petite anglaise

I was standing in the queue for passport control at Marrakech airport when my mobile phone started to purr in my pocket.

“Sorry, can’t meet you for dinner tonight. Reservation problem.” Mr Frog

I felt like a balloon, slowly deflating. My first day. Out of the aeroplane not five minutes, and already some bad news.

“Shame,” I texted back. I thought that was suitably ambiguous. He could read into that whatever he wanted. It could mean “Oh, okay, never mind, that’s cool” but equally “Oh what a terrible shame. I’m gutted. You have ruined my holiday. And how much notice did you need that I’d be joining you, anyway? Was a month not enough?”

Later, as I meandered through the souk, hopelessly lost, wondering if I would ever find my way back to my hotel, my phone stirred in my pocket once more. This time it was a call. From Mr Frog. Goodness only knows how much Orange would be charging me for the privilege, but I sighed and picked up anyway.

“Hi, how’s it going?”

“M’kay. I’m lost. I have no idea where my hotel is. But apart from that, fine… You?”

“Good. We’re just leaving the medina actually. Heading back to our hotel for a massage.”

“Ah. Happy finish?”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind,” I said, wondering if it was really possible he could have forgotten the Christmas dinner at my parents’ place where I had one too many G&T’s and somehow ended up on the subject of Prince Charles. I don’t recall the exact definition I supplied to my confused grandma, but I’m surprised the scene was forgettable.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry about tonight. N had made a reservation somewhere really posh, and he tried to add you on, but couldn’t.” I made a face which I was glad he couldn’t see, and refrained from stating the obvious, i.e. that he had known I would be joining him for A Very Long Time and this was rather A Weak Excuse.

“No worries. I’m fixed for tonight. I’m eating in my hotel. Which is lovely, by the way…”

“Oh. Right. Because I was going to offer to come out with you instead. Just the two of us.”

I ponder. A ploy to get me on my own? No. I doubt it. We lunch on our own all the time. A ploy to not see me with his friends to minimise embarrassment and awkwardness? Perhaps. Utterly pathetic organisational skills and a rather half-hearted attempt to make amends? Most likely explanation.

“No. It’s fine. Really. You go out with your friends and I’ll eat in my hotel. Have a lovely holiday. And tell me if you get anything for Tadpole, so I don’t end up buying her the same thing.”

So folks, I’m afraid that is the story. A bit of an anti-climax for all concerned. And proof, if such a thing were needed, that people never change.

“Are you sure it won’t be too weird, me meeting you and your friends for dinner in Marrakech?” I say, between forkfuls of crispy pancake. Mr Frog and I are having lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant tucked behind the Café Chéri(e) on boulevard de la Villette. Tiny and unassuming, it is nonetheless jam packed, and we were lucky to get a table at all.

“It will be slightly awkward, yes,” he replies with a half smile, “but we can’t not meet up. It’s too much of a coincidence that we’ve ended up both being there at the same time…”

“Well, I’m pleased you feel that way,” I say. “I’m quite nervous about being on holiday on my own, so it’s nice to know I’ll have some chaperones on my first night, at least.”

When I booked my holiday, you see, to neatly coincide with Tadpole’s stay with her French grandparents during half term, I knew Mr Frog was going to Casablanca, but neither of us had any inkling that a weekend in Marrakech was also on the cards. If he was going alone, meeting wouldn’t be odd in the slightest. We often do lunch, with or without Tadpole, or shoot the breeze by email or googlechat. But since our breakup nearly two years ago I’ve barely clapped eyes on any of his friends or work colleagues. They were more his than mine, and I figured I’d relinquished my right to see them. Not that they hate me or anything, and I’m almost certain that Mr Frog badmouthed me to no-one, because that’s simply not his style. But seeing these people after almost two years, after everything that has happened, both in public and in private, it’s bound to be strange.

I try to imagine the conversation we’ll have over pastilla and tajine in a rooftop restaurant overlooking the medina.

“So, Catherine, you’re writing a book now. What’s it about? It’s a memoir, right?”

I blush. “Well, er, meeting this guy for starters.” I point at Mr Frog with my fork. “And then, er, leaving him for someone else, and how we all dealt with that. Among other things.”

Oh yes, I feel sure this is definitely going to be weird.

I think we both knew, or at least suspected, from the moment we agreed he should come to Paris and see the concert with me, that no-one would really be sleeping in the spare room.

However ill-advised it might seem, in theory, to see the person who had cast me adrift only two months previously, I knew I was ready. I still love him, granted, but in a completely different way. Whenever I think of what might have been, and wasn’t, I am, quite simply, overwhelmed with relief. Relief which is admittedly tinged with a little regret at how uncommonly compatible we were in some ways I now miss.

When the time came, I was an adrenaline-fuelled wreck, so preoccupied with other worries that I didn’t have time to get excited, or nervous, or both, at the prospect of our meeting.

All I wanted that night was to feel his familiar, strong arms around me. To be taken outside of myself, even if it was just for a few short hours. To share something precious, without incurring any guilt, any pain. To be soothed by the sound of his slow, regular breathing at my side. To be lulled into the first good night’s sleep in a week.

In the morning, before we parted, there were comforting echoes of our old routine: tea, toast and marmalade.

He told me he felt absolved in some way; as if a weight had now lifted. We acknowledged that we have both moved on, but continue to care deeply about each other. There was no awkwardness, no inequality. No sense that one of us was clinging, desperately, to the wreckage, wanting something more.

Only one thing made me feel mildly uncomfortable: at times, doubtless because I was so strung out, I was painfully conscious of a separation of mind and body.

A nagging feeling that I had succeeded in appropriating for myself the very detachment I recently observed, with regret, in someone else.

Mr Frog and I sit in comfortable silence, devouring our Chinese takeaway. Tadpole lies sleeping in the next room. Finding myself at a loose end on my night off, I slipped across the road for a chat. Inevitably, he and I start comparing Tadpole anecdotes, as we are wont to do. We generally end up trying to outdo one another’s stories, which brings my naturally competitive streak out to play.

For my opening shot, I describe the picture Tadpole drew of a tortoise that morning on her magic drawing board. “It was fantastic - totally lifelike, with a patterned shell. Even if it did have six or seven legs…” I wish I had omitted the last part, but it’s too late now. Mr Frog silently reaches for his new camera, a victorious smile playing about his lips, and proceeds to show me a photo of Tadpole’s perfect rendition of Brian the snail from the Magic Roundabout, complete with antennae poking through hat at the required jaunty angle.

Mr Frog: un point
petite: nul points

I skip the yellow teeth anecdote, which still smarts a little, and instead recount how Tadpole reacted to the sight of blossom drifting down from the trees which line the park on Monday morning: “Mummy,” she cried, “it looks just like confetti!”

