by Sophie King
‘I’m here to see a friend. Lisa Smith.’
A woman trundled past in slippers and a dressing-gown, holding a tiny scrap in pink. Lisa’s eyes went with them. She could smell its face, nuzzle its tiny neck, pretend she was buttoning up its tiny sleepsuit.
‘Lisa Smith?’
The nurse frowned as though she’d already detected the false name. She was young. Hard-looking. ‘We don’t have anyone of that name here, but I only came on this morning. I could ask someone else if she’s been discharged.’
‘No.’ The baby and her mother had gone behind a curtain now. She’d seemed like a good mother. Not like Lisa’s mum. If she’d listened to Lisa when she’d complained about her stomach hurting her appendix might not have burst. And she’d have had two tubes to get pregnant with, instead of one. Still, like it said on that American spirit-and-destiny site, if you didn’t forgive, it could be really bad for your health and, if you were pregnant, you could pass on bad vibes to the baby. That was why she still emailed her mum.
‘No, it’s all right, thanks. I’ll ring her.’
Back. Quickly. Down the steps and out before she was stopped.
No time to check the footprints.
‘Lisa!’
A tall stringy youth with a fag in his fingers was squinting at her. ‘Fancy seeing you!’
There was a girl next to him. A very young girl in a short skirt and a T-shirt. A terrible cold realisation swept over her.
‘Kelly, what the fuck are you doing here?’
Kelly smiled nastily, tucking her hand into Kevin’s. ‘We’ve just been for our six-week check-up, haven’t we, Kev?’
Lisa could feel her throat tightening with panic. ‘That’s yours?’ She jerked her head at the sling round Kevin’s neck. It was exactly the kind she’d ordered online last week. Inside, she could just about make out a tiny puckered face, screwed up in sleep.
Kevin nodded.
‘What’s that to you?’ demanded Kelly.
Lisa stared at Kevin. ‘But you didn’t want kids. You said. And you, Kelly, how could you? He was mine!’
‘Hey, girls!’
‘Maybe he wanted my kid, not yours,’ said Kelly, taking Kevin’s arm.
He laughed, revealing stained teeth. ‘Yeah, maybe I did.’
Lisa pushed past them, unable to breathe.
‘Oy! Be careful. We’ve got a baby here, you know.’
Run. Run across the car park to the bus stop. Gasp for breath. Choke back the tears.
When she’d lost Hayley, Kevin had been so cruel. ‘Didn’t want it anyway,’ he’d said. But in a funny way it had helped at the time.
She’d told herself that if Kevin hadn’t wanted kids, that child wouldn’t have had a proper father. But now he’d changed his mind and that bitch in the short skirt had succeeded where she hadn’t.
Lisa sank on to the broken blue plastic seat at the bus stop and leaned forward, arms round her neck to shut out the world.
‘You all right, love?’ asked someone walking by.
She shook her head as the sobs poured out of her. Her entire body shook. God knows what this was doing to Rose inside. The voice had sounded kind. Soft. Motherly. She willed it to speak again. But when she lifted her head, whoever it was had gone.
Even worse, the bus, which she’d dimly heard arriving through her sobs, was disappearing round the corner.
SEPTEMBER
EMAIL FROM WHAT MUMS KNOW
JUST THREE MONTHS, EVERYONE, UNTIL THAT WISH COMES TRUE!
EMAIL FROM LISA SMITH
Hi mum. Do u get my emails? I think you must becuase they dont come back. There’s sumthing I want to no. You used to say I was a dificult kid. Did you ever pretend I wosnt yours?
MESSAGE TO FREDDY SUMMERS
Hi, scumface. I’m going to tell everyone at the holiday club that it was you who ripped the snooker-table cover unless you give me five quid. And don’t think of showing this to your dad cos if you do, a lot worse will happen to you.
EMAIL TO ANNABEL CRAWFORD
Dear Annabel,
We haven’t heard from you for ages and we’re getting worried. I’m hoping you’ll pick this up next time you check your emails. Please ring URGENTLY.
