The Good Part(26)

‘You’re drunk,’ he says, his voice stern and unimpressed.

‘A little,’ I admit. Having a husband feels a lot like having a parent. Maybe I don’t want a husband. Maybe I’d rather be rich and single, picking up men half my age like Brigitte Macron. Then I remember how hot Sam is and how valid his annoyance, given the situation. At least when you’re married your husband has to love you unconditionally.

‘Just get on the nine-forty train, and I’ll send a cab to pick you up,’ Sam says, sounding very little like someone who loves me, unconditionally or otherwise.





Chapter 11


When I wake up, I see that I’m in the grown-up bedroom with the fancy curtains and the super-soft duvet. I’m still wearing the purple suit trousers, and I have a headache almost as bad as yesterday’s. Reaching a shaking hand beyond the safety of the bed, I find a glass of water on my bedside table and gulp it down.

The fact that I’ve woken up here, rather than Kennington Lane, makes me suspect this flash forward/life leap, whatever it is, might be more permanent than I’d hoped. Not that I did a degree in time travel or wrote a thesis on the space-time continuum, but going to sleep here and waking up again makes it feel less likely to be a dream. A fussy fog of remorse tells me that I might owe Future Me an apology for acting inappropriately with her work colleagues. Did I . . . did I try to kiss Callum? Oh, I can’t think about it, it’s too awful.

There’s no sign of Sam or the children upstairs, so I have a quick shower and find a fleecy beige tracksuit to change into. At least it’s Saturday; a morning of hangover food and mindless TV will sort me out. Downstairs, I pause by the kitchen door, observing the scene. Sam is playing peek-a-boo with Amy from behind a cereal packet and she’s giggling in delight. Felix is wearing a shiny red cape over his dinosaur pyjamas and has lined up mini-Weetabix like dominoes across the kitchen table.

‘Hi,’ I say with a timid wave. Sam looks up and responds with the coldest ‘Hi’ I’ve ever heard. It’s arctic. No, colder that arctic, it’s the temperature of one of those planets at the furthest edge of the solar system where it’s minus four hundred degrees.

‘I’m sorry about last night,’ I say, walking into the kitchen and taking a seat. ‘Yesterday was a bit of a strange day for me.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it in front of the children,’ Sam says. A muscle pulses in his jaw, and he turns away from me to switch on the coffee machine. Hmmm, I could murder a coffee.

‘Are you Mummy again?’ Felix asks me.

‘Morning, Felix,’ I say, sidestepping the question. There’s a loud whirring, crunching sound as coffee beans are pulverised into delicious submission. Amy covers her ears. When the noise finally stops, Sam asks Felix, ‘What do you mean, “Are you Mummy again?” ’

‘Yesterday Mummy wasn’t Mummy. She was an alien,’ Felix explains.

Sam looks at me, and I shrug as though I have no idea what he’s talking about. Right now, with him radiating all this freezing-cold Neptune energy towards me, doesn’t feel like the right moment to try and explain wish-based time travel.

‘Sometimes grown-ups have too much to drink, and it makes them act differently. It doesn’t mean they’ve been possessed by aliens,’ Sam says, handing me a coffee. Then he picks up a banana, which he peels and passes to Amy in one seamless motion.

‘Thank you,’ I say, hugging the cup in my hands.

‘If I drink too much, will I act differently?’ Felix asks.

‘No, it only happens with alcohol, which you don’t drink,’ Sam explains.

My coffee smells so good I want to cry, and I take a long, slow breath. When I look up from the mug, I see Felix observing me.

‘What’s my middle name?’ says Felix.

‘Huh?’

‘I’m trying to think of questions only Mummy would know the answer to, that the aliens wouldn’t.’

Damn, this kid is bright. How old did he say he was again? ‘Funny boy,’ I say, ruffling his hair in the way I’ve seen people ruffle kids’ hair on TV. Sam turns back to the coffee machine to make a cup for himself.

‘I’d be surprised if Mummy can remember her own name this morning.’

‘What’s your favourite number?’ Felix is not giving up.

‘Um, eight,’ I say, plucking a number out of thin air.

‘Ha! Mummy’s favourite number is eleven!’ Felix holds his arms out wide, as though this proves his point.

‘Do you even remember getting home?’ Sam asks me. His tone is light, but he won’t look at me.

‘Maybe not every element,’ I admit.

‘Felix, do you want to put the TV on for your sister?’ Sam says, lifting Amy out of her high chair and putting her down on the floor. She immediately toddles towards me and tries to hug my leg with her sticky banana hands. I move away so she can’t smoosh banana goo into my nice clean, fluffy jogging bottoms.

‘Can you wipe her hands?’ Sam asks, throwing me a wet dishcloth, which I miss, and it hits the wall behind me with a thwack.

‘Mummy would have caught that,’ Felix says, his voice an awed whisper.

Picking up the cloth, I try to clean the baby’s hands as best I can, but she’s still trying to hug me, so I end up holding her at arm’s length with one hand, while trying to clean off the goo with the other. When I look up, Sam and Felix are both watching me with the same suspicious expression.