Another Mother's Life (47 page)

Eloise had been right, even if she hadn’t known it. Going out today, buying eyeliner and magazines of all things, Catherine supposed she was trying to transform herself into the kind of woman
that might attract a very tall man who likes redheads. She had been trying to find her feet again and part of that balancing act was feeling good about herself, feeling sexy and even sexual. For two years she’d shut that part of herself away as she concentrated on healing herself and keeping her children happy. It had gotten almost to the point where she didn’t think she cared anymore if she never had sex again. Then Marc walked back into her life and nearly kissed her and that part of her hadn’t slowly roused so much as rudely awoken. Eyeliner was Catherine’s body’s way of saying she was ready for a man in her life again.

She and Jimmy had taken a long time to get to know each other’s bodies, they had taken it very slowly, inch by inch over several weeks before they finally went to bed, and then, even though it was still awkward and embarrassing, it didn’t matter because they were already so close, and so bonded. With him Catherine hadn’t felt self-conscious about her long, white body and boyish figure. With him she’d felt womanly, she’d felt beautiful. It had hurt her so badly when she discovered that she was not enough for Jimmy. It had hurt her even though she had no right to feel that way. How long could she have realistically expected him to go on running on empty in their marriage? Why had she felt it was okay for her to allow him to live that way? The anguish of finding him with another woman had ripped her to shreds, even if she knew that she had been just as responsible as Jimmy for driving him into Donna Clarke’s arms. Jimmy had done what he wanted with Donna Clarke, but Catherine had made him want it.

She felt relief now that the pain of that discovery had ebbed away to nothing at last. That finally after two years she could look him in the eye and smile and be close to him again, because that sense of completeness she had known when she was with him had been hard to live without … Catherine metaphorically kicked herself hard again, only harder this time.

These warm feelings and thoughts she was having about Jimmy weren’t real. They were a confused muddle of simply caring for him as a friend and the fear of being without him, of having to stand on her own two feet like she claimed she wanted but was really terrified of doing. They were feelings that she had to get over, feelings that were simply a reaction to truly being without him for the first time, like when you take off a warm coat and you feel the chill of winter. She had to keep reminding herself that these feelings weren’t real, that they were just illusions that would fade soon enough, because it would be so wrong not to let someone go just because you felt half naked without them. And she had to let Jimmy go now, because despite everything she had said to him before he left for London, Catherine knew their marriage had failed because she couldn’t love him enough. To bring him back to her side now with more false hope and half-baked promises would be too cruel, it was so much less than he deserved.

Catherine kicked herself really hard again and then gave herself a metaphorical slap for good measure. The reason she was thinking about Jimmy so much wasn’t because she loved him, it was because she didn’t love him. Her brain knew that, but her heart hadn’t quite been able to believe it yet.

Just then there was a knock at the front door. Catherine looked at her watch. It was late. Past ten. It had to be Jimmy. He was the only one who would show up at this hour and he hadn’t called because he was on his way back from London. He probably hadn’t come to the back door because after the way they parted he felt that formal was the way to go.

It was only when Catherine reached the front door that she realized she’d run to answer it. But that was okay, it was okay to be pleased to see him as long as she didn’t give him any kind of false hope, because that simply wouldn’t be fair. She took a breath and composed her smile before she opened the door.

But it wasn’t Jimmy at the door.

“Marc,” Catherine said. “What are you doing here?”

“I wasn’t in the neighborhood,” Marc said, holding up a bottle of wine. “So I thought I’d make quite a long detour and drop by.”

“I’m supposed to be out,” Catherine said. “With your wife.”

“Really?” Marc said, his smile faltering fractionally. “She didn’t tell me. She’s avoiding me at the moment, we’re avoiding each other. It’s awkward—the end of a relationship—when one of you hasn’t exactly left yet and neither of you especially hates the other. It’s like sharing a house with someone you don’t know very well. She’s trying to be kind to me even though I don’t deserve it. We haven’t told the girls yet. We were supposed to do it today but they were so happy this morning, getting ready for school. It just goes to show you what our marriage had come to. Their parents are barely speaking and they don’t notice the difference.”

