by Liz Davies
Helen’s words slipped, unbidden, into her mind, stopping Kate in her tracks. What if her mother-in-law was right? What if she was totally wrong for Brett? It might explain why, for the past few years, her husband seemed to view her as little more than part of the fixtures and fittings.
Of course, she didn’t expect harps and flowers. She didn’t expect her heart to leap out of her chest whenever he phoned. She didn’t expect to go weak at the knees at the sight of him. They’d been married for over twenty years, for goodness sake! She knew that the first flush of love couldn’t possibly last and that the can’t-keep-their-hands-off-each-other stage had to wear off. But she had thought their love had matured and developed into something less transient and more mature.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Brett didn’t feel the same way and was only staying because of the children.
Surely not. She’d have noticed it. OK, they didn’t make love as often as they used to (who did?), because life got in the way. Both of them were exhausted by bedtime, and the one time they’d tried slipping off to their bedroom on a Sunday afternoon when all three kids were out, they’d been continually interrupted by first her phone ringing, then Brett’s, then the house phone as Ellis had wanted a lift back from town because she’d fallen out with her friend and she wasn’t prepared to wait another second longer to go home.
They’d tried again, the following week, but this time it had been Sam who’d had the emergency in the form of forgotten football boots. It hadn’t been Sam who had called, it had been the coach. Four times.
After that, they’d given up on afternoon loving, and kept their romantic encounters to when the kids had gone to bed. It worked for a while, but as Ellis had become older, so her bedtime had grown later, until neither Kate nor Brett could keep their eyes open. Unless, Ellis was out, that was, because Kate was unable to fall asleep until she knew their daughter was safely back in the nest. Unfortunately, it also meant she was too strung out to concentrate on lovemaking, because she was either listening for Ellis’s key in the lock, or she was bracing herself for a phone call.
God help it when Ellis passed her driving test and bought her first car – Kate didn’t think she’d ever sleep again.
Food, that’s what she needed to lift her mood, and the tantalising aroma of a fish and chip shop drew her in.
Ooh, lovely, it was one of those places where you could eat inside, and she opted to do exactly that. She would have preferred to have eaten them directly from their paper wrapping rather than off a plate, but it was freezing outside and wonderfully warm inside, so she slid into a booth and waited for her meal.
This was distinctly surreal, she thought, as she tucked into her steaming plate of crisply battered fish and scrummy chips because, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t have a timetable. She could take as long as she wanted over her meal and the thought of eating it in silence (apart from the staff, the other customers, and the obligatory Christmas songs, which she could ignore) without anyone nagging her was rather weird. If she was honest, she felt a little lost. As she looked around the chip shop or out of the window, everyone seemed to have someone else, or were hurrying on their way to somewhere else. She was like a single, motionless snowflake in the middle of a swirling blizzard. It was the strangest feeling, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Maybe she’d buy a book or two; she couldn’t remember when she’d last read a decent novel. Or any novel, come to that. There were still a couple of half-read paperbacks lying around the house, a left-over from the last time she’d tried to find some time and space for herself in her busy life. But each time she’d picked up one of them, she’d either been interrupted or had been so tired she’d fallen asleep with it in her hands.
She’d look for a bookshop tomorrow, she vowed. If it had been the summer, she could have spent the day on the beach, but the most she could hope for in the depths of winter was a brisk walk followed by a hot chocolate and a mince pie. So, she’d either be sitting on her own in a café or a restaurant and staring at other people’s happiness, or she’d be curled up in the armchair in her room wondering whether she should turn her phone on and deal with the fall-out.
A book was by far the better option.
She ordered a cup of tea to wash down her meal (wishing it was a large glass of red wine), and watched the world go by for the next twenty minutes. She found it difficult to shake the feeling that she should be picking one of the kids up, or arranging the insurance on Brett’s car, or writing a to-do list of outstanding Christmassy things. She was always busy, never had a minute to herself, but now that she had at least three whole days full of lovely minutes ahead of her, she had no idea what to do with them.
Guilt threatened to overwhelm her, and she forced it away by getting to her feet and going for a quick walk to the nearest pub.
A drink or three would take the edge off it, and if that didn’t work, she’d have a few more.
Chapter 26
Kate hadn’t walked into a pub on her own in maybe... never? Or if she had, she’d known there’d be a bunch of friends already there, or she was meeting Brett (in their early days). Tonight, she was totally and utterly on her own, which was another odd feeling. Not unpleasant, just odd, as though she was watching someone else stroll casually into The Mason’s Arms and order a pink gin and grapefruit juice. That other person took her drink and found a corner table where she could people watch, yet not be too visible herself.
Kate thought she might be having some kind of out-of-body experience, while still being very much awake and compos mentis. She was alone, but she didn’t feel lonely – OK, maybe she did, just a little bit, because the only other person who appeared to be on his own was a very elderly gentleman in a flat cap who was nodding by the log burner. Everyone else had someone to talk to or ignore. A couple seated at a table nearer the bar were very definitely ignoring each other and were making a pretty good job of it. But at least they weren’t sitting on their own.
