by Tess Stimson
Julia was right. I’ve carried not just Ned but the entire weight of our marriage since the day I walked down the aisle.
I push open the old iron gates, still unprotected by locks or alarms, and close them behind me. Julia and I could never have afforded to rent a place in this upscale part of town if she hadn’t bewitched the nephew of an old lady who owned a huge estate here. Vincenzo was clearly the apple of his aunt’s eye, and thanks to him, the old lady offered us an artisan cottage on her property in return for a peppercorn rent and the dubious pleasure of our company as we occasionally wheeled her around the grounds. She must have been in her seventies back then. I wonder if she can possibly still be alive, or if all this now belongs to Vincenzo.
I stumble up the unpaved driveway in my court shoes, tripping occasionally in the dark. As far as I remember, it’s about a quarter of a mile from the gates to the main house the old lady used to live in, and then another quarter of a mile to the artisan cottage at the rear of the estate. I can’t see any lights in either the main house or the cottage. It occurs to me – a little late in the day – that the whole estate may have long since been sold, and that Julia may have moved. It’s been three years since we even exchanged Christmas cards.
I’m suddenly aware just how tired I am. I have no idea what I’m going to do next if Julia isn’t here. I don’t have the energy to walk several miles to the nearest village and call another taxi. I don’t know what possessed me to come here. I don’t know what possessed me to do any of this.
The door to the cottage opens abruptly and a gold wedge of light spills across the garden. Julia steps out onto the brick terrace of the cottage and looks intently into the inky darkness as if she can sense I’m here. I shrink back into the shadows, suddenly afraid, though I can’t think why.
This is a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. Once Julia sees me, it’ll all be real. I need to go back home to my children, to Ned . . .
‘Kate,’ Julia calls across the moonlit lawn. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
Two days before
Ned
Kate’s side of the bed is already empty when I wake up. Not unusual, even on a Saturday; she’s always up first. At least once or twice a week she doesn’t get home from work till long after I’m in bed. Days can go by with the two of us just passing in the night. I only know she comes home at all because the kitchen’s been cleaned and the wet towels are no longer on the bathroom floor.
I get up and take a leak. Kate started the job at Forde’s the week after we got back from our honeymoon. If it had been the week before, I swear I’d have left her standing at the altar. In fifteen years, we haven’t made it through a single family holiday without my wife having to cut it short for work. Bank holidays, evenings, weekends: she’s glued to her fucking iPhone. She likes to think she’s doing it for us, but it’s not like any of us give a shit if she’s CEO of the bloody company. We’d settle for having her home once in a blue moon.
Giving my dick a brisk shake, I leave the yellow to mellow and turn on the shower, waiting a moment for it to run warm. Might take the bike out later. It could use a run – the weather’s been too piss-poor this winter to go anywhere on it. Not that Kate gives a damn. She hates my bloody motorbike.
I step into the shower, then swear and leap back out again.
‘Kate!’ I yell. ‘What the fuck’s happened to the hot water?’
Grabbing a towel, I wrap it round my waist and go in search of my wife. She’ll be in her study, no doubt. My study in theory, except that Kate takes it over whenever she’s home, regardless of whether I have an urgent deadline or not. Although, as she frequently points out, I haven’t actually had an urgent deadline in all the years I’ve been freelance. I’m not exactly a hold-the-front-page Watergate kind of journalist; more your grubbing, get-it-to-us-when-you’re-ready sort of hack.
The flowers are still lying on the piano, I notice, as I pass the dining room.
‘The water’s stone cold!’ I exclaim, flinging open the study door. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Didn’t you call the plumber?’ Kate says without looking up.
I hesitate. Now she comes to mention it, I vaguely remember her mentioning something about the boiler having a leak and asking me to give the plumber a call.
‘Ned? You promised you’d take care of it.’
‘You always deal with the plumber,’ I say defensively. ‘I thought you’d called him.’
‘I asked you to handle it last week. I told you – I’ve got a lot on at work. You said you’d deal with it. “Consider it done” were your words, I believe.’
