I Invited Her In

by Adele Parks

  Suffocated him.

  Abigail saw the ram in him, butting against the fence, wanting to get into pastures new.

  And Ben. Well, Ben was a turn up for the books. Not what she’d been expecting at all. More, she supposed. She’d thought perhaps he might be just a man Mel had settled for. He wasn’t. He was a man any woman would strive to attract, go all out to net. He was a pleasant surprise. Quite exciting to be around. Added an extra layer. Sharpened things.

  Through the day, when the house was empty she liked to familiarise herself with their things. Nothing odd in that, basic nosiness. It could get boring on the days that she had to stay at home alone. It wasn’t snooping because Mel had made it clear that nothing was off limits to Abi. She’d been more than keen to show her the family photo albums. The filing cabinet where Ben carefully stored bank statements, the tool shed, and their underwear drawers, were just a step on from photo albums. Just another layer of family life. The beat of their lives was her lifeblood.

  Melanie took it all for granted. She did not see it as the beautiful symphony that Abigail recognised. She sighed impatiently when the girls couldn’t decide whether they wanted plaits or ponytails; sometimes as they clambered on her lap, she moaned that her back or legs ached after being in the shop all day; she yelled at them if they left out toys. She didn’t appreciate what a privilege it was to be a mother. Sometimes, Abi thought that Mel didn’t deserve everything she had, everything she took for granted.

  They all had secrets. Abigail didn’t like secrets. Hated them, in fact. Families shouldn’t have secrets. They were little fissures, cracks, that eventually became great gaping wounds.

  Melanie weighed herself every Monday morning and made a note of it in a little book she kept in her make-up bag; funny, because she was always saying that she wasn’t in the least bit bothered about how fat she’d become. The notebook exposed the fact she never lost weight but had put on three pounds in six months. Imogen kept a broken Barbie in the back of her wardrobe, under a bundle of old dance kit – it belonged to Lily. Lily still occasionally wet her bed. Mel knew this of course – she changed the sheets – but it wasn’t something she’d told anyone else; it didn’t fit with the image of Lily being a go-getting tomboy. Abigail had to assume something was bothering the child. But they were only babies; Abigail wasn’t interested in their secrets. Ben watched porn on his laptop on the first Wednesday of the month when Melanie was at book club. Poor man, Mel really needed to get a better social life – at least that way her husband could masturbate with a little more regularity. Since she so obviously wasn’t seeing to his desires herself. And Liam? Well, he kept the best secret of all.

  And Abi knew it.

  21

  Melanie

  Wednesday 21st March

  Ben comes home and finds Abi and me sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Hello ladies,’ he says with a quick smile, that frankly looks like it took a bit of effort. I notice his eyes drop to the bottle of Bordeaux. I see him taking in the label, Château Deyrem Valentin Margaux, and recognising it as his. Usually, the wine we buy is just ours, no one claims ownership, but this bottle was bought by his mate as a thank-you because Ben spent an entire weekend helping him clear his garden. It costs twenty-five quid in the supermarket; when we spotted it on the shelf we nearly died of shock. I’d balk at spending twenty-five quid on a bottle of wine in a restaurant; it would have to be a very special occasion. I know I shouldn’t have opened it without him being there to enjoy it, as he did sweat for it, but it was that or the cheap bottle we won on a tombola at the school Christmas fair. Neither of us have touched that as it’s likely to be vinegar. We should probably throw it out, but I’ll most likely donate it back to the school for the summer fête raffle. I wanted Abi to know I recognised a decent wine when I saw one.

  Luckily, Ben is not the type to be funny about this sort of thing. At least, he’s unlikely to comment in front of guests, which Abi is, even if she has been here a few weeks now and acts like a member of the family in many ways. He reaches for a glass and pours what’s left of the bottle. It makes a half measure. He shrugs, knocks it back.

  ‘Any food left?’ He glances at the tureen that has the last remnants of a lasagne, not even a third of a serving. There are a couple of sad tomato halves and wilted lettuce leaves left in the salad bowl but he’s not a fan of salad at the best of times.

