Other People's Husbands (25 page)

‘Um . . . hi,' Cassandra said, feeling a bit lame.

‘Yeah . . . right. You know him well, then?'

‘What, Xav? Oh, yeah . . .' She didn't want to say he was the cleaner at her house. That would sound so middle class and horribly posh. ‘He's a friend of my sister.'

‘CASSANDRA!' Pandora was leaning so far over the bar that she almost catapulted herself between the two of them.

‘What? What have I done?' Cass demanded.

‘I want a word with you. Over here.'

‘Can't it wait?'

‘Can I get you another drink?' Josh interrupted. ‘What was it? Another beer?' He looked at Pandora, expecting an offer of service, which wasn't, Cassandra could see, very likely to happen.

‘
Now
please, Cassandra!'

‘Ooh I'm in trouble!' Cass giggled. ‘She only calls me that when I've done something wrong!' She followed Pandora further along the bar, leaving Josh looking confused.

‘
What?
I'm having fun here, can't whatever it is wait?' she hissed at her sister.

‘No. Look, I just wanted to say, don't forget you're like
with someone
. Don't muck up the Paul thing completely, not without talking to him and working it through. Don't start playing the field just for the sake of it.'

Cass stared at her, trying to work out why her sister was interfering suddenly. ‘Panda, what's it got to do with you? I've only just met this guy. I'm not about to run off and sleep with him. He's probably just another Mr Hopeless. World's full of them.'

‘Yes it is. But stop bloody looking for Mr Perfect. You can waste a whole lifetime on that. Work on what you've got.' Pandora looked across the bar to where the pub manager was beckoning. ‘Gotta go; customers. I'll never make it to day two in the job at this rate. Look, go home, Cass. Phone Paul, talk to him for fucksake before you screw it all up for good.'

‘
Me
screw it up? God that's rich!'

Cass stormed away from her, back to Josh. ‘Yes, please Josh . . . another beer would be good. Pandora?' she called across the bar. ‘When you've got a minute, darling sister!'

‘OK, will do!' Pandora smiled at her sweetly. ‘So long as you're sure you've got time – what time did you tell the babysitter you'd be back?'

‘Babysitter?' Josh asked, looking alarmed. ‘You've got a
baby
?'

‘I haven't got a babysitter!' she protested. ‘As Panda knows quite well. Well, not a babysitter
exactly
.'

‘Oh, didn't she tell you about little Charlie?' Pandora didn't miss a beat with her drinks pouring, managing two pumps at once and quickly turning to the optics to whack two shots of vodka into a glass for a customer. ‘Oh yes, she's a fantastic mother, Cass. Charlie's
so
sweet!'

‘Well thanks, Pandora,' Cassandra said as Josh made a feeble excuse about forgetting he'd said he'd meet a mate. ‘Don't imagine I'll forget this in a hurry.'

‘That went well. Not.' Pandora felt terrible. She leaned on the bar and covered her face with her hands so she wouldn't have to see the door still swinging where Cassandra had stormed out so furiously. Josh seemed to have melted back into the depths of the pub.

‘What was all that about?' Xavier asked. ‘Was there some kind of row? Josh quite fancied her.'

So simple for boys, Panda thought: they fancy, they go for. A bit like animals. They don't ask if there might be any obstacles in the way, and why should they? And Charlie wasn't exactly an obstacle. Nor might Josh have thought he was one either, which was exactly the problem. If Josh was cool about Cass having a baby, where would that leave Paul?

‘My fault.' She sighed. ‘I'm
so
stupid. There was something I really needed to talk to her about, but I haven't found the moment. Now
definitely
wasn't it but I panicked because she was giving your friend Josh what our girly secret pulling code used to call the sugar smile. Now I've screwed it up for her and she'll never listen to me again. Probably never even
speak
to me again. How stupid am I?'

‘What was it you needed to tell her? Was it about Charlie's father, the one she's not living with any more?' He laughed. ‘I work in your house, remember. I don't miss much.'

