by Lucy Diamond
‘It’s definitely off,’ Izzy replied. ‘And the more I hear about him, the more I think it was a lucky escape. Apparently he’s unreliable, lazy, a waste of space …’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Plus he showed me up in front of all of you lot. Plus his mum gave me the total heebie-jeebies!’
‘You’ve got a point,’ Emma agreed, then felt disloyal. ‘But he’s a nice guy, you know. There are worse ones out there.’
Izzy drained her tea. ‘I’m kind of done with guys right now, to be honest,’ she said. ‘Listen, I’d better get on anyway. Nice to have a chat.’
‘You too,’ Emma said. She paid her bill and headed off. Back to the workhouse with you, Mrs Jones. With a bit of luck, the guests would stay away all day and she could sample some Afternoon Delights with her husband. She reckoned she’d bloody well earned it.
Unfortunately the house had descended into chaos when she returned. A family of five had arrived, claiming to have phoned a week earlier to book two interconnecting rooms, and not remotely happy to discover that neither David nor Charlie knew anything about this.
‘We don’t even have interconnecting rooms,’ David said as Emma walked in. ‘Are you sure it was this place – Mulberry House – that you booked with?’
‘Quite sure,’ the woman said, over the din of the two toddlers chasing around her legs. She was tall and anoraked, with a squirming baby on one hip and a blue potty dangling from her other hand. ‘I spoke to a very nice man who assured me you had plenty of room for us, and that you offered a babysitting service too. I specifically requested it.’
David quailed and exchanged a look with his brother. ‘Well, we do have two empty rooms next to each other,’ he said tentatively.
‘And the babysitter?’ the husband put in. ‘We’re going to a wedding do tonight, you see. Very good friends, we can’t miss it. No children allowed though, unfortunately.’
David ran a hand through his hair. ‘I … er …’ He shot an agonized look at Emma, who glared at him. Don’t you dare, she thought. ‘My dad’s been getting a bit muddled up recently,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry. We can certainly put you up, but …’
‘Please tell me you have a babysitting service,’ the woman said, as one toddler fell over and started crying. The other one, meanwhile, had vanished into the depths of the house. Their mother seemed to shrink inside her anorak as if shrivelling from sheer despair. ‘Is there anybody local you could recommend? We’ll pay extra. Please!’
David crumbled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on them,’ he said, avoiding Emma’s eye. He swallowed. ‘Now, if I can ask you to sign in here …’
The next morning, Saturday, when Emma loaded her bags into the car, she felt as if an enormous gulf had opened between her and David; as if she’d lost him all over again.
‘If we were here, it wouldn’t be like this,’ he had tried saying, when they finally got to bed at one-thirty, having spent hours soothing the crying baby to sleep and trying in vain to calm the crazed demon-toddlers with endless stories. The incident with the potty had been the final, disgusting straw. And wouldn’t you know it, the parents had had no mobile signal, so there had been no way of calling them to beg for their immediate return.
It occurred to Emma that you could see this as a test of their capabilities as prospective parents. If so, she and David had failed spectacularly. By the time Mr and Mrs Anorak, or whatever their name was, had returned to their hell-children, Emma felt as if she’d aged ninety years in a single night. Of course, no sooner had they clambered into bed than the rampant Whartons had embarked upon yet another vigorous, wall-shaking shag-endurance-marathon.
‘Em? Did you hear me?’ David said, his voice barely distinguishable over the racket. ‘If we ran this place, it wouldn’t be like this, I know it wouldn’t.’
She was almost too knackered to speak. ‘I can’t do it, David,’ she replied after a few moments, trying to tune out the enthusiastic banging noises from the next room. ‘Honestly, I gave it a shot, I was open-minded, but it would send me mad, working here.’
‘But if we were to just live here, as a family, we wouldn’t need to take in guests at all,’ he said, running his hand down her thigh.
‘And live on what – fresh air?’ she snapped. ‘We’d need to earn something, wouldn’t we? Where we would find jobs down here? I can’t imagine there’s a massive demand for designers or architects!’
