One in Three

by Tess Stimson

  We arrive at the station, and I follow the arresting officer through to a room at the rear, leaving Bella and Tolly in reception with the on-duty officer at the desk. I feel sick to my stomach. Caz may have tipped off the police, but her ploy only worked because I failed that breath test. I’m the one in the wrong. My brother died because some middle-aged, middle-class idiot thought he could have one for the road and get away with it. Never mind facing the children, or Andrew, or my mother: I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look myself in the mirror again.

  I wait in a daze as the officer tests the intoximeter, and then asks me to blow in it again, twice, to ensure an accurate reading. I don’t need to be told how much trouble I’m in. How am I supposed to get the children to and from school if I lose my licence? How am I supposed to work?

  ‘You’ve passed the intoximeter,’ the officer says unexpectedly. ‘Just. Your lowest measurement was 34. You won’t be charged on this occasion, madam.’

  I gawp at him. ‘I passed?’

  ‘Your current sample puts you below the legal drink drive limit. However,’ he adds, as sternly as his youth and innate niceness will allow, ‘I would strongly recommend that in future, you don’t drive after a heavy night’s drinking. Driving while impaired can have very serious consequences, even if you are legally below the limit.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ I gasp. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘No need to thank me. You’ve been extremely lucky this time, Mrs Page.’

  I’m not going to be arrested. I wasn’t drunk, or criminally irresponsible. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say breathlessly. ‘I had no idea I could still be over the limit. It won’t happen again, I swear.’

  ‘You’re free to go. Will you require transport back to your vehicle?’

  I can’t face the shame of getting back into the police car. I’d rather walk. ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll call my mother now, and see if she can pick us up.’ I glance around the reception area, where I left Bella and Tolly. ‘Do you know where my children are?’

  ‘Their father collected them a few moments ago,’ the officer behind the desk says. ‘It’s all right, madam, we verified his identity. If you’re quick, they’ll still be outside.’

  Andrew is fitting Tolly’s car seat into the rear of Caz’s Audi, struggling to get the seatbelt through its slots. ‘What’s going on?’ I exclaim.

  He finally clicks the buckle into place, and straightens up. ‘Bella texted and asked me for a lift to school,’ he says shortly. ‘They didn’t know how long you were going to be.’

  Caz leans across the front seat. ‘How could you be so irresponsible?’ she demands through the open window. ‘What if something had happened to them while you were drunk behind the wheel?’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk,’ I snap. I lean into the back of the car. ‘Bella, Tolly, out you get. I’ve sorted everything out, it’s all fine. Come on, Bella,’ I add, as she just sits there. ‘We need to get going, you’re late enough as it is.’

  ‘You haven’t got a car, Mum,’ she mutters.

  ‘We’ll take them to school,’ Andrew says. ‘We can sort everything else out later.’

  I’m about to refuse, but Bella looks at me in silent appeal, and I realise how desperate she is for me not to make a scene. ‘OK,’ I say reluctantly. ‘You take them. I’ll pick them up this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll pick them up,’ Caz snaps.

  ‘Look, why don’t you take a day or two for yourself?’ Andrew adds. ‘Get yourself sorted out. The kids can stay here in Brighton with Caz. We were taking Friday off anyway, for your mother’s party, so it’s not a problem. We can talk again then.’

  ‘Get myself sorted out?’ I repeat. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He doesn’t meet my eye. ‘Maybe it’d be better if Tolly and Bella spent some time with us. Just till you’re on an even keel again. I know you’ve had a lot going on, and maybe it’s all been a bit too much.’

  ‘We don’t want you backsliding,’ Caz adds bitchily. ‘Getting overwrought like you did with Roger Lewison. I hear last time was awful.’

  I suddenly feel as if all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. She’s going after my children. It’s the last card she has left to play. That’s why she set me up with the police; a drink-drive conviction would be a huge black mark against me if Andrew ever contested custody. She wants to take my children from me.

