School Run (12 page)

‘Nick,’ said Amber, walking in briskly. ‘I’m ready to see you now.’

He followed her into their usual room and sat down reluctantly.

‘Sorry I had to cancel yesterday,’ she said.

He waved his hand, dismissively.

‘Now, how have we been doing?’

‘We’? How patronising was that?

Amber looked down at the notes on her expansive lap; the lower half of her body was shrouded in a shapeless black cheesecloth skirt. ‘Last week we ended when you were telling me that your daughter disapproved of your girlfriend.’ She put down her pen and looked at him almost coquettishly. ‘How important is it to you, Nick, to have female company?’

God, this was embarrassing. ‘Well, I’m not some sex maniac, if that’s what you think.’

Her face remained impassive.

‘And for over a year I wasn’t ready for another relationship. But now I’m aware that I miss certain things. Not just the physical bit but the warm feeling that comes from talking to someone who knows what you’re going to say before you say it. Yet I can’t hurt Julie. I feel guilty enough as it is.’

‘Guilty?’ Amber frowned. ‘In the last session you also said that, in your view, you had helped to kill your wife.’ She glanced at her notes. ‘You hadn’t “physically killed her” but your “attitude precipitated her death”.’

God, thought Nick, appalled. Had she written all that down? Would it – could it? – ever be used against him? ‘Well, in a way, I did.’

‘Why do you think that?’

Nick sighed. ‘I’ve told you. Juliana took a break from modelling after our daughter was born. Said she was sick of it. Then she decided she wanted to go back. By then she’d been out of it for over six years. She was older and none of the agencies wanted to take her on. Then a new one said they’d consider her if she lost some weight. I told her that was stupid, that she was slim without being skinny, but she kept going on and on about it.’

Nick stopped. He put his hands over his eyes to shut out Amber so that he could pretend the world didn’t exist. Even now, he couldn’t believe he had been so crass, so thoughtless.

‘And what happened then?’

Amber’s voice had a quiet authority he hadn’t heard before. Nick lifted his head. ‘One evening, when she kept insisting she was too fat to go back to work, I snapped. I said – oh, God – “If you feel that way, do something about it instead of wearing us all down”.’

He rubbed his eyes, staring at Amber pleadingly, willing her face to soften. ‘She’d got on my nerves. Awful, isn’t it? But when someone talks about nothing else all the time, it finishes you off and, I don’t know, I was tired with work and tired when I got back.’

‘And then?’

What was this? Bloody
Desert Island Discs
? ‘Then she stopped eating.’ He’d been crazy to hope that Amber would understand. No one could. ‘Well, anything that had calories. She lived on apples. Then pineapples because she’d read they broke down the fat she didn’t have. Not bananas. And not one ounce of flour or butter or pasta or anything else. She got so thin it was painful.’ Nick swallowed the lump that was blocking his throat, threatening to stop him breathing. ‘She was tired all the time but wouldn’t see the doctor. I’d make appointments for her but she refused to go. Then I’d find her in the kitchen in the middle of the night, cramming food into her mouth so it dribbled down her chin. After that I’d hear her retching in the loo. The bulimic stage lasted only three months. Then she stopped eating. Well, anything of substance.’ His voice wobbled. ‘She lost three stone in six months.’

‘So that’s why you think you killed her?’ Amber’s voice was flat. Like a weather report.

Nick stared at her. ‘I put the idea into her head. And now I’m terrified in case Julie finds out exactly how her mother died and stops eating too.’

‘What do you mean, “how she died”? What happened?’

Nick tried to talk but the words wouldn’t come out. Amber spoke again: ‘Why does it scare you that Julie might find out?’

Nick stood up, almost knocking over his chair. ‘Because she didn’t know her mother had anorexia – I said she died of cancer because I was scared Julie would stop eating. Look, Amber, I’m sorry but this isn’t working. You don’t understand and you’re driving me crazy with your rubbish about giving me gifts and saying, “Why?” all the time. Juliana is dead and it’s my fault. And nothing you can sodding say is going to help me accept that.’

He strode to the door and turned. Amber looked shocked and, for a second, he was pleased. ‘Don’t you want to finish your session?’ she asked, almost like a child with the Alice band that was too young for her middle-aged, frown-dented forehead.

‘What does it look like? Frankly, Amber, as a counsellor you’re hopeless. In fact, I’d say you were in the wrong job.’

He slammed the door and walked down the stairs, out into the daylight and back to normality. Had he been too hard on her? Maybe. But it was true: she
had
been hopeless in that she had made him feel worse about this whole bloody mess instead of helping him reach his own conclusions, as counselling was meant to do.

For a few minutes, Nick walked up and down the high street, trying to regain his composure. All around him, there were normal people. A woman with a pushchair and a waist so wide it wobbled under her shapeless skirt, but who, judging from the way she was smiling at her child, didn’t seem worried about her appearance. A young couple, arms entwined, who almost walked into him. A scruffy woman in a pink coat, who handed him a leaflet that he folded and put into his pocket. If he had had more patience with Juliana, if he had taken the time to make her feel better about herself, he might have been walking down this street with her now.

It was only the realisation that his parking ticket would soon expire that made him return to the car. Miserably, he fumbled in his jacket pocket for his car keys. His hands felt the phone, bigger and bulkier than his own, which he must have put it into his pocket when he was helping Harriet with her bag. He could turn it on to see if he could find her home number, but that seemed like an invasion of privacy. Slowly he put it back into his pocket. With any luck, he’d see her tomorrow on the school run and be able to give it back.

11

EVIE

‘. . . and the siege in Ohio continues. It’s eight forty a.m.

According to a new survey, families spend more on travel costs than on food or entertainment. The average adult forks out sixty pounds a week on petrol or public transport . . .’

