by Sue Watson
‘Come on, guys,’ he says now, corralling the boys. He turns and kisses me in his usual perfunctory way and heads for the door in a tidal wave of twins, and my heart sinks a little thinking how quickly they’ve grown and how I can’t believe they are now about to start Year 3.
‘Now be good today, boys. You have a new teacher, and a new classroom, so make sure you don’t forget and go to last year’s.’ I kiss them both. Apart from wanting to meet up with Jen this morning I would have loved to see them into their new classroom. Every moment is special with your children, and a new term is a watershed, so I’m sad not to deliver them today. ‘Are you sure you can take them, Simon, it won’t be a problem for me?’ I almost plead.
He looks at me quite sternly. ‘Marianne, I thought we’d just talked about it.’
I nod – he’s not budging on this, but it’s nice for them to have their dad there instead and of course it gives me time to try and make headway on the house and tonight’s meal.
‘Busy day, darling?’ I ask, indicating I’ve moved on, and he won’t have any more trouble from me. I follow them all into the hallway, genuinely intrigued about my husband’s day; a difficult operation might explain why he’s been glued to his phone all weekend. He barely spoke to anyone at the barbecue on Saturday, and tea with his mother on Sunday was quite torturous as she’d looked disapprovingly at the boys pushing crustless finger sandwiches up their nostrils. Simon did nothing. But then why should he? She blames me for their behaviour. And I blame her for Simon’s.
‘Is everything… okay…?’ I mumble now, not meeting his eyes as I pick up a comb from the hall table and comb Charlie’s hair vigorously. He screeches his disapproval, putting my teeth on edge.
‘Of course, why shouldn’t it be?’ he says, and I hear the snap in his voice. I’m asking about work, but I’m really looking for clues, a sign that something’s not quite in place.
‘You’re fussing, Marianne,’ he says.
‘Yeah, stop fussing, Mum,’ Charlie repeats, squirming from under my comb.
Given my previous ‘difficulties’, I don’t want Simon to get wind of this, so keep my voice bright and breezy – which probably has the opposite effect. ‘I’m sorry, I was just asking…’
‘Well, for your information, Theatre 33 is booked out for the day, could be eight hours.’ He sighs, and I nod, torn between wonder and envy. How amazing to work inside someone’s body. My husband opens up chest cavities, reaches in and heals hearts, holding them in his hands, walking the tightrope between life and death. I can barely comprehend this. How I wish I could concentrate long enough to even contemplate it; I find it hard enough to sew a few pieces of fabric together – let alone a human body.
Within seconds, my family have disappeared to start their day and I close the front door as silence overwhelms me like a thick blanket. I’m left alone to worry about Sophie, the boys’ first day in a new class – and the way my husband’s mouth moved over the name ‘Caroline’. I walk back into my beautiful kitchen and wonder if I’m right, or am I mad and have no real feeling or instinct any more? Has the Mirtazapine I take for my anxiety flattened me again, or has something else excised the throbbing life from my chest cavity? Perhaps, ironically, I need a surgeon to fix my heart and make me well again?
I put the juice glasses into the dishwasher one by one and gaze around at the kitchen, smiling at all I have. I’m so lucky. I still love my husband after all the years. I love him with a blind passion that has no reason, no sense, and I’m aware that there are times I should be stronger, but I’m irrational where Simon’s concerned. As a child I’d never have dreamt a life like this could be mine and it’s all thanks to him – without Simon I have nothing. I am nothing.
Which is why I’m so very worried about Caroline. Young, talented Caroline.
Chapter Two
If you’d shown me a piece of video footage of the life I would live as an adult, I’d never have believed you. I grew up in a council house, the only child of a single mother who couldn’t cope with life and handed me to social workers when I was three. My childhood was a montage of foster homes, care facilities, free school meals and being bullied by other girls. I never wanted the same for my own children, and when I met Simon I knew he could give me and any children we had the family life I’d craved. And despite what lies underneath, the itching under my skin, the quiet torment in my head, I think I might finally be pulling it off.
