The Foster Husband (34 page)

Across the tube carriage I could see a man looking at me, checking out my legs in the short dress I was wearing. It was nearly too cold to get away with not wearing tights, and a little voice in
the back of my head warned me that bare legs and high heels looked more than a little slutty, but I wanted to be looked at. I’d had enough of being invisible. I stared back at the man, who
quickly looked back at his newspaper, probably alarmed by the challenge and confrontation in my face. See, Matt? I thought. Other men find me attractive. Other men don’t ignore me. True, I
seemed to have terrified this man rather than enticed him, but I didn’t care.

I had fortified myself with a large vodka and tonic before I left the house, and the unaccustomed alcohol coursing through my bloodstream had given me a dose of confidence to match my rage. Why
had I ever stopped drinking? I had forgotten how alcohol loosened me up, made me feel as though I had something to say, like I was someone. And it wasn’t as if giving it up had made any
difference to trying to get pregnant.

I squashed that thought down. I was going out to forget all about it. Except, I suddenly remembered, I still had the pregnancy test packaging in my handbag. I would have to get rid of it as soon
as possible.

Stepping out from the underground into the chaos of Leicester Square made my confidence waver momentarily. Everyone was moving so fast; there were too many people crowding around the tube exit,
pushing and shouting. Young, anoraked men outside the station tried to push free magazines into my hand. Music blared from a stretch limo that was pulled up by the pavement. I was shocked to
realize how unaccustomed I was to the pace of the centre of town. Belsize Park was hardly the arse end of nowhere – it was still Zone Two after all – but it was residential, slower. No
one was in a desperate rush on the Heath, or in my local cafe.

I felt as if I’d been recently released from an institution, afraid of the everyday. Once I’d despised tourists, stopping slack-jawed in the middle of the pavement, blocking
everyone’s way with their small-town awe at the bright lights of the city. Now I felt like one of them, hesitant and uncertain.

Come on, Kate, I told myself, squaring my shoulders, and flicking back my hair. Pull yourself together. Remember who you are. That didn’t help. Remember who you used to be, then. That did,
a bit. I ducked back behind the station, avoiding Leicester Square and taking a less busy route through the alleyways of Chinatown. This was more like it. See how I remembered the back streets and
the shortcuts? See how it was all coming back to me with every step I took towards the Crown, towards my old life?

I’d taken the longer route, rather than changing tubes, because I wanted to give myself a few minutes to reacclimatize to Soho, instead of just rocking up to the pub straight away. Walking
through the streets was like going on a tour of my past. Here was the tiny Italian-American diner where Matt and I had sat at the bar for hours drinking Old Fashioneds and ignoring the pointed
stares of the people queuing behind us. Here was the cafe where I used to buy my lunch every day, four salads for a fiver, plus a pitta bread for free if you smiled sweetly enough at Stelios. I
even felt a fond pang of recognition for the sex shops; the same thick-necked bouncers stood outside impassively regarding passers-by.

And yet even in the short time I’d been away there were changes. A long line of hipsters, all coloured jeans and oversized spectacle frames, waited outside a restaurant I’d never
heard of. Further up the road a new bar was already turning people away. Soho was moving on.

Just around the corner from Hitz, I caught sight of myself in the window of Nan’s Fish Bar, the greasy spoon caff where Sarah and I had often retreated for bacon sandwiches and
builders’ tea after a heavy night. I hardly recognized myself out of my usual jeans and sweatshirt. When had I stopped making an effort with how I looked? It had happened almost without my
noticing it. And now that I saw myself as I used to be, striding down a pavement in Soho, with a place to go and people to see, I suddenly missed that girl and the life she’d had. The sadness
of it made me pause.

What if Matt was right? What if I’d gone too far with trying to be the perfect wife, and forgotten about being the person Matt had first fallen in love with? The person I actually was.

I stared at my reflection until it seemed to dissolve in front of my eyes, and found myself looking through the glass and into the cafe.

It was nearly empty of customers, and a waitress was wiping down the tables purposefully, in a manner that suggested closing time was imminent. But there were two customers still there. At a
formica table that was bolted to the wall, on red plastic moulded chairs, sat my best friend and a man. His back was towards me, his head bowed, but I didn’t need to see his face to know it
was Matt. She held one of his hands in hers. There was an intimacy to the way they sat, an understanding that told me this wasn’t the first time they’d met like this.