She took a long swallow of her drink, grimacing slightly at the unaccustomed but not unpleasant bitterness. It was an acquired taste, she decided, finishing it off and enjoying the little buzzing tingle the alcohol gave her. She’d have one more, then go back to the hotel – where she’d be even more alone in her gorgeous room than she was now. At least there were people to watch and listen to here, even though she felt terribly self-conscious. If she was watching herself, she mused, she’d probably think she’d been stood up.
The pub was warm and cosy (except when the door opened and a blast of biting sea air swept in), and if she wasn’t in such a funk, she’d have to acknowledge that the atmosphere was lovely and festive. With the crackle of logs burning merrily on the fire, the scent of wood smoke and beer (a surprisingly aromatic combination), the glow from the various lamps dotted around the lounge contrasting with the tiny sparkling fairy lights strung behind the bar and around the little tree, it certainly looked very Christmassy. The barman wore a jumper with a reindeer on it and some wobbly antlers on his head, and his colleague, who also served drinks and collected the glasses, sported an elf outfit, which suited her sweet heart-shaped face and spiky hair.
Feeling slightly more mellow and not quite as emotional, Kate ordered a third drink. She could get quite addicted to this, she thought, trying to remember the last time she and Brett had gone out together just the two of them, and failing. This time of year tended to be Christmas parties (his company always held one, but they hadn’t seemed to have done so this year, she realised – or if they had, Brett hadn’t mentioned it), or meeting friends for a boozy meal (they hadn’t done that this year, either).
Even before Christmas, Kate and Brett hadn’t been out together for ages. Having a quick meal in a gastro-pub just outside Birmingham while they waited to pick Ellis up from the NEC where she’d gone to see some band play, didn’t count. They’d been hungry and they’d had a couple of hours to kill – which was hardly the same as having a date night.
Date
night? Huh! They didn’t do such things; and maybe that was part of the problem. They’d stopped seeing each other as lovers a long time ago. Now they were just an old married couple hurtling towards empty nests and tartan slippers. How tragic.
Kate was quite scared to follow those depressing thoughts – when Sam eventually left home, what if she and Brett discovered they had nothing in common, that the only thing holding their marriage together had been the joint task of raising the children? Not that Brett had taken a very active role in that side of things, leaving most of the parenting to her. In fact, he left most of everything to her. OK, he had a responsible job and he earned good money, but that didn’t excuse his lack of interest in the kids, or in her.
Oh, bugger, now she was feeling maudlin, and rather cross again. It wasn’t a good mixture on top of three large pink gins. Or maybe her mood was because of those gins.
Time to head back to the hotel, before she was tempted to have another drink and make a fool of herself by dancing on the table or trying to snog the old gentleman in the corner – Hark the Herald Angels Sing was hardly a tune to bop about to, and the elderly man would probably have a heart attack if she was to dive on him and demand a cuddle.
Cuddles, that’s what she missed the most, she decided as she made her slightly wobbly way out of the pub and into the street. There was a time when she was overrun with cuddles, the kids trying to outdo each other for hugs and kisses, each of them wanting as much of her love and attention as she could give. Brett, too, used to cuddle her. It might have only been when they were in bed and too exhausted to do anything except spoon (she was always little spoon), but at least it was human contact with the man she loved.
Kate put out a hand to steady herself, feeling the cold, hard stone of the pub’s wall against her palm.
Did she still love him?
The very fact that she asked herself the question, was extremely telling indeed.
Oh dear, had she fallen out of love with him, and if so, when?
She rooted around in her heart, tears stinging at the back of her eyes, as she pondered the question.
No, she decided, trying to imagine her life without him in it; she hadn’t fallen out of love with him. She did love him, more than he would ever know. But she wasn’t in love with him, and there was a big difference between the two. Was it even possible to stay in love with a person you’d been with for twenty years?
There she was, coming full circle to the conversation she’d had with herself earlier, and she still didn’t have an answer. Perhaps she never would.
She needed more alcohol. Halfway between being drunk and sober, she was currently neither one thing nor the other, but somewhere in the middle. She would either have an early night or buy a bottle of wine from the off-licence she’d seen earlier on her way to the harbour.
The wine won.
Chapter 27
Brett changed out of his soiled trousers and deposited them gingerly in the laundry basket, wrinkling his nose in disgust. He’d have to tackle Beverley about her dog in a minute; it wasn’t hygienic having the pooch widdling wherever and whenever it felt like it. Where the bloody hell was Kate? She should be here dealing with this.
He’d tried calling her again, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Again.
Brett could hear Portia still howling, wailing down the phone to one of her friends, her voice loud and strident even with two closed doors between him and her. It wasn’t right what Pepe had done, but neither had it been right for Portia to have been so rude. He could understand that she was upset – he would have been too, if it had happened to him – but her reaction had been way over the top.
‘Portia?’ Brett made his way onto the landing and tapped on her bedroom door. Gone were the days when he used to walk straight in. His daughter was too old for that, but when she failed to answer him, he knocked a little louder.
‘What?’ she shouted.
The aggression and disrespect in her voice irked him. This little madam was getting too big for her boots, even if they were funky, skull-daubed Doc Martens.
