Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 34

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What do I do if my child is being bullied?

Going freelance, what you need to know

Axolotl breeders, UK

Will Havers

Discovering what Jess has been going through lights a fire beneath me. I have been sleeping on the job and I need to wake up. I call Dan, fill him in on the situation, and book us an appointment with the head teacher for the next day. To their credit, the school takes the allegations seriously. They promise to carry out a full investigation and to review their antibullying protocol. A week later, three pupils end up being suspended, Penny included, and a new module, “Bullying Awareness and Prevention,” is added to the curriculum. It’s not a magic wand, but already I can see Jess is less tense, as though a weight has been physically lifted off her. I’ve also instigated a new house rule: no phones upstairs and they’re switched off after eight p.m. It’s a bit draconian but Jess seems fine with it, and it’s helping me too. I’m reading more books. I’ve finished decorating my reading nook, and I’ve even called the rescue center to be put on a list for a new cat.

As for Will, he’s been gone two weeks now. It feels like an eternity. The office will stay open for another few weeks, but the huge task of packing up all Jonathan’s books and antiques will take months. I have been working from home, keeping myself busy, trying to distract myself from the unpleasant feeling that Will’s distance brings. I want to call him, to know if he is happy in his new life, but I know I’ve given up the chance to be his friend. Luckily, he is not on social media, or my new phone policy would not be going so well. I did find his first news broadcast. He was, unsurprisingly, brilliant.

Crispin has asked for at least one more date for the column, to “make it lucky seven,” before I choose a date for the ball. I currently have Noah penciled in as my only realistic option. The children have been proposing people all week, but so far, we’ve struggled to come up with anyone for date seven. They both kept suggesting Will, and I had to explain that it needs to be someone who lives in Bath, preferably someone available before next Sunday.

On Monday, Ethan persuaded me to ask someone out in the supermarket. I’d just plucked up the courage to ask when the man’s wife appeared from the next aisle holding toilet paper and Pepto-Bismol. It was awkward, especially when we had to stand behind them in the checkout queue.

On Thursday, I buy the kids ice creams on the way home from school and we sit in the garden in the sunshine. Ethan suggests Kenny’s grandad again, saying he “really isn’t that old.” Then he suggests we call emergency services and hang up until we get a “man on the phone.” I’m forced to have a serious conversation with him how important it is to never call 999 unless it’s a life-or-death emergency, and that your mother needing a date does not qualify.

Just as I’m about to admit defeat and text Kenny’s mum, Jess holds a finger in the air and cries, “Wait! I’ve got it. Ethan’s swimming teacher!”

“Who? Mr. Bellingham? He’s got warts on his face,” Ethan says, screwing his nose up in disgust.

“No, the new one. Warty Bellingham left, remember?” Jess says.

“Oh yeah, Andre!” Ethan nods. “He was a stunt double in Hollywood. He knows everything about the Marvel universe, plus he’s got massive flip-flops and says I’ve got amazing froggy legs.”

We google the leisure center on my phone and up pops a photo of Andre Johnson, an exceptionally attractive man in his midthirties with dark skin, well-defined pectorals, and a perfect Hollywood smile.

“Holy bejesus,” I exclaim, because we might have just hit the jackpot. “You have swimming after school tomorrow, right?” I ask Ethan, and he nods. Before I can drill him on what else he knows about Andre, Noah’s head appears over the top of his hedge.

“Sorry, are we being too loud?” I ask, preempting a complaint.

“No, but do you mind if I make some noise?” Noah asks, holding up a chain saw. Then he starts cutting off a huge chunk of branch from the top of the hedge.

“Wait! Stop! Noah, what are you doing?” I call. “I don’t care if the hedge blocks out our light, I know what it means to you!”

“You’re right, it’s gotten out of hand,” Noah shouts over the sound of the chain saw. “And she’s not in the hedge, she’s in here!” He taps a hand against his chest, then almost loses his grip on the chain saw, and I rush my children inside before someone loses a limb.

