The Marriage Mender (29 page)

We had the party tea, as planned. No one mentioned that the guest of honour was missing, just as nobody
mentioned the pile of unopened presents in the corner, but his absence hung over the whole proceedings.

‘Can we do the cake now?’ asked Matilda, when the last of the tea things had been cleared away.

I glanced at Chris.

He nodded.

I couldn’t help thinking we should have rehearsed this. I had no idea how we were actually going to do it. I needn’t have worried, though. Matilda was very clear. The cake was standing on the worktop. It was round and smothered in a chocolate ganache. I’d told Matilda that people stopped doing their age in candles when they reached seventeen. She’d looked at me dismissively and insisted on putting one on. A purple one. I lit it now and carried the cake back to the table. It was doubtful if so many breaking voices had ever sung ‘Happy Birthday’ at the same time.

Matilda looked up at me with a frown when we got to the end. I knew what she was wondering.

‘You do it for him,’ I said.

She shut her eyes and blew.

Caitlin shut her eyes at the same time. I didn’t need to ask what either of them was wishing for.

* * *

Jayne and Bob left first, with hugs and kisses all round and an offer to have Matilda to visit very soon. We waved them off before shutting the door.

‘What did you think?’ I asked Matilda.

‘I liked them,’ she said. ‘It means I’ve got more family, which is good, because it was feeling a bit small.’

She said it in the breezy, throwaway-comment style favoured by nine-year-olds. I tried very hard to take it like that.

Matilda dragged Caitlin back to the lounge for one last game of Connect Four before she went.

‘Well, I thought she was very nice,’ said Barbara. ‘And him too.’

‘Good,’ said Chris. ‘They weren’t too BBC2 sitcom for you?’

Barbara gave him the kind of reproachful look only a mother can.

‘I like her too,’ said Chris. ‘Just not as much as my real mum.’

I left them hugging in the hallway. I went upstairs, supposedly to go to the toilet. I didn’t really need to go, though. I took a detour instead. Found myself standing in Josh’s room. Breathing him in and breathing him out.

‘Everyone’s going now,’ I whispered. ‘They all send their love. It hasn’t been easy but we’ve survived. I think we’re going to be OK. Not brilliant but OK. And sometimes, you know, OK has to be enough.’

* * *

I lay there in the stillness some hours later. We’d gone to bed early, because it was easier than staying up. You would have thought that, having imagined it so many times, I wouldn’t have trusted myself. But I knew as soon as I heard the key in the front door that, this time, it was for real.

In a moment, I would wake Chris, would leap out of bed and hurtle downstairs. Matilda would be woken by all the
commotion and run down to give Josh the two slices of birthday cake we’d saved and insist he eat them and open his presents right that minute.

Later, I would phone Barbara and listen to her tears on the other end of the line. And I’d text Lydia – with Chris’s blessing – and smile when I received the ‘Thank you’ text back.

Later still, I would drive Josh over to Caitlin’s and sit sobbing in the car as they hugged each other to death on the doorstep.

All that was to come.

But for now, it was simply enough to know that he was home.

Huge thanks to the following people: my original editor Jo Dickinson who was with me all the way during the conception of this novel and the ‘labour’ of writing it, and my new editor Kathryn Taussig who made sure everything went smoothly at the tricky bit where it emerged kicking and screaming into the world at the end! Also to the whole team at Quercus for their hard work, energy and enthusiasm; my agent Anthony Goff for his expertise and advice and everyone at David Higham Associates; Relate (
www.relate.org.uk
) and Missing People (
www.missingpeople.org.uk
) for providing invaluable research information and who both do tremendous work; my fellow authors on Twitter for answering the odd weird question and being supportive, encouraging and thoroughly entertaining colleagues in our virtual writing room; my family and friends for their on-going support and encouragement;
my wonderful son Rohan for always wanting to know what was going to happen next and for all his ideas (you and Matilda really would be the best of friends!); and my husband Ian, who had no idea what he was letting himself in for when he invited me back to see his photographic portfolio twenty-three years ago (I never said living with a writer would be easy!). And you, my readers, for buying my books, borrowing them from libraries, spreading the word and sending the emails, Facebook messages or tweets saying how much you enjoyed one of my books, which have kept me writing at 12.30 a.m. in the morning on numerous occasions!

