As Good As It Gets? (33 page)

‘I know you haven’t,’ Dee says. I watch as she gets up from her desk to make coffee, ignoring a call on her mobile. What a remarkable front she puts on, pretending to love planning meals for Mike, and poring over cake tins and rose-patterned tablecloths. I know we’re all supposed to find solace in cooking and baking these days, but – crisp cookie triumph aside – I don’t seem to be able to train myself to enjoy such pursuits. As previously noted, my cooking is the type offered in school canteens and at the lower end of the scale of old people’s homes. Will roasts a chicken and it’s a thing of wonder: succulent, with irresistible golden, crispy skin. Mine is a perfectly serviceable, plain old bird, eaten but unremarked upon. And what has Will done, I muse, as Dee starts tapping at her keyboard, since he’s been out of work? He’s tried to raise our standards on the domestic front – not just to make himself feel useful, but because he knows it’s not an area I’m particularly fond of. He is simply doing his best.

I turn to my own screen but can’t focus on the press release I need to send out today. Poor Will, I reflect, doing all that stuff, unappreciated. I glance over at Dee who’s peering at her own screen, making a clicking noise with her tongue. Mike thinks he’s doing the right thing, trying to treat her, and show her how loved she is; his willingness to upgrade to the Ultimate Dips Box is, in some ways, like Will and his home-baked cob loaves and perfect Jamie Oliver thin-crust pizzas (well,
Sabrina’s
perfect thin-crust pizza). He does all of this because he cares and loves us, and he absolutely doesn’t deserve a wife who sneaks off to meet her ex (only coffee!) behind his back and squirts salad cream on his favourite T-shirt.

My body prickles with shame at how humiliated he looked when I raised the subject of our barely existent sex life. Maybe that’s just what happens, when you’ve been together as long as we have: that side of life wilts, like the sprigs of mint Will picked from the garden, stuck in a glass on the worktop and forgot to use. Sabrina reckons she and Tommy are at it constantly like nubile little bunnies (‘You know what men are like. Insatiable!’) but maybe she’s exaggerating? Anyway, everyone assumes the grass is always greener when, in fact, it rarely is. And Sabrina and Tommy are so different to Will and me, it’s crazy to compare us.

Hell, talking of bunnies, where
is
Guinness? I call Will at lunchtime, relieved when he answers, despite there still being no sign of our absent pet. ‘How’s Rosie?’ I ask.

‘She seems okay.’

‘She’s not worried about not turning up for that job?’

‘No idea,’ Will says. ‘She hasn’t mentioned it again.’

‘Hmmm. She’s obviously really concerned then.’

‘Yeah.’ He laughs dryly, and I’m overcome by an urge to hug him and say,
please
can we try to work things out? Can we start being kind to each other again?

I arrive home to find Ollie, Saul and a cluster of their friends all lolling in the garden, sipping lemonade, having formed a search party for Guinness. ‘No luck, Mum,’ Ollie reports with a shrug. I thank the boys for trying anyway, and head indoors to greet Will with a kiss.

‘Still nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m afraid it’s not looking good. I think he must’ve got out of the house somehow.’

I glance out of the kitchen window. ‘Ollie seems to be quite stoical about it.’

‘Yeah.’ Will smiles. ‘I think he quite likes the idea of Guinness breaking out into the wild, going feral …’

‘And what about Rosie?’

‘She decided to cheer herself up with a bit of retail therapy. She and Zach have gone to the West End …’ He hesitates, as if about to add something else.

‘Everything else okay?’ I ask.

‘Um, yeah. It’s just …’ He glances out to the garden, then back at me. ‘I’ve, er … got a bit of news.’

I study his face. ‘You mean good news?’

He flushes. ‘Sort of. I’m going for an interview next week.’

Without thinking, I throw my arms around him. ‘Really? That’s brilliant, Will! Where is it?’ I peel myself off him and stand back.

‘Er … it’s quite a long way away, actually.’

‘Well, that’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, it was quite a trek, wasn’t it, working in Hammersmith—’

‘It’s not Hammersmith, Charlotte.’ As he falls silent, something stirs inside me: a smidgeon of doubt that perhaps this isn’t the joyous occasion I’d imagined it would be.

‘Well, where is it? And what’s the job?’

‘It’s um … a directorship.’

‘Wow, that’s fantastic! Finally, someone’s realised how much you have to offer—’

‘I’ve had lots actually,’ he interrupts. I stare at him, uncomprehending.