I thought my heart had stopped. I couldn’t breathe. And then my mouth started to water in the way that means you’re going to be sick. A tremor ran up my legs until my whole body was
shaking. My husband and my best friend – what a fucking cliché! They still hadn’t seen me. I watched as Sarah rubbed her thumb across the back of Matt’s hand. His head was
tilted towards her in that confiding gesture I knew so well.

I opened my bag. There sat the empty package from the pregnancy test. With trembling hands I took it out. Here I was trying to hide my perfectly innocent attempts to have a baby with my husband,
secreting the evidence in my bag as if I was guilty of something terrible, while all along he was the one with something to hide.

The door of Nan’s Fish Bar opened and the waitress came out, carrying a heavy black bin bag that she dropped at the kerb.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

The waitress turned around. Her stringy blonde hair was pulled back into a greasy ponytail, and her entire body seemed to be slumping towards the ground, as if, at the end of her working day,
gravity was too much for her to resist.

‘Yeah?’ She looked at me suspiciously, with narrowed eyes. ‘What?’

‘Could you do me a favour?’ I asked. ‘Could you take this’ – I held out the empty pregnancy test – ‘and give it to those two in there?’

She frowned. ‘Serious? What for?’

‘That man is my husband,’ I said.

Her face lit up with interest and she spun around to look into the window. ‘No!’

I started to shake again. ‘Just, please, give it to them and say it’s from Kate.’

‘That’s all, lovie? You don’t want to go in there and have it out with them? I’d cut his balls off, I would.’

I handed her the packet. ‘What good would that do?’ I asked.

‘I’ll do it!’ said the waitress. ‘Give him this, I mean, I won’t cut his balls off. Not yet anyway. I’ll do it, just you watch me.’

But I didn’t watch. Instead I did what I always do. I ran away. As fast as my heels would let me.

Granny Gilbert’s bungalow is finished at last. Or as finished as it needs to be. I resisted the temptation to spend my savings on the expensive wallpapers and cushions I
indulged in at home in London. Here it’s all neutral and simple, renovated just enough for someone to see the potential, without feeling that it’s been stamped with someone else’s
identity. The finishing touches must be left to the new owner.

Just like Ben.

He still puts the milk back in the fridge when it’s empty, I’ve noticed. That is something to be worked on. He seems to think the toilet brush is some sort of bathroom ornament that
he need not trouble himself with. And he told me we were out of biscuits yesterday, as if it was my responsibility to do something about it. But these are small things. I can’t give him to
Prue entirely knocked into shape. That would be wrong, even if it were possible.

But though the improvements to my foster husband may not be as immediately obvious as those to the bungalow, it’s hard to know which makes me prouder. When the estate agent brings the
first people round for a viewing on Saturday morning – a middle-aged man and his mother – it is Ben who shows them round and offers to make them tea before I can even suggest it. The
mother is visibly impressed, to the point of suggesting, with an acid look at her own son, that if the young man comes with the bungalow she’ll take them both.

The estate agent leaves us, promising he’ll be back for more viewings in a couple of hours. It seems there is an entire list of potential buyers who have been easily seduced by a few coats
of paint and a new bathroom. He has barely left before the front door opens and Prue lets herself in.

‘Since when did you have a key?’ I ask, as she strolls into the living room with the assurance of one who belongs there.

She shrugs. ‘Since I made one. It’s my place, too, don’t forget. I can come in any time I want. Just checking on my investment.’

Prue kisses Ben on the cheek and settles herself next to him on the sofa. It is not immediately clear from her words whether the investment is the bungalow or her future husband. Either way, I
am helping her realize the full potential of both, and either way, she doesn’t seem particularly grateful.

When the doorbell rings, she turns to me in surprise.

‘Who’s that?’

‘What am I, psychic?’ I say, getting up and trying not to trip over Minnie. ‘Maybe the estate agent forgot something.’

But when I go to the door, Mrs Curtis is stood there, beaming with expectation.

‘Oh my dear, I didn’t want to interrupt, only I can’t help having an
interest
in who buys Barbara’s house since they’ll be my new neighbours. Who
was
that sour-looking woman?’

