by Lucy Diamond
She stared unseeingly out of the window as Hazel hiccupped, tears still flowing. Please God, she thought fiercely. Let that be true. We all need to feel some happiness again soon.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alicia had one single day left as a thirty-something. Less than twenty-four hours before the clock ticked that decade out with a terrifying finality. It was a weird feeling, as if she was standing at the docks, waiting for a ship to slowly pull away without her, never to return. Goodbye, youth, she kept thinking mournfully. I never really made as much of you as I could have. And just as I’ve realized this, you’re leaving me forever. I’ve only got the Dull Ship Forty on the horizon now, and the prospect of wrinkles, heavy-duty moisturizer and support stockings in its wake.
‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ Sandra had snapped on the phone the night before. Her voice was odd, muffled as if she had a cold. ‘For heaven’s sake, Al. You should try counting your blessings for a change.’
Alicia was taken aback by the advice. Counting blessings? Not so long ago her sister had been prescribing counting orgasms and sexual adventures. ‘I suppose,’ she replied.
‘You’re so lucky,’ Sandra said, a distinct sniffle in her voice now. ‘You’re so bloody lucky, and you don’t even frigging realize it!’
Oh. Okay. So perhaps it wasn’t just a cold. ‘Is everything all right?’ Alicia asked cautiously. Sandra was the kind of person who bit your hand off if you dared make her feel vulnerable.
Now came a definite sob. Bloody hell. Sandra never cried. She’d sooner punch a wall, or an unlucky bystander, rather than let actual tears rain from her eyes. ‘What is it?’ Alicia asked in alarm.
‘Ohhh … Just men,’ came the reply. ‘Fucking bastard shitty MEN!’
Alicia flinched, hearing the soft thump of fist meeting pillow. At least she hoped it was a pillow and not some poor unsuspecting bloke that her sister had trussed up on her sofa. ‘What happened?’
‘Matt decided he wanted to stay with boring fucking Penny, his boring fucking wife, that’s what. The lying shitball. The tossing great tosser!’
Another broken sob. Alicia couldn’t bear it. Despite a sneaking sympathy for boring fucking Penny, she felt a ferocious surge of rage for tossing tosser Matt. ‘Bastard,’ she said sympathetically. ‘After stringing you on for so long!’
‘Don’t rub it in,’ Sandra snarled. ‘Two sodding years of promises, and it turns out they were all a crock of horse-shit. I hate him!’
Another muffled thump. ‘Do you want me to come over?’ Alicia asked.
Sandra gave an almighty sniff, the sort for which Alicia would have sharply scolded her own children had it come from their nostrils. ‘Seriously?’ she said, her voice softer. ‘You’d do that?’
Alicia made some rapid calculations. It was a three-hour drive to Sandra’s house in Cheltenham. It was eight in the evening now, she could be there by eleven. She’d have to arrange for Hugh to drop the children with friends the next morning, of course, so that he could go to work, but she could whizz back down the following day in time for lunchtime, say, to pick them all up …
It would all be a gigantic palaver, quite frankly, but then this was her sister. Alone. Crying. Punching random objects, by the sound of things. If ever there was an emergency, this was it. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘No problem.’
Sandra started weeping even more copiously. ‘You’re so nice,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t deserve you. You’re so kind.’
‘Nonsense,’ Alicia said bracingly. ‘You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’
There was a slight hesitation. They both knew Sandra wouldn’t, any more than Alicia would ask it of her.
Sandra gave a snorting sort of laugh. Not a horrible one for a change, more the snotty, choking laugh that you sometimes manage even when crying. ‘I wish I was like you,’ she wailed.
Alicia thought there must be a fault on the line. ‘What? You wish you were like me? Ha!’ She shook her head. ‘I wish I was more like you. More confident, more adventurous …’
Sandra sniffed again and Alicia only just managed not to suggest that she find a handkerchief. ‘Well, don’t,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t wish that right now. You wouldn’t wish this on your worst fucking enemy.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m a total mess, Alicia. Think yourself lucky that you’re not me.’
‘We’re just different, that’s all,’ Alicia said gently. ‘Now then. What can I bring for you? Wine? Chocolate? Some posh bubble bath?’
