Stand by Your Man

by Gil McNeil

  ‘Oh yes please. I’m so tired, that would be great.’

  ‘I’ve got salad, and some ham, and a few strawberries. Not many though, but enough for the kids.’

  Molly says there are stacks in the new garden and Frank says we should pick as many as we fancy, so after a cup of tea and a rest we walk up with a bowl to pick strawberries, and then take some over to the house because it feels a bit cheeky to just wander up and nick them all. There’s no sign of anyone but the back door’s open so Lola’s probably in her office upstairs.

  ‘Actually, come to think of it, Charles said something about taking them over to his mother’s for the day. Let’s just leave some strawberries and not bother her – she’s probably working.’

  ‘OK. No, Lily, stay in the kitchen.’

  Lily’s already run off, heading for the playroom, and Alfie’s about to follow her.

  ‘I’ll go, you watch Alfie.’

  It feels rather weird being in someone else’s house without them knowing. I don’t want Lola to think she’s got burglars, and I’m just about to shout hello as I reach the bottom of the stairs when I hear Lily yelling ‘Daddy’. And then I hear someone say ‘Christ’, and everything sort of goes into slow motion.

  Lola appears at the top of the stairs clutching a sheet, and Dan bounds down wearing only his jeans, which he’s still doing up. He looks really pale, as if he’s just been told some really bad news. Which I suppose in a way he has.

  ‘Moll, it’s not what you think. I’m sorry, wait, let me explain.’

  Molly has come into the hall. She stands very still for a moment, and Dan falters slightly, and then she makes a weird noise, a mixture between a cry and the kind of noise you make just before you’re sick, and runs out of the house. I follow her, with the kids, who seem rather quiet as if they know something’s up but can’t quite work out what. We walk back down the lane in silence.

  I feel pretty shaken by the time we get indoors, so god knows how Molly’s feeling. I open a big bag of crisps and my emergency bag of Smarties, and stick Peter Pan on. Molly’s sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the fridge.

  ‘I can’t even have a fucking drink.’

  ‘I’ll make tea.’

  ‘I don’t want tea. I feel sick. Tell me what we just saw. I want to hear you say it out loud.’

  ‘I don’t know, Molly, I think, Christ, I just don’t know.’

  ‘Fucking bastard. How could he? I wonder how long that’s been going on. He’s been weird for ages. I thought he was just working hard, but he was probably out seeing her. God.’

  I think she really is going to be sick. She gets up and goes over to the sink.

  ‘Did you see his car? I didn’t see his car. She must have picked him up somewhere. Maybe it’s back at our house.’

  Saying the words ‘our house’ seems to upset her all over again and she starts crying.

  ‘Do you want a glass of water or something? Oh god, there’s someone at the door. Molly, it might be Dan. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Tell him to fuck off. I can’t see him now, I can’t.’

  She looks really panicked.

  It’s Charles.

  ‘I thought you might like one of these. We’ve been over at my mother’s at one of her village things and I thought they were – Sorry, is this is a bad time?’

  ‘No, it’s – they’re lovely.’

  He’s clutching a sunflower in a little pot.

  ‘I got some for the garden too, for the children. I’ve always loved sunflowers – they’re so cheerful, aren’t they? Oh hello, Molly.’

  Oh god. She looks furious.

  ‘Molly, calm down.’

  ‘I’m perfectly calm. I’ve just found out Dan’s a complete bastard, but I’m quite calm about it really. I am. It’s funny, in a way. I was feeling guilty about not paying him enough attention. But it looks like someone else has been taking care of that one for me, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What? I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean your bitch of a wife and fucking Dan, that’s what’s I mean. We just walked in on them, up at the house. We’d been picking strawberries for tea, and –’

  She starts to cry, and he goes bright red for a moment and then he starts to walk back to his car.

  ‘Molly, go back in and sit down, and Charles, don’t go. Come in and have a drink or something – you can’t go home like this. I’ll get the kids in – just go into the kitchen and talk to Molly.’

