The Woman Next Door

by Natasha Boydell

  10

  Alan zipped up his holdall and looked at Sophie, who was sitting on the bed watching him.

  ‘I’ll only be gone a few days,’ he said.

  ‘Take as much time as you need.’

  Alan’s mum had fallen and broken her hip, and because his dad wasn’t in good health either, Alan had decided to go and stay with them for a few nights to help out.

  ‘Sorry to abandon my cowgirl,’ he said ruefully.

  Sophie snorted. The children’s school was holding a barn dance fundraiser for parents that evening and they’d booked a babysitter weeks ago so that they could enjoy a rare night out together. They’d even ordered cowboy boots and hats online and had been having a hoot putting them on and gleefully ‘yee-hawing’ around the house, much to the embarrassment of the kids.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll find me a lonesome cowboy to dance with,’ she told him.

  ‘As long as he doesn’t sweep you off your feet.’

  ‘As if! Unless he’s Brad Pitt circa Legends of the Fall, in which case I need to tell you that I will be running off to Montana with him to live in a tipi.’

  ‘Fair play to you, love. Even I wouldn’t turn down Brad Pitt.’

  They headed downstairs so that Alan could say goodbye to Tom and Katie, who had been making ‘get well soon’ cards for their granny. The kitchen table was covered in a sheen of glitter and torn up bits of paper and the children proudly handed their offerings to Alan. He hugged them both and they followed him outside and watched as he climbed into his van and, with a toot of his horn, disappeared down the road. Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a night without Alan and felt strangely bereft. At least she had the barn dance to look forward to.

  ‘Tom, Katie, I’m going upstairs to get ready for this evening,’ she told them. ‘Do you want to come up and keep me company?’

  The children grabbed their iPads and followed her upstairs and into the bedroom, where they flung themselves onto the bed to play games while Sophie hunted around for the hair straighteners. Thirty minutes later she was ready to go.

  ‘You look cool, Mum,’ Tom said, looking up and observing her plaid shirt, jeans, hat and cowboy boots ensemble. She gave him a thumbs up, sprayed herself liberally with perfume and headed downstairs to let the babysitter in. Once she had briefed the sitter and said goodbye to the children, she let herself out of the back door and through the gate into Angie and Jack’s garden so that they could walk to the dance together.

  ‘Howdy, pardner!’ she called to Jack as she entered the kitchen and saw him leaning up against a kitchen cupboard drinking a beer. He tipped his hat when he saw her and gave her a wink. Her stomach gave an involuntary little flip. He may not be her cup of tea, as she kept telling everyone, but he was a bloody good-looking man and he looked particularly sexy in his cowboy get-up. She looked away quickly and said loudly, ‘Angie getting ready?’

  ‘Afraid not. Angie’s not feeling very well so she’s gone to bed and sends her apologies. It’s just a cold but she’s run-down which has made it worse. Where’s Alan?’

  ‘Gone up to his parents for a few days: his mum had a fall. She’s fine but he wants to help.’

  ‘I guess it’s just you and me then, pardner.’

  ‘I guess it is.’

  Jack drained his beer. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. Hollering goodbye to Angie and the children, they let themselves out of the front door and headed down the road. It was a brisk evening and she shivered a little bit.

  ‘Do you want my scarf?’ Jack offered, glancing at her.

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ she said.

  ‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ He unravelled his scarf and turned to her, wrapping it carefully around her neck. She smelt his aftershave on it and started to feel giddy. What on earth was wrong with her this evening? Perhaps it was just the anticipation of a night out.

  When they arrived at the school, she gave a little gasp of pleasure. The hall had been decked out wonderfully. There was bunting and lights hanging from the ceiling and a band was setting up on the stage, which was furnished with hay and a wagon wheel. In one corner a makeshift bar had been set up and Jack went off to get them a couple of beers, while Sophie looked around, marvelling at how they had managed to make the boring old school hall look so atmospheric.