“Oh that, yes, she said it in French this morning too,” Mr Frog replies, “on dirait des confettis…” Then, with a faux casual air: “Did I tell you that my mum taught her how to recite the whole alphabet last week?”

I wince, knowing that there is no way I can top that one without inventing something. And even I wouldn’t stoop so low as to fabricate a Tadpole anecdote.

Mr Frog: deux points
petite: nul points

I opt for a change of tack. “It’s such a shame you couldn’t make it for lunch in Belleville on Sunday,” I lament, “she got sooo excited watching a Chinese boy - he must have been about her age - eating with chopsticks. She fiddled around with hers for ages - they were massive, and the slippery kind that even I have trouble with - and I couldn’t believe it when she actually managed to pick up some chicken holding them in one hand. Half the restaurant applauded…”

The only innocent little embellishment in that sentence was the applause. Honestly. I mean, I clapped, but I’m not sure whether anyone else actually noticed.

“Yeah, I was really sorry to miss that. The photo you sent me on my mobile was really cute,” he replies, bashfully, “…but I really was far too hanged over when you texted me on Sunday…”

Tadpole competition forgotten, I quiz Mr Frog about where he goes on these long nights out of his, and with whom. In the process of easing myself back into the Paris social scene after a prolonged absence, I am curious as to which bars and clubs he frequents with his friends. I felt so out of touch the other day when I realised that the Pariscope magazine no longer has a miniature “Time Out” section inside (and probably hasn’t for several years). My confidence as a seasoned Parisienne was severely dented and hasn’t yet recovered.

Mr Frog namedrops several places I have never heard of, and I grow wistful. Just in time, I manage to prevent myself from asking whether I couldn’t tag along one evening. We are so at ease in one another’s company, that sometimes I forget that it might actually be weird to witness the father of my child flirting and chatting up girls.

And even if he didn’t mind, imagine how it could cramp his style.

“Yeah, I have a two year old daughter. Her mum and I are separated. Actually, that’s my ex over there, chatting up the dark-haired guy…”

Easing my hand gently out from where it had been lodged - between someone’s left buttock and a standard issue French teenager’s Eastpak rucksack - I glanced tensely at my watch. The métro was taking an eternity to leave each station, the doors failing to close on the tightly packed mass of commuters and student demonstrators compressed within.

I was late for my first appointment with my new destiny; getting progressively more flustered as the minutes ticked by.

Red faced and panting, I finally arrived, complete with Tadpole and pushchair, at the address I had scribbled on the printout. A smartly dressed man with a briefcase awaited us in front of the entrance, and he motioned us inside, although not before woefully mispronouncing my surname.

Tadpole was in a very chatty mood.

“I’m going to help mummy choose a new house today!” she announced. “I’ve got three houses: mummy’s house, daddy’s house and tata’s house! And now I going to buy an udder one!” Normal rules do not apply to Tadpole-speak, a language punctuated exclusively with exclamation marks.

Mr Agent Immobilier raised his eyebrows, probably thinking that 32 square metres of working-class Paris looking onto an interior courtyard doesn’t normally qualify for “house” status.

He rang the doorbell, and a harried looking student answered the door, before scuttling back to her dissertation.

I looked around me, finally able to appreciate, after combing my way through all those petites annonces, what thirtysomething metres really felt like. Tried to imagine fitting Tadpole and me, plus as many of our belongings as possible, into a space half the size of the apartment we occupy, but can no longer afford.

I couldn’t, without resorting to use of the word mezzanine.

The indignity. Thirty four years old this year, teetering on the brink of getting myself 165,000 or so euros into debt, and I will be reduced to either sleeping on a convertible sofa in the living room, or adopting the bed-on-stilts approach in order to share Tadpole’s bedroom.

Obsessed as I may be with clambering onto the first rung of the property ladder, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would have to do so in quite such a literal sense.

I forced myself to pay attention to the kitchen, the bathroom, the electrics, the central heating, but concentration was difficult, on account of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Because the word “mezzanine”, to me, spelled the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one which I am rather hesitant to embrace. I closed my eyes and let myself contemplate my dream home, a stone cottage nestled in the Breton countryside, one last time.

Then I took a deep breath and let it go.

For now.

I find it incredibly frustrating not knowing what is going through his mind - even if recent events proved rather forcefully that I knew at lot less about the contents of his head than I could possibly imagine, when we were together.

In my mind’s eye, I picture him delivering the news to his parents, his friends, his daughters. People who had met me; fallen under Tadpole’s spell. I try to imagine their reactions. Part of me hopes, cruelly, selfishly, that they are telling him he has behaved like a fool. That he is unlikely to get a chance like that again, in this lifetime. That they cause him to question the wisdom of his actions. To bitterly regret. To be gripped with remorse.

Deep down, I know that his friends will be feeding him the same platitudes that mine do; as everyone always does. It can only have been for the best. It just wasn’t meant to be. It would have been terrible if she had uprooted her whole life, her daughter’s life, to chase an empty, barren dream. Wouldn’t it?

Even if I have conditioned myself to agree with these sentiments, and sincerely believe that we may have been doomed to fail, I still cannot shake off this dull ache I carry around with me every day, which can flare up without warning, in the most unlikely situations, and set about gnawing at my insides.

I hear his voice in my head, marvelling at the softness of my skin, or laughing at something naïve I said, and I stop in my tracks, simply unable to believe that, for him, the bad outweighed the good. Then I replay those other words, those caustic, wounding words, to nip such pointless thoughts in the bud. A form of necessary self torture.

A confession: sometimes, I find myself scrolling through my statcounter, searching for Rennes, Brittany among the current visitors. But I won’t allow myself to call, or email. I simply cannot. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

So, if you are out there, ex-Lover, you have the advantage.

Because here I am, an open book, with a broken spine. While you remain unfathomable.

I was tempted to name my last post “epitaph”. A part of me had been brutally severed. My hopes, my dreams now lay smouldering on a pyre. It seemed fitting.

When I typed those brave-faced words, they were an expression of how I wanted to feel, a few days or weeks or months from now. Something to aspire to. Then, somehow, after hitting the “publish” key, I realised I was genuinely beginning to feel that way.

Taking a step back, looking critically at the last few months, I see that much of my time was spent waiting, feeling despondent about being apart, dealing with the guilt of Tadpole’s impending separation from her father, smothering my doubts with a pillow. Negative feelings which crushed my spirits with all their ominous weight, preventing me from enjoying the here and now.

Now I find myself appallingly fragile, but intact, and somehow lighter. I no longer have to do battle with those demons any more; the weight has lifted. Only now do I see, with startling clarity, how impossible it was to continue following that ghost of a dream.

