‘Thank you so much,’ Alison said, warmly grateful of the discretion.
‘Not at all,’ the receptionist said.
It was about two minutes later that she got a text from Dominic saying, ‘Stop checking up on me.’
She was a little late getting the girls to St Margaret’s First School, but she didn’t think it mattered today because she had to see the head anyway before the girls were taken off to their classrooms.
Unlike Dominic’s school, which all the children in the town who weren’t privately educated went to, Alison had not gone to St Margaret’s when she was her daughters’ age, and it was something of a relief to be in an unfamiliar and neutral environment. She only wished that both of her daughters felt the same way.
It was a sweet little school, built around an original Victorian schoolhouse, and what it lacked in playing fields because of its town-centre location it made up for in atmosphere. The thing that Alison had liked about it most was the sense of community. The children all seemed to care about each other, the bigger ones looking out for the little ones. Alison thought that this was especially important for Amy.
Dear, precious, uncomplicated Gemma, who could have little idea how her self-confidence and adaptability kept her mother going, had been chatting happily to her teacher as she had been taken off to her classroom to be introduced to her new classmates. Amy had not gone happily at all. She had cried and cried, clinging to Alison’s skirts, begging her mummy to take her home with her. Eventually Alison had had to peel her daughter’s fingers from the fabric, desperately trying not to cry herself, and physically hand her to the teacher.
‘Come on, darling,’ Alison had said, holding her daughter’s hand out to the teacher. ‘You go with Mrs Pritchard now. You’re going to have a lovely time and I bet you’ll make a lot of friends, you’ll see.’
Amy’s sobs had echoed all the way down the corridor.
When Alison had come out of school the playground was empty of parents and pupils and she had been relieved. She wasn’t ready to meet anybody just yet, after that dramatic farewell with Amy, which had left her on the verge of tears and on the point of running back into the school to scoop her baby up and rescue her.
She had made the short drive back to her new house with a heavy heart, and once she had pulled into the drive she sat in the 4x4 and looked at the house for quite a long time. It was huge: six bedrooms, third-floor guest suite, an open-plan hallway with a living room, dining room and gigantic kitchen off it. It was twice as big as their London house and ten times as grand. Marc loved it. He loved buying this overstated and opulent palace. He loved the fact that it was brand-spanking-new and slightly tacky, with none of the grace and dignity of some of the other houses they had looked at, the Victorian villas that populated over half the town. He loved the remote-controlled electric gates, the faux Regency pillars that stood proudly either side of the double front doors, and he loved the fact that he was able to buy up the paddock at the back of the house that one day soon he’d promised to occupy with a pony for the girls.
‘This says we’ve arrived,’ he’d told Alison on the night they’d moved in, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Who’d have thought that you and I would have made it all the way here, hey? We’ve beaten the odds, Al; we’ve proved them all wrong.’
Which had made Alison wonder – who did they have anything to prove to now? Except perhaps themselves.
Now, still sitting immobilised on the bed, Alison looked around at her new bedroom, the Cellophane of the mattress squeaking beneath her bottom as she twisted to survey the mountain of boxes that required unpacking.
And she decided she would cry after all. Just then crying seemed about the only thing she was confident she could do.
Chapter Four
CATHERINE WAS OUT of breath when she hit the school gate at three fifteen because she had run the length of the high street from work in order to be there in time. Her job, working as an administrative manager to local PR company Stratham and Shah couldn’t exactly be called a career, but the hours fitted perfectly into the school day as long as she was prepared to sprint there and back every morning and afternoon. Apart from the vital if meagre income it provided, it also gave her an interest outside of the house and the girls, and even her unorthodox relationship with Jimmy. Her job was something that was entirely her own. There was not much glamour to be had in binding presentations or managing the online diary for the practice, but Catherine was very good at it. She enjoyed bringing order to the often chaotic and capricious office and garnered quiet satisfaction from the frequency with which the word ‘indispensable’ was used in connection with her name.
Eloise was already in the playground, hopping randomly, her head bowed in concentration as if each hop was being placed with precision. Catherine stopped just inside the gate to catch her breath and watch her daughter in her one-legged endeavours, her red hair flying in all directions.
