The Foster Husband

by Pippa Wright

  ‘Your refusal to talk about it has everything to do with this,’ says Mum, gently.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Please don’t,’ I whisper. ‘Please don’t, Mum, I can’t bear it.’

  My shoulders start to shake and, for the first time since I left my husband, I start to cry. Fat tears slide down my nose and drop onto Minnie’s fur. She wags her tail and looks anxiously from me to Mum. I feel Mum’s arm around my shoulders, her hand stroking my hair, and I let myself sob until my breath comes in shuddering gasps.

  I cannot say it is a release. I cannot say I feel better for it. All I can say is that I don’t feel any worse, which is more than I expected.

  23

  London

  ‘Kate,’ said Richard.

  My pen traced the same words over and over on my meeting notes, shading in the spaces in the letters, adding a few hearts and flowers to break things up. I was so jetlagged from the overnight flight that I could hardly focus on the letters, let alone on the meeting which seemed to have been discussing the same tedious point, round and round without any conclusions, for twenty minutes.

  ‘Kate,’ said Richard more insistently. Sarah knocked my ribs with her elbow and I jumped.

  The whole meeting was staring at me expectantly. Oh shit. Richard had been in a vile mood for over a month now. The fact that I’d been flying to Singapore for a few days each week had kept me mostly out of his firing range, but the emails I’d received from the office had given me plenty of warning that he was not to be displeased. Fifteen people had lost their jobs in the last two weeks, and everyone was nervous.

  ‘Richard,’ I said briskly, noticing that he was drumming his fingers impatiently on the table. The first rule of defence: attack. ‘Can you clarify exactly what you’re asking? I’m afraid I may have misunderstood the question.’

  Richard glared at me. His fingers stilled. I smiled back steadily.

  ‘I can clarify that I was asking, Kate, if you were fucking listening to a word I said.’

  Ah. No escaping that one. Dean from Talent smirked happily at my discomfort; he was just glad to have someone else face the wrath of Richard ever since Leila had done one illicit deal too many and been kicked out of Hitz. My kinder colleagues averted their gazes out of solidarity, but Richard continued to stare me down.

  ‘Of course, Richard,’ I said, trying not to blink. ‘Sorry if I didn’t seem to be paying attention, I was just thinking through a few things for Singapore. Got distracted by – ah – the budget.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Richard reached across the table and snatched my meeting notes out from under my hand. I scrabbled to get them back, but my hand just clutched at empty space. He squinted through his wire-framed glasses and an unpleasant smile spread across his face. ‘How sweet. Mrs Kate Martell. Mrs K. Martell. Kate Martell. Mrs Matt Martell.’

  A small squawk of glee escaped from Dean’s throat before he could stop it, but as soon as I whipped my head round in his direction he dropped his eyes to the table, his shoulders shaking. Richard pushed the paper back to me, a sardonic expression on his face. This from the man who’d cried drunkenly at my wedding and told me the sight of me and Matt together made him believe in true love.

  ‘Well, Mrs Martell,’ Richard sneered. I folded my meeting notes over and over, as if by hiding them I could erase everyone’s memory. ‘Do you think you might turn that fluffy little newlywed head of yours back to the matter in hand? Which is how many days of prep you and your useless team will need in Singapore?’

  I had to bite my lip to stop myself from snapping back at him. I’d been working twenty-hour days, flying halfway around the world so often that I knew most of the stewardesses on Singapore Airlines by name, barely seeing my new husband, and Richard was bawling me out in front of everyone for a moment’s inattention. I didn’t work that hard to be patronized like some idiot.

  ‘Ten days of prep, Richard,’ I said carefully, keeping my voice steady. The person who loses their temper is the person who loses the argument. ‘I can forward you the spreadsheet after the meeting. The local crew is on the case with the preliminaries, we need one week with just a skeleton crew, then three days with the full team and we’re there.’

  ‘How skeleton can you go on the crew?’ asked Richard, frowning. In front of him was a sheet of figures highlighted in neon yellow and pink. No iPad for Richard, he was proudly old school, as he often liked to tell us. Acoustic, not digital, as if it made him more authentic rather than just out of date. He waggled his pen impatiently between his fingers, so that it was a blur of movement.

