by K. L. Slater
Chapter Four
‘Mum, when will tea be ready?’ My daughter stands at the door, her face grim as she registers that nothing is yet being prepared. ‘I’m starving and you said—’
‘Yes, yes. I know what I said. Here.’ I open a cupboard and throw her a packet of crisps. ‘Eat these and tea will be ready in ten minutes.’
She regards me suspiciously through narrowed eyes. ‘A snack before tea?’
‘I know,’ I say, ashamed of breaking one of my own healthy-eating rules. ‘But I know how hungry you are and something important just came up.’
Maisie tears open the bag and pops a crisp into her mouth.
‘What just came up?’
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ I say, pulling a packet of fish fingers out of the freezer. ‘Something unexpected has cropped up at work and I’ll have to go into the office when your dad finally decides to come home.’
‘I’ll be OK watching TV, you know,’ she says, licking a salty finger. ‘Until Dad gets back, I mean.’
I place three fish fingers on a baking tray and hesitate.
‘I’m ten now, Mum. And I can call you if I need to. I’ll be fine.’
I chop half a sweet potato into small wedges and drizzle over olive oil as I think it through.
Maisie is right. She’s very sensible and I’m sure Shaun will be back soon. There have been a couple of instances lately when he’s disappeared off doing his own thing, but to be fair, he’s usually reliable. He probably won’t be very long; he’ll have just got held up somewhere.
Maisie waits for my decision, holding her breath. She’d love nothing more than for me to treat her as a grown-up.
You should stop worrying so much, give her a bit more space. Shaun’s frequent observation rings in my ears.
‘I’ll see,’ I say, sliding the baking tray into the oven. ‘Maybe Dad will be back before I have to decide.’
‘OK…’ She draws the word out as she slinks off down the hallway, the resignation audible in her voice.
I stand by the sink and stare into the garden. The lawn has stopped growing now and the beech hedge at the bottom is beautiful in its fully burnished winter foliage. The garden has always been Shaun’s job, but I guess under our new sharing arrangement, I’ll have to show willing come spring.
I pick up my phone and call him again. It goes straight to voicemail.
I text Joanne.
Just trying to sort childcare. Should be there v soon. Emma.
I don’t really know why I just did that. It’s looking highly unlikely that I’m going to get cover for my daughter. Several of Maisie’s friends live close by, but I’m not on a drop-in basis with any of their mums; play dates and sleepovers are always pre-planned.
Deeper friendships are made and developed at pick-up and drop-off times. I’m always rushing in and rushing out again, no time to dally or talk about the next meet-up for coffee and cake.
It would be seen as a bit rich for me to ask more of the other mums when I clearly can’t give anything back myself.
So I exist on a civil, pleasant level with them that never moves beyond that.
It’s suited me up until now. Three years ago, when I was desperately trying to recover from everything that happened, I naturally became more withdrawn, more insular. My social life has never properly recovered.
I glance at my watch. Please, please, let Shaun come home soon, I pray silently. Or let Mum at least call back.
If I leave in ten minutes, I can still get there for six, the time Joanne said she’ll wait until. If I lose this job to one of the other paralegals, it will be an amazing opportunity missed. I just can’t let that happen.
Waiting for Maisie’s fish fingers and wedges to cook feels like forever, but in a few minutes, I’m carrying her tea into the lounge on a tray.
She’s showing me her school reading book and explaining something about the story. I nod, my mind a blur and unable to actively listen.
There’s been no sight or sound of Shaun or of Mum, and a glance at my watch tells me it’s now my last chance to leave in time to get to the office for six.
Maisie is settled at last, eating her tea and watching television. She has her reading book and the phone nearby if she needs me. She can lock the back door behind me and keep the key in the lock in case she has to get out of the house in an emergency.
Shaun should be home any time, and anyway, I’ll only be an hour or two, tops.
This is a brilliant chance for me to impress Joanne Dent and make my mark on a high-profile case, securing a glowing career that will have a positive impact on my family.
It’s a no-brainer, surely… if I can only convince myself to leave my ten-year-old daughter alone in the house.
Chapter Five
Val
Everyone remembered their own childhood differently and it wasn’t something you necessarily had control over. Val realised that.
If her own dear mother was alive today, she’d probably recall things in a way that Val herself had an entirely different recollection of.
But she worried that with her own daughter, Emmeline, it was more than that. She was prone to imagining things. She had this tendency to exaggerate events and hold them in her mind until needed; like a weapon to use against others.
Something to rest blame on when the mood took her.
Over the years, Val had read articles in various newspapers about how adults, after embarking on therapy, had ‘recovered’ memories of apparent abuse that other family members denied ever happened.
These adult children had believed in their recovered trauma so completely that some had gone on to immediately estrange themselves from their now elderly parents.
It wasn’t quite that dramatic with Emmeline, thank goodness, but it still worried Val that her only daughter demonised her father in such an aggressive way. As the years marched on, it seemed to only get worse as Emmeline’s ‘memories’ became more vivid.
