‘I’ve realised that I was being an idiot when I said that I wasn’t looking for love. And it’s OK, I know that if you can’t handle a serious relationship then you’re not ready for love either,’ Margot finished for him, because she didn’t want to listen to Will extolling all her many virtues but concluding that they weren’t enough to make him want to be with her.
‘It’s a bit too soon to be talking about love.’ He sounded amused, and Margot was pleased because it made her hate him a little bit. ‘I followed your advice and I’ve spent this last week thinking about us and sitting with my feelings. Really taking a deep dive to get to the bottom of them.’
If there was one thing worse than an emotionally damaged man, it was a man who used his emotional damage as an excuse for his shitty behaviour.
‘Well, I’m sure that was hard and I applaud you for putting the work in, but I’m going to be thirty-seven in a couple of weeks and thirty-seven means I’m not in my mid-thirties anymore. I’m in my late thirties. I’m thundering towards forty. My fertility is—’ Margot heard him sigh, and she had to dig her nails into her palms so she wouldn’t smack him. ‘Yes, I know, Will, I know that I’m every cliché in the book, I’m too bloody much, but my biological clock is slowing down and I need a man who’s ready to commit.’
Blossom had been happy to lay spatchcocked in front of them while she destroyed her tennis ball, but at the sound of Margot’s voice, high-pitched and agitated, she wandered over and placed her head on Margot’s knee.
‘It’s been nine weeks, Margs,’ Will said. ‘It’s not fair to put this kind of pressure on me, or on yourself for that matter, when we’ve barely started. And yes, I admit that I have I had intimacy issues . . .’
‘You committed to Blossom within one week. A week,’ Margot repeated, just in case Will hadn’t heard her properly the first time. ‘She smashed down all those famous boundaries of yours even though she’s the dictionary definition of needy.’
He sighed for the third bloody time. ‘Needy is different when it’s a dog. It’s actually quite endearing when—’
‘Really? Are you fucking kidding me?’ The vehemence of her delivery took all three of them by surprise. Blossom put a warning paw on Margot’s leg, Will’s shoulders stiffened and his face took on that shuttered look that Margot knew only too well, then he whipped off his shades, all the better to glare. Despite the heat of the evening, his eyes were positively wintry.
‘So, let me get this straight. You never want to see me again?’
Yes, because it was too painful to see him week in and week out when she loved him and he loved sitting with his feelings; never reaching any kind of resolution. It occurred to Margot that Will didn’t want to be happy and that made her heart hurt too, but she was actively seeking happiness and, though it didn’t feel that way right now, she’d be happier without him. ‘We should never have started having sex. We both knew it wasn’t a good idea.’ Margot stroked the top of Blossom’s head. She was now doing a good impersonation of a meerkat as she watched two guys kicking a football back and forth, completely oblivious to the fierce custody battle that was waging. ‘It worked much better when we were distant friends . . .’
‘Distant friends, right,’ Will echoed scathingly. Margot decided to ignore him. To say her piece and then leave with her dog and what was left of her heart.
‘We knew that if we did become involved, it would complicate things. And now things are bloody complicated, and Blossom is completely unsettled and none of this is fair on her,’ Margot said, impassioned now as she remembered the callous way Blossom had uncoupled from their cuddling. And the chewing! She hadn’t confined her activities to a wireless router lead. She’d also chomped her way through the personalised Anya Hindmarch bag that Margot had gifted herself for her thirtieth birthday – in any other circumstances, it would have been impressive that Blossom had managed to hone in on the most expensive thing that Margot owned. ‘There have been two incidents of wilful destruction this week; it’s classic acting out.’
‘She’ll get over it,’ Will said forcefully. ‘She’s got over much worse. We’ll take her back to training.’
‘Don’t you get it? There is no “we” anymore.’ Margot stopped stroking Blossom in favour of gesticulating wildly. Pointing first at Will, then at herself, in case he needed a visual cue. ‘I don’t want to go to training with you. I don’t want to spend time with you. I don’t want to be in a WhatsApp group chat with you and Mary . . .’
‘This is going to destroy my mother.’ For the first time, Will sounded distraught, like he was beginning to understand the consequences of their actions. ‘You can’t do this to her. Or me. I love Blossom just as much as you!’
Why had she decided to do the honourable thing and tell Will face to face? A letter would have been so much better and then she wouldn’t have had to see the pain cutting deep lines into his face.
‘I doubt very much that you love Blossom as much as I do, when according to you, you’re incapable of love,’ Margot said, pushing the pangs of guilt as far away as they would go.
‘And you know exactly why I believed that,’ Will reminded her furiously. ‘I can’t believe you’d throw that back in my face. Is this your revenge because I’m not ready to get down on one knee while simultaneously throwing my condoms in the nearest bin?’
That was a low blow, Margot gasped from the impact. ‘It isn’t revenge. It’s because Blossom is suffering and I’m suffering too. I’ll admit it, I got my hopes up, even though I knew how you felt . . .’
‘It’s clear that you don’t have any idea about how I feel.’ Will’s body was tense and coiled as if he were about to spring up from the bench and start pacing. ‘And how come you get to have Blossom?’ he demanded. ‘We are equal owners, everything split down the middle.’
‘But I saw her first. She was always meant to be my dog, until you muscled in,’ Margot recalled.
‘We both paid an adoption fee and you agreed that your lifestyle wasn’t compatible with full-time dog ownership.’
‘I didn’t agree any such thing!’ Margot said indignantly. She felt as if she should put her hands over Blossom’s ears so she wouldn’t be psychologically scarred from hearing Margot and Will really going at it, but Blossom wasn’t sitting between them anymore.
‘I’m pretty sure you did,’ Will snapped back.
‘Pretty sure I didn’t,’ Margot said, but her focus and heat were no longer on this horrible fight, of each of them taking the other one’s innermost fears and using them as cheap shots. She cast her eyes over the playing field to see where Blossom had gone.
‘When Blossom is with me, she’s not on her own for longer than ten minutes, tops. Mary, who adores her, not that you seem to give a toss about that, spends all day with her and—’
‘Where is she?’ Margot exclaimed out loud.
‘Where’s my mother? She’s at home, expecting me to come in with Blossom any minute now,’ Will said witheringly. ‘Don’t walk away from me, Margot. This is not settled.’