I’ll wear my new Gucci suit. The one with the tight-fitting trousers. It’s formal for Hollywood, but it should get Ray’s motor running.
Theo stood up, stretched and followed Dita indoors.
‘Oh my God. Oh, my GOD!’ Jenny Aubrieau stood on the front step of Theresa’s new cottage in Grantchester, gasping for breath. A medieval longhouse painted palest pink with a low thatched roof and stone mullioned windows, it was ridiculously, Disney-idyllic. ‘It’s exquisite. Like something out of a Flower Fairies illustration.’ Turning to her children she roared, ‘Ben, Amélie! Get out of that flowerbed, now. If you trample so much as one of those gorgeous hollyhocks I will personally run over your PlayStation with your father’s lawnmower.’
‘Great place.’ Jean Paul, Jenny’s husband, kissed Theresa on the cheek and handed her an expensive bottle of Chablis as his son and daughter charged past them into the house. ‘We would ‘ave left the kids at home, but no babysitter will take them,’ he grinned.
‘I’d have shot you if you left them behind,’ said Theresa. ‘There’s a tree house in the back garden with a rope swing that goes right out over the river. They’ll love it.’
‘Daaaaaad!’ Ben’s whoop of delight could be heard all the way to Trumpington Street. ‘Come and see this!’
To a soundtrack of happily screaming children, mingled with late summer birdsong and Handel’s Messiah on Radio 3, Theresa gave Jenny a tour of the cottage. Inside it was all low beams and inglenook fireplaces. Theresa had only moved in a few weeks ago, but already she’d made the place a home, filling it with books and framed botanical prints and jugs stuffed with wildflowers from the riverbank. She’d left LA with nothing, no furniture, no clothes. Moving to Willow Tree Cottage was a fresh start in every sense of the word. Thanks to her divorce settlement, she’d been able to buy it for cash, with money to spare to spend on furniture, rugs and the like. Putting the place together had been a godsend, the first thing she’d actually enjoyed doing since Theo left her. She was proud of it.
‘Bed’s a bit small,’ said Jenny, bouncing on the faded rose-patterned quilt covering Theresa’s barely queen-sized four-poster.
‘It’s a small room.’
‘Why didn’t you take the bigger one, at the front? There’s easily room for a king in there.’
‘I like the view. And the window seat,’ said Theresa, unlatching the ancient tiny window to reveal a glorious vista of open fields with King’s College spires in the distance.
‘Wow,’ sighed Jenny. ‘If I divorce JP and dump the children, will you adopt me?’
Theresa smiled. She hadn’t added that she had no need of a king-size bed. That she’d slept in one at Aisling and Richard’s and woken up every morning reaching for an absent Theo.
Sensing a shift in her mood, Jenny put her arms around her friend. ‘Are you eating? You feel like skin and bone.’
‘I’m drinking. Does that count?’ Theresa joked. It was ironic. All those failed diets and yoga regimens in LA, trying endlessly to get thin for Theo, and the moment he left her the weight fell off like flesh from a well-steamed sea bass. ‘I made us paella for tonight and tomato salad from the garden. Will the children eat fish?’
‘Amélie will. Ben will eat anything if you drown it in ketchup.’
Theresa’s face fell. ‘Oh dear. I’m not sure I have any ketchup.’
Jenny reached into her capacious, mother’s handbag and pulled out a red plastic bottle. ‘Never fear. We bring our own. Like insulin.’
Supper was a riot. It was wonderful to be with Jenny and JP again. Theresa hadn’t seen Ben and Amélie since they were toddlers, and while the kids were unrecognizable, their parents were the same funny, charming, understanding people they’d always been. After Theresa’s accident, Jenny called the LA hospital every day and was the first to offer support, both practical and emotional, when Theresa announced she’d be moving back to Cambridge. After a month in her new job at Jesus she still cried about Theo at least once a day and thought about him constantly. But it was a relief to dive back into the cool, restorative waters of her beloved Shakespeare. As for Cambridge itself, the city never failed to lift her spirits.
When the estate agent first drove her out to Grantchester, Theresa was resistant. A pretty hamlet a few miles from the town centre, best known for being home to the poet Rupert Brooke and latterly to Jeffrey Archer, it would mean driving into work every morning. Living in Los Angeles had left Theresa with an abiding hatred of commuting, however short the distance. ‘I’m sure it’s a charming property. But I really am set on finding something closer to college. I wouldn’t want to waste the vendor’s ti—’ They turned a corner and there it was: Willow Tree Cottage with its overflowing cottage garden, its lichened gate, its thatch and its winding swathe of lawn rolling down to the river and the eponymous willow tree.
‘It’s perfect,’ Theresa sighed. ‘That’s the one.’ To the agent’s delight, she wrote a cheque for the full asking price on the spot.
‘The starter was delicious,’ pronounced Jean Paul, finishing off his third enormous helping of paella while Theresa opened a third bottle of wine. ‘What is the main course?’
His wife hit him over the head with a napkin. ‘Ignore him, T. Il est un cochon.’ They kissed and Theresa thought, They’re like teenagers, so in love. Were Theo and I ever like that?
As if in answer to the question, Jenny asked brusquely, ‘So is it all over now, the divorce paperwork and stuff? You’re done?’
‘Yes,’ said Theresa, unable to keep the note of sadness out of her voice. ‘We’re done.’
‘Good. You’re well shot of him, T, isn’t she, darling?’
JP nodded through his last mouthful of rice.
‘Honestly, I could never say it at the time. But he was always an arsehole, even before he was famous. Now he’s a plastic, airbrushed, American arsehole, which is even worse.’
Theresa tried to smile.
‘Ooh, this will make you laugh,’ said Jenny. ‘Guess what I read the other day? The name “ Theodore ” is Latin for “ God’s Gift ” ! Do you think he christened himself?’
Amélie wandered in from the garden. At eight years old she already looked distinctly teenage, with her blue chipped nail polish and a Girls Aloud t-shirt that clung to the two tiny, nascent mounds that would eventually become her breasts. Bored of the rope swing, she was deep in some sort of gossip magazine. Quick as a flash, her father yanked it out of her hands.
‘Qu-est-ce que c’est, Amélie, this rubbish? What do you read this for? Whatever ‘appened to My Little Horses?’
‘My Little Pony,’ said Jenny. ‘Give it back to her, JP, don’t be annoying.’
But father and daughter were already caught up in a familiar game, with Jean Paul holding the magazine at arm’s length, out of Amélie’s reach, and reciting passages in his embarrassing-dad voice while she screeched at him to stop.
‘Oh my God, you are so sad, Dad,’ she howled. ‘Mum, make him give it back.’
‘Listen to this,’ laughed Jean Paul. ‘ “ Six things your man wants you to do in bed but is too scared to ask ” . Zat one is followed by “ Ange and Brad, why it’s really over ” and …’ He turned the next page then stopped abruptly, blushing. Seizing her chance, Amélie snatched the magazine while his guard was down and dropped it onto the table. There, grinning up at Theresa, were Theo and Dita. They looked picture perfect, with their matching white smiles and blond haircuts, radiating happiness and love and success.
‘Don’t look at it,’ said Jenny, reaching for the offending object. ‘Don’t give them the satisfaction.’ But Theresa stopped her arm. It wasn’t