All the same, much of the past few days remains a blur. As I go about my daily business, my mind is elsewhere, playing my favourite memories in a continuous loop, until I’m ready to lay them to rest. On the surface, I laugh and joke, say positive, brave things, make plans for Tadpole and me. I’m going to buy a little flat, I say. On a whim, I’m going to the South of France for a few days, a holiday of sorts. People are rather surprised at how much better I seem, already. An indecently rapid recovery?

But I can barely bring myself to eat. I go to bed only when I’m thoroughly exhausted, so that I cannot lie awake craving his warmth. His touch. All day long there is a fluttering inside my chest, a constant edge of panic I cannot shake off, but which no-one sees.

This morning, in the crowded métro, a couple caught my attention. I saw their embrace out of the corner of my eye, and something inside me twisted, pulled. I couldn’t tear my masochistic eyes away from the woman, the way she looked at her companion, with hunger. I know I looked at him that way too, once. Sometimes, all I wanted was to crawl inside his skin.

Then, when I reached my destination, I saw another woman, elderly, confused. She stood by a rubbish bin, manically tearing up a piece of paper into smaller and smaller pieces, scattering them on the station floor like ragged confetti. Every few seconds she repeated the same two words, in an identical strangled voice, as if a needle were jumping on a record and playing the same disembodied phrase over and over.

“C’était magique.”

It was. It truly was, for a while. But I refuse to believe that it was my one and only shot at magical. Soon, I will renounce living in the past tense, move on.

Soon.

Before we had ever met, we exchanged long, revealing emails, Lover and I. He thrilled me with his words; they drew me to him. There is, to me, a pleasing symmetry in the fact that after trying, but failing, to speak on the phone through his tears and my wails, we took our leave by email. The closing bracket, concluding our parenthèse enchantée.

And now I have read his words, time and time again, I not only understand what happened here, but can no longer flee the inescapable truth that this ending, however wretched, was a necessity.

I will never regret our paths crossing back in May. Wouldn’t trade the panic-inducing intensity of that first evening, and our subsequent hotel trysts, for all the stability in the world. Searing, all-consuming passion; the awakening of those senses which had been dulled in me for the longest time. I felt reborn. Indescribably happy. The future suddenly filled with unexpected promise.

I remember listening to Gorecki on my iPod in a crowded métro carriage, barely able to contain the physical rush of joy I felt from the tips of my toes to the end of every hair follicle, happy tears streaming down my cheeks, oblivious to my fellow travellers.

We shared some perfect moments, he and I. Moments which marked my life indelibly; moments which my present anguish cannot erase.

If only real world worries, doubts and fears hadn’t come crowding into both our minds with the passage of time. If only the dynamics of a long distance relationship hadn’t made us brittle and fragile. If only that first fierce flush of love had stood the test of time, intact, instead of slowly, silently unravelling.

I was aware of a rising tide of uneasiness, gaining ground on me for the past month or so, but couldn’t put my finger on why I was feeling this way. Balked at giving headspace to those treacherous whispering voices. I was so very in love with the dreams we had elaborated together. The house in the country with a garden for Tadpole to play in. The new life away from the city lights. The fresh start. I wrote a little about my confusion, but in guarded, careful terms, for fear of causing further damage. I yearned to see him more often, seeking some sort of confirmation that we were doing what was right. I needed to be sure about July. As sure as anyone can ever be.

So preoccupied was I, trying to quell my own creeping anxieties, I was blinded to the fact that he was having doubts of his own. Quietly wrestling with his demons. Probing, measuring the depth of his feelings. Finding them wanting.

I think there will be moments in every day, for some time to come, when I will feel his absence so keenly that it will crush the very air out of my lungs. Cause me to falter. To feel utterly bereft. Tonight, a memory of him sitting at my dining table, head bent over his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration as he worked, tore holes in my insides. The sight of Tadpole knocking softly at the front door, calling “Jim, where are you?” when we returned home made me wince and grip the door handle with white knuckles. Once Tadpole was in bed, the long evening gaped ahead, the terrifying emptiness no longer to be punctuated by his calls.

But I refuse to be bitter, because love doesn’t come complete with guarantees. Because no-one is to blame here. Because neither of us deserves to settle for less than what we shared at the beginning.

Before it waned.

Lamb - Gorecki

Just when I was starting to wonder where on earth they had got to, I heard a persistent tapping at the front door, at toddler level. I dabbed frantically at my eyes and checked my face in the mirror, not wanting to alarm Tadpole with my blotchy, puffy face.

As the door swung open, I was overwhelmed to see that my daughter was triumphantly brandishing a small bunch of tulips, my favourite flower. For the first time that day, I shed happy tears, deeply touched by Mr Frog’s thoughtful gesture.

He brought my Tadpole back to me early, because he knows, from experience, that she is the best medicine.

“What’s matter mummy?” asked Tadpole, anxiously, when I released her from a long clingy embrace and she noticed my damp cheeks.

“Mummy’s crying because she’s very happy to see you,” I replied, managing a wobbly smile.

“I go get a mouchoir,” she said, maternally, heading for the tissue box in the bedroom and returning with a handful. “Look, I make it better!”

Later, I explained that mummy was feeling “a bit sad”, because her friend Jim had gone home, and we wouldn’t be seeing him, or his daughters, again. She may not have understood, but I wanted her to know that there was a real reason for my behaviour; that she was not the cause.

She listened, solemnly, and then picked up her pencil and continued her colouring, tongue stuck out in apparent fierce concentration. But as I left the room, she looked over her shoulder, said:

“Never mind mummy.”

I remember saying to him, only the other day, that I rarely dream about the people who are most important to me. Only once or twice have I seen Tadpole in my dreams, and never once - that I could recall afterwards - did I see Lover.

Once a person has gone, it’s a different matter. Last night in the early hours I drifted in and out of dream upon dream, every single one inhabited by him. It got so I was afraid to close my eyes; the images which flickered behind my eyelids taunted. Wounded.

First, I heard the familiar sound of his breathing, sensed that he was sleeping beside me, where he belonged. I put my arm out to touch the comforting warmth of his chest.

But I knew this was wrong. He couldn’t be here. However real it felt, it was another of my dreams, and anything was possible. I watched, gripped by an inexplicable terror, as he awoke and stared at me, wide eyed. He held my arm in a vice like grip so I couldn’t pull away, then started coughing a hacking cough, vomiting something black and viscous.

Lover decomposed, disintegrated before my horrified eyes, until all that remained beside me was a pool of something dank and horrible, and all the while I screamed “it’s not real, you’re not here, let me wake up”, clawing at my face with my free hand, biting my own fingers, trying to will myself awake.

I awoke. Saw my arm flung across his side of the bed, which was empty.

Wept.

I was barely through the front door, coat still buttoned, when Lover spoke.

I sat, shoulders hunched, head in hands, on the edge of my bed - in the very spot where Mr Frog listened to similar words back in May last year.

