by Fanny Blake
Emma had come in late from school and had gone straight to her room to change. The laptop under her arm suggested she wouldn’t be seen until supper, Facebook being so much more alluring than any conversation with her mother and Oliver. Matt had followed her in, bouncing a football down the hall. Ellen had felt Oliver wince as it rolled down the stairs to the basement. He picked it up and shoved it into a cupboard. She smiled to herself, knowing his sharp ‘tut’ came as he struggled with the door as the cupboard’s contents fought to get out.
Matt was oblivious to the fate of his ball as he jumped down the stairs two at a time, his school bag bumping against the banisters. He submitted to Ellen’s hug before untangling himself to head straight for the fridge. His over-long trousers wrinkled over his scuffed lace-ups, his shirt was untucked from his waistband and his tie hung from a trouser pocket.
‘Matt, we’re about to have supper . . .’
‘Why so early? I want to see that Top Gear we recorded last night. Anyway, I’m starving.’ He poured himself a glass of milk and took a Twix from the biscuit tin.
‘Em’s going out, that’s why. Matt! Must you put your feet on the seat? Someone’s going to sit there.’
‘But they’re not now, though, are they?’ He moved them as Ellen advanced with a floor cloth in her hand. ‘Anyway, guess what? I’ve been picked for the first team tomorrow. Billy’s been dropped and I’m in.’ He high-fived her.
‘I thought you were looking pleased.’ The years had taught her exactly how much being selected meant to Matt. ‘That’s fantastic.’
‘So will you come and watch the match?’ The eagerness in his face willing her to say ‘yes’ almost broke her heart.
‘You know I want to more than anything, but I can’t.’ She went to pull the lasagne out of the oven.
‘You never do.’ He jumped off the chair and headed for the stairs.
‘That’s not fair. I would if I could.’
‘I know – it’s the bloody gallery’s fault. Again.’
‘Matt!’
Then Oliver intervened: ‘I’d like to come. Would you accept me as a substitute?’
He had slipped in his request before Ellen could reprimand Matt for his language. She saw the pleasure in Matt’s eyes at the idea of having someone to cheer him on, although he was grudging in his acceptance nonetheless.
‘Yeah. OK. As long as you cheer for the right team.’
‘What do you take me for? A complete numbskull? Of course I will. That’s settled, then. And perhaps your mum could go next time. What do you think?’
‘She won’t. She never does.’
‘Well, maybe we’ve got some news for you that you’ll like.’ Oliver smiled at him. ‘No, I won’t tell you. Not yet. And I’ve got tickets for the Arsenal match next week.’
‘Wicked!’ Matt’s face lit up.
‘Your name’s on one of them if you lay the table.’ He held out the knives and forks, which were ripped from his hand.
Five minutes later, the four of them were sitting down together. Emma was silent, eating rapidly, the quicker to get out of the house. Ellen had refrained from commenting on the skimpiness of her skirt, which barely covered her bum, or on her almost sheer glittery top. Didn’t she feel the cold? Matt and Oliver were discussing the finer points of Fabregas’s game. Ellen was finding it impossible to do anything other than play with the food on her plate, knowing that what she was about to say to them would mean things could never be the same again. But, she told herself for the umpteenth time, this was what she wanted to do. As they came to the end of the course, she cleared her throat and decided to plunge in before Emma disappeared through the front door.
‘Listen, kids.’ She tried to control the forced jollity she could hear in her voice. ‘There’s something that Oliver and I want to tell you.’
‘What? Don’t tell me. Oliver’s moving in.’ Emma didn’t even look up but Ellen didn’t need to see her face to register her disdain.
‘Well, yes. But there’s more to it than that.’ Ellen had been preparing what she was going to say for the last forty-eight hours and, with one swipe, Emma had just taken her legs away.
‘How can there be? It’s been obvious that’s what you’ve been waiting for so you might as well get on with it.’ She still didn’t lift her head, her fingers moving below the table.
‘Would you mind not texting when I’m trying to talk to you?’ The hope and optimism that she had nervously brought to the table were leaving Ellen and into their place rushed anger. ‘I want to explain to you both how I hope things might work out.’
‘Whatever.’ Emma’s chair shrieked against the tiles as she stood up, taking her denim jacket from its back.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going out. I told you ages ago that I’m going to meet Freya.’
‘SIT DOWN!’ All three faces turned to Ellen in surprise. Even she couldn’t remember when she had last raised her voice to them. ‘NOW!’ Just in case there was any doubt about what she meant.
Shocked into submission, Emma returned to her seat, slipping her mobile into the pocket of her jacket and fingering her bead-drop earrings.
‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but I want you to listen all the same.’ Watching her daughter’s pinched, resentful face, Ellen regretted shouting. Their living arrangements were making her experience emotions that she was still too young to understand, so Ellen had at least to try to explain. She had never shied away from telling her children what she thought were the essential truths of life and this was every bit as important. This was the moment she had chosen to tell them, and she was going to do it – calmly.