On Friday I go along to Ethan’s swimming lesson and wait at the end to ask Andre Johnson if he’ll go out with me. To my surprise, Andre not only seems charming and normal, but he is also gorgeous and single and readily agrees to go on a date. His only caveat is that he’s booked up all of Saturday with swimming lessons, but if it needs to be this weekend, I could join him for his Sunday morning climbing session. It wouldn’t be my first choice of activity, upper-body strength not being my strong point, but I’ve got myself a date, just before deadline.

“Mum, you know what I really really want?” Ethan asks me as we walk home from swimming.

“An axolotl?” I guess, and he nods, eyes hopeful. “Well, lucky for you, I’ve finally done my research and found a reputable breeder.”

“You’re kidding!” he squeals, jumping up and down in the street.

“But you’ll need to be in charge of feeding it.”

“Of course! That’s the best bit. Will said he’d help build the tank, we need a whole filtration system.” Ethan pauses. “Maybe we could ask Dad or Noah?”

“ I will construct the tank,” I tell him confidently, and he starts skipping in delight. “I might need to watch a few YouTube videos, but I am an intelligent woman, I’m sure I’ll work it out.”

—

On Saturday night, I host a pottery party in my garage. It’s the first time I’ve had people over in a long time. Noah brings wine, Lottie has made tacos, Loretta has invited Roger from speed dating, and Michael has brought Jane, the Janeite I set him up with through the apps. (She’s writing her PhD thesis on “fashion in the age of Jane Austen.”) I am supplying the clay and giving everyone a tutorial on how to construct a basic pinch pot.

“I hear you’ve just read Pride and Prejudice for the first time,” Jane says with a demure smile as I show her how to roll the rim for her pot.

“Yes. I loved it. It really pulled me out of a reading slump,” I tell her.

“I’m so glad, and I hear I have you to thank for setting Michael up online. I have never met a man who has such an encyclopedic knowledge of eighteenth-century fashions.” When she looks across the room at Michael, I see her visibly swoon, and my inner Emma glows with pride. Maybe there really is someone for everyone.

Moving around the circle to see who else might need my help, I notice that Loretta has abandoned her pot and is molding a phallic object.

“Keep it clean,” I say, crushing her clay phallus with my fist and nodding across the room toward Jess, who is busy making a small house for one of her stop-motion videos.

“Hey,” Loretta says, cackling, as she elbows me away. “That was a masterpiece!”

Roger leans in to give her a clay flower, which she takes in delight. On the other side of the room, Noah is getting frustrated with an overly ambitious design for a bug house. I try to offer him some pointers, but he won’t let me help.

“Anna, I am loving tonight,” Lottie says, following me into the kitchen to fetch more drinks. “This house feels so alive again, like old times. Loretta is hilarious.”

“Isn’t she?”

Lottie bends down to put bowls in the dishwasher and when she stands up, she winces and rubs her bump.

“What? Are you okay?” I ask, reaching out to support her arm.

“Fine, she’s just kicked me.”

“I still can’t believe my little sister is going to have a baby.”

“I wanted to ask you something actually,” she says, biting her lip. “How would you feel about being my birthing partner?”

“Me? What about Seb?” I ask.

“He’s squeamish about blood. He can’t cope with seeing people in pain, least of all me. I think he might be more hindrance than help. I’d like it to be you, if that’s not too weird.”

“It’s not too weird, but—” I pause.

“What?”

“You know me, I’m not really an ‘imagine your cervix opening like a lotus’ type of person.”

“No, you’re not,” Lottie laughs. “You’re the kind of person who will advocate loudly for me, who will insist on the most experienced anesthetist there is.” She grins at me. “I want you to do it because you’re you. I trust you.”

As I pull her into a hug, my eyes start to well up. When she sees my face, she gives me a skeptical look.

“What? Why are you crying?”

