Free The Learning Curve by Melissa Nathan

clothes to see that. Nicky felt sure that if someone else had proposed to Claire first, Claire would now be married to him. It just so happened that Derek got there first. And Derek was not what Nicky would call a catch. If he’d been a fish, no fisherman would be boasting about him in the pub afterwards, put it that way. Derek had no social graces, no sense of humour and no hair. Mind you, the man did have sperm that could fly. Claire had once said she only had to look at him to get pregnant. Which was lucky, thought Nicky.
    ‘But the penalty,’ Whatever-His-Name-Was said, ‘was outrageous.’
    ‘Really,’ remarked Nicky.
    Encouraged, Whatever-His-Name-Was continued. ‘We should go to a match sometime. I’ve got great tickets. I bet you’d like it if you tried. You’ve got to be open to new experiences.’
    ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Nicky. ‘And then I’ll take you to one of my knitting fayres. I can tell you’d be a great knitter.’
    He snorted. ‘Fuck off.’
    The worst bit of a blind date was knowing that you had to get through all the social niceties that delayed getting your make-up off, undoing your tight jeans (by yourself) and climbing into bed. So Nicky didn’t bother with niceties any more. She stood up, put out her hand for a confident handshake, and said her usual line.
    ‘It’s been nice. But I don’t think it’s going to work.’
    And then she put a twenty-pound note on the table and walked out, leaving him staring at the money. Only half anhour later, she snuggled down in her bed and closed her eyes. And, to her surprise, saw Oscar getting into the car with his au pair. She turned over and snuggled down again.
    If she’d known that Oscar was, at that moment, held fast against a warm heart, being carried upstairs, she might have fallen asleep more quickly than she did.

4
    THE PHONE WOKE Nicky early on Sunday morning. She picked it up and put it to her ear; two fruitless activities because she couldn’t yet speak. She tried to make a grunting noise and was rewarded with some phlegm lodging in her throat.
    ‘Auntie Nicky?’ asked Sarah-Jane into the silence.
    Nicky’s mouth said, ‘Hello, darling,’ but no sound came out. There was a considerable pause.
    ‘Aunty Nicky?’
    Nicky gave a cough and her voice woke with a start. ‘Yes, sweetheart,’ she bellowed.
    ‘Gosh, are you all right?’ asked Sarah-Jane. ‘You sound awful.’
    Nicky smiled. Her eldest niece was taking after her mother more and more each day.
    ‘That’s nothing,’ Nicky said, feeling her hair. ‘You should see me. I look like a badger’s bottom. And not in a good way.’
    Sarah-Jane snorted with laughter. ‘Mummy says can you bring your swimming costume today?’ she asked eventually.
    ‘Why? Are we having a bathing beauties competition?’
    ‘No. We’re going swimming.’
    ‘Phew. For a minute there I’d thought I’d have to wax my legs.’
    Sarah-Jane had hysterics. Nicky did enjoy making her ten-year-old niece laugh. All you had to do was be honest.
    ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
    ‘Nine o’clock.’
    It was Nicky’s turn to pause. ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ she asked slowly and clearly, ‘that you woke me at nine o’clock on a
Sunday
?’
    ‘Yes.’ Increasingly hysterical laughter.
    ‘Say bye bye.’
    ‘Badger’s bottom,’ came the giggled response.
    ‘That’s good enough for me,’ mumbled Nicky, and rang off.
    She pressed the off button on her phone and dropped it to the floor. She tried to leave it there, but it was no good. She hung out of her bed to put it back in its holder, her body half in, half out of the bed, her hair skimming the floor. She found to her surprise that this was a spectacularly comfortable position, stretching her back out like a cat. She lay there for a while, eyes shut, smile on her face, before extracting the other half of her body out of bed. She scrunched her neat, pink feet into the beaded, embroidered slippers which lay, ever