Jemma Forte - If You're Not The One

‘Mum,’ piped up Eadie, looking miserable.

‘Yes, darling,’ said Jennifer, teeth gritted. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t like my beef. It tastes like cat poo. Can I have some toast?’

‘It’s chicken not beef and it’s please may I have some toast?’ replied Jennifer.

‘Please may I have some toast?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Jennifer faintly. ‘Anyone else?’

For a second Max looked sorely tempted but soon readjusted his expression when Jennifer glowered at him on her way to the toaster.

The rest of the meal was pretty torturous. Only Henry seemed blissfully unaware that he was eating something which resembled road-kill. Everyone else performed a sort of cutlery ballet-dance around their plate, consuming lots of potatoes and salad, and expertly leaving a pile of pinky grey mush to one side, with either their knife and fork, or a napkin, placed cunningly over the top.

After the meal Jennifer cleared away, scraping tons of discarded meat into the food recycling bin. As she did so, she wondered at what point she’d become so sad and pathetic that she couldn’t have admitted that she hadn’t made the disgusting food herself and that probably none of them should have touched it, in case they all got the chronic shits. When had she become the sort of person who cared what people like Judith and Henry thought anyway? When had she transformed into such a middle-class stereotype, desperately trying to impress? When had she turned into Max’s mother?

Much later that night as she climbed gratefully between the sheets, head thumping with a same-day hangover, she said to Max who was already half asleep, ‘The chicken was a bit weird wasn’t it?’

‘It was all right,’ he said, his eyes shut and his body turned away from her. ‘It just looked a bit like cat food. Why did you say you’d made it?’

‘Don’t know,’ she replied truthfully, staring at the ceiling, hot with embarrassment just thinking about it.

‘You did yourself a disservice anyway,’ he added. ‘Your cooking’s far nicer and I think Judith doesn’t cook much so it’s not like you needed to compete. She works too hard to ever get round to doing any domestic stuff.’

‘Oh, so now you’re having a go at me for not making something are you?’ she retorted defensively, because in truth she was feeling gradually more and more embarrassed that she’d passed off the stupid, dodgy looking ruddy chickens as her own creations. Her tone wasn’t helped by the fact that the mere mention of Judith’s name was starting to send shivers up her spine.

‘No,’ he sighed, now clearly wishing she’d shut up and go to sleep. ‘I’m giving you a compliment on your cooking really but I’m also saying I think they knew you hadn’t made it anyway.’

‘Really?’ she said, despite the fact she’d figured this out on her own, having it confirmed was mortifying, to the point where another bad night’s sleep was probably on the cards. ‘Why?’

‘Because you went weird and replied really slowly, so it was obvious.’

‘Oh god I’m so strange,’ she whimpered. ‘The thing is I’m very tired you know.’

‘I know,’ he said, and with that he fell fast asleep, as he had an annoying habit of doing when he was tired, leaving his wife to ponder in the darkness the fact that lying hadn’t really achieved anything. In fact, it was clear to her that the only thing she’d stuffed by doing so (and it certainly wasn’t the chickens) was herself.

Perhaps the whole debacle was a sign that she needed to be more honest about a whole load of things.

Two hours later, bored of her insomnia, head whirring, Jennifer slipped out of bed and crept into the spare room. Able to spread out she tried to relax, and then decided to finish what she’d started much earlier in the day in the hope that a good healthy orgasm might help her get to sleep. And so it was that she returned to that hot summer back in 1994 when, unlike now, food was of little or no consequence to her or her friends because they’d had far more interesting things to worry about.

Summer 1994

‘Come with me,’ said Aidan, the green eyes she’d got so used to, boring into her, pleading with her. ‘I know we’ve only known each other five minutes but what we’ve got doesn’t come along every day. I’m telling you.’

‘How can I come with you?’ repeated Jennifer, who inside was in complete turmoil. Something was pulling her, like a magnet, telling her to throw caution to the wind, to follow her heart, or possibly more accurately, her loins. They’d barely come up for air since they’d met and Jennifer had never known anything remotely like it. She knew she was relatively inexperienced on the sex front, having only slept with three people in total (actually four, she kept forgetting Greek bloke on beach), but Aidan had made her feel things she hadn’t dreamed were possible. In bed they made total sense and as far as she could tell he was also an exciting person, someone who was creating his own path in life to tread, one which wasn’t constrained by parental pressure or some traditional idea of how things should be played out. And that was the problem in a way. Jennifer had always liked knowing how things should map out. It had never occurred to her to stray even remotely from the plan which she and her parents were in agreement was the right one for her. The right one for most people.

School, college, travelling. Next on the list was university, followed by career, marriage, babies. That was life. Wasn’t it?

And yet here was someone asking her to go completely off piste. And she was actually tempted. Sorely tempted. She was pretty sure she loved him, or was definitely on her way to falling in love with him and knew if she let him go she might regret it forever. The thought of never sleeping with him again and therefore not experiencing that unbelievably exquisite pleasure was unbearable too. She licked her lips and stared down at her green flipflops. Her feet were pleasingly brown. It was so hot.

‘Look,’ said Aidan, ‘I’m not going to beg. That’s not my style. And if you say no I guess I’ll understand, though I think you’d be making a massive mistake. Like I said, what we’ve got is special. I know it is, and besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I’m asking you to come away with me, but I wouldn’t be kidnapping you. If it didn’t work out you could just get on a plane home.’

‘But my university place…?’ questioned Jennifer, wondering if she could really deny herself the opportunity to be with him when he’d turned her entire world upside down in a matter of days. University was something she’d always wanted to experience but he was right. She could always change her mind, so maybe she needed to be more adventurous? But as this thought trailed away it was replaced by the feeling of absolute certainty that her parents would be beyond livid with her for being so irresponsible and for not consulting them. Then again, it was her life. She was so torn.

‘Look, the boat leaves in half an hour. I’m going to be on it,’ said Aidan. ‘If you’re coming with me, you need to say goodbye to the girls and get your stuff. What’s it to be?’

‘Oh god,’ said Jennifer. ‘I don’t know.’

And for precisely ten more minutes she still didn’t.

And then she had a chat with Karen who looked at her with such horror that she was even contemplating the idea of going off with someone she’d known for a total of seventeen days that something took over. Something irritatingly sensible.

And so it was that the boat sailed off with a hurt and more devastated than he’d imagined he might have been Aidan, taking him off for adventure and ultimately Australia.