The House On Willow Street (40 page)

A few days later, she wasn’t feeling quite so well inclined toward Claire. Kitty hadn’t stopped talking about her and Zach kept saying she was “really cool,” which was high praise indeed.

Family, thought Tess, determined to do the right thing, she had to create a new family: a blended family, because that’s what they would be when Claire had the baby. How bizarre to be a blended family. Up until now she’d only read about such things in magazines. Tess’s favorite was the magazine with the psychologist answering questions; she could clearly recall a letter from a woman who’d loathed the idea of her precious children spending time with her husband’s new wife, or rather her ex-husband’s new wife. Now that was going to be her. At the time, Tess had never dreamed that she might one day find herself in that situation, so she’d read the letter and the advice in a calm, dispassionate way. Never take it out on the children, they must be allowed to see both parents, without bitterness, without rancor—that would have been the old Tess’s view of it all.

But now that it was happening to her, it was different. Despite liking Claire on one level, the thought of her having weekends with Kitty was like a bullet exploding into Tess’s stomach. The sort of bullet that left you bleeding slowly to death on the inside.

Kitty adored Claire and was so excited about the idea of the baby.

“Mum, you’ve got to knit things for the baby, it’s really important. Claire can’t knit, she doesn’t know how to make babies’ cardigans and things. You know, like the ones I have that I put on my teddies now. Please say you’ll make some. I know you’re busy, but we could get the wool together. On the phone, Claire says yellow and white are good, because we don’t know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl.”

Tess was one of those people who couldn’t bear to sit still; she was always doing something, even in front of the television. Zach used to joke that theirs was the only house with actual darned socks. She’d flirted with tapestry, and they
had a few tapestry cushions, but knitting was a lifelong love. It was true that Kitty’s dolls and teddies had a wardrobe of beautiful little tiny garments, knitted lovingly by Tess when Kitty had been the size of a baked bean in her womb.

“Gosh,” said Tess, and she felt the pain of the bullet inside her, “I’m very busy these days. Do you think Granny Helen might do that, or even Claire’s mum?”

Another granny.
Tess had entirely forgotten about the whole concept of Claire’s family and the fact that she would come with her own parents. Kitty would have another granny, sort of.

It was like a labyrinth: complex and never-ending.

“That’s so clever of you, Mum!” said Kitty, delighted.

Kitty was so full of love, forever blurting out the first thing that came into her mind. She was a Leo, like her father, and there were no secrets with either of them. Kevin had never been able to tell a lie to save his life, a quality that Tess had always found admirable. And Zach was somehow the same: she could always tell what he was thinking, just by looking at his beloved face.

She was a Pisces: opaque, as Suki used to say.

“Nobody will ever know what you’re thinking, Sis.”

Right now, Tess was glad for that quality. She didn’t want her darling Kitty to know what she was thinking: it was so horrible and bitter, Tess felt ashamed of herself. What sort of letter would she come up with for the magazine’s psychologist?
I’m almost forty-two, my ex-husband’s girlfriend is pregnant and both my children are delighted about it. Oh yes, and I’m broke and bound to be even more broke when my ex-husband and his girlfriend try to find a house to live in.

Money, thought Tess: it all came back to money. No matter how many times she added it all up, her dwindling income
and whatever Kevin was paying in maintenance wouldn’t be enough to pay the bills.

Nobody had money to spend on antique trinkets anymore. Keeping the shop open through the winter months when there were no tourists around simply wasn’t viable. The few trips she’d made out to private executors’ sales and auction houses had yielded nothing that said “Ming vase—wildly undervalued.” Instead, there was the sad sense of people’s treasured possessions being sold to pay bills and buy food.

She was beginning to wonder whether she’d have to sell the house in Avalon and move into something smaller. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but it might be the only option left to them.

“You can’t move,” Suki said on the phone that night. “You love that place. It’s special.”

“The bank don’t care how special it is,” Tess said sadly.

The following morning, Suki sat up in bed with a jolt. She wasn’t sure what had woken her, but she was wide awake. A glance at the clock beside the bed told her it was half seven in the morning. Half seven and still dark. She moved out of the bed quietly so as not to wake Mick, who was lying beside her. She was sorry he’d moved in. The arrangement didn’t really suit Suki anymore. She felt used by Mick. His idea of contributing to the household bills was to stump up for a couple of takeouts a week and to buy beer. He never bought wine or anything she’d like to drink. God, how was she going to say it to him? Once, she wouldn’t have had any problem getting rid of a guy. The old Suki would have simply bundled up all his stuff, thrown it at him and said, “Get out.” But the new Suki, the new tireder, older Suki, didn’t have the energy for the fight.

She went quietly downstairs. The heating had come on so at least it wasn’t freezing. Bad snowstorms were promised, but they hadn’t come yet. Suki had no interest in a white Christmas, or a white anything. She didn’t like the snow, it made her feel trapped.

Having made herself a cup of coffee, she lit a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table. She needed to work on her book today, but she felt so tired. Maybe she should go back up to bed, turn on her bedside lamp and read. She had so much research material to go through.

Back upstairs, she got quietly into bed, lit another cigarette, sipped her coffee and made herself comfortable. It was as nice a way to start the day as any. Mick shifted in his sleep, perhaps woken by the scent of nicotine. She looked at him, one muscular, tattooed arm over the bedclothes, thrown out toward her, as if reaching for her in his sleep. And at that moment she was struck with a memory of the past, a moment in time when she was with Jethro, toward the end. And despite the fact that she was in her own warm bed in the present, she shivered.

