The Love Island: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you have to read this summer

Post-marriage, we didn’t do many unannounced visits. Though since she’d rented a ridiculously tiny flat in a fancy new development shortly after New Year – ‘I’d rather have pristine and small than grotty and spacious’ – she’d been round much more often. For a brief moment, I thought she’d popped round with a present for Jonathan. I glanced down, but there was no sign of the shiny gift bags Roberta couldn’t live without. She was huddled into her mac and looked so pinched and miserable that I bundled her straight into the kitchen, batting away the children with a packet of HobNobs and a promise that tea would be ready soon.

As soon as the door was shut she told me, in a strained voice, that Scott was thinking of moving his new girlfriend, Shana, into her old house. ‘I know I should be delighted, because it will stop him hassling me and telling me what a rubbish mother I am all the time. But I keep thinking about how special he’ll be making her feel. All those little details he’s so good at. Alicia told me she runs her own lingerie business and that Scott keeps raving about what a brilliant businesswoman she is.’

I couldn’t see that Scott directing his attentions onto some other poor woman was anything other than a cause for cracking open the champagne and setting off the party poppers. I could hear the frustration in my voice as I said, ‘When did he last make you feel special? I know he did all that dramatic crossing-continents and grand-gesture malarkey at the beginning but apart from the odd bunch of daffs he gets his secretary to send you, he hasn’t been putting on the Ritz lately, has he? He’ll soon turn nasty with this Shana floozy when he doesn’t get his own way.’

Roberta sighed. ‘Maybe if I’d insisted on having my own career instead of just renovating our houses, he might have had a little more respect for me.’ Roberta sounded brittle, as though something inside her had tightened too far.

‘You have had your own career. It was your input and your designs that made the houses so saleable. If you hadn’t project-managed every detail, sorted out those bloody builders, architects and landscape gardeners, you’d never have made so much profit. Without you, he couldn’t have built up his property business.’

Roberta was so smart in so many ways. I just couldn’t comprehend why she had this blind spot when it came to Scott. I busied myself getting mushrooms out of the fridge so that she couldn’t see my exasperated face. I tried to sound sympathetic. ‘Scott didn’t want you to go out to work. As far as I can remember, that hotel chain offered you a job revamping that place on New Road and he practically forbade you to do it.’

‘I don’t think he forbade me to do it, did he? I think he just thought the timing wasn’t terribly good because Alicia was so young and it would be tricky finding the right childcare.’

Especially if your husband thought his part of the bargain stopped at the sperm donation stage.

‘That’s not how I recall it. Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs, you can’t escape the fact that Scott was a bully and you’re better off without him.’ I clenched my teeth and waited. Even when Scott was behaving like a total turd, Roberta had never liked me criticising him.

I wasn’t sure that had changed.

Roberta swirled her coffee. ‘That’s just it. I don’t think I am better off. We’ve been talking a lot lately, mainly about arrangements for Alicia but about us, too. It’s almost like talking to the old Scotty, from years ago, before he got so aggressive. I do wonder if he ever dealt properly with the miscarriages.’

‘No one wanted those little boys more than you, and you haven’t got all bitter and twisted.’ I was so cynical about Scott and his motivations that I couldn’t find it in myself to be sorry for him.

‘I know.’ A pause. She looked away. ‘He did say that if I wanted to come back, he would finish with this other woman.’

My head ached with the effort of not telling her to go and get her chakras realigned or her aura smoothed, or whichever one of her bollocky New Age therapies it would take to make her see sense. ‘Woo-hoo, what a ringing endorsement. He might dump the other Sheila if you’re prepared to forgive and forget. Not “I’ll always love you and I’ll be sitting here broken-hearted and experimenting with razor blades until you give me a second chance.” He should be licking the floor in front of you, begging forgiveness.’

‘We were happy most of the time. I know he could be difficult, but he was a good provider. He’s got a girlfriend now, but he wasn’t a philanderer.’

I shook some balsamic vinegar into the marinade and tried to sigh quietly. ‘I think it’s human nature to remember the good times and forget the bad ones. Can I give your rose-tinted specs a little polish? Half the time you couldn’t even speak to your friends on the phone in case the spotlight wandered off him. Then there’s the small matter of that little trip in the cop car. Plus the fact that as soon as you left him, he stopped you getting access to any money – money that you had helped him create – never mind that you still had his daughter to take care of.’

