by Fiona Gibson
‘Thanks. It’s been fun, actually, if a little challenging.’
‘I did it!’ Grace protests. ‘Mum just did the boring cooking part.’
‘Ah. Right.’ He winks at me. ‘More of a team effort then.’
I watch as he retrieves his and Finn’s football kit from the tumble dryer. Mum and daughter baking, boys off to play footie – we’re almost a cardboard cut-out family. I’m starting to wonder if this is how Jed and I will be: living and running the family together, being nice and polite and careful not to tread on each other’s toes.
Once Jed and Finn have left for football, Grace, Toby and I put the finishing touches to our gingerbread palace. Even Toby dislodging some white chocolate roof tiles does nothing to dampen our spirits as we step out into the bright, blue-skied day.
Toby skips ahead along the pavement, swiping at overhanging bushes with a stick. Grace walks alongside me, casting nervous glances at the large tin I’m carrying, as if fearful that I might drop it. By the time we arrive at the park, Ruth and a gaggle of women have commandeered the grassy area by the lake. Some have brought older children, and Grace hurries off to join them. Toby prowls around the picnic area, studying the food, wanting the eating part to start immediately. ‘You go running around here, don’t you?’ Ruth asks.
‘Yes,’ I say with a start. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve seen you out and about. You’re looking great, Laura. Saw you out one evening with some man . . .’
‘Yes, I often do an evening run,’ I say quickly, relieved that both Toby and Grace are out of earshot. To distract her from further probing, I whip the lid off our tin, waiting for her to reel back in admiration.
‘What on earth’s that?’ she guffaws.
‘Er, it’s a gingerbread house.’ As I glance down at it, my heart sinks. Our painstakingly-decorated walls have all collapsed in on each other, and the roof is askew. It looks as if it was assembled by a drunk person.
‘Oh dear,’ Ruth says.
‘Yes, well,’ I say briskly, spirits plummeting further as Grace scampers towards me. ‘I’m sure it’ll all fit back together.’
Grace’s face crumples as she peers into the tin. ‘Oh, Mummy! Why did it break?’
‘I don’t know, darling. Something faulty with the design, maybe?’
‘We should complain,’ she says fiercely. But who to? The cookbook author? The library? It was clearly my fault for thinking it’d be okay to transport the house before its icing cement had set properly.
I catch Ruth smirking at Pippa, a supermum who’s brought an extensive selection of crudités for everyone to nibble on. They are neatly laid out in rows on a rectangular tray, like a brand new set of coloured pencils. At least Grace and I tried to do something creative together. Is it my fault that the damn thing collapsed? I’m a hairdresser, not a construction worker . . .
As news of our derelict gingerbread shack spreads, virus-like, around the assembled mothers, the more brazen of the group come over for a proper look. ‘God, you’re so funny, Laura,’ one of them witters. ‘You always give us a laugh.’
‘Yes,’ Pippa sniggers. ‘Whenever I worry that my life’s out of control, I think of you, and then I don’t feel so bad.’ There’s a hoot of laughter that startles the ducks.
I try to laugh too, but am capable only of chomping bitterly on a celery crudité. I’m ridiculously grateful to see Beth striding towards us across the grass, with Jack tearing ahead with a skateboard jammed under his arm. She sees me and waves. I march towards her, away from our derelict gingerbread house and the gaggle of mothers who are discussing the fact that, these days, everyone buys their gingerbread houses in flatpack form at IKEA. ‘It’s much easier,’ Ruth chirps. ‘That way, you just get to do the fun, decorating part.’
‘I’d started to think you weren’t coming,’ I tell Beth as we meet on the grass.
‘I wasn’t going to. Just didn’t feel like it, but Jack nagged and . . .’ She musters a smile. ‘Here we are.’
This is disappointing. I’d been counting on Beth to raise my spirits, but she’s obviously not in a picnic mood. ‘What did you bring?’ I ask her.
‘Oh, nothing much.’ Beth’s nothing-much is usually a delectable home-made Victoria sponge. She rummages in her bag and pulls out a packet of shop-bought oatmeal cookies. They look like something a budgie would sharpen its beak on.
‘Yeuch,’ Jack growls, scowling at the packet, then hares off to the water’s edge.
