Love Is a Secret
Page 44
‘Three,’ he cut in.
Karen’s eyes twinkled. ‘Plus the fiancée. Some kids your age haven’t got married at all.’
Kids? ‘I’m older than I look,’ he said stiffly.
Those eyes were twinkling again. ‘And how old did you say you were, again?’
Was she flirting with him?
‘Thirty eight.’
‘You look younger.’ She leaned back in her chair and he noticed, for the first time, that she was wearing silvery tights under those black Uggs. ‘Guess how old I am?’
Oh God! In his experience, this was the most dangerous question a woman could ask apart from how-many-women-have-you-slept-with?
‘Forty nine?’ he hazarded.
There was a moment’s silence during which he held his breath. Then Karen burst into peals of laughter. ‘I know you’re just flattering me. In fact, I’m fifty five.’
Phew! ‘You look much younger.’
Karen beamed. ‘All down to my mother’s genes. Gosh – is that the time. I’ve got to get back.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘More mating goldfish, if I’m unlucky.’
So he had heard her right the first time! ‘Do you work for a vet?’
‘For classified ads. You know, the local paper. You get all kinds of weirdos – and nice ones too. I don’t suppose you want a litter of puppies, do you? Terribly sweet. Lab/springers, they are. Been in the paper for three weeks now.’
A puppy! It was the last thing he needed!
‘Is that someone waving at you?’ Karen was staring out of the window at the silver convertible parked in the bus lane. Nancy! She was early. And – shit – there was the bus hooting impatiently behind while Nancy showed no signs of moving. Typical!
‘Sorry. It’s my lift.’
Karen’s eyes didn’t exactly get cold but something about them was definitely changing. ‘That was quick. Be careful, Ed. Very careful. Three wives – almost four – and you’ve found someone else already. Don’t make another mistake, will you? That’s what our next session is all about. You will come, won’t you?’
Nancy was hooting again and so was the bus driver. People were turning round to look and – great – there was a police car! ‘Yes. No. Yes, I’ll be there. And about Nancy, the woman you just saw. It’s not what you think. I’ll explain next month.’
I don’t like sleeping alone. I wake in the night to reach out for his warm back. But it’s not there.
Yet I can hear his snoring. Rising and falling, steadily, through the wall of the spare room next door. He has a cold, apparently. I always said the insulation in this house needed sorting.
So I mention it at breakfast the next morning, over toast (lightly browned, the way he likes it). And it brings us back to safe ground, away from last night’s accusations when he told me our marriage had become simply a business arrangement whereby I ran the house and he brought home the means.
‘I’ll sort out the insulation,’ he says. And then he looks up over the marmalade pot and actually smiles at me.
So don’t say anything to him if you read this. It might be all right after all!
Session Two: Moving On
This isn’t easy if you’ve been with someone for years. But it can be done!
Try:
Creating new traditions (e.g. going to a market on Sundays).
Giving yourself a treat (a lavender bath).
Making a list of five things that are good about being without your partner.
SEE! You can do it!
10
LIZZIE
‘Are you sure that woman is pregnant with Tom’s baby?’
Her mother was still sitting there, her mouth open in almost exactly the same position that she’d been in when Lizzie had found the courage to break the news half an hour earlier. The ‘lar-tee’ that Mum had made earlier, was still sitting cold in the brown and cream mugs which she and Tom had brought back from a holiday in Cornwall last year.
‘I just wouldn’t have thought Tom was the type,’ hissed her mother from the cream leather sofa she’d bought in the summer sale (since the menopause, Mum had been coming home with the most unlikely stuff). ‘To think, I was so pleased when you brought him home. Dependable, that’s what I said, wasn’t it, Jim? That man’s dependable. Never thought he was a philanderer. By the way, did you know you had a nasty spot on your chin, darling? And are you sure you really want that second slice of cake?’
‘A philanderer?’ Her father’s eyes lit up. ‘Didn’t know Tom collected stamps. Don’t suppose he left his album behind, did he, when he did a bunk? Sorry – bad joke again, I’m afraid.’
