Another Mother's Life (21 page)

“She still cries about Marc and me running off together?” Alison’s laugh was harsh. “Seriously? As her husband, doesn’t that piss you off?”

Jimmy looked at her. “She still cries about the abortion. The abortion her parents made her have when she found out that Marc had got her pregnant.”

There was a long silence punctuated by a hiccup as Alison stared at Jimmy, the defiant smile on her face faltering and then finally fading.

“You’ve got that wrong,” Alison insisted. “What are you talking about, Jimmy? There
was
no abortion,
she
wasn’t the one who he got pregnant,” Alison insisted. “I was the one who got pregnant. I know because he never had sex with her, he told me that at the time. He never felt that way about her, they didn’t have the passion we had.”

Alison swayed a little on her perch as she took another drink.

“Where did you get the story of an abortion from, anyway?” she asked Jimmy defensively. “I had him, I had Marc’s baby—my son’s in there now, probably secretly drinking and skulking around the waitresses.”

Jimmy sighed. How had it fallen on him to break this news to Catherine’s archenemy?

“Look, Alison, I don’t know what Marc told you back then, I expect he told you a lot of things that weren’t true. Men usually lie when they’re sleeping with two women at the same time. What I do know for certain is that Catherine was pregnant when you left.” Jimmy’s hot breath made his words visible, a mist in the chill of the air. “She was pregnant with Marc’s baby too, only she didn’t get to keep hers. Her parents saw to that.”

Jimmy watched as Alison’s glassy eyes brightened and filled with tears that glittered in the reflected glory of the decorated house.

“She was having his baby?” Alison asked, her voice a whisper. “She was having his baby too?”

“Yes, she was going to tell him—she wanted to tell you but in the end she decided she couldn’t …”

“No, you see, that’s not right.” Alison was determined. “Because it was
me
he wanted,
me
he needed. He played around with her, strung her along, but he didn’t do
that
with her. He told me. He told me that
I
was the one he couldn’t keep his hands off of. That was what made us special. Jimmy, I’m sorry, but Cathy’s made the
whole thing up, I don’t know why—maybe to get you to feel sorry for her, but anyway, it’s a lie.”

Jimmy’s face darkened as he took a step or two nearer to Alison. “Catherine doesn’t lie. Does Marc?”

“No!” Alison stood up abruptly. “He doesn’t lie, he doesn’t … and anyway, don’t you see, Jimmy? I can’t not have known about that, I
would
have known. We knew everything about each other, Cathy and me.”

“Not everything,” Jimmy said. “Not this. I’m sorry, Alison, but it happened. Marc got Catherine pregnant, she had an abortion.”

Without warning, Alison flung her arms around Jimmy, buried her face in his neck, and wept. At a loss as to how to react, Jimmy stiffly held out his arms at a steady ninety-degree angle as her shoulders shook and he felt her hot breath against his neck.

“This is too much,” she said into his neck. “This is one lie too many, and it’s not fair because it’s the first lie, and if I’d known about the first lie, then maybe I wouldn’t have stuck around for the second or the third or the hundredth or the millionth lie.” Alison paused and looked up at Jimmy, her face very close to his, and Jimmy couldn’t help but notice that despite the drinking and the tears she still looked beautiful. “It must have been hard for Cathy.”

“I think that is a bit of an understatement,” Jimmy said swiftly, untangling himself from her embrace and stepping away from her. “Like I said before, it damaged her and that’s why I’m asking you to back off and take it easy.”

“I’m going to kill him!” Alison said, having to steady herself without Jimmy to lean on. “He fucked us both up and now I’m going to kill him.”

“Look,” Jimmy said, suddenly feeling uneasy. “I suppose it’s an obvious question. But Marc? He is here somewhere, isn’t he? Sooner or later he’ll find Catherine. She’s kind of hard to miss.”

Alison’s head snapped up and before Jimmy realized what was happening she was running past him back toward the house.

“Are you okay?” Marc asked Catherine.

“I’m fine, really. Go and talk to your guests, please. I’m waiting for my husband,” Catherine said, but Marc stood stock-still.

“I don’t want to leave you like this,” he said.

Catherine bit her lip, repressing the obvious retort. She shook her head and conjured an approximation of a smile. “Go, I’ll be fine.”

Catherine watched him watching her, his dark eyes intense. He’d looked at her in exactly that way on the day they had first met, when he’d kissed her. For one heady petrifying second Catherine got the feeling he might do exactly the same thing now. He took a step closer to her and his hand grazed her shoulder, striking sparks as it passed.

“Liar!” Suddenly Alison was in between them, causing Catherine to stagger backward and into Jimmy, who was following at her heels.

“What?” she asked him.

“Thing is …” Jimmy began, but it was then that Alison slapped her husband hard across the face. The whole room stopped and looked.

“Ouch, darling.” Marc smiled at his wife. “The caterers weren’t that bad.”

“Liar!” Alison repeated, and was about to slap him again but this time he caught her wrist.

“Let’s take this outside, shall we,” he said in a low voice as he gripped her wrist. “Remember our guests?”

“You told me you never had sex with her,” Alison accused him. “You were sleeping with both of us the whole time.”

“Look, Alison.” Marc pulled her closer to him, trying desperately
to keep the conversation between themselves. “Please, we’ll talk about this later.”

“You’ve lied to me for fifteen years,” Alison said, her voice hard and cold. “After everything we’ve been through and all the promises you made, you’ve kept on lying. You’re still lying now. I used to think it would end one day, but it won’t ever end, will it, Marc? It comes as naturally to you as breathing.”

She jerked her wrist out of his grasp and looked around at the crowd of guests.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this party is now over due to the unforeseen circumstance of my husband being a disgusting, lying pig. Please collect your coats and make an orderly exit.”