  ‘Liam came back for seconds,’ I say apologetically. Ben knows that we can’t feed our teenage boy enough. He says he’s hungry as he’s finishing dinner.

  ‘My fault,’ giggles Abi. ‘I just love his appetite. I encouraged him to eat as much as he could. I think he saw it as a dare. It’s so different from my experience as a teenage girl. I agonised over every morsel I consumed. He’s a delight to watch. I’m rather envious.’

  Ben opens the fridge, closes it again, letting out an almost imperceptible sigh. I need to get to the supermarket and stock up. I haven’t done a big shop this week. Abi and I tend to dash to the M&S Foodhall that’s attached to the local petrol station and I pick something up on a day-to-day basis. Pre-packed meals are an expensive way to feed six but it’s fun. I don’t want to waste time shopping and cooking. Ben opens a cupboard. ‘I’ll heat up a tin of soup.’

  I feel guilty. I should whip up something a bit more substantial. I think I could manage to pull together eggs, bacon, toast. It isn’t that I worship at the altar of the 1950s housewife, but I know Ben would make food for me if I came home from work at eight thirty. The thing is, I’m at that stage of drunk when I feel a bit lazy and lumpy and can’t really be bothered to dash about. The kitchen is a mess. The bin needs emptying and the recycling box is overflowing. The traces of our supper are sprawled over the kitchen table: a chopping board with a half-eaten loaf, the butter dish, a sticky ketchup bottle, glasses, crumbs, drips and splodges. I don’t know how it’s the case, when we have a dishwasher, but we also seem to have a perpetual sinkful of dirty dishes, too. I tell myself it looks relaxed and cosy rather than squalid. Funny to think of all the effort I put into preparing the house for Abi’s arrival. Since she’s been here, I’ve been incredibly lax.

  I don’t stand up to heat his soup but instead continue to flip through a magazine with Abi; she’s looking for ideas for a new haircut. She’s set up some meetings in London tomorrow and Friday, and is keen to make sure her image is bang up to date. Abi has been mining her contacts this side of the pond. From what she’s told me, her initial approaches to various producers and TV companies have been well received. Everyone wants to take her for lunch, to talk.

  When I first heard about her meetings I felt almost disappointed, which was stupid of me, selfish.

  ‘You’re leaving us?’ I asked, shocked. Aghast.

  ‘Well we can’t go on like this for ever, can we?’ she said, with a sweet smile.

  Of course not. Abi must start to piece her life back together. Get back out in the world. She didn’t come to England to stay with me and my family. We were only ever a stop gap. I reminded myself that at least Ben would be pleased to hear there were moves afoot for Abi to move on. He’s an easy-going guy but even so, I know he’s found having a constant house guest a bit of a bind. He’s brought up the subject of when Abi was planning to leave on a number of occasions. I’ve dodged the matter, refusing to ask Abi outright, because I don’t want her to leave. I like having her here. So, I felt a little flattened to hear she’s got one foot out of the door. Ever sensitive to other people’s feelings, Abi tried to comfort me.

  ‘It’s just a few meetings. They may not come to anything.’

  But they will and they should, because Abi is amazing. She’s full of creative, innovative ideas and she’s no longer content with just being a presenter, she wants to produce her own shows. I’m certain she’s going to be incredibly successful, as soon as she gets her ideas in front of the right people. I’ll miss her, though.

  ‘It’s just London,’ she pointed out. That’s way closer than LA.’ Abi
put her arm around me. ‘Imagine dashing down to visit me in London for a weekend of shopping, drinking cocktails, maybe going to the theatre. We can be the British version of Carrie and Samantha.’ She giggled. I did too. It was a seductive idea.

  Before Abigail cropped up on my doorstep my life was full. I was busy. Don’t doubt that for a minute. I spent my time wishing there were more hours in the day so that I could finally get to the bottom of the ironing pile, take a long bubble bath instead of a speedy shower or maybe go for a run. Things that inevitably fell to the bottom of my to-do list. Not only was I busy but I definitely had a life that everyone would agree was full of meaning and purpose, not just ironing. I have a husband who loves me, whom I love, three healthy children. I’m living the dream.