The rest of the picnic is just plain weird. Beth is oddly quiet, and when I return from taking Toby to the loo, I find her sitting alone and looking doleful, flicking pebbles into the lake. ‘Is something wrong?’ I ask, crouching down beside her.
‘No, not really.’ She looks pale and stressed. We fall into silence while a bunch of children throw bread to the ducks. Then I realise it’s not bread, but broken-up pieces of gingerbread house. ‘Have you and Pete had a row?’ I ask.
Beth shakes her head. ‘No, it’s not that.’ Into the lake, amidst the children’s raucous laughter, plops our gingerbread roof. ‘It floats!’ Grace announces.
‘Let’s sink it!’ yells someone else, lobbing a rock into the water.
Beth turns to look at me. ‘You know your running friend?’
I nod, confused. ‘What, Danny?’
Her eyes meet mine. ‘Does it . . . mean anything, Laura?’
I look down at the grass. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so . . .’ There’s a splash as Toby scores a direct hit, shattering our roof. ‘I do think about him a lot,’ I add. ‘I know it’s nuts and I’m married and shouldn’t . . .’ Her hand touches mine. ‘Nothing’s ever going to happen,’ I go on, ‘but, you know, Jed would go crazy if he found out, and I can’t believe I’ve kept it secret, really. I suppose I just wanted something just for me, something that lifted me and made me feel good . . .’
‘Would he go crazy? Are you sure?’
‘Of course! I mean, we’re not exactly close these days, and I can’t remember the last time he touched or kissed me and I’m sure he’s still obsessed with that bloody Celeste, but still . . .’ I break off. ‘Why d’you say that?’
I look at Beth, and suddenly I know. Know for sure, I mean. All those hunches, those snags of unease, seem to bunch up inside me, swelling until I can hardly breathe. ‘What is it?’ I whisper.
‘I . . . I saw them.’ Her eyes are lowered to the grass. ‘You’re my friend, Laura, and I care about you. I just thought you should know.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘You saw Jed and Celeste?’ I murmur.
‘Yes. Well, I assume it was her, from how you’ve described her . . .’
‘Where?’ There are shrieks of laughter as a child charges into the lake.
‘You know the stables near Barnswick? I’d gone to pick up Kira from horse riding. I was early, sitting waiting in the car, and I saw someone in the rearview mirror at a table outside the pub. And I realised it was Jed. I was about to jump out of the car and join him, assuming he’d be with you.’
‘And he was with her? Just the two of them, at a pub miles from anywhere?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do, whether to tell you, but I haven’t been able to think about anything else since . . .’
‘What . . . what were they doing?’
‘Nothing. I mean, they were sitting and talking. It could be quite innocent, Laura. Maybe she needed to talk to him about something that had happened at work . . .’
‘But why there?’ I ask. ‘They could have just gone to the Green Dragon by school where the teachers usually hang out. They obviously didn’t want anyone to see them.’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘it kind of looks that way. But don’t jump to any conclusions.’
I nod. My eyes are blurring but, mercifully, they don’t spill over in front of all the crudité-chomping mums. They just fill with hot tears as the picnic goes on all around us: women chatting, kids skimmi
ng pebbles, someone praising Ruth’s extensive cupcake selection. ‘Look out!’ Toby yells as a long, flat object flies over my head, colliding with the oak tree behind us and collapsing damply onto the grass.
I survey the small brown pile. Pippa, who’s gripping a carrot baton between two fingers, bursts into high-pitched laughter. ‘What the hell was that?’ Beth exclaims.
‘That,’ I say, ‘was our gingerbread house.’
*
It’s a relief to get home, despite the fact that Jed will be back from football by now, so I’ll be confronted by his lying, cheating, country-pub-frequenting face. I haven’t yet figured out when, or how, to confront him. He asks me about the picnic; clicking into autopilot, I tell him about our wrecked house, Pippa’s crudités, and kids having to be coaxed out of the lake, stripped down to their pants and swaddled in their mums’ jackets and jumpers. I tell him everything, apart from the part about Beth seeing him at a country pub.
And I try to keep calm, reminding myself that there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. I do calming things like drink chamomile tea and open a packet of hazelnut and chocolate chip cookies, surprised that I can only manage one.