There was nothing further to say, so I asked him to leave. I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face, but heard him crying.

I am a rudderless boat turning in dizzy, uncomprehending circles on a sea of noisy tears.

He doesn’t want me any more.

I have arranged to meet Mr Frog outside the front door of our my apartment building at 08.45 am, and Tadpole shrieks with delight as soon as she catches sight of the familiar figure striding towards us, Vespa helmet swinging from his left hand.

After one rapturous greeting (Mr Frog, Tadpole) and one slightly more awkward one (Mr Frog, me), we set off towards our common goal. Today we are meeting Madame D, directrice of one of the two local maternelles in our catchment area. Judging by the rasp of her voice on the telephone, I suspect Madame D has long nurtured a forty-a-day Gaulloise habit, and until she helpfully mentioned that her name was Brigitte, I wouldn’t have been able to assert with confidence whether I was conversing with a male or a female.

Of the two schools on the fiche de préinscription obtained at the town hall just before Christmas, I have opted to visit this school first, largely for the simple reason that the other school, a mere 100 m away, currently has a large poster stuck on its front door, proclaiming:

LES POUX SONT DE RETOUR!

Alongside a cartoon depiction of some head lice executing a merry dance. That, along with the fact that the building the other school is housed in is a rather less attractive brick structure dating from the 1970’s, was research enough for me.

We climb the stairs to the headmistress’s office, passing a row of pegs where a rainbow tangle of coats and scarves hang under pictures bearing the names of their owners. The most popular names would still appear to be Léa (for girls, pronounced like the Star Wars princess) and Lucas (for boys, with a silent ’s’). Through an open classroom door, I spy a group of children seated on the floor, listening intently to a story, remarkably well-behaved. In a larger room on the ground floor, children not much older than Tadpole teeter on makeshift stilts, fashioned from upturned buckets on strings.

Of course the ironic fact of the matter is that Tadpole will probably not be attending either of these schools come September. If all my plans come to fruition, my daughter and I will be living in the centre of Rennes by then, and her local school will be a stone’s throw from Lover’s house, and the local park. However, as schools in my arrondissement of Paris are notoriously over-subscribed, just in case anything goes wrong, bets must be hedged, and Parisian directrices must be courted. Better to be safe than sorry.

Mr Frog still wanted to come along, even though we were only going through the motions. I’m not sure why. The stated reason was that he wanted to feel involved, and have a point of comparison when I describe the school in Rennes at some time in the future. There may also be some denial involved. Either way, it transformed a visit which should have been vaguely exciting into a rather tense affair, both of us skirting hesitantly around the real issues for fear of igniting a row or unintentionally causing pain.

Happily, Tadpole remained blissfully unaware of the undercurrents, saucer eyes taking in every detail of the school.

Something tells me I will be spending this evening threading string through buckets and listening to the clattering of makeshift stilts on my parquet floor.

I grab Mr Frog’s keys, and bundle my protesting Tadpole out of the front door.

“I want to do my jigsaw, mummy!” she cries, ignoring the finger I have hastily pressed to my lips. I pity anyone in my apartment block who was hoping to have a lie-in.

“Later, darling,” I say, to placate her. I realise that “later”, in my language, usually means “never”, as by the time “later” comes, she will have forgotten what she wanted anyway. Which often works in my favour.

We collect the pushchair from the former concierge’s quarters downstairs, now just a couple of dank, dusty rooms which play host to a collection of bicycles, crates and pushchairs, and set off across the road to “Daddy’s House”. We are on a mission: Mr Frog omitted to return the pushchair’s rain cover, and has gone away on business. As the skies are looking rather ominous, I have asked his permission to call in, in his absence, and retrieve it. Luckily, I have his spare set of keys.

Mr Frog’s building is only 200 m further up the road, but from a completely different era. Whereas my flat is in a stone building built in 1905, in the typical Parisian style (six floors, balconies on the first and fifth), Mr Frog’s is a circa 1970 tower block, albeit a rather swanky one. There are long echoing marble corridors, plants in the entrance hall and a live-in gardienne, whose curtain twitches every time she hears an unfamiliar voice outside her door. We take the lift up to Mr Frog’s floor, and outside the door I fumble for the right key.

The door swings open, and Tadpole surges into the flat, immediately at ease in her home from home, whereas I hesitate, cautiously, on the threshold. It feels a little odd to be here. An intrusion, despite the fact that I have permission to enter. Mr Frog’s new home symbolises, to me, all the changes I have wrought in our lives since last spring. It is filled with furniture which he bought without me. He has it looking really nice, but, somehow, it always has a melancholy feel.

I spy the pushchair cover immediately, but do not pick it up, yet. Instead, I follow Tadpole into the bedroom. The shutters are half closed; the room in semi-darkness. There isn’t much to see: the futon bed is made, with familiar bedding; Tadpole’s new Dora the Explorer pyjamas are laid neatly out in her travel cot, in a corner; her toys spill out of the wooden crate he has bought for their storage.

Moving into the kitchen, this time without any pretext, I smile ruefully at the packets of chocolate biscuits and sweets piled on the work surfaces. Mr Frog is clearly up to his old, pre-petite tricks. I bet he hasn’t cooked a proper meal since he moved in, back in July. I wonder, if I looked in his cupboard, whether I wouldn’t find some of those packet noodles he used to live on before we met.

I draw the line at opening the cupboards, however.

The living room is sombre, the blinds also drawn here, partially obscuring his stunning view of the rooftops of Paris through the huge French doors. The place has a tidy, not very lived-in look. I don’t suppose he spends many evenings at home when Tadpole isn’t staying. He has bought a bookcase since I last visited, and a single token book, the new Brett Easton Ellis, sits on a shelf, in pristine condition. Again, I smile a knowing half-smile. I don’t believe I saw Mr Frog read a book from start to finish in the eight years we were together. I see my immense bookcase in my mind’s eye, with its paperbacks stacked three layers deep.

Feeling that I have outstayed my welcome, I pick up the plastic cover and call Tadpole’s name. We leave, but the voyeuristic feeling I had in his apartment stays with me all day.

This is Mr Frog’s new life. This is the new home he has built for himself out of the ashes of our relationship. His life will go on now, without me, regardless of me.

And it’s none of my business.

Last night I finally got around to sticking pictures from our holiday in Corsica into the photo album. Tadpole, Mr Frog and I spent a week there in April 2004, when our daughter was at her not-quite-walking stage. Cue lots of pictures of a swollen cheeked, bald creature cruising around the furniture in our holiday flat, and of us walking her, with varying degrees of patience, up and down a number of beaches, holding her outstretched arms.

