Out of My Depth (20 page)

Amanda was back in bed. She had walked around the house very early in the morning, and helped herself to a cup of coffee, but then she noticed signs that Susie might have been around recently, so she retreated. Someone had opened the shutters leading to the front garden, and there was a glass of icy water on the table outside.

Now, she leaned out of the open window and tried to imbibe some country tranquillity. Patrick was pretending to be asleep, but she could tell from his breathing that he was awake. He didn’t want to talk to her, that was all.

She was pleased not to have a hangover. Last night had not been a particularly heavy one, alcohol wise. She hadn’t been properly drunk for ages. Maybe tonight.

Today she might relax a little. When Patrick woke up, she would tell him that he was on child duty all day. It was only fair. She had them all the time. The school holidays had started three weeks ago and there were still five weeks left to go. That was the trouble with private bloody schools. They didn’t give you your money’s worth in terms of childcare time. Amanda knew that the only thing she liked less than doing the school run all the time was not doing it, and having the children under her feet all day. They ate all her biscuits, and she couldn’t get to the gym, and they trailed round the shops with her, sliding chunky KitKats and comics into the trolley when she wasn’t looking. Jake was going to some music camp for a week later in August, and Freya had about three hundred sleepovers planned, but that was it. Amanda was going to have to host one of the blasted sleepovers, with all the headaches and responsibility that entailed. Yes. Today was going to be her day. They would let the children sleep in, and then, later, Patrick could take them for a walk or something. Izzy and Sam might go somewhere with them. She was going to station herself by the pool and read all the magazines she had brought with her.

Amanda was hungry, so perhaps in that sense she was slightly hungover. She had drunk water and coffee already, and what she really needed was a large, carbohydrate-packed breakfast. France, of course, did not generally provide Full Englishes, but Susie would surely be rustling something up.

She leaned on the window sill and looked up and down the narrow road. A figure was approaching the house at a brisk jog. Amanda’s heart sank and her mood changed as she recognised her former best friend, out for an early morning run. She looked at Susie’s tiny ribcage, enclosed in a tight white vest, and at her legs, skinny but shapely in lycra shorts. ‘Witch,’ she muttered, surprised at the strength of her own feeling. Amanda did go to the gym every week day, but she knew she barely did herself any good by it. She generally spent twenty-five minutes reading the Mail on an exercise bike, then had a quick swim and a sauna. She knew that she was getting lazier on the bike. Sometimes, a member of the gym staff would offer her an appointment to reassess her programme. She always refused without meeting their eyes, and she bristled at the implication that she was lazy.

She gazed at Susie as objectively as she could. Susie’s legs were small and toned. Her body seemed tiny, which was odd, since Amanda had always taken comfort from the fact that Susie was ‘big boned’.

‘It’s not her,’ Amanda murmured, realising the truth. ‘It’s me.’

She glowered and turned to Patrick’s prone form, ready for a fight.

Susie smiled round the breakfast table.

‘Where are . . .’ she hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘The children?’ she finished.

‘Jake and Freya?’ Amanda asked, pointedly. ‘They haven’t put in an appearance yet. They’re sleeping.’

‘Just hit that age when they start to sleep in,’ Patrick said, addressing the table. ‘Bless them! Took us eight years to get there but we get lie-ins now. Finally!’

Izzy smiled at Sam, who, Amanda noticed, was shovelling Frosties into his mouth as quickly as he could, giving his mother nervous sideways glances. ‘That must be nice,’ Izzy said.

‘Makes no difference to me,’ Amanda said briskly. ‘I’m an early riser. I was up before six this morning.’

Izzy looked surprised. ‘That’s before five in English time! And we went to bed after midnight. Blimey! I feel tired because Sam came into bed with me at half seven, and even then we both went back to sleep. You must be shattered!’

Amanda gave Izzy her biggest, fakest smile, pleased with this. ‘Not at all! I’m usually up at five. It’s just the way I am.’

‘Really?’ Amanda noticed that Izzy and Susie were looking at each other.

‘You used to sleep till half past twelve on weekends,’ Susie reminded her. ‘You said you didn’t believe in mornings.’