‘I want you to understand how much Oliver means to me.’ She ignored the muttered ‘per-lease’ from her right. ‘But I also want you to know that him being here makes no difference to how much I love you both. I know Daddy would agree that if I’m happy you’ll be happier too. And Oliver being here does make me happy. Yes, Em. He does. That’s why he’s going to live here with us.’ She ignored her daughter’s furious look. ‘And he’ll make you happy too, if you give him a chance.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Emma stood up again. ‘You can do what you want, Mum, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it.’
‘I’m sure we’ll get used to one another,’ Oliver chipped in. ‘Look, I’m not going to take your mother away from you. In fact, we’ve decided that I’ll help her in the gallery on Saturdays so she can spend more time with you at the weekend.’
Ellen rather wished he’d left it to her to tell the children this. Too late.
‘The gallery!’ Emma’s face was suddenly suffused with colour. ‘So you’re not just content with the house and Mum, you’re getting in there too. That’s her special place.’ She dashed away a tear that ran down her cheek.
‘Em!’ Although shocked by the strength of Emma’s feelings, Ellen was also dismayed to realise how much her daughter must be hurting. She had never heard her speak to anyone like that. She went to embrace her but Emma twisted away, raising her left shoulder against her to shut her out.
‘Don’t touch me. I’m going out. I’ll stay at Freya’s tonight.’
‘When will you be back?’ Ellen asked hopelessly. ‘I’d thought we might all go to that new cartoon at the Vue tomorrow night.’
‘For God’s sake, Mum!’ Emma’s scorn was painful to hear. ‘I’m not ten any more. Take Matt. He’ll love it.’ And she was gone, so quickly that Ellen had no time even to ask her to change her skirt.
‘Well, that went well,’ offered Oliver. ‘What about you, Matt? Think it’s a good idea?’
‘It’s OK,’ Matt muttered, although he looked shaken by the fall-out between his mother and sister. Ellen was aware of him watching her, his face screwed up into a frown. ‘Do you think Em’ll come back?’
‘Of course she will, darling. She’s just got to get used to the idea.’ Yes, given time, Emma would find other things to obsess her; what was happening at home would eventually
take second, third or fourth place.
‘Oliver? Will you be getting a season ticket for Arsenal if you’re going to be living here?’
They laughed.
‘Maybe, just maybe, I will. You never know.’ To Ellen’s ear, Oliver didn’t sound terribly convincing but Matt didn’t notice.
‘Wicked! Can I watch that Top Gear now?’
Ellen gave in. ‘Go on, then.’
As they watched him take the stairs two at a time, the only one of them still smiling was Oliver.
Chapter 33
As Ellen let herself in through the front door on Wednesday evening, she was thinking about the success of Jed’s show when she noticed that all the paintings in the hallway had been moved around. She looked up the stairs to see that the familiar pictures that belonged there had been changed too. Oliver must have rehung her entire collection. She sat at the foot of the stairs, giving herself a moment in which to ready herself for the evening ahead. However well meant, his inability to leave her house alone was getting too much. She usually looked forward to coming home but she knew the atmosphere downstairs between him and Emma would be tense, Matt would be unhappy, and she would have to referee as well as being grateful for Oliver’s latest efforts.
In the few days since he’d moved in, he had already reordered the kitchen drawers (‘so much easier to find everything’), moved her books around (‘alphabetical means you can find them’), tidied away things she wanted to places where they couldn’t be found (‘a tidy house is a tidy mind’). Without intending to, he was turning the place into something that no longer felt like her home. Why didn’t she say anything? She’d asked herself that question over and over again. The answer boiled down to her fear of any conversation that would confirm her deep-rooted suspicion that, by overreacting to Bea’s interfering, she had made a snap decision that was too difficult to unpick without causing more damage. Loss of face with her ex-friends was one thing, but to go back on everything she’d said to the kids, the promise of a happy future together that she’d held out to them . . . that didn’t bear thinking about.
Any laughter and shared family pleasures seemed further away than ever. And, if she had to acknowledge the truth, the problem didn’t lie with her or the children but with Oliver. She had imagined that he would approach them and the whole house with the sensitivity and charm that had attracted her to him in the first place. How wrong she’d been. Ever since he had arrived with his suitcase and taken his things to her room, she had felt uneasy. Fortunately, his judicious editing of her wardrobe meant that there was now plenty of room for his clothes. As she watched him hang his suits, jackets and trousers in Simon’s side of the cupboard, she felt a renewed familiar ache at the loss of her husband. Would it never go away? Somehow Oliver’s physical presence in the space that had only ever been occupied by Simon made his absence more final. Oliver in her bed was one thing. His using Simon’s cupboards and drawers, putting his toothbrush into the slot that had always held Simon’s suddenly seemed something else altogether. She told herself not to be so stupid.
The only thing that hadn’t changed was the sex. Behind the bedroom door, Oliver was as attentive and loving as ever. When she was alone with him, although she rarely was now there was no flat to run to, Ellen still knew exactly why she wanted to spend her life with him. But outside the bedroom, he was a different man. The dual nature of his personality completely baffled her. If she tried to approach him about it, he changed the subject, persuading her that they had done the right thing, but he was tense about his lack of a job, his relationship with the children. Yet, despite all his earlier promises, he appeared to do nothing about rectifying either. Not wanting to accept that things might have gone wrong so fast, she was nonetheless beginning to wonder who the stranger she had let into her home really was.