  Charles has sort of frozen by the gate, looking helpless, but he turns round and they both go into the kitchen, and then Lily comes outside and dances about getting increasingly agitated, and Alfie starts joining in, and I say something really stupid about how it’s all right, it’s just that Mummy doesn’t like sunflowers, which strikes me as especially ridiculous the moment I’ve said it, but I can’t really think of anything else to say. We get Mabel out of her car seat and then Ezra and Alfie start bickering about whether to watch Peter Pan or cartoons.

  Molly and Charles are both sitting in the kitchen looking shell-shocked, but when the kids barge in they manage to rally slightly, and we end up having a surreal conversation about the zoo and all the animals we saw, while I make some tea. I dole out more crisps and gradually the kids settle down with the telly, although Ezra and Lily keep wandering back into the kitchen, and have obviously picked up on the underlying tension.

  Molly’s gone weirdly quiet, which is almost more scary than when she was sobbing. Charles keeps shaking his head, and staring into space, and in the end they go out into the garden and pretend to be looking at plants, and Charles puts his arm round her and I can tell she’s crying again.

  He says he thinks he’d better go home, but he’ll ring us later, and Molly says if Dan’s still around could he please tell him not to bother coming home because she doesn’t want to see him.

  She looks really pale and I can’t help thinking maybe I ought to call a doctor. I mean it can’t be good for pregnant people to have big shocks like this. I do what I always do in a crisis and call Mum, and she says she’ll come right round, and I’m to keep a close eye on Molly and if she starts going faint or anything we’re to go straight to the hospital. Which really worries me, so I ask Molly if she’s sure she’s feeling all right, and she says no, she feels like she’s been run over by a truck but she promises she’ll tell me if she starts to feel weird in a need-to-go-to-hospital kind of way.

  I end up taking Molly and Lily home, and Mum takes Alfie to stay at her house. The phone’s ringing when we get to Molly’s but she won’t answer it, and in the end she unplugs it.

  I’ve got my mobile with me, and Charles rings and says that Lola was out when he got home, and he’ll ring us later if she turns up. He sounds really distant and exhausted.

  Lily falls asleep quite quickly after I’ve given her a bath and Molly’s read to her for a bit, and we have supper sitting out in the garden watching the chickens. It’s quite calming watching them pecking about and fluffing up their feathers, but Molly still looks very pale.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I keep thinking, but I can’t work it out. All I know is I can’t cope with seeing him. Not just yet. I feel really strange, but it’s like I just want to put everything on hold.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart, but there’s no rush. You can talk to him tomorrow.’

  ‘Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just never speak to him again.’

  My mobile rings and it’s Dan.

  ‘Look, Alice, is Molly there? She won’t answer the phone and I’ve got to talk to her.’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’

  Molly shakes her head.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Yes. Just tell her I’m sorry, will you? I can explain. Is she OK?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Alice, I just, oh god, it’s just complicated.’

  ‘Tell it to Molly, Dan, not me. Ring her tomorrow.’

  God, I’
m so furious with him, I’m shaking as I put my phone back in my bag. At least I didn’t have to find Patric and Cindy together. At least he had the decency to sit me down and tell me. And at least I wasn’t pregnant. Poor Molly, it’s so unfair. I can still feel the shock and humiliation of it all, that sense of complete betrayal. It’s like an old bruise that still hurts when you press it. And she’s only just at the start of it all. Christ.

  * * *

  Charles rings around eleven and says Lola came home and they had a blazing row and now she’s gone to stay in London for a few days.

  ‘She said it’s all my fault. Apparently I’m really boring.’

  ‘Oh Charles.’

  ‘Is Molly all right?’

  ‘Sort of. And what about you?’

  ‘Same really.’

  ‘Look, call me, any time – really. I’m at work in the morning but I’m around in the afternoon. If you want someone to talk to.’

  We get to bed late, and I fall asleep almost immediately, and have all sorts of complicated nightmares about losing Alfie at the zoo mixed in with Patric moving out and then coming back with Lola and Dan, which makes me feel rather guilty in the morning because I only meant to doze so I was ready to spring into action if Molly needed me.

