘What would Sadie think if she saw you here?’

He said he couldn’t give a fuck what ‘that high-maintenance cow’ thought. Apparently, Sadie won’t even let him sleep in the bed anymore. She says he farts in his sleep.

Then Nick said we had a child together and shouldn’t we try to make things work?

I asked why the sudden change of heart.

He said, ‘Maybe I’m jealous. Your mum told me who you were out with. You know I hate Alex Dalton.’

Eventually I said Nick could sleep on the sofa. He was way too pissed to get home – I have no clue how he even got here in that state. He can’t read a train timetable at the best of times.

At some point, Nick got into bed with me and started pulling the moves.

It was all so familiar I almost found myself going along with it. I mean, Nick was pretty sexy when we first got together.

Luckily, I was awake enough to push him away.

Nick acted all innocent and hurt.

He said, ‘Come on Jules. You know you want to. I want you back, Jules. I made a mistake. A stupid mistake. We’re good together. You know we are.’

Then he said he just wanted to spend the night in bed with me. Like old times. And he wouldn’t try anything. He was lonely and blah, blah, blah.

I was so tired.

So like an idiot I let him stay.

This morning, Brandi came bursting in and saw us together.

I said, ‘This is SO not what it looks like.’

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