The train pulled into South Kensington station, and as the blue-eyed man with the sloping smile stood to alight, he said in a delightful Irish accent: “Come for a drink with us.” We had spent the past 10 minutes since I’d got on grinning at each other, eyes lingering that bit longer than they should.
In that instant before the Tube doors closed, I reacted to the lilt of God-awful Irish charm and found myself on the platform with him. Somehow, I managed to look him straight in the eye, this jack-the-lad with his cocky smile. W “You’re really sexy,” he said to me. “Uh huh,” I replied.
He took me to a pub around the corner. We said little, and just let the sexual tension build as he bought drinks at the bar, leaning confidently on the gleaming mahogany surface. He let the back of his hand touch mine. “So,” he said, grinning. “You’re gorgeous. Why aren’t you married?” And in that moment, everything disappeared and the cold dread of pain was suddenly all around me once more. Before I knew it, tears were falling into my glass of merlot.
Eighteen months before, my husband had left me, when our son was three, our daughter still a newborn. We had been together for 16 years. I crawled through the first six months; staggered through the next. I couldn’t listen to any song, watch any film, read any book. Everything was relevant to the pain I was feeling. My world was nothing but the daily grind of nappies, sleepless nights, heartache and the terror of being a lone parent.
This was the first of anything resembling a date. “I was married,” I eventually replied. “Now divorced. I have two children.” His smile wavered momentarily. “That’s complicated,” he said. I nodded. We parted as friends, but he went home without my number and I went home to my children.
I didn’t go on another date for months after that. I wasn’t ready. I was still aching for the family I’d had, and nobody else could fill that hole. So I filled it with work and children. We hid in a world of camping trips and beach walks. It’s true, time is the only healer, and I went through all the phases of grief. There was the odd flirtation: one with a man 10 years my junior, boy-band handsome and tanned the colour of treacle. Another with an old flame, by now married with two children, and afterwards the choice to contact him or not. I chose not, because I know the devastation that path leaves behind it.
Two years into the aftermath, when the fear of living alone had subsided, I started thinking about dating again. Being a single mother makes it harder to date — harder to meet men and harder to keep men. Couples who used to invite me to dinner didn't. I came heavily laden with two pieces of delightful baggage. Statistically, there are 1.8m single parents in the UK, but I’ve not met any in my social circles.
I looked online, then promptly looked offline, as all the men seemed to go for women five years younger than themselves. A friend had done speed dating, but said she spent most of her evening studying the bald patch of the man in front as he bent his head to scribble frantic notes.
Then, a few months ago, on a rare weekend when I didn’t have the children, a friend invited me to a party in the country. There I met Duggy, a photographer — funny, charismatic and kind. We flirted and a little later on he asked me if I’d go for a midnight amble. The amble turned into a hike, a 10-mile starlit hike back to his house, and by the time we staggered weary- legged into his ramshackle cottage, I felt alive in the young, frivolous way that I had before children. The night was full of tenderness and I sank into a world of touch. We kissed and caressed, nothing more, but something woke up inside me. The next morning, I was ablaze. When I went home to my children, to the nappies and the sleepless nights, suddenly all I could think about was sex.
In my already too-long list of things to do, I had a beauty regime to contend with: legs needed shaving, nails painting, body moisturising. Hairdryer in one hand, packing a school bag with the other, juggling, juggling. When the photographer and I did finally sleep together, it was love-affair sex, not marriage sex, which is like pasta — great some nights, overcooked others. It was new, dramatic and full of fantasy.
When he came to stay, he came as my friend. The kids accepted him in that lovely unquestioning way that children do. At night he slept on the two-seater sofa. I was on the next floor up, the kids one floor up from that. A night of relay-racing commenced. The late-night lavatory assistance, up two flights, then back down to the sofa for a cuddle. The midnight hunger call; banana for one child, milk for the other. Back down for a kiss. At 6am, the photographer was politely turfed out into the rain, bag in hand, hair still bed-rumpled.
A few months on and it’s still not easy. I’m still learning how to be a parent, let alone anything else, but most importantly, I’ve built up my life again so that, whatever happens, the children and I can’t be destroyed again. I’m not afraid to be alone any more. I fixed my confidence by doing the things that make me feel good about myself — I work hard and I’m creative with my children. I walk, I write, I listen to music and watch films.
Pain is the price we pay for love. There are no short cuts. If you look for new love to save you from fear and loneliness, you won’t ever fix yourself. You have to love your own company first, learn who you are without the prop of your past partner, and become a family in your own right. Only then can you start to climb the mountain back up to clearer, brighter air.
As for the photographer? I’m still seeing him. He’s still sleeping on the two-seater sofa. I’m still running up and down two flights of stairs. But if trust is the hardest thing to win back after a break-up, he’s already done that. So, who knows? We are what we are. There isn’t a name for it. But one day we might well tumble tentatively into a relationship where I can love better than I did the first time, with the wisdom that comes from heartache.
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