  I’d planned on getting up early to make her breakfast too, but she wakes me up with coffee, and says she’s been up for ages, but didn’t want to wake me. She seems calmer, and says she’ll call me later and come round this afternoon. She just wants to spend some time with Lily and try not to think about anything.

  I go home and get changed and get into work late, but Janet and Malcolm are away in Spain so there’s nobody looking at their watch and being sarcastic.

  Mum calls and says she’ll bring Alfie home this afternoon, and he’s been lovely although he nearly gave Dad a heart attack leaping into their bed at dawn for a cuddle.

  ‘He slept in your old bed, he looked really tiny, and I’ve been thinking, you know, and I never liked that Lola. I always thought she was a nasty, selfish piece of work, but I’m surprised at Dan. He always seemed such a nice boy. I bet his mother’s mortified.’

  I hadn’t thought about how Doreen’s going to take the news of the chosen one’s fall from grace. Every cloud has a silver lining, even if it’s only a really tiny one, although I’m not actually going to say this to Molly. But I’d quite like to see Doreen’s face when she finds out.

  I collect up some papers at lunchtime and take them home. I haven’t got anything urgent on, and Brenda says she’ll cover for me. There’s a note from Mum – she must have popped in on her way to playgroup. She says there were three messages on the answerphone, all from Dan last night trying to track Molly down, and Charles has called and she’s told him I’ll call him back, and she’ll bring Alfie home later.

  She loves answering my phone in case she picks up any interesting bits of news that I’m trying to keep from her. She likes knowing even trivial stuff, like what I had for lunch or where I’ve been shopping. She’s the same with Jim: she once spent nearly half an hour talking to the receptionist in his office before he realised who she was talking to, but it was too late by then and she’d already told her the winkle story. He had to buy the woman coffees from Starbuck’s on the way into work for months to get her to keep quiet.

  I hear a car arrive, and then I see Lola walking up the path. Fucking hell.

  ‘Hello, am I persona non grata?’

  ‘If you mean am I furious with you, then yes. I am.’

  ‘It was only meant to be a fling, you know. It wasn’t serious or anything.’

  ‘Well, it bloody was for Molly.’

  ‘I know. But honestly, she was never meant to know. It was pretty much over really.’

  ‘I don’t want to know the details, Lola.’

  Actually, I do, but I’m rather ashamed of this.

  ‘We just sort of got together vaguely for a while, that’s all. I wasn’t going to try to take him off her or anything. God forbid.’

  ‘I think that almost makes it worse. At least if you’d fallen madly in love with him I could understand it.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. With Dan? Please. If you hadn’t been creeping round my house nobody would ever have known.’

  ‘Lola, we weren’t creeping anywhere, we were bringing you some strawberries.’

  ‘Charles is furious.’

  ‘I don’t blame him.’

  ‘I don’t really care. It hasn’t been working for ages.’

  ‘Well, get a divorce then. Find a way to make it all right for the kids, and get on with it. But leave other people out of it.’

  ‘It’s been really hard for me too, you know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lola, but my sympathy’s all used up, I’ve been with Molly all night. Heavily pregnant Molly.’

  ‘I know. I do feel a bit bad about that.’

  ‘A bit bad. Jesus, Lola, you’re unbelievable.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. It was just a fling, just something to keep me sane while I made my mind up. It’s all right for you – I’m under real pressure. They don’t give you the kind of money I earn if you’re not totally committed, and it doesn’t matter if I’m in the office or at home, they still call me. I’m surrounded by bastards who want my job.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should let them have it. It can’t just be about you, Lola, I mean surely it’s about the kids too. You need to sort things out for them. They need to come first, don’t they?’

  ‘I never did, not with my parents. My mother made that perfectly clear.’

  ‘Oh for god’s sake, Lola, get over it. Just because you had a crap mother doesn’t mean it’s all right for you to be the same. Look, I don’t know what you came round for but I don’t think I’m up for it, whatever it is.’