She roused herself, knowing she couldn’t sit on the stairs all evening. After all, she was the one who kept the show on the road. Without her to keep the wheels of the family oiled, everything would grind to a halt or, at the rate they were going, crash. She always consoled herself with the thought that perhaps the next evening would be different. Eventually something would have to snap into place to make things work. As she approached the top of the basement stairs, stopping to look at the pictures Oliver had chosen to hang there, she realised he had done her a favour. Seeing the paintings and prints in their new positions made her look at them in a new light. She paused in front of the Caroline Fowler print she’d bought for herself as a reminder of her meeting Oliver.
Absorbed in Fowler’s trademark vibrant colours, she was brought back to earth by Oliver and Emma shouting at each other. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but as she raced to the stairs, she heard the unmistakable and shocking sound of a slap, followed by a silence, then Emma yelling, ‘If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you.’
Ellen dropped her bag and ran down the stairs to be confronted by her daughter, a hand pressed to her right cheek, her eyes welling with angry tears. ‘Mum!’
‘Whatever’s going on?’
Oliver was standing by the french windows, his face flushed, his body rigid. He was rubbing his right hand against his thigh and in the left he held a tiny orange jumper. Startled by Ellen’s appearance, his expression changed. The anger that she had read in his narrowed eyes and clenched jaw immediately mutated into something approaching shame and embarrassment. If anything, he reminded her of a dog which knew it had been caught doing something wrong. Then, just as quickly, his self-confidence began to reassert itself.
‘I’m so sorry. I snapped. I should never have done that. I’m sorry, Em. I really am. But it is my favourite jumper.’
Ellen remembered the gorgeous burnt-orange sweater that he had worn when they had eaten out a couple of nights earlier. A tiny bit of her wanted to laugh at its demise but the situation demanded a different response.
‘I was only trying to help.’ Emma choked out the words between sobs. ‘I didn’t know it was in the basket.’
Ellen instinctively went straight to her, putting a protective arm around her shoulders, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She could feel the tension in her daughter’s body yield a little. Matt sidled over to stand beside them, the three of them together.
‘You hit Em because your precious jumper’s been shrunk?’ She spoke slowly, weighing every word, disbelieving and outraged. ‘Is that what this is about?’
‘It was a mistake.’
‘Damn right it was a mistake. Are you OK, Em?’ She got a nod and a sniff for a reply. ‘Good. Then why don’t you guys go upstairs and watch a bit of telly? I think Oliver and I have some things we need to say to each other.’
As the children trooped upstairs, Ellen could hear the clicking of Oliver’s nails, one against another. Her own hands were shaking, her fury making her feel sick. She sat at the table, shocked to the core that she could have misread Oliver’s character so completely. She contained herself until she thought Matt and Emma were out of earshot, then spoke, her voice soft but icy clear. ‘How dare you lay a finger on either of them? I know she can be difficult but nothing gives you the right to punish them like that. Nothing.’
‘Ellen. Calm down. It’s not as bad as it looks. It was just a tap and she’s overreacting.’ A hint of a smile hovered on his lips, then disappeared as he realised she was not going to be so easily reconciled.
‘A tap! Since when did you start “tapping” my children?’ She felt as if she might explode with anger.
‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry and I am. I truly am. It won’t happen again. I’d spent the last half-hour trying to talk to her and she snubbed every attempt. She was sullen and rude. When I saw what she’d done to my jumper, it was the last straw.’
‘But this is a difficult time for her. You’re an adult, for God’s sake, and you should be able to understand. As for your jumper, she didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘Are you sure?’ He pulled out a chair and sat opposite her, his expression designed to appea
l to her sense of fair play. He laid the jumper between them.
‘You’re suggesting that she deliberately ruined it?’ She spoke with disbelief. It certainly wasn’t beyond Emma to have put the jumper in the wash on purpose, but even so, Oliver was way out of order.
‘Nothing would surprise me. She hates me.’
‘You’re a grown man, not a two-year-old,’ she spat. At that moment she knew for certain that bringing Oliver into their lives had been a terrible mistake. And the sooner she undid the arrangement, the better for all of them. It was as if a light had been switched on and she could see the way forward at last. With the realisation came a new strength of purpose. Everything had changed between them in the last fifteen minutes. Never mind what had happened over the last few months, his unforgivable lack of control had brought things to a head. Without thinking, Oliver had given her the opportunity to put things right. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep herself steady.
‘I think we need to talk. Don’t say anything.’ She stood up and walked over to the sink where she leaned with her back against the worktop. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few days—’
‘I know I haven’t been myself,’ he interrupted, apologetic, pushing his chair back.
Ellen raised both her hands, palms towards him, signalling that she didn’t want him near her. ‘Just listen to what I’ve got to say.’ She spoke slowly, with purpose. ‘Your moving in here isn’t making any of us happy. The children are miserable and the atmosphere’s unbearable. I’ve tried so hard and really hoped things would change and we could make it work, but now this. I’m sorry, but I think it’s better to end things now, before they get any worse.’ There. She’d said it.
