The Foster Husband

by Pippa Wright

  ‘Oh it’s fine,’ I say, and sit down on the bench next to her. ‘You’re not disturbing me at all. Are you on holiday?’

  The girl crouches down again, and starts scratching Minnie’s chest in a way that makes her puppy eyes glaze with contentment.

  ‘Yeah.’ She sighs. ‘Lyme fucking Regis with my parents. Seriously. I’m too old for this.’

  I hold back a smile. She looks impossibly young to me, with her gangly limbs and heartbreakingly studied attempts at nonchalance.

  ‘How old are you?’ I ask, before remembering how much I hated being asked that when I was her age. Every year gained felt so significant back then that it astonished me people couldn’t tell exactly how old I was. How mortifying to be taken for fifteen (silly, schoolgirlish) when one was seventeen (about to leave home, grown-up).

  ‘Sixteen,’ she says, a challenge in her up-tilted chin, as if I might dispute it.

  ‘Oh, I thought you were older,’ I say. This is quite untrue, but I feel I owe her a favour after asking the dreaded question in the first place.

  She ducks her head, blushing again, but not before I see a glimpse of the smile that shows her delight.

  ‘I found Lyme pretty boring when I was your age too,’ I admit, buttering my toast. ‘There’s not a lot here for teenagers.’

  She looks up at me witheringly, clearly unable to believe I might ever have had anything in common with her. It’s strange how coming back to Lyme has made me feel like I’m the same insecure eighteen-year-old who ran away to London, and yet to this teenage girl – nearly the age I was then – I am just another tedious adult who can’t possibly understand her angst.

  ‘Yeah, anyway, thanks for letting me say hi to your dog,’ the girl says, standing up. ‘Bye, Minnie.’

  ‘Bye,’ I say. ‘Enjoy the rest of your holiday.’

  She rolls her eyes. As she goes back to her parents I hear her mother tell her to wash her hands after stroking the dog. The girl refuses – ‘It didn’t even lick me!’ – and they begin bickering in fierce whispers, as if we can’t all tell that they’re arguing. To my surprise, it’s the mother I feel sorry for. She’s only trying to look after her daughter, to protect her. I feel a sudden pang for my mother, and how she must have felt when I shut her out of my life back then.

  My throat constricts and I feel blood rush to my cheeks. I can’t start crying again; God, I won’t be able to see out of my eyes at this rate. All of this reminiscing is turning me into a lunatic. This is why it’s better not to dwell too much on the past.

  ‘Yoohoo!’ calls a voice, jolting me out of my thoughts. Mrs Curtis bustles through the door of the bakery determinedly.

  Cathy suddenly steps into her path and there is a heated debate, conducted mostly in whispers. Cathy grasps Mrs Curtis’s elbow and starts to steer her towards the door.

  ‘Pam, it’s nothing personal, but if you can’t show me you’ve got enough money to pay for your tea—’

  ‘Dreadful woman!’ exclaims Mrs Curtis, slapping ineffectively at Cathy’s hand.

  I stand up and join them, lowering my voice to the same whisper, even though every eye in the bakery is already on the three of us.

  ‘Cathy, it’s okay. Mrs Curtis was going to join me, weren’t you?’

  Mrs Curtis straightens her fleece and pink knitted cap, sniffing in outrage. ‘Thank you, dear. Is there no respect for one’s elders these days?’

  Cathy and I exchange a look that tells me I, too, may be persona non grata here if I don’t watch it. But Mrs Curtis has already moved on and, with blithe unconcern, is helping herself to a plateful of pastries from the counter.

  When she sits down opposite me her plate is piled high, and she begins to wrap each pastry in a napkin before tucking them into a plastic bag that she has pulled out of the pocket of her fleece.

  ‘For later, dear,’ she says. ‘So kind of you. One small misunderstanding over my bill – so long ago! – and Cathy simply will not let bygones be bygones.’

  I decide that now is not the time to tackle Mrs Curtis’s free-and-easy attitude towards other people’s money.

  ‘Have you been for a swim this morning?’ I ask.

  ‘Ooh, no, dear,’ she says, with an elaborate wink. ‘Of course not. Now, I have been meaning to ask you . . .’