  ‘I’ve got to decide what to do, and it’s really difficult. You know what it’s like, coping on your own, and I’m just not sure if I’m cut out for that kind of thing. I could move back to London, and be like a divorced father. See the kids at weekends, shower them with presents and then fuck off before bedtime. But maybe I should take them with me – we could get a house in London. I don’t see why Charles should keep them – they’re my children too. He seems to think I’ll just move out and leave him with everything.’

  I think she’d be quite happy to leave the children if only it didn’t mean Charles having them.

  ‘Are you serious then, about splitting up?’

  ‘Oh yes. This was just the final straw. It’s been building for ages. But I just don’t know what I really want yet. I mean I haven’t even got a decent nanny sorted out, and if they stay with Charles he’ll probably demand maintenance or something. Christ, wouldn’t that be ironic, me having to pay him to look after the children?’

  ‘Lola, it can’t just be about money.’

  She gives me a very supercilious look.

  ‘Oh Alice. You really don’t get it, do you? He’s very rich, his family’s absolutely loaded.’

  ‘Well, that’s OK then, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it bloody isn’t. If we’re getting a divorce I should get half of everything. I’ll have to get a good lawyer, make sure his bastard family don’t cheat me. We’re talking about a great deal of money here, but most of it’s in family trusts, and they’re bound to try to keep it. His mother’s always hated me.’

  I can’t really believe she’s only talking about the money. Suddenly I feel very angry.

  ‘Oh well, if it’s only the money you’re worried about then I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

  ‘If you’re just going to be sarcastic I might as well go. Jesus, you’re so fucking superior. I didn’t think you’d be so suburban.’

  She’s got a horrible sneering look on her face and somehow this just finishes me off.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s suburban, Lola. What’s really fucking suburban is being obsessed with money, and having the right car and the right house, and giving endless rounds of dinner parties, when it’s all
completely fake. It’s all about who you know, and what your friends will think. It’s like the worst kind of cliché: nobody understands me, I’m so bloody special the normal rules don’t apply to me. You live in some sort of parallel universe – do you know that? You’re like a black hole, it’s all about you and what you want.’

  Blimey. I’m so angry I’ve actually gone a bit shaky. Lola storms off, banging the front door nearly off its hinges as she goes.

  I call Em to try and calm myself down. ‘What, Dan? Lola’s having it off with Molly’s Dan? God. What a cow.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Poor Molly. What’s she going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she knows yet.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘I know. I can’t believe it really either.’

  ‘Well, tell her she can come out here, after the baby, if she wants to. For a nice long rest. Luca’s mum will whip the baby out of her hands as soon as she lands.’

  ‘Thanks, Em. I’ll tell her.’

  ‘And you too. It’ll help cheer you up after binning Harry. I’ll ask Marco down, if you like.’

  ‘I didn’t bin him, Em, we both agreed. It just wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘Yes, but he’d have carried on popping round for a bit of action, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Probably. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a bit of action now – take my mind off all this business with Molly and Dan. It’s so depressing, and I hate seeing her so upset. It’s so unfair.’

  ‘Well, come over here any time, sweetheart, and I’m sure that can be arranged.’

  Molly rings as soon as I’ve finished talking to Em and says she’s going to meet Dan later, at the house, and we arrange for her to drop Lily off with me for a bit so they can talk. She seems fairly calm when she arrives, and looks very determined, but I can’t really talk to her because the kids are both being quite clingy. She looks exhausted when she gets back, but she’s brought sweets and lemonade with her, so the kids soon perk up and run round the garden trailing sand everywhere.

  ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve told him I can’t make any big decisions until after the baby. I really can’t. He kept trying to tell me it didn’t mean anything, and it was only a few times, like that makes any bloody difference. But I’ve told him I want him to move out for a few weeks. We can tell Lily he’s off on some big job – he’s done that before. He can come back on Sundays and see her and everything. And then after the baby’s born I’ll be able to think properly.’