There came the sound of Sandra blowing her nose – thank goodness – and then she spoke. ‘Listen. You don’t need to come, Al. Seriously. It’s a long way, and you’ve got stuff going on at home.’
‘It’s fine,’ Alicia replied. ‘Honestly. If you want me there, I’ll—’
‘No,’ said Sandra. ‘I’m not saying I don’t want you here, but it’s too much. Just talking to you like this is enough.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t mind—’
‘I know you don’t. And that’s the most amazing, lovely thing about you. You’re so, so kind. And I love that you were willing to trek up the M5 in my hour of need – I absolutely love that. It makes me feel really … loved.’
Goodness. This was the most intense conversation Alicia had ever had with her sister. More intense, even, than the one when Sandra had stolen Alicia’s first teenage boyfriend and Alicia had threatened to kill her, with her bare hands if necessary.
‘You are loved,’ she said quietly. ‘Even if Matt, the wanker, is dumb enough not to stick around, there are other people who will.’
‘Thank you,’ Sandra said. Then she chuckled. ‘I’m loving hearing you slag him off, by the way. Swearing and everything. You really hate him!’
Alicia smiled. ‘Too right I do. The shitty wanky bastard motherfucker!’
‘MUMMY!’ came a shocked voice just then, and Alicia whirled around to see Rafferty standing there in his pyjamas, staring at her, his eyes as round as ten-pence pieces.
Sandra, who had obviously heard this, burst into fits of laughter, and then, before Alicia could stop herself, she was laughing too. Great gales of laughter from deep in her belly. ‘Oops,’ she giggled, as Raff vanished. ‘Lucas, guess what?’ she heard him call in glee.
‘I’d better go,’ Sandra gurgled. ‘Leave you to explain that one. Good luck.’
‘Are you going to be okay? Ring me back later if you want to chat.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Sandra said. ‘You know me. I’ll be over it tomorrow.’
‘You will,’ Alicia agreed. ‘Take care of yourself, then.’
‘Yeah, And thanks, Al. For being there. I appreciate it.’
So, as Sandra had suggested, she was counting her blessings. Grateful for the children. Grateful for Hugh. Bless him, he’d fabricated this whole story about going to the gym, just so that he could go shopping for birthday presents for her. Originally he’d arranged for Lilian to look after the children while she was in Paris, so that he could go shopping alone, he explained. The pleasure of discovering that he’d been so thoughtful swelled inside her. What on earth had he bought for her? she wondered excitedly. It definitely wasn’t a Marks and Spencer jumper this year, if he was going to such trouble.
‘You could have just said you were going shopping,’ she’d laughed, delighted. To think she’d had her doubts about him! To think she’d gone in all guns blazing, ready to accuse him of playing away, of all things. ‘Why didn’t you just say?’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ he’d said. ‘Because you really are the most wonderful wife, Alicia. I honestly don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.’
His words touched her, reached right to her heart. ‘He looked as if he was about to cry,’ she told Izzy when she went to visit her later that week. ‘Seriously! Hugh doesn’t normally do emotional, but he was all choked up, his voice sort of thick and gruff. And he brought me flowers the next day – for absolutely no reason!’
Izzy opened her mouth, then closed it ag
ain, as if changing her mind about what to say. She seemed a bit quiet but then she had just been to her ex-husband’s funeral the day before. ‘So … things are good between you, yeah?’ she asked, turning a dandelion stalk between her fingers. It was a warm afternoon and they were sitting out on the lawn at Mulberry House, intermittently cheering and clapping as one of the children scored a rounder or made a good catch.
Alicia looked at her in surprise. ‘Between me and Hugh? Yes, very good, thanks.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘How about you and Charlie? It sounds as if you’ve really turned his head.’
Izzy wrinkled her nose. ‘Do you reckon? He’s hardly been anywhere near me since we moved in. I mean, he’s been perfectly nice and polite, making sure we’ve got everything we need, and I’m massively grateful to him, but that’s it.’
‘Oh.’ Alicia felt rude for having asked. ‘Sorry. I just assumed …’
‘Well, so did I, to be honest. I thought it would be game on. But I don’t think he’s interested.’