Roberta rested her head on one hand. ‘I know. I did have that conversation with him. He admitted he’d been out of order, said he wasn’t thinking straight when I left him. He’s sorted out an allowance for me now, until we get things onto a more formal footing. That’s if I don’t go back.’ Her voice was small, sinking down into her chest.

By contrast I thought my voice might start bellowing out of mine until the neighbours could hear. ‘Why would you want to?’

‘I never imagined being a single parent. I feel like I’ve let everyone down after insisting that I knew what I was doing, marrying Scott. I don’t want Alicia growing up without a father. I keep hoping that she’ll get closer to Scott as she gets older. That won’t happen if he has a baby with this other woman.’

‘But you also don’t want Alicia growing up thinking that it’s OK to let a bloke swear at her or lock her out when the mood takes him. If Alicia got together with someone who treated her like Scott treats you, you’d think you’d failed as a mother. And she’s not growing up without a father. He sees her whenever he wants, doesn’t he?’

Roberta was shrinking into herself, dwarfed by the collar on her coat. Hard to believe this was the woman who’d run the debating society at school. Who’d petitioned her MP about cuts in funding for the arts. Whose letters to The Times were legendary. Scott had worn her down over the years until she wouldn’t recognise her own opinion if it took a chunk out of her arse. But maybe I was turning into Scott, haranguing her until she agreed with me, whether she thought I was right or not.

I was working out how to do a quick backpedal so she didn’t feel the whole world was against her, when Jonathan came through. He looked amazed to see Roberta, even though he’d only been on the other side of the hatch. His face always took on a wary look when Roberta appeared, in case she might suddenly come and stay again for another ten days.

‘Hiya. How are you? Things falling into place a bit better now?’

Roberta shrugged. ‘We’re fine, thanks.’

Jonathan glanced at me. ‘Flat working out okay?’

Roberta nodded and his shoulders relaxed.

That was enough to convince Jonathan that no further investigation was needed. ‘Is it nearly dinnertime? I’m looking forward to my birthday steak.’

Roberta gasped. ‘Oh God, is it your birthday? Sorry. I’d better go.’

‘You’re all right. I can make myself a sandwich if you want to stay a bit longer.’

I was caught between not wanting to chuck Roberta out and feeling that for once, Jonathan did deserve to come top of the pile. He only managed to fight his way past the kids, and even the dog, about once a year.

Roberta took the hint when Jonathan fetched out a kilo of bargain-bucket margarine and started making an enormous doorstep, hoovering up a whole pack of ham. It took all my birthday goodwill not to start nagging. Instead of birthday sex, it would be birthday row if he sat down to my steak and declared he wasn’t hungry.

I showed her out and we stood chatting on the threshold. Jonathan never understood how we saw each other so often, yet never ran out of things to say. I sucked her into a big hug. Her shoulder blades were so bony, she was in danger of slicing through my arteries.

‘Maybe you need to think about finding a distraction yourself?’ I said.

‘Such as?’

Sometimes the woman was so slow. I laughed. ‘How about a new man?’

‘Oh God. I couldn’t bear it. How would I meet anyone anyway?’

‘The internet. At least you can see what they look like first, so you don’t end up with some warthog.’

Roberta pulled a face. ‘I can’t think of anything worse. Can you imagine if I actually had to have sex with someone new? All that fumbling and getting in a tangle with your underwear.’

‘Don’t be silly. The men you’ll meet will have worked out the whole bra thing by now. I’d be more worried about whether they can still get it up. We could look on a website – what about that one they’re always advertising on the radio – Just Clicked? You don’t actually have to go out with anyone. We can just have a nosey and see what’s available. Go on, it’ll be a laugh.’

‘Oh yes, an absolute hoot, for you, maybe.’ But she didn’t sound dead set against it.

Given that she was dithering over Scott again, there was no time to lose. ‘Right. I’m going to come over tomorrow evening and we’ll crack on with your new life. We can always give you a false name.’

‘You can come over but I’m not going to let you matchmake.’

‘We’ll see.’

As she headed to her car, her step had lightened slightly.

Roberta

When Octavia had an idea in her head, she was impossible to resist. Before she came over the following evening, I was determined that I wasn’t going to let her bamboozle me into looking for a man online, but she breezed into my apartment with a bottle of fizz ‘to celebrate a new beginning’.

