Best of Friends (31 page)

But the day after a shaken and dead-eyed Steve had fetched his sons, Tom was still ignoring Abby. With the place to themselves again, she’d hoped they could finally talk, but Tom showed not the slightest desire to do so and Abby began to feel quite desperate. She resolved to make her husband speak about it—she’d made a huge mistake, but that wasn’t the end of them, surely.

It was the Saturday after Easter, a glorious day that hinted of summer with a balmy breeze that swept in through her bedroom window, lifting the filmy muslin curtains. From the open window, Abby could see Dunmore curling out below Briar Lane like an enchanting nineteenth-century village untouched by the modern world. Down to the left was the road where the Richardsons lived, and Abby sighed at the thought of their Saturday morning. Sally was home now, for the moment, and she imagined the two bundles of energy that were Jack and Daniel racing into their parents’ room and not being able to jump onto their Mummy in case they hurt her. Steve would be stoic and cheerful, doing his best to keep Sally’s spirits up, Sally would be doing the same thing and at the back of both of their minds would be the knowledge that only a miracle could keep their little family together.

When Abby thought of Sally and Steve and what they were going through, she felt the shame at her own actions overwhelm her. They needed a miracle but her family could work things out for themselves. She would make everything better between her and Tom, she would.

Dressed for battle in a particularly flattering amethyst shirt, she left her room and encountered Jess hovering on the landing, long bare legs topped by an oversized T-shirt.

“Morning, darling,” said Abby. “Did you sleep well?”

Jess ignored the question. “Why is Dad sleeping in the spare room?” she demanded.

Abby faltered. For the past week, Tom had been up and dressed before Jess, so she’d never have realised what was going on. Today, she had.

“He snores,” Jess went on. “I thought we’d been burgled and the burglar was asleep in the spare room.”

Distraught, Abby thought of lying. But she couldn’t. Jess deserved the truth—well, some of the truth. Abby couldn’t risk her daughter’s hatred.

“Tell me what’s going on. I’m part of this family too, so tell me!”

“Come downstairs and I will,” Abby said. A great weariness invaded her body.

In the kitchen, Abby didn’t bother boiling the kettle or putting on toast. She sat at the table and Jess sat opposite her.

“Your father and I are having problems,” she said. “He’s moved into the spare bedroom and we have some things to sort out. I’m sorry it’s affecting you; neither of us wanted that to happen.”

“Problems about what?” demanded Jess with the ferocity of a prosecuting counsel.

“Just … normal things people who’ve been married a long time fight about.”

“Is it over you being on TV and having more money?”

Abby was startled. She’d never realised that Jess had been aware of those undercurrents.

“No,” she said slowly. “It’s nothing to do with that.” It might have
started
with friction over money but what happened next had nothing to do with who was earning the most. Abby was too honest to pretend that the blame lay elsewhere.

Jess, fidgeting on the edge of her chair, pulled a bit of sandy hair into her mouth and nibbled it. “Is Dad having an affair?” she asked hollowly.

Abby’s heart bled. “No, love, he isn’t.”

Jess stared at her as if she didn’t believe the denial. “You’d tell me, right? Wouldn’t you?”

Of course, that was the first conclusion she would jump to, Abby realised. In the world of TV soaps and teenage magazines, the male of the species was the one who cheated. Women were true and faithful, to their friends and to their men. She wondered if she had the courage to tell the truth to her darling daughter.

“Dad found me having lunch with a man I used to go out with,” Abby began, faltering.

Jess’s eyes, over-bright, stared back at her, prompting her to go on.

“It didn’t mean anything,” Abby added, “but I hadn’t told Dad I was meeting him and, well, he was upset and he hasn’t forgiven me.”

“Having lunch?” said Jess. “Why would that upset him?” She glared at her mother. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Abby knew that her guilty face gave her away but she said nothing, mentally begging Jess not to work it all out.

“How could you?” Jess cried. “How could you, Mum? You have Dad; you’re not supposed to see other men. He must have been so upset.”

It all sounded so simple the way Jess put it.