There are times when my wife makes me feel about two inches tall. She’s worse than my fucking mother.
In the beginning, I liked the fact that Kate told me what to do. It was such a relief after Liesl’s hippie flakiness and flower-power bullshit. I’d married my first wife for the mind-blowing sex; as soon as Guy was born, I realized that if I stayed with her any longer, she’d blow my mind in every other sense too.
The very first time Kate and I met, she saved my arse. It was my second access weekend after Liesl and I had split up. I had made the rookie mistake of taking Guy, who was then about sixteen months old, to the supermarket and had forgotten to lock him down in the trolley. Naturally, I had only turned my back for a minute and he had two shelves of cereal down. As fast as I stacked it back, he pulled the next row off, and I was soon up to my knees in a sea of Kellogg’s. He was heading towards the pickle aisle with evil in his eye when a tall goddess with waist-length, honey-streaked dark blonde hair cut him off.
‘This one yours?’
Huge tits and legs to die for. Come to Papa. ‘Sorry. I’m still on probation when it comes to kids. Not literally,’ I added quickly. ‘I’m not a child-beater or anything.’ Oh, Christ, even worse. ‘I just meant I’m a bit new to flying solo. His mum and I only split up a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t quite got used to going it alone.’
She laughed. ‘We all have our bad days.’
‘You don’t understand. This is a good day. I’m Ned, by the way,’ I added as she laughed again.
Her handshake was firmer than mine. ‘Kate. Kate Drayton.’
I was still holding on lingeringly when Guy lunged for the confectionery stand, scattering Mars Bars and Wrigley’s to the four winds.
‘Look, why don’t I take him to the family room while you finish up?’ Kate said, briskly scooping him up with one hand and righting the spilled stand with the other. ‘We’ll be fine for five minutes.’
‘The family room?’
She pointed to the end of the store where there was a playroom filled with small children at various stages of anarchy. ‘Come and get us when you’re done.’
She took charge of our relationship just as efficiently. I asked her out, but she was the one who booked the restaurant – ‘I know this great little place in Chinatown, and the manager owes me a favour’ – and organized the Eurostar to Paris a month later for our introductory fuck. Within six months we were living together, and less than a year after we met, we were married and Agness was on the way. It seemed only sensible to go along with her suggestion that I quit the Evening News to go freelance (something I’d been banging on about for ages) and take care of the kids while she went out and earned the big bucks.
It was only much later that I realized I’d sacrificed my balls as well as my career.
I tighten my grip on the towel as icy water trickles down my back. ‘Give me the plumber’s number and I’ll call him now.’
‘Forget it. I’ll call him myself,’ Kate snaps. ‘At least that way I know it’ll get done. And tell Agness I want to see her. She owes me some chores before she goes to that party of hers.’
‘What about your bloody mother?’
‘What about my mother?’
‘I suppose she’ll be gracing us with her presence again this weekend?’
‘I’ve told her she’ll have to go to Lindsay for Sunday lunch instead,’ Kate sa
ys tightly, turning back to her screen. ‘I’ve got too much work to do.’
‘Remind her to pack her cauldron,’ I mutter.
‘Ned, I really don’t need this.’
‘Fine. Fine. You just do whatever it is you do to keep the world turning. We’ll fend for ourselves. As usual.’
I stalk upstairs, send a simmering Agness down to her mother, and fling on a polo shirt and my jeans from yesterday. Screw Kate. I had been planning just to take the bike into Salisbury. Now I’m going to head over to Winchester, and she can just deal with the kids on her own.
I’m not breaking my promise to her if she never finds out.