They lay in silence for a few moments until Mr Wharton let out an enormous orgasmic roar a few metres away. At least someone was getting their rocks off, Emma thought glumly.
‘I know you love this place,’ she said when David didn’t reply, ‘but we’ve got to be realistic. We can’t just buy it off your parents and move in. We’re talking a major business deal here – one that I don’t think I can sign up to. And in the meantime … we’ve got a life in Bristol. When are you going to come home?’
He hesitated. ‘It’s difficult,’ he said. ‘I kind of promised Mum I—’
She stiffened. ‘What, so you’ve taken her side, have you? Chosen her over me?’
‘No! Of course not. It’s complicated, that’s all.’ A high-pitched squealing had started up – it was hard to tell if it was a just-woken child or Mrs Wharton approaching climax. Whichever, Emma did not want the sound in her ears.
David groaned. ‘I can’t think straight, with those two going at it,’ he said, rolling over. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’
But they hadn’t talked about it – too busy juggling all the breakfasts and finding high-chairs and lying about kippers again. And now she was packed and ready to go, and they still hadn’t found a way back to the conversation. He’d asked her to stay on until his parents returned that afternoon, but she cited a string of work commitments that she needed to catch up on. I’m an interior designer – get me out of here!
‘So I’ll see you soon then,’ she said, kissing him politely. God, it felt terrible, as if they were strangers.
‘Yep,’ he said shortly. ‘Have a good journey.’
She started the car and drove away. Back to square one, she thought dismally, as she turned out of the driveway and Mulberry House vanished from sight. Back to frigging square one.
Chapter Fourteen
Alicia had been really excited at the thought of Emma and David moving to Mulberry House, until Hugh went out for a drink with David and said that unfortunately he thought Emma had gone right off the idea – something to do with sex maniacs, a fat man on the toilet and a gang of marauding toddlers. Shame, thought Alicia. She’d have liked to see more of Emma, not to mention less of the multiplying laundry. Any day now her washing machine would go on strike and demand a pay rise for working overtime.
Lilian, though, seemed to think a deal was in the bag. Fresh from her mini-break, she was already amassing estate agents’ particulars of chalet bungalows on the market. ‘This one has a smashing sea view,’ she sighed the next time Alicia went round, wafting the papers in the air. ‘Whereas this one backs onto woodland. What do you think?’
‘Lovely,’ Alicia replied politely, deciding that she was probably better off not getting involved. The last thing she wanted was for the limelight to fall back upon her and Hugh as potential buyers. They’d talked about it for at least two minutes before deciding that they’d prefer to stay put. Neither of them was the sort of person to get emotional about bricks and mortar anyway. If Lilian and Eddie wanted to sell up, then good luck to them, frankly.
She decided to email Emma about it.
Dear Emma,
Hope all’s well. Sorry to hear you aren’t keen to take on the B&B – must admit, I can’t say I blame you. I hope I wasn’t too much of an eager beaver when I was round the other night – just got a bit excited at the thought of you two moving down, but really didn’t want to put you under pressure!
Hope work’s going well and your clients are all behaving themselves. I’m—
She broke off, wondering if there was any point to this email
after all. Would Emma even want to hear from her? She was probably too busy partying in Bristol. Alicia still cringed whenever she remembered the only time she and Hugh had gone to stay with David and Emma in their flat, when Lucas and Rafferty were tiny. Nobody had expressly said so, but Alicia knew that she and the children were definitely cramping everyone else’s style, whether it was the aborted trip round a gallery exhibiting some artist she’d never heard of (baby Raffy had cried the entire way round), the cut-short restaurant lunch (Lucas didn’t like any of the fancy food on the menu and had an enormous cutlery-hurling tantrum) or the fact that Alicia wasn’t keen on letting some teenager she’d never met babysit her brood, so that they could go out that evening to see a play. ‘But I’ve got us all tickets – it’s an RSC production!’ Emma said in dismay. ‘But the boys are still tiny – they’ll freak if I’m not here!’ Alicia replied miserably. They had never been invited to stay again.