Sifting through the memories was a bitter sweet way to spend an evening. As I turned the pages, it occurred to me that our pictures plotted the evolution of our relationship with eerie accuracy. In the first flush of romance, Mr Frog and I took many portrait shots of each other. Of ourselves in our first flat, of our friends. Mr Frog’s particular speciality was the arm’s length shot, spurning the timer function built into the camera for something a little more rough and ready, and often endearingly badly framed. These pictures are suffused with a warmth, with a feeling of togetherness. Looking at them filled me with nostalgia.

After a year or two, the portraits gradually give way to impersonal, picture postcard type holiday photos, and shots of other people’s weddings, from which we tend to be conspicuously absent. No longer caught in the glare of the flash, but hiding behind the camera. Our focus had shifted from each other to the outside world, the places we visited, the people we saw.

From Tadpole’s birth in June 2003 onwards, the spotlight naturally shifted to our daughter. There are pages and pages of near identical pictures of the apple of our eye. Sleeping. Yawning. Smiling. Crawling. Walking. At the time, I sincerely believed that every picture of her was a minor miracle, and coudn’t bear to discard a single one. Every sneeze was documented. Now, with hindsight, I see that really she just looked like a baby, and we definitely got carried away. In the nicest possible way.

Occasionally Tadpole is pictured in her daddy’s arms. As for me, I wasn’t over enamoured of my post-partum silhouette, and tended to take refuge behind the lens to avoid being caught on film. I sometimes joke, ruefully, that because of my misplaced vanity, Tadpole will look at these albums one day and wonder whether I was ever there.

The stream of photos slows to a mere trickle from ages one to two. Not because we tired of photographing our daughter’s every move, but simply because Tadpole was now a moving target. Not to mention an unwilling one. Her first instinct on seeing the glint of the camera is to dash towards it at top speed and attempt to grab it, making her almost impossible to capture on film.

Shortly before Mr Frog moved out, on Tadpole’s second birthday, he took one last arm’s length photo, of the three of us together. Ironically, it is the only picture of our little family in existence. Last night I stuck it in the album, ceremoniously, on the very last page.

Today I’ll buy a new album. Let the next chapter begin.

I arrive at the park, the stresses of the office and rush hour metro suddenly falling away as I catch sight of Tadpole sitting with her playmates on the grass. I cut across the lawn, my kitten heels sinking deep into the damp soil. The childminder points, “regarde qui est là !”, and Tadpole turns around with an expectant smile. I am already grinning from ear to ear. When I see her after spending a day or more apart, my heart never fails to skip a beat.

Suddenly, Tadpole’s face falls.

“No! I want papa!” she cries, stubbornly. And turns her back to me, arms folded.

I bite my lip but continue smiling, determined not to take her reaction to heart, even if it does smart, like a slap in the face.

Mr Frog had picked Tadpole up the previous evening, and dropped her off this morning. That she might have got her wires crossed about who was coming to collect her this evening is perfectly understandable.

I manage to coax Tadpole into the pushchair, using the effective combination of the sternest voice I can muster and the promise of chocolate at some unspecified time in the future if she complies, and we make our way home.

Half an hour later, I am pottering in the kitchen, making fish finger sandwiches with tomato ketchup (for myself) and soft cheese sandwiches (for Tadpole), when I hear footsteps in the hallway. My daughter appears. She has managed to put her shoes back on, albeit on the wrong feet, and has slung her miffy bag (containing a book, her water cup, two cars and a plastic harmonica) over her shoulder.

“Bye bye mummy, I ready to go to daddy’s house,” she says, with a wave. She motions to the locked front door: “ouvre mummy! Faut ouvrir maintenant!”

I sigh and shake my head, reaching for the telephone. After recounting the evening’s events to Mr Frog, who is tickled pink to be so popular with his little daddy’s girl, I pass Tadpole the receiver. A short, stilted conversation ensues, in which she describes the contents of her bag (still convinced, apparently, that the person at the other end of the line can see as well as hear), then she hands the phone back with a cheerful “à demain, daddy!”

An acrid smell assails my nostrils and I realise that in the process of placating my daughter, I have burnt my dinner.

The sacrifices one must make for one’s children are seemingly boundless.

As we crossed the park, Tadpole singing “Bla Bla Black Sheep” at the top of her lungs, I brought the pushchair to an abrupt halt, struck with the sudden realisation that my keys were in the pocket of my jacket. The very same jacket which was hanging in the cupboard at work, blissfully unaware of my predicament.

Merde.

For once, my little-used mobile phone was charged. I hastily called Mr Frog, who is in possession of a spare set of keys to our former home. He answered on the first ring.

“J’ai fait une énorme connerie,” I wailed. “My boss was stressing me out when I left work, and I’ve gone and left my jacket at the office with my keys in. Is there any way you could come and let us in with your set?”

The alternative would have been a forty minute round trip to where I work on the métro, or in a taxi, with Tadpole, the pushchair, and the bulky bags of shopping I was carrying. Possible in theory, but braving rush hour with a child is not for the faint hearted.

Thankfully, Mr Frog was able to ride valiantly to our rescue on his gleaming white Vespa. I thanked him profusely, and cast around for ideas. How best to entertain Tadpole for the forty minutes prior to his arrival? It was a mild evening, so we could have idled in the park for a while, but we had already left the play area far behind us, and I was mindful of the fact that it would be awkward to keep an eye on both Tadpole and my bags.

Plus, all I really wanted at that precise moment was a nice cold beer and a sit down.

Bad mummy.

Half an hour later, when Mr Frog arrived, Tadpole and I were seated outside our local café in a leafy, cobbled square. I was draining the dregs of my pression, while Tadpole applied herself to positioning stickers on the pages of a hastily purchased kiddy magazine, tongue protruding from between her milk teeth in concentration.

She looked up, and her expression changed from absorbed to overjoyed in the blink of an eye. The sticker book fell to the floor, forgotten.

“Daddy DA-ddy DADDY DADDY!” she cried, breaking into a fit of ecstatic giggles.

I looked from Tadpole to Mr Frog and back again, tears threatening to well up. For a moment I felt overwhelming remorse. What a cruel, heartless, selfish bitch I was to have left him, separating father and daughter. The feeling lasted only a second, because I know that Tadpole and Mr Frog are closer now than they ever were before, the result of long evenings and weekends spent en tête à tête since our separation.

Mr Frog chaperoned us home, explaining to Tadpole that he would pick her up on Wednesday from the childminder’s and take her back to “daddy’s house”. Tadpole nodded, apparently satisfied with this arrangement, and waved goodbye. Mr Frog kissed me gently on the cheek and went on his way.

Our family unit may have splintered apart, but I can’t help thinking we are in pretty good shape.

Despite the fact that I am experiencing an unpleasantly busy Friday afternoon at work, I still find time to type a hasty reply to Mr Frog’s innocent sounding email about arrangements for the weekend. I let him know where Tadpole’s overnight bag is, and add that yes, I will indeed be in Paris myself.