Our life is like an article from a Sunday supplement: the children are gorgeous, my husband is handsome and on a good day I’m an attractive mum of three. We live in this beautiful home, and five pairs of Barbour wellingtons stand in the hall, from tiny ones covered in ducks for the boys, to Sophie’s florals to Simon’s large green ones. The children have grown out of theirs now, but just seeing them lined up waiting to be filled with little feet gives me a warm feeling inside, especially on bad days.
I adore my family and throw myself into everything, from a walk in the park together to the kids’ birthday parties. I make sure everyone is dressed for the occasion and the setting is perfect. The other day, me, Sophie and the boys went for a walk to the nearby village green to collect conkers and, being me, I turned it into a photo shoot. I insisted they wear their new matching Boden coats and scarves and when we bumped into a mum from school she smiled in awe. ‘Look at you. Three kids and you always look so good, and the kids too – like one of those families you see in magazines,’ she’d sighed, shaking her head in admiration.
I was delighted at the compliment, but as I waved goodbye, and we continued on for home, my heart dipped a little. If only she knew. Everything at Number 5 Garden Close, (described by the estate agents as ‘a prestigious family home set amongst magnificent private parkland’) is not all it seems. It’s bloody hard work being effortless and appearing to have everything under control, and it doesn’t come easy to me. There are days when I struggle with my own high expectations of myself. I can never really rest, never leave anything to chance, because for Simon everything has to be perfect. And who can blame him? As he points out, the last thing he needs when he walks through the door after a day from hell is to slip on a toy train, or be greeted by dirty, screaming kids and no dinner. I want everything in our home to be perfect and spent hours today just gazing at paint colours for the sitting room. I’ve found it really hard to focus but finally gone with the least controversial – House White. Apparently it’s a clean off-white with a fresh, citrus feel, and it made me feel cleansed just reading about it. I love the idea of a new, fresh white canvas on the walls, to cover everything up; a whitewash I suppose? But left to my own devices, I’d fill the house with splashes of colour – a shocking pink wall, mismatched cushions in primary colours, velvets and silks and tassels. I smile to myself as I drive to school to collect the boys. I can only imagine Simon’s reaction being faced with a bright pink wall; he’d say it was vulgar. He’d probably be right too. I used to be able to put colours together – my old art lecturer said I made colours ‘sing’ – but that was before I learned that Simon prefers a less-is-more approach. And one thing I’ve learned from therapy is that you have to compromise.
The mums in the playground are waiting for the kids and talking about holidays now as I stand on the periphery, slowly being accepted. As the children only started here in February, the middle of the school year, I’m still the new girl and will have to earn the privilege of automatic inclusion. It isn’t like I can just invite them all round for a glass of wine after school. Nor can I accept an after-school invitation for drinks in their gardens while the kids play on the lawn. Imagine if I wasn’t there when Simon came home? He’d be horrified, and even more so if he walked in on a gaggle of inebriated mothers and unleashed kids running wild in our garden. Since the boys started at the school I’ve received invites to charity coffee mornings, mums’ nights out, book clubs, Prosecco nights and everything in between. I’d love to say yes, but I don’t. It wouldn’t be fair on Simon to leave him babysitting the kids
after he’s been at work all day. Besides, I’m not stupid – these women don’t really want me at their ‘girly evenings’. I’m sure they’re just being polite and I’m only tolerated because of Simon. I’m the handsome surgeon’s wife and in spite of my limited socialising outside the school gate, my status affords me slight inclusion into the group because they want us both at their evening soirees. Simon describes these women as ‘pointless’, and as they chatter about school fees and scented candles, I see he has a point. I smile and nod at what they say, but I’m not really with them. I’m looking for Jen.
‘I saw your husband drop the children off this morning,’ Francesca says, like he’s some kind of rock star. She’s the alpha, and just like teenagers at school her ‘girls’ are around her, motivated only by her approval. She would probably have bullied me at school, but not now I’m married to a man who counts. ‘You are lucky, wish mine would give me a morning in bed,’ she adds, and the others laugh, not because it’s funny, but because she said it.
‘I wasn’t in bed, I was up baking bread at 6 a.m.,’ I say defensively, worried I might appear less than I am. I don’t want anyone to start thinking I’m ill again – not that they would know about the past. This is a new area; we’re starting afresh. I hear Simon’s voice: ‘No one need ever know, Marianne, as long as you behave.’