“They notice,” Catherine assured him. “They always notice.”

She looked at Marc standing on the doorstep in his coat, clutching the bottle of wine. Asking him in had implications. But Catherine didn’t have a choice. She had to ask him in.

She had to know.

“It’s like a film,” Jimmy said, downing his third Jack Daniel’s and Coke since Alison had sat down with him. “A bad film. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy ends up in Croatia. Where’s the happy ending? My film’s going to be a flop at the box office, story of my life, really.”

“There’s always a happy ending,” Alison tried to reassure him. “It just might not be the one you expected.”

Jimmy looked up at her again, making her tummy do a backward flip. She wished he would stop doing that. One minute he’d be all maudlin and pathetic, still cute but quite easy to cope with,
and then she’d say or do something and he’d get this look in his eye, like she imagined a particularly disillusioned wolf might have when it’s sizing up a nice lamb because steak is off the menu. And when he looked at her that way, she got the distinct impression that this evening could go a whole different way if only she would let it.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, leaning forward a little bit, looking at her as if he was preparing for a bite. “Maybe I’m not in love with her at all and what I need is for someone to show me.”

“Actually, I think you are in love with her,” Alison squeaked nervously as Jimmy focused his attention fully on her, placing one hand on her knee. “I think you’re crazy about her.”

“I like
you
,” Jimmy said, patting her knee. “You’ve got pretty hair and a very nice cleavage in that top.” For one or two simultaneously mortifying and electrifying moments, Alison endured Jimmy’s staring at her breasts.

“Got a lot of buttons, that top,” he added. “I like a challenge.”

“What I think you need,” Alison said, “is a nice cup of coffee and some focus. You have to go and see her, Jimmy, you have to tell her you’re leaving the country. Give her a chance to ask you to stay.”

“I don’t know why she fell out with you, because you are lovely,” Jimmy said. “Apart from the whole sleeping with her boyfriend and then running off to abandon her with her psycho parents thing, but then everyone makes mistakes. Even her, even Catherine. I bet you that right now she’s somewhere making a mistake, a really big terrible mistake. Yeah, and then who’s she going to come running to, huh? Huh? Not me, because I’ll be in Croatia. Oh God I love her.”

“Right,” Alison said. “Well, if this is the attitude you’re going to take, then maybe Croatia is a good idea.”

“How do you work that out?” Jimmy asked, looking bemused. “Are you drunk?”

“No, well yes, a bit,” Alison admitted. “But what I mean is you’ve given up at the first hurdle. You told her you love her and she’s told you she doesn’t love you and now you’re all drunk and on the next flight to Croatia. That doesn’t strike me as really loving someone; I think if you really loved her you’d stay and fight for her.”

“She doesn’t want me to fight for her,” Jimmy said, frowning deeply. “I’m doing what she wants because I love her. The funny thing is all my life I thought that this, touring with a band, and playing a gig every night to thousands of people, was my ultimate dream. And it’s not anymore—yeah, I want to play, and write and be in a band and earn a bit more cash. But I want to do it here, in my hometown with my girls, so I can kiss them all good night every night, all three of them. Why does God do that, why does he move the goalposts just when you’ve finally scored? Well, I’ll show him, I’ve just signed up with the other side.”

“Right, I’ve had enough of this,” Alison said. “If you’re not going to go and see her, then stop whining and just go to Croatia. It helps a lot not seeing the person you have unreciprocated feelings for, and if you manage to stay away from them for long enough the feelings wear off quite a lot. Sometimes even totally. It’s when they keep popping up at inopportune moments it gets a bit tricky …” Alison trailed off and looked into Jimmy’s hazel eyes. “And there would be no chance of Catherine popping up in Croatia, would there, so if you haven’t got the guts to go and see her, then shut up and get on the train.”