Alicia laughed. ‘He’s interested, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Charlie doesn’t do anything for anyone unless—’ She could have bitten her own tongue off; just stopped herself from saying ‘Unless there’s something in it for him’, which made the arrangement seem tawdry, almost prostitute-like. ‘Unless he really likes someone,’ she said quickly instead.
‘Hmmm,’ said Izzy, and Alicia thought that perhaps she should leave the conversation there.
The night before Alicia’s birthday Hugh and the children went up to wrap presents in the master bedroom – ‘You must not come in, Mummy,’ Matilda ordered, eyes gleaming at this role reversal – and she was left sitting idly on the sofa for once, flicking through the newspaper, feet propped up on the coffee table. She felt deliciously spoiled, imagining the children writing loving messages in their cards and carefully wrapping their gifts. Yes, all right, so the chances were they were actually fighting over the Sellotape and dashing off a brief ‘Love X’ in the cards before scurrying back to their far more interesting DS games, but you never knew. Miracles did happen, even in Dorset.
Then the phone rang. Sighing at the interruption – typical! – Alicia heaved herself off the sofa and went to pick it up. ‘Hello?’ she said.
There was an intake of breath down the line, a hesitation … and then the connection promptly went dead. ‘Goodbye to you, too,’ Alicia muttered, replacing the receiver on its base and thinking no more of it.
Ten minutes later the same thing happened. Down went the newspaper, and up she rose. ‘Hello?’ she said, this time with an edge to her voice.
Again, there was no answer, just the burr of the dial tone as the other person hung up. She frowned, wondering if it was a prank, teenagers messing about. But no – they were ex-directory, had been ever since she started teaching. Perhaps, then, it was one of the children’s friends calling, struck dumb with shyness when an adult answered. Perhaps it was one of those spam calls that dialled ten numbers at once, and someone else had picked up first. Perhaps it was somebody who didn’t want to speak to her, who’d been hoping a different person would answer …
No, she thought, returning briskly to the article she’d been reading about bloodshed in Syria. No more perhapses. It was probably nothing. A fault on the line.
All the same, when the phone rang again and Hugh happened to be back in the room, she gestured towards it. ‘Would you get that, love? Whoever it is keeps hanging up on me.’
Hugh picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Yes?’
Alicia, watching intently, noticed his face change. He flicked a glance over to her, then turned his back, hunching over the receiver.
A feeling of dread gripped Alicia as he left the room. ‘I see,’ she heard him say in a polite, clipped voice. ‘Just a minute.’ And then he was gone, door shut, and she heard no more.
Doubts swirled blackly through her mind. Who was it who wanted to speak to her husband, but not to her? After a few minutes he re-entered the room, running a hand through his hair with what appeared to be faux casualness, and she all but pounced on him.
‘Who was that?’
He didn’t answer immediately, but went over and replaced the handset on its base. ‘It was nothing,’ he said eventually. ‘Just Izzy, wondering what you wanted for your birthday.’
She narrowed her eyes while she processed this information. Well, then, she told herself. That must be it. He wouldn’t lie about something that would be so damn easy for her to check, would he?
‘So that was her earlier, was it, hanging up on me twice when I answered?’ she persisted.
He was flicking through the TV guide, not looking at her. ‘Must have been,’ he said, shrugging. His defensive body language was enough to start warning bells ringing loud and shrill in Alicia’s head.
Something was going on here. She didn’t have a clue what it was, but something was definitely going on. Surely Izzy wouldn’t have hung up, even if she did want to talk in secret to Hugh. If it had been her, planning a mystery present for a friend, she’d at least have said hello to the friend and then asked if she could speak to the husband, rather than rudely hanging up without a word. You would, wouldn’t you?
She stared at Hugh for a few moments, wondering how hard to push him. ‘So did—’ she began, but he was already speaking.
‘Excellent,’ he said, snatching up the remote. ‘Panorama’s just about to start.’ And then he was turning on the TV, the title music was blaring and the moment had gone.
Gone but not forgotten. The phone call worried away at Alicia for the rest of the evening. She wondered about ringing Izzy back on some pretext or other, just to check Hugh’s story was right. But that would be as good as saying that she didn’t trust her husband, and of course she trusted him. Hugh was nothing if not trustworthy – always had been, always would be. It was one of the things she loved best about him.