It doesn’t occur to me that something is amiss, and that his second question is, in fact, a loaded one.

A couple of hours later, the penny drops when I read his next email, in which he tells me that due to a meeting being rescheduled at the last minute, he will not be able to pick up Tadpole at 6.30pm at the childminder’s house. Can I please do it? He is not able to say at this stage what time he will be able to come by and pick her up. Or indeed whether he will make it before bedtime. He may even have to collect Tadpole the following morning instead.

I groan out loud, then look furtively around the office to see if anyone heard me. My first lie in since September 4th is in hanging in the balance. And instead of being able to adjourn to the bar with my colleagues for a beer, or do a spot of impromptu shopping, I will now have to race home, just as I do every other night of the week and collect our disappointed daughter. Field her questions about where daddy is. Cook her dinner. Bath her. Read stories and put her to bed. All the while looking at the clock and cursing Mr Frog under my breath, wondering whether at some point he will deign to phone, or to show up and take over.

We may not be together any more, but he still has the ability to back me into a corner and make me shake with that familiar mixture of anger and resentment.

I call him at work. What, I ask, would he have done had I been away? An embarrassed silence. I tell him that whether I am in Paris this weekend or not should be irrelevant: Tadpole is his responsibility on the days we have agreed. She is more important than any meeting. And I am not some sort of glorified babysitter who can take over at a moment’s notice whenever it suits him.

He won’t budge: “I can’t pick her up. I’m sorry. I need you to do this for me. We’ll talk about it later…”

I swear in a low voice, conscious that my boss’s door is ajar. “J’avais des projets pour ce soir. Tu es en train de chier dessus. Ton boulot passe avant tout. Rien n’a changé. Tu me deçois, mais pire encore, notre fille t’attends. Je lui dirai quoi?”

I’m so upset now that I can barely string two coherent words together. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t feel able to refuse him outright. How can I turn my back on my daughter and let Mr Frog trample all over our good relationship with the childminder (who doesn’t do overtime). He knows I’ll give in. What choice do I have?

“Next time, the answer will be no. And I don’t care what the question is,” I say, then slam down the receiver, noticing for the first time the rain falling heavily outside my window.

With a sinking feeling I remember that my waterproof poncho is at home, and not stashed in the basket under the pushchair as it usually is. I took it out this morning. I wasn’t supposed to need it.

I groan again, and this time, I don’t care who hears me.

“GOT TO FIND SOME CAKE!” shouts Tadpole, at the top of her lungs, to no-one in particular. She has got into the habit of repeating everything I say, turning the words over in her mouth so see how they sound.

As a result, I have to exercise extreme caution when we are out and about. No more thinking aloud along the lines of “I must remember to pack some seriously negligent pants for the weekend”.

I am feeling rather desperate. Mr Frog is due to appear to whisk off Tadpole for the evening in just under half an hour, and I promised Tadpole we would have surprise cake and candles for his birthday. Forgetting a key piece of information when I did so: our local bakery is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I peer half-heartedly through the window of the Chinese takeaway, with its unappetising looking boules de coco and almond tarts. Not really Mr Frog’s thing, and definitely not Tadpole’s. How about a brownie from the kosher sushi and bagel emporium across the road? No go. The metal shutters are pulled firmly closed. With a sigh, I retrace my steps towards the garage, which harbours a huit à huit minimarket. Cake out of a packet will have to do. Sacrilegious in a country where the pâtisserie fare is so unbelievable, and the packaged cakes so dire, but it can’t be helped.

Intentions: good. Execution: room for improvement.

The minimarket has a predictably poor selection. Some tired looking madeleines, a cake anglais (which generally refers to a rather pale and wan fruit cake containing glacé cherries, the likes of which I have yet to actually eat in England), and a bag of individually wrapped fondants au chocolat. I settle for the chocolate cakes, and dash home.

Mr Frog appears, shortly after the appointed hour, and I ask him to stay for a beer, to give me an excuse to repair to the kitchen. I have arranged three cakes on a plate, a striped blue candle lolling at a drunken angle in the centre of each. Tadpole, the soul of discretion, says “happy birthday cake mummy” in a stage whisper as I am leaving the room, but I don’t think Mr Frog notices.

As I bring my masterpiece through to the living room, Tadpole starts singing “happy birthday” right on cue. Mr Frog looks up, startled, and I can see he is genuinely touched.

For a fleeting moment, I catch myself wishing that we were still living together as a little family, sharing moments like this every day.

I soon arrived at the conclusion that for a working mum, committing “adultery” would be logistically rather complicated.

A typical day consisted of getting Tadpole ready, dashing with her to the nanny’s, leaping into the metro, breezing into work five minutes late and then doing the whole thing in reverse come 6pm. From Tadpole’s bedtime onwards, I was “free”, but trapped inside the flat, unless there was a babysitter on offer. Hence my strong presence online.

But I simply had to take things further after our first meeting and its rather dramatic dénouement. I couldn’t not. I needed to know.

I had never been unfaithful before. I had very black and white ideas of what was right and wrong, and any sort of cloak and dagger behaviour or sneaking around was most definitely wrong in my book. Nor had I experienced a modern electronic courtship, punctuated by rapid fire exchange of text messages and emails. But over the next week the feeling that something momentous was happening intensified with every shred of contact. I had to see him again, and soon, whatever the consequences.

He evidently felt the same as I did, despite his huge reservations about interfering in my life and causing me to lie to my partner. After all, he’d been on the receiving end of this type of behaviour in the past, and described the experience as “wretched”.

I lost five kilos that week. I shook like an alcoholic with the DT’s, adrenalin coursing through me. I barely slept at night. It felt as though guilt was etched indelibly into my face, and I couldn’t quite believe that Mr Frog hadn’t noticed that something was amiss.

Fear and excitement were bound together in such a way that I couldn’t work out where one began and another ended. I caught myself staring at my daughter through hot tears, barely able to grasp the enormity of what I was contemplating and what it would mean for her. My only desire was to curl up in a ball under the bedclothes, shut out the real world and lose myself in the scenes which were playing out across the inside of my eyelids. Making dinner or attempting normal conversation with Mr Frog was hell; an agony of going through the motions, my mind elsewhere. I took evasive action, in the form of long baths or evenings spent cowering behind my monitor; he snoozed in front of the television in the next room, happily oblivious.

When the time came, my alibis were rehearsed and ready. I told my boss that the childminder was sick and left work abruptly. I dashed, heart racing, to a hotel in the Marais. I spent an afternoon there. And an evening. And a morning. In between, I picked up Tadpole and waited for the sitter to arrive; I crept back to our non-marital bed in the small hours.