  ‘Well, probably just me, Sarah and Kirsty initially,’ I said. ‘Plus the local team, that’s about eleven.’

  ‘And for the full crew?’ He peered at me over the top of his glasses.

  ‘Well,’ I said, trying to remember the figures off the top of my head. ‘Thirty? I think. I can send you the proper numbers after the meeting.’

  Richard lifted the top sheet of figures and underlined something on the paper below. He looked up.

  ‘Do you really need everyone out there for three days? Can’t they get it done in two?’

  I sighed and rubbed the heels of my hands against my red-rimmed eyes before I realized I was probably smudging mascara all over my face. Not that you’d probably notice – the bags under my eyes were multiplying as rapidly as my airmiles lately, and the skin there was already grey.

  You’d think I was asking Richard for holiday time rather than begging to be allowed to fly thousands of miles to work like crazy, far away from my home and my husband. Everyone wanted to get the job done and get home, didn’t Richard see that?

  ‘Richard, every time I get back from Singapore you’ve changed the parameters again. It’s making so much extra work. It was meant to be five days with full crew, then three and now you want to cut it again? Do you want this event done properly or do you just want it done cheaply?’ I put my palms flat on the table. ‘I can do either, but I can’t do both. It’s impossible.’

  Richard scowled. ‘It is your job, Mrs Martell, to get it done properly and not to spunk Hitz money all over the place while you’re doing it. Do you think that’s impossible? Because there are plenty of people who’d leap at the chance if you think so.’

  I knew exactly who he meant. If he thought he could go out to lunch with Jennifer Heston without my knowing about it, he was very much mistaken. Meeting the former MTV Production Manager in the Delaunay was about as subtle as setting up a table for the two of them next to Lindsey’s desk in Reception. I don’t know if Jennifer was touting for freelance work, or if he was trying to lure her over here above my head, but either way it had made me even more anxious on top of the jetlag and the stress.

  I pushed my plastic cup of stale meeting coffee away from me. I thought it would keep me awake, but it was just making me jittery and paranoid.

  ‘When have I ever gone over budget?’ I demanded, hoping that he wouldn’t remember how much petty cash I spent on bribes in Lagos. I was sure I had hidden it well enough that it wouldn’t immediately come to his mind. ‘You know I can deliver exactly what you want for exactly how much it needs to cost. It’s just driving me demented that the budget keeps changing every five minutes.’

  ‘Everyone is having to make compromises, Kate,’ snapped Richard, throwing his pen down on the table with a clatter that made us all jump. ‘Everyone. And when I have to make them, you make them too, do you understand?’

  His face had become mottled with purple, as if all the blood vessels had rushed to the surface waving flags in solidarity with his argument. A vein stood out alarmingly on the side of his neck, pulsing like it was trying to break out of his skin and escape to somewhere calmer.

  ‘Yes, Richard,’ I said, bobbing my head down obediently. I didn’t want to be responsible for him having a heart attack. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Good,’ said Richard, his colour diminishing slightly. He ran a finger round the edge of his collar, pulling it away from his neck as if
he needed air. ‘Get it right. I don’t want to see Ball-Basher Bailey turning into Ball-Dropping Bailey, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said meekly. I didn’t feel it was quite the right time to correct him about my new last name when he’d seen it written out six times only minutes earlier.

  When I got home Matt was already on the sofa, staring at his laptop, elbows on his knees. A half-empty beer bottle sat on the coffee table next to him and his face glowed a ghostly blue as he scowled at something, his nose only inches from the screen.

  He’d changed into the old grey sweatshirt and pyjama bottoms he wore after a heavy day at work. I always teased him that they were his grotty equivalent of a Hugh Hefner-style smoking jacket – the items of clothing that announced a man at leisure. And I can’t deny that I’ve worn that sweatshirt myself when he’s been away on a trip for too long, just to remind myself of him.

  ‘You’ll go blind,’ I said, from the doorway.