  I steel myself for another round of questions about Matt. Mrs Curtis seems determined to draw parallels between her life and mine and, although I have grown pretty fond of her, I have to admit to resisting comparisons to a nearly bald kleptomaniac with a taste for sea water and rubber hats.

  ‘That young man who’s living with you – Prue’s fiancé, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, Ben,’ I say. ‘They’re getting married on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘My dear he looked ever so cross last night. Not that I’m a curtain-twitcher – far from it! – but I just happened to see him leaving the house at about half past seven and he seemed in a fearsome mood. Muttering to himself, you know.’

  I had thought Ben seemed far too accepting of my lesson last night. And now here was the proof that he wasn’t accepting at all. How strange to realize that Ben, who I had considered to be so transparently obvious in all things, is able to hide his true feelings after all. But at the same time, it shows that the lesson must have gone in at some level. He needed to feel the bite of it to remember for next time.

  ‘Just a bit of confusion over visitors, Mrs Curtis,’ I explain. ‘Nothing to worry about. You know how it is when you’re living with someone new, takes a bit of getting used to.’

  Mrs Curtis nibbles thoughtfully on a pain au raisin, chewing all the way around the outside in little bites.

  ‘I suppose it is rather strange, to have to accommodate someone else in your own living space,’ she says. ‘I’m not sure I could tolerate it.’

  ‘Well, you know,’ I answer. ‘It’s just a matter of expectations, really. And training, ha ha.’

  She looks at me shrewdly over the top of her pastry. ‘Training, dear?’

  ‘Just joking,’ I say, picking up a napkin and wiping at a non-existent spot of coffee on the table.

  ‘Are you?’ she asks.

  I fold the napkin up into a small square and tuck it into my empty coffee cup. Mrs Curtis continues to wait for my answer as she picks at her pastry with her red fingernails.

  ‘Mrs Curtis,’ I say. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘No, dear,’ she answers frankly.

  But I decide to tell her anyway. Who’s she going to report back to, after all? And even if she does go blabbing, everyone thinks she’s crazy. No one would believe her. I feel a compulsion to have a witness to my mission – someone to observe the progress that would otherwise go unmarked by anyone but me.

  ‘Mrs Curtis, what would you think if I told you that Ben is my foster husband?’

  25

  The doorbell rings early on Saturday morning. I’m still in my pyjamas since Ben woke early and decided to rip out the blue bathroom tiles before I could have a shower. Sometimes my good intentions are my own undoing, but it’s the last room to be done up. The plumber arrives on Monday and in a week the whole house will be finished. I try not to think what will happen if the redecorated house sells as quickly as I assured Ben it would. It might force me into making some sort of decision about where to go next.

  Through the frosted glass I can see two small figures, and a taller one. Minnie barks at the door, and I see the letterbox flip open and five little fingers poke through the bristle strips, a pair of eyes searching behind them.

  ‘Well, good morning,’ I say, opening the door to see Eddy and his girls standing there expectantly. Grace hops from foot to foot, one hand hidden behind her back.

  ‘We’ve got a present for the puppy,’ she shrieks, unable to contain herself any longer. She thrusts out her hand towards Minnie, who sniffs at the haphazardly wrapped package.

  ‘Oh wow, aren’t you sweet?’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  Charlotte plays it cool. ‘Grace,
Daddy says we’re not to give it to Minnie unless Kate says so. You shouldn’t feed other people’s dogs without asking.’

  ‘You know, you’re absolutely right, Charlotte,’ I say. ‘You’re very good to ask. Why don’t you come on in and then you can give Minnie her present in the garden in case she makes a mess opening it?’

  Eddy smiles at me over the heads of his daughters as they race past me towards the back door.

  ‘Seem to always catch you in your pyjamas,’ he says, embarrassed. He suddenly starts as he hears a sound from the bathroom.

  ‘Er, Kate, have you got someone here? Should we—’

  I snort with laughter. ‘God, Eddy, no! It’s my sister’s fiancé.’

  Eddy’s eyes widen still further, and his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline.

  ‘Not like that! He’s just moved in for a while, before the wedding – he’s helping with decorating the place so we can sell it faster,’ I explain. Eddy looks reassured, but still suspicious.

