The Other Woman, page 10
‘Shall we go then?’
‘A bit longer, if you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind.’ There was still a harshness in her tone.
‘Sorry again for what I said. It was unforgivable. I just don’t know where I am at the moment. I’m so confused. I can’t think what can have happened. It’s like a death with no body.’
Mel reached across the gearstick and patted my knee, turning her kind, candid gaze on me with a relenting sigh. ‘I know, babe. You are so sad. Just remember, I am on your side, okay? I love you so much.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Mel. I love you too.’
We waited ten more minutes and then left. The house had stayed still - lifeless, I couldn’t help thinking. We were much more subdued on the return journey. Inside me, I was aware of something shifting, starting to give up. It felt like there was nothing more to say, no more theories to come up with, no consolation to be had. I took the opportunity to phone Camille, apologizing for the delay in getting back to her and explaining – because it seemed the right thing to do – the humiliating bare bones of what had happened, how I was now back with Pete. I said I would love to continue in my job, but would understand if she wanted to fire me anyway. She told me not to be an idiot, that Chalfonts was where I worked until I said otherwise.
‘Though, all of it to my face next time, okay? Bad news should always be delivered in person, is my view, and I would say the same to this vanishing man of yours if I could...’ She paused, as if there was a lot more she would like to say on the subject, and I could hardly blame her. The need, even for this conversation, was mortifying. ‘But look,’ she went on more gently, ‘call me again after the Easter weekend, okay, so I know how you are doing? In fact, let’s meet before the book group that week, so we can have a proper talk. I can’t tell you how much I need you, Fran. Everything is taking off and I want you on board. And, besides, relief teachers cost the earth.’ She was trying to be funny and nice, and I couldn’t have been more grateful, but it was hard to laugh.
‘Let him go,’ said Mel after parking near my house and getting out of the car. She held me in the longest hug she had ever given. ‘Just let the fucker go.’
Iii
‘Could you take him?’ Jo is already turning back to the fridge as she hands me my godson, fishing out things for the picnic in the woods that has suddenly been announced as the day’s lunch plan. ‘We’ll fill a couple of baskets with bread and leftovers from last night, take some sunscreen, as well as lots of water and plonk ourselves under the oak by the river. Easter Sunday al fresco – it’ll be lovely, and anyone brave enough can swim. I’ll tell Rob to sort some wine and dig out the plastic glasses. Do Harry and Pete like quiche? Do you? Oh, and look, and there are the strawberries too.’
She is loading stuff from the fridge onto their pine-topped kitchen island as she talks, her long hair sprouting attractively out of its various clips and her white cotton shirt still untucked from the latest breastfeed, a process which she manages without any fuss, simply dropping into the nearest chair whenever Marcus’s fretting becomes serious, and tucking him up under whatever top she happens to be wearing. At supper the previous night, she had fetched him from his cot for feeding at the dining-room table, and then continued to eat and talk through his noisy chomps and guzzles, able to do so with just a fork, since Rob, without saying a word, had got up to cut her chicken and vegetables into bite-size pieces the moment she left the room. They are so in tune, my brother and his wife, so aware of each other, that it is like watching two dancers, lost to their own private choreography. I have always known that they love each other, but never seen it so vividly. It makes me happy, but also, now, shamefully jealous. More than ever, Pete and I seem such clumsy failures in comparison. Whereas with Jack, I can’t help thinking fiercely, it would have been us who stood out for our closeness; us whom people envied.
‘I don’t know how you manage everything, Jo. You are a marvel.’
My sister-in-law pauses in her sorting to laugh, the dusting of freckles round her strong green eyes disappearing into the deep crinkles at their corners. She is so much younger than Rob, so much more physically beautiful. ‘Thank you, Fran.’ She sounds genuinely touched. ‘I blunder along. And after the twins, this one is a breeze, even if he hasn’t actually learnt the meaning of the word sleep yet.’ She crosses her eyes in the direction of the baby before returning her attention to the fridge. ‘And you’re back at work next week, presumably? I must say, I can’t wait to get rid of my two. School is a total lifesaver.’