It was true that Eric had not been perfect as a husband or a father. Val was the first to admit it.
He drank too much and often staggered home inebriated after yet another lock-in drinking session down the Dog and Duck, his local pub.
He had the manners of a pig at the dinner table and he’d been known to bet away bill money down at the bookies, leaving Val in a state of desperation when threats came in to cut off the electricity and water yet again.
But it had to be said that Eric was also a grafter and had been so all his life.
When he and Val first met, like most of the men in the small Nottinghamshire village, he’d worked at the nearby Bentinck pit, mining coal. They got engaged quickly, and within three years, they were married with a newborn baby daughter, christened Emmeline Rose. Unlike some men at that time, Eric had been happy they had a girl.
‘I’d never wish that black hole on any of my kids,’ he said, studying the dust on his knuckles, ingrained so deep it could no longer be scrubbed off. ‘And I can rest assured now that our lass won’t have to.’
Eric had worked his way up to the coalface by that time, and the family enjoyed the fruits of his labour. They moved from a long, narrow terraced house on an unmade road in Annesley Woodhouse, to a nice three-bedroom bungalow on Cavendish Crescent. There was a neat private garden at the rear, and the front faced onto fields and the village hall.
Val felt like the lady of the manor as she found herself the envy of her friends and family, who all still lived in houses like the one she’d just left.
Eric had turned thirty by this time, which was young for a man to reach the rank of face worker. It was the best-paid non-managerial role in the pit and required the miner to crawl in the tiniest, most claustrophobic and dusty spaces. In return, the job provided the highest salary and unlimited overtime opportunities.
Valerie, five years younger than Eric, enjoyed a certain status in her own family and amongst the local people.
As a couple, they were working hard and doing well in life.
They took an annual holiday and kept a comfortable home with all mod cons, and that was what the people around them valued most in those days.
So although there were things Val might have changed given the chance, she hadn’t got a lot to complain about, certainly compared to some of her friends who hadn’t been so lucky in their choice of partner.
Yet to hear Emmeline talk, she’d been dragged up on a rough estate and told she’d never amount to anything.
That wasn’t how Val remembered it at all. Eric had been keen on discipline and Val hadn’t always approved of his methods. She also knew that she herself had been a hard taskmaster at times. But it had come from a good place; she wanted Emmeline to be the best she could be. It was a hard world out there and it had been up to them to prepare her for it.
If Eric had seemed overly critical of their daughter, it was only grounded in the belief that she had the wherewithal to make something of herself.
Therefore, when Emmeline announced she’d decided to study sociology at university, he had not been at all impressed.
‘Never mind all these flaming useless ologies, it’s just utter nonsense they make up these days. You should at least go for something solid, like English, or maths, or science. You’re a bright lass with the world at your feet, but sign up to study a load of twaddle and you’ll never make owt of yourself, my girl. Mark my words.’
Val had been there the first time he said it, had heard it all and the positive intention behind it.
But it seemed Emmeline had only ever retained the last eleven words and had been obsessed with trying to prove him wrong ever since.
No matter what the cost to herself and her family.
In Val’s opinion, that was how her daughter had got herself into a pickle at Clayton and McCarthy. Emmeline had fostered such great hopes for her career prospects there, seeing it as a chance to prove her father wrong.
It was one thing being ambitious, but to be ruthlessly ambitious… well, that was when things could turn nasty. As they had done for Emmeline.
Despite her insistence to the contrary, Val doubted her daughter was over it at all, even now. In some twisted way, the trauma of that experience had probably contributed to the break-up of her marriage to Shaun.
Emmeline thought she’d got it sorted with this daft ‘split up but stay together’ arrangement, but Val wasn’t at all convinced.
Such things often appeared to work well at the outset, but emotions were tricky things. They couldn’t simply be dampened down and controlled at will.
Val felt sure it wouldn’t be long before there were ructions.
She just hoped and prayed that nobody got hurt in the process. Specifically her beloved little Maisie.
Chapter Six
Maisie
She lay in bed and listened to the tick tock tick tock of her pink Beauty and the Beast clock.
She was too grown up for it now. Last week when Sandeep came over for tea after school, Maisie slipped it into her bedside drawer before her friend could spot it. When Sandeep had gone home, she took it out again, because despite her embarrassment, she wasn’t ready to get rid of it yet.
The alarm on it played the theme tune to the film and was set to go off at 7.30 each morning. It was only 6.45 right now, so she had plenty of time to lie here and think.
The rhythmic ticking soothed her. It felt reliable and safe.
Things seemed to be changing at home, although Maisie couldn’t say precisely how. But things were definitely happening between Mum and Dad. Bad things.
Also, Mum had been acting a bit weird.
When she picked her up from dancing last night, Maisie spoke to her twice but she didn’t reply, just stared out of the window as if there were other things on her mind.
Dad had come home very late last night. Maisie had finally dropped off to sleep after tossing and turning for what seemed like hours waiting for him. When she woke in the early hours, she heard her parents arguing in their bedroom. She put the pillow over her head and hummed her favourite Ariana Grande song over and over until they’d stopped.