  ‘Dad, I’ve got to get to school,’ Bella urges from the car. ‘I’m super late already.’

  Andrew can’t even look at me as he gets in the car. I watch him drive away, trembling with suppressed rage. How could he tell her about Roger? That was private, personal information! It cost me a great deal even to tell him, and I only did that because I wanted to be totally honest with him before we got married. How many times does he have to let me down before I wise up? Just hours ago, this man was in my bed, telling me he’d never stopped loving me. Now, he’s using the most intimate details of my past to suggest I’m so unstable my own children aren’t safe with me. I don’t think I’ve ever hated him before, but I do right now.

  I pull up the camera roll on my phone, and scroll to the one I want. My secrets are out in the open. It’s about time Caz’s were, too.

  Chapter 36

  Caz

  I can’t even bear to breathe the same air as Andy as we drive the children to their schools from the police station. Overnight, my pain and betrayal have hardened into cold, unrelenting anger. I have no idea where we go from here. The thought of sharing my bed with him makes my skin crawl. But the idea of life without Andy opens a yawning pit in my soul. I hate myself for it, but I still love him. How do I reconcile two such warring impulses? How do I fight for him when my first impulse is to throw him into the street and bar the door?

  Maybe if he’d stood up for me when this vendetta with Louise kicked off a few weeks ago, things would never have got so out of hand. That woman feeds off his weakness. She’d never have dared do half the things she’s done if he’d planted his flag firmly in my corner, instead of trying to please both of us. My bitterness is so thick I can taste it. I’m never going to be free of her. Andy’s not going to fight for me, no matter what she does. He’s never fought for me yet.

  He insists on walking Bella into school, and I watch as they stop outside the gates, talking intently. Something else is going on with Andy that I still don’t know about; something apart from his nostalgic fuck with Louise last night. If he wasn’t with her yesterday when he was supposed to be working, then where the hell was he? I don’t buy his bullshit about Deep Throat anonymous sources for a moment. He’s up to something.

  ‘Bella says that policeman was waiting for Louise,’ he says abruptly, as soon as he gets back into the car. ‘She seems to think it was a farmer with a grudge who tipped them off, but I’m not so sure. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’

  I say nothing as Andy pulls the car back onto the main road. He was drunk when he came home last night, and by his own admission, Louise was even worse for wear. I was just doing my civic duty, reporting a drunk driver. A mother on her way to school, no less; just one of many up and down the country who hits wine o’clock at six p.m. and keeps on going, never even considering she might still be drunk the next morning. But I should have known Louise would find a way to skate out from under it. Somehow, that woman always comes up smelling of roses. She could shoot someone in Oxford Street, and Andy would praise her for her marksmanship.

  ‘She got away with it this time,’ I say. ‘But you can’t ignore this, Andy. You’re going to have to do something about her.’

  He sighs irritably. ‘Come on, Caz. She was under the limit.’

  ‘This time,’ I repeat. ‘The kids were in the car with her. What if she’d crashed? They’re not safe with her anymore.’

  He looks sideways at me. ‘You really think you can take Bella and Tolly on full-time?’ he says sceptically. ‘We have trouble managing one child, never mind three. You’re not exactly the mat
ernal type.’

  ‘You think I couldn’t handle it?’

  ‘I think you wouldn’t want to,’ he says shortly.

  What I want has nothing to do with it. But if I can remove the one legitimate reason Louise has to be constantly in our lives by taking the children from her, it’ll pull the rug out from under her feet. She’ll still have visitation rights, of course, unless we can prove she’s certifiable again, which is entirely possible; but if the kids are living with us, the ball will be very much in our court. She’ll have to play by our rules if she wants access to them. Andy won’t be at her beck and call anymore. We’ll have leverage.

  My phone beeps suddenly with a text notification from Louise. It’s some kind of image. I open it up, and an icy chill sweeps through me as I see the photograph of the peeling sign: Starr Farm Senior Care Centre.

  She knows.

