Another Mother's Life (17 page)

Neither Gemma nor her younger sister was in the playground when the bell rang, which infuriated Eloise, who was determined to firm up tea arrangements, party or no.

“Where
is
she?” she asked as her classmates filed in around her. “I want you to meet her, Daddy. She’s really nice.”

“Just chill, babe,” Jimmy said. Catherine had left him to wait with Eloise while she took Leila round to her class. “You’ll see this Gemma in class, won’t you?”

“But I want to go in with her,” Eloise said, pawing the ground like an impatient colt. “So everyone will see we’re best friends.”

Jimmy looked down at his flame-haired girl. “You are every-one’s best friend, Ellie. Look, you’ve got to go in now, otherwise I’ll have to sign the late book and your mum will be even more cross with me than she already is.”

“Sorry Mummy’s angry with you, Dad,” Eloise said, hugging Jimmy around his waist.

“She wasn’t angry as such, just direct, and that’s never a bad thing,” Jimmy said, edging both of them toward the school entrance, which was now deserted. “Besides, she was right. It’s an irritating habit she has.”

“I was thinking on the way to school,” Eloise added. “If you got a cold or got sick or something and were
really
poorly and you
couldn’t stay on the boat anymore because you might
die
, then you’d have to come and stay with us until you got better, wouldn’t you?” Eloise looked up at him, her expression serious.

Jimmy took a breath. “But I never get sick,” he said. “And I love that old boat, so don’t you worry about me, darling. In you go.”

Eloise looked disappointed but nevertheless she raced into class, her bright hair flying behind her, calling out over her shoulder, “Gemma’s got blond hair and a blue shiny coat and she usually has some sparkly clips in her hair. If you see her with her mum, will you ask her about tea, please?”

“I definitely will,” Jimmy called after her, although he had no intention of doing any such thing.

Jimmy glanced around the school yard. All these year-round tanned women with their smart hairdos and high heels just to drop their children off at school did his head in, even more than the groupies that hung around at his gigs. At least he knew what those women wanted with him, and all that was required to deal with them was basic evasive techniques. So making small talk with whatever the name for posh wives was—glamour mamas or something—wasn’t on Jimmy’s agenda.

“My God, Jimmy Ashley!” Jimmy stopped dead and looked at the blond woman standing in front of him. Good-looking woman, nice shiny hair, a long white raincoat, and high-heeled boots under some faded jeans. She was unquestionably one of them, so how on earth did she know his name? He couldn’t see her at one of his gigs.

“Run in, love, you’ll just about make it,” she said to a blond little girl in a shiny blue coat. “Don’t want to sign that book again!”

Another little kid, one about Leila’s age, was clutching her arm.

“Right, then,” Jimmy said, preparing to leave, but the woman just looked at him expectantly.

“It’s great to see you again after all this time,” the woman gushed, her face flushing. Jimmy was confused but intrigued.

“Is it?” he said. “I mean it’s good to see you too …” There was a long gap where the absence of a name flashed like a neon sign.

“Alison,” the woman said, her smile fading just a fraction. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

While he was fairly certain he had never seen her before in his life, Jimmy thought she looked nice. It seemed wrong to offend her. He smiled at her, interested to see her blush deepen.

“Honestly I don’t, but I can’t think why. It must have been that serious water skiing accident that I don’t remember having last year, because only serious amnesia would be a good enough reason not to remember you.”

To his amazement the woman giggled like a sixteen-year-old, and then there was something about her that seemed familiar.

“I’m
Alison
,” she told him, as if her name was sure to remind him. “Alison James. When you knew me I was Alison …”

“Mrs. James?” The woman looked up as the head teacher leaned out of the reception door. “Any chance of a quick word before you take Amy in? I know you are already running late.”

“Of course,” Alison said, looking disappointed as she smiled at Jimmy. “Timekeeping is not my strong point.” She reached into her bag and handed Jimmy an invitation. “We’re having a house-warming party on Saturday, can you come?”