So I continue to defend my no-show on the first morning of a new term. Unforgivable.
‘Simon only dropped the boys off because he passes the school on his way…’ I say, still desperate to make my point. I am a good mother.
‘To the hospital… yes.’ Francesca smiles, looking me up and down. She’s wondering what he sees in me. She gave me the same look at her barbecue last term as she skewered raw meat and talked to Simon about Brexit. He loves to discuss politics, and world affairs, but it was laughable to watch Francesca’s attempt to be knowledgeable as her lashes batted and her spatchcock sizzled. I don’t even know why he agreed to go to her barbecue, but for once he said yes and effortlessly charmed everyone there.
I turn away, feeling exposed but then instantly relieved to see Jen teetering across the gravel, car keys in hand, waving and calling my name.
I want to run towards her, my salvation in this enclave of hard-edged, pink-lipsticked yummy mummies. Simon says the trouble with this school is the cliques of mothers, who seemingly all married well and behave like they won the lottery. ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Marianne. And believe me, those women are more sow than silk,’ he said. Unfortunately, Sophie overheard him saying this and called him ‘a fucking misogynist’, which really pissed him off. He was so upset by her language he told her she couldn’t go to her prom, and she cried and cried for days. Admittedly, he eventually gave in and let her go, but I think it took the shine off things for her and, in an attempt to make it up to her, he offered to pay all the cost of the shared limo. But this had the opposite effect and Sophie’s response to his kind offer was to tell him he couldn’t ‘make everything better with money’. I stayed out of it, but I felt so sorry for him on the night of the prom when she flew off down the road on the back of a motorbike with one of the boys from her year. Simon adores his children and doesn’t always get it right, but who does? Anyway, Jen told us she’d also gone to her prom on the back of a bike and it hadn’t done her any harm. I doubted she had – and even though Simon’s not her biggest fan it did the trick and seemed to placate him. Jen’s good that way; she has this knack of making you feel good about yourself – she reassures me and make me laugh, even when I’m feeling low. The other mums aren’t as much fun as Jen, but I’m sure once I’ve done my time and they accept me fully they will be fine, and Simon’s comments about them will prove to be a little unfair. Anyway, he never says anything to their faces, thank God! In fact, as I recall, it wasn’t just at her barbecue, but Simon didn’t seem to have a problem with flirty Francesca when he was partnered with her on the tombola at the school’s summer fete either. And I’ll never forget the way she never took her eyes off his while thrusting her hand into the tombola to fish out the winning tickets.
‘Hey, good to see you. Sorry you couldn’t make coffee this morning.’ Jen’s now hugging me hard, filling my nostrils with Fracas, the expensive French scent she often wears. It’s tuberose-based, sexy – very Jen. I haven’t seen her since the school picnic at the end of July, so we’ve lots to catch up on.
‘Yeah… sorry I couldn’t make coffee Jen, I had stuff to do,’ I say mysteriously, hoping it sounds like I have an exciting life and haven’t been cleaning and studying paint swatches all day.
‘Oh, it’s okay, Simon explained you weren’t feeling well, said you had a headache?’
‘Oh… yes… I had a headache as well, but mostly I had stuff to do,’ I added awkwardly. Why did he always say I was ill? Honestly, men just have no imagination when it comes to excuses. Only the weekend before last we’d been invited out for drinks round at a neighbour’s. Sophie was going out so there was no one to sit with the boys, but instead of explaining this and declining the invitation, Simon insisted one of us go along, nominated himself and told them I was in bed with a terrible headache. I had no idea until I bumped into the couple walking their dog, whose opening gambit was ‘goodness, should you even be out after being so poorly?’ After last year, I don’t want people thinking stuff about me again, and if this is a fresh start we both need to be honest about where I am. I know in the past Simon’s used ‘Marianne’s headaches’ as a cover-all. But I feel like everyone knew it was a euphemism. ‘Marianne has a headache again’ was, I’m sure, translated to ‘Marianne’s barking at the moon again.’
‘How was your holiday?’ I ask Jen, the usual September catch-up line. She and her husband Peter own about three properties: the almost-mansion they live in here, their weekend retreat in Cornwall and a farmhouse in France.