Before I knew it, we were sitting at the tiny breakfast bar, poring over the pictures on the Just Clicked website. Octavia was drawn to the skinny guys, whereas I could never envisage going out with a man who could fit into my jeans. I preferred men who looked like they could take on a bear and win if the need ever arose. She liked dark, broody men, even though she’d ended up with Jonathan, who was gingerish. I leaned towards men at the Scandinavian end of the spectrum.

Octavia pointed to a man who epitomised the word ‘ordinary’. ‘He looks nice. Friendly eyes. Shirt’s quite trendy.’

‘Trendy? He looks like he buys his clothes from Topman. Bet he reads Angling Weekly. How about this one? He’s rather attractive.’

‘No. Too serial killer. Look how pale he is. Looks like he’s been living in a cupboard under the stairs.’ Octavia scrolled down. ‘What about this one?’

‘I’m not that desperate. Forehead like a skating rink. Too thin.’ As we dismissed whole chunks of the male population on their hairline alone, I dreaded to think what they would say about me if I ever dared to put my picture out there into the brutal world of internet dating.

I trailed my finger down the page. ‘Bet he’s called Quentin.’

‘Cuthbert.’ Octavia laughed into her champagne.

‘Cuthbert’ was the name we used to give to any boy we didn’t want to dance with at the school disco. ‘Nick’ was for the ones we liked. For a moment, it was like being fifteen again, judging a man on his haircut and shirt. If I’d messed up the first time around when I was approaching life optimistically and open-minded, I didn’t rate my chances with bitter baggage, teenage daughter and a ring-fenced heart in tow. But Scott appeared to be getting on with his life, so I’d have to do the same. It might even do me good to meet someone new, someone I could be myself with, the self I was now. Not the self I was when I was twenty.

Octavia picked out a guy who looked Slavic, with high cheekbones and slightly protruding eyes.

‘A bit amphibian-looking. Like his jacket though. And he’s got attractive hands. OK, let’s put him on the possibles list. He can be my middle-aged Nick,’ I said.

‘OK, let’s choose one more, then we’ll set up your profile.’ Octavia filled our glasses again. ‘What about him? He looks a bit Mediterranean. He’s got gorgeous hair. Reminds me a bit of Xavi.’

‘Everyone reminds you of Xavi. About time you blew out that ancient torch for him. Never let it be said that Octavia Shelton is fickle. I wonder where he ended up. Maybe he finally came back to Cocciu after all that travelling, married a girl in the village and is now a staid old man, out on his fishing boat at weekends.’

‘Doubt it. I can’t imagine a tiny island containing him for the rest of his life.’ Octavia’s hard edges still softened when she talked about him.

‘Do you ever think about contacting him? You must have Googled him at least?’

‘Nope. It just seems so disloyal and a bit slippery-slopey. Even if I found him, what would I do? I’ve got the life I’ve got now. Anyway, I’m probably a distant shag he can barely remember.’

‘Don’t be stupid. You broke his heart. He absolutely adored you. If your dad hadn’t died, you’d have gone travelling the world with him.’

Octavia threw up her hands. ‘Can you imagine Mum if I’d have dropped out of university and gone tazzing off to New Zealand with Xavi? Mind you, might have learnt more there than wasting my time finishing off a stupid French degree. Not essential for running a nursery and teaching two-year-olds Humpty Dumpty. Anyway, do you want to include this bloke or not?’ She drained her glass.

‘Go on then, I’ll have the Xavi lookalike in homage to that flame – or should I say that bonfire – you never quite managed to snuff out.’ I dutifully wrote his name down.

‘It would never have worked. He was far too wild for me.’

‘Fibber. You were waxing lyrical about him on New Year’s Eve. Anyway, back then, you were rather wild yourself.’ I dug a couple of bottles out of the bijou wine rack and waved them at Octavia. She went with the Rioja.

‘Maybe I was, but you’ve got to grow up eventually. You can’t keep travelling aimlessly. I couldn’t have dragged the kids all over the world. Xavi was just a mad fling before I found Mr Right.’ Octavia sighed. ‘Let’s sign you up. I’m going to use Cuthbert as your password.’