‘Yes.’ I try to sound positive. Inside my head, the days stretch ahead, a dark tunnel. Jack has been my pinpoint of light, and now he is gone.
‘And we’ve settled on the second weekend of the summer half-term for the baby-naming,’ Jo chatters on, ‘June the fifth – did Rob tell you?’ She is arm-deep in a bench freezer on the other side of the kitchen, pulling out frozen baguettes.
‘No, but that sounds… Thank you both, again, so much for asking me to be—’
‘We might do it somewhere in London, as it seems fairer on all the guests. We really aren’t sure. Could we use your place as a base if necessary?’
‘Yes… of course.’ Oh god. I sway, powerless, again, against life’s currents. I want to give up on Jack, but it is so very hard.
The baby blinks uncertainly, casting a look at his mother.
‘Does he need changing?’ Jo hops closer to sniff in the direction of his nappy. Satisfied that it is clean, she turns her attention to a heap of carrots, nimbly peeling and slicing them into long segments. For dunking into dips, she explains, abandoning the pile to pull out various plastic tubs from the fridge.
Marcus, snug now on the ledge of my hip, eyes me steadily. He is square and chubby-limbed, dressed only in a stained T-shirt and a nappy that neatly contains the bulge of his tummy. His upper lip pouts comfortably over the lower one and his cheeks glow like polished peaches. He has spent most of the morning either asleep in his pram or sitting, a bobbing Buddha, on a padded blanket in a little pen in a patch of shade on the front lawn, watching his elder siblings twirl and shriek their way round the garden filling their flimsy home-made Easter baskets with the aid of the easy clues I helped to compose and write on large pieces of paper, hiding them under big stones and empty flowerpots.
I am near a big pipe, but it does not smoke.
I am in a house that is green, but you can see right through me.
The primary-school teacher bit of me had enjoyed herself. Watching the twins, quickly figuring out the answers, I had found myself wishing that life’s signposts could be so simple.
When a fracas broke out, triggered by Tilda’s basket collapsing and Billy pouncing on her eggs as they spilled onto the grass, claiming them as his, Marcus clapped his little dimpled hands like a delighted theatre-goer. And after the hunt, when Harry, at Rob’s request, stopped throwing sticks to distract the two exhausted dogs and hoicked Marcus awkwardly out of the pen for carrying at a somewhat lopsided angle back to the house, the baby had eyed his big cousin with a look of bemused curiosity, swiping gleefully at all the passing objects this new and unexpected manner of transport brought within his reach.
‘Animals are loads easier,’ Harry had said with a rueful grimace, handing his charge over with evident relief to Jo, waiting with arms outstretched at the kitchen door.
‘I’ll take him on a walkabout,’ I tell Jo now, leaving the kitchen and going into the sitting room, where Pete is standing in front of the television, hands in the pockets of his baggy beige shorts, his big feet splayed in the open sandals that make no secret of his aversion to the use of toenail clippers. We had both slept badly, rolled into the central dip of the old springy mattress in the spare room. I had felt envious of Harry, alone on the fold-out sofa next door, crammed between the filing cabinets and desk from which Jo somehow finds time to run a flowers-for-events business on top of everything else.
Pete throws me a quick, dismissive glance before returning his attention to the cricket game on the screen.
I stay where I am. For all that has passed between us, all the hovering fear, there is still a deep, obstinate reflex to make him at least acknowledge my existence. ‘By the way,’ I say, addressing the back of his head as the players in yellow tracksuits suddenly swarm around a team member like angry bees, ‘Jo was wondering if we could help host the baby-naming ceremony if they decide to do it in London.’ I see the muscles in his wide neck tighten. ‘It would be nice to help them if we can,’ I plough on, trying to sound enthusiastic, fighting the dawning realisation that nothing in my life is about truth, that for years I have been lost in a maze of deception. ‘I said I’d talk to you…’
‘Fine.’
I chew my lip, alert, as ever, to the danger of pushing him too far. ‘Apparently we are having a picnic lunch now. In the woods. By the river.’
He swings round at this. ‘Really? Isn’t that a bit unnecessary?’