“Oh, you’re Gemma’s mum,” Jimmy said, as if that should be reason enough to know who she was. “I’m already coming with my wife—well, ex-wife, sort of—and my daughters. My Eloise is very keen on your Gemma.”

“You’re Ellie’s dad?” Alison looked surprised. “I’d never pictured
you as a dad. I don’t know why, maybe because you look the same—you teach my son guitar, he’s just started at the school. Dominic?”

“Oh yeah.” Jimmy began to relax. “He’s a talented kid. When he’s not sulking. A lot of them sulk these days. They think if they’re not depressed they’ve got no cred. Only thing is most of them haven’t got anything decent to be depressed about.”

“Mrs. James?” the head teacher called again, and this time there was a definite edge to her voice.

“Do you know what, Jimmy? It’s been really good to see you,” Alison said, laying her hand on his arm.

“You too, Alison,” Jimmy said, because although he still couldn’t place exactly who she was, it was always good to encounter a good-looking woman who was pleased to see him.

“Oh, and if you see a chocolate Labrador tied to a lamppost, howling her head off, tell her I won’t be too long, okay?”

“Okay,” Jimmy said. “Whatever you say.”

Alison flashed him another dazzling smile as she trotted toward the head, her smaller girl lingering a step or two behind her.

Just as she went into the building, Catherine appeared around the corner at full pelt, running right into Jimmy.

“Jimmy! Why are you still here? Please tell me you haven’t had to sign Eloise into the late book, have you? I’m only still here because Lois would not stop going on about the school’s Easter Festival. You don’t fancy dressing up in a bunny costume, do you?”

“I bumped into this woman who thought she knew me,” Jimmy began to tell her. “But I don’t know how because she’s this Gemma’s mum, the one whose party we’re all going to.”

“Oh, was she nice?” Catherine asked, although she clearly didn’t want a reply, as she was walking backward toward the gate as she talked. “Anyway, I’ve got to get to work. I have three minutes
to make it down High Street. I’ll measure you up for that suit, okay?”

“I’m off to work too,” Jimmy called after her as she sprinted off. “Laying down a demo today,” he added. “Today’s the day. This is the day that’s going to change my life.”

Alison practically skipped her way to the gym to take up the new membership. She had secured Rosie in the back of her car, parked carefully in the shade with the back window left open a few centimeters so that the puppy wouldn’t get overheated. She put a bowl of water next to her and furnished her with a giant chew bone, which she hoped would keep Rosie off the leather trim for at least an hour.

It was foolish, she knew, literally idiotic to feel so happy about bumping into a man who clearly had no idea who she was. So what if he didn’t remember that she was the girl who used to lean forward on the edge of the stage in the hopes he’d look right down her top? He’d never noticed that girl anyway. But he’d noticed her now, a grown woman. He’d noticed her and she was fairly sure he’d flirted with her too. It might have been the first time a man had actually flirted with her since the early 1990s.

That, coupled with the tentative smile on Amy’s face as Mrs. Woodruff had led her by the hand into class, put her in exactly the right mood for her one-on-one pilates class with her new teacher.

“Hello, there.” A woman about her age smiled at her and held out her hand as she walked into the private studio she had booked. “Mrs. James, is it? I’m Kirsty Robinson, I’m going to be teaching you pilates.”

“Right,” Kirsty said. “From that position step one foot forward and we’ll stretch out your hip flexors.”

“So?” Alison asked her with some effort as she stretched her
left leg behind her. “Are you going to see him again?” Her new teacher had been regaling her with the details of her love life for the last half an hour, something that Alison found most entertaining.

“I think so,” Kirsty considered. “We had a nice time in the pub, and he is a great kisser. I let him walk me home and he didn’t even
try
to invite himself in for sex, which I was slightly disappointed by even though I would have definitely said no because I hardly ever do sex on the first date with men I like. But he didn’t call me over the weekend and today when I saw him he was playing it cool, as if we hadn’t spent half an hour with our tongues down each other’s throats on Friday night. I still think he likes me, though. And if he doesn’t, then I’ll just revert to Plan A until I’ve gotten over him.”