‘You don't, do you?' She felt quivery suddenly. It all seemed a bit odd – this was the guy who whizzed round her bedroom with a duster and the Dyson. He'd emptied the tumble dryer the other day and left her underwear folded neatly on the bed. Perhaps he was wondering if tonight she was wearing the pink knickers with the white hearts. She was.

She told him, ‘Look, the boss is letting me off the after-hours clearing, seeing as it's my first day. Maybe I should go home and sort it out with Cass.'

‘Shame.' He looked disappointed. ‘I'd thought maybe we could go back to mine . . . ?'

‘Oh! You sure? Well, yes that would be, um . . . nice.' Was this where he became reunited with the heart knickers or was it a just-friends coffee and music situation? She was more up for the second option than the first. Otherwise wasn't it all a bit fast?

‘Oh but Cass has left Jasper here!' she realized. ‘I suppose I ought to take care of him. And I must phone her too . . . got stuff to say. Like sorry, for one thing. That would be the place to start.'

Pandora looked across at the window seat, where Jasper seemed comfortable enough. He now had his arm round the blood-hair girl and was snuggled up close, though whether that was through lack of space or not, it was hard to tell. Did he really want her to play bossy big cousin? Definitely not. He knew the way back to the house . . . he'd be OK.

‘Actually, I'll leave him with his new mates. They might be going on somewhere too. I'll tell him we're going.'

Xavier was smiling at her. The sugar smile.

Sara took two mugs of coffee out to the pool terrace. Conrad was in the pool, floating naked on his back with his eyes closed. Apart from the occasional volley of shots from the gun club across the river, all was very peaceful.

‘It's nearly eleven,' she said to him. ‘There's no sign of Panda and I'm sure she said she's got another shift at the pub today. I'll go down to the studio and wake her and anyway, I want to get in there to sort out my paintings.'

‘If she's late, it's her own responsibility, not yours,' Conrad said grumpily. He opened his eyes and blinked hard in the bright sunlight.

‘I
know
it's her responsibility. But there's nothing wrong with being kind is there? Why should I leave her to be late when I can help out?'

‘And only yesterday you were complaining about being put on,' Conrad reminded her.

Sara walked down to the studio and wasn't surprised to find it locked. Pandora had been used to living in an area where you took personal security very seriously. She hadn't got the keys with her so she knocked on the door, breathing in fresh dewy morning air and the scent of new plant life. The delphiniums that seeded themselves at this woodsy, neglected end of the garden were beginning to flower. She deadheaded a few of the bluebells and waited for Pandora to wake up. The pile of ash and half-burned timber where Conrad had set the remains of the tree house on fire was almost invisible now. Early that morning, Jasper had dealt with the worst of it, breaking up the least charred wood for future use as kindling for the log fire in the house, and raking the remnants of ash over the grass.

There was no movement from the studio and it gave out a blank silence, in the way that Ben's house had when it had been unoccupied. But just in case, Sara decided she'd phone Pandora's mobile from the house. Panda was easily capable of sleeping right through any amount of door banging or an alarm clock.

‘She'll have to grow up sometime and be responsible for herself.' Conrad was still being negative as Sara came back to the terrace. He was out of the pool now and lying on a lounger with a towel round him. ‘She's got by on her own for the past few years. Why go back to mummying her now?'

‘Mummying who?' Pandora, wearing last night's clothes, breezed in through the side gate. ‘I don't mind you mummying me if it means a bacon sandwich is on offer!'

‘Panda! Have you just come home from last night?' Sara asked her. ‘You look a bit . . .'What would be a word that was acceptable, she wondered. She settled on ‘dishevelled'. ‘Thoroughly rogered' would be a piece of honest observation too far to a daughter.

‘Um . . . er yes. Walk of shame in last night's clothes, that's me,' Pandora admitted, blushing a bit. ‘It's OK, I only stayed over at Xav's. I'll just go and grab a shower. Got to go to work later.'

‘Dirty stop-out,' Conrad chuckled as she went into the house. ‘But at least she looks happy. She hasn't looked like that since the stupid Ollie boy went off travelling.'