“He was but he won’t let me say sorry,” Abby said. She gazed down at the scrubbed wooden table. It bore so many of the marks of their family life, she thought idly, withstanding years of abuse from hot saucepans being clattered down on it to craft knives being dug into it when Jess was younger and doing art projects. Abby ran a finger along one deep groove.

“I don’t understand. Dad’s not like that. He’d forgive you if you really were sorry,” Jess whispered.

Abby said nothing.

“You’re not telling me everything.” Jess stared accusingly at her mother. “You had an affair with him.”

Abby tried to say no but the word wouldn’t come out. She couldn’t lie, not to Jess, especially not to this Jess who suddenly sounded so grown up.

She nodded. “It was only the once. I’m not proud of it and it was a stupid thing to do …”

“You’re the one who tells me about love and not having sex with someone I don’t love, and trust and respect and all that. And now look at what you’ve done.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Abby, in distress.

“Sorry?” Jess was incredulous. “It’s pathetic. Everything is going wrong in the world and you could do that? Mum, what were you thinking?”

It was as if a dam had burst and all the words Abby had wanted to say to Tom came rushing out. “I don’t know, Jess. I wasn’t thinking. I never meant to hurt you or your dad, you’ve got to believe me! If I could turn the clock back and make it not happen, I would.”

“It was that day you told me about Sally, wasn’t it?” said Jess.

“Dad had just found you out, hadn’t he? I knew you were strange and it wasn’t to do with Sally. How could you? She could be dying and you were upset only over being caught out.”

“No,” gasped Abby.

“Yes!” shrieked Jess, making for the door.

The roles had been reversed. Now Jess was taking the adult role and Abby was cast as the child, in trouble with no way out.

Tom stood at the door to the kitchen, dressed but with his hair wild, as if he had rushed down at the sound of the argument.

“Oh, Dad!” cried Jess, hugging him briefly before running upstairs to the safety of her bedroom.

Abby raised hurt, tearfilled eyes to his, expecting to see his face mocking and hard, but she was slightly comforted to read compassion in his expression.

“You didn’t have to tell her,” he said.

Abby held her aching head in her hands. “I didn’t want to but she knew it was something to do with an affair. She asked me if you were having one.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take the easy option.” The mocking was back.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Abby said. “You weren’t the one who made the mistake so I couldn’t let you take the blame.”

“Oh, it was a mistake, was it? Nice to know your screwing another man can be summed up in such a simple term.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“An accident, perhaps? You accidentally ended up in bed with him and all your clothes fell off. And don’t deny it. That wasn’t just lunch I interrupted. Where were you going next? A hotel, a love nest, a dive with rooms by the hour?” Tom rapped the questions out.

“No, I was ending it,” Abby protested. “It happened once, that’s all.”

“Well, I am glad to hear that.” Tom’s voice dripped acid. “Once is fine. Once is practically reasonable. I mean, everyone wants to screw around once, don’t they? Who should I go for? Any suggestions?”

“Please, Tom, don’t talk like that,” she begged. “Can’t we talk properly? We’ve got a good marriage, let’s not throw it away over … over this.”

“Too late,” he said. “You’ve already thrown it away. I feel I’m only here for Jess now. And I don’t believe you about it being just once. You’ve known him longer than you’ve known me. He didn’t just waltz back into your life, did he? He’s been around for quite a while. Is he keen to hook up with Abby, the television superstar? Is that why you wanted this house so badly—because it was a fitting home for you and Jay?”

“No, no,” sobbed Abby. “It wasn’t like that. We—you and me—we weren’t happy and I don’t know what happened—”

“Yeah, blame me, why don’t you? It’s all my fault. God, Abby, you make me sick,” he said in disgust.

“What are you going to do?” she said frantically.

“I don’t know, but when I do, I’ll tell you,” he finished.

He left the room then, and Abby laid her head on the table and sobbed.

In her bedroom, Jess slammed the door so hard that one of her old stuffed animals fell off the top of the wardrobe. Poor Wuddly, she thought, grabbing the threadbare seal and hugging him close.