  I drop the phone on the floor of the car, my heart pounding. Louise knows about my mother. She’s been to see her. How the hell did she even find her? The only person who knows Ruth exists is Angie, and she’d never breathe a word to anyone. What has Louise discovered? And what is she going to do about it?

  My hands are actually shaking as I scrabble for the phone. My mother is a senile old woman; no one will take her lunatic ravings seriously. But what will Andy say if he finds out she’s not living in a beautiful Victorian building with a concierge in the heart of Chelsea, as I’ve told him, but a care home in Essex? He’d never have willingly exchanged the prestige and class Louise brought him for Carol from Dagenham. As far as he’s concerned, my father is dead, my mother a wealthy recluse from whom I’m estranged. If he finds out I’m no better than he is, it could be precisely the excuse he needs to run straight back into Louise’s well-bred arms.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Andy asks, as he parks the car in a side street near our house. ‘You seem very quiet.’

  I make a quick decision. My battle with Louise over the children can wait. I need to deal with my mother first. ‘I’m going back to London after all,’ I say abruptly. ‘Tell Louise the kids can stay with her for now. I’m sure they’ll be fine.’

  He looks visibly relieved. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’

  We barely speak on the train back to Victoria. As soon as we reach London, Andy heads off to the taxi rank to go into work, and I take the tube home. I’m not going into Whitefish today; I’m not sure I’ve even got a job to go back to. I let myself into our empty flat, feeling sick and hollowed out. Stepping over the heap of mail on the doormat without bothering to pick it up, I go straight upstairs, peel off my clothes and pad into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping into water as hot as I can bear. As the steam rises around me, I close my eyes and turn my face into the scalding spray. Louise, Andy, AJ, Whitefish, my mother … I just want to wash it all away.

  The heat sucks the remaining energy from me. I’ve hardly slept in two days, and I can’t remember the last time I ate properly. I long to crawl into bed and shut out the world, but I have dozens of emails clogging up my inbox, at least four of them from Patrick. More importantly, I have to check up on AJ, make sure he’s all right. And there’s still my mother to deal with. I can’t afford to take my eye off the ball for a second.

  I step out of the shower, groping for a towel, stumbling slightly in the steamy bathroom. My shin connects with the small wastepaper bin, and I yelp as it goes flying, scattering scrunched-up tissues and strings of dental floss and used cotton wool pads all over the floor. Cursing beneath my breath, I pick up the rubbish and put it back in the bin.

  And then I stop.

  I stare at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test stick in my hand. The significance of what this means, what Andy has done, drills into my heart. Our cleaner empties the bin every week, which means that since this pregnancy test isn’t mine, there’s only one other person it can belong to, the only other woman who has been here in the last fortnight.

  Bella.

  Three days before the party

  Chapter 37

  Louise

  I hear Bella being sick in the bathroom as I’m getting Tolly ready for school. Leaving him half-dressed, I go into the hall and hover outside the bathroom door. ‘Darling, are you OK?’

  The lavatory flushes. A moment later, the door opens. Bella looks pale, and beads of sweat dot her upper lip. ‘Sorry. We had fish tacos at school yesterday. I don’t think it was such a good idea.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s because of your concussion on Monday?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do you want to stay home today?’ I ask, concerned.

  She hesitates. ‘I’ve got a Chem test third period.’

  ‘Mrs Welsh will let you make it up, won’t she?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘You get back into bed, and I’ll call the school. As soon as I’ve dropped Tolly off at nursery, I’ll come up and sort you out properly.’

  I follow her as she shuffles back to her bedroom. I’m not surprised she’s sweating: even in the middle of summer, she’s wearing long grey sweatpants and a baggy black T-shirt. To my surprise, she suffers me smoothing out her duvet and tucking her in as I used to do when she was little. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ I say, dropping a light kiss on her damp forehead.

  ‘Mum?’

  I turn in the doorway, struck suddenly by how vulnerable she seems. Without make-up, her hair pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail, she looks no more than twelve. ‘What is it, sweetheart?’

