The Thirty List. Eva Woods

yes, those start off as pictures too.’

      ‘They’re on TV.’ Alex was sceptical.

      I gave up trying to explain animation, largely because I couldn’t understand it myself. Alex fixed me with his dark eyes. ‘Will you do a funny picture for me, Rachel?’

      I looked at my things, my Japanese paper inset with silk, my fine ink pens, my paintbrushes and easel. It would be the simplest thing in the world to pick them up and draw. After all, I used to make money from it. I knew I could do it. And yet I hadn’t lifted a pen or a brush since the Incident. ‘I don’t know, Alex. I …’

      ‘Oh, please! Max really wants one. He told me he did.’

      I sighed. I had to start sometime, and no one else had to see it except a small child and a dog, after all. I selected a fresh sheet of card and lifted my favourite drawing pen, feeling it snug between my fingers. I took a deep breath. ‘What would you like a picture of?’

      ‘Max,’ he said immediately. On cue, the little dog emerged from round the door and took a leap onto my lap, putting his head on the table. Two pairs of dark eyes watched me. I’ve never really wanted to draw ‘straight’—which is why I didn’t go to art school and failed Art A-level—but I could do funny things, doodles and caricatures, and people seemed to like them. Or at least they had before the Incident. I quickly drew Max, a sad-faced dog, all droopy ears and big eyes. ‘There you go.’ In a thought bubble was a picture of some biscuits surrounded by hearts.

      Alex’s laugh went right to my heart, the purest sound I thought I’d ever heard.

      I held out my hand to him. ‘Come on, let’s go and have a biscuit ourselves. But you can’t eat it with your boots on.’

      ‘Why not?’ His hand was warm and sticky.

      ‘Um … it’s a very old rule. Bad manners.’

      With this combination of bribery and lies, I persuaded him to let me rinse the Wotsits off his feet. Then I followed him downstairs, plucking up washing and toys as I did. I’d fallen into this routine in the two weeks I’d spent in the house, and it was a peaceful, ordered existence. When the kid was in bed, Patrick and I talked, getting to know each other, gently skirting around the topics of Michelle and Dan. It was so nice to have someone to cook for—for the past year or so Dan had rarely stopped working for dinner, or ate with his BlackBerry in his lap. Patrick was a real foodie, and when he cooked it was all seared scallops and marinated venison. My parents would have choked—Monday night was Dolmio and pasta for them.

      ‘Rachel!’ came an impatient voice up the stairs. ‘You said I could have a biscuit!’

      ‘Coming,’ I called, scooping up the disembodied face of James the Red Engine on my way downstairs.

      Today was going to suck anyway, because I had to see Dan’s mum. Jane was everything I wasn’t—elegant, controlled, decorous. I had never once seen her without heels on, even round the house. She’d been a nice mother-in-law, I supposed—all thoughtful little gifts and cards in the post when I had an interview, or an anniversary, or it was the pot plant’s birthday, that sort of thing. But often I’d wished Dan had a gaggle of siblings milling about, so I wouldn’t have to go to that beautiful empty house and answer questions in strained silence as the clock ticked.

      It was Saturday, so Patrick was at the kitchen table as I tried to leave, watching me flap about trying to find my shoes while he drank coffee from his posh silver machine. I was scared of that thing. It had more buttons than a NASA launch pad. ‘What is it today?’

      ‘Mother-in-law,’ I said miserably, lacing up my Converse with one foot on the stairs.

      ‘Ah.’ He winced. ‘Luckily, my in-laws are in New York. I had to ask Michelle’s father, the congressman, for permission to marry her.’

      ‘Isn’t that a bit medieval?’ Dan had suggested the same, and once I had stopped laughing I’d told him not to be daft. I hadn’t asked Dad for permission for anything since I was seven, and unless it was about Airfix models or Countdown, he wasn’t going to have an opinion.

      ‘She insisted. I keep wondering if I’m supposed to sign her back in again like a hire car.’ Look at him, making jokes about divorce while he ate those little teeth-shattering biscuits he liked. He had come on.

      Finally, I was ready. A bit of dishevelment would probably help my case anyway. ‘I better go,’ I said reluctantly.

      ‘Good luck,’ Patrick crunched.

      ‘Thanks. I need it.’

      Things that suck about divorce, number fifty-nine: having to prise yourself away from your in-laws.

      Jane was early. She was always early for everything and, as I was always ten minutes late, this stressed me out. I could see her through the window of the café, her hair perfect, her suit pressed, looking anxiously at her watch. For a moment I was tempted to run away, never have to see her again in my life—wasn’t that what divorce was for?—but I remembered what I had to do, took a deep breath and jiggled open the door.

      She put on a strained smile. ‘Rachel, darling.’

      ‘Hello.’

      There was an insanely awkward moment where she reached to hug me and I backed off, so her Chanel lipstick smudged on my cheek. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

      ‘Oh, you’re not—’

      ‘Well, I am—’

      ‘Well, that’s all right. Would you like coffee?’ A slip-up, rare for Jane. She must have been nervous. I don’t drink coffee and never have, and she’d been pointedly remembering this since I first came to her house aged twenty, in my muddy red Converse that I’d drawn on with fabric pen.

      ‘Tea, please,’ I told the waiter.

      Jane and I looked at each other. ‘I—’ I reached into my bag and took out the lump of cotton wool. ‘Before I forget.’

      She coloured. ‘Oh, thank you. You didn’t have—’

      But I did. When someone gave you a family heirloom for an engagement ring, you couldn’t keep it when they decided they no longer wanted to be married to you.

      She unwrapped it—why, I wasn’t sure, to check it was there, or more likely just for something to do—and the wink of diamond and sapphire filled my eyes. I couldn’t believe it when Dan presented me with this rock and I was supposed to put it on my nail-bitten, ink-smeared left hand. Jane stowed it in her expensive bag and I said a brief farewell to the ring that had weighed me down for three years.

      ‘So. Are you all right, dear?’

      I shrugged. ‘It’s been hard. It wasn’t easy to find a place, but I’m settling in now. It’s been tough trying to find a new job, but I have a few interviews lined up and …’

      Jane’s face had tightened. Like many people who didn’t lack for money, she hated talking about it.

      ‘How’s Dan?’ I asked carefully.

      ‘He’s— I’m not sure. Won’t talk, but he’s working a lot and eating junk food. I worry. It just seems such a shame,’ she said. I stiffened. ‘You seemed so happy. I was looking at your wedding photos this morning. It was such a nice day. And of course, Michael was so happy …’ Her eyes filled with tears and I felt my own nose sting. Dan’s father had died six months after we got married, another sudden stroke carrying him away for good. It had been a lot to take so early on in our marriage.

      Our drinks arrived, and I stared at the poncey infuser that came with my tea. I’d been doing my best to block out our wedding, how much I’d loved my dress, how the sun shone even though it was only April, how my mum got drunk for the first time in her life and danced on stage to ‘Tiger Feet’.