“Can’t,” Jimmy said. “Can’t go without saying good-bye because first of all she is the mother of my children, second of all she is my best friend, and third of all I bloody love her, I do.”

“Go and see her, Jimmy,” Alison said.

“Or,” Jimmy said. “I could just take my mind off things with
someone else. Someone sexy and friendly and smiley with a nice buttony top …”

“I think,” Alison said carefully, “I might just nip to the ladies. Look, wait here, when I come back I’ll get you a coffee and you can pop round to Catherine’s before she goes to bed.”

“You’re very sensible,” Jimmy said as Alison stood up. “You never used to be so sensible when you were Catherine’s friend in your tight tops and little skirts.”

“I thought you said you never noticed me,” Alison said.

“I only said that because I was afraid you were going to make a pass at me. I would have had to have been blind to have never noticed you,” Jimmy said, leaning rather far back in his chair so that it rocked dangerously.

Alison couldn’t help but beam, and then Jimmy crashed backward in his chair.

“Get up,” Alison ordered him as she helped him up, glad that the din of the music had covered the commotion. “When I get back I’ll bring you a coffee.”

Once she got into the relative safety of the ladies’ loos, Alison splashed some cool water on her heated cheeks and looked at her damp face framed in the mirror.

Jimmy Ashley had noticed her when she was seventeen, he had admired her in her tight tops and little skirts. And who knew, perhaps … perhaps if she had never found out about Catherine’s secret boyfriend, perhaps while Cathy was busy with Marc, Jimmy Ashley would have finally noticed how much she fancied him and put down his guitar long enough to ask her out. Alison closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would have been like to be Jimmy Ashley’s girlfriend back then, holding hands with him in the corridors, sitting with him at lunch, kissing him like crazy in the smokers’ den at the back of the playing fields. Would he have stayed with her for a couple of weeks or months, or maybe, just
maybe, if she hadn’t left town and he hadn’t fallen for Catherine, maybe he would have always stayed in love with her. Maybe if she’d never known Marc they’d still be together now … except they weren’t together now and she had met Marc and Jimmy Ashley was in love with Cathy.

Alison shook her head and patted her cheeks; if only he wasn’t so hot. Even when he was drunk and miserable he was gorgeous. Even when he was clearly sizing her up only because he was desperately in love with Cathy and wanted someone to take his mind off that, to stop him from taking any positive action, he made her knees tremble. Even though Jimmy Ashley was only flirting with her because he was drunk and in love with another woman, she couldn’t help but like it, a lot.

Reapplying her lip gloss, Alison wiped away traces of eyeliner that had run around her lower lids with the edges of her thumb. She tossed her hair back over her shoulders and straightened her shoulders. This was her chance to show Cathy that she could be a good friend to her, even one of her best friends again. Jimmy needed to remind Cathy exactly what their relationship used to be like, and even though Alison had no idea how that was exactly, from the way Jimmy made her feel when he looked at her, she could hazard a pretty good guess. She knew exactly what he had to do to bring Cathy to her senses. And even if Cathy never knew that she’d given up the chance to get off with Jimmy Ashley for her, it wouldn’t matter because Alison would know. And she’d know that she’d done the right thing. It was then she looked back up at the mirror and saw Jimmy reflected in it too.

“You and me, babe,” Jimmy whispered in her ear as his arm encircled her waist. “How about it?”

“So,” Catherine said, handing Marc a glass of wine. “How are things?”

“Difficult,” Marc said, looking at her. “But I can’t complain, I’ve brought it all on myself. I’ve got to start looking for a place to live but I can’t quite bring myself to do it.”

“Oh? Where do you think you might look?” Catherine asked him, desperate to make small talk, as if trivial conversation might fill in all the gaps between them and stop him from coming any closer to her. “Kirsty’s boyfriend lives in this quite nice place up by the golf course, really excellent double-gazing …”

“I don’t care, really,” Marc said. “I don’t care where I live.”