Two days before
Agness
This is so lame. Everyone else gets to do what they want on a Saturday, but I have to stay home and help my mother clean the house. Like, seriously. Actually get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor! I’ve told her I could call ChildLine. You can’t use your own children as slave labour. There’s a law. We have rights. If someone doesn’t stop her, she’ll be shoving us up chimneys next. It’s not fair; everyone else at school has a proper cleaner. Lucy Hemmings has a housekeeper and a maid, and she hasn’t turned into a spoilt little brat. Well, not much of one, considering her Dad actually knows Simon Cowell. Seriously, my mother is paying thousands for my education, and she wants me to waste my time cleaning the loo? Has she seen it after Guy’s been in there?
I turn on the tap and throw the toilet brush into the sink to soak. I don’t care what she says. I’m not cleaning up after my brother. She can’t make me do this. It’s not the Dark Ages!
‘Agness! Watch where you’re going!’
Dad stomps down the hall wearing just a towel. Gross. Does no one ever think how I feel? This is my house, too. I should be able to walk around without running into my pervert father wearing practically no clothes in public.
‘Your mother wants to see you,’ Dad says as I pointedly cover my eyes.
‘Well, I don’t want to see her. Seriously, Dad. Could you, like, put some clothes on?’
Dad goes into their bedroom and picks his jeans up off the floor, then slams the door shut. I loll against it, picking at the chipped blue polish on my nails as the cat stalks past, his tail in the air.
‘Are you going out?’ I call.
‘In a bit.’
‘Where?’
He opens the door, buttoning his shirt. ‘Thought I’d go over to Winchester, take the bike for a spin.’
‘Can I come?’ I plead. ‘Oh, please, Dad. We could have a really nice time, just the two of us. It’ll be like the old days. We hardly ever spend time together any more.’
I wrap my arms round his neck and give him my sweetest little-girl smile. Mum’s been wise to me since I was about three, but I can still twist Dad round my little finger. He’ll do anything for a quiet life.
But to my shock, he just kisses the top of my head and disentangles himself. ‘Sorry, sweet-pea. Another time.’
‘Da-a-ad! You can’t just leave me here!’
‘Don’t be silly, Agness. I have things to do. Anyway, your mother’s banned me from taking you on the bike again.’
I roll my eyes. My friends thought it was super-cool when Dad gave me a lift to school on the bike a few weeks ago, but as soon as Mum heard about it, she had to play the heavy as usual and ruin everything.
‘She doesn’t have to know. I won’t tell her. Please, Dad. She’s only going to spend the day working – she won’t even notice I’m not here.’
‘Aggs, you promised you’d help out around the house so you could go to that party this evening. Your mother will kill me if I let you skive.’
I scowl. ‘Even Cinderella had, like, mice to help her!’
‘Your mum makes the rules, you know that.’
‘Can’t you talk to her?’
‘Not when she’s in one of her moods. Now come on, Aggs. Let me get going.’
I slouch out of the room. Naturally, Guy doesn’t have to waste his weekend scrubbing toilets. He’s always been Mum’s favourite, which is, like, so unfair when he’s not even her real son. He’s Dad’s kid from his first marriage to the Flake, aka Liesl. She’s, like, this New Age freak, with weird hemp skirts and recycled tyre sandals. She doesn’t believe in leather or make-up or deodorant, and she even uses one of those disgusting plastic cup things when she has her period instead of tampons, I saw her showing it to Mum once. (Clean, obviously; even Liesl isn’t that yukky.) Frankly, I can’t imagine her ever being married to Dad. My father would eat raw steak for breakfast if he could, and the only thing he’s ever recycled is himself as a husband. Plus he’s beyond disorganized. I love him and everything, but if he didn’t have Mum to sort him out he wouldn’t know how to get out of bed. How he and Liesl ever got it together to make a baby is beyond me.
Guy spends a weekend every month with the Flake. I swear he only goes to top up his stash. Liesl believes in letting everyone ‘make their own choices’, and she grows weed in her back garden ‘for medicinal purposes’. Guy says she hides it in with the tomato plants so the neighbours don’t know. She may be nuts, but at least he gets out of this labour camp once in a while. I’m the one stuck here in solitary with Kommandant Kate.