Having had his fill of news from the picnic frontline, Jed takes Toby and Grace out for a kick-around in the park. Finn is called for by his mate James, and they both head round to Calum’s, probably for a completely unsuitable movie-fest. Instead of brooding, I tackle the really foul jobs, like sluicing out the kitchen bin, and investigating unidentifiable spillages under the cooker. I should be running with Danny tonight, but can’t face it. I text: SORRY CANT MAKE IT THS EVE, WILL EXPLAIN, LX
‘Okay love?’ Jed is standing at the kitchen door.
‘Oh,’ I say, startled. ‘I thought you’d gone out.’ I slip my phone into my jeans pocket.
‘Just started raining,’ he says, and there’s a distinct hint of sadness in his dark brown eyes. For a moment, I want to throw my arms around him and hold him close, to convince myself that it wasn’t actually him at that pub. After all, while undeniably handsome, Jed’s dark-eyed, strong-jawed look is hardly uncommon. It could have been another man, taking his girlfriend for a drink in the country. What nicer way to spend a lazy afternoon?
‘Laura . . .’ he begins hesitantly.
‘Uh-huh?’ The children’s voices filter through from the living room, and there’s a ripple of laughter. They are happy, most of the time. Surely, that means we’re not doing too bad a job. Can I risk destroying all of this by confronting Jed?
‘Is . . . is everything all right?’ he asks.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I say briskly. I can’t say anything now; it’s impossible, with the kids around, especially as their laughter has morphed into furious shouts, with Grace yelling, ‘You never let me watch anything, stinkhead!’
‘Puck off!’ Toby cries.
‘It’s not puck off, idiot. You don’t even know how to swear, baby!’
‘Yeah I do. PUCK OFF!’
‘Jesus,’ I growl, marching through to the living room to deal with the fracas. Once I’ve sorted that out, I might start to think how to fix the rest of my life.
*
All evening, the image of Jed and Celeste at that pub table bubbles and ferments in my brain. Finn returns from Calum’s house, boasting, ‘We had proper Chinese from the takeaway. Duck and pancakes and everything, all rolled up with this black sauce. How come we never have that?’
‘Because you’re a deprived child,’ I tell him, ‘although I do seem to remember us having a Chinese, what, about a week ago?’
‘Yeah,’ he says airily, ‘but not the duck.’
‘We never have duck,’ Grace agrees, looking up from her drawing at the coffee table.
‘Yes, could you rectify that, please?’ Jed teases, giving me a wink.
‘Oh, Mum,’ Grace adds, ‘did I tell you about my project?’
‘No,’ I say, my eyes feeling suddenly, scratchily tired. ‘What project’s that?’
‘For school. Family history.’
‘What, like a family tree?’
‘Yeah, kinda. But it’s gotta be a book and we have to describe the people and what it was like when they were little. I’ve got to have photos and stuff.’
‘Gosh,’ I say. ‘It sounds like quite a lot to do. I’ll need to dig out that big box of old family photos. I think they’re in the attic.’
Grace smiles. ‘Thanks. I need ’em tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? Grace, we can’t find family photos tonight! They could be anywhere and it’ll take me hours to rake about up there . . .’
‘You said they’re in the attic,’ she mumbles.
‘Yes, but . . . have you ever seen what it’s like? All the boxes and rubbish and . . . stuff?’
‘I’ve got to take them in tomorrow!’ she bleats. ‘We start by picking one person and standing up in front of the class and doing a talk about them! And I wanted to do Granddad!’ Her eyes fill with tears, her drawing forgotten and her pens scattered all over the floor.
‘Oh, Grace. Don’t cry, love. I think it’s a great idea to talk about Granddad. I wish you’d given me a bit more warning, that’s all.’ Then I’d have spent the best part of this morning in the attic, finding those photos, instead of constructing that damn gingerbread house. I might even have skipped the picnic so Beth wouldn’t have told me about seeing your dad and Celeste and this would just be an ordinary Sunday evening . . .
‘I told you,’ she murmurs. ‘I told you last week.’