Love Mum
WHAT MUMS KNOW
JOIN OUR ONLINE DISCUSSIONS ON:
How to get a girl – or boy!
Husbands v. children. Is it wrong to put the kids first?
Are your kids addicted to the computer? A new report says parents are being driven to distraction by computer-obsessed kids.
TIP FROM FRAZZLED MUM
Set the kitchen clock five minutes fast. Stops you being so late.
CHUCKLE CORNER FROM BIG MUM
Why do men become smarter during sex? Because they’re plugged into a genius!
THOUGHT TO KEEP YOU SANE FROM PUSHY PRINCESS
Behind every successful woman is herself.
18
If she didn’t find a case history for the affair piece soon, she’d have to tell Diana, who’d already extended the deadline reluctantly to the following month’s issue. It wasn’t good, bearing in mind the staff cuts that had been sweeping the company during the last year.
‘Caroline Crawford speaking.’
‘Hello, darling.’
It was so confusing, the way Roger oscillated between cool and effusive. Was that because he didn’t know how he felt?
‘Hi.’
‘Any news from Annabel?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t worry. She’s too busy to call, that’s all. Listen, David rang to see if we’re going on Friday. What do you want to do?’
Across the office, Caroline could see Diana coming towards her desk. ‘I thought we weren’t going.’
He sounded petulant. ‘It would give us some time together.’
Automatically, she thought of the current heated discussion on What Mums Know: ‘Husbands v. children. Is it wrong to put the kids first?’
Diana was getting nearer and Caroline tried to think fast. David had been a mutual university friend and it was his forty-fifth. They ought to go, but nowadays anything that meant putting on a We’re-a-couple face seemed so false.
‘I’ve found a room.’ He named a nice hotel they had stayed at once before. ‘And Ben’s old enough to look after Georgie.’
‘OK.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
‘I’m busy. That’s all. Must go.’
‘Caroline.’ Diana was standing over her, disapproval radiating from her immaculately made-up eyes. Personal phone calls were only allowed when there wasn’t an office crisis. ‘What’s the latest on the affair piece?’
Caroline glanced at her notepad as though it might provide sudden inspiration. ‘Not good, I’m afraid. I’ve contacted all my leads and I can’t find anyone who’ll talk, even anonymously. I was just going to email you about it.’
Diana’s eyes narrowed. ‘Pity. Maybe I’d better put a couple of freelancers on to it to see if they can help.’
Caroline felt raw. The magazine relied on a regular core of freelancers, mainly to write their own features. If they were asked to help find case histories for someone else’s, it was an admission of defeat on the original writer’s part. ‘I’ll keep trying too.’
Diana was frowning. ‘If nothing comes up by Tuesday, we’ll have to reschedule. Maybe bring that educational-toys piece forward. How’s that going?’
‘Really well.’ When had she learned to lie so convincingly? Before or after Roger?
‘Good.’ Diana nodded, unsmiling. ‘Email me at the end of the day to let me know how you’re getting on.’
Caroline watched Diana’s elegant back (definitely Louis Feraud today) weave away from her. Surely someone somewhere could help.
What Mums Know. Her fingers seemed to home in automatically. In the last few weeks it had almost become a habit. A relaxation where she could be herself and not a journalist. Caroline scanned the Message Board. So ‘Expecte
nt’ Mum had lost a baby. Maybe that explained her terse attitude to poor old Mimi about kicking. Caroline had never had a miscarriage but her sister had, in Australia, and she’d interviewed countless women for infertility pieces over the years. What else had happened? Caroline felt cold as she read Rainbow’s post. That was exactly as she’d feared: losing the children at weekends to the ex and his wife was precisely why she had fought for her marriage.
Is it wrong to put the kids first?
No. It was natural. From the minute you held your first baby in your arms, you realised you could never again put yourself or anyone else first.
Caroline logged off. A night at a hotel? Yes. And this time she’d try really hard to forget. She had to.
‘Why isn’t Georgie in bed?’
‘Chill out, Mum, she’s fine. We’re watching a film. It’s Friday night, for God’s sake.’