Despite being a rational person, a lot of irrational thoughts kept bubbling up in her head, refusing to be popped. She remembered the deceit about his gym visit the weekend before. The frequency of his gym visits in the last month or so. The phone calls he would leave the room to take. Then she thought of Sandra, bitching about ‘boring fucking Penny’, and cringed. What if there was another woman madly in love with Hugh somewhere, moaning about ‘boring fucking Alicia’, just praying that their marriage would fall apart so that she could sweep in victorious to claim him?
No. Of course there wasn’t another woman. She was just being silly. Tomorrow was her birthday, and any secrets would be revealed. Or so she hoped.
The next morning she woke to the sound of three children and a man singing tunelessly at the bottom of the bed. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mummy …’ (‘Aliciaaaaa,’ sang Hugh), ‘Happy birthday to you!’
‘Breakfast in bed!’ she said, struggling to sit upright as Hugh laid the tray carefully across her lap. ‘Darlings, what a lovely surprise. Thank you!’
‘I picked the flowers,’ Matilda said, hopping from foot to foot. ‘Do you like them?’
‘Oh, forget-me-nots, yes, I love them,’ Alicia said, pulling her in for a kiss. She was glad that someone had pulled some of them up, to be honest; they always went rampant across the flowerbeds at this time of year, a pale-blue army advancing in all directions.
‘Here’s your card, Mum,’ Lucas said, leaping onto the bed and thrusting a yellow envelope under her nose. Goodness, he was getting so big these days, his limbs seeming to lengthen every day.
‘Thank you, love,’ she said, ruffling his shaggy blond hair. (It was so unfair that her boys had such lovely thick mops of hair, whereas Matilda’s was fine and thin and could only make weedy little plaits.)
‘You’ll never guess what I’ve got you,’ Rafferty said, pushing the present at her and almost knocking the flowers into the plate of scrambled eggs.
‘I’d better open it and see, hadn’t I?’ she replied, beaming. ‘I’m sure it’s something lov
ely.’ She was forty, she remembered with a jolt as she took a sip of coffee. This was it – new decade, ta-da!
She waited to pass out with the sheer horror of being so ancient, glanced at her hands to check if some enormous liver spots had sprung up there, patted her face in case it had shrivelled like a walnut overnight. No difference. She didn’t even feel different, much to her surprise. In fact, she’d even say that she felt remarkably sanguine about being forty, after all that angst and dread.
So far, so jolly. She had the children beaming at her; flowers, breakfast, presents. Hugh … well, she’d think about Hugh later. So up yours, forty, she thought, with a burst of energy, ripping open the first card. She wouldn’t let it stop her doing anything.
There was no school that day – still another blissful week of the Easter holidays to go – and Hugh had taken the day off work, so the present-unwrapping was a leisurely, unhurried affair. The children gave her chocolates, a book and a pretty vase between them. Sandra had sent a voucher for a massage and a bottle of perfume. Her parents, who lived on the Costa Brava, had posted a fuchsia-pink sundress (the sort of thing she’d never wear in a million years) and a matching feathery corsage. (Had they turned to mind-bending drugs in their old age? she wondered, as Lucas tried on the corsage, batting his eyelashes and simpering, and the children all fell about laughing.) A pair of dangly silver earrings and floral card had come from Lilian and Eddie, also signed by David and Charlie. Very nice, even if she didn’t have pierced ears. Emma sent champagne and a card that sang ‘Happy Birthday’ when you opened it. There was a card from Izzy too, decorated with felt-tipped hearts and flowers, presumably by the girls. Inside was a message: Sorry, I haven’t been able to get you a proper present, but I’m making you a cake! Will send Charlie round with it on the big day. Have a brilliant one, you deserve it. Love Isabel.
Alicia smiled, trying to blank out the fact that she was now sure Hugh had lied to her about the mystery phone call. Don’t go there, she instructed herself. Stay in happy birthday mode for a bit longer. Now there was just one present left, and it was the biggest of them all, wrapped up in pink polka-dotted paper with an enormous white bow on the top.
