College restarts and Tallulah is glad.
Christmas Day was nice, Noah’s first.
Her dad, whose name is Jim, came down on Boxing Day, only the second time he’d seen Noah since he was born. He stayed in a room above the Swan & Ducks for two nights, and even paid for them all to have dinner there on the twenty-seventh. He was hugely taken with Noah and sat him on his knee and stared at him in wonder and called him the bonniest baby he’d ever seen. Tallulah’s father was normally very self-centred and distant, but becoming a grandfather seemed to have removed a layer of protection from around his heart.
But the Christmas magic soon dissipated and the novelty of seeing Noah in his Christmas elf outfit wore off, and on NewYear’s Eve she was to stay home alone while her mum went to the pub with a group of friends and Ryan went to a party. It was one of the first moments that Tallulah felt stifled by the responsibilities and limitations of motherhood.
So when Zach offered to come and sit in with her that night, as much as she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea and think that they were on again, she also didn’t want to spend the night alone with a seven-month-old baby. So she said yes.
He arrived at 9 p.m., fresh from a friend’s house, smelling slightly of beer and cigarettes, his hood up against a cold wind, his hands stuffed inside his pockets with an off-licence carrier bag looped over his wrist.
She held the door ajar so he could come in and he leaned towards her for a quick peck on her cheek. ‘Happy New Year,’ he said.
‘Not quite,’ she said.
‘Is Noah in bed?’ He glanced up the stairs.
Tallulah nodded. ‘Been down for a while.’
‘Sorry I’m a bit late. They didn’t have what I wanted at the Co-op so I had to go into the pub for it. Had to queue for ages. Packed in there.’
He opened up the bag and let her peer inside.
Champagne, still cold from the fridge.
She smiled; she couldn’t help it. She loved champagne.
‘Saw your mum,’ he said, following her into the kitchen.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Looked like she was having fun.’
‘Good,’ she said, sliding the champagne into the fridge and pulling out two beers.
‘Got crisps as well.’ He pulled out two bags of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa. ‘And these, ’cos I know they’re your favourites.’ He presented her with a bag of Cadbury’s mini fingers.
She smiled again. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
They settled in front of the TV with their beers and the crisps. It was the first time she’d been alone with Zach in weeks, in months. Usually he came over during the day to spend time with Noah when he was awake. She’d thought it might feel a little awkward, but actually it didn’t. She and Zach had known each other since they were fourteen years old when he started at Tallulah’s school after moving from a boys’ school in the next village where he’d been bullied. She’d befriended him because he looked nice and she’d felt sorry for him and then they’d started dating and that was that. They were one of those teen couples that were part of the furniture, an unsurprising couple, not one to create chatter or intrigue.
So maybe it wasn’t so strange that Tallulah should have felt so comfortable in his company that night. They’d been friends, they’d been lovers, they’d been ex-lovers and now they were parents. There was no reason why they shouldn’t be able to be friends again.
They didn’t talk much that night, they let the telly entertain them, they looked at their phones and showed each other things that were amusing. At one point Zach snatched the phone from Tallulah’s hand and said, ‘Here, I want to see your camera roll, let me see.’
‘Get off!’ she’d laughed. ‘Why!’
‘Just want to see photos of Noah,’ he said and she let him scroll through her phone and it was nearly 100 per cent photos ofNoah. But then the roll got as far back as the Christmas party at college and Zach slowed down and started looking at the pictures in more details.
‘You look nice,’ he said, zooming into her face in a selfie she and Chloe had taken just before they went home. ‘You’re wearing make-up.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Just eyeliner. Mum did it for me.’
‘Suits you,’ he said, turning and giving her a strange look. ‘Not like you to get all dolled up. And who’s that?’ he asked.
It’s a selfie, taken on the dance floor at the Christmas disco when she and Scarlett had been dancing to Mariah Carey. Scarlett must have taken it. The camera was held up high, both of them beaming with all their teeth on show, pieces of glitter just starting to fall from the netting overhead, catching the light.
‘That’s Scarlett, a girl at college.’