  ‘Bit weird though, isn’t it?’ he says, tilting his head towards the bathroom.

  I shrug. It’s come to seem totally normal to me now, or as normal as things get in my family. From the garden we can hear the girls shrieking with excitement, and Minnie’s sharp yaps. Eddy follows me into the kitchen, and I’m putting the kettle on when Ben appears, wiping his hands all over his sweatshirt, his hair and eyebrows white with plaster dust.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, confidently striding towards Eddy with his wiped-clean hand outstretched. ‘How do you do? Ben Truscott. Prue’s, er, betrothed.’

  Eddy looks bewildered at the formality of the introduction. ‘Eddy Curtis,’ he says, looking at me for his cue. ‘Kate’s, er, schoolfriend?’

  Ben beams at both of us. ‘Kettle on?’ he says, unnecessarily since he must be able to hear it clunking away behind me. ‘Mine’s white, two sugars.’

  I give him a look that he chooses to ignore, staring instead at Eddy. It doesn’t escape my notice that the arrival of another man in the house has ramped up Ben’s testosterone levels considerably. He wouldn’t dream of expecting me to make him tea without asking nicely if he wasn’t showing off. I find myself wondering, as I open the cupboard for teabags, how effective Ben’s training truly is if it all falls apart in front of other people.

  As if reading my mind, Eddy asks, out of nowhere, ‘My grandma says to ask you how the training’s going?’

  ‘What?’ I exclaim, spinning around from the cupboard. But he looks perfectly innocent.

  ‘Training,’ says Eddy. ‘The dog, I supposed she meant.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘Minnie. Of course. Well, you can tell her it’s going fine. A few wobbles, but a firm hand is all that’s needed. The results are worth it.’

  ‘So, Eddy,’ says Ben, standing with his legs improbably far apart in what I can only assume is an effort to look more macho. ‘At school with Kate, eh? I bet you’ve got a tale or two to tell, ha ha!’

  Eddy mutters something about the girls, and strides over to the back door to look out at where they’re playing.

  Ben, as oblivious as ever, ploughs on. ‘Prue says she had a total mare at school being known as Kate’s sister. Everyone always expected her to blow up the chemistry lab, or deal drugs behind the languages block.’

  Eddy coughs and glances at me quickly.

  ‘Reports of my wildness may have been exaggerated,’ I say, smiling and letting Eddy see that I’m not bothered by it. ‘And sharing the occasional spliff hardly counts as dealing drugs. Prue makes it sound like I was selling crack on the playing fields.’

  Ben sucks in his breath audibly, shaking his head. ‘You say that, Kate, but it’s pretty well-documented that marijuana is a gateway drug. I’m no authority, but I believe I’m right in saying that the occasional spliff, as you so casually put it, can lead to much more dangerous drugs.’

  I smirk down at the kitchen counter, plopping two teaspoons of sugar into Ben’s milky tea as he continues his lecture. From over by the back door, Eddy catches my eye and flashes me a conspiratorial grin. Us against Ben. It feels strange – I’d almost forgotten how it felt to be anything other than me on my own against everything – but welcome to be silently sharing a joke across a room like this, not having to say a word to be understood.

  Our eyes stay locked for a fraction too long to be comfortable, and Eddy breaks away first, stepping out into the garden, claiming to hear the girls arguing. Ben continues regardless.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Ben,’ I say, eventually, to shut him up. I have a feeling he could go on for hours about the dangers of ‘hard drugs’, which is an expression I have only heard on the lips of people who’ve never taken any. ‘It’s only a matter of luck that I didn’t end up as a crack whore, or worse.’

  ‘Well,’ says Eddy, coming back into the kitchen with a glint in his eye. ‘I don’t know about luck. Everyone knows that Manda Clarke had the crack-whore thing sewn up back then – she’d never have let you on her patch. And Davy Mason was running Lyme’s heroin supply from the bike sheds. Not sure there was room for another dealer in town.’

  ‘Heroin?’ exclaims Ben, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. ‘Crikey!’

  ‘Well,’ I say to Eddy. ‘Until Davy got turned out of the bike sheds by Manda’s underage prostitution ring, of course. No one wanted to cross the Big Mama of the Fourth Year.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Eddy gravely, shaking his head. ‘Tough times. They’d cleaned the school up a lot by the time Prue got there, Ben. Don’t look so shocked.’