  He turned his head and gave me a faint, tired smile. The bags under his eyes were almost a match for my own. ‘I thought that was masturbation?’

  ‘Are you watching porn again?’ I teased. I leaned on the door frame. ‘Put your hands where I can see them.’

  ‘Yeah? Put your arse on my lap, Basher,’ said Matt, leaning back and slapping his thighs. His wedding ring winked on his left hand. I still wasn’t used to it. Matt Martell, my husband.

  I hovered at the door, I hadn’t taken off my coat yet and I felt grimy from the overnight flight and the commute home.

  ‘Come on, my wife,’ he said, stretching out his arm to beckon me over. ‘Come here and make your old man very happy.’

  I dragged my feet as I crossed the floor, dropping my bag from my shoulder. Matt’s dark hair stood up in tufts on his head – he only twisted it like that when he was stressed. He didn’t even know he was doing it, but it was one of the things I’d learned living with him. When his hair went like that it was best to tread carefully. I cast a quick glance at his laptop screen as I lowered myself onto his lap – no porn, just another spreadsheet. Lately I saw spreadsheets as I drifted off to sleep, columns of figures leaping over fences, the way other people counted sheep. Hitz was in trouble and we were all feeling it.

  Matt let out an ungentlemanly ‘oof’ sound as I leaned into him.

  ‘Matt Martell, are you implying that I am anything other than a sylph-like featherweight?’ I asked indignantly.

  ‘Not for a minute,’ Matt promised, his face solemn. ‘Have you even sat down yet? I can’t feel a thing.’

  ‘That’s better,’ I said, slipping my arms around his neck.

  ‘Because my legs have gone completely dead,’ he said, grimacing. ‘I may never be able to feel them again. No, no don’t get up, stay here. I’ve missed your face.’

  I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled. Matt didn’t wear aftershave, but I loved the mingled scent of his shaving cream, the moisturiser that he insisted was actually a very manly ‘face protector’, and something indefinable that was just Matt. His hair; his skin. I traced the tip of my nose along the side of his ear.

  ‘I missed yours, too.’

  ‘How come you’re so late home?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s only eight,’ I said. ‘I just stopped off for a drink with Sarah. Richard’s being a total bastard at the moment and we just needed to let off a bit of steam.’

  ‘Get drunk, you mean,’ said Matt, pretending to sniff my breath.

  ‘I had one glass of wine, Matt,’ I said, warningly, looking over at his open beer bottle. ‘And then I left them to it.’

  I didn’t tell Matt that I’d been roundly berated for leaving so early. Jay had turned up at the Crown and Two Chairmen to meet Sarah, with Danny and Chris in tow, all ready to settle in for a session. Their disappointment at my leaving was mostly because I held the Hitz credit card that usually paid for several rounds. But we’d been told to cut expenses lately and I didn’t dare use it unless it was legitimately for work. Instead I bought a round with my own money – tactical, since the three of them were coming out to Singapore in a few weeks – and left them to it. Ignoring all the calls about the ball and chain at home.

  ‘I know, I know, it was work, right?’ Matt laughed. ‘You weren’t enjoying yourself at all, it was a struggle and a trial forcing that wine down.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Why are you still working, anyway?’ I asked, glancing over at the laptop glowing on the coffee table, an unwelcome intruder into my homecoming. It wasn’t like I’d expected Matt to meet me wearing an apron and brandishing a casserole dish – unless he’d had a personality transplant since I’d been away in Singapore – but when I’d longed for home it was for more than a stressed-out husband and his computer.

  Matt pushed himself forward, so that I nearly lost my balance on his knees and had to tighten my grip around him. He slammed the laptop shut. ‘I’m not,’ he said, squeezing me back. ‘I’m spending the evening with my lovely wife.’

  He kissed me, his hand reaching around to stroke my bottom.

  ‘I’ve missed this arse,’ he said. I tried to look at him seductively but my stomach gave a loud gurgle and he broke into laughter. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘For me,’ said Matt, kissing me again.

  ‘For you, but also, I am genuinely starving, Matt. Sorry. Can we eat first?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Matt, picking up his phone from the sofa beside him. ‘What do you fancy? I’ll order in.’