  It’s just.

  Just that.

  Sometimes. Look, I’m not moaning here, but sometimes I am a tiny, tiny bit lost. Or ignored. Even in a full room. No one asks how my day has been. And if they do ask they don’t listen to the answer because they are already shouting stuff like, ‘Have you seen my goggles?’ (Answer: ‘Yes, they are packed in your swim bag, Lily.’) ‘Who moved my tutu?’ (Answer: ‘No one has, it’s on your bedroom floor where you left it, Imogen.’) ‘What’s for tea?’ (Answer: ‘Spagbol/lasagne/ meatballs, Liam.’) How was my day? (Not asked, but if it was, answer: ‘Fine thanks, I put on three loads of washing, did a big shop, paid bills and oh, you’ve all left the room.’)

  Now I have Abi.

  Ben finishes his soup and then says he’s exhausted, he’s going to have a shower and an early night. He kisses me on the forehead, says good night to Abi as he heads out the door. I can almost hear him counting down the minutes until Abi says she’s packing her bags, but I know she’ll have no idea he feels that way, he’s incredibly polite.

  Abi shakes her head, her face a picture of admiration. ‘Did you date many men before you met Ben?’

  ‘A few,’ I admit. ‘I forget about them now. None of them were a big deal at the time and once Ben came along the few-and-far-between contenders were blown right out of the water.’

  ‘You’re so lucky.’

  ‘Yes.’ I agree because I am lucky that Ben came along and that we fell in love. I didn’t feel lucky when I was enduring single-mum dating. I think there were half a dozen abortive attempts. Not a lot of dates, over a period of six years. Most women between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five score higher. I see that Abi is waiting for me to elaborate. ‘It was tricky. Liam made potential boyfriends nervous. They all assumed I was looking for a daddy for him – in reality I just wanted a cuddle, not a little box from Tiffany’s. I remember first mentioning Liam to one guy and he responded, “Look, we all have things that we don’t want to draw attention to, I wear calf-enhancing socks.” I laughed. I thought he was joking. He was not. I couldn’t decide what put me off him most, the fact he thought my son was “something I didn’t want to draw attention to” or that he introduced me to the concept of calf-enhancing socks.’

  ‘Noooo!’ Abi squeals.

  I’m encouraged to go on. ‘Another guy asked if “it had all sprung back into shape”. At first I thought he meant my figure – lack of sleep made me slow to process – but then he elaborated, “Is it all tight, down there? I don’t want it to be like throwing a welly down a tunnel.”’

  ‘Oh no, that’s horrible,’ Abi shrieks, giggling.

  ‘It was but you know, it’s a long time ago. I just made the decision that it was naps before chaps. Until Ben came along, that is.’

  ‘You are so lucky, Melanie. To have such a good man.’ She must be serious because she rarely calls me Melanie. ‘You hang on to him.’ I don’t know how to respond. I know that Ben is a good man but agreeing with her sounds smug. Luckily, she isn’t waiting for me to respond. ‘I’m not sure Rob was ever a good man,’ she muses.

  I freeze. The only thing that I find difficult about having Abi here is when the conversation inevitably traverses this way. She has found quite a few ways to call the man a bastard and I don’t think she’s anywhere near running out of them. I don’t disagree but I don’t think it’s good for her to dwell. She’s left him. He’s in the past. She needs to move on. That’s always been my modus operandi.

  She retells the story of finding him with his PA over and over again. It gets more and more elaborate with every telling. Not that I’m suggesting she’s exaggerating – she wouldn’t; I just mean she’s allowing herself to relive it in extreme detail now. I wonder how wise that is. She’s described how the light from the afternoon sunshine fell on the younger woman’s hair, how their clothes were sprawled all over the floor, how she watched as though in slow motion, as her mind untangled what she was seeing. ‘They didn’t even draw the curtains. It was as though they wanted to be seen,’ she wailed, on one re-telling of her story. On another occasion she said, ‘Maybe they didn’t even notice the curtains, maybe they were so consumed with one another.’