Caroline cradled the phone between ear and shoulder while she applied brown kohl pencil to her inner eyelids in the hotel mirror.
‘What kind of film?’
‘Mum, you’re pissing me off. Go and have a good time with Dad. Speak in the morning.’
Ben had gone. Whatever happened to respect? If she’d talked to her parents like that, she’d have lost her pocket money or been grounded.
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re too soft on him.’ Roger was fiddling with his bow-tie in front of the hotel mirror.
Caroline turned her back. It was easier to argue her case to a wall than to her husband’s face. ‘He won’t listen to me.’
It was an all too familiar patter, which she had promised herself to avoid. It had been so much effort to get away – sorting out meals and impressing on Ben the importance of locking up at night – that it was a waste to spoil the weekend with yet another argument.
‘Can you zip up my dress?’
She felt his fingers on her skin. Cold. Disinterested. Yet the weekend had been his idea.
‘That’s pretty. Is it new?’
‘No. I bought it ages ago.’
Three years ago. A whole year before she’d found out. She measured everything that way. The family photograph that she had naïvely persuaded everyone to sit for when, with hindsight, Roger had been seeing that woman for at least three months.
The sofa they had chosen together when, according to her calculations, he must have been seeing her for six months.
‘We’re going to be late.’ Roger glanced at her. ‘You look nice.’
Smile. Children need parents. She needed her husband. ‘Thanks. So do you.’
The band was amazing. All those songs from the seventies and eighties she’d thought she’d forgotten but to which her feet were urgently tapping in hungry nostalgia. All around her were friends she hadn’t seen for years, some with their original partners, some not. She’d hugged and kissed so many that it was almost as though she was back at Oxford. Only one thing was wrong.
Roger.
Somehow all this seemed such a sham and she hoped he wouldn’t suggest dancing: such close contact seemed even more of a pretence.
‘Hi, you made it!’ Their host, beaming with excitement, came up to them at the bar. ‘Sorry, so many people here that I must have missed you arriving. Caro, you look gorgeous. Roger, you’re a lucky bugger. How long have you guys been married now? Twenty years?’
‘Twenty-two,’ said Caroline, evenly.
‘Not long till your silver. God, some people have all the luck.’
‘How’s Marie?’
‘You mean Tanya,’ said Roger, quickly.
Caroline flushed. ‘Sorry, Roger didn’t tell me.’
‘I did, actually.’
David drained his glass. ‘Tanya’s great. Come over here and meet her. Another drink first? No? Great, Roger. That’s the spirit!’
David’s new girlfriend was incredibly tall, confident and curvy without being plump. ‘I wish you’d told me about Marie,’ Caroline hissed into her husband’s ear, when Tanya was busily engaged in nuzzling David’s.
‘I did.’
‘You didn’t. What happened? I liked her.’
‘Come on, you guys!’ David broke away from Tanya. ‘Let’s dance!’
‘What?’ Roger cupped his hand to his ear. ‘I can’t hear you.’
Of course he could, thought Caroline. The music was loud but she could hear him.
‘I said, let’s dance!’ David yelled.
Had Roger ever danced with her? wondered Caroline as, reluctantly, she allowed herself to be led out on to the dance floor.
Almost as soon as they got there, the music quietened. A slow one. Everyone else was drawing towards each other. Roger took a hesitant step in her direction, placing his hands on her bare shoulders.
‘Do you mind if we sit down instead?’ she said quickly. ‘My headache’s come back.’
‘Fine.’
She shuddered at the coldness in his voice and his failure to express sympathy about her headache, even though he probably guessed it was non-existent. Wordlessly, she followed him across the floor to some chairs outside the marquee. Across the lawn, she could just make out the outline of Magdalen College where once, in another life, she and Roger had smooched at a memorable summer ball with their lives stretched out before them.
‘Feel better now?’
‘Sort of.’
Roger yawned. ‘I don’t want to stay late. Do you?’
‘No.’
‘There you are! I’ve been looking for you two everywhere.’
