Page 16 of Stella is Starting Over

‘Not so much,’ she says. ‘Garden?’

It’s not really warm enough to be outside, and going outside takes us further away from the bedroom, which is, I assume given Stella’s very explicit communications, the goal. But it’s still light at nearly 7 p.m. for the first time this year and we’re too British to resist that. She opens the back doors and we go out into the garden, which has a wooden table and chairs. I wait for her to sit down and then sit next to her, rather than across the table. I lift a strand of her hair that has fallen forward, in front of her shoulder, and put it back into place. She smells like citrus and I can see a blush creeping along her neck. That’s a good sign.

‘This is great,’ I say. ‘A proper garden.’

‘It really isn’t. The people who had it before had treated it like total shit and I’ve been trying to make it look half decent, but I’ve only got like half an hour at a time to work on it. It’ll get there, though. Eventually.’

‘I could help,’ I hear myself say.

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘Sure. Like I said the other day, I like playing house. I’m just not so good at doing “house” for real.’

There’s a pause, which, if we weren’t awkward semi-strangers, would be filled with us acknowledging that it might be weird for me to help sort her garden out when we’re very much not looking for a relationship, but that she could use the help and that I’ve got two window boxes and nothing else to play with, and I really miss getting my hands dirty, so it could also be a perfect arrangement.

‘How was work?’ she asks.

‘Fine,’ I say, trying to think of something funny. ‘No buildings I’ve worked on fell down so I call that a win. How was yours?’ I ask, remembering that she works in interiors, so that should be safe ground for us, chat-wise. Not that we’ve actually had any issues on that front. Or that being able to ask her about cornicing would actually save any kind of conversational drought.

‘I wasn’t at work today,’ she says, looking at the stem of her wine glass.

‘Oh, right, day off?’

‘I’m on maternity leave.’

I try to keep the surprise off my face and it clearly doesn’t work because she laughs at my expression.

‘But we talked about your job?’ I say. ‘Before?’

‘I’d just done a keeping in touch day. And I am going back – it is still technically my job.’

‘Wow,’ I say, because I’m not sure what else to do. ‘I mean, honestly, impressive work.’

She looks down, dropping her gaze, and I sense that I’ve said the wrong thing.

‘I’m on mum mode most of the time,’ she says. ‘But my ex has our daughter once a week now and I just felt like I wanted something to do – something that wasn’t, like, a yoga class or drinking alone.’

‘Hey, I’m absolutely not judging you,’ I say, probably too quickly, but genuinely horrified that I might have sounded like I think she’s doing something wrong. ‘It’s just that the only person I know who has had a baby is my younger sister and she basically refused to do anything or go anywhere for, like, a year after my nephew was born because she kept saying she’d “done enough”.’

To my relief, Stella laughs. ‘Oh, god, is she one of those really amazing mums who breastfeeds for years and years and then makes all their own purées from organic vegetables?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ I say. ‘That kid’s going to end up in therapy for having nothing to complain about.’

‘Not a problem Rose is getting.’

‘Oh, no, she’s got it made. Imagine how great it would be to know from, like, birth, what your big trauma you blame everything on is going to be?’

She laughs again, which is another relief because I’ve pushed it a bit here. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Plus, built-in excuses for the rest of her life. Any time she behaves like a dick, she can just be like, it’s not my fault, my dad left when I was a baby.’

‘Exactly! George and Georgie’s kid has got nothing.’

‘George and Georgie?’

I forget that this isn’t normal when you say it without context. ‘My sister is called Georgie. Her husband is called George.’

‘Oh, wow,’ she says, clearly trying to be polite. ‘What’s your nephew called?’

‘River.’