I shrug helplessly. Marcus is growing heavy. I shift him to my other hip. ‘Jo says it will be under the big oak by the bend. I think Rob might need a hand carrying stuff down there.’
‘You mean you want me to go and help Rob?’
‘Well, I—’
‘So why didn’t you just say so?’ He speaks quietly and viciously, wary no doubt of being overheard. ‘Why do you pretend that you came into this room for any other reason?’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Forget it, Fran.’ He turns the TV off with an angry flick of the console and marches out into the passageway.
I nuzzle Marcus’s neck with my nose, sniffing his milky sweet skin. ‘You see why I fell in love with Jack?’ I whisper. ‘You see?’
‘Hey, sis.’
I spin round. ‘Hey, Rob.’ Marcus releases a wet coo of happy recognition at the sight of his father and then grabs my necklace, a sturdy string of tigers’ eyes which Jack had always admired. ‘Pete just went looking for you – to help carry things for the picnic.’
‘Did he? That was kind, but it’s all done.’ Rob does a jokey strongman flex with his slim pale arms and then bends over his son, brushing the tip of his big nose against Marcus’s very small one. ‘I see you got landed with The Monster.’
‘My god, he’s so gorgeous.’ I plant a light kiss on top of the baby’s head, which is bald apart from a downy layer of near transparent hair, more like fur and silky on my lips. ‘He keeps reminding me of Harry as a baby. They’re kind of similar, don’t you think? Harry turned dark, but his hair was white-blond at the beginning.’
‘I guess they are, a bit,’ Rob concedes, laughing, ‘though we’re expecting a hint of red to grow through with this one. Harry seems to be coming along, by the way. We had a bit of a chat after supper last night. He says he’s thinking of starting his own business.’
‘Is he? Goodness. What sort of business?’
‘Animals – pet-care, he said. Sitting, walking, grooming. He’s saving to go on some sort of course.’
I am truly astonished. ‘Well, he hasn’t told me, or Pete – as far as I know.’ I should be long used to Harry shutting me out, but it is impossible to keep the trace of hurt from my voice.
‘Ah, that’s families for you,’ Rob replies quickly and kindly, ‘poor communication with those closest. Jo says I am hopeless – the proverbial clam – always in need of being prised open. Talking of which, you are all right, are you, Fran? It’s like you’ve been… I dunno… slightly off-radar recently. Is something up?’ And suddenly he’s looking at me properly, my big brother, and inside me a hair-trigger – to spill twenty years of unspoken difficulties – is trembling. There is our ancient closeness, but there has never been any question of being confidantes. Our lives have been too divergent, and Pete, a master of putting on appearances when required, has never given Rob undue cause for concern.
‘No, I’m great.’ I’m aware of the words coming out a little too fast, and before I know it, some rogue tears are spilling down my cheeks. I swipe at them furiously, hating the new, appalling leaky state of my tear ducts.
‘Frannie? Hey, now… I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Rob touches my shoulder.
‘Just a bit tired, not sleeping too well…’ I force a smile because he is still scrutinising my face, making me uncomfortably aware of the now permanent telltale purple smudges under my eyes, getting harder to conceal, like everything else.
‘There, now.’ And, next thing, he’s got his arms round me and Marcus, holding us both tight. The baby tries to grab his ears, while I bury my nose in his T-shirt, inhaling him and the entire history of our childhood, it feels like, the sense of security that underlined all the minor ups and downs, understanding, as if for the first time, the sheer luxury of its normality. Our parents were older than most, and old-fashioned with it, but they did a good job.
Rob holds me at arm’s length, fixing me with the piercing light blue eyes that look so fine against his bright red hair. ‘Do you miss Mum?’
‘No…’ I falter, caught out both by my brother’s touching determination to discover the source of my low spirits and the sudden recollection of my naïve imaginings that Mum would have been happy for me and Jack. It is difficult now, to conceive of her being anything but bitterly disappointed. ‘I mean yes, I do miss her,’ I assure him hurriedly, ‘sometimes, but I’m fine. It’s been nearly three years, after all, and she was so ill, wasn’t she, when it came back. I sort of wanted her to hang on, but also sort of didn’t.’
