by Sophie King
‘So why does it smell funny?’
Because it’s got a large dollop of whisky in it, that’s why.
‘It’s a new blend I’m trying out for the Lifestyle Pages.’ She flicked back her hair defensively. ‘We’ve all been asked to do it.’
Sophie gave her a cool look. ‘So are we going or not?’
‘Where?’
‘To Ellie’s birthday party, of course. It’s on your calendar.’
Ah yes, the wall calendar with Scenes of Buckinghamshire, bearing her loopy writing with dates written in before September 26th. The day which had changed her life forever. And why not? Hadn’t she just agreed with herself that enough was enough? She’d march round to Sharon The Slut and demand an explanation for stealing her husband and destroying her children’s future.
‘OK.’ Lizzie tried to wobble her way upright. ‘But you’re not wearing that skirt are you?’
Another disdainful look from her daughter. ‘Course not. I’m wearing one that’s much shorter.’
‘Mummy?’
It was Jack now.
What?
‘Am I adopted?
WHAT?
‘Cos she says I am.’
‘Sophie ! How could you?’
Her daughter shrugged. ‘Just wondered. Everything else has changed, hasn’t it. Besides, he’s so different from me.’
How could she be so mature for her age? When she’d been twelve, she’d still been into Pom Pom Pets. ‘Well he’s not. And nor are you. And of course you’re different because siblings are.’
‘What are siblings?’
‘Brothers. Sisters.’
‘Then why don’t you have one, Mum?’
Sharon was meant to have been her substitute sister even though they were so different. They had sometimes joked about that.
‘Don’t know. Now come on. Let's get ready for the party.’
Sharon opened the door almost immediately, as though she was expecting her, which no doubt she was. Those kids’ mobiles were the equivalent of jungle drumming. Sophie had probably texted Ellie to say that they were coming and . . . oh God, why was her heart beating so wildly? Lizzie felt sick, as though it was her who had run off with another woman’s husband and not her so-called friend. It wasn’t even as though she was Tom’s type. Sharon was pretty-ish but she was huge! On the other hand, she could test-drive for Gossard – knew it too. Why else did she keep wearing those low cut tops like a mobile pick’n’mix?
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ was all Sharon said. Lizzie glanced in the hall mirror automatically (great – now she had a stress spot on her chin), squeezed past the shoe rack and into the kitchen.
Suddenly all the anger came bubbling out of her mouth like Sharon’s new steaming silver espresso machine which, shit-sorry-sugar, she’d even helped her choose at Ikea last month. ‘Why? Why did you do it to me?’
Sharon didn’t bother turning round. Her voice was level and matter of fact as though she was discussing a new recipe for kids’ packed lunches: not edged with panic like the last time. ‘We fell in love. We didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.’
She didn’t sound it. ‘But you ‘fell in love’ with someone else’s husband. My kids’ father. Don’t you feel one shred of guilt?’
Sharon turned and this time, close up, Lizzie could see tell-tale dark circles under her eyes. ‘Of course I do but I couldn’t help it. Neither of us could.’
Lizzie wanted to fling the coffee across the table. ‘YOU JUST HAD TO SAY NO! For crying out loud, I’ve told you stuff about Tom. Stuff I’d never tell anyone else.’
She faltered, remembering how she’d confided, not long ago, that Tom was always too tired in bed. She’d even asked Sharon if she thought that was normal and her ‘friend’ had gone all quiet and asked how Lizzie could expect her, Sharon, a single mother, to know that sort of thing any more. And Lizzie had felt terrible; selfish even for forgetting that ‘poor’ Sharon was on her own. How naïve was that?
‘How long has it been going on for, anyway.’
‘Two months.’ Sharon coloured slightly. ‘Just after the kids broke up for the summer holidays. You were away. Again.’
Two months? Tom had said it was ‘a few weeks’. Two days would have been better. ‘Not at all’ would have been best; then she could wake up from this ridiculous treacle nightmare.