But hugging him didn’t bring her any comfort. Nothing could. Jess had known that her parents weren’t really talking, although at least it was a break from the constant sniping. But she’d never imagined this. Her mother had done the most awful thing. How could she have slept with someone else? Mothers didn’t do that sort of thing. It was weird enough imagining her parents having sex at all, but for her mum to do it with someone who wasn’t Dad—that was too … too terrible. She brushed Wuddly’s tired old fur with her fingers. People got divorced when they had affairs. So that’s what would happen next. The rows would change because they wouldn’t all be living together, but there would still be rows, she knew. Lots of people in school had divorced parents and rows were part of it. The kids were stuck in the middle.

Robyn, a girl in Jess’s year, used to pretend it was cool to have divorced parents because she got twice as many presents and stuff, but Jess and Steph had always known it wasn’t. Robyn’s dad never came to school plays or sports matches because Robyn’s mother wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.

Suddenly, she wanted to talk to Steph. Nobody made hard things seem easier the way Steph did.

Steph, how r u? call me. :-(

Normally, Steph—the speed-texting expert—would reply in, like, five seconds. But not today. It was Saturday, she was probably still in bed.

Jess got up and switched on her CD player. She wouldn’t think about Mum and Dad, she wouldn’t. She’d think about Ian. He was her favourite daydream and she even had a song she played that was their song.

Not that Ian knew it was their song. But it was the music she could imagine them dancing to, his arms round her, her cheek resting against his shoulder as they moved slowly. She sat on her bed, her knees folded up to her chest, and listened to the music. If she closed her eyes, she could just about imagine it.

And then they’d curl up beside each other on some squashy chair, and Ian would kiss her. The details were hazy because Jess couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like to be kissed by someone she was in love with. Not the same as playing dares in second year when she and Steph were looking for tennis balls in the park near home. She’d had to kiss Jimmy Lynch and it had been awful. His breath was smelly, like that awful pong of hard-boiled eggs, and she’d wondered what all the big fuss about kissing was because it had been terrible. But kissing Ian would be different. She wasn’t sure about the tongues thing. Girls like Saffron were so blasé about that. French kissing was no big deal, they said non-chalantly, implying that they’d done a lot more than kiss. If she’d had to kiss Jimmy Lynch again, Jess would die rather than use tongues. But with Ian, she’d try. And he was experienced so he’d know.

Maybe he’d realise she knew nothing about French kissing. That would be awful. He’d think she was a stupid kid. What if she did the wrong thing? Not that she knew what the
right
thing was, but there was bound to be a wrong thing.

It was all so confusing. And where would you put your hands? Jess had thought about this in bed at night, letting her pillow be Ian so she could try out how it all worked. If he put his arms around her, where was she supposed to put
her
arms? She didn’t want him to get a dead arm where she’d lain against it.

The song finished and Jess flicked the remote to play it again. She closed her eyes and decided to forget about the annoying details. If she tried very hard, she could be back in that fantasy place where Ian was telling her he loved her and couldn’t live without her before he kissed her. Then she wouldn’t have to think about Mum and Dad and them getting a divorce.

The Easter holidays limped to a close with nobody in the Barton household communicating with anybody else. Jess had spent most of the time in her bedroom and made study timetables in her diary, using coloured highlighter pens to mark out sections of the day.

An article the school had photocopied for all exam-year students suggested getting up early every morning to start revising by half nine. Apart from lunch—which Jess preferred to eat in her room anyhow—the article suggested two fifteen-minute breaks every day. Jess took the breaks when she knew there was nobody else in the kitchen, so she could make a flask of coffee and take it back upstairs with her. Coffee was on the “avoid” list in the revision guide, but Jess reckoned that nobody could put in an eight-hour day without some caffeine. Keeping her mind on studying wasn’t easy, though. In the pit of her stomach, there was the gnawing awareness of all that was wrong in her family.

Tom, giving himself no time off, set up camp in the dining room, covering the table with the plans for the new school sports hall and having long phone conversations with engineers and architects. Abby, who sat in her study and tried to work on ideas for her decluttering talk at the Ideal House show, wondered if a school extension could really need that much forward planning, or if Tom was just keeping busy so he could keep out of her way.

The icy atmosphere continued after the holidays, with Jess revising nonstop and Tom home late every night.