As Good As It Gets? (35 page)

In fact, it feels as if our life is being carefully stage-managed to minimise any difficult moments. Will is being extremely polite and rather sweet to me, as if I have just returned from a lengthy stay in hospital. I almost expect him to bring me grapes, or a copy of
Woman’s Weekly
. And when I spot him peering at grey seals on his laptop, he quickly shuts down the page as if it’s porn.

On Friday morning – a work day, when I’d usually snatch a piece of toast – I am presented with perfectly soft and melty scrambled eggs, accessorised with snipped chives. I look at the chives, wishing I could interpret them as evidence that Will loves me madly and that I’m forgiven for meeting Fraser and being such a thundering disappointment of late. But I can’t. Whichever way I look at them, they are just flecks of oniony herb.

Anyway, I have no appetite whatsoever, so the eggs remain barely touched. Perhaps this is one advantage of Will and I having ‘space’. My favourite work skirt now sits at hip level, rather than digging into my waist; even my matronly sausage-boob seems to have deflated. My face looks a little slimmer than how it appeared in
Front
magazine, even without Boo’s endeavours with all that blusher and shader. I wouldn’t say it’s an improvement, though. I look tense and faintly unwell, and definitely lacking in cheek glow and eye sparkle. One small consolation is the fact that Sabrina, Tommy and Zach have gone away to visit Tommy’s mother. I seem to run into Sabrina constantly these days, and she’s the type to home in on a change in appearance. Although I do enjoy her company, I’d rather not have to explain what’s going on. Now yet, anyway. I do, however, manage a snatched phone conversation with Liza when I arrive at work.

‘I know it’s not great,’ she says, ‘but if he does get the job, he can still come home at weekends, can’t he?’

‘That seems to be what he’s planning,’ I admit.

‘It might even be good for you,’ she suggests. Hmm. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. ‘It’s doable, isn’t it?’ she adds.

‘I suppose so,’ I say reluctantly, thinking it
would
be okay, if Will was desperately upset at the prospect of being parted from me. But he’s not; in fact he seems positively buoyant. Weirdly, it’s almost like having my old Will back, when he was happy, beavering away at Greenspace Heritage, and never did that nostril-flaring thing at me.

In the office now, I barely look up from my screen, apart from to briefly speculate with Dee as to why Rupert is so antsy, and joke whether he’s gone off us, his ‘favourite girls’, because he’s barely stopped to say hello. We don’t mention Frank, or the
beary-beary-much
card. I wonder if it’s still in Dee’s drawer. For days now she’s said nothing about soft furnishings, or the shortlist of tile colours she and Mike have arrived at for their bathroom. We don’t speak of any of that. We just clatter away on our computers and make many calls. Rupert fails to put in an appearance all day; I leave a message with Rhona, his secretary, explaining that I’ll have to take some time off next week, with Will not being around. I also leave a message on Rupert’s mobile, reiterating that things are tricky at home, which he fails to respond to.

Back at home, it’s sort of similar, in that Will and I don’t discuss anything serious either. Not Fraser, not Scotland, not the plight of the bottlenose dolphin. At the weekend, we have some ‘family outings’, as Rosie disparagingly calls them – although she seems to enjoy our trip to a pop art exhibition, and a meander around Portobello Road, which we haven’t done together for years.

We are a family,
I remind myself, as we sit in the sunshine clutching cartons of falafel. And we’ll still be a family when Will is in Scotland. Plenty of dads do that – work away from their partner and kids. We are strong enough to cope. Trouble is, I have a horrible feeling that Will is viewing this not as something to ‘deal with’, but as an escape.

Rosie and Ollie barely stir in their beds on Monday morning as I tell them I’m taking their dad to Gatwick. Hardly surprising: it’s 6 a.m. Although Will had planned to take a cab, I have insisted on driving him. From Inverness airport he’ll pick up a hire car and drive north, along the beautiful coastline he spent many hours showing the kids; ribbons of white sand, and all that wildlife.

I have adopted a matter-of-fact demeanour, although the effort of maintaining it is causing my left eye to reverberate disconcertingly. My stomach is churning, and it’s all I can do to focus on the road ahead. We don’t talk a great deal on the journey, and when we do it’s about the traffic (not too heavy) and the weather (breezy, pleasantly fresh). Will is obviously trying to rein in his excitement.

