Page 12 of Not Moving Out
‘Guaranteed,’ said Lucy with a smile.
‘Fine. I’ll come.’
‘Yes!’
‘But just once, and if I hate it or get life-threatening hypothermia, you’ll leave me alone?’
‘On Stuart’s life,’ said Lucy before we got back to our sandwiches, my mind suddenly feeling somewhat lighter because maybe Cold Water Club was at least something new, and maybe Lucy was right about shouting at Joe – was it the solution we had been searching for all along? Whether either of those things would ultimately change anything I didn’t know, but it was surely a move in the right direction. Actually, it was just a move, and moving felt good because for so long my life had felt stuck and unmoveable, and perhaps just doing something different was all I needed to feel alive again.
Chapter Six
Joe
Dinner time had always been the one time when we would get together as a family and share the details of our day, and despite whatever else was going on, we had that. Also, I think that, because I worked from home alone all day with just my thoughts, it was something I particularly looked forward to. I was the house chef, and I loved trying out new recipes on Freya and Dolly, and so for me dinner was always one of my favourite parts of the day. It was important, or it had been, before. Now, with Freya and I separated, and Dolly being weirdly ambivalent about it, the tension in the house was palpable and so dinner was different. Today, I was in the middle of cooking my famous spaghetti bolognese – only famous in our house and for wildly unspectacular reasons – when the front door opened, closed, and then Freya came walking into the kitchen.
‘Oh, you’re cooking,’ she said, standing next to me suddenly.
‘I am. We hadn’t discussed dinner time, and so I just thought—’
‘No, no, it’s, umm, fine, I just didn’t—’
‘What?’ I said, turning away from the hob and facing her. I had just put the spaghetti in, and was monitoring it while the sauce was in a separate saucepan, being kept warm on a low heat. I’d made a two-hour bolognese sauce, and I still needed to grate some Parmesan cheese. ‘Shouldn’t I have cooked?’
‘No, Joe, honestly, it’s fine, really. I, umm—’
‘Something smells good,’ said Dolly, suddenly walking in behind Freya. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Dolly, hi,’ said Freya.
‘I’m literally starving,’ said Dolly, walking across to the fridge and grabbing the orange juice, before she walked across to the side, got a glass from the cupboard and poured herself a large glass.
‘Do I have time for a quick shower?’ Freya said, turning back towards me.
‘Umm, yes, sure,’ I replied.
Freya awkwardly smiled before she left the room, while Dolly sat at the dining table.
‘Do we have garlic bread?’ she asked. ‘I’m literally craving it.’
‘We do not.’
‘Disappointing.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, and when I looked across at her, she smiled at me. ‘How was your day?’
‘Yeah, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know, Dolls, that’s why I asked.’
‘Oh, you want details. Such a boomer move,’ said Dolly, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was playing with me. We did this. A jovial backwards and forwards, and it was what we were good at. I was close with Dolly, but it had its limits. We were close when it came to things that weren’t too personal or difficult.
‘That would be great, Dolls, and FYI, I am a part of Gen X,’ I said, putting a fork into the boiling water, and giving the spaghetti a spin to make sure it wasn’t sticking.
‘Let me see,’ said Dolly. I heard the shower being turned on in the en suite in my old bedroom. Earlier, I had moved all my toiletries into the main bathroom I was now sharing with Dolly and her million bottles of ‘stuff’. ‘My day was fine.’
‘Fine? That’s not details. That’s fluff.’
‘Are you sure we don’t have any garlic bread?’ said Dolly, and I just gave her a look before I turned back to the stove and stirred the spaghetti again.