‘Mum!’ Eloise spotted her and raced up to her at full pelt, using her mother’s body to break her speed.
‘Guess what, it’s so exciting!’ Eloise hopped onto Catherine’s toes. ‘I’ve got a new best friend! She started today and her name is Gemma and she has got a sister in Leila’s class. She has just moved to Farmington from London and she has got a bedroom to herself and, Mummy – guess what. Her dad said he’d buy her an actual pony! Like, a real one!’
Catherine looked at Eloise, her cheeks glowing hotly on her otherwise pale face, and she felt her heart sink.
‘A pony?’ Catherine repeated. This was bad news. Her daughters begged her for a pet, any kind of pet, on a daily basis, frequently stating that even a gerbil would do. But Eloise’s heart’s desire, the one thing she longed for more than anything in the world, was a pony. And now here was a girl who was going to have her very own pony. Catherine would never hear the end of it.
‘And,’ Eloise went on, tugging at Catherine’s hand, ‘she says I can come round and see it whenever I like, and ride it and play with it and groom it and everything.’ Eloise was almost shouting in her excitement. ‘So can I go round tonight, Mummy? Can I? Can I? Can I, please?’
‘I expect tonight is a little bit too soon,’ Catherine said. ‘They’ll still be unpacking.’
‘But please can Gemma come to tea one day soon?’ Eloise begged. ‘Please!’
‘Of course she can, one day,’ Catherine said, deliberately noncommittal. ‘Let’s go round and pick Leila up and then when we get back, if we see Gemma and her mummy, we’ll ask her, OK?’
‘Yippee!’ Eloise called out happily as she skipped along beside Catherine on their way round to Leila’s class, catching Catherine’s hand and swinging it back and forth.
‘I knew being eight was going to be my best age,’ she said happily.
‘How did you know that?’ Catherine smiled in anticipation. While Leila had the light hazel eyes and wavy dark brown hair of her father, she also had the staunch practicality that she could have got only from her mother, as well as, since starting at St Margaret’s First School, what appeared to be a quite sincere and devout belief in God.
Eloise, on the other hand, although a carbon copy of Catherine from the ends of her wild red hair to the tips her long skinny legs, was a dreamer and a rebel like her father. Catherine couldn’t wait to hear Eloise’s theory on why eight was such a great age.
‘Because one, two, three, four, five, six and seven are baby years,’ Eloise said, gesturing as if she were presenting a new report on TV. ‘But eight is halfway to sixteen, halfway to being grown up. When you’re eight you start to count in the world; you’re not a baby any more.’
‘You’ll always be my baby,’ Catherine said, putting her arms around Eloise and squeezing her tight on impulse.
‘I won’t, Mummy.’ Eloise wriggled free. ‘I’m growing up, you know!’
‘I know you are,’ Catherine said, picking up a strand of her daughter’s hair. She remembered the morning when Jimmy had put their first-born in her arms. Her touch, her weig
ht, her smell and the joy of her tiny fingers closing around Catherine’s fingers, and the world seemed so much brighter and so sharp, as if she was looking at her life through a new pair of eyes. ‘But I’ll always love you and your sister just as much as I did from the moment you were born.’
‘And now I’ve met Gemma, and she’s getting a pony, and Leila’s stopped snoring at night and, well, things are getting better. They are starting to go the right way, aren’t they, Mummy?’
Catherine paused and looked down at her daughter. ‘Are they?’ she asked tentatively. She knew that although it was Eloise who had suffered the most visibly during the pain and mess of the break-up, that first year after Jimmy had moved out had been raw, confusing and difficult for them all. If she was now beginning to see the separation in a better light, if the work that she and Jimmy had done to restore some stability to their daughters’ lives was finally paying off, then Catherine could not have been happier. ‘How’s that?’
‘Well, now you aren’t so angry with Daddy any more and he’s stopped making you angry. Now you let him come round when he likes, and have dinner and put us to bed. Things are nearly back to the way they were, aren’t they, Mummy? It won’t be long now.’