As she speaks, Mrs Curtis edges past me into the house and goes straight to the living room, where Prue and Ben are in the middle of a disagreement about what shoes he will wear with his wedding
suit. Ben doesn’t see the need to buy new ones, but Prue very much does.

‘Prue! What a delightful surprise!’ says Mrs Curtis, as if she is welcoming Prue into her own home instead of inviting herself into mine.

‘Hi, Mrs C,’ says Prue, not getting up from the sofa. ‘Come to cadge a cup of tea off us, have you?’

‘What a lovely idea, thank you. Strong, two sugars.’ Mrs Curtis wilfully ignores Prue’s tone and instead fixes her with a stare that suggests she should get off the sofa and
into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

But Prue is not easily moved. Instead, Ben rises and says he’d be happy to do it. He ambles into the kitchen and we can hear him humming happily to himself as he puts on the kettle. Prue
doesn’t seem to question Ben’s domestic transformation, but Mrs Curtis settles herself in his vacated seat on the sofa and smiles at me approvingly.

‘Well, dear, you certainly do have him well trained. I can only admire it.’

I shake my head at her, but she is too busy leaning over to poke a bony finger into Prue’s thigh.

‘Yes, dear, aren’t you lucky that your sister has worked so hard on your husband-to-be?’

‘What?’ says Prue, flinching from Mrs Curtis’s hand. She rubs at the seam of her white jeans in case Mrs Curtis’s red nails have left a mark.

‘You are funny, Mrs Curtis,’ I say quickly. ‘We’ve been talking about Minnie’s training and I think Mrs Curtis has somehow got it into her head that it’s Ben
I’ve been training. Imagine!’

‘Yes! Imagine!’ says Mrs Curtis, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘As if Ben could learn anything from Kate,’ says Prue. She looks around the newly decorated room, and I can see from her searching expression that she’s just trying to find
fault with it.

‘You’d be surprised,’ I say, suddenly overcome with annoyance. I have worked so hard on the bungalow, and on Ben, and it’s obvious to everyone but her, the direct
beneficiary.

‘I would,’ she agrees, before turning to shout into the kitchen. ‘Ben, can you bring biscuits?’

She kicks off her shoes and leaves them in the middle of the floor. With a sigh I pick them up and move them next to the sofa, out of the way.

‘No biscuits in the living room!’ I say, loud enough for Ben to hear in the kitchen. ‘There are more people coming round in an hour, I don’t want crumbs on the
sofa.’

Prue lifts her chin, challenging. She keeps her eyes on me, but directs her voice at Ben.

‘Biscuits!’

‘I said, no biscuits in the living room. You can eat them in the kitchen if you want to.’

Ben appears in the doorway, wiping his hands on his trousers, looking flustered. His cheeks have gone the mottled red that indicates a rare show of emotion. That or alcohol, but I doubt
he’s had time to neck a bottle of wine in the five minutes he’s been in the kitchen.

‘Ah, Prue, no eating in the living room. It’s a house rule, actually.’ He looks anxiously from me to Prue.

‘Whose rule? This is my house, too, you know. You mean it’s Kate’s rule. If I want to eat biscuits in here I will. Bring them in.’

‘Ben,’ I say warningly, putting my hands on my hips.

Mrs Curtis’s head follows each of us in turn with great interest. Her feet don’t reach the floor and she swings them contentedly, like a child, watching us as if we are putting on a
show purely for her benefit.

Ben shuffles his feet, kicking at the skirting board. He mutters something.

‘Speak up, dear!’ says Mrs Curtis. ‘I missed that.’

Ben looks up, resentful from under his knitted brows. With his curled blond hair and pale eyelashes he is more like an obstinate bullock than ever. An obstinate bullock that’s been goaded
beyond endurance.

‘I said, I’m sick of being bossed around! That’s what I said, Mrs Curtis. Sick of being bossed around by everyone – by you women! All the time!’

Prue turns to me accusingly. ‘This is all your fault! Ben said you’d been nagging at him ever since he moved in.’

‘Nagging! I have not!’

‘You have,’ mutters Ben.

It’s outrageous. I have put time and effort into making Ben a better husband and this is the thanks I get? Accusations of bossiness from the bossiest Bailey of all?