‘Glorious. In France the kids spent three weeks in the water. They were also vile, made too much noise and swore a lot… some words I’d never even heard before.’ Considering the youngest is only three, I feel this might be an exaggeration, but this is classic Jen. ‘Peter was grumpy and disgusting as usual,’ she goes on, ‘but fortunately we only had to have marital relations twice, and I was drunk both times, so barely remember it.’ She giggles.
Jen sometimes makes me gasp at the things she says and does, like when she sold the headmaster a kiss on Red Nose Day – and gave it to him – in more ways than one. It seems his wife wasn’t too pleased when she’d heard that tongues were involved and he certainly got more for his 50p than he’d bargained for. I know Simon thinks she’s vulgar, but I love Jen’s confidence. I suppose it’s because that’s something I’ve never really had. She’s also funny and warm and I love the way she includes me in intimate conversations like we’ve been friends forever.
She made a beeline for me last term when we first moved here and I didn’t know anyone. ‘Are you the surgeon’s wife?’ she’d asked, and I’d nodded, feeling a little frisson at the title, but at the same time a little embarrassed. Everyone notices Simon; it happens wherever we live. He just has this air about him. He’s very handsome and charming and when people find out what he does for a living they’re always impressed. We don’t always accept the many proffered social invitations. After a mad week at work, Simon’s often far too exhausted, but occasionally we’ll say yes to a dinner party or charity event and I’ll watch as other guests sit around the table in awe. Simon’s dark hair falls over his left eye as he speaks, his passion for his subject filling the air, thrumming through the room. His stories of life and death and in between always enthral – particularly the women. The hostesses want him at their dinner parties and barbecues, loving his dramatic tales of blood and gore, those moments when life is hanging in the balance, and with one swift decision, a deft movement, he brings a person back to life.
The women shift in their seats at my amazing husband as he delights and horrifies them with his stories from theatre. I know what they’r
e thinking, because I’m thinking the same. But I’m the lucky one… he’s coming home with me.
The school bell rings and the mums disperse, but Jen’s telling me about some horrific seafood poisoning they’d all suffered in Brittany.
‘So there we are in bloody A & E… Oliver’s vomiting blood all down my chambray dress… Why are you smiling, Marianne?’ She looks puzzled. I just know she’d have been more concerned about her dress than the child bleeding in her arms and it amuses me.
‘I… I’m not, I’m not smiling… I’m horrified,’ I say, and she nods then continues and I feel bad. I’m keen to give her the reaction she desires, because I don’t want her to think I’m bonkers, and I so want her to like me. I’ve known her a matter of months, but she’s the closest thing I have to a best friend –someone to confide in and giggle with. I haven’t been close to another woman for a long time. When you’re married to a man like Simon you don’t need loads of friends, and I’ve always been a little wary of making friends because so-called friends have let me down in the past. As Simon says, ‘If they are a true friend, they’ll accept you whatever,’ so I guess those I thought cared about me didn’t. But Jen’s different. She’s so wrapped up in her own life; she isn’t trying to take a bite out of mine.
The weather’s warm for September, with a summer hangover in the air, and Jen’s making the most of it with a tight, mint linen dress. The pastel shade looks good on her, and the full bust and tanned décolletage is not missed by the few husbands waiting in the playground. She seems oblivious to the attention, flicking her blonde, Marilyn Monroe haircut and closing her big blue eyes in repulsion as she now recalls the recent memory of sex with her husband.
Caroline has suddenly come back to me with a jolt and thoughts of her have inexplicably now lodged in my brain. I fight them, willing them to leave, until eventually they ebb slightly and I am able to smile while nodding at Jen, hoping she hasn’t noticed I slipped out for a moment and wasn’t completely focused on what she was saying. I think I probably try a little too hard with Jen because I’m so keen to make a friend – but I find it difficult to be natural. Then again, I’m not sure what ‘natural Marianne’ is any more and I’m grateful when the school doors fly open and I don’t have to pretend to be ‘me’ any more. I can fall seamlessly into ‘Mum’ mode and the kids will fill in my blanks.