‘You mean
interviews
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you never said …’

‘You never asked,’ he says flatly.

I study my husband, wondering how we’ve managed to end up so chilly and distant with each other. He couldn’t even find it in himself to tell me when he’d had interviews. And to think: I’ve assumed he was spending all his time here at home, or out on his bike, or pottering about locally. Rowdy laughter drifts in through the window, then Ollie bursts in, smelling of grass and sunshine and announcing that they’re all off to the park.

‘I didn’t want to seem like I was nagging,’ I tell Will as soon as they’ve all clattered out. ‘I thought you had enough of that from your mum.’

‘Well, anyway,’ he says matter-of-factly, ‘this is a second interview.’

‘Great! Wow. So they’re really keen, then.’ I try to seem pleased, and not show how hurtful this information is to me.

‘Hard to tell really,’ he says, ‘but it’ll be good to meet them face to face. The first interview was on Skype …’

So Will sat in this very house, being interviewed, and didn’t feel like mentioning it to me when I came home from work. I wonder if that was the day I arrived home laden with reject crisps, or came in babbling on about Rupert’s golden retriever, who’s becoming more and more flatulent by the day, or some other scintillating gossip from the world of salty snacks. ‘So what’s the job?’ I ask, keeping my tone light. ‘Is it with a charity?’

Will nods. ‘It’s called the Seal Protection Trust. Conservation and protection are a big part of it, but they’re putting more resources into education, working with schools and running regular boat trips, even sea life safaris—’

‘Seals? But there aren’t any seals in London, are there?’ I laugh, feeling suddenly foolish, blurting out a question that a five-year-old might ask. ‘Apart from at the zoo,’ I add. ‘The job’s not with the zoo, is it?’

‘No, Charlotte. It’s, um … in Scotland. The job’s based up on the east coast, north of Inverness.’

I stare at him, wondering how he could have kept this from me. Something catches my eye in the garden; just a crow, eyeing me defiantly from the fence. ‘But what about school?’ I ask. ‘D’you think it’d be okay to uproot them now? I mean, it might be all right for Ollie, but this is such a crucial time for Rosie, with needing the results for a veterinary course …’ Will starts to speak, but I interrupt: ‘And what about their friends and Rosie’s modelling? I know that shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but can you imagine how she’ll react if we tell her, “Actually sweetheart, we’re leaving London and moving hundreds of miles north to the middle of nowhere where you won’t know a soul …”’ I tail off and blink at Will.

‘The thing is, Charlotte—’

‘And what about this house?’ I blurt out. ‘Would we sell it, d’you think, or let it out?’

‘Listen, the house isn’t—’

‘And your mum? D’you think she’d move to Scotland too? I mean, I know she’s fine at the moment, but she does rely on you for all those little jobs, and I can’t imagine your sister stepping in, can you?’

Will opens his mouth and closes it again, like a fish.

‘What about
my
job? I know it’s only crisps, Will, but it’s all I have at the moment …’

‘Charlotte,’ he cuts in, more firmly this time, ‘
if
I get it, and nothing’s certain yet—’

‘So … when are you going?’

‘First thing Monday,’ he replies. ‘The interview’s after lunch, but they want me to spend a few days getting to know the staff and the area, going out with field workers to get a real sense of what they do. So I’ll be gone for a few days …’

‘How long exactly?’

‘Well, um, a week,’ he replies.

Just like that, with no discussion. Of course, I didn’t discuss my secret little meeting in Caffè Nero either. I snuck off while Will was dutifully cleansing Gloria’s patio of its pesky moss. ‘So where are you staying?’ I ask bleakly.

‘They’re putting me up in a B&B in some tiny place near the headquarters. It’s the only one in the village, I think …’

‘Will,’ I say, ‘it sounds like they absolutely want you for this job. Surely no one gets a week’s accommodation and travel unless … I take it they’re paying for your flight?’

‘Uh-huh.’ It’s his sheepish expression – which says, I actually want this job very much – that gives him away. With a wave of dread, I also realise what this means for us. ‘Charlotte,’ Will starts, ‘if I get it, I’m not planning for us all to move north.’

My heart feels as if it is being crushed like a tin can. ‘Oh,’ I say faintly.

‘I mean … I think it’d be best for you and the kids to stay here.’ He pushes back his hair, avoiding my gaze.

‘You mean,
you’d
move? Just you, by yourself?’