‘And at the beginning of term,’ Izzy added, ‘it took you two weeks to adjust. You said it was jet lag. Because for the whole of the holidays you’d been getting up later and later, until you were living on Australian time.’

Amanda looked at her bowl. She tipped it up to catch the last of the milk on her spoon, and willed them all to stop talking. It was too late; Patrick had picked up on it.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked with a laugh. ‘I met Amanda when she was nineteen, and she was up with the lark every day. For the first six months I was with her, I was perpetually thinking I’d been dumped, because I’d wake up to an empty bed. I’d be nursing my broken heart and collecting all my things together when she’d skip back in, bearing a bag of croissants. Got me every time.’ He looked at his wife. ‘Still does, occasionally. So, is that right? At eighteen you were sleeping the day away? At nineteen you were up with the lark? What happened?’

Amanda and Susie met each other’s eyes for a fraction of a second. They both looked away as quickly as they could. Izzy turned to Sam and noticed that he was not eating Corn Flakes, as she had supposed. She shook her head. It was too late to do anything about that now. The thought occupied the crucial seconds before everyone regained their composure.

‘I grew up,’ Amanda said in her briskest voice. ‘Where’s Tamsin?’

‘Still sleeping, probably,’ Izzy said quickly. ‘Getting into the holiday spirit.’ Her smile was forced.

They were finishing the croissants when they heard panting and heavy footsteps on the terrace. Freya appeared in the door frame, closely followed by Jake. She ran across the dining room to her mother. Her shorts and T-shirt, both yellow, were dripping wet and she left muddy footprints on the floor. Her face was red, her eyes were bloodshot, and her breathing was laboured.

‘He drowned me!’ she cried, pointing a dramatic finger at her brother.

Patrick raised his eyebrows. ‘He didn’t, happily,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

Izzy looked at Jake. He was soaked, too. ‘We thought you were still in bed,’ she told him. He smiled back at her in genuine pleasure at having fooled the grown-ups.

‘Jake drowned me,’ Freya repeated.

‘She drowned me first,’ Jake said, serenely.

Amanda got to her feet. Are you two telling me,’ she began, ominously, ‘that you have been in the swimming pool? With your clothes on? Without telling anyone where you were going?’

Freya took a step back.

‘You could have drowned. And we wouldn’t have known anything about it because we all thought you were asleep. I am very, very angry with the pair of you. You stupid, stupid bloody children!’

Jake and Freya backed away from their mother in the direction of the staircase. As they eased themselves out of the dining room, they both said, ‘Sorry.’

There was silence as the adults listened to the sound of their feet running up the oak stairs. Amanda got up and started to follow. Then she stopped.

‘Oh, what the fuck?’ she said. ‘I can’t be arsed.’ She looked at Patrick. ‘You go. Make sure they don’t leave their wet things on Susie’s lovely floorboards. And then someone needs to clean this up.’ She gestured imperiously to the wet trail they had left behind them, hoping that she was making it clear that the someone in question was not going to be her.

After Patrick left the room, she put her head in her hands.

‘Jesus, Susie,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the right idea. Don’t have them. They’re swine.’

‘I know,’ Susie said. She lowered her voice. ‘Hey. Tamsin’s not up. Roman’s shopping. Patrick’s upstairs. We need to talk. You might not agree with me, but . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I can’t bear this. I think we need to tell Tamsin. I can’t listen to her any more . . . she practically apologised to us. How can we live with ourselves?’

Izzy coughed, choking a little on her coffee. Amanda’s heart started racing. Her palms tingled. Her legs went to jelly. She did not want to have this conversation. She wanted to put her fingers in her ears and sing as loudly as she could.

‘Sam,’ said Izzy, urgently. ‘Do you want to go outside? Don’t go near the pool, though. Go and play on the grass.’

Sam shook his head.

Susie leaned towards him and put on a sing-song baby voice.

‘Would you like to watch a bit of telly?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got lots of English channels and I’m sure we could find something you wanted.’

Sam held her gaze. ‘Have you got CBeebies? Or Nick Jr?’

She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Let’s go and have a look, shall we?’ Amanda noticed Susie wobbling as she left the room.

