Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  “Well, hello there,” he said with a grin when he saw who it was. “You’d better come in, so you had.”

  I followed the old man down the hall to the living room, where the television set was booming away. He went over and switched it off.

  “Take a seat, lass, Dan won’t be long. He’s dashed out to buy dog food. Your Frankie has an appetite on her and no mistake.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve just been to buy some myself. I’ll give Dan some of that to make up for what Frankie’s eaten.”

  Patrick laughed wheezily and lowered himself into his chair. “I’m only pulling your leg, lass. He had to go shopping anyway.”

  I held out the Guinness. “I thought you might like these.”

  The old man’s eyes lit up as he focused on the beer. “Now, I wouldn’t say no to one of those. There’s glasses in the sideboard over there. Be a darlin’ and fetch me one out, would you?”

  I watched while he took a deep pull of the dark beer, closing his eyes as he savored the taste of the rich liquid, the froth leaving a white mustache on his upper lip. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like one for yourself?” he offered.

  I shook my head, smiling. “No, I’m okay, Mr. Brennan, thank you.”

  “I told you to call me Pat,” he said.

  “Do you think Dan will be long?” I asked.

  “Now, what if he is? You and I will have the time for a nice chat, so we will. I think Dan rates you somewhat highly, so I’ll tell you all about him while we’re waiting. Aye, there are plenty more saucy stories to tell about that boy, so there are.”

  Patrick’s stories proved to be highly entertaining.

  “Did I tell you about the time he dated twins?” he asked with a snort of laughter.

  I shook my head, wondering if I should listen while Dan wasn’t there to tell his version of the story.

  “They were completely identical, and pretty girls—well proportioned, if you know what I mean. Well, he didn’t know they were twins. He met the first girl in one of the clubs while he was working on securing an account for Brennan’s Bandits. He went out with her for about two weeks before realizing that the reason she was so vague about what they’d done or talked about on each previous date was because the girls were taking turns with him; sharing him, like they apparently shared all their other possessions.”

  “I would have thought most men wouldn’t have minded,” I ventured with a smile.

  “Aye, but he didn’t like the dishonesty… If he’d known from the outset he’d have been in heaven, that’s for sure, but he didn’t appreciate being taken for a fool.”

  I thought about the secret I was keeping from Dan and quavered inside. “What did he do when he found out?”

  “He ended it. Told them he wasn’t prepared to two-time either of them. He’s an old-fashioned guy at heart is my Dan; a one-woman man.” Pat turned twinkling eyes on me and gave a theatrical shrug. “I can’t for the life of me think where he gets that from.”

  I listened to more stories, including one about how Dan had once been pursued by a female weight lifter at the wedding of a friend and how he’d used the bridegroom’s car as a getaway vehicle.

  “He was always being pursued by some female or other,” Patrick said as he took a satisfying pull at his beer. “He just didn’t seem ready to be pinned down by any of them.”

  By the time we heard Dan’s key in the lock and the scrabbling of the dogs’ claws on the wood block flooring in the hall, Pat and I were laughing together like old friends. We both looked up when Dan appeared at the living room door. He gazed from his father’s rosy cheeks to the empty beer bottles on the hearth and raised an eyebrow questioningly. By then I was sipping at a mug of tea I’d made in his kitchen, and I put the mug down guiltily and rose to greet him.

  “I’m sorry to have left Frankie with you for so long,” I said. I ruffled Frankie’s silky head as she tried to leap up into my arms. “Your dad and I have been having a chat.”

  Dan groaned. “What’s he been telling you?”

  “All sorts of things,” I said with a grin. “You seem to have had a very interesting life.”

  “Don’t you believe the half of it,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “And the other half you should take with a pinch of salt.” I sat down again as he helped himself to one of the bottles of Guinness, not bothering with a glass. “Did you bring these?”

  “She knows the way to a man’s heart does that one,” Pat said happily. “Now, if the two of you will excuse me, I’m going upstairs to have my afternoon nap. If you go out, take the dogs; they’ll only get bored and wake me up, so they will.”