Spinning on her heel, she came face-to-face with Catherine.

The two women stared at each other, both aware that not one guest had yet made an attempt to leave.

“Cathy,” Alison said quietly, carefully avoiding looking at her husband because she was afraid of how he would react to what she was about to say. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know about the baby.”

“Would it have changed anything?” Catherine asked, and Alison knew she was avoiding looking at Marc too. “If you’d known?”

“It might have,” Alison said. “It would have changed something.”

Catherine felt the scrutiny of all of those around her and knew that she had to be out of there within the next five seconds.

“I have to go,” Catherine said. She looked at Jimmy. “We’ll go and find the girls and then leave, okay?”

He nodded.

“Thank you for coming,” Alison said to her foolishly. “Will you believe me if I say that it’s really good to see you again?”

Catherine nodded, tears standing in her eyes.

“Perhaps I’ll see you in the school playground. Perhaps we can talk, sort things out, put things … to rest.”

Catherine paused, looking at Alison. “Why did you come back?”

“To rescue my family,” Alison said. “I don’t think it’s working out quite as we planned.”

Catherine nodded and then, without saying another word, she turned on her heel, slotting her hand into Jimmy’s, and walked out of the room as the crowd parted before her.

The cool air soothed her skin as they began their walk back home, Leila asleep on her shoulder and Eloise in Jimmy’s arms.

“You handled that amazingly well,” Jimmy told her. “I was so proud of you, Cat. You were so serene, and dignified. Even with him, the bastard. You were brilliant.”

“I can’t believe you told her,” Catherine replied. “I can’t believe it.”

They were silent for the rest of the walk home.

A
lison lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The room lights were out but the thousand or so fairy lights outside of her bedroom window illuminated the room in pulsating glittering bursts of radiance. Rosie lay next to her, a small bundle of warmth, nestling companionably into her side, breaking in one fell swoop Alison’s vow that the animal was never to be allowed on beds or the sofa. Alison couldn’t bring herself to move the dog; the regular rise and fall of her rib cage was comforting.

Much to her deep irritation the party had not ended when she’d declared that it was over, far from it. That had been a good hour ago and the chatter of Marc’s guests still rose in the hallway as if nothing had happened. After Cathy had made her exit, splitting the party crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea, with Jimmy Ashley loyally following in her wake, the room had fallen silent save for the background thrum of the disco in the tent.

Glancing around, Marc had laughed and then he’d put his arm around her and kissed her hard on the cheek.

“May I introduce you all to my wonderful, fiery, impetuous, and amazing wife—Alison James, a woman who certainly knows how to make an entrance.”

And somehow Alison had found herself standing at Marc’s side, her arm linked through his, smiling graciously while she received a round of applause from the good people of Farmington. Only Marc could have done this, only Marc could have the audacity and magic to turn a martial brawl into a social nicety, into something that was even romantic, while she was still reeling from the news that Jimmy had given her and could have quite happily slapped Marc again.

However, with everyone’s eyes on her and the buzz of the champagne having eroded into a head-churning fuzz, not to mention the sight of her two daughters, who had come to find her, Alison realized she didn’t have any choice but to go along with the illusion that Marc had created.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips.

“Anyone for more champagne?” Marc asked the crowd in general the second the kiss was broken, leaving Alison’s side to go and arrange it before anyone could answer.

“I’m tired, Mama,” Amy said, putting her arms around Alison’s waist and resting her chin on her tummy. “When are all these people going home?”

“Ellie’s mummy came and made her and Leila go home. She looked really cross,” Gemma said. “I’m not tired, by the way. Can I stay up some more? You could come and dance with us, Mummy. And Daddy and Dominic, we could all dance together.”

“I don’t think so,” Alison said, crouching down so that Amy could hook her arms around Alison’s neck, and then hefting her
onto her hip. “I think you two girls have had a good run and now it’s time for bed, okay?”

“ ’Kay,” Amy said, resting her head on Alison’s shoulder, her thumb in her mouth.

“ ’Spose,” Gemma sighed. “Although I could dance for at least another hour without getting tired.”

And leading her two girls to bed, Alison was finally able to make her escape. With both of them falling asleep as soon as their heads touched the pillow, she briefly peered over the banister to the throng of people below. Marc was the center of attention, talking, throwing his head back with laughter, gesturing like a hypnotist who had the whole room in his thrall. He was rescuing the situation, turning it around, re-creating the facade of their lives from scratch yet again, doing all the things he was so good at, except he hadn’t seemed to notice that she was up here on her own and he was down there running all of their lives single-handedly, as if he hadn’t lied to her for fifteen years. As if he hadn’t been sleeping with them both.

Alison closed her eyes, but the lights still twinkled cheerfully behind her lids, so she pulled the duvet over her head in a bid to blot them out, breathing in the scent of her relationship, her life, that was embedded in the sheets.

Of course he had been sleeping with them both, of course he had. If she’d had any kind of knowledge or experience of men back then other than trying to fend off the wandering hands of the boys from school, she would have realized it was inevitable. She and Cathy were still girls, almost women, but only physically. They were still making the choices and decisions that girls made when it felt as if there would be no consequences and no tomorrow.

And Marc had been a man, a young man, but he’d had to grow up fast, thrown out of the children’s home at the age of sixteen and left to fend for himself in a world of brutal and unsympathetic
adults. At the age of seventeen Alison had believed that she had sexual power over him. She had the breasts and the legs and the heat that he really wanted. But she was wrong. Cathy had it too, it was just that with Cathy it was much less obvious.

“Have you ever done this with her?” she’d asked him.

“I’ve never done anything like
that
with her,” he’d replied. He hadn’t lied, he couldn’t have been more blunt. Alison had chosen to believe what she’d wanted to believe.