“Nothing.” I wipe away the tear. “It’s just, it’s nice to know you still need me.”

“What do you mean? Of course I need you. You’re my sister.”

“I know. It’s just…this is going to sound silly.” I drop my eyes to the floor. “This last year, I worried you’d lost a bit of respect for me, when you realized I didn’t have life all figured out.”

“Lost respect? Anna, I have more respect for you. The way you’ve handled everything, always putting the kids first—you’re incredible. I feel closer to you than ever.”

“Really?” I say, surprised to hear her say this. “But we’ve always been close.”

“Sure, but sometimes it felt like you were infallible. Honestly, a little impenetrable. You didn’t even tell me you were having marital problems until Dan had moved out.”

“So, I’m more relatable now that I’m a screwup?” I say with a smile.

“You’re more relatable now that you let me in.”

She pulls me in for another hug and then pinches my bum to make me laugh. When she finally lets me go, I say, “There is something I wanted to get your help with. The living room. I’ve got the rest of the house feeling like mine, but in there, I just don’t know where to start.”

“Yes! I thought you’d never ask,” Lottie yells. “What were you thinking?”

So, I talk her through some of the ideas I had: stripping the carpet out, sanding the floorboards, maybe wallpapering a feature wall. She has plenty of great ideas too and says she’ll bring Seb and a floor sander around next weekend to get started.

Back in the garage, I look around the room at my eclectic bunch of friends. I wouldn’t have gotten to know any of these people if it weren’t for the column. Something good has come out of it, even if it wasn’t love. This is what I have missed, hosting friends, bringing people together, the sound of laughter filling a room. The house no longer feels haunted.

Now that I’m freelance, I won’t be so wedded to an office. I will have time to get out more, to say yes, to try new things. I don’t know which hobbies I will choose in the drop-down box of life, but whatever they are, I’m excited to find out. I’ve already signed up for a weekly sculpture course. I know I want to travel more, to go to galleries, take day trips to London. Who knows, maybe I’ll even try cycling again.

—

On Sunday, I take a bus to the climbing wall and look down at the ampersand on my arm, the symbol of a new chapter. I had meant to book an appointment to have it removed, but now I’ve decided to keep it. A bit like my divorce, it’s not something I would necessarily have chosen, but now that it’s here, I’ve grown to appreciate it.

Andre meets me at the reception holding climbing shoes and a harness. “Have you done any climbing before?” he asks with a flash of his wide Hollywood smile.

“I haven’t, but I’ll try anything once,” I tell him.

“That’s the spirit,” Andre says, clapping his hands and releasing a cloud of chalk dust.

My new can-do attitude doesn’t last long. It turns out you need an extraordinary amount of upper-body strength to pull yourself up a thirty-foot wall, but as I collapse in a heap at the bottom, Andre refuses to let me give up.

“Don’t think of it as ‘pulling yourself up’; you need to spread your weight, it’s about finding a good position, a good grip with your feet as well as your hands.” He takes time to show me. He’s a good teacher, patient and generous with his praise. When I get ten feet up the wall, he hollers and cheers in a way that’s embarrassing and adorable all at once. Eventually, my hands refuse to try anymore, and I opt to sit the rest of the session out so I can “watch and learn.” Andre sprints up the wall like a vertical gazelle, and from the comfort of the floor I enjoy the view of his stuntman physique.

After the climbing session, Andre and I go for coffee, and he is just as lovely to talk to as he is to watch climb a wall. He tells me he worked as a stuntman in the US for eight years but came home after a shoulder injury forced him to retire early.

“What did you love most about being a stuntman?” I ask him.

“I got into it because I was an adrenaline junkie,” he tells me. “It never gets old, throwing yourself off a bridge or running from an explosion, but then, I also came to love the problem-solving element, working with directors and stunt coordinators. I guess every job is problem-solving. You’ve just got to work out what problem you want to solve.”

“Children not being able to swim being your current problem,” I say with a smile.