  We watched the old man make his way unsteadily from the room, then Dan came over and pulled me back to my feet, encompassing me in a bear hug.

  “I was beginning to think you’d abandoned your dog and left the country,” he murmured into my hair. “You sure slept late!”

  “I am sorry, but I did need the sleep, and I’ve managed to do my weekly shop as well.”

  “Glad to be of service,” he said, laughing.

  He held me at arm’s length and seemed to study my face minutely before reaching out and drawing me toward him. I thought of Grant squeezing my arms the previous night, how he’d asked me to promise I wasn’t seeing another man, and I felt a tremor of apprehension run through me.

  “What is it?” Dan asked, frowning. “That’s the second time you’ve looked frightened when I’ve touched you.”

  “It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m a bit cold, that’s all.”

  Leaning into him, I rested my head on his shoulder.

  He held me and stroked my hair, and I relaxed in his warm embrace.

  “What would you like to do?” he asked. “Stay here, go to your place, or walk the dogs?”

  “Let’s walk on the Downs,” I suggested. “Before it gets dark. I’d like to go back to the spot where we met.”

  The Downs seemed different in the dull light of late afternoon. The dogs bounded around us like a couple of puppies as we strolled hand in hand along the well-trodden paths. The air was cooling fast, and I pulled up the collar of my winter coat and thrust the hand that Dan wasn’t holding deep into my pocket. As the light began to fade we headed back to Dan’s car, but not before I’d recognized the place where he had first come across me huddled with the dogs the week before.

  “I want you to remember this place always,” I said, lifting my cold face to his. “This is a special place where our two souls met for the first time.”

  “You romantic thing, you!” he exclaimed, taking my face between his hands and kissing me on the lips. I felt my body thrill at his touch and I snuggled into him.

  “Do you believe that two souls might recognize each other?” I asked, my voice muffled in his jacket. “I mean, without their bodies? Do you believe in life after death?”

  “My goodness, Jessica, this is a bit deep, isn’t it?”

  “I know. I think about it, that’s all. I just wondered what you believe?”

  “My father was brought up a devout Catholic, but the church didn’t approve of him divorcing. It wasn’t just the once, either. He made quite a habit of it and they cast him out. He taught me to believe in God in my own way and not to listen to rules made by mere mortals in God’s name.”

  “So you do believe there is a divine Creator? Someone or something with a plan for us all?”

  I felt him shrug. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I sometimes wonder what his plan is for me,” I said, pulling out of his embrace and taking his hand again. “Come on, it’s getting dark. We ought to go back to the cars.”

  He strode along beside me, the dogs at our heels. When we arrived at the parking lot, he pulled me around to face him and looked deep into my eyes.

  “Do you know, I reckon we were destined to meet and fall in love. I think God sent that lightning to make sure I didn’t miss you.”

  I smiled up at him, then dropped my gaze. “What if He sent it for a different re
ason? Some big plan we don’t yet understand?”

  Dan looked thoughtful for a moment, his eyes taking on a faraway stare.

  “I don’t have the answers, Jessica, but I do know you were heaven-sent to me. If there is a bigger plan, then you being here with me is definitely part of it. You heard from Dad what my love life has been like until now. I took girls out for all the wrong reasons, dumped them, got dumped myself sometimes, never made a commitment. I’m thirty, Jessica. I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want you.”

  “You’ve only known me a week.”

  “I knew you were ‘the One’ within a minute of meeting you.”

  I laughed and he threw his arms around me, crushing me to him.

  “There, it’s your laugh. It sends tingles right through me. I told you I couldn’t bear it if I never heard that sound again. No one else has a laugh like yours.”

  “Come on,” I said, kissing his cheek. “Let’s go back to my flat.”

  He opened the rear door of his car to let the dogs jump inside, while I fished in the pockets of my coat for my own car keys. I glanced up to find him grinning at me through the fading light. “Now, there’s an offer that is definitely heaven-sent.”