In the beautifully lit bathroom of the huge suite in the hotel in Memphis, Suki stared blearily at herself in the mirror. Last night’s eye makeup was smeared on her face. She never took it off now—why bother? It was easier in the morning to wipe of the excess, put on a bit more and then you were set for the day. Her hair was shorter than it had been when she’d met Jethro first: shorter, blonder. She looked young.

She peered at herself in the mirror. Yeah, definitely, young. That plumping-up stuff on her cheeks had worked. She looked hot, definitely,
and
thin; who needed food when you could have your pick of any drug imaginable? Lately, her stomach had been giving her trouble. She kept feeling like she wanted
to throw up, she was all bile and acid on the inside. She couldn’t really face alcohol or drugs. Last night, only Jethro practically throwing it down her throat had made her drink that Jack Daniel’s and Coke. She felt sick again. Maybe something else would take the edge off? A line of coke, a Bloody Mary . . . something.

Or tea. She laughed at herself in the mirror, standing there in her black silk panties and nothing else. A cup of tea suddenly seemed gorgeous. Like the tea Cashel’s mum used to make, with some of her scones. Oh wow, that would be fantastic. Suki wondered if she could call room service. Yes, she would, even if it was the middle of the night. What else was room service for?

She looked at the huge watch she wore: gold, encrusted with diamonds. Jethro had given it to her. It was very flashy, not the sort of thing she normally liked to wear, but hey, she was a flashy rock chick now. She walked back into the bedroom and saw Jethro lying there on the huge bed, sprawled out like a starfish, the way he always slept.

“You take up the whole damn bed,” she used to say to him.

“Yeah, well, get your own bed,” he’d say.

And then she saw the girl: a tangle of chestnut hair, long, long hair and naked, beautiful, burnished tanned back. One of Jethro’s arms was resting on her back and he must have been waking up or coming to, because his hand began to slide up and down the girl’s silky skin. Suki stood transfixed in the bathroom doorway. She didn’t remember any girl. She remembered . . . yeah, she’d gone to bed early on her own and she’d heard Jethro come in, but she was so tired, she’d pulled a pillow over her head. He hadn’t woken her up, the way he so often did after a gig when he was all partied out and needed sex to remind himself that he was a rock god.

“Hiya, honey,” he said, finally sitting up in the big bed. Except he wasn’t talking to Suki, he was talking to the mystery brunette. She turned around to face him. She was so beautiful and so young. Suki felt as if the stiletto heels of her Manolos were piercing her heart.

“Mornin’, honey,” said the girl, reaching over to Jethro. His hand cupped her breast and he moaned appreciatively.

“No, baby,” said the girl, “let me,” and she was sliding down the bed, under the covers, while Jethro rolled over, groaning in appreciation.

Suki couldn’t bear it: he’d brought another woman into their bed.

She’d heard rumors of other women on this particular tour.

“Jethro isn’t the sort of dog to stay faithful for too long,” Leona, one of the makeup girls, had told her. Suki hadn’t listened. She was everything Jethro wanted. Okay, so she wasn’t a twenty-four-year-old babe, but she was famous in her own right, intelligent, fierce, passionate. She was
someone
, and that’s what he wanted, not some identikit beach babe with enhanced breasts and long legs.

At that moment, Jethro opened his eyes properly and saw her standing there. His face, that famous face that had graced millions of album covers and posters, creased up into a big smile.

“Hey, Suki, honey, where did you get to? Come on, join us! I got you a little surprise.”

“Join you?” she said, feeling an unbelievable headache start to pound into her temples. “What are you doing with that other woman in our bed?”

“Ah, come on, honey, don’t get all heavy on me. It’ll be fun, you’ll like it.”

“I won’t like it. I’m not into that shit,” she managed to hiss.

But Jethro wasn’t listening, he was lost in erotic fantasy land.

Suki turned and ran back into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it. She stood under the shower, washing herself clean. She was sure she had some tranqs in her toilet bag; if not, Jethro was bound to have something in his. Never very much, he never carried too much, he had people on tour to do that for him, in case anyone searched his stuff and he got held up. That would never do. The tour was about money, and Jethro was the cash machine. Someone else would take the rap for transporting his drugs and they’d be royally rewarded for it. That was how rock stars did it.

She found a tranq, popped two. There was nothing in Jethro’s bag except the remains of an empty baggie of coke. Wrapped in the bathrobe, she marched out of the bathroom, desperate not to look at the bed and hear the moans. The suite had a separate dressing room and she pulled on some clothes. Then, with her hair wet and clinging to her skull, she marched out, went to the lift and went down to the fifteenth floor, the club floor, where there was breakfast all morning. None of the band or the tour entourage were there. But the manager was: a wily, skinny guy, named Nico.

“Hey, Suki, what’s up?” he said.

Nico liked Suki, he liked the fact that Jethro was sticking to one woman for a while. It was good for the band. There had been a few instances with girls of dubious age, sixteen-year-olds who looked twenty-five, and that was hard to handle. But now that Jethro was hanging out with Suki, it was good. She seemed to be keeping him on the straight and narrow. Well, as straight and narrow as Jethro could ever be, given the large amounts of alcohol and drugs that he consumed.