  It’s my duty to listen to things I already know. That’s friendship. Sometimes she goes days without referencing Rob. Unfortunately, but understandably, he comes into her mind most when Ben is around, especially if he does something she sees as particularly thoughtful like listening to the girls reading or taking Liam out for some driving practice. Things I appreciate but feel are part of the deal and so rarely compliment Ben on. I mean, no one thinks to congratulate me if I do the same parenting tasks.

  Tonight, however, she doesn’t say anything more about Rob, she’s too involved in her plans for London. She asks me to help her pick out clothes to pack, we watch her showreel and check her train tickets so we can calculate what time she should set her alarm for. I take this as a positive sign. She’s heading in the right direction. She’ll mend, she’ll learn to live without him. Thrive without him. Why not? I’m pleased for her. And for myself.

  22

  Ben

  Ben was still awake when Mel came to bed. She looked surprised as it was past eleven and he’d gone up ages ago. Had she expected him to be fast asleep? He wasn’t as knackered as he’d made out, he just didn’t want to stay downstairs with her and Abi. He didn’t have an opinion about whether Abi should have a ‘lob’ that ‘channelled Emma Stone’. Mel could probably work this out, if she stopped to think about it, but she wouldn’t think about it. Mel looked at him with something like guilt. She hadn’t had much time for him of late. The kids took the lion’s share of her attention (which Ben didn’t resent) and Abi sponged up anything she had left over (which, yeah, he did resent). The only time Ben and Mel got to catch up was when they were in bed.

  He was reading a sci-fi novel. She gamely asked, ‘Good book?’

  ‘It’s OK.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He sometimes told her the plots of the books he read in quite some detail. Truth was, she had no interest in sci-fi and on the occasions when he did describe the plot or offer up a review, he often thought that she tuned out, probably thinking about what she needed to pick up at the supermarket. Still, he usually told her anyway, in the vain hope that one day she’d demand to read the book after him; it was one of those little dances that married couples performed to keep things ticking over. Tonight, he didn’t even bother.

  She went into the bathroom, washed her face and cleaned her teeth.

  ‘Enjoyed the wine, did you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. But ill-advisedly we also cracked open that tombola bottle after you went to bed. There really was nothing else. Mistake. I can already feel the effects under my eyes, on my neck, in my head.’

  She’d been knocking it back since Abi arrived but he didn’t comment. He didn’t need to; Mel was a grown-up.

  ‘I probably should cut back and get more sleep. I won’t drink when she’s in London. That will give my liver a few days off.’

  Ben knew that Mel should have done all this a long time ago. Late, gossipy, boozy nights. He realised she was making up for lost time.

  ‘Was it a good night?’ he asked, as she threw back the duvet and cl
imbed in next to him.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Lots of chatter?’ He didn’t mean to but he could hear it himself – the way he’d said the word chatter, he’d made it sound like an illicit activity. Something slightly shady or at least giddy. He wasn’t trying to convey implicit disapproval, but he had.

  ‘Yes,’ Mel replied simply.

  ‘You are certainly warming to your role as confidante.’ He said confidante in a silly way too, emphasising each of the syllables. It was just a bit weird. He didn’t know what was the matter with him. He wasn’t being himself. Abi put him on edge. Since that evening in the kitchen when he thought she was coming onto him he’d avoided them being alone together, whereas she seemed to seek it. Was he being a dick, imagining it? Who did he think he was? Idris Elba? He hadn’t mentioned the incident to Mel, she’d probably laugh her head off. But if he wasn’t wrong, and Abi was making a play for him, then maybe he should talk about it with Mel.

  Before he found the words, she said, ‘We watched her showreel.’

  ‘Oh yeah, she showed me and Liam that too.’

  ‘What did you make of it?’ Mel asked excitedly. ‘I thought she was amazing. She was so in control. She made people look charismatic and charming or she could expose them as bigoted fools. Very clever.’

  His wife was practically in love with this woman. He didn’t want to burst her bubble with his half-formed suspicions. Still a note of caution, realism couldn’t hurt. ‘Well, naturally Abi has put together her best work. Her funniest, most flattering interviews, to impress. It is a showreel after all.’