David Atkinson - The Second Life of Nathan Jones - A laugh out loud, OMG! romcom that you won’t be able to put down!

He smiled at his own analysis. He didn’t want a miserable marriage any more than his wife did. He wanted their old relationship back, the one they’d had when they were first together, the first few months of wide-eyed wonder they’d shared after Millie’s birth when everything had seemed filled with promise and novelty.

Millie and Chloe would be home from school soon. After that he planned to cook up some steaks for Laura and himself. Millie would have a little bit and he’d do some pasta for the younger girls, who wouldn’t touch steak. He’d already bought a nice bottle of expensive Shiraz; well, a tenner seemed expensive for him. He’d sauté some potatoes and serve them and the steak with green beans, pepper sauce and onion rings, the height of sophistication for Nathan. It also felt a little like the last meal for a condemned prisoner or, perhaps more fittingly, the last meal for a condemned marriage.

He’d been so busy in the kitchen that he almost forgot to get Daisy from nursery and had to zoom up the road in his car. He made it just as the last of the parents were leaving the building. When he bustled into the classroom he found Daisy sitting on Mrs Ridgwell’s knee, crying. Mrs Ridgwell, a severe woman in early menopause, always appeared to be mad at everything and everyone.

‘Daisy’s been upset all day, Mr Jones. She says her mummy’s leaving – is that true?’

Nathan frowned. They’d deliberately agreed to limit what they said to Daisy, deciding she would be too young to grasp the reality of their situation. Of course, her older sisters had been subject to no such censor and he suspected they’d been telling Daisy more than she needed to know.

‘She’s going to be working down south a few days each week, that’s all.’ He wasn’t willing to share more than that with strangers.

Mrs Ridgwell looked over the top of her glasses at Nathan and pouted. ‘Daisy is very upset about it. I think your wife should reconsider going if this is the effect it’s going to have on her children.’

Nathan initially reacted with anger at her poking her nose in where it had no right to be, but then he realised she echoed his own sentiments exactly. So he relaxed and said, ‘I’ll mention it to her, Mrs Ridgwell.’ He prised his daughter free from the clutches of the scowling teacher and guided her to his car.

Daisy’s demeanour brightened considerably when she arrived home and into the loving circle of her sisters, a relationship so complex, enveloping and at times contradictory that Nathan, as a man and a father, would never completely understand it. However, as he stood and watched Chloe and Millie making a fuss of their youngest sibling he decided, whatever happened between him and Laura, he’d always put his girls first.

His wife arrived home from work tired and stressed as usual. She said a quick hello to everyone, accepted a glass of wine from Nathan and disappeared to soak in the bath.

*

Later, after dinner, Laura and Nathan sat in silence at the dinner table. The plates had been cleared and stacked in the sink and Laura pulled out a notepad from her handbag. She poured the remainder of the wine into their glasses and said, ‘Right, Nathan, you’re going to have your hands full on Monday, so you need to make a list of what needs done and when.’

‘Do I?’

‘If you want to have any kind of life you do, yeah.’

‘I like my life just as it is.’

Laura sighed. ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter what you like, does it, Nathan? It’s going to change and you either accept it now, or in a week, or in a month’s time. It’d be easier for the girls if you could at least pretend to be an adult and listen to me.’

Nathan bristled but checked his anger. He didn’t want the rest of the weekend to be a battleground. ‘I’m listening,’ he said tersely.

Laura ripped a few pages out of the pad and passed them over; digging into her bag, she produced a pen and handed that over too.

Nathan picked the pen up and waited. ‘So, I’m your secretary now, am I?’

Laura smiled. ‘Just for a little while. Now, I know you spend a lot of time with the girls doing the fun stuff. What you also need to do now, is the mundane stuff, like ironing and prepping.’

‘I do prepping.’

‘You occasionally iron a skirt or fill a water bottle. Right, we’ll start with school stuff. Millie and Chloe need their uniforms washed and ironed at the weekend. I’ll make sure there’s a week’s worth ready but next weekend you’ll need to be prepared. You’ll need five white blouses each, five skirts, and either tights or socks depending on the weather. Probably tights will be the order of the day most of the time.’ Laura paused and nodded as Nathan took notes. ‘Daisy just needs normal clothes for nursery but, if it looks like it’s going to be wet, try and pick older outfits as she’ll end up covered in mud. Before the girls go to school you need to do their hair. Millie likes a little side-pleat and you need to use tiny little hairbands for that—’

‘I don’t know how to do pleats.’

‘Millie will show you; it’s not difficult. You need to make sure Millie and Chloe have a snack for the morning and a bottle of water each. Yes, before you speak I know you do them, but with all the other stuff going on you might forget so write it down. They both eat school lunches, so you don’t need to worry about that, but Daisy needs a packed lunch every day. She likes ham or cheese in her sandwiches but not both together, despite what she says. She also needs at least three bits of fruit, though she only ever eats two.’

‘So why not just put two in, then?’

Laura glanced up. ‘Because if you put in two pieces, she’ll only eat one.’

‘What happens if you put four pieces in?’

‘She still only eats two. Now, you also need to make sure you’ve got the list of stuff they do after school and nursery. You already do most of this, but let’s run through it anyway. Monday at 5 p.m. Millie goes to dancing and Chloe to football.’

‘Daisy stays with me.’

‘She does. Tuesday and Wednesday are free nights. Thursday Chloe has swimming lessons at 4.30 and Daisy goes to Gym Tots; they’re both in the same place so that’s easy but remember Millie’s iPad. Saturday morning Millie and Chloe go to drama but I’m not sure Chloe’s that keen, so you might have to let her drop out.’

‘I thought she loved it.’

‘She did, but now I’m not so sure. Sunday is free as you know, but instead of watching the football you’ll need to catch up on your ironing and cleaning. Most evenings try and get Millie and Chloe to do their reading and homework before you put the TV on for them because, as you know, otherwise it’s a nightmare trying to get them away from it.’

‘It all sounds like a riot.’

‘You’ll cope, but I’ll put everything on a list, so you don’t forget. You need to hoover every day, the kitchen floor needs cleaning with the steam mop every night after the carnage that is dinner time is over, but you usually do that anyway, and the fridge needs cleaning at least once a month and sometimes more. There’s loads more, but that’ll do for now. I’ll write everything down on a master list for you, so you have it all handy. I’ll also email it all over to you because, knowing you, you’ll lose the list in a day or two.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You will. This way you’ll always have a copy.’

‘A reminder of how much my wife loves me.’

Laura sighed. ‘A reminder that, regardless of what you think, Nathan, we need to put the girls before everything.’

‘Running away from them isn’t exactly a good example of that, is it?’

‘I’m not having this conversation with you, Nathan. It’s pointless, we’ve been there already. I’m doing this for everyone’s benefit. Now, tomorrow I’m taking the girls into town as I need to get some new clothes for work and there’s a sale on at Clarks, so I’ll try and get Chloe some new school shoes because she’s nearly grown out of her last ones. Sunday we’ll try and do something as a family, but we need to try and be civil to each other so that it’s not a total disaster, okay?’