‘Look, Esme. The first snowdrops are almost out.’

Esme stopped leaping along the stepping stones between the roses in our front garden for a nano-second to glance down to where I was pointing.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, with the casual indifference of one who has better things to do. I smiled to myself. It was one of the things you didn’t get told in parenting manuals. That one of your children may be so different to you that you sometimes wonder if she is really yours at all. Not just different to me, mind. Different to her entire family. I used to spend hours in the garden with Charlotte when she was this age. She wanted to know what every flower was called. The names of the roses, the variety of tulips. She would help with pruning and planting bulbs. Sit for
hours on the front step writing notes and drawing leaf shapes in her exercise book. Even Will, although he’d been less studious in his interest, still used to join me out here and help with the weeding and planting. Although maybe the novelty factor had played a part there. We hadn’t had a front garden in Islington. Or a back one come to that.

Esme attempted to leap over two stepping stones. She landed in between them. Right on top of the snowdrops I’d just pointed out to her.

‘Oops,’ she said, looking up at me and pulling a face. ‘Will they boing back up again?’

‘Probably not, love,’ I said, surveying the flattened stems and trying to keep my voice calm and measured. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t we go and play indoors for a bit?’

‘OK,’ said Esme, turning on her heel and bounding up to the front door which I’d left ajar. ‘Are there any muffins left?’

They were savoury ones. I’d got the recipe from the woman who made them at Organic House. It was an ingenious way to get children to eat asparagus and broccoli without them realising it. And they had pesto in them. Esme would quite happily eat anything that involved pesto.

‘Yes, but wash your hands first please,’ I called after her. There was a seven-year-old girl equivalent of a screech of brakes and a handbrake turn as I heard her crash through into the downstairs bathroom.

I busied myself in the kitchen as Esme sat at the table and in between mouthfuls of muffin regaled me with stories of what she’d been up to at school.

‘And Mrs Johnson said I wasn’t to do handstands up the wall in the playground any more because of that thing with Amy yesterday.’

‘That thing’ was her way of glossing over the incident in which she had accidentally whacked a classmate in the face with her foot because she’d had the temerity to walk past as Esme had been coming down from her attempt at the world’s longest handstand. Fortunately the girl’s mother had been very good about it when I’d apologised profusely in the playground at home time. Said the tooth had been wobbly for weeks anyway.

‘I think that’s only fair, sweetheart. You wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt. Save your handstands for gym club. That’s the safest place to do them.’

Esme shrugged and said ‘OK’ in a mock disgruntled teenager voice that I presumed she’d picked up from her brother, then reached across to grab a magazine, knocking over her glass of juice in the process. It was the one moment of insight David had had on the parenting front. That perhaps Grace would make a better middle name than first name for our third child.

Charlotte and Will arrived home together. It didn’t always happen, of course. On Mondays Charlotte went straight to her piano lesson and on Wednesdays she had choir practice. Tuesdays and Fridays Will went to a youth-theatre group, but on Thursdays, for some reason, Hebden Bridge was momentarily a cultural desert.

‘Hi, you two. Good day?’

Will grunted and pulled a face as he yanked his tie off
and tossed it on the floor. Charlotte said nothing. Just slipped her coat off, hung it up neatly and sat down opposite Esme at the table.

‘The thing is,’ said Will, ‘if we didn’t vote for that poxy new uniform I don’t see why we have to wear it.’

‘It’s called democracy,’ I replied. ‘Nobody voted for a coalition government, but we’ve still got one and we still have to live with what they do.’

‘Yeah, but you and Dad voted Lib Dem. The government thing is at least half your fault. I voted for the polo-shirt and sweatshirt. It was all the other stupid parents and staff who voted for the tie-and-blazer crap.’