  Being on the PTA committee, she knew a lot of people and it was impossible to go from one side of the hall to the other without bumping into someone who wanted to chat. It was a good forty-five minutes before she managed to break away and her eyes searched the hall, looking for Jack to make sure that he was okay. She spotted him in the corner, surrounded by a group of Year Three mums who looked like they were rounding in on him. She caught his eye, and he mouthed ‘help me’ at her.

  Chuckling to herself, she made her way over to him. ‘Sorry, ladies, but this cowboy promised me a dance,’ she said, whisking him off to the dance floor.

  ‘Thanks, Sophie, I didn’t think I’d ever get away,’ he said. ‘Nice bunch of ladies but pretty intense. One actually asked me whether me and my wife practised swinging and I’m not entirely sure if it was a joke or not.’

  Sophie roared with delight, and then switched her focus to the instructions being barked out by the line dance teacher. They were both terrible dancers and they giggled at each other as they attempted to follow the instructions and failed miserably.

  ‘Another beer?’ Jack suggested, when the song finally finished.

  ‘I definitely need one after that ordeal,’ Sophie agreed. As he disappeared through the crowds towards the bar, Sophie spotted Eve walking towards her and gave her a grin.

  ‘Having fun?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but more to the point, are you having fun?’ Eve replied, looking at her pointedly.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Just saying that Jack’s looking Brokeback Mountain hot tonight.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, we’re neighbours. His wife is a good friend of mine if you remember?’

  ‘Oh, calm down, I’m only messing,’ Eve said, giving her a nudge. ‘I’m just saying, he’s not looking too shabby, is he? Lucky Angie.’

  Sophie had to agree, although she couldn’t imagine ever being married to someone as good-looking and charming as Jack. After he returned with their beers, Eve whisked him off for a dance and she stood by the side and watched them. Eve was much better at dancing than Sophie and did a good job of following the dance moves and helping Jack to keep up too.

  As she sipped her beer, Sophie thought about Alan. How long had it been since they had been out together, just the two of them, without the kids? She couldn’t even remember. Most evenings they just watched TV and went to bed. Perhaps she should suggest a night out. It was just what they needed after the last few months, a bit of fun. She knew that she’d become a bit fixated on having another baby even after she promised Alan that she wouldn’t. And they were in danger of turning into a boring old married couple, if they hadn’t done already. She’d book something as soon as he got back from his parents, she decided. Stifling a yawn, she looked at her empty beer bottle and decided to call it a night. She grabbed her coat and bag and went to tell Jack she was leaving.

  ‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  ‘No, you stay a little longer, have fun,’ she urged him.

  ‘Will you be okay, walking home on your own?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Jack, honestly.’

  He doffed his hat at her and then turned away to continue dancing with one of the Year Three mums who had commandeered him. With a final glance at the dance floor, Sophie put her coat on and made her way out of the school hall into the cold night air.

  Angie sat in bed, playing absent-mindedly with her phone before throwing it onto the duvet with a sigh. She thought of Jack at the barn dance and felt guilty that she’d feigned illness to get out of going with him, but the truth was that she just wasn’t in the mood. She couldn’t be bothered to make polite conversation with people she didn’t
know or care about, or to pretend that she and Jack were the perfect couple. Recently she had found that she had little energy for anything anymore and she wondered what had happened to her.

  Angie had never wallowed in bed in her life. She was a fighter – she got up, put her warpaint on and took on the world. But at the moment all she wanted to do was crawl under the duvet and hide away. Which was tricky when there was a six-year-old trying to sail a remote-control boat in the bath and a nine-year-old arguing with her sister over a hairband. Angie tried to block out the noise. She blinked a few times, willing tears to come so that they might provide her with some emotional release. But, unfortunately, Angie didn’t cry either.