Then she remembered the way she and Emma had bonded at the anniversary lunch. For a moment she had felt as if they were both on the same side. Sod it, she’d make an effort and be friendly. Why not?
I’m rushing towards 40 and trying to do some exciting new things before I’m past it, she typed. The haircut was one. I’ve started belly dancing with Izzy too – you know, Charlie’s ex. (She’s lovely.) Next up …
She hesitated again and then her fingers seemed to start working before she knew what was happening.
Next up, I reckon a treat is in order. Is that outrageous, do you think?!
See you soon.
Love Alicia x
There. Nice, friendly, short and sweet. She pressed ‘Send’ before she could change her mind and was about to switch off the PC when she hesitated. The children were in bed and Hugh was out at the gym (again! she was starting to wonder if he was undergoing his own midlife crisis), so she poured herself a glass of wine and reopened her Action Plan spreadsheet. A treat is in order, she’d typed just two minutes ago. But what?
While she was sitting there, thinking, there came a soft pinging noise, which meant she had a new email. She opened her in-box, expecting it to be a new offer from Ocado or the Lakeland newsletter, only to see, to her surprise, that Emma had replied straight away:
Hello Alicia,
Lovely to hear from you! Yes – me + Mulberry House = disaster. It was AWFUL!!! No wonder Lilian is such an old bag (don’t tell Hugh or David I said that). Really, I did try to love it for David’s sake, but it was all just a total nightmare. I was so glad to get away.
David was all ‘Let’s live here and have a family’, but we can’t both afford to give up work. Maybe it would be different if we already had children and were ready to leave Bristol, but … Well, to be honest, I’m worried we can’t actually have a baby, much as we want one. We’ve been trying for ages, but nothing’s happening. Yet!
Enough of my problems anyway. A treat! Yeah – do it! Make it a big, proper, Hell-I’m-going-to-be-40 treat too, the kind you wish someone else would buy for you. That’s an order. (And when is your actual birthday, by the way? Sorry – for some reason it isn’t on the calendar.)
Take care anyway, love to Hugh and the kids.
Em x
Alicia smiled as she read the message a second time. Permission granted to treat herself – just the kind of order she had wanted. But oh, she’d had no idea that Emma and David were trying to start a family. How did you go about replying to something like that? She wrote:
Hi again,
Well, at least you gave it a go – at the B&B, I mean. At the end of the day, it’s only a house – it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they had to sell it. We don’t want to move in, either, and I think everyone knows Charlie isn’t really in a position to take on that kind of mortgage. I think it’ll do L & E good to move out now anyway – it’s got a bit much for them to cope with.
Sorry to hear that the baby thing hasn’t worked out yet. Fingers crossed for good news soon. Ring me if you ever want to chat about it.
Off to research treats now … half a glass of wine down, and I’m feeling reckless!
xxx
PS My birthday is 10 April.
She pressed ‘Send’, then opened Google. Emma was right. If she was going to do something nice for herself, she should do it properly, make a bit of a song and dance about the whole thing. Now she just had to decide what to do.
The glossy magazines she occasionally flicked through in the staffroom were always urging women to indulge in pampering weekends and spa breaks. Alicia didn’t really have much truck with that sort of thing – she hated the idea of taking her clothes off and letting some complete stranger rub scented oils into her skin, for instance. However, the thought of actually going and doing something special on her own, just for her, definitely appealed. Was it disloyal of her not to want to invite Hugh along too, though? Was it somehow un-wife-like to want to be alone, to enjoy her own company?
She wrestled with the idea for a moment, then remembered the stream of stag weekends that her husband had been on in the last fifteen years, the golf trips he and his friends sometimes organized, the conferences he went to, often in interesting cities or even abroad, and, to a lesser extent, his constant gym visits. Hugh got plenty of time to do his own thing. She couldn’t imagine him ever losing sleep worrying that his behaviour was remotely ‘un-husbandlike’.
‘Do it,’ she muttered to herself, and began typing into the search engine.