Before Dad got in, her mum had been moody all night, trying to do her work on her lap on the sofa because he hadn’t stuck to his promise to look after Maisie.
‘I’ll be fine watching television if you want to go and work up in the office, Mum,’ Maisie had offered.
‘It’s fine,’ her mum said tersely. ‘Your dad might be happy leaving you to your own devices, but I like to know you’re safe and cared for.’
That wasn’t really fair. Usually Dad never left her on her own. It was just that he’d been out quite a bit the last two days.
He had peered into her room on his way to bed, and when he saw she was awake, even though it was massively late, he’d sat on the end of her bed and told Maisie some exciting news.
‘I can’t say too much at the moment, but life is going to get much better soon, poppet. Then there’ll be nice treats in store for you all the time.’
Maisie wondered what the treats might be and if Mum would share in them too.
Best-case scenario would definitely be that they got her a dog, although in reality, she knew that unless her mum was planning on giving up work, it wouldn’t be fair to have a pet as it would be left alone for too long.
Perhaps a holiday, then. Maisie had always dreamed of going to Disney World in Florida because nobody laughed at you for loving Disney films there; even adults could get away with acting like kids.
Excitement burned briefly in her chest, until she realised what a nightmare a holiday might turn into. Being stuck in a room with her parents shooting vicious looks at each other and hissing nasty things under their breath wasn’t Maisie’s idea of fun.
Maybe a family holiday wasn’t the best thing to wish for at the moment.
Mum seemed to get so angry lately, so angry that Maisie thought not even Disney could make it all better.
Chapter Seven
Emma
I wake up at midnight, and that’s when I hear the telltale signs: the creaking of the third and sixth stairs, the suppressed cough, the landing light shining through a crack in the door.
Shaun is finally home.
My breaths immediately become shallow. It took me ages to get to sleep earlier, the fury and frustration coursing through my veins like wind through a tunnel.
In the end I decided I couldn’t leave Maisie on her own; of course I couldn’t. It was never a real consideration, I was just playing with myself, letting myself believe for a few hopeful minutes that I might still be able to fulfil Joanne’s request and somehow get into work.
I can’t imagine how Joanne, as a single mother, pulls it off. She probably has a vast network of family members to help her out. I’ve never known her call in because her daughter is ill or the childminder has let her down.
I waited and waited last night, willing my phone to ring, but there was radio silence. Shaun didn’t answer any of my calls or texts. There was simply no response from him at all. Likewise, I heard nothing from my mum.
Finally I was forced to text my apologies to Joanne and say I wouldn’t be able to make it in after all. She didn’t reply.
‘Anyone would think I’m five years old or something,’ Maisie said moodily when I told her I’d be staying home. ‘Carla Bridges’ mum leaves her on her own every Saturday night until eleven thirty and she’s in my class.’
I push the nugget of disturbing information from my mind. That can stay on Carla Bridges’ mum’s conscience. I don’t want it on mine.
It occurs to me that a couple of months ago, if Shaun hadn’t come home or sent word that he’d be late, I’d have been out of my mind with worry. I’d have had no problem creating a dozen awful scenarios as to where he might be: there had been an accident of some sort, someone had stolen his phone, he was lying in hospital unconscious…
But since our mutual decision to split, I’ve somehow subconsciously erected an internal barrier that prevents me from becoming as invested in his
life.
I wonder now if that barrier has provided free rein for him to look elsewhere for a relationship.
It’s not myself I’m worried about if he’s spending time with someone else, but Maisie. This was to be a fresh start for her and her dad to spend some quality time together.
My fingers find the edge of the quilt cover in the dark and I twist the fabric tightly until it feels like it might tear.
I guess in the end we both wanted different things. We’ve always been polar opposites in our ambition: his ambivalence to his career, my obsession with my own. After a while, it was just easier to carry on on our own individual paths than to forge one together.
So now I’m able to evaluate the situation logically and calmly. Although I’m still fond of him, I no longer love him. Shaun is an adult, Maisie’s father. A man who has recently made a willing commitment to our new arrangement and has sadly already let me down very badly.
Earlier, I just felt annoyance and an overwhelming sense of the unfairness of it all: that he could prove to be so unreliable at the exact time a perfect, rare opportunity arose to show my potential at work.
Unreliability wasn’t a side of him I’d been used to seeing, but I can’t help but wonder if he has already discovered a new sense of freedom.
At least Mum eventually returned my call at 8.30.
‘Hello, love, do you need me to have Maisie?’ she said breathlessly without waiting for an answer. ‘I’ve just got back home from the cinema. Kath and I went to see this lovely film. I forget the title now, but it had that northern actress in it. You know, the skinny one with the red hair who was in—’
‘It’s fine now, thanks, Mum,’ I say quickly, intercepting one of her lengthy rants. ‘I just tried you on the off chance.’
‘You said it was something to do with work. Was it important?’ She sounds concerned.