Well, sod it all, I decide, after a brief, slightly awkward goodbye at the departure gate. I hope he gets the job. He
needs
it; he’s wilting away, fiddling about with his lettuces and herbs. While I know he’ll make sure he still sees the kids (‘You’ll be there before you’ve even finished your tub of Pringles!’), I know what’ll happen with us. Never mind our friend minke whale, with her alluring curves and elegant fins. He’s bound to impress the local
human
lovelies too, ‘hot dad’ that he is.

In the airport car park, I’m just about to climb into my car when my mobile rings. ‘Charlotte?’ Rupert says. ‘Can you talk right now?’

‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘and I’m glad you called. Look, Rupert, I’m sorry about this—’

‘What about?’

‘About asking for more time off without warning. You see, Will’s had to go away and I can’t expect Rosie to look after Ollie all week—’

‘Just take time off,’ he cuts in. ‘It’s fine, no problem. The thing is …’

‘Will’s applying for a job in Scotland,’ I blurt out, because I feel as if I can.

‘God, is he? Is that, um … a good thing?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admit, climbing into my car, relieved that I work for a cuddly operation like Archie’s, not a vast, faceless company where holidays must be requested months in advance. ‘Well, not really,’ I add. ‘I mean, if he gets it, he’s planning to move north and the kids and I will stay in London. So, anyway,’ I babble on, trying to sound jovial and light, ‘you won’t be getting rid of me that easily.’

I focus on a battered old buff-coloured Morris Minor which is trundling slowly around the car park. Rupert, I realise, has gone quiet. ‘Sorry to babble on,’ I say. ‘You wanted to talk to me …’

‘Yeah. The, er … the thing is, Charlotte, there’s something I have to tell you. I’m having this meeting—’

‘Not a gathering?’ I chip in, inanely.

‘Um, well, whatever it is, I’m getting all the staff’ – so we’re staff now, not teamsters – ‘to explain what’s happening at Archie’s.’ A small pause. The faint whiff of apple is still detectable in my car, even though I’ve tried to de-fruit it numerous times.

‘So what’s happening?’ I ask faintly.

Rupert coughs. ‘We’re being taken over, Charlotte. I’m so sorry. I wish I was telling you this in person …’

‘You mean you’re selling the company?’

‘Yes, to Fielding Foods—’ Oh, my God. Fielding foods are huge: they make
everything.
Well, nearly everything: biscuits, breakfast cereals, nasty pasta sauces which seem to bear no relation to actual real, fresh tomatoes apart from being red – Will would rather eat plain, bald pasta rather than slathering it in that filthy stuff … my mind grinds to a halt. They also make crisps, of course: the cheap, everyday kind (ready salted, salt & vin, etc) sold singly in newsagents and in multipacks in every supermarket in the land. ‘… Been on the cards for some time now,’ Rupert goes on, ‘but, you know, confidentiality and all that …’

I watch as the Morris Minor parks up and a family tumbles out, baggage-less and seeming excited, as they all stride towards the terminal; must be meeting someone from a flight. How much more joyous the arrivals area is to the goodbye zone. ‘… We’ll be part of one of the biggest food manufacturers in Britain,’ Rupert adds, his voice straining with the effort of making this sound like a great thing.

‘So what does this mean?’ I ask, as fine rain starts to spit at my windscreen. ‘For the staff, I mean? The, er, teamsters?’

‘Well, they’re keeping the Archie’s brand of course, which is fantastic. But …’ – and here it comes – ‘operations are being centralised so production is being relocated to their main plant in the East Midlands.’ All these un-Archie’s words:
operations, production, plant
… ‘… And I hate to tell you,’ Rupert adds, ‘but PR and marketing are all going to be centralised too …’

I listen to my boss’s bumbling apologies and he goes on to stress how
valued
I am, and how he’ll ensure that I’m handsomely rewarded with a generous redundancy package, plus glowing references of course, that goes without saying … and all I can think is:
Fielding Foods.
They are as far from cuddly knitted crisp corsages as it’s possible to be. But it’s okay, I tell Rupert, it’s okay, really. I know these things happen. I do understand.

‘I’m so glad you’re seeing it this way,’ he says, sounding genuinely distressed.

Well, what else am I supposed to do? In a few short hours my husband will be arriving at his B&B in that quaint little postcard village, and changing into his suit (secretly, I have always found him ultra-fanciable in a suit). And soon after that, he’ll be told he is now officially Director of Seals.

While I am officially redundant.

These things happen,
I repeat silently in my head, on the drizzly journey home.