‘Shhhh.’ Lizzie gestured towards the children who were sitting riveted in front of the Wee box (Dad’s name for it) that her father had bought himself to celebrate his last hip operation. ‘Don’t talk about IT in front of them.’
Her mother waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh they can’t hear. Besides, they know more than we do. Well, him, anyway.’
She jerked her head towards Dad who had now pretended to go to sleep, the way he always did when Mum got too much. ‘That reminds me. Where did I put my Do Not Resuscitate Card? Frankly, I wouldn’t want them to bring me back to life if I’ve got to carry on being married to him.’
Why was it that some couples, like her parents, seemed perfectly happy to bicker their way through marriage but still stay together? She and Tom had hardly ever argued and now look! How could he possibly fall for someone with a bottom the size of a sofa and who never missed an episode of EastEnders?
‘Mum, is Daddy having sex with Ellie’s mummy?’
Thank God her mother had gone out of the room, supposedly to find the Do Not Resuscitate card but really to top up her glass.
‘Jack, don’t be so ridiculous. Of course he’s not.’
‘But Granny says he is. She says it’s disgusting and that Sharon’s a pregotory woman.’
‘Predatory,’ corrected Lizzie automatically. It was true. She’d even written a piece in the magazine about women who took a delight in poaching married men. Yet she’d never put Sharon down as one. How could she have got her so wrong?
‘Because she was convenient?’ suggested a small voice in her head.
Lizzie felt a twinge of guilt. Sharon had been convenient. Always there to have the children for her if she had a work emergency. Always able to find her a case history for the magazine. If she hadn’t needed Sharon like that, they’d never have been friends. They were too different. But Sharon had been keen enough to befriend her. Because she’d wanted the one thing Lizzie had that she didn’t. A husband.
A loud noise across the table made her glance up. Dad really had fallen asleep, his mouth wide-open revealing a missing row of teeth (where had he put them this time?) and hands firmly round a bottle of Jacob’s Creek (or ‘creak’ as he called it) which she could swear hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
Lizzie leant forward and gently took the bottle out of his hands. That was better! Normally, she didn’t even like the taste of white. But already she was beginning to feel a curious detachment from the rest of the room. Maybe one more sip . . .
Just as well she could walk home from her parents’ house. ‘What’s that funny smell on your breath?’ demanded Sophie as she fumbled in her bag for the front door key.
Motherhood had taught her to be quick over the years. ‘Gran’s egg sandwiches.’
‘She didn’t make egg sandwiches.’ Sophie’s clear blue eyes were as cool as her father’s. ‘’Sides, that doesn’t smell like egg. It smells of wine. Chardonnay or maybe Jacob’s Creek.’
Don’t, thought Lizzie as she fumbled with the door, say wine tasting was on the National Curriculum now. ‘How do you know the difference?’
Her daughter rolled her eyes. What gave her the right at twelve to do that? ‘Cos Julie had both at her party.’
‘Well she shouldn’t have.’
‘And you,’ said Sophie, taking the key from her and opening the door quite easily, ‘shouldn’t have
a swig out of Granddad’s bottle and then lie about it.’
The loo. Quick. ‘It was purely for medicinal purposes,’ she managed to say before shutting the door just in time. What was wrong with her? It had only been two glasses after all. Was that why she could hear that awful sound in her head? Not the violin again!
‘Stop practising,’ she yelled out. ‘Please!’
By the time she got out (must buy more loo paper), Sophie had cooked fish fingers for tea and had somehow persuaded Jack to sit up at the kitchen island on one of the tall bar stools instead of the usual tray-in-front-of-the-telly. Lizzie was torn between being impressed and cross at being superseded. ‘I was going to do pasta.’
Her daughter fixed her with a look. ‘It was out of date so I had to make do with the fish fingers. We need to defrost the freezer. It’s got icicles everywhere.’
So it had. Another job. And no time. She hadn’t realised how much Tom had done round the house until he’d left. And she still had a feature to write up and file by tomorrow morning.
‘We’re seeing Dad tomorrow.’
‘Don’t eat with your mouth open, Jack.’
