The Single Mums' Mansion_The bestselling feel-good, laugh out loud rom com by Janet Hoggarth

Author:Janet Hoggarth [Hoggarth, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788545686
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2018-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

23

Ali’s Dirty Secret

‘Are you OK, Mands?’ Jacqui asked as I stared aimlessly out of the grimy peeling sash window in Dara’s flat onto the busy street below, scraping off a few white paint flakes with my thumbnail. It was the day after signing off my almost divorce and I was feeling slightly steamrollered by the amount of life-changing events I was dealing with.

The Knightsbridge location was at odds with the imagined grandeur of the flat. Tea chests hugged the grubby magnolia walls, and one had been dragged back to the centre of the main living room to be used as a coffee table. A battered mauve sofa that may have once been comfy in a different decade was the only other furniture in the echoing tall-ceilinged room. A gangling parched fern leaned hungrily towards the light from one of the cobwebbed corners. A few ghosts of pictures past left faint dust imprints on the walls and a red wine stain splattered along one of the skirting boards and onto the standard beige frayed rental carpet. Ali had reported back it was a typical bachelor pad when she’d visited, but now it resembled student digs at the end of term, devoid of any personality, though I suspected it had had very little to begin with.

People milled about smoking out of the half-open windows or drinking cheap wine out of plastic disposable cups. I had no idea who any of them were – most were from the studio at work, I guessed. Ali, being loud and gregarious, was the life and soul of the living room, getting people drinks and emptying fancy Marks and Spencer’s crisps onto foil catering trays. She had been very excited when I’d recounted my surprise news after she’d landed, assuring her at the same time she didn’t have to leave.

‘We’re going to be a proper commune. I can help when the baby comes: do some night feeds, if you want. Oh, it will be so exciting! Will the baby sleep in the spare room?’

I winced. No one went in there apart from Jacqui when she was pissed, and Woody before we had told the children about us. I only visited when absolutely necessary, still unable to face the piles of junk Sam had discarded when he left.

‘Maybe… You don’t think I’m mad?’

‘If anyone can do this, you can. I don’t think you’re mad for wanting to have a baby. It might be the best thing for Woody and for you. A fresh start.’ I tried to grasp onto that thought but as the weeks rolled past towards the scan date, doubt greedily ate away at it. Number one fact: I didn’t love Woody. I wondered if, when the baby came, I would magically fall for him like a heroine in a soppy film, finally arriving at a crashing conclusion that there was more to him than just his dashing physique, and appreciate that he was lovely and caring. But the reservations that held fast reared their heads soon after, right at Dara’s party.

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