Chapter Thirty-Four

In fact, I do have a job: Director-in-chief of Bunny Hunt. As the kids profess to have ‘run out of ideas’ of where Guinness might be, I re-check every hidey-hole I can think of. It’s keeping me busy, at least. But, as it involves rummaging about in the more unsavoury crannies of our house, it’s pretty thankless, grubby work. Lonely, too. Ollie seems to have given up the hunt, and Rosie is spending pretty much all of her time in her room, muttering to God knows who on her phone. Delph or Zach, probably, although I’d like to think it might be Nina. I know Rosie’s upset – about Guinness, certainly, who’s been missing for five days now, and possibly Will, despite her cheeriness when he broke the news – and I wish I could do something to lift her spirits. Aren’t parents supposed to be able to make everything better? My suggestion that she might like to ask Nina round, so they could hang out together, was met with a blank look. ‘I’m
fine
, Mum,’ she said, unconvincingly.

Feeling cabin-feverish, I break off and change into my sole tracksuit and trainers for a speed-walk around the park. Decreased appetite, and now exercise – I’ll soon be fitting into what the fashion industry terms ‘sample sizes’ (see, I’m learning fast). Anyway, I reflect, as someone in the distance waves to attract my attention, that’s one upside of the Fielding Foods takeover. I will no longer have the perpetual temptation of premium crisps sitting under my nose. Rupert has called again to explain that I won’t be expected to go back in to work. I should just pop in in a few days’ time, ‘when the dust has settled’, to ‘go over my “package”’ with him. We even laughed at that.

As the waving person approaches I realise it’s Helen, Nina’s mum, who’s all smiles. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages,’ she says. ‘How’s things?’

Fine, is what I should say. ‘I’ve just been made redundant,’ I blurt out, which causes Helen, who has a proper job – she’s a social worker, it’s a job that
matters
– to put a hand on my arm and say, ‘Oh, God, how awful. Shall we grab a coffee? D’you have time?’ All the time in the world, as it happens. So we head to the café in the park, which always smells of bacon, even when there’s no indication of bacon being cooked.

I fill her in on the swallowing up of cuddly Archie’s by an enormous conglomerate in the East Midlands. ‘What’ll you do?’ she says, all wide, sympathetic eyes.

‘I have no idea. Haven’t even had time to think. Anyway, I’m not holding you up, am I?’

‘No, no, I’ve got the week off. Thought I should spend a bit of time with Nina. She’s um …’ Helen’s cheeks flush beneath her mass of nut-brown curls.

‘Is she okay?’ I ask, frowning.

‘Um … she’s a bit down, actually, but I don’t want to load this on you, not when you’ve had that awful news …’ My heart seems to slip a bit lower than where it should be.

‘Any reason?’ I know, before she even replies, what it is.

Helen takes a sip from her mug. ‘Look, I know how it is, Charlotte. The age the girls are – they grow apart, they’re all so fickle at this stage. I hear Rosie has a boyfriend now, and she’s modelling. That’s fantastic.’

I muster a smile, almost wishing she wasn’t being so understanding. I mean, the girls have been best friends since they were five years old. What if Delph drops Rosie, and Zach loses interest and moves on elsewhere? ‘I’m sorry she’s not seeing much of Nina,’ I venture. ‘I’ve tried to encourage her. It’s just so hard to get through to her at the moment …’

She smiles. ‘Oh, I know what it’s like. To be honest, I don’t think it’s really Rosie’s fault. It’s that Delph girl—’

Oh, hell. ‘Has something happened?’

‘Well, er …’ Helen stirs her coffee unnecessarily. ‘She wasn’t very nice to Nina, actually.’

‘When was this?’

‘The night you all went to that gig. It was just a few snidey comments, about her weight, mostly—’

‘Her weight?’ I gasp. ‘What on earth did she say?’

Helen shrugs. ‘Just that, you know … she’d look better if she lost a bit …’

‘Oh, my God.’ I am horrified. Nina is lovely; a perfectly proportioned teenage girl.

‘Delph said she had fat arms,’ Helen adds. ‘She’s worn long sleeves ever since—’

‘That’s awful,’ I exclaim. ‘I’m mortified, Helen. I don’t know what to say. Rosie seems entranced by Delph. I wish she wasn’t, but that’s how it is at the moment …’

‘It’s okay,’ Helen says quickly. ‘I didn’t know whether to say anything and, anyway, it’s really not your fault, or Rosie’s—’

I look at her, picturing our daughters together at age eight, when Will and I took them to Lego Land; and at eleven, when they set off for their first day at secondary school … weirdly, although I didn’t cry at the departure gate this morning – or even when Rupert told me I’d lost my job – I could cry now. ‘I feel terrible,’ I add.