I sigh, knowing there’s no point in arguing. Perhaps my kids do tell me these things: that forms need signing for art gallery trips, and family photos located in horrible spidery attics. Maybe I’ve just stopped hearing properly.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, bobbing down to kiss her forehead. ‘I’ll see what I can do, okay?’
She musters a weak smile. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
*
By 9.30 p.m., I still haven’t spoken properly to Jed, because he is getting ahead with some marking at the kitchen table and I am up in the attic. In fact, locating the box of photos isn’t the ordeal I imagined, once I’ve negotiated the Ramsay ladder and remembered where the light switch is. I spot the box, on top of more boxes containing old books, videos and records and the children’s outgrown clothes which I have never got around to taking to the charity shop. Jed’s usually the one who lugs our surplus possessions up here. It must be years since I’ve been in the attic.
I lift down the wooden box and take off its lid. Proper mothers spend hours creating beautiful albums, chronicling every age and stage of their offspring. Our photos are all loose, and sorting through them up here, in the dim, yellowy light, would take forever. I must have sat here for longer than I’ve realised, as I hear Jed coming upstairs and calling good-night. ‘Will you be much longer up there?’ he asks.
‘No, I think I’ve got what I need.’ Waiting until I hear him pottering about in our bedroom, then clicking off the light, I grip the box and step carefully back down the ladder. Then I tip out my family’s life onto the living room floor.
It’s a bizarre, glossy patchwork, a mixture of babies in our arms and, further back, me and Jed on our wedding day looking ridiculously young and delighted with ourselves (and each other) as we gathered with our parents and friends in a cluster outside Hackney Town Hall. It was a dazzling, brilliantly sunny day with red buses trundling by in the background. I looked tanned and slim in a cream slip of a dress, with dark hair piled up, and Jed was dashingly handsome in a navy blue suit which remains the most – actually, the only – expensive item of clothing he’s ever bought. I pick out our old friends’ faces, which are tiny in the group photos: mates from college, the various salons I worked at, and even school. And I realise with a jolt that, apart from occasional phonecalls, which are invariably interrupted by children – plus dashed-off emails and Christmas cards – it’s been years since I’ve had proper, meaningful contact with any of them.
And I wonder if any of these o
ld friends’ husbands have secret trysts in pubs.
Quickly pushing the thought away, I scan the rest of the photos. Naturally, as I explained to Danny, most are of the kids. Apart from our wedding and the odd indistinguishable party aside, it was as if we had only properly discovered the medium of photography when Finn emerged into the world. There I am, grinning from ear to ear, breastfeeding him in Homerton hospital. A dainty six-pound baby who grew into a fiercely strong-minded toddler who’d cling to my leg, wailing, if I so much as tried to go to the loo without him. And Grace, bald until after her first birthday and perpetually laughing, and Toby with his generous, girlish pink lips and angelic blond curls.
Finally, I spot Dad, standing proudly with his arms crossed over a Fair Isle sweater, his herbaceous borders in full bloom behind him. From then on, I find more and more: Dad on various beaches, Dad with a toddler Grace on his shoulders, and Dad and me sitting together at a restaurant table at my 21st birthday party. I was a slim girl, I realise now, although of course I complained about wobbly bits and non-existent cellulite, as everyone did back then. There are even older pictures of Dad, when his hair was dark brown and a little unruly, rather than the light grey of his later years. In one, he’s waist-deep in a river with a fishing rod, laughing. I pick them all out and set them out in a row, starting with a young Dad with a Christmas cracker crown on his head and me in a vest and nappy on his lap, and ending with the last picture I took of him, in the hospice on his sixty-seventh birthday. I sit and look, my gaze running along the row from left to right and back again, until I can’t see clearly anymore because tears are pouring down my cheeks.
I don’t know how long Jed has been standing there. He steps towards me and sits on the carpet, surveying my makeshift gallery of Dad. He puts his arms around me and murmurs, ‘You okay, darling?’
I shake my head vehemently. ‘Jed,’ I blurt out, ‘I know you met Celeste at that pub, somewhere out by the stables in Barnswick. Someone saw you.’ I look up from the photos of Dad to my husband, whose dark eyes shine out from a pale, startled face. ‘Please Jed,’ I add, ‘I need you to tell me what’s going on.’
