Page 51 of How Not to Be A Loser
I somehow forced the ball of now tasteless mush down my throat, helping it along with a slow drink of water. My brain was racing at a hundred miles an hour, but somehow still couldn’t catch up with a single coherent thought.
‘Only, it’s been ages, and I’ve been really patient, and I still want to speak to him just as bad, but if you really aren’t going to let me talk to him without you emailing first, can you please hurry up and do it. Like, this evening. If you aren’t doing anything else.’
I sat there for a while longer, the longing in my child’s voice ringing in my ears, before replying with the only word I could find right then. ‘Okay.’
‘What?!’ Joey nearly fell off his chair, choosing instead to fling himself across the table at me, sending sour cream flying.
‘Your jumper’s trailing in the salsa,’ I mumbled into his shoulder.
‘Don’t care.’ He gripped me tighter. ‘I love you, Mum.’
‘I love you too. Now, while we clear up this mess, I’d better fill you in a bit. Knowledge is power, after all.’
Washing-up abandoned, we sat and went through Sean’s company website, plus anything else we could find about him online. No social media, except for a long-abandoned Twitter account. I recounted what little I knew about Sean’s background. Joey lapped up the knowledge that he had an uncle and grandparents, while expressing a mix of relief and disappointment that we failed to find any siblings.
I refused, unequivocally, to show him any of the emails. I didn’t need to argue about the other messages, as I hadn’t mentioned them.
‘When was the last time he sent you one?’ Joey asked, biting the last shred of his nail to the quick.
I thought about that. ‘A while, actually. There was a flurry a few weeks ago, but nothing in the past month.’
Joey looked at me, fear in his eyes. A twinge of anger.
‘Hey, don’t panic. If your dad meant any of what he said about wanting to get to know you, a month isn’t going to have changed that. He probably thought it best to give me a bit of space.’
Joey said nothing, unconvinced.
‘Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’ I opened up my email, then, before I could type anything, shut the lid on the laptop altogether. ‘Before I do this, can I tell you how it ended?’
Was this the right decision? Would it help Joey – help protect him – to know this? Or was it one last stab at making sure I remained the good guy, that history wouldn’t repeat itself, and my boy, so like his father, wouldn’t abandon me too?
As someone who earns a living by taking crappy information and turning it into something positive, I did a pretty good job of softening the blow and making it sound not quite so appalling. After all, Sean had been young back then.
What a shame he’d done nothing to make it any less appalling for me, even younger, and without him, utterly alone.
* * *
Sean and I had ridden out the hideous weeks following the Search for Amelia scandal behind the drawn blinds of the flat in Exeter. Once the paparazzi had found another poor celebrity to persecute, Sean charmed his way into an office job which paid enough to cover the bills. For some reason, he chose to put in increasingly long days in the office, rather than come home to his emotional wreck of a girlfriend. When this became accompanied by regular after-work drinks, dinner, joining the department bowling team, my loneliness, boredom and excruciating neediness only grew. An obvious solution was for me to get a job, but by the time all the legal issues with the sponsors had been settled, I could barely get out of bed. And who would employ Amelia Piper, the most famous quitter in the country?
So, we fought, sulked, felt guilty, made up again. Each time, the cycle left us a little more weary, mistrustful, resentful. And I watched the clichés disprove themselves before our eyes. Love, if that’s what it was, could not conquer all. Instead our love was being resoundingly thrashed by immaturity, isolation, rent arrears, profound insecurities and hidden depression. I had thrown away everything – tossed aside my entire identity, along with my future, career, family and friends. The person Sean had loved had gone, and the unkempt, dreary, pitiful shambles emerging as her replacement was not quite his type.
And then, six months after we had run away together, I started throwing up. My breasts grew swollen and sore. I became even more exhausted from my days of doing nothing than I had before. I snuck twenty pounds out of Sean’s wallet and bought a pregnancy test. Then I stole another twenty and did it again. Praying for a different result, while clinging onto it as potentially what might save us. At least I would have something to live for now.
I gave myself a week to absorb the shock, then, in between dashing to the bathroom to empty my battered stomach, I prepared a lasagne and chocolate fudge cake. I showered, changed into my nicest dress and tried to cover up the haggard fear on my face with some leftover make-up from my celebrity days. I dredged up some remaining energy to tidy the flat, change the bed and light the candles I’d bought from the pound shop.
I phoned Sean at work to tell him I had a surprise, and to please be home for dinner. He promised to be home by seven. When he finally rolled in at nearly nine, I plastered on a smile, dolloped the dried-up remains of his favourite dinner onto plates and relit the candle stumps.
‘This is nice,’ he managed, the waft of beer fumes causing my stomach to contract dangerously. ‘Are you feeling better? Because if you are, there’s an advert in the newsagent’s window, looking for a cleaner. I know it’s hardly your dream job, but it at least gets you out the house and earning.’
‘Now’s not a good time,’ I interrupted.
He threw down his fork. ‘Really? Is there a better time for you to get a job than when you’re spending all day sat on your arse nagging me about mine? Please, do tell me about a better time to get a job than when we owe two months’ rent?’
‘I…’
‘You, what?’ he sneered. ‘You might as well get a job, darling, because you are a disaster as a housewife.’ He pushed his plate away. ‘This is inedible.’
‘It was perfectly edible two hours ago.’ I swallowed back the lump of nausea and tears threatening to overwhelm me.