Will nods. ‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

‘You mean … without
us
?’ I’m trying to be strong, and behave like women do in romcoms when they’re being left. Terse conversation over, they stride off in their clicky heels and do something drastic – something that makes a bold statement – like having their waist-length hair cut off and emerging from the salon with a chic, impish crop. I don’t feel like that sort of woman. I have purplish shoulder-length hair and would worry that, if I were to chop it all off, I wouldn’t even look like an aubergine anymore. I’d be a potato. One of those prized Maris Pipers from Mickey’s farm.

‘I didn’t plan this, you know,’ Will says simply.

‘But you did!’ I protest. ‘Of course you did. You applied for a job hundreds of miles away, knowing what it’d mean for us. Why did you even do that?’ My voice cracks, and I will myself not to cry.
I will not be a blubbery cry baby. I will be strong! Let him go wherever he wants to. We’ll cope. We’ll even look after the garden. I’ll finally get to grips with our temperamental lawnmower and throw hormone rooting powder on anything that looks like a proper plant. There is nothing we need Will to do for us!

‘Look,’ he says gently, ‘I know this sounds stupid, but I can’t tell you how crap it’s been, applying for all these posts and getting nowhere, or getting
nearly
somewhere, then being told, “Oh, sorry, you didn’t have quite the skill set we were looking for.” Then I’d snoop about online and find that the person they’d taken on was virtually half my age …’

‘Come on, Will, you’re only forty-one. It’s hardly geriatric!’

‘Well, it is when you’re job-hunting,’ he insists. ‘I hate to say it, but Gerald was right. I’d started to think I was on the bloody scrapheap, Charlotte. So, when I saw this directorship post I just thought, sod it, why not apply and see what happens, never expecting to even get an interview. It was a mad, impulsive thing to do. I didn’t even think they’d call …’

‘And then they did,’ I bleat.

‘Yeah. I was amazed. And I started to think, maybe I have a chance here and, if I do get it …’ He breaks off the shrugs. ‘Well, maybe it’d be good for us too.’

‘
How
is it good for us?’ I exclaim. ‘You’d be in Scotland and we’d be down here. How can that possibly be a good thing?’

‘I mean, to have a bit of space from each other,’ Will says, still unable to look at me properly.

‘You think we need space?’

‘Yeah, I think maybe we do.’

‘It’s not
that
bad!’ I cry, trying to keep the tears in by sheer willpower alone, and realising that maybe he’s right: is that really the best I can come up with? That our marriage isn’t ‘that bad’?

‘I think we’ve both let things drift,’ he says gently.

‘You’re right. We have.’ Tears are dripping down my cheeks as I think about our VAT return sex life, and how he flinches if I try to touch him. I’ve assumed it’s just a result of us growing older, and being together for fifteen years – but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s more serious than that, and I haven’t had the courage to admit it.

‘So,’ Will says, ‘what d’you think?’

What do I
think
? As if we’re talking about whether we eat too much butter and should switch to Flora instead? I look at him, knowing I’m as much to blame as Will is for this state of affairs. What right do I have to be outraged by his secret interview, with all the sneaking around I’ve done lately? Will should know about my coffee with Fraser, and that pretty soon, I think Rosie should meet him too. We need to be open and honest like proper grown-ups and stop tip-toeing around each other. I’m about to blurt all this out, and to say that we all love him and need him here, and how can Rosie possibly cope with the Fraser situation without him? But the front door opens, and Rosie and Zach stride in, arms draped around each other, closely followed by Ollie and his gang from the park.

I greet everyone, then delve into a kitchen drawer, fling takeaway menus on the table and hand Rosie all the money I have in my purse. ‘Order anything you like,’ I say quickly.

I turn to Will and grab his hand. ‘Can we go out?’ I murmur. ‘Can we go somewhere so it’s just us?’

Chapter Thirty-Two

We haven’t been to Parliament Hill for years, not since we bought Rosie a box kite and Will showed her how to fly it. Having never managed to manoeuvre any kind of kite successfully, I was blown away by how Will made it look so easy. Even Ollie crying when he wasn’t allowed to control it all by himself didn’t spoil the day.

This evening is a little different. We didn’t discuss where we might go ‘to talk’. We just climbed into the car and set off, and here’s where we ended up. Although the evening has turned cooler, there are plenty of families out walking, and small children chasing each other, squealing with delight; it’s a scene plucked straight from Archie’s website. The only thing that’s not quite right is the couple – Will and me – who are walking a little apart. Let’s just say we are not emitting the jolliness which Rupert describes as ‘the real essence of what we’re all about’.