Lizzie stood up and then sat down. Why wouldn’t her legs work? Sharon was beginning to look less confident now, sitting there, at the table, her eyes fixed on an imaginary mark on the wall behind Lizzie, the way their pilates teacher told them to, two bright pink spots on each cheek.
‘But when were you going to tell me?’ Lizzie thumped the table with her fists.
There was a silence during which Lizzie felt a flutter of hope. ‘Because it’s over now’, she could almost hear Sharon saying. ‘Because we’ve realised it’s a terribly selfish thing to do and we want to forget it ever happened.’ Could she, Lizzie, forget? Yes! Yes! Anything to bring back the normality of family life.
‘Soon. We couldn’t put it off any longer. I’m not going to be a single mother any more, you see. So you won’t be able to write about me again.’
Lizzie winced. That had been another feature Sharon hadn’t been very happy about even though she’d been paid for it. The magazine had used her as a case history in a ‘How Single Mums Cut Corners’ piece and Sharon had got a bit miffed when Lizzie had slipped in the bit about Sharon dropping off the kids on the corner instead of seeing them in through the school gates so she could get to work on time.
‘What do you mean you’re not going to be a single mother any more?’
Sharon’s eyes gleamed, meeting hers challengingly. And suddenly, Lizzie knew with a sickening lurch in her stomach, exactly what she was going to say.
‘I’m going to have your husband’s baby. So it’s over now, Lizzie. You’ve lost. Deal with it.’
7
ALISON
The hairdresser had been one of Caroline’s better ideas. ‘Fancy a change then, do you?’ said the girl who usually did her hair. ‘Why don’t you have your eyebrows fredded as well?’
It took Alison a while to realise she meant ‘threaded’ but the girl was right. It did open up her face. As for the shorter, almost elfin style with the reddish streaks not unlike Jules’s . . . she didn’t know what to think! Part of her was appalled and part almost liked it. Those wispy, light brown strands on the floor looked as though they had never belonged to her. Nothing seemed real any more. Not even the hefty bill.
When she got back home, something made her go upstairs and take all her clothes off. Just like that. Stark naked in front of the full length bedroom mirror at 11.25am without even the curtains drawn.
What, she asked herself, staring the mirror full in the face, had David seen every night when she’d undressed? What had he observed and maybe internally recoiled from when he’d kissed her on her cheek, rolled over and gone to sleep? Surely she was entitled to clues? Some hint of a reason that had made him want to leave.
Just look at her breasts, or boobs as Jules called them! Not bad, considering. So it couldn’t have been their fault. Flattish stomach thanks to pilates. Sloping shoulders which had always been one of her best features (she used to swear they tanned through the car window during the school run phase) and, if she turned and squinted backwards in the mirror, a smallish pear-shaped bottom plus a certain sparkle in her eyes which looked much better when she smiled.
So why didn’t David find her attractive any more? Perhaps she was boring. That would be the worst insult. Far worse than if he’d gone for a trivial reason such as her body going to seed.
Opening the wardrobe (one of the new ones they’d just had made at great expense), she selected a bra and mis-matching pair of knickers. What a waste! Of the wardrobe, that was. It would have to go, along with the house; not of course, that that was important in the scheme of things. ‘If that husband of yours had done this a few years ago, when the kids were all at ho
me, you would legally have been entitled to stay there,’ Caroline had bossily pointed out.
Frankly, thought Alison, she’d have lived in a rented council flat provided David’s head was on the pillow next to hers instead of that flat, smooth pillow case and the cold half of the bed. And how was she going to cope without a husband OR children? Part of her envied that youngish mum, Lizzie, in the group. At least she had her little ones to distract her.
‘I thought we’d grow old together,’ she’d whispered on the phone when he’d rung the day after leaving. At first, when she’d heard his voice, she had felt a flutter of hope in her chest. He had called to say he had made a terrible mistake. That he’d been upset about Jules going. That . . .
