‘Not for me,’ he said again, sipping his beer. ‘I’ve always dated, you know, older girls. People my age don’t really interest me. I’m a bit weird that way, I suppose.’
‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’ Scott repeated. ‘That was quick. I thought I was going to at least have to get you drunk.’
‘That wasn’t OK,’ I said. ‘It was just . . . OK!’
‘So what you’re telling me is that I do have to get you drunk?’ Scott asked, grinning.
‘Let’s say that getting me drunk is probably a good place to start,’ I said.
We dated for three months before I introduced him to the kids. I suppose even three months will sound a bit short, but I’d fallen in love with Scott almost immediately.
I had tried quite hard not to do that. Falling in love at my age, falling in love with someone his age – falling in love when I was still waiting for my divorce to come through – well, it all seemed ridiculous. Actually, it felt worse than ridiculous. It felt somehow sinful.
But Scott was funny, easy-going and sure of himself, and in many ways more adult than most of my peers. He laughed at all my jokes too, which after Ian’s almost constant incomprehension was a huge and much-needed ego boost. The sex was quite something as well, and being twenty-six, Scott was up for it all the time.
I was happy, really happy, for the first time in years. I’d forgotten just how all-absorbing it was to be in love. I’d forgotten how obsessive it could feel, how many hours you could spend daydreaming about someone, how magnetic the attraction between two bodies could feel. Because when we were together in a public place, I was only ever thinking about how much I could get away with touching him without people noticing, and when we would next be alone together. It was all absurd and naughty and totally unreasonable. But it felt totally magical, too.
Because I was scared of how Zoe would react, I introduced Scott to Jude first.
Zoe had been a little easier to live with over the previous year, so there was some cause for hope that it might go better than expected. If it didn’t, I was terrified that Scott’s appearance would simply upset the apple cart all over again. I hadn’t begun to imagine just how upset an apple cart could get.
Scott and Jude hit it off almost immediately. They had similar interests: the outdoors, computers, sports . . . They were Apple fans and Manchester United supporters, both of which were like religions to twelve-year-old Jude. But there was more to it than shared spheres of interest. They had similar ways of communicating, too.
Zoe had always been a bit more like Ian, really. You always had to work out what she meant, whereas Jude was forthright, like Scott.
I’d engineered the meeting bang in the middle of Jude’s comfort zone, namely Pizza Express, one night when Zoe was staying at a friend’s house.
Scott, who seemed quite good at the whole bonding business, asked Jude’s advice about the menu and ordered the exact same things as my son.
‘So are you Mum’s new boyfriend?’ Jude asked, once our drinks had arrived.
‘I think so,’ Scott replied, glancing at me for confirmation. I nodded vaguely. ‘Would you mind if I was?’ he added, turning back to Jude.
‘Not really,’ Jude said, matter-of-factly. ‘But thank you for asking. That’s very considerate of you.’
For the most part, they talked about football. Manchester United were riding high in the Premier League, and there was lots of talk about Rooney and Ronaldo, as I recall. But to be honest, it went over my head. I was too busy watching Scott’s lips move, too busy thinking about kissing them to feign that much interest in football. Watching him getting on so well with my son had sent my feelings towards him into overdrive.
As we were leaving the restaurant, Jude asked Scott if he was going to move in. He actually sounded quite upbeat about the possibility, so I expect the idea of another male in the house, and above all, someone to talk about football with, seemed quite appealing.
‘I don’t think so, mate,’ Scott replied. ‘I’ve got my own little place out in Bakewell. And I quite like living on my own, to be honest.’
‘OK,’ Jude said, thoughtfully. ‘Can we come and see it? Your house, I mean?’
‘Of course you can,’ Scott said.
‘Has it got a big garden?’
‘It has,’ Scott told him.
‘Big enough to play football in?’
‘Well, not really. Because I grow lots of vegetables in it.’
‘Oh, OK . . .’ Jude said. ‘But we can definitely come and visit?’
‘Definitely,’ Scott confirmed. ‘You can come anytime you want.’
For thirteen-year-old Zoe, a few days later, I booked a table at Simply Thai. Incredibly, their tofu curry had been an almost constant throughout the many phases of her eating disorder, but that evening she wouldn’t even touch that. Instead, she glowered at some point in the distance beyond the window, occasionally deigning to lift a prawn cracker to her lips.
Scott did his very best to charm her, but it was never going to happen, really. It was actually quite painful to watch.
‘Is there something exciting going on out there?’ I eventually asked, an attempt at making her at least look at us.
She turned to me and rolled her eyes.
‘Oh, come on, Zoe,’ I said. ‘It’s really nice of Scott to bring us to your favourite restaurant, don’t you think? You could at least talk to him a bit.’
Zoe sighed and swivelled robotically to face Scott. ‘So are you shagging my mother?’ she asked him. ‘I mean, I assume that’s why we’re here.’
‘Zoe!’ I gasped, glancing round the restaurant to see if anyone had overheard. ‘How dare you!’ I actually sat on my hand to avoid slapping her in public.
She shrugged. ‘You asked me to talk to him,’ she said. And then she pushed her chair backwards and stormed from the restaurant.
‘Just let her go,’ I told Scott, when he, too, started to stand. ‘She knows her way home.’
Zoe’s was such clichéd angst, it was almost as if she’d looked up how to behave in a psychology textbook. She would position herself in constant opposition to Scott, seemingly with the sole aim of reminding him that he wasn’t her father, should he finally attempt to overrule her.
Scott, bless him, had the patience of a saint, and would explain every time that he wasn’t trying to be her father, but that he was there for her if ever she needed him.
Like with the food issues, I tried pleading with and/or bribing her. I tried threatening and punishing her, too. But as ever, nothing worked. Zoe never treated poor Scott with anything other than disdain.
A couple of months after they’d met, by which time Scott was staying over a couple of nights a week, I heard him lose his cool for the first time. It was a miracle, really, that it hadn’t happened before.
I was in the kitchen checking my Visa statement on the laptop and, because Scott wanted to watch the match, he’d headed through to the lounge, only to find Zoe had left her almost untouched sandwich on a plate bang in the middle of the sofa.
‘Are you eating this?’ I heard him ask.