‘Of course he is,’ I said, wondering if I still had the taxi number in my phone. I remembered that I did, so at least we’d not die of starvation. ‘I told you, he’s renting a car and buying food and then he’s coming right back here.’
‘With Ben?’ Lucy asked.
‘Yes, with Ben.’
‘Then can we go to the pool with the fishes?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow we can go back to the pool.’
‘With Ben?’ Lucy asked.
‘Yes!’ I said, struggling to keep calm. I took a deep breath and thought about the fact that it was no wonder she needed so much reassurance, then continued more calmly, ‘It’ll be you and me and Sarah plus Joe and Ben, and we can have a lovely day at the pool.’
‘OK,’ Lucy said. Then, ‘I’m bored, Mummy.’
‘I know,’ I told her. ‘I’m a bit bored too. Do you want to play cards?’
She shook her head. Cards was boring, she said, and without Ben the pool wasn’t going to keep her happy for long, either. So in the end we went into the cool interior and ran around playing hide-and-seek, which at least killed the best part of an hour.
About five thirty a jeep came bumping down the track and for a moment I thought it was Joe returning early. But then I heard a dog barking and the sound of Spanish being spoken and realised that we had new neighbours.
They let themselves in two doors down, and suddenly the air was filled with noise. They seemed to communicate with each other exclusively through shouting, and the dog – a yappy Jack Russell – simply never paused for breath.
I felt sad at the loss of the silence, but also safer somehow. Lucy moved to the far end of the courtyard, all the better to watch the daughter, who was about the same age. I was pretty sure that within the hour they’d be friends, and I wasn’t wrong. By six she was splashing in our pool.
As the girls were now entertained, I did my best to think in some structured way about my relationship with Ant: about our future, about the kids, about custody and access and possible scenarios for reconciliation. But I couldn’t get to grips with any of it. There were so many unknowns, that was the thing – so many unknowns and so many mixed emotions. Of course, there were also three young girls shrieking in the pool, so I was literally unable to hear myself think.
Little Lola’s mother came to collect her just before seven, and the dog, yapping at her heels, leaped quite spectacularly into the pool. This pleased Lucy and Sarah enormously.
Lola’s mother didn’t seem to speak much English, but she pointed at the pool and said, ‘Thanks you,’ and I nodded and smiled and replied, ‘De nada,’ which I seemed to think I’d heard Amy say in lieu of ‘you’re welcome’.
Joe arrived just then, and the Spanish woman looked relieved, as if he was the answer to a puzzle that had been bothering her. ‘You husband,’ she said, pointing and smiling almost grotesquely.
‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘No, he isn’t, actually. He’s a friend.’
She frowned at me.
‘Amigo,’ I said. ‘Not husband.’
She frowned even more deeply at this and then, with a tiny upward nod of the chin that I didn’t really know how to interpret, she vanished, calling Lola and the dog, who was apparently called Nacho, to follow on.
‘We have neighbours,’ Joe said, as he walked towards me with two carrier bags of shopping.
‘We do,’ I replied. ‘Extremely noisy neighbours. Is there more?’
‘Yeah, loads,’ Joe said, handing me the bags. ‘Take these and I’ll go back for the rest.’
‘She looked grumpy,’ he said when he returned, joining me in the kitchen. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes,’ I said, pausing my fridge-stacking to consider the question. ‘She thought you were my husband, I think, and she was a bit shocked when I said you were just a friend.’
‘If only she knew,’ Joe said, and for some reason – paranoia, no doubt – I thought he meant that we weren’t even friends.
‘If she knew what?’ I asked, freezing with a carton of what looked like some kind of milk in one hand.
‘If she knew what’s been going on next door,’ Joe said. ‘Then she’d be really shocked.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course. And you managed to rent a car then?’
‘Yeah, it’s only an Ibiza,’ Joe said. ‘It was all they had. I had the choice between black or white.’
‘Is that no good?’ I asked. I know absolutely nothing about cars.
Joe shrugged. ‘Nah, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s just a standard hatchback kind of thing. But it’s got five seats and they threw in the boosters, so it’s fine.’
‘I was wondering, after you left,’ I said, ‘how come you actually rented a car? I mean, we could have just got a taxi to go shopping, couldn’t we? And if she’s bringing the other car back tomorrow . . .’
‘I dunno,’ Joe said, lifting another bag from the floor, plonking it on the counter and peering inside. ‘Just a feeling, I guess.’
‘A feeling?’
‘Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable. Being without transport, it makes me nervous. If something happens to one of the kids, or . . . I don’t know, really. I like to be able to get out if I need to, you know?’
‘Yes, I can understand that,’ I said. My feeling of being stranded here alone was one of the reasons I’d felt safer when the neighbours arrived, after all. I too now felt safer, knowing we had a car.
‘I don’t much like depending on other people,’ Joe said.
‘You mean the neighbours?’ I asked. ‘Or the taxi?’
‘I was thinking more of Amy,’ he said.
Promising ourselves we’d make healthier choices tomorrow, we took the lazy option of heating up and divvying out