  Ben looks from me to Eddy and then back again, his forehead contracting with the effort of thinking. Then he reaches over and slaps Eddy on the back so heartily that Eddy has to take a correcting step to steady himself.

  ‘Ha! Nearly had me then! Prostitution ring!’ Ben’s booming laugh fills the kitchen.

  ‘Here’s your tea,’ I say, holding out a steaming mug. ‘Watch out for the heroin. I’m not sure I stirred it in properly.’

  Ben scoffs and takes the mug out of my hands, still chuckling.

  ‘So you’ve made this place look amazing,’ says Eddy. ‘Grandma said you’d been working like mad.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ben and I say in unison. He looks embarrassed to have been caught taking all the credit.

  ‘All Kate’s idea,’ says Ben graciously.

  ‘But I couldn’t have done it without Ben,’ I say, equally gracious. I feel like we are an advert for cordial relations between in-laws, at least, now that he’s forgiven me for turfing him out of the house when the football was on.

  ‘Yeah,’ he agrees. ‘Kate’s more of the foreman type. You know what women are like, mate. Just give the directions, ha! Leave all the grafting to us, right?’

  Eddy laughs uncomfortably, and Ben adopts an even more wide-legged stance, as if to assert his manliness despite admitting he obeyed my orders. At this rate he’ll soon be on the kitchen floor in full box splits.

  ‘Well, it looks great,’ says Eddy, politely tactful.

  Ben claims that it’s because he and I are a dream team, which is news to me. I suppose it’s true that I think of myself more as the foreman than part of a team. But someone has to be in charge, surely? Otherwise you just drift, never achieving anything, never going anywhere. There has to be a direction in life, or where do you end up?

  I excuse myself to use the bathroom while Ben is on a break from ripping up the tiles. I’ve hardly left the kitchen before I hear his next question to Eddy, announced in his foghorn voice as if he’s projecting out into the street.

  ‘Seriously, though, mate, I heard Kate was a right goer back at school. Did you and she ever—’

  I slam the bathroom door before I have to hear any more.

  In the half-destroyed bathroom, plaster dust settles in my hair as I pick my toothbrush off the side of the sink. Considering my reflection, I seem to have a touch of the Miss Havishams – if she had lived in a Sixties bungalow. It’s less romantic than a crumbling old mansion, and the b
right blue bathroom suite doesn’t really lend itself to an atmosphere of tragedy, but we definitely have something in common. Our pasts weigh too heavily on the present. If I don’t escape from mine soon, I may as well stay hiding in this bathroom forever, shrinking away from conversations, avoiding contact with the outside world.

  Is that what I want? To hide out in Lyme for ever, slowly mouldering, my hair greying with age and dust? If the best revenge is living well, I’m not doing a terribly good job of it.

  26

  London

  Although Matt frequently accused me of living there, I’d never been in the Crown and Two Chairmen in the middle of the day before. I suppose it had never crossed my mind that people might sit in a pub on a workday – don’t they have places to go? Money to earn? But the pub was busy. Not like on a Thursday or a Friday night when the after-work crowd was four deep at the bar, and punters took over the pavements outside, but tables were occupied, the quiz machine was in use, the barman rushed from customer to customer. I had thought it was only tragic, unemployed alcoholics who found themselves downing their third drink of the day by 3 p.m., but this afternoon I was well on the way to becoming one of their number.

  Richard had called us in the moment we returned from Singapore. We thought, naturally, that it was for the usual wash-up session: going over what had worked and what hadn’t, discussing what we could improve for the next time, making sure all the figures added up. He should have been out in Singapore to oversee everything, but at the last minute he’d had to stay in London. Even without him, the event had been a triumph – everyone said so – and through the jetlag and exhaustion we were proud of the job we’d done. Striding through the office after two weeks away, trailing our wheeled suitcases behind us, Sarah and I had greeted our colleagues, ready for the praise we were sure must be coming our way – and the compliments on the tans we’d managed to get by the hotel pool on the last day. But people seemed to be avoiding conversation beyond a brief hello.