‘Yes, that’s what I think too.’
‘And she was never quite the same without Dad, anyway, was she?’ I murmur. ‘In fact, I think she fell apart without him more and more as the years passed...’
‘Hey, you’re not ill or something, are you Frannie?’ Rob interjects sternly.
‘Not remotely.’ I sniff, pulling myself together properly and giving Marcus, who is getting restless, a little jig. ‘But, actually, a proper brother-sister chat might be nice.’ I grin at him, high on his brotherly kindness. ‘If we get the chance. In the meantime, you should watch me closely with this one, just in case I kidnap him for myself.’
Rob relaxes at once, laughing his bass laugh. ‘Ah, the Marcus Effect, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He waggles the baby’s toes, so dainty in his huge fingers.
‘Warn her of what?’ Pete is in the room suddenly enough to give me the unsettling hunch that he has been loitering and listening.
‘Marcus’s magic powers,’ says my brother easily, tenderly cupping the back of his son’s head before giving my husband his full attention. ‘When I called Fran to pop the godmother question, I warned her about it. I would have preferred to do so in person of course, but she was at the airport.’
‘The airport?’ Pete looks from Rob to me. ‘When was that then?’
I am glad I have Marcus in my arms. It allows me to feign preoccupation with something other than the topic of conversation. ‘Oh, it was a crazy day – I meant to tell you…’ I pull a face at the baby and go on breezily to recount the story of Mel returning from her mythical trip with her mythical bad ankle, a lie deployed so often it is starting to feel like fact. For a second, I wonder if that is all it takes, believing in something to make it real. ‘I knew you would think I was mad,’ I chatter, ‘Rob certainly did, didn’t you, Rob, both of you being united in the view that my oldest school friend is, and always has been, a waste of space…’ I swing my hips as I talk, rocking Marcus harder. He starts to cry. I chuck him under the chin, which distresses him even more. I know my tension is to blame, powering into his little body like electricity, upsetting all his innocent equilibrium.
‘You drove Mel to the airport?’ Pete persists.
‘No, she collected her,’ explains Rob, plucking the baby from my arms. ‘There are a couple of deckchairs I’d love a hand with, if you didn’t mind, Pete?’ There is wonderful authority in my brother’s voice and I am not sure I have ever loved him more.
‘Sure, lead the way,’ growls Pete throwing me a glare as he follows Rob out of the room.
An hour later, the deckchairs are propped unused against the oak tree and we are all sprawled on an assortment of picnic rugs, exactly as Jo must have envisaged, replete and sleepy, the remnants of the meal scattered around us in Tupperware containers, the sun dappling the ground through the leaves of the branches, which vault over our heads like a mighty parasol. The dogs have been left at the house – not being good with picnics, Rob had admitted with a regretful expression after a warning look from his wife – and Harry has taken himself off to the top of the back field with his phone. The twins are a little deeper among the trees building a den, their gingery blonde heads bobbing as they charge about with sticks and feathery fans of fresh bracken, Tilda taking charge as usual, issuing the occasional high-pitched command that has her brother, younger by two hours – though it sometimes seems more like two years – rushing to do her bidding.
The spot is by a big lazy bend in the river, thick with bankside brambles and trees, apart from a handy gap offering a yard or so of reedy bank that makes easy access for swimming. Rob and Harry braved the cold before eating, taking charge of the intrepid twins, who squealed first in protest at being made to wear their armbands when they can both swim, and then in delight at the clinging squelch of the river-mud round their feet as they paddled through the reeds. Being neither proficient nor enthusiastic in water, let alone an icy river, I had refrained from joining them, as had Jo, while Pete had made a big to-do of borrowing some comical pink and black Bermuda shorts of Rob’s, only to change his mind at the last minute. He then ate and drank more liberally than any of us – his reservations both about the picnic and my airport rescue of Mel thankfully forgotten – before being the first to fall asleep, rolling off the blanket onto a patch of grass and putting his shirt over his face by way of an indication of his intentions.