“Ignore him and pretend nothing happened,” Alison confirmed as she followed Kirsty’s movements in the mirror.

“Exactly.” Kirsty grinned at her. “Okay, relax into child pose and then roll yourself slowly and carefully up into a standing position, working each vertebra.” She and Alison rose in unison in front of the full-length mirror.

“Shake yourself out and you’re done,” Kirsty told her.

“Thanks, I really enjoyed that,” Alison said warmly.

“Me too, it’s nice to have a client that’s nice and not some stuffy old cow who thinks I’m one of her servants.”

“I really hope you get things sorted with Sam and that he asks you out again.”

“Well, he will or he won’t,” Kirsty said with a sigh, catching sight of herself in the mirror and giving herself an admiring glance. “It’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t. Yes, I’m in love with him. But look at me—I’m gorgeous and still young. I’ll love again.”

Alison laughed. “And it’s better to shop around than buy the
first thing you see and find out fifteen years later you don’t really want it anymore,” she said completely out of the blue. She paused for a moment as she realized what she had just said out loud for the first time.

“You are so right.” Kirsty smiled. “You should meet my neighbor. She got married in her twenties to some guy she went to
school
with and of course it didn’t work out, and now it’s like she’s stuck in a time warp. Can’t go back, can’t go forward. I’m trying to crowbar her out of it, but it’s a challenge, let me tell you. So how long have you been married?”

Alison pursed her lips and looked down at her painted toe-nails.

“Married fourteen years, together nearly sixteen years,” she said sheepishly.

“So you bought the first thing you saw in the shop, then?” Kirsty laughed.

“More like shoplifted him out from under my best friend’s nose,” Alison said. “But you know, when you’re seventeen you don’t really think.”

“Well, it’s obviously worked out for you,” Kirsty said. “So tell me, what’s your secret?”

“I don’t know,” Alison said with a shrug. “We implement Plan A a lot.”

As she picked up her bag, she pulled out her last few remaining invitations. “Listen, we’re having a housewarming party and …”

“Oh, I already know about that,” Kirsty said. “All the sports center staff are coming. Even Sam.”

“Well, maybe while you’re not ignoring him you’ll have a drink with me. I don’t know anyone in town yet and the thought of having two hundred strangers in my new house is slightly intimidating.”

“I’d love to,” Kirsty said. “And I’ll introduce you to my neighbor.
She’s a bit like a young Miss Marple, but once you get to know her she’s pretty cool, and then you’ll have two friends and I’ll know two people to lead astray instead of one.”

Alison grinned at her. “I’m perfectly capable of leading myself astray, thank you very much. I’m a world expert at it.”

A
re you sure that you can plug all of those fairy lights into my house and it won’t explode?” Alison asked the electrician as he plugged yet another extension into yet another extension on the morning of the party.

He scowled at her. “Yes, I’m completely sure.” He hadn’t been very amiable since Rosie chewed through one of his extension cords. Fortunately it hadn’t been plugged in at the time.

“Okay, well, I’ll leave it up to you, then,” she said, trying to get back into his good graces so he wouldn’t short the fuses just to spite her. “You’re the professional. I don’t know anything!”

He turned his back on her and resumed plugging more things into more things, which Alison took as a sign of agreement with her self-assessment. She could imagine what he thought of her: a spoiled rich housewife who treated all tradesmen like servants and believed that the working classes were born to serve her. Maybe that
was
what she was like a little bit now, even if her upbringing on the
immaculately kept but down-to-earth council estate couldn’t have been more different. Her life with Marc had transformed her. Now she was new money and that was the way she sometimes sounded and acted, even if she didn’t
truly
feel that way.