Page 10 of The Ex

When he gets to her cottage, she is already waiting outside with Betsy, who waves madly as he pulls up to the kerb. Now, at the sight of Miranda with her little girl, and preoccupied by what might be his own situation, he sees the parallel: another woman abandoned to raise a child. A parallel too with his own mother, even his grandmother. Is that what he has done, walked out on a family? Except Miranda’s ex was having an affair and she asked him to leave; Sam’s mother was never really with his father, and his gran kicked his grandad out for being a lazy arse – Joyce’s words, not his. And not one of these women hid the fact that she was pregnant. No, he is not like those men. His story, if it is his story, is different.

‘Hey.’ Miranda is climbing into the cab and pulling Betsy up after her.

‘Hi, Sam-Sam,’ Betsy says, smiling with all her baby teeth before her features close in determination as she clambers over her mother’s lap. She wiggles to the back of the seat between him and her mum, her pink trainers sticking out in front of her.

‘Hey, Bets,’ Sam says. ‘Could you start the engine please?’

She bends forward and pushes the phone charging point with her thumb, then claps her hands, her fingers spread and rod-straight.

Silence. She looks up at him, eyes wide and green.

He frowns. ‘No luck. Another try?’

Again she pushes, her little thumb whitening around the tiny pearl of her nail.

Sam turns the key in the ignition. The rattle of diesel engine fills the van. ‘That got it. Thanks, Bets.’

Ten minutes later, Betsy safely dropped at nursery, he and Miranda are alone, and talk turns inevitably to the project: a former holiday let opposite the river. Miranda won’t come every day; she is the designer, and as such has a supervisory role on site as well as liaising with the client. For Sam, who is in charge of the physical work, Darren, Lee, Scott, Josh and Callum, the young apprentice, the work over the next few days, possibly couple of weeks, will be grubby and strenuous, as it always is at the beginning. This job could take a few months, weather depending.

Sam believes he’s been chatting perfectly normally, but as he turns into the driveway of the bungalow, Miranda asks him what’s wrong.

‘Nothing,’ he says, parking up next to the property. ‘Why?’

‘You seem a bit distracted, that’s all.’

He can feel that she’s turned to look at him but keeps his gaze forward. Beyond the windscreen, a greened and dilapidated shed slumps behind a ramshackle dwarf wall. The shed is too large for the space, the felt roof peeling. The rotten wooden side flakes like slow-cooked meat.

‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Bumped into Naomi yesterday, that’s all.’

‘Your ex? Wow.’

The fabric of Miranda’s combat trousers swishes as she shifts position. In the corner of his eye, her hiking boot dandles. When he sneaks a glance past her red weatherproof jacket, he sees that her cheeks have pinked and are puffed out like a trumpet player’s. Nodding slowly, she blows a long jet of air, then flushes deeper; he’s not sure why – it isn’t particularly hot in the van.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks.

‘Yeah!’ She frowns. ‘I’m thinking you might not be though.’

‘It was fine.’ He returns his gaze to the windscreen. ‘Bit awkward, that’s all.’

‘Horrendous, isn’t it? I remember the first time I handed Bets over to my ex. Used to be sick after he’d left. But it’ll be easier next time, I promise, then easier again, until you get used to it.’ The click of the passenger-side door opening, but Miranda is only halfway out of the van.

‘I’m not sure I will.’

‘Oh, you will. Honestly. Time heals and all that.’

‘See her again, I mean. I mean, we don’t have to share custody of… anyone.’ He does not tell Miranda his suspicions, nor that he’s seeing Naomi on Saturday, though he can think of no reason to keep this from her.

‘True. At least you’ll be prepared if there is a next time.’

‘Not sure you can be prepared for Naomi.’ He shakes his head, half laughs. ‘She’s like an unexpected punch to the jaw, you know?’

Miranda grins. ‘I suppose a punch to the jaw is always unexpected.’

‘Ha!’ He is about to come clean about Saturday, but she has jumped out of the van. He follows, slams the door shut.

The others aren’t here yet, so he and Miranda have a good look around the site. The job is challenging but will be satisfying too. At the moment, it is a mess of contradicting levels, weeds, brambles, a broken fence and some dodgy paving. The V-shape of Lyme Regis means that almost every street is on a steep rise, the gardens sloping violently uphill, rockeries, root systems and stone walls securing the soil.

‘I reckon we’ll rip this out first.’ Miranda pats the seventies-style concrete balustrade, pushes it to test its stability. ‘Then we’ll build decking as far as here.’ She draws an invisible line with her hand over the narrow canal-like trench that runs across a short section of the garden, empty save for some dark damp earth and one rather magnificentGunnera manicata.

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