“Right, exactly,” he laughs. “What’s your problem, work-wise?”

“Working out how to say something interesting that resonates with people. Keeping my integrity while also moving with the times.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Making sure I back up my laptop.”

“Sounds challenging,” Andre laughs, then looks up at the menu board. “The waffles here are supposed to be incredible. Can I tempt you?”

“Why not? I burned so many calories sitting on the floor watching you climb.”

Andre laughs again, which makes me glow with the delightful feeling of being found funny. “Do you want toppings?”

“Oh, just however it comes,” I say, then catch myself, taking a moment to consider what I actually want. “No, wait. Could I have blueberries and strawberries, mascarpone, and maple syrup, but on the side? Thank you.”

“Great choice,” he says.

I can’t fault my morning with Andre. It’s been a perfect date. After our waffles, he walks me to the bus stop, tells me he’s had a great time, and asks if he can take me out to dinner next week. I say yes, because he’s lovely and I’ve enjoyed his company. But then on the bus home my heart starts to race, my fingertips tingle with nervous energy, and I have to get off the bus because my chest hurts and I’m hyperventilating. Standing on the pavement, bent double trying to catch my breath, I cannot work out what is wrong. I had a lovely morning, with a lovely man, so why does it feel so wrong? Why am I bursting into tears in the middle of the street, then texting Andre to politely decline his invitation to dinner? Why does my heart hurt?

—

A cup of decaf coffee in hand—worried too much caffeine is why my chest felt weird earlier—I sit at my desk and stare at a blank document. I still haven’t written my half of the article about Reconnect Retreats. I’ve been putting it off, staring at a blinking cursor every time I sit down to write it. The deadline is tomorrow, and I still have nothing. Will sent me what he’d written last week, the sight of his name in my inbox giving me a jolt of illogical hope, which quickly evaporated when I read the brief, perfunctory e-mail.

Copy and photos attached, happy for you to choose whichever ones you think we should use. Once you’ve written your copy, just submit it along with mine directly to the editor, details enclosed. Thanks, W.

He doesn’t even want to read what I write before it goes out. It’s as though he’s purposely shutting off any need for further communication between us.

Opening the Word document, I reread his copy now. He describes the concept behind the retreat, the idyllic location, how he rediscovered his love of fire building and wild swimming. He doesn’t go into too many specifics about me, but he says it was the perfect way to get to know someone and that two days there felt like two months. There is one sentence that jumps out at me: “If you want to know whether you could fall in love with someone, this is the ideal place to find out.”

Opening the photo files from Greta, first I see the posed shots of the cabin, Will and me by the fire, an arty shot of sunlight on the glade, then Will trying to stack wood. Greta is a skilled photographer; you can practically hear the birds in the trees. When I scroll to the end, my breath catches in my throat. Will and I are wrapped in blankets sitting up in the grass; my shoulders are bare and so is his chest, but the rest of us is covered by the rug or shadow. The light hits Will’s cheekbone; he looks beautiful. But it is me my eye is drawn to. My hair is disheveled, wavy and wild, like an ethereal woodland nymph’s. In the photo, I’m gazing up at him, and there’s a lightness in my face; my eyes shine almost gold in the light, we are smiling at each other, and I look so full of joy, so self-assured. I stare at the photo. Is that really me? The photo is a fleeting moment captured perfectly by her lens. Greta was right, it is tasteful, and more beautiful than anything that could be posed.

And now I know why I had that reaction on the bus. It hits me all at once, like the sun emerging from behind a dark cloud, landing with such an urgent clarity I feel the need to say it out loud: “I am in love with Will Havers.”

Suddenly, I know exactly what I need to write.

Can Turning Technology Off Be a Turn-on?

