Page 49 of Stella is Starting Over

‘It’s not that,’ I say, trying to make this conversation go away as quickly as possible. ‘Richard hasn’t met Rose yet. But she’ll love these – thank you. I can’t wait to show her in the morning.’

‘Why haven’t you met?’ Mum asks, looking confused.

‘Can I get anyone a drink?’ I ask. Richard indicates that he’d like me to open the bottle of red he brought and I look for a corkscrew, grateful for something to do.

He asks Louella about work, my mother about living in Chelsea (her favourite topic), and they chatter away. At one point I think my mother might actually be fluttering her eyelashes at him. Eventually, he goes to the bathroom and they both round on me.

‘I love him,’ Louella says.

‘He seems like a very good sort,’ Mum agrees. ‘Lovely manners. Very clean fingernails.’

She is absolutely right about that, I have never seen Richard with anything less than pristine nails. He comes back from the bathroom and picks up the wine. ‘Can I top anyone up?’ he asks.

‘They were talking about you while you were in the bathroom,’ I say, putting potatoes into a pot of boiling water and salting the water liberally.

‘Oh!’ Richard says. I think he might be blushing. ‘Right. Well, I guess that’s to be expected.’

‘She’s so indiscreet.’ Mum tuts. ‘We were just saying how lovely you are. And I was about to say that I think it’s very modern that you don’t mind about Rose, or about Stella having been married before. I think a lot of men would be—’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I interject.

Richard studies the tiles on the kitchen floor. ‘I think Stella seems wonderful,’ he says, clearly absolutely and completely out of his depth in this conversation. ‘And we’ve all got our pasts, right? Everyone’s got their baggage.’

I bristle at the word ‘baggage’, a word that I’ve consciously avoided when describing myself and especially when describing Rose. It’s such a hideous expression, and I know it’s fair. It’s actually very accurate. A lot of the time having a baby does feel like I’m dragging a suitcase around behind me and I’m not allowed to put it down or leave it at left luggage. But still.

‘Sure,’ Louella adds. ‘Exactly. And Rose isn’t baggage, anyway. She’s a bonus.’

‘Quite.’ Richard nods.

‘Dom always calls her my tiny housemate,’ I say, ‘which I quite like.’

‘Dom?’ asks Mum.

‘A friend of mine,’ I reply, blushing in what I hope isn’t enough of a deep red that anyone notices.

‘Which one is Dom?’ Mum asks. ‘The one who doesn’t shave her armpits?’

‘No, Mum.’ Louella sighs. ‘That was Lola, and she went through a very brief phase of not shaving in 2015.’

‘Did Rose take to you?’ Louella asks Richard, shifting in her chair. ‘No judgement if not, she cried every time I came into the room for the first three months.’

‘They haven’t met,’ I say again. Louella knows that they haven’t met because she’d have grilled me for details about their first meeting, which means she’s deliberately testing the water with him. Annoying, but equally exactly what I would do.

‘Stella has been very cautious about introducing anyone into her life in a more meaningful capacity,’ Richard says. ‘Which I think is admirable and deeply pragmatic.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Mum says, raising her glass.

I mash the potatoes, take the tenderstem broccoli out of the oven when it’s sizzling and charred in the skillet but not cremated, and everyone sits down at the table. The evening is still so warm that we have the doors open and even though the garden is a ramshackle mess, the air smells so sweet and the weeds I keep promising to tackle are in flower so it manages to look quite pretty.

‘Has Gavin said how long he’s willing for you to keep living at the house?’ Mum asks, after we’ve sat down and everyone has made noises about how delicious the chicken is. Louella rolls her eyes at the question.

‘Mum.’ She sighs. ‘That’s not a question for now.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’m perfectly happy for Richard to hear about it, it’s not a secret.’

Richard looks interested; he refills my water glass, studying me. ‘Your ex still owns part of the house?’

‘We agreed that because he left, he’d keep paying into the mortgage, I’ll keep living here, instead of him paying child maintenance. And then once I finish fixing it up I’ll sell it, and we’ll both take back what we put in.’