I mooch into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich (seriously, does she expect me to do all this hard physical labour on an empty stomach?) and am just sitting down for, like, the first time in hours when Mum storms in.
‘Agness! What the hell are you doing?’
‘Eating breakfast. What does it look like?’
She snatches the sandwich out of my hand. ‘You left the tap running in the basin upstairs with the toilet brush blocking the plug hole! There’s water all over the floor. It’s a miracle you haven’t flooded the entire house!’
Seriously. If I could leave home right now, I would.
‘So? At least the place would’ve been clean,’ I mutter.
‘Do you have any idea how much damage you could have caused?’ my mother shouts. ‘If the ceiling had come down it would’ve cost thousands to repair!’
‘You’re insured. Can I have my sandwich back, please?’
‘No, you can’t!’ she shrieks, tossing it into the bin. ‘I’ve told you before, peanut butter and jam is not breakfast! If I hadn’t heard the water running upstairs, the kitchen would’ve been ruined! Do you realize how much it would cost to fix it? The insurance wouldn’t begin to cover it! We’d have been living in a building site for months, the premiums would’ve gone through the roof – oh, for God’s sake, why am I even bothering to explain?’
She said it. Defiantly, I get up and start making myself a new sandwich. My mother immediately confiscates the bread.
‘You’re grounded,’ she says furiously. ‘You can forget about Sam’s party tonight, or any other night!’
I fling my peanut-butter knife on the counter. ‘That’s not fair! Dad said I could go!’
‘Well, you should’ve thought about that before you flooded the bathroom.’
‘It’s not like I did it on purpose!’
‘Oh, really?’ Mum snaps. ‘If you think doing a job badly will get you out of doing it, young lady, you’re sadly mistaken.’
‘It’s not up to you! Dad said—’
‘Your father isn’t here,’ she says tightly. ‘Frankly, if he’d said no to you a little more often when you were younger, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe if you’d been home a little more often, you could’ve pointed that out.’
She jerks her head back like I’ve slapped her, and for a second I feel bad. Well, so what. She’s the one who should feel bad. She’s ruining everything. Everyone’ll be at the party and I’ll look like a complete loser if I can’t go.
‘Agness—’
‘Leave me alone! I hate you! I wish I’d never been born!’
Sobbing, I run upstairs to my bedroom and slam the door. I don’t bother to answer when she knocks at the door later and ask
s super-nicely if I want lunch. Only when I hear the sound of Dad’s motorbike on the gravel do I close my laptop and slip downstairs to find him before Mum realizes he’s back.
One-nil to me, I think later as I sit on the stairs and listen to them shouting in the kitchen. Serves Mum right for being so selfish. It’s all right for her, she’s had her life. She can’t stop me from living mine just because hers is over.
Suddenly the yelling stops and Mum comes out of the kitchen and walks right past me without even looking in my direction. Her mouth is sucked in like a monkey’s bum. She hates it when she doesn’t get her own way.
I bounce up excitedly from the stairs. ‘Dad?’
‘You can go to the party,’ he says tiredly.
I fling my arms round him. ‘Thank you, Daddy! That’s so cool! I promise I’ll clean my room as soon as I get home! And the bathroom.’
‘Never mind that. I went out on a limb for you, Agness, so you’d better not blow it. Just make sure you’re ready to go when Mum comes to get you at eleven-thirty.’
’Eleven-thirty? Can’t I stay till midnight? Everyone will think I’m such a baby if—’
‘Don’t push it, Agness. You’re lucky she’s letting you go at all.’
‘Fine,’ I mutter.
‘And you’d better be on your best behaviour,’ Dad warns. ‘If you come home reeking of booze and cigarettes, I’ll never hear the end of it with your mother.’
I widen my eyes. ‘Daddy, it’s not that sort of party! I promise I won’t even have a sip of wine!’
As if.
‘Eleven-thirty,’ Mum snaps as she drops me at the end of Sam’s road. ‘If you’re not right here, I’ll come in and find you.’
‘I’ll be here,’ I mutter. Anything but that.