  I woke up at eight-thirty on Sunday morning, having sneaked an extra hour with Dan the night before because of the hour change. Dan had stayed for a couple of wonderful, passionate hours, but had been happy enough to leave just before nine and go home to get his father’s supper. I’d gotten myself ready for bed and prepared myself for the turmoil of family life I was about to reenter.

  Grant was sitting in the kitchen, fully dressed and drinking orange juice when I appeared downstairs ready for the day ahead. He ignored me and carried on reading the Sunday paper that he had spread out on the breakfast bar. I could hear the children in the playroom and slipped past him to say good morning to the brood.

  “You look remarkably fresh, considering your late night,” Karen commented. She was eating a croissant and had a cup of coffee on the playroom table next to her.

  The thought crossed my mind that it was having spent time with Dan that had refreshed me. When I’d arrived back as Jessica the previous day I’d felt terrible—until I’d spent a while by myself and then with Dan.

  The children were clustered around the table drawing busily. “The others saw that fantastic picture Teddy did of you,” Karen said through a mouthful of flaky crumbs. “They’re competing to see if they can do anything as good.”

  I went to each of the children in turn, resting my hand on the tops of their heads as they bent over their pictures.

  The feel of their glossy hair beneath my fingers made me feel warm inside.

  “It is amazing, isn’t it?” I commented, sitting on a low chair next to them and watching the children draw. “Teddy is only four and he’s definitely gifted.”

  “Mozart was a musical genius at the age of four,” Karen said. “I don’t think age has anything to do with it. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

  My mind turned to what Lauren’s lover had told me the previous night about Teddy being put into a home, and my stomach lurched at the thought.

  “Do you know which school Grant and I were thinking of sending the boys to? The girls go to a private girls’ school, don’t they? Grant has showed me where it is so I’ll be able to take them tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, they had their half-term break a week earlier than the local schools,” Karen said, licking flakes of croissant off her lips. “I’m not sure what they, er—you’d—settled on for the boys. At the moment the twins go to a small independent school with a nursery attached. I assumed they’d stay on through the main school. You’ll have to ask Grant about it.”

  “I don’t think he’s speaking to me.”

  “Oh.” She sipped her coffee, looking thoughtful. “Well, you are bound to have begun trying to find somewhere suitable by now if the boys aren’t staying on there. You are usually very organized. Why don’t you try going through your desk? It’s where you would normally keep information about things like this.”

  “I don’t think I realized before how talented Teddy is,” I said, glad to follow Karen’s lead in continuing the pretense that I’d merely lost my memory. “I think Grant and I should find somewhere that specializes in art.”

  She nodded. “I agree. This picture of you is unbelievably accurate.” She peered into my face. “He’s made the eyes an unusual color, though; an interesting mixture of blue over green.”

  I blushed, even though she knew the truth. It was difficult keeping the lie going when Karen knew everything I said was an invention. I felt rather as if I were an inexperienced actress in a play who was frantically ad-libbing while Karen had my actual lines in front of her.

  “When are we leaving?” Sophie asked suddenly, looking up from her picture.

  “Leaving?”

  “She means leaving here, for church,” Karen explained. “Remember, I told you the family go to church every Sunday, to the ten o’clock service.”

  I glanced at Lauren’s expensive watch and realized it was past nine. “I don’t know… what time do we usually leave?”

  Grant appeared in the playroom doorway. “We leave at half past nine. On the dot, so please make sure the children are ready, Lauren.”

  His voice was cool, and he was obviously still very upset by everything that had happened the previous night. I turned to face him. “Anything else I should know?”

  “The Sunday roast should be in the oven before we go. There’s a joint of pork in the fridge. I took it out of the freezer last night. I had a feeling you might not remember we had a roast lunch on Sundays.”

  “At least you believe me at last.”

  “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

  “Not really,” I said, turning my back on him. He was right; he didn’t have much choice after hearing me talking to my supposed lover last night.