An hour or so later Alicia felt flushed with her own daring. After much enjoyable deliberation, she’d whittled down the vast wash of options to a shortlist of four. They were:
1) A walking weekend in Dartmoor. She’d never properly gone there before – never camped, never truly braved the harshness of wild beauty on her own. Stopping off for a picnic en route to north Cornwall didn’t count. She wanted to experience being truly alone somewhere remote and barren and potentially rather dangerous. Was that crazy of her?
2) A watercolours weekend in Somerset. It would mean staying in a beautiful old manor house with a group of other painters, exploring the grounds and taking the time to create something beautiful. It sounded tranquil and relaxing, with the simplicity of only having herself to think about.
3) A trip to London to a concert. She didn’t know which concert yet, but she’d always wanted to go to the Albert Hall to hear an orchestra. Obviously she’d have to stay in a gorgeous hotel as well, for the full experience …
4) Finally, she’d like to go to Paris. Oh, Paris! She could admire the beautiful buildings, dawdle through the Louvre, climb the Eiffel Tower, enjoy the ambience of Notre-Dame. She would sit in a bar watching the world go by, with a strong French coffee and a buttery croissant. She could walk the Champs-Elysées, drink good red wine, wear silk knickers and—
She broke off in surprise at her own thoughts. Silk knickers! That was Sandra’s bad influence. But all the same: when in France …
She clicked on a link and started looking at hotels before she lost her nerve.
‘Paris?’ Hugh repeated, taken-aback. Then his face cleared. ‘Oh – I see, as a romantic weekend away?’ He smiled, dropping his gym bag to the floor (where it would later be picked up by her, no doubt). ‘What a wonderful idea, Alicia. I’m sure Mum would look after the k—’
‘No,’ Alicia said, awkwardly. ‘Not as a romantic weekend. I mean, at some point, yes, it would be wonderful to go there together, of course. Definitely. But this time I meant … just me.’
‘What, with a friend or something? Some of the book-group girls or—?’
‘No, Hugh,’ she said patiently. ‘Just me. On my own.’
He stared at her. She might as well have spoken the words in Cantonese, for all the comprehension he displayed. ‘Just you?’ he echoed.
‘Just me. I feel I need to stretch my wings. Do something exciting. Have a little adventure. Just me, before I get too past it.’
His face changed again, as if he’d worked something out. Then he nodded. ‘Ah. This is
your panic about getting old, isn’t it?’
‘Well, kind of. But it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. To be honest, there are other options, though. Hiking on Dartmoor. Seeing a concert at the Albert Hall. Oh yes, and there’s this painting weekend I’ve seen in Somerset that I’d like to do too. Watercolours. I haven’t made my mind up yet.’
‘But …’ He’d gone back to flummoxed, three steps behind her. ‘Wait. I don’t understand. Why do you suddenly want to go off and do all those things? And why don’t you want me to come with you? I haven’t been to Paris for years.’
‘Yes, you have,’ she replied. ‘You went there for that conference eighteen months ago.’
‘Yes, but …’ He’d lost the ability to finish a coherent sentence again. ‘But, Alicia … I just … WHY?’
She shrugged, a proper Gallic shrug. It was rather enjoyable, to be honest. ‘Because I thought it might be fun, that’s all.’
Fun! That word again. It seemed to be cropping up in her vocabulary with increasing regularity these days. Great fun. What fun. Just for fun. It was so light and easy on the tongue, so much more pleasing than ‘routine’ or ‘housework’, for example. It kept taking Hugh by surprise, though.
‘Fun,’ he repeated haltingly.
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling. Perhaps now wasn’t the right time to tell him about the silk knickers she’d ordered online, in a fit of bravado, she decided. He’d probably collapse with a coronary from shock.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked when they went to bed that evening.
‘Why?’
‘It’s just … you seem different lately, that’s all,’ he said.
She let the words hang for a moment in the velvety darkness. ‘I feel different,’ she admitted. ‘In a good way, though. I feel as if I’ve suddenly come to life, as if I’ve woken up from a long, boring sleep.’
They were lying as they usually did before drifting off, her head on his chest and his arm curled around her. She felt him freeze at the word ‘boring’ and realized she’d offended him.