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ she mumbles, looking down and fiddling with a large silver ring on her middle finger. It looks vaguely familiar, though I can’t quite remember where I’ve seen it before. ‘Texting Caz. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  I come back into the room and perch on the bed. ‘You didn’t upset me, Bella. It must have been awful, watching your mother get carted off to a police station. I’m so sorry to put you through all that.’

  ‘You were awesome,’ my daughter says unexpectedly. ‘I’d have freaked out if I got arrested, but you were, like, totally cool.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘I should’ve trusted you,’ she says. ‘I know you’d never drink and drive. Not, you know, after Uncle Nicky.’

  He died long before she was even born, but he’s still as much a part of our family as my mother or Tolly. ‘I was incredibly stupid,’ I sigh. ‘I should have realised I might’ve been over the limit from the night before. I can’t bear to think what could have happened with the two of you in the car.’

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ she says generously.

  I hesitate. I don’t want to wreck our delicate detente, but I’m aware I may never get a better chance to talk to her while she’s in such a receptive mood. ‘Bella, I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ I say quietly. ‘Three hundred pounds was taken out of my account in cash a few days ago. Was that you? If it wasn’t, I need to know so I can talk to the bank about it.’

  She stiffens. For a moment, I think I’ve blown it, but then she exhales slowly. ‘Please don’t ask me to say what it was for,’ she mumbles. ‘And no, it’s not drugs or anything illegal.’

  I manage to stifle a thousand questions I’m bursting to ask as Bella picks fretfully at her nails, which are already bitten down to the quick. ‘You always told me if someone was in trouble, I should help,’ she says finally.

  ‘It’s a lot of money, Bella. Are you sure you can’t tell me what it’s for?’

  She wavers. I can sense her weighing the options, and I hold my breath, willing her to confide in me. But before she can say anything, Tolly erupts into the bedroom, demanding his breakfast, and I see Bella visibly withdraw into herself, the moment gone.

  My stomach churns with anxiety as I finish getting Tolly ready for nursery. She says it’s not drugs, but she’s lost so much weight recently, and she’s so pale. This isn’t the first time she’s been physically sick in the last couple of weeks, either. Something is seriously troubling my child, and I have to find a way to hel
p her – which I can’t do unless I have the right information. As soon as I get back from dropping Tolly off at kindergarten, I make Bella a cup of ginger tea to settle her stomach, and take it upstairs. I don’t want to push her, but I can’t see I have a choice. If she’s angry with me, so be it. I want to be her friend, but it’s more important that I’m her mother.

  Bella’s awake, listening to music. She pulls out one white earphone as I enter her room, and I hear the tinny thump of music, one of those awful German electronic bands she likes so much. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she sighs. ‘I swear on Tolly’s life, I’m not taking drugs.’

  I search her face. Perhaps I’m foolish, but my maternal instinct tells me she’s being truthful. She may be keeping secrets from me, but I believe her when she says it’s not drugs.

  She makes room for me to sit beside her, and I put the steaming mug of ginger tea on the bedside table. ‘So why did you need the money?’ I ask gently. ‘If it’s not drugs, what was it for?’

  ‘Please, Mum. Please don’t ask me that.’

  I pause, torn. ‘You said it wasn’t for anything illegal?’

  ‘I swear. And it’s done now. I mean, it doesn’t matter anymore. And I’ll pay you back, I promise.’

  ‘It’s not the money.’ I choose my words with care. ‘Bella, I’m worried about you. Is there anything you can tell me? I won’t shout or get angry, I promise. And I won’t tell Dad, if that’s what you’re anxious about.’

  I watch her worrying the silver ring around her middle finger, back and forth, back and forth. She hasn’t taken it off since she got it. It’s like she—

  Of course! Metaphorically, I clap my hand to my forehead. How did I not see this before? There’s only one thing that makes you lose weight and throw up with nerves and swing wildly from joy to misery in the space of a moment: love, the oldest drug in the world.