‘But we are. Aren’t we Soph? He’s picking us up and taking us to school.’
‘No one told me. And Sophie – stop tidying up my fridge.’
‘You should be pleased, Mum.’ Another cool stare from her daughter. ’You’re always saying you’ve got too much to do.’
Right. That was it. ‘What’s wrong, darling? Are you upset about Mummy and Daddy splitting up? It will be all right. It might not feel like it now but it will be one day.’
That’s what she wanted to say but somehow it came out differently. ‘For God’s sake, Sophie. Stop being so horrid. It’s not my fault your father has left me for Sharon The Slut.’
‘Yes it is!’ Sophie was standing up now, her eyes brimming with angry tears, towering over her even in her tights without shoes. ‘Dad says you were never in and he’s right. You were late again to pick me up from school and it’s so embarrassing. Sod off.’
Sophie! But the words wouldn’t come. As though in a slow motion film, Lizzie watched Jack slither off his stool and head for the safety of the television just as her hands closed round something cool and reassuring. Something she didn’t know had been at the back of the fridge until Sophie’s jibes had made her tidy it up. A nice cold bottle of wine. Chardonnay AND Jacob’s Creek. And maybe a few chocolate fingers to go with it.
‘So you shee. I feel like shleeping with someone. Jusht to get back at shim.’
‘Of course you do Lizzie but tell me something else first.’ Karen’s lovely, warm, reassuring voice that made her feel so much better from the minute she picked up the phone (well she had told them all to call if they felt desperate), was booming at her like waves. ‘Where are the children?’
‘Ahsleep.’
‘Are you sure?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Quite shure. I’ve shecked them. A lot. Jack’s in his sister’s bed. He doeshn’t like shleeping alone.’
‘Do you feel sick, dear?’
Hiccup. ‘Shnope.’
‘Then listen carefully. I want you to have a glass of cold water and then sit upright on the sofa for a bit. After that, call me and then perhaps you might be all right to go to bed. But don’t go now just in case you’re sick.’
Sick? Even as Lizzie leant back into the sofa, she knew she wasn’t going to be sick. All she’d wanted to do was block it out. And the wine – something she didn’t normally drink much of – was doing that all right.
The phone again? Maybe it was Tom, saying he’d made a silly mistake. Or perhaps it was Sharon saying she’d made one. Or maybe Karen . . .
‘Lizzie? It’s me. Dan.’
Who?
‘Sorry to bother you so late but I needed to caption those pictures. I seem to have lost my notes. What were the names of those kids again?’
‘Shwhat kids?’
‘Lizzie? Are you all right?’
‘Yesh.’
‘You don’t sound it.’
Something in Lizzie’s fuzzy mind reminded her she hadn’t seen Dan since that day; the day she’d found out about Tom. ‘He’s left me.’
‘Who’s left you.’
‘My hushband. For a pregatory woman.’
‘Predatory. Christ. One of those. How awful.’
‘I shnow.’
‘Don’t cry Lizzie.’ She’d never heard him sound like this before. ‘Listen, I think I’m in your area. Near Amersham, isn’t it? I’m with friends and we’re in some pub on the high street. Want me to come round?’
She shook her head, forgetting he couldn’t see.
‘I’ve got your address. It was on that email. Hang on in there. I’ll be there in a second. Did I tell you about my sister in Sydney who went through the same thing? I didn’t? Well I will when I see you. I’ll be there in twenty.’
Find out what happens next in Falling in Love Again, out now as an ebook.
For more news about Sophie King visit her website at
www.sophieking.info
For more news about Corazon Books, and news, interviews and features about great stories with heart visit
www.greatstorieswithheart.com
Table of Contents
AUGUST
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
SEPTEMBER
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
OCTOBER
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
NOVEMBER
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
DECEMBER
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Falling in Love Again bonus chapters
Who's Who in Falling in Love Again
The ‘How To Survive Divorce’ Club (Open To Anyone Who Is Single)
1
2
3
4
Session One: Getting To Know You
5
6
7
8
9
Session Two: Moving On
10