I recognised Octavia’s closing-down tactics. She was absurdly defensive about Jonathan. If I ever dared to point out that he didn’t seem very exciting, she would get all snippy, saying he worked so hard to support three children, as though one child didn’t require a moment of effort. It would be interesting to see if Jonathan became a powerhouse of football/rugby/netball match attendance now he didn’t have work as an excuse. I didn’t know how she stood all his fussing about, running his fingers along the banisters checking for dust.

Her calling him Mr Right brought out the devil in me.

‘I bet Xavi would be on Facebook. You could have a quick peek without him even knowing.’

‘Yes, I could, but I’m not going to. I’m very happy with my life, thank you. Let’s fill in the questionnaire about personality.’ Octavia immediately started laughing. ‘God, this is sophisticated. Tick the boxes that apply to you. ‘I like to converse at an intellectual level.’ Big fat tick. ‘I enjoy luxury.’ Huge double tick. ‘I get discouraged easily.’ Think that’s another tick.’

‘I don’t get discouraged easily.’

‘You do at the moment. At the New Year’s Eve party, you told me every time I spoke to you that you’d never meet anyone.’

‘Pardon me for being a bit depressed. I’d only left Scott six days before.’ No doubt Octavia would have led them all in the conga and a burst of the hokey-cokey.

Half a questionnaire later, with my imperfections glittering in cyberspace, I needed a break. ‘Come on. Let’s see if we can find Xavi.’

‘We’re supposed to be finding a man for you,’ Octavia said, but her protest was weak.

I shuffled her out of the way, logged on to Facebook through Alicia’s account, and typed in Xavier Santoni. No results.

‘He’s probably living in the Corsican mountains and working as a shepherd,’ I said, preparing to click back onto my dreaded dating profile.

Octavia put her hand on my arm, ‘Try just putting in Santoni – might bring up one of his rellies.’

I nudged her. ‘I thought you weren’t interested anyway.’

‘You’ve only got yourself to blame. You’re the one who’s let the genie out of the bottle. I’ve spent years telling myself “Step away from Google”.’

Forty-six results for Santoni. I scrolled down. She pointed to the screen.

‘Click on that one. I think that’s his cousin, Magali.’

I went into Magali’s photos. We stared at the pictures, trying to ascertain whether they were taken in Cocciu or not.

Octavia squinted at the screen. ‘That might be Xavi’s mother. Or maybe Xavi’s aunt. Ooh look, I bet that’s Magali’s daughter. She looks just like her. I think that’s his parents’ garden – I’m sure that’s the view down the hill, where we saw those wild boar with their babies when you came to visit me.’ Happy memories were lighting up her face in a way I rarely saw any more.

She then insisted on clicking on every Santoni who lived in Corsica, searching through their friends, looking into the crowds in party shots, peering at children for any resemblance to Xavi. I felt as though I’d taken a bit of fun and turned it into something desperate.

Eventually Octavia sighed. ‘He’s not there. Probably living in a yurt in Ulan Bator. Anyway, let’s stick to the task in hand.’ She pulled out her mobile phone to take my picture. She’d lost some of her playfulness. I knew I’d touched a nerve.

Xavi had been special in a way Jonathan wasn’t.

Xavi had such energy, approached life with such gusto. He was the perfect match for Octavia’s whirlwind of ideas, her zest for the zany. Though now I reflected on it, it was a long time since she’d made us wash our faces in the dew on the first of May for eternal youth, or read the Tarot cards. Little by little, her quirkiness had descended into something more pedestrian. Maybe it was age. Maybe it was having three kids and a demanding job. Maybe it was Jonathan. I hoped I wasn’t going to become one of those bitter women who saw faults in everyone’s marriage because my own had imploded. I pulled a face at the camera.

‘Stop it, or you’ll only get the boss-eyed axe murderers emailing you.’ Octavia was zooming in far too close for my liking.

‘I won’t date anyone, anyway.’

‘Of course you will. When they start telling you how gorgeous you are, how you look like a young Audrey Hepburn and that they’ve got a holiday home in Andalucia, a yacht in Antibes and by the way, you’re going for dinner at The Savoy, you’ll be dying to go out with them. Anyway, you’re not looking for a husband, just someone to go to the cinema with.’

‘I’ve got you for that.’ I nodded as Octavia showed me a photo that didn’t make my complexion look like a piece of ageing Stilton.

‘You’re not going to meet a bloke toddling off to the Odeon with me to watch a rom-com, are you?’