‘What won’t?’ Catherine asked, battling the prescient sensation that she knew exactly what Eloise was going to say next.
‘Well, soon Daddy will come home for good, won’t he?’
Just at that second Leila came tearing out of her classroom, her coat attached to her only by its hood hooked over her head, and her arms filled with several sheets of artwork and some junk models, bits of toilet roll and empty yoghurt cartons flying in her wake.
‘Leila, put your coat on properly,’ Catherine said automatically, picking the coat off her daughter’s head and holding it out for her to put on.
‘Look!’ Leila said, thrusting out a jumble of what had formerly been food containers of various descriptions. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’
‘It’s an amazing … car,’ Catherine hazarded a guess.
‘Is it a car?’ Leila scrutinised the object. ‘I thought it was an octopus, but anyway, it’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Well?’ Eloise asked Leila as she unburdened her sister of her treasure and Catherine helped her on with the coat.
‘Well …’ Leila looked thoughtful. ‘I learned about China today, Mummy. Did you know its flag is bright red and there are dragons there, but not real dragons because there aren’t really dragons in this world. There are real dragons in Australia, though, and kangaroos, which are true animals because we saw them at the zoo – do you remember? – and they went bounce … bounce …bounce … Do you think there were kangaroos on the Ark? Can we look it up when we get in?’
Leila bounced into her sister, dashing her model octopus/ car to the floor, where it promptly exploded. Catherine bent down to pick it up, stuffing its various components in her capacious bag.
‘Not that, silly,’ Eloise said impatiently as Catherine, still on her knees, buttoned up Leila’s coat. ‘I mean, what about the new girl in your class. Have you made best friends with her? Has she told you she’s getting a pony?’
Leila looked blank.
‘Did you meet the new little girl that started today?’ Catherine interpreted for her younger daughter. ‘Did you play with her?’
‘Oh, well,’ Leila said, transformed from complete ignorance to world expert on the subject in an instant. ‘The new girl’s name is Amy and she cries the whole time and Mrs Pritchard didn’t even shout at her or put her on the sad face or anything, and we were all nice to her. Ryan didn’t even try to chase her, but she cried all day and didn’t do any reading because she cried and said she wanted her mummy, which made Isabelle cry for her mummy and then Alfie did and then everyone was crying for a bit. I joined in too, but only pretend because I quite like reading.’
‘Everyone in your whole class was crying?’ Catherine questioned her.
‘Well, Amy and Alfie and Isabelle did,’ Leila said with a shrug. ‘And when Amy’s mummy came to school to pick her up they had to go and talk to Mrs Woodruff. About the crying I ’spect.’
‘Typical,’ Eloise sighed dramatically. ‘Can we wait for them to come out from Mrs Woodruff’s office, Mummy? Can we, please?’
‘No, we can’t,’ Catherine said firmly, feeling some empathy towards this unknown mother and her attempts to get her children settled in a new school. ‘We’ll see her tomorrow, I expect, and I’ll go and say hello to the mummy then.’
‘And you have to make best friends with Amy, OK? Even if she does cry all the time,’ Eloise ordered her sister urgently.
‘OK,’ Leila agreed as she fished a sawn-off washing-up liquid bottle from out of her mother’s bag and looked at it. ‘Actually, it was pony. It was a good pony model, wasn’t it?’
‘The best,’ Catherine said, but as she shepherded her daughters out of the school gate at last she was thinking only one thing. What if, by trying to make things better with Jimmy for her daughters, she had actually made them worse? How was she ever going to be able to explain to Eloise or Leila that their daddy was never coming home?
As the three of them walked down their street towards their terraced house they could hear music from three houses away.
‘Dad’s home!’ Leila exclaimed.
‘And he’s written a new song,’ Eloise said, listening as they approached the front door. ‘It’s good, isn’t it, Mum?’
Catherine listened for a moment or two to the wail of Jimmy’s electric guitar, which was barely muted by the house’s four walls.