He pushed the door open and walked in.
‘Do you mind? I might have been undressing.’ Her eyes were narrowed, and her face had that hard, pouty, defiant look he detested. She was such a pretty girl when she wasn’t wearing her obnoxious face.
He saw the phone in her hand, the screen illuminated, and guessed she was still on the phone.
‘I’m sorry Pepe chewed your favourite boots,’ he began, but his daughter didn’t let him finish.
‘What are you going to do about it? I want a new pair. Right now.’
‘Right now isn’t going to happen and you know it. Stop being so childish.’
‘You owe me, so I want to go to Taylor’s party. It’s the least you can do, and I still want a new pair of boots.’
Brett guessed she was playing up to the audience on the other end of the phone, and his ire developed into downright annoyance. How dare she speak to him like that, and in earshot of her friend, too?
‘You might want to say goodbye to whoever’s on the other end,’ he said mildly, nodding his head at the mobile.
‘Just say what you’re going to say and get out of my room,’ Portia retorted.
‘OK, you asked for it.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You’re a spoilt brat with an attitude no one likes. I – we, your mother and I – are fed up of it. She’s already told you that you are grounded because you can’t respect your sister’s things; and, by the way, you don’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot, do you? Or should I say, boot? Now you know what it feels like to have someone take something of yours and damage it. The dog didn’t do it on purpose, although he should have been trained not to chew things, but that’s another matter. You, on the other hand, knew it was wrong to borrow Ellis’s top without asking her, and when you got it dirty you didn’t even apologise. Do you want me to continue with your friend listening, or would you prefer we did this in private?’
Portia, still with a defiant and not-at-all-apologetic expression, hurriedly muttered into the phone that she’d call her friend back. ‘I can’t believe you just embarrassed me like that—’ she began, but Brett jumped in before she could continue.
‘I was going to replace those boots, he said, ‘but I’m not going to now, and yes, before you say it, I know it’s not fair. But you need to learn a lesson, my girl. You can’t carry on being horrid, rude, and obnoxious, and not have to face any consequences.’
‘Why do you care? You’ve never bothered before.’
She was right, Brett admitted silently; he hadn’t. It had been so much easier to bury his head in the paper, the footie, a documentary on TV, than to become embroiled in his daughters’ many dramas and tantrums. He had a moment of absolute clarity when he realised that his non-interaction must have been viewed by his children as tacit agreement with them. Hardly ever had he backed Kate up. Maybe once or twice he’d managed a weak and desultory “Don’t speak to your mother like that”, or something equally as bland, but he’d never shown any solidarity with his wife.
‘I’m bothering now,’ was his reply, and Portia scowled.
‘Why now? You could wait until after Taylor’s party,’ she snapped. ‘I want to go to that.’
‘Tough, you’re not. And you’re not going to the stables or anywhere else, either.’
‘That’s so not fair.’ Portia threw her phone on the bed and got to her feet. ‘You can’t stop me.’
‘I think you’ll find I can,’ he replied, keeping his tone even.
‘I’ll report you to the RSPCA.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Brett said, ‘although you do behave like a little beast. Don’t you mean Childline?’
He daughter’s scorn was palpable. ‘I know what I mean. You’re making me be cruel to Silver and Stanley. I have to muck them out, and check they’ve got fresh water, and groom them. You’re being cruel.’
Brett bit back a smile, his anger turning into amusement. �
��Those horses don’t belong to you; they belong to the stables, and Cheryl will no doubt make sure they’re well cared for. She did it before you started riding, and she’ll continue to do it if you’re not there.’
‘She’s relying on me to muck them out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!’ Portia cried.
‘Just you?’
Portia nodded, a spark of hope in her eyes. ‘Just me. No one else volunteered.’
‘I bet they didn’t,’ Brett said. ‘Who did you think is going to take you there, hang around while you do what you need to do, then drive you back?’
Portia became wary. ‘Mum...?’ The word was uttered with a hint of uncertainty.
‘She’ll have enough to do with preparing Christmas lunch.’
‘Can’t she do that the night before?’ Portia suggested.
Brett was taken aback by his middle child’s sheer selfishness. It was also a little disconcerting to see that Portia was prepared to let her mother be run ragged, but she didn’t even consider asking him.
That’s because you never do any of the taking or picking up, a little voice in his head said. It was right – he didn’t. But to be fair, that was usually because he was in work, and so couldn’t even if he’d wanted to.
‘What about whether your mother wants to spend her Christmas Eve chopping vegetables, and sticking her hand up turkey’s bottoms? Have you thought about that?’ he asked her.
‘Ew. Gross.’
‘Here’s an idea – how about if you helped her? After all, you’re the one who wants to go to the stables. Or, I’ve got another suggestion – you tell Cheryl that she’ll have to find someone else to muck out the horses, because your mother might like to have a glass of something stronger than lemonade while she’s slaving over a hot stove.’
‘Why can’t you help her instead?’ Portia muttered, undeterred. ‘You don’t do anything, ever. If you gave her a hand, she’d—’
‘What? Have more time to run around after you?’
