“Stop!” I launch myself at Noah, grab him by the collar, and snatch the plastic gun out of his hands. “Stop that! Gavin, I’m so sorry,” I add breathlessly. “Daniel was supposed to look after Noah tonight, but he left me in the lurch, and— Shit! Argh!”
In my agitation, I’ve pressed some button on the Nerf gun, and it’s spraying more bullets out, like something out of Reservoir Dogs, hitting Gavin in the chest. I’m massacring my boss with an automatic weapon flashes through my mind. This won’t look good in my appraisal. The stream of bullets rises to his face and he splutters in horror.
“Sorry!” I drop the gun on the floor. “I didn’t mean to shoot.…”
With a shudder, I notice Gunter, ten feet away. There are three orange Nerf bullets lodged in his tufty white hair and one in his drink.
“Gavin.” I swallow. “Gavin. I don’t know what to say—”
“It was my fault,” Elise interrupts me hastily. “I was looking after Noah.”
“But he shouldn’t have been at the office,” I point out. “So it’s my fault.”
We turn to Gavin as though waiting for his verdict. He’s just staring at the scene, shaking his head.
“Personal life. Job.” He meshes his hands together. “Fliss, you need to sort yourself out.”
My face is hot with mortification as I frog-march a protesting Noah to my office.
“But I was winning!” he keeps complaining.
“I’m sorry.” Elise is clutching her head. “He said it was his favorite game.”
“No problem.” I shoot her a smile. “Noah, we don’t play with Nerf guns at Mummy’s office. Ever.”
“I’ll go and find him something to eat,” says Elise. “Fliss, you need to get back to the party, quick. Go. Now. It’ll be fine. C’mon, Noah.”
She hustles Noah out of the room and I feel every cell of my body sag.
She’s right. I need to hurry back, sweep in, gather up the Nerf bullets, apologize, charm, and turn this evening back into the slick professional affair it always is.
But I’m so tired. I feel like I could go to sleep right now. The carpet under my desk looks like the perfect place for me to curl up.
I sink down on my chair, just as the phone rings. I’ll take this one call. Maybe it will be some uplifting piece of news.
“Hello?”
“Felicity? Barnaby here.”
“Oh, Barnaby.” I sit up, feeling freshly galvanized. “Thanks for ringing back. You won’t believe what Daniel just did. He’d agreed to have Noah tonight, but then he left me in the lurch. And now he says he wants to revisit the settlement! We might end up back in court!”
“Fliss, calm down. Chill out.” Barnaby’s unhurried Mancunian tones greet me. I do often wish Barnaby spoke a bit more quickly. Especially as I’m paying him by the hour. “We’ll sort it. Don’t worry.”
“He’s so frustrating.”
“I hear you. But you mustn’t stress. Try to forget about it.”
Is he kidding?
“I’ve written the incident up. I can email it to you.” I finger my memory stick on its chain. “Shall I do that now?”
“Fliss, I’ve told you, you don’t need to keep a dossier of every single incident.”
“But I want to! I mean, talk about ‘unreasonable behavior.’ If we put all this into the case, if the judge knew what he was like—”
“The judge does know what he’s like.”
“But—”
“Fliss, you’re having the Divorce Fantasy,” says Barnaby tranquilly. “What have I told you about the Divorce Fantasy?”
There’s silence. I hate the way Barnaby can read my mind. I’ve known him since college, and although he costs a bomb even on mates’ rates, I never considered going to anyone else. Now he’s waiting for me to answer, like a teacher in class.
“The Divorce Fantasy will never happen,” I mumble finally, staring at my fingernails.
“The Divorce Fantasy will never happen,” he repeats with emphasis. “The judge will never read a two-hundred-page dossier on Daniel’s shortcomings aloud in court, while a crowd jeers at your ex-husband. He will never start his summing up, ‘Ms. Graveney, you are a saint to have put up with such an evil scumbag and I thus award you everything you want.’ ”
I can’t help coloring. That is pretty much my Divorce Fantasy. Except in my version, the crowd throws bottles at Daniel too.
“Daniel will never admit to being wrong,” Barnaby presses on relentlessly. “He’ll never stand in front of the judge, weeping and saying, ‘Fliss, please forgive me.’ The papers will never report your divorce with the headline: TOTAL SHIT ADMITS FULL SHITTINESS IN COURT.”
I can’t help half-snorting with laughter. “I do know that.”
“Do you, Fliss?” Barnaby sounds skeptical. “Are you sure about that? Or are you still expecting him to wake up one day and realize all the bad things he’s done? Because you have to understand, Daniel will never realize anything. He’ll never confess to being a terrible human being. I could spend a thousand hours on this case, it would still never happen.”
“But it’s so unfair.” I can feel a ball of frustration. “He is a terrible human being.”
“I know. He’s a shit. So don’t dwell on him. Flush him out of your life. Gone.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” I mutter after a pause. “He is the father of my child.”
“I know,” says Barnaby more gently. “I didn’t say it was easy.”
There’s silence for a while. I stare at my office clock, watching the crappy plastic hand tick round. At last I slump right down, resting my head in the crook of my elbow.
“God, divorce.”
“Divorce, eh,” says Barnaby. “Man’s greatest invention.”
“I wish I could just … I dunno.” I sigh heavily. “Wave a magic wand and our marriage never happened. Except Noah. I’d keep Noah and the rest would all be a bad dream.”
“You want an annulment, that’s what you want,” says Barnaby cheerfully.
“An annulment?” I stare at the phone suspiciously. “Is that a real thing?”
“Real enough. It means the contract is null and void. The marriage never existed. You’d be amazed how many clients ask for one.”
“Could I get one?”
I’m seized by this idea. Maybe there’s some cheap, easy way round this I haven’t seen before. “Annulment.” Null and void. I like the sound of that a lot. Why didn’t Barnaby mention this before?
“Not unless Daniel was a bigamist,” says Barnaby. “Or forced you into marriage. Or you never consummated it. Or one of you was mentally unfit at the time.”
“Me!” I say at once. “I was crazy to even think of marrying him.”
“That’s what they all say.” He laughs. “Won’t wash, I’m afraid.”
My spark of hope slowly dies away. Damn. I wish Daniel had been a bigamist now. I wish some original wife in a Mormon bonnet would pop up and say, I got there first! and save me all this trouble.
“I guess we’ll have to stick with the divorce,” I say at last. “Thanks, Barnaby. I’d better go before you charge me another thirty thousand pounds just for saying hi.”
“Quite right.” Barnaby never sounds remotely offended, whatever I say. “But before you do, you’re still going to France, right?”
“Yes, tomorrow.”
Noah and I are heading off for two weeks to the Côte d’Azur. As far as he’s concerned, it’s our Easter holiday. As far as I’m concerned, I’m reviewing three hotels, six restaurants, and a theme park. I’ll be working on my laptop every night till late, but I can’t complain.