  Was this some sort of PTSD? Was it a delayed reaction to years of Jack making her feel insecure? Was it guilt that she was somehow to blame? Or was it just the sheer relentlessness of life, of juggling a career with four children and feeling like the wheels might fall off at any moment? She had powered through for so long, telling herself and anyone who would listen that she was fine, because fine was all she knew how to be. But what if she wasn’t fine after all?

  It was the pregnancy scare that had been her final undoing. The horror at the prospect of being pregnant, the knowledge that her marriage probably wouldn’t survive it had made her realise how precarious this life she had built was. It could collapse at any moment and she’d be powerless to stop it. And underneath it all was the niggling fear that it was her fault. If she had been a better wife to Jack, if she was more doting, if she hadn’t put her career first, perhaps things would have been different for them.

  She had thrown herself into work because it gave her back her identity. But she’d been hiding behind it for too long, letting it mask the cracks that were appearing at home. She needed to find a way to recalibrate, to get the balance right between work, family and marriage. If one pillar toppled, the whole tower came tumbling down.

  As the screaming between her two daughters escalated on the other side of the door, she threw the covers aside in frustration.

  ‘Indie! Ellie! Stop that right now,’ she yelled, yanking open the bedroom door and squaring off with the girls who were standing in the hallway. Indie was clutching a piece of Ellie’s hair in her tightly shut fist. The girls stopped what they were doing and looked at her in surprise. She rarely shouted at the children.

  Indie took in her dishevelled hair and dressing gown. ‘What’s up, Mum? Is it your period?’

  ‘No it’s not my period, it’s you two screaming at each other outside my bedroom door.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’ Ellie looked sheepish.

  ‘Give me that hairband,’ Angie said, yanking it from Indie’s hand. The children followed her, glancing at each other, as she marched down the stairs and threw it into the kitchen bin.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ Indie demanded, looking horrified.

  ‘Because I’m fed up of hearing you two bickering over things. So the new rule is, if you can’t share it, I’m throwing it away.’

  ‘Oh great, Mum, brilliant parenting technique,’ Indie said, her temper flaring to match her mother’s.

  Angie was in the mood for a full-on barney and was about to fire back when Ellie, ever the peacemaker, said: ‘Come on, Indie, let’s put a film on before bed.’

  With a final, resentful glare at her mother, Indie relented and followed her little sister to the den. Angie poured herself a glass of red wine and collapsed onto a kitchen chair. This was the problem, she thought, she simply didn’t have time to think any more; she was constantly firefighting. And now she had an actual moment of peace to herself she felt restless, like she’d completely forgotten how to relax. She automatically reached for her laptop, opened up her work emails and started making her way through them. She was still there at 11pm when Jack got home, and he started when he saw her.

  ‘Christ, Ange, you scared me, I thought you’d be in bed. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Much better,’ Angie lied. ‘How was your evening?’

  ‘Quite fun in the end,’ Jack said, pouring a glass of water and coming to sit next to her. ‘I was hopeless at the dancing but we all had a laugh.’

  ‘Did you walk back with Sophie?’

  ‘No she left early; she had to get back for the babysitter.’

  Angie had a brief moment of panic at the thought of Jack alone with a bunch of women and no close allies to report back on his behaviour but she quickly put the thought out of her mind. She had to trust him, she just had to, because if she didn’t then their marriage really was over and she simply couldn’t accept that. Not after everything they’d been through.

  ‘You coming to bed?’ Jack asked.

  ‘In a minute,’ she replied, glancing back down at her laptop. She heard him go up the stairs and tried to concentrate on what she’d been doing but her focus had completely gone. After a few minutes she gave up and closed the laptop, turning off the kitchen light and making her own way up the stairs. By the time she got into bed he was snoring. She lay next to him and watched him sleep for a while. Then she reached over to her bedside table for her sleep spray, squirted it liberally all over her pillow, put on her lavender eye mask and tried to summon some sleep.