Interesting. Evie made a note on her iPhone as she revved the engine on the Pargeters’ immaculately swept gravel drive, which boasted two ostentatious and unnecessary lamp posts by the stone steps that led up to the front door.

‘Where Does Your Money Really Go?’ might make a good feature. Her readers would consider sixty quid a lot of money but, frankly, she was surprised it wasn’t more. She and Robin spent more than that on drink each week. The radio was always good at sparking feature ideas. And for taking her mind off the problems in the back.

‘Come
on
,’ she said, drumming her freshly manicured fingers on the steering wheel. She was tempted to hoot. Martine was always late getting the kids ready when it was Evie’s turn to pick up Josh and Alice. Bloody cheek, especially when Simon and Sally were, no doubt, sleeping off yesterday afternoon’s performance, blissfully oblivious to the chaos below. School runs could only work when everyone stuck to their schedule and was in the right place at the right time. And if Simon and Sally couldn’t cope with that, they should learn to.

Where
were
they? Impatiently, she turned up the radio. Evie’s own life was so busy, especially when the girls were with her, that she hated wasting even a minute when she could be doing something else.

‘According to a report by the Association of Building Societies, over eighty per cent of women say they are happier after divorce or separation compared with fifty-three per cent of men. The Association interviewed nearly two thousand men and women all over the country.’

Another good idea, mused Evie, reaching for her iPhone again. In her experience, women were usually better at making changes in their lives and coping with them. Definitely a feature. Just as there was another about men who couldn’t find things in the house. She’d almost been late this morning because Robin couldn’t unearth a clean shirt. Even though he had all day to find it himself, he still needed her help. Ridiculous! Some men needed a map to get to the linen cupboard – just as Martine clearly needed a stopwatch to get the kids out of the house.

Right, that was it. She was going to get out of the car and see where the hell they were!

‘Here they come,’ said Leonora.

If there was one thing that stirred the twins out of their early-morning lethargy, it was picking up Josh and Alice: they might spot one of their famous parents. Leonora, Evie knew, nursed secret hopes of being a television presenter herself on one of the inarticulate teen programmes that dominated early evening television. Sally had fuelled her hopes when she had airily promised to find her a work experience placement when she was older.

‘I am so regretting,’ said Martine, bustling out behind the children. ‘Alice she will not get up. Your music, Josh, where it is?’

‘B-b-bugger. It’s in the m-m-music room.’

Evie raised her recently waxed eyebrows, both at the swear word and the existence of a music room. Poor kid. His stutter was getting worse, despite the treatment he was having. ‘Run and get it, then,’ she said, firmly but kindly, ‘or we’re going to hit all the traffic. Come on, Alice, in you hop. Strop yourself in next to Jack – I mean “strap”.’

A Freudian slip if ever there was one, she thought, as she waited for them to get in, then crunched down the drive and waited again, this time for the huge black electronic gates to open. Sod Martine. She’d forgotten to press the release button.

This time she
was
going to hoot.

‘You’ll wake up Mummy,’ said Alice. ‘We’re not meant to make a noise in the morning.’

‘Then your au pair ought to remember to do the gate,’ retorted Evie, hand on horn.

At last! Evie swung the Discovery through, just missing the right-hand gate, which seemed out of synch with the left.

Natalie whistled. Evie ignored her. She had enough to worry about without another battle with her step-daughters. For a start, she was still livid with Robin. How could he have forgotten to pick up the kids last night?

‘Anything could have happened to them,’ she had raved, when she’d got back from a late-night meeting and discovered what had happened. ‘What’s got into you, Robin? It’s not as though you’ve got much else to do.’

OK. She shouldn’t have said that. Not when redundancy was the new impotency. But it had just come out of her big mouth and now it was too late to suck it back in.

Slowly Robin opened the bottle of Chardonnay. ‘Actually, I had an interview. Remember?’

She hadn’t. ‘How did it go?’

‘They’re going to let me know.’

They were always going to let him know. And when they did, he would spend weeks applying for more jobs that would eventually let him know. In that knowledge, they had spent last night as far apart from each other as their double bed would allow. Usually, at some point, Robin would reach out for her and clasp her to him. Last night he hadn’t bothered.

Even in our sleep we’re growing apart, thought Evie, wistfully. Despite its sadness, the phrase had a good ring to it. Maybe a coverline. But first she had the conference with Bulmer to get through – the one that should have happened yesterday but which he had cancelled at the last minute. Evie knew why. He was trying to unnerve her. Well, let him. He might be the publisher but he couldn’t scare her with his ABC figures.
Just For You
was all over the place. It screamed its presence at the top of the stands in Smith’s. It was an intelligent, interesting glossy, and it was her baby. She’d show him.

‘F-f-fuck.’

Evie turned, eyes flashing. ‘Josh, I won’t have that word in this car. Jack will pick it up.’

‘Fuck, Fuck,’ chanted Jack. Leonora giggled.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Natalie.

‘D-d-did anyone pick up the v-v-violin when Martine got it out of the music room?’

‘No,’ said Evie, ‘because we’re not your servants. As it was, we had to wait while you got your music.’ She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that, as she would to her own, in case he told his parents. But, really, that boy was impossible.

‘In that c-c-case,’ said Josh, cheerfully, ‘I m-m-must have left it on the drive. C-c-can we go back?’

‘No,’ snapped Evie. ‘We can’t. I am not your father’s chauffeur. I have an important meeting to get to and I haven’t got time to chase up things you are old enough to be responsible for yourself.’

‘That’s
so
rude, Evie,’ said Leonora, disapprovingly.

‘Tough. I’m sorry, Josh, but you’ll just have to explain to your music teacher that you left your violin behind. Maybe it will teach you to be more organised.’

‘You m-m-mean, teach M-M-Martine.’