‘You sound more excited about this than me.’

‘If I was in your position, I’d go absolutely wild. Fill my boots. Shag myself silly. You might get married again in a few years’ time and be stuck with the same bloke for half a century.’

I heard something in Octavia’s tone that made me swing round to look at her.

Envy.

Octavia

I had ignored the alumni newsletter from the Middleton School for Girls when it arrived before Christmas. I’d confounded everyone’s low expectations by getting good A-levels, but two decades later, I still resented my time there. The biggest lesson I’d learnt was that I was pretty crap at conforming. If it hadn’t been for my symbiotic relationship with Roberta – our uniting sense of humour, plus her need for a little rebellion and my need for someone who knew the system so I could work it to my advantage – I would probably have dropped out and gone to tech college instead.

So my enthusiasm when she rang to say she wanted to go to the school reunion was underwhelming. ‘Who do you want to see? Old Bristles Birtwistle for a quick Latin test? Penelope Watson for a quick rundown on Daddy’s new Bentley and Mummy’s latest steed? I can’t afford it, anyway.’

‘I don’t want to see anyone in particular. I’ve rung up and they said there are still a few last-minute tickets left. Might be a way of extending my social network away from all the friends I share with Scott. I’m finding sitting in every night quite tedious. Go on. I’ll pay. Pleee-aaase.’

‘I can’t let you pay. You’re already spending a fortune on that shoebox you’re living in.’ I still couldn’t understand why she’d chosen somewhere with a concierge, a lobby and water features, rather than useful features, like bedrooms and a garden.

‘Scott’s in a generous phase at the moment. He’s agreed to cover the rent till we can sort out the finances. He’s trying to keep me sweet so I don’t start claiming half the business, I think.’

‘And you’re going to roll over?’

Roberta sighed impatiently.

‘I just want a decent settlement so I can get on with my life. I’m not squandering thousands of pounds in lawyer’s fees trying to prove how much money Scott has got. I’ve no doubt the lion’s share will be in some obscure bank account on the other side of the world by now. Anyway, will you come with me?’

‘Christ. I hated that school. You were the only good thing to come out of it.’ Still, I was impressed that Roberta was thinking positive. And slightly ashamed that I was more inclined to go if it wasn’t my £35 I was wasting. Because, as Jonathan never missed the chance to point out, there was no money to burn.

‘You would never have set up a holistic nursery if the rigidity of school hadn’t scarred you for life. It’s your opportunity to go back and show them what you achieved.’ Never mind interior design, Roberta should have carved out a career as a hostage negotiator.

‘True. Though that’s a perverse way to be thankful for years of detentions and lectures on being responsible,’ I said.

‘You did leave school over twenty years ago.’

I hesitated, knowing that I was going to give in. Anything to keep Roberta from going back to Scott. ‘OK, then. I’m going to regret this.’

Once I’d agreed to go, I brushed away any discussion or plans. Thinking about any of them – teachers or pupils – reminded me how stifled I’d felt through all my teenage years. Roberta saw my household as liberal compared with her dad’s strict rules of staying at the table until everyone had finished breakfast and not coming downstairs in your nightie. She loved learning how to dressmake with my mum or watching TV in our dressing gowns all day, legs dangling over the arm of the settee.

But my parents weren’t liberal, they were good solid working-class stock, with ambitions for me, hence the pushing and prodding of their only daughter into a scholarship at a school for the posh and privileged. I wasn’t sure they could deem their experiment an unqualified success.

On the night of the reunion, Roberta picked me up. She arrived all gussied-up with a cloud of dark hair, white palazzo pants, a lacy blouse and high heels that would have made me look like I’d just finished my pole-dancing shift. I’d meant to spend a bit of time titivating myself but Jonathan was sulking about me going out without him, cottering about how we didn’t have money to waste on ‘fripperies’ then still managing to be cross when I told him Roberta was paying.

He’d decided his best use of time was to review our pensions that evening. Producing the relevant documents from my ‘bung-it-in-a-box’ filing system resulted in a mere fifteen minutes for a makeover, hampered by a missing eyeliner sharpener and my one decent top gone AWOL. In the end, I’d gone for a pair of black trousers I wore for work, spent a precious five minutes taming my hair so it didn’t stick out like a monkey puzzle tree, and chucked a dried-up mascara wand into my bag to do my make-up in the car.