  11

  ‘Look! Shop-bought cupcakes! Live it, learn it.’ Sophie waved the box of cupcakes at Angie. It was the morning of their annual Easter party and Angie had come over to help her prepare. However, unlike last time when the Taylors had turned up at the front door unannounced, Angie had come via the gate and let herself in through the back door, as comfortable in Sophie’s home now as she was in her own.

  ‘They look beautiful, but I was rather fond of your home-made ones,’ Angie replied as she washed her hands in the kitchen sink and turned to Sophie. ‘Where shall we start?’

  ‘You can start by telling me what’s going on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something’s on your mind and I think it’s time you talked about it.’

  Sophie had sensed that something was up with Angie for a few weeks now but had been reluctant to probe her because she knew Angie valued her privacy. She didn’t like to ‘bang on about her feelings’ as she said. However, she had become increasingly subdued and Sophie was beginning to worry about her. Angie had been relieved when the pregnancy test came back negative so her withdrawn behaviour now didn’t make sense. She’d even quizzed Jack about it on the way to school a few days ago but had drawn a blank.

  ‘Everything okay with Angie?’ she’d asked, trying to sound light.

  ‘Yep, why?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just thought she seemed a bit out of sorts, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s still getting over that cold and she’s been really busy at work. Plus Ellie and Indie are in some sort of ongoing feud which is tedious. But other than that, she’s fine.’

  Sophie wasn’t convinced and she had even started to worry that perhaps Angie was upset with her for some reason. Had someone said something to her about Sophie dancing with Jack at the barn dance? Nothing remotely untoward had happened yet she couldn’t help feeling paranoid because Angie had been acting strangely ever since that night. Perhaps she’d been annoyed that Sophie had left without him but that seemed ridiculous too, Jack was a grown man who was perfectly capable of making his own way home. She couldn’t put her finger on it but something wasn’t right, of that she was sure.

  When she had woken up the morning after the barn dance, she remembered her promise to herself that she and Alan should make more time for each other. As she was making coffee, she called him at his parents, eager to hear his voice after spending a night in bed without him.

  ‘Hey, love,’ he said when he answered, sounding tired.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, although I’ll need to stick around for a few more days. Mum is still in hospital so I have to ferry Dad to and fro. And I’ve been up half the night helping him to the loo so I’m a bit knackered. Are you okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ Sophie re
assured him. ‘I miss you though.’

  ‘I miss you too, Soph.’

  ‘Shall we come up too, Al? We could help you out around the house.’

  ‘No it’s not necessary, love, and two kids running around probably won’t help matters. You stay put and I’ll be home when I can.’

  Later that morning she had popped next door to see if Angie was feeling better but Indie, without even glancing up from her phone, had informed her that her mother had gone to the gym. Next, she called Clara to see if she fancied a playdate but her kids had back-to-back birthday parties. Finally she tried Eve, who didn’t even answer her phone. Feeling a bit discombobulated, she decided to take the children to visit her parents for the night. The next time she saw Jack was on Monday morning and he had been his usual, chirpy self. But ever since that weekend Angie had been acting strangely and she’d resolved to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

  Angie stood in Sophie’s kitchen, dumbfounded. How had Sophie known that something was up? No one else had said anything and she’d assumed that she was doing an admirable job of hiding her feelings, so Sophie’s perceptiveness had caught her off guard. Her brain kicked into gear as she tried to think of the best way to respond to get Sophie off her case. This thing, or whatever it was she was feeling, was something she had to deal with – and get over – by herself.

  ‘It’s nothing serious, Sophie,’ she said finally. ‘My mum’s not doing very well and I think she needs to move into sheltered accommodation. And I’ve been having a bit of a panic over my work-life balance. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of things at home but it’s incredibly difficult to cut down my hours at work because of the nature of the job.’

  Sophie nodded in sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to hear that; it must be hard. Is there anything that can be done? Perhaps you just need to take some time off? Or a sabbatical even?’