To Amanda’s dismay, she reappeared almost at once.

‘Dora the Explorer?’ she said to Izzy. ‘Mean anything to you?’

‘That’s great,’ Izzy replied. She looked pale. ‘One of his favourites,’ she added, fiddling with Sam’s cereal bowl, pushing limp Frosties around it with the spoon. Amanda started shredding a croissant, slowly and methodically.

‘The thing is,’ she said, in a hard voice, ‘that what you’re talking about is water under the bridge. What could anybody gain from a confession?’

‘I don’t know.’ Susie, Amanda thought, looked as if she could cry. ‘We won’t know till we do it. And we have to. The whole reason I decided . . .’ She broke off as Tamsin came into the room. For a second, Amanda was terrified that Susie was about to turn to Tamsin and tell her everything. She held her breath, but Susie continued smoothly. ‘The whole reason I decided to take you to this particular town this morning is because it’s market day there, but of course if anybody would like to stay behind, or to do something different . . .’ She spread her hands out. ‘Morning, Tamsin,’ she said, with a weak smile.

‘I’d love to go to market,’ Tamsin said happily. ‘Am I too late for breakfast?’ She looked at the table. ‘Amanda, you do know you’re supposed to eat them, not dismember them?’

Amanda looked at the croissant in front of her. ‘Uh-huh,’ she said vaguely. ‘If you eat it in tiny pieces you don’t get as many calories.’ She picked up a piece and dipped it in her coffee. ‘Mmm,’ she said, pantomiming. ‘Yummy.’

Tamsin laughed and sat down next to Izzy, pushing Sam’s cereal bowl away. She took a croissant from the basket in the middle of the table. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Market? Sounds nice. How far away is it? How did everyone sleep?’

‘Great, thanks,’ said Izzy.

‘Mmmm,’ said Amanda. ‘Not bad.’

‘I slept fine,’ said Susie.

Amanda snorted. ‘You were up before me, you liar. I saw you running.’ She was relieved to be on safe ground, and vowed to keep the conversation as trivial as she possibly could.

Susie shrugged. She looked pleased to have been caught out. ‘I always run. I don’t give myself the choice. At this time of year it’s only the early mornings that work because it’s too hot. You wouldn’t catch me running when it’s forty degrees. But first thing in the morning it’s brilliant. It gives you the energy to start the day, and it’s a guaranteed hangover cure.’

‘Bloody hell, Susie,’ Tamsin said, mildly. ‘You’re nuts. You used to do anything to get out of PE.’

‘We all did,’ Izzy said. ‘Remember the Slackers’ Society?’

In spite of everything, they all grinned.

‘Of course I remember the Slackers,’ said Susie, primly. ‘I also remember my huge arse and my jelly belly. Thank you very much, but I think I’m better off without them.’

Amanda caught Susie looking at her, and looking quickly away. She knew what that look meant. It meant, you’re fat and I’m thin. She raged inwardly. She should never have come here, and now she was stuck until tomorrow. Suddenly, the big house felt like a nightmare world, somewhere where the worst thing she had ever done was coming back to haunt her, somewhere where she had got fat and Susie had got thin. She knew that Susie was going to tell Tamsin. Tamsin was going to find out that she and Susie had killed her mother.

Amanda stood up, suddenly.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, and hurried to the bathroom. She closed the dining room door on the way, and locked the bathroom door carefully. She knelt down and stuck her fingers right down her throat. It was something she had not done for years. Her fingertips went as far as they could, before her hand got stuck at her mouth. She had overcome the gag reflex years ago, and she was interested to note that it had not come back. She could only gag when it was going to be productive.

Her breakfast came up easily. Acidic coffee, gloopy croissant, bits of red jam. She tasted the sicky buttery taste as it came back up. She repeated the exercise, tears in her eyes. Then she did it again, to be sure her stomach was empty. She let the tears come.

She could have been somebody different. She could have been brave and let herself have a proper relationship with Dai. She could have done so much, could have been strong, could have been a different woman. If she and Suzii had not been directly responsible for Mrs Grey’s death, her life might have been worth something. As it was, despite her marriage and children, she had cowered passively. She was waiting for it to end.