As a newly single divorcée, I found the prospect of being thrust back onto the dating scene terrifying. Online dating, specifically, seemed about as appealing as the three-day-old cup of tea you find abandoned in the microwave. Having met my husband at university and experienced the slow build of friendship that ignites into something more, I had no concept of dating someone I didn’t already know. I couldn’t fathom how one could judge someone on a snapshot or a list of their interests. Even if I could get past the concept of “swiping,” a few hours in a bar with someone felt too pressured, too much like a job interview. So when I heard about the concept behind Reconnect Retreats, I was curious. How might it feel to get to know someone cut off from day-to-day demands and distractions? And could I survive a whole weekend without access to my phone or Wi-Fi?

While on paper I might be “single” again, my true status is complicated. The fallout from divorce is like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. There’s the initial shock wave, the devastation and upheaval. Beyond the initial blast radius, there’s a wasteland: your shared dreams, the job of disentangling your finances, your living situation. Once you’ve gotten through that, there’s another fallout zone full of more nuanced challenges: loss of confidence, confusion, jealousy, anger, being left with a heart that—while it might no longer be broken—has gone into hibernation for its own protection. To put it simply, I wasn’t open to a new relationship.

As a self-confessed phone addict, going into this retreat, I was honestly more interested in seeing how I was going to manage without my smartphone than I was in finding a romantic connection. But as soon as I arrived in the woods, what struck me was how fine I was without it. The reflex was still there, reaching for my phone to take a picture, then remembering I must commit such things to memory instead.

With a comfortable bed and a fully catered menu, this retreat was my kind of camping. I soon fell in love with the quiet, the sound of the woods, listening to the gentle crackle of life in the trees. Time feels different when it’s marked by the movement of the sun rather than a clock. I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I was even more surprised by how I came to feel about the person I was with.

Will is someone I have worked with for six months. As colleagues we were prone to rubbing each other the wrong way. But in the woods, lying by a campfire, with all life’s distractions muted, we were finally honest about miscommunications, misconceptions we had about each other. I discovered the boy who delights in building fires, learned about the people in his life, began to understand where his driving ambition comes from. I uncovered a man who takes delight in small things and is wonderfully unjaded by heartache. Talking late into the night around the fire, my numb heart began to melt. The beam of Will’s attention was like the warmth of the sun on your face after a long, dark winter. We connected in a way that excited and terrified me in equal measure, because it made me feel vulnerable again. I don’t know if I fell for Will because we were alone in the woods together or if it would have happened anyway, but it felt like the retreat removed all barriers.

On Sunday, turning my phone on, a hundred e-mails pinged into my hand, messages I couldn’t ignore, and the bubble of the retreat burst. Back in reality, all I saw were the reasons a relationship with Will wouldn’t work. An eight-year age gap, being at different life stages, a job that was going to take him away and a life that would keep me in Bath. There were simply too many obstacles, and the woods were not real life. So, I pushed him away, I wasn’t honest about how I felt.

But now I look at this photo and realize the woods were as much a reality as the world outside. The baggage we carry isn’t a bad thing; it is our substance, our history, the experiences that make us who we are. All the reasons not to be together might be surmountable, because love is rare, and if you’re lucky enough to feel it, you shouldn’t let it pass you by.

A few months ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing this photo; it is too personal, unfiltered. But now I know that if I can share a picture of myself in my most vulnerable state, then I am not broken. I have loved and I have lost, but my heart still works. There will be other chapters. I will love again. Because—whatever the fallout—to feel like this about someone, to see and be seen so entirely, it is worth any risk. What I really reconnected with at the retreat was myself—what I need, what I want, and what I am capable of feeling.

PS: Will, I am in love with you. Call me.

My eyes are clouded with tears by the time I finish typing. Before I can talk myself out of it, I send it to the Times editor, along with Will’s copy and the photos I’ve selected.

As soon as I press send, I feel a jolt of adrenaline. How will he feel about my sending this to press? But then a wave of calm settles over me. Even if I’m too late, even if he doesn’t call, I still needed to say it. Because true love does not cower in the shadows; it roars, loud and proud, until it has given its all.