  I took the phone from him and switched it off. ‘I don’t want a takeaway,’ I said.

  Matt looked puzzled. ‘It might be a bit late, but we could head to Pizza Express or something?’

  I shook my head, my hair falling out of the ponytail I’d pulled it into when I got off the plane. ‘Matt, I haven’t had a meal at home for a week. I just want something that hasn’t been fiddled about with, heated up on an airplane, or garnished with two crossed chives and a kumquat. What’s in the fridge?’

  Matt made a face that told me not to expect much. Even though we’d spent a fortune on an American-style two-door stainless-steel fridge, there wasn’t often anything decent in it – usually little more than a few beers, a half-open bottle of wine and an optimistically purchased bag of salad mutating from a solid into a liquid in the vegetable drawer – but it was always especially bad when I’d been away.

  ‘Is there any bread?’ I asked. Matt considered, his eyes rising to the ceiling thoughtfully and then he nodded. ‘Cheese?’

  ‘Think so,’ he said. ‘Cheddar.’

  I rocked myself up off his lap and straightened up my skirt. ‘Tonight, Matt, I will be serving my speciality, fromage au pain.’

  Matt clapped his hands together in mock delight. ‘Avec le sauce de Worcestershire?’

  ‘Naturellement, monsieur,’ I said, with a little curtsey.

  ‘Good job I didn’t marry you for your culinary expertise,’ he grinned.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said affectionately. ‘You could always make it yourself, you know.’

  ‘You know I don’t mean it, Kate,’ he said, opening up his laptop again. ‘You’re everything a wife should be, and more. I’ll be down to the kitchen in ten minutes, just need to finish this off first.’

  He picked up his beer and took a long gulp, while I headed down to the kitchen and hoped there were more where that came from.

  24

  I know what people in Lyme think about the sort of person who wears sunglasses on a grey morning in November. Chanel sunglasses. Inside the bakery. But the choice is to either be considered a pretentious urban idiot or have everyone witness the fact that my eyes have swollen up into puffy slits from crying, like the freshly risen dough on the racks behind me, and I know which one I’d prefer. I expect they already think the former, so let them think it. I don’t need to be the subject of more gossip.

  ‘Are you all right there, my love?’ asks Cathy, kindly, as she brings over my coffee.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ I say,
turning my covered eyes in her direction and offering her my brightest smile. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh I’m fine, my love,’ she says, staying nearby while she adjusts the position of a sugar bowl and moves the butter dish by a few unnecessary centimetres. ‘Got a bit of a hangover this morning, have you?’

  I seize on the excuse instantly. ‘Yes, gosh, half a bottle of wine with Mum last night and I’m a proper state today.’

  ‘Thought so,’ she says, nodding her head in satisfaction. ‘Your Mum stopped in this morning for a Danish pastry and I’m not betraying any confidences if I tell you she only ever does that if she’s got a sore head. She said she’d been visiting you last night, so I put two and two together.’

  ‘I suppose the sunglasses gave it away a bit,’ I admit.

  ‘Oh, my love, I don’t judge. Whatever gets you through. A coffee will sort you right out. Go and get yourself some toast, that’ll help.’

  A family comes into the bakery, parents and children, all anoraks and walking boots and glowering teenage resentment, so Cathy leaves me to show them to the far end of the trestle table. I go to the counter and cut myself two thick slices of heavy sourdough bread, and drop them into the toaster, watching the filaments glow hotly as the toast browns.

  When I go back to the table, one of the teenagers is crouched down by my seat, her sulkiness forgotten, stroking Minnie’s eager little face. The girl blushes as I approach, and stands up, flustered.

  ‘S-sorry, I should’ve asked,’ she says, stepping backwards.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I reply, smiling. ‘She loves a bit of attention. Her name’s Minnie.’

  The girl hesitates, looking back at her parents. ‘They said I shouldn’t disturb you,’ she says, and I’m not sure if she has come over here to see Minnie because she wanted to or because she wanted to defy them. They smile at me apologetically. I expect I do look quite forbidding in my harsh sunglasses.