3

10 September

Keith, Lisa’s ex, visited her when the kids were at school, which was a surprise.

‘What do you want?’ she asked. He always wanted something.

He asked for a cup of tea, but she knew that there was something bigger. Lisa gave him a chipped mug. It wasn’t as big a crime as him running off with the Big Breasted Woman, but it was something. She hoped he noticed. He dipped his biscuit and drank his tea. Then he gave her a booklet.

Right away Lisa was worried. The last papers he’d given her were divorce papers.

‘What is it?’ Lisa asked, sulkily.

‘Some information about local night classes. There are lots to choose from: computer studies, sewing, cake-decorating, foreign languages. I thought you might be interested. You could do with a new challenge,’ said Keith.

‘Don’t you think bringing up three kids on my own is challenge enough?’ Lisa asked, crossly.

‘Helen learnt all she knows from a night class on textiles,’ said Keith.

Lisa knew the Big Breasted Woman studied textiles at some poxy night class. Keith had told her a million times. Lisa wanted to make a joke that Helen did have talents involving textiles such as cotton sheets. And that Helen probably did learn these talents in the night. His affair proved that. But Lisa resisted. She’d sound mean. Keith brought the worst out in Lisa – she was often angry around him.

Lots of things about Keith annoyed Lisa. One was that in the years they were married, he plodded along in his job at Carpet Land. He made an OK amount of money working on the sales team on the shop floor. Lisa and Keith had a pretty, but small, house. They went on a week’s holiday every year to Spain or Greece. Their kids wore the ‘must have’ trainers that they wanted. Lisa and Keith managed. They had a nice enough, normal enough life.

Two months after leaving Lisa, Keith packed in his job at Carpet Land. He set up an interior design company, if you please! Of course it was the Big Breasted Woman’s idea. She said there were lots of people who would pay loads of money just to be told where to scatter their cushions. Lisa was amazed by his cheek. Yes, the man knew about carpets, but that was it. He had never so much as held a paintbrush. Or a loo brush. Or a dustpan and brush, come to that.

But suddenly Keith was telling people about candles and colours. He told them how important it was to have a warm and welcoming hallway. He told them to buy fresh cut flowers. Lisa only had plastic ones. Keith had bought them for her about ten years ago. He’d said plastic were better, because you only had to buy one bunch in a lifetime. He’d changed his mind about that and many other things.

Last year Keith and the Big Breasted Woman had bought a five-bedroom house. They went on three holidays! Lisa and the kids had a week in Dorset. It rained every day.

Thinking of Keith’s happiness made Lisa cross and bothered. How dare he come into her house and tell her she needed a challenge? Keith reached for the last biscuit on the plate and bit it. Lisa grabbed the biscuit out of his hand.

‘I think you should go now,’ she said.

Keith stood up. At the door he turned to Lisa and said, ‘Your curtains are old-fashioned. You should get some new ones.’

Lisa only just resisted beating him to death with the TV remote control.

When the kids got home from school, they saw the booklet about night classes that Keith had left behind. They said their father’s idea was a good one. Lisa felt hurt that they agreed with him, but she couldn’t say so. She would look childish if she did.

‘It’s good to exercise your brain. You owe it to yourself,’ said Jack.

‘You should do a course in accounts, Mum. Accountants are always minted. Every girl needs to have her own money. You can’t rely on anyone, least of all men, to pay the bills,’ added Kerry.

Lisa remembered saying these exact words herself. So it was hard to argue. Lisa spent a lot of time telling the kids that education was very important. She said education would help them find a happy future. She really believed that.

She didn’t always believe the things she said to the kids.

She told them things that she wanted them to believe. She wanted them to believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. It was a good way of getting them to behave. Lisa also told her girls that boys would like them more if they didn’t wear padded bras and lip-gloss. Again, she thought it would be a good way of getting them to behave! Sadly, they didn’t believe it either.

But they must have believed what Lisa said about education, because they said it back to her now.

‘But I like my job. I don’t want to retrain,’ said Lisa.

‘What do you like about it?’ asked Paula.

‘I enjoy chatting to the customers. I know that the overalls I wear to work aren’t high fashion, but they hide my bumps and lumps and don’t need ironing. That’s important, because you cannot think how many times I smear or slop in a working day,’ said Lisa.

The children stared at their mum. Lisa wondered if she had a large L for loser just above her head. Her children looked at her as though she had.

Lisa called Carol. Carol said. ‘Well, I agree with Keith and the children. You could do more with your life.’

‘But I’ve never wanted a high-flying job,’ said Lisa. ‘I’m happy at the café.’

‘So you say.’ Carol didn’t sound as though she believed her.

‘Why the sudden interest in my job?’ asked Lisa.

‘The kids are probably embarrassed by what you do now/ said Carol. Lisa thought that maybe Carol was embarrassed by her job.

Carol talked to their mum. Then their mum telephoned and said Lisa should do a course on flower-arranging. Cross again, Lisa pointed out that no one ever bought her flowers. No one ever had!

The doorbell rang.

‘That will be Mark, I have to go/ said Lisa. She was glad of the excuse to get off the phone.

‘Doesn’t he have a key?’ asked her mum.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve never given him one/ said Lisa.

‘Why not?’ asked her mum again.

Lisa hung up.

Mark and Lisa were not ‘seeing’ each other that night. It was not a date. Mark had popped by to look at the leaky tap in the bathroom. It only took him a minute to fix the drip. Lisa told him about her day and everyone wanting her to do a night class.

‘Maybe I should do a course in DIY. Then I wouldn’t have to call you for help every ten minutes,’ joked Lisa.

‘Good idea,’ said Mark.

Lisa froze. Was Mark fed up with fixing things in her house? And did that mean he was fed up with her? She signed up for a DI Y course, just in case Mark was planning his exit.