‘I rang to say I need to pick up some more things next week.’ His voice sounded so normal, so ‘everyday-ish’ that she’d burst into wild uncontrollable sobs during which he had said nothing. Just waited for her to finish exactly as he had done when Jules had had one of her teenage tantrums.
‘Is there someone else?’ she asked when she’d finally forced herself to calm down.
‘No.’ His voice was low. ‘I promise.’
Thank God! If there had been, she didn’t know if she could have coped. It had happened to two of her friends, poor things. One had thrown her husband out after his affair but never got over him. The second had kept him but never forgot it, reminding him of his ‘mistake’ at every available opportunity. It made for extremely tense dinner parties.
‘And what about Jules? How are we going to tell her?’
‘She knows already. I explained the situation a few days before she left.’
He’d told their daughter before her?
‘Don’t blame her, Alison. I asked her not to say anything. But I needed to tell her face to face, before she went away.’
‘How could you? No wonder she was so upset when we left. What a terrible way to start her degree.’
‘Actually, she thought we were doing the right thing. Said she’d known – like Ross – that we weren’t suited and that now they were gone, we could do our own thing.’
She’d put the phone down then which was, as Caroline later said, the only thing to do in the circumstances.
‘Appalling! Absolutely appalling, I call it.’ She’d waved the ‘How To Survive Divorce’ leaflet in front of her. ‘Now will you go to this or not? I went to something similar after Carl and it helped. Honestly.’
So Alison had gone to the first meeting and it had been surprisingly consoling to find that she wasn’t the only one in her position. She’d even felt sorry for that young man who had been so horrified about his girlfriend going off with another woman. Caroline had thought that was hysterical when she’d come round the next morning to see how it had gone.
‘So are you going to the next meeting?’
Alison shrugged. ‘Maybe. It’s called ‘Moving On’.’
‘Just what you need. Great hair by the way. See, I was right.’ Caroline – who had, lucky her, inherited their mother’s natural blonde locks! – opened the fridge, helped herself to a bottle of unopened wine and picked up a wine glass which she then proceeded to wash first before filling it up (such cheek!). She walked into the sitting room, which was still festooned with newspapers from last month, dated the day before they’d taken Jules back. The day when the world was still all right.
‘Haven’t you got an estate agent coming round to do a valuation? Better tidy up, hadn’t we?’ She filled up her glass again. ‘Get rid of those man’s clothes for a start. No. Don’t look at me like that. It’s psychological. You need to bin his stuff in order to move on. And move the bedroom furniture around so it looks like a different bedroom from the one when he was in it. Trust me. I’m the expert on this one.’
Of course, the valuation was just a red herring. There was no way that David would really go ahead with a sale, whatever he said . . . She was certain, absolutely certain, that once she presented him with two or three formal quotes and they sat down – as they would surely have to, wouldn’t they? – to talk over the practicalities of dividing the furniture and their assets (such an awful word), he’d realise his mistake and come back.
David loved their home; had loved it from the minute he’d found it all those years ago and rung excitedly to say he’d discovered the perfect house (near Amersham) and that although they’d have to borrow a fair bit, it would be worth it in the long run. ‘It’s in a quiet road,’ he had told her excitedly, ‘with enough space in the drive to park two cars; maybe three. And the garden has a willow tree – I know you’ve always wanted one and . . .’
They’d moved in six months later, just before Jules had been born. All their memories were here, thought Alison. The mark on the wall where Ross had thrown a football even though ball games weren’t allowed inside (her rules rather than David’s). The spacious, airy hall where Jules had taken her first steps and she’d excitedly rung a rather stressed-sounding David in the office to tell him. The utility room which was the original kitchen until they had saved up enough money for the extension.
No. He wouldn’t leave all this. She’d just go along with his silly game caused, she was certain, by a combination of his stressful job and their last child leaving home. He’d be back. She’d heard that tremor in his voice when she’d told him the door was still open.
‘Mum!’
Before she knew it, Alison found herself being enveloped in a young, strong pair of arms (again so like her husband’s). ‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long to come up,’ Ross was standing back now, as though embarrassed by his display of affection, ‘but I couldn’t get back before. You do understand, don’t you? And what have you done to your hair? It looks . . . different.’