‘I'm not going to say they treat the place like a hotel, because I don't mind how they come and go,' Sara said. ‘But I do wish they'd call and tell someone if they're not coming home. Pandora last night; Lizzie before. I just think we should know who is here.'

‘Why?' Conrad asked. ‘What does it have to do with us? They're all grown-ups. Especially your bloody sister, though in her case it's a term that only applies to years lived.'

‘It's a simple safety thing. In case of . . . say a fire or something. Use your imagination, Conrad, I mean someone could die trying to find a person if the house burned down. Think of that, if whoever it was hadn't even come home but hadn't bothered to let anyone know. This is basic stuff.'

‘Fire. I wondered when we'd come to that. You've been dying to say something, haven't you? I'm surprised it took this long. OK so I burned the tree house. I just felt like it, all right? It was no big deal; it was completely rotten, practically fell down in my hands. Actually,' he smiled suddenly, his face brighter than she'd seen it for a while, ‘it felt wonderful! That great blaze! You should have photographed it for your Elements class, Sara, shown your students what you can achieve in a suburban garden with some old wood and a can of fuel.'

‘You could have killed yourself,' she said, then wished she hadn't. She went and sat beside him on the lounger. He didn't make a move to hug her, to touch her as he normally would. What was going on? Was
not living
really the thing he was claiming to aim at now? Was he starting some sort of grisly process of withdrawing from her? If there was a personality type for suicide, she definitely wouldn't have had Conrad down as a candidate. Well, never before, anyway.

‘No I couldn't,' he said. ‘I told you. I don't want to burn to death. No one in their right mind would.'

‘Right mind. Exactly,' she said. ‘But . . . are you sure you're completely in yours, Conrad? I was wondering, and please don't take this the wrong way. Do you think it might be a good idea to
see
someone about how you've been feeling lately?'

He looked at Sara as if she was the crazy one here. ‘What, some shrink? Someone who can say what, exactly? Because they don't say
anything
much, you know, at these sessions. They're only supposed to listen. And to what? To me ranting on that I think the descent into old age is over-rated and to be avoided by anyone sane? Then I would have to listen to whichever thirty-something idiot I've got across the desk telling me, “It's all right to feel like that.” Like I need permission? No thanks. Who can
know
what it's like, unless they're also facing the same thing?'

He seemed so angry. What was going on here? Sara looked at him and felt a surge of love and sorrow.

‘Come and walk Floss with me,' she suggested, kissing him lightly. ‘Let's take her out somewhere different. What about Oxshott Woods?' A big place, the Woods, she thought. They'd have plenty of time to turn this weird atmosphere back to something more comfortable. There'd been a definite shift since she'd told him about the exhibition. And Ben. She tried to forget the taste of Ben on her tongue. Even the most fleeting thought of it sent adrenalin flooding her bloodstream. She both loved and hated the feeling. Where was the guilt? She very much wanted it to be there, to make her feel grounded again. This felt so horribly unsafe. Well, it
was
.

‘No – not this morning, thanks.' Conrad was turning her down, and rather coldly, in her opinion. ‘I've got other plans. They do include the dog, as it happens, but also Jasper. I'm going to take him out and tell him some words of wisdom about that great mythical thing called “Art”.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Conrad, why are you being so
mardy
? Just . . . do whatever you want. I'd love to know what I've done to make you turn like this but I'll leave you to tell me in your own time.' Sara had run out of patience. In the distance, somewhere in the house, she heard her mobile phone ringing.

Cassandra drove up the hill towards the flat and parked under the horse chestnut tree outside the block. It wasn't that long since she'd last been at the place, but the tree had gone from pale leaf to full-scale flowering in the time.

She took her time getting Charlie out of the car, putting off the moment of facing Paul. She knew it was the right thing to do, Panda had been right, much as – after the fracas in the pub – she'd been reluctant to admit it. The baby was sleeping in his seat, squashed down into a position that looked horribly uncomfortable.

‘Hey, let me give you a hand.' Paul was beside her, taking Charlie from her and smiling down at his son. He must have been watching for her car, hanging about at the window as if he was really anxious. Cass tried to feel irritated by this – who needs that much dependence? But all she could feel was quite deeply touched.