The very next evening I told Mr Frog I would be leaving him. Because even though I couldn’t be sure what it was or would develop into, this new, very precious thing I had stumbled upon, what I did know was that me and Mr Frog were a thing of the past, and had been burying our heads in the sand for far too long.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that separating from someone you were not married to is actually more expensive than divorce.

Take France Telecom for example.

A couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that my phone number was still registered in Mr Frog’s name. As I have always harboured a burning, secret desire to see my name in print (even if it is only in the pages blanches), and didn’t particularly want to speak to any old flames or schoolfriends that might look up Mr Frog at some point in the future, I decided to have the entry amended.

The lady from France Telecom who explained the procedure to follow was uncharacteristically helpful. A fax, signed by Mr Frog, authorising a transfer of the line, plus a copy of my bank details was all that was required. A couple of days later, I noted that my name already appeared in the online phone directory.

That was fiendishly simple and efficient, for France, I thought to myself.

And then I received the first bill bearing my name.

€ 55.00 - Services ponctuels ou occasionnels (ouverture de ligne)

I phone France Telecom, to report what I am - in my misguided optimism - determined to see as an error. I haven’t just moved in, and I don’t have a new telephone number, so I can’t possibly be charged a “connection fee”, can I?

First, I explain my problem to the service clients in a calm, almost cheerful manner.

“But you were informed of the cost when you enquired as to what the procedure was to carry out the name change.” states the lady, voice dripping with boredom.

“No, absolutely not. I was informed of no such thing!” I splutter, suffering from an acute sense of humour failure.

My call is transferred to the service facturation, where I have the pleasure of starting my complaint all over again from the beginning, minus the cheerfulness.

The man ascertains that I have not changed my telephone number, and (pretends to) consult with a supervisor. When he returns, he tells me it is absolutely normal to have been charged in this way.

I am livid. “It’s daylight robbery,” I shout, trying desperately to think how to say “preposterous” in French, but making do with a forceful “c’est aberrant!”

Getting worked up like this makes no difference whatsoever to anything except my life expectancy, which is considerably shortened.

When he can get a word in edgeways, Mr France Telecom gleefully delivers his parting shot:

“There are some cases in which the transfer of a line is free. If a line is transferred between spouses, or if you were PACSé for example.”

I knew Mr Frog and I should have got married.

I know I probably shouldn’t write this out loud, but I’m rather enjoying the prospect of becoming a part-time mummy.

Since Tadpole was born, two years ago, my life has been a relentless whirlwind of activity: caring for baby/toddler, delivering her to childminder’s flat, dashing to work, working, and then the same drill, in reverse, at the end of the day. My evenings began at 8.30pm, when Tadpole went to bed, but these were spent caged in our apartment, resentfully waiting for Mr Frog to put in an appearance. Hence my rich virtual life, which filled the gaping void in my offline world.

I can count the number of evenings where Mr Frog was able to relieve me of my duties, allowing me to go out and meet friends for dinner, or attend a blogmeet or whatever it might be, on the fingers of two hands. On those occasions where I did manage to escape for a few hours, I invariably arrived late and frazzled, in a hastily ordered taxi, because Mr Babysitter rarely arrived at the appointed hour.

So, castigate me for being a bad mummy if you will, but I confess I am looking forward to having a social life on the evenings when Mr Frog will pick up Tadpole from the childminder’s and she will spend the whole night at daddy’s house. The very idea of being able to go out for a drink after work, on a whim, meet friends, or even just do a spot of improvised late night shopping, once a week thrills me. Separation, it would seem, has its advantages.

Then there are the alternate weekends… Not only will I no longer have to wend my reluctant way to pay a duty visit to the in-laws every couple of months, but I will now have entire child-free weekends at my disposal. Weekends where I won’t have to get out of bed at all until I’m good and ready. Weekends where I can hop on a train, with an overnight bag, and fall into my lover’s waiting arms. Space to breathe, the luxury of time to recharge my batteries. Time off, during which I sometimes allow myself to forget, albeit briefly, that I ever became a mother. An illicit pleasure, only slightly diluted by vague pangs of guilt that I shouldn’t really feel this way. But I do, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Secure in the knowledge that she is in the safest hands after my own, and confident that she is happy spending one on one time with her daddy, my conscience is clear. I miss Tadpole, when we are apart, but I appreciate her tenfold when we are reunited.

I’m tempted to speculate that as a part-timer, I may even make a better mummy.

It’s over.

On Sunday morning, Mr Frog gathered the last of his belongings and ceremoniously handed me his set of keys. After five weeks of tiptoeing gingerly around each other’s feelings, occasionally barking harsh words we didn’t even mean, only to retract them, sheepishly, a few minutes later, we have finally found our way out of this strange limbo we have been inhabiting for too long. No longer on the verge of separating, we’ve actually gone through with it.

I introduced myself to the concierge of his apartment building this morning, on my way to collect Tadpole, as “the mother of Mr Frog’s child”. I didn’t know what else to call myself, not having got as far as rehearsing that yet.

The past week is a blur: a frenzy of packing, sorting, cleaning Mr Frog’s new place while Tadpole pottered contentedly by my side, shopping for things to replace those Mr Frog would be taking. Baking quiche at midnight on Friday for the bloggers picnic. Seeing my lover for a few precious hours on Sunday, while Tadpole spent her first night in her new bedroom across the road.

Today my runaway adrenaline levels have finally flatlined. I’m shattered. Exhausted.

I would gladly sell my soul to the highest bidder in return for a couple of days of uninterrupted sleep…

Tadpole and I visited Mr Frog’s new apartment today.

We filed quietly across the road. I was feeling drained from a combination of a busy day at work, the oppressive, fetid heat of the metro carriage home, and my foray into the supermarket with Tadpole to fill our empty fridge with provisions for the week ahead.

I waded sluggishly through the dense evening air. Tadpole, who had refused to be parted from her water beaker and Dora the Explorer doll, attempted to wriggle her way out of my vice-like grip at the pedestrian crossing. I fought the temptation to snap at her, because this situation needed to be handled carefully, regardless of frayed tempers, weather conditions, and my gnawing apprehension about how I would feel when I actually saw Mr Frog’s new home. Would I feel a stab of pain, or regret, I wondered, once confronted with the tangible reality of the situation? In a way, it would be a relief to feel something. Anything at all. Up to this point I have only been aware of vague sense of guilt. Guilt at my own lack of a ‘proper’ emotional response to what are supposed to be momentous events in our lives.

Mr Frog lead the way, striding ahead with a carton of assorted bric a brac that I was quite glad to be seeing the back of. I joked that I hoped he had remembered to take the electronic stapler. He laughed and whistled an upbeat tune as he walked.

Odd. When I played out this scene in my head last night before drifting off into a clammy sleep, I imagined this first visit would be a solemn, sobering occasion. So far, not so.