  “I’ll start the lunch while you are out,” Karen whispered as Grant disappeared into the hall. “You go and get ready for church. And put a blouse or something over those bruises on your upper arms or you’ll have all the old dears gossiping for weeks.”

  I gazed down in surprise at the tops of my arms where Grant had shaken me in agitation last night during our heated argument in the garage. I hadn’t realized he’d done it so hard.

  Back in the bedroom, I surveyed the bruises more carefully in the dressing table mirror. There was a small blue circle on each side where Grant’s thumb had dug into my flesh. After rummaging through Lauren’s dressing room I changed out of the slacks and sleeveless top I’d put on earlier, into a smart designer skirt, blouse, and jacket, then surveyed myself critically in the mirror. The singed hair was hardly noticeable, but there was a dark shadow near the scalp where Lauren’s highlights were beginning to grow out. I ran my finger down the center part and wondered how often Lauren had her roots retouched.

  Another thought struck me then. Karen’s hair was brown, not blond like her sister’s. Was it possible that Lauren wasn’t a natural blonde? The thought excited me. I hadn’t adjusted to being blond very well, and if Lauren wasn’t a true blonde then I could grow it out and feel more like my real self. I remembered thinking that in the picture of Lauren on her wedding day her hair had been a lot fairer than it was now. Perhaps she’d had it bleached for the big day.

  I was still thinking about my hair when I wandered into the dressing room and opened Lauren’s desk. There was a drawer where I’d noticed a pile of glossy magazines, and I leafed through them, wondering how I should wear my hair once it had been returned to its natural color.

  “Are you ready, Lauren? It’s time we were going,” Grant shouted up the stairs.

  I jumped guiltily. Not only had I allowed Karen to start the lunch for me, I had also neglected to check that the children were clean and tidy; or that they had eaten sufficient breakfast or been to the toilet. Grant might have thought Lauren wasn’t a particularly maternal person, but she must nor
mally work a lot harder than I was managing in her stead. I admitted to myself with a pang of inadequacy that if Karen hadn’t arrived when she had, the children wouldn’t have had breakfast on time all week.

  I was about to stuff the magazines hastily back into the drawer when a letter fell loose from inside one and drifted to the floor. Bending to retrieve it, my gaze alighted on the heading at the top and my breath felt as if it had frozen solid in my chest. Running my eyes over the typed print, I felt a mixture of anger and fear.

  The letter was from a home in Kent for brain-damaged children, inviting Mrs. Richardson to an informal inspection of their facilities with a view to placing her son Edward in their care.

  chapter thirteen

  The church was some degrees warmer than the one I had been dragged to as a child. The vicar, rather than being a stuffy, self-opinionated old man, was a woman in her thirties who seemed friendly and approachable. The service appeared to be tailored for families, and the children sat quietly in the long wooden pews, with the exception of Teddy, who wandered about in the aisle without attracting any signs of disapproval from the rest of the congregation. Grant, who had been sitting for a while with his son on his lap, whispered that Teddy always did this. If we tried to stop him he would scream, shout, and throw himself on the floor. I had yet to witness that side of our child’s behavior, although having seen one of his nightmares I had a good idea what one of Teddy’s tantrums might be like.

  At one point in the service the congregation was given the opportunity to pray quietly, and I scuffled down onto the hard kneeler, squeezed my eyes closed, and let my thoughts wander. In that moment of quiet contemplation, I found myself wondering if the omnipotent forces of the universe thought I was doing a good job of being Lauren. To my own surprise, I realized as I sat in that quiet place that it mattered to me very much that I was.

  “I wish You would send a sign that I’m doing the right thing,” I prayed dreamily. “There has to be some point to all this, doesn’t there?”

  A warm hand touched my arm and I opened my eyes to find Teddy smiling at me. Because I was kneeling, our faces were at the same level, and I found myself gazing directly into his sea-green eyes. Sophie and Toby also had those mesmerizing green-gray eyes inherited from their father, along with variations of his reddish brown hair color. Only Nicole had her mother’s blue ones and the light mouse-brown hair that I suspected lay beneath my own highlighted locks.