Jeff was beaming down at them with a pretty, petite blonde on his arm. ‘This is Serena. Serena, Roger and Caroline.’
‘Hi.’ The girl, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, simpered at them. ‘We got here late because we stopped off for a rest.’ She giggled and Jeff looked away, embarrassed.
‘We were just going, actually. Caroline’s got a headache.’
‘Poor you.’ Jeff fumbled in his jacket pocket. ‘Want something for it? I never go anywhere without these.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Hang on and I’ll get you some water to have with them.’
‘I’ll come too.’ Caroline followed Jeff to the bar, leaving Roger with the blonde.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked, putting his arm round her lightly as he shepherded her through the crowd.
‘Not great.’
‘You look gorgeous.’
‘Thanks.’ She looked over her shoulder meaningfully at his date. ‘So does she.’
Jeff shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever find the right person or if I really know who I’m searching for.’
‘You will when you see her,’ said Caroline, reassuringly.
‘You’re probably right.’ He handed her the water. ‘Have a nice evening, Caro. And good luck. A weekend away might be just what you two need.’
There was no getting out of it. A vast double bed in a gorgeous bedroom with mahogany headboard and crisp cotton sheets. A weekend away without the children. It had been nearly two months since the last time they’d been intimate. If they didn’t do it tonight, it was a clear admission he didn’t want her. Or she him.
He was already in bed when she slid in after the bath. ‘Do you feel too tired?’
Yes.
‘No.’
He moved towards her and she wriggled out of her nightdress.
‘You’re tight,’ he mumbled.
Always her fault. Think. Harrison Ford. That actor on television. Harrison and that actor on television. That was better. She gasped, her breath quickening. Almost immediately, it was over, like a little wave, now out of sight. Always the same, even when she and Roger had first got together. Never the huge ocean you read about. Was it her? Or them?
He was pumping now. If he couldn’t come, it meant she didn’t turn him on. The corner of his mouth was turned up with concentration, the way it always was when they made love. What could she do to hurry him on? What had the other woman done?
Roger gasped. He
was there. Thank God for that. A few minutes later she washed him away angrily in the cream en-suite.
‘Think of the kids,’ Jeff had said. And he was right. They had to come first even if that meant keeping up this sham of a marriage.
She heard the ring when she was in the deepest part of her sleep. Fumbling in the dark for her usual lamp at home, she remembered she wasn’t in her own bed. Georgie. Something had happened. Or Ben. Or both.
‘Roger! Phone!’
He was never good at getting up in the night.
Her fingers finally closed round her mobile next to the bed. ‘Hello?’
‘Mum?’
Annabel’s voice was thin and distant.
‘Annabel! Are you all right?’
Roger turned over, groaning. ‘What a time to ring!’
‘Shush. Where are you, darling?’
‘Still in Thailand. It’s so brill that we stayed on a bit longer. We’re flying out to Darwin next week.’
Relief gave way to irritation.
‘Why didn’t you ring earlier? We were so worried. And it’s the middle of the night here.’
‘Is it? Sorry, I should have worked that out. Still, at least I’ve got you. I’ve lost my phone and I had to queue for hours for a pay-phone. Then I rang home and Ben said you were on the mobile. Anyway, I’m having a fantastic time and we’ve teamed up with some friends we met on the plane. Look, I’ve got to go because there’s this huge queue outside. I’ll email you from Australia. Give my love to Dad.’
‘Hang on and I’ll pass you over. Roger, wake up.’
‘She’s gone,’ he said accusingly.
Caroline sank back against the pillows, weak with relief and disappointment that her daughter had hung up so soon. ‘There was a queue for the phone. She’s lost her mobile.’
‘Not again. We’ll have to cancel the contract or someone could be running up a huge bill somewhere. Well, at least she’s rung. See? I told you she’d be OK.’
‘Yes.’ Caroline turned over, feeling like a criticised child. ‘You did.’
Annabel was safe. Now all Caroline had to do was ensure she had a family to come back to when she finally returned.