Along the way we explained to Tadpole that daddy would be living in a new flat soon. Mummy and daddy would each have their own homes, and Tadpole would would now have two. Sometimes she would stay with mummy, other times with daddy. She was to have her own bed and toys at daddy’s house too.

She nodded, smiled and proclaimed triumphantly “[Tadpole], elle a deux bedrooms!”, which we took to mean that she had understood perfectly. We didn’t complicate matters with hows and whys for the time being. It simply didn’t feel necessary.

As she raced around the empty, echoing apartment and I dutifully admired the stunning views of the Paris skyline, I was overwhelmed with relief. Relief that I liked the place, relief that I could conceive of Mr Frog being happy there, and that I could already see Tadpole pottering happily about in the flat with him in my minds eye. But also relief that I didn’t feel a pang of jealousy or regret that this wouldn’t be my home too.

Mr Frog detailed what he planned to buy from Ikea at the weekend, and I suppressed the urge to express opinions about how he should decorate. After all, this is his space, and it needs to feel like his, not ours. It’s not easy to break the habits of eight years, but needs must and I bite my tongue.

Meanwhile, my flat (well, strictly speaking our flat, although it feels more mine with every box of Mr Frog’s belongings that crosses the threshold) is in a state of flux. Things are shifting, standing meekly by waiting for their turn to be stacked and sorted, before taking a final bow and exiting stage right to take up residence over the road.

Mr Frog himself hasn’t gone anywhere yet, as he is awaiting the arrival of kitchen appliances and successful execution of the Ikea mission. On Sunday he will relinquish his keys and spend his first night in his new home, with Tadpole by his side.

With every passing day we edge a little closer to this separation we have been discussing for the past month, expecting to feel worse than we actually do.

When we get home, I check the stationery drawer.

And note, to my amusement, that Mr Frog has left the stapler in my custody.

Tadpole’s second birthday was a bittersweet celebration for Mr Frog and me.

I fetched him some lemsip, early this morning, as he was suffering with from a slightly sore throat (and was consequently at death’s door, as most men generally are when they catch a common cold). He had met a friend for dinner last night, so I enquired cautiously as to how that had gone.

I find myself permanently on edge when he goes out, paranoid that some well meaning soul will say something that will turn Mr Frog against me, shattering our cosy, friendly little bubble with a few harsh home truths. It hasn’t happened yet, probably because I am not being portrayed as the villain of the piece, and my extra-non-marital affair (if you can even call it that) is not common knowledge among his friends. He chooses not to mention it. It’s probably a matter of male pride, but whatever, the happy end result is that my good name is not tarnished as a result.

In fact, the friend was suitably floored by how calm and rational Mr Frog was - on the surface, at least - and remarked that hearing our story was like watching a slow-paced, intellectual French film. Like “La Séparation”, which Mr Frog watched on cable earlier this week. I didn’t. I couldn’t. The little I did half overhear, while in earshot of the television, was far too close to the bone. Thankfully, as Mr Frog is wont to do, he fell asleep on the sofa long before the final credits rolled. I was rather relieved, because the film mirrored our own situation a little too closely for comfort, and I really, really did not want to be told that it had all ended with the couple being tearfully reunited and admitting that the whole thing had been a mistake.

Back to this morning. We went to Tadpole’s bedroom to wake her. I stroked her cheek with the back of my finger (I wish I had skin like that) and started to sing Happy Birthday.

“Happy birthday to you”

Tadpole screwed up her face, pursed her lips and rolled over to hide her face against the bedroom wall. I noticed the beginnings of a smile playing on her lips. She was teasing.

“Happy birthday to you”

“Non!” She said, emphatically, “[Tadpole] sleeping!”

“Happy birthday dear [Tadpole], happy birthday to you”

As if by magic, she sat bolt upright and said: “Birthday presents?”

I shouldn’t be suprised, after all, this is the second of her four birthday celebrations, and she is getting used to the drill.

The living room was filled with coloured balloons, just like on her first birthday, and a blanket covered her main present, a tricycle. Later, when Mr Frog and I get home, there will be Noddy cake, candles to be blown out, wishes to be wished, and probably much enthusiastic popping of balloons.

It was lovely. But it was also Tadpole’s last birthday with mummy and daddy living under the same roof.

She has no idea. But I haven’t been able to lose that thought all day.

I wish I knew how to behave.

If Mr Frog had shouted, or cried, or lost his temper, stormed out and slammed the door behind him, I would have known how to react to that. I expected fireworks and melodrama. I felt I deserved them, somehow. Here was I, stammering in a low, guilt-ridden voice that I had finally found the strength to walk away from this relationship which was not what I wanted any more. Where, in my opinion, it was plain to see that we were both deeply unhappy. Here was I confessing that I hadn’t come to take this decision without any outside help: there was another person involved. It’s not that I wanted to inflict pain. Far from it. But some kind of reaction would have been nice.

Nothing.

Not a moan or a whimper on my account. There was genuine anguish as he grappled with the idea of having to live apart from our daughter, and possibly see her less often. There were demands for reassurance that his role as daddy would never be challenged. This was the outcome I had told myself I expected, that I had hoped for, as I rehearsed my lines earlier that evening, but I found the total absence of any emotional response in relation to me galling nonetheless.

“What about me?” I wanted to yell. “You’re losing me too. Me! Do I really leave you completely indifferent?”

I suppose we have both known for a long time that we were now together by default, even if we rarely dared to admit or acknowledge it, even to ourselves. For the sake of our Tadpole. Out of inertia. Or fear of change and upheaval. So where the jagged emotions should have been, there was now just a gaping void.

Part of me feels cheated. After working myself up to this finale over a week of sleepless nights and adrenaline-fuelled days, it was a resounding anti-climax. I wanted to be wept over bitterly or gallantly fought for. Mourned, or regretted just a little.

So that I felt like I was someone worth having in the first place.

When you walked into the bar, wearing your cuddly blue duffle coat, I found you irresistibly cute.

I remember you kissing me gently on the cheek after our second meeting and bundling me into a taxi.

I remember going to watch some weird film at a cinema near where you lived, so I had a pretext to stop by.

I remember listening to Portishead, lying on the bed in your tiny chambre de bonne, with its sloping floor and pre-war electrics, seeing only your grey blue eyes.

I remember the joy written all over your face when I told you we were having a baby.

I remember holding on to you for dear life whilst I retreated far inside myself to deal with the pain of labour.

I remember you giving Tadpole her first bath by my side, while I looked on, helpless, unable to move.

I remember standing by her bed, by your side, many times, marvelling at our beautiful daughter as she slept, wondering how we came to create such a perfect creature.

I feel dazed yet strangely calm inside. Tearful at times, but mostly just numb.

I am profoundly sad and sorry that it has come to this.

But I know, without the merest shadow of a doubt, that it is what is right.