Ross had followed her husband into the legal profession but into a different branch. His firm regularly sent him to Hong Kong and Singapore, where he had been during David’s bombshell. But now he was back! He was so like his father that if anyone could fix it, it would be him. They’d have the shepherd’s pie she’d just made (even though she didn’t feel at all hungry) and sort it all out.
‘Have you seen Dad?’
As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt the punch of irony. How had it come to this, that she had to ask her own son for news of her own husband?
He nodded. ‘I dropped into the office on the way back from the airport.’
He’d seen his father first before her? She grabbed his jacket sleeve, fear seeping through her. ‘Is he all right?’
Ross bit his lip. ‘Look, Mum. I don’t know how to tell you this so I’m going to come straight out with it. Dad’s left his job. Handed in his resignation and walked. At least that’s what Brian told me.’
Brian was the other Senior Partner. They’d been at law school together; gone to each other’s weddings; met regularly for dinner. ‘Left? But he can’t. He’d have to give in his notice.’
Ross took her hands in his. They felt cool. Not reassuring. ‘That’s the thing, Mum. Brian said he’d done that. Six months ago. There’d been quite a fuss about it; it’s not easy winding up a partnership.’
He’d been planning this for six months? Impossible!
‘But where’s he gone?’
‘We’re not sure. Brian said he was talking about travelling; he’d thought you were going too because . . .’ His voice faltered. ‘Because Dad had asked him not to tell you. Said it was a surprise trip.’
David had lied? But he never did that. You could, she’d always thought, line every man up in the world for a truth test and David would be the last one to fail.
‘There’s something else, Mum.’ Ross was making her sit down on a chair. David’s chair. The one he always sank into after supper to watch the 10 o’clock news before going to bed. ‘There was a woman . . . from another legal firm who was working there on some shared project.’
Primrose! She’d met her at the last company dinner. A skinny, earnest, youngish woman who’d talked to her about those beggars in shop doorways and
whether you should give them money or a coffee or just walk by. They had both favoured the coffee approach.
‘She left her firm at the same time apparently and Brian says . . . Brian says that people are beginning to talk.’ Ross raised his face and she could see tears stinging his eyes. ‘I’m sorry Mum. I didn’t want to tell you. But I think we’ve got to face facts. Don’t you?’
8
KAREN
‘Box of condoms (used). Needs to be collected.’
Karen stared at the shorthand note she’d just made on the pad in front (the computer system had just crashed again!). When you’d been in this job as long as she had, she warned the new ones, you sometimes took down ads without thinking and it could be easy to make mistakes, especially if your shorthand outline was a bit unclear. ‘Sorry, sir. Would you mind repeating that again?’
The squeaky voice at the other end of the phone sounded irritated. ‘I said box of condoms. Needs to be collected.’
She turned to wink at Sandra, sitting next to her. ‘I see, sir. Can you spell ‘condoms’ please?’
It’s what you always did when you suspected a wind-up. Her old boss had taught her that in the early days. Ask them to spell it out. If they could. Normally, it made the prankster burst into giggles.
‘I see. K-o-n-d-o-m. Don’t they teach you to spell at school any more, dear? And what colour are they?’
There was a peal of adolescent laughter at the other end as the culprit put the phone down.
‘Why do I always get them?’ Karen asked Sandra.
‘You do seem to have a knack! Maybe it’s your ‘aura’ that attracts them.’
‘OK, OK.’
There were times when Karen wished she hadn’t told Sandra about that over a coffee break. ‘It’s the sort of thing you should keep to yourself, Mum,’ Adam was always saying.
But it was a gift! A gift which had started after she had left Paul. After she’d got the stone. Somehow, she began to see soft, coloured clouds hovering over people’s heads; sometimes blue; sometimes purple; sometimes pink. And when she began to research it in the library – her favourite place to go to on Saturday mornings – she began to read up about auras.