‘It sounds very interesting,’ she said diplomatically. This unscheduled appearance at home was exactly the kind of thing that was confusing the situation for the children. But it was also exactly the kind of thing that Catherine had encouraged over the last year. After all, it was still half Jimmy’s house; he still paid the mortgage. And he lived on a freezing cold and leaky canal boat, which his dead alcoholic best friend had left him in order that he’d have enough money to do that. And why shouldn’t he be there when his children got home from school? She’d have to talk to him; they’d have to find a way to help the children understand the situation.
Just as Catherine opened the front door for the girls, Kirsty came out of hers.
‘Any chance you could get him to either shut up or cheer up? Whichever one is likely to happen … sooner.’ She stopped shouting as Eloise ran in first and Jimmy put down his guitar to greet her.
‘Thank the Lord,’ Kirsty said, briefly pressing her palms together in an expression of prayer.
‘Amen,’ Leila said as she followed her big sister inside.
‘I’m sorry,’ Catherine said. ‘He says he can’t really hear how it’s going to sound unless he plays it loud. Count yourself lucky you didn’t live next door when we were still together. Actually that’s probably why the neighbour moved …’
‘So divorce him and then it will be all your house and you won’t be a default wife any more. I’d suggest taking him to the cleaners, but in his case I’d mean it literally. Look, I’m glad I caught you, actually. I need you to come out with me on Friday night.’
‘Come out with you? What do you mean, come out?’ Catherine frowned.
‘I mean you coming out of your house – that’s the big thing with the bricks and the roof, by the way – and proceeding with me to the pub on a Friday night for a drink. That’s another brick thing with a roof on top only it has a licence to sell alcohol too. Now do you understand or would you like me to draw you a diagram?’
‘I’ve told you I don’t go to pubs,’ Catherine started. ‘I’m not normally a pub person.’
‘You’re not normally a normal person, full stop, but you are going to be this Friday because the kids are away with Bon Jovi in there, aren’t they? And because I need you.’ Kirsty smiled like Leila in possession of a chocolate-filled doughnut and a DVD of The Sound of Music. ‘We’re going to just happen to be in the pub where my trainer drinks. I work
ed it all out this morning while I was teaching the over-fifties Pilates. He hasn’t fallen in love with me yet because he’s never seen me at my finest, with my hair done and my push-up bra on, and mascara. So I’m going to coincidentally go to the pub where he always is on a Friday night in my new turquoise crocheted dress with the cleavage, and he’s going to see me and think, wow, and fall in love with me on the spot for the kind and sensitive person I am. Do you see?’
‘And you want me to come with you,’ Catherine said. ‘You don’t want one of your other friends? You know, the friends that actually like people.’
‘Of course I do,’ Kirsty sighed. ‘But the bastards all have someone. You are all I have left. It’s the cross I have to bear. Besides, what you need most in the world is to be brought out of yourself a bit, and if me helping you do that also means that you are somehow helping me in some tiny little way then it’s synergy, isn’t it? It’s cosmic forces in balance. Plus I put up with your husband wailing his head off for hours on end when I’m supposed to be teaching Tantric meditation to Mrs Evans so that she can bring herself to have sex with her husband, so you owe me.’
‘He’s my ex-husband and if you’ve got a student in there, where is she?’ Catherine asked.
‘Meditating, obviously. Now what do you say? Yes or no?’
Catherine tried to imagine herself standing in a pub full of Friday night drinkers and couldn’t. Then she tried to imagine herself successfully saying ‘no’ to Kirsty, and that seemed even more unlikely. Perhaps it would be better to just go and try to get the whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible.
‘OK,’ she relented. ‘I’ll come for an hour then, tops, just enough for you to pull him. Then I’m going home.’
‘Of course you are,’ Kirsty said happily. ‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
Inside Jimmy had thankfully unplugged his electric guitar in favour of his acoustic one and was now strumming his new song, singing to the girls, both of his feet up on the coffee table, an adoring daughter either side of him on the sofa. Seeing the three of them together like that still gave Catherine’s heart a wrench. It was impossible not to imagine what their lives could have been like if she and Jimmy had been different people – or not even different, but just the right people for each other. How perfect things could have been if she could have loved him the way he wanted her to, or if she had been enough for him as she was, damaged and incomplete.
The Accidental Wife Page 4