‘Will,’ I said, sternly, nodding towards Esme.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I bet she’ll kick off about wearing it too, though, when it’s her turn.’

I suspected he was right. I also knew this was not the time to tell him that his own father had voted for ‘the tie-and-blazer crap’. There again his own father had wanted him to go to grammar school. I was the one who’d argued that Will’s happiness was more important than his exam grades, and if all his mates were going to the local comprehensive and they had a good drama department which was what he really loved doing, then that was fine by me.

‘Well, all you can do is try to get them to change the system. Give more weight to the pupils’ votes next time.’

‘Yeah, but it won’t be in time for me, will it? It’s all right for you. You can change the government in a couple of months.’

‘Not if the majority disagrees with me I can’t.’

‘You know what I mean. At least you’ll get to have your say.’

I wasn’t about to admit to him that I was actually dreading the general election. We’d always made it a family thing, going down to the polling station together. David was very keen on showing the children democracy in action. I guess as a local councillor he had to be. Quite how I was going to hide the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to vote for his party this time, I hadn’t yet worked out. Nor had I worked out who I was going to vote for instead, come to that. It was all looking decidedly awkward.

‘Anyway. Would you like something to eat, love?’

‘Yeah, but nothing you’ve got.’

‘You don’t know what I’ve got.’

‘The muffins are yummy,’ said Esme.

‘If you like eating green vegetables dressed up as cake, which I don’t.’

‘Will!’

‘Well, come on. She’s going to work it out sometime.’

‘They’re aren’t any vegetables in my muffin are there, Mummy?’

Will and Charlotte both looked up at me, keen to see how I’d talk my way out of this one.

‘Only little bits, love.’

‘Where?’ asked Esme, picking up another muffin from the plate and starting to dissect it.

I gave Will a look.

‘What? I was simply broadening her education,’ he replied with a grin, before disappearing upstairs.

‘Charlotte, love. Would you like something?’ I asked.

‘No thanks.’

‘I can do you a cheese-and-tomato sandwich, if you like.’

‘No, really. I’m not hungry.’

Charlotte never usually turned down a cheese-and-tomato sandwich.

‘Is everything all right, love?’

‘Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just not hungry.’ Charlotte pushed her chair back, poured herself a glass of smoothie from the fridge and took it up to her room.

She wasn’t fine. I knew that. But clearly she didn’t feel inclined to tell me what was bothering her. The irony of the professional counsellor who specialised in adolescent behaviour not being able to talk to her teenagers was not lost on me. I consoled myself with the thought that it would be different with Esme. I couldn’t imagine Esme ever being quiet long enough to bottle something up.

* * *

David arrived home at 6.01 p.m. He did so every night, just like Mr Banks in
Mary Poppins
. To be fair, it wasn’t his fault. It was simply that if he walked at his usual pace up the hill from the station, that was the time he arrived. And at least he didn’t expect his slippers to be waiting for him or the heirs to his dominium to be scrubbed and tubbed by 6.03. It was simply that it put the thought of an Edwardian banker in my head, which was never a good start to the evening.

‘Hello, love,’ he said, placing his hands lightly on my
shoulders from behind and giving me a peck on the cheek. ‘Smells good.’

‘Roasted red pepper, cannellini bean and sweet potato stew.’

‘Oh, great.’

It was said with only a modicum of enthusiasm. David was a meat, potatoes and two-veg man. When he cooked at weekends that is what we tended to have. On weekdays I got to do my thing.

David hovered in the kitchen for a moment. ‘Remember I’ll need to leave about quarter to seven for the meeting.’

I hadn’t forgotten. Hebden Royd town council meetings were one of the many things listed on the family-organiser calendar which hung on the kitchen door. Esme had called it a family-planning calendar once, causing David to mutter under his breath that it was a bit late for that. It was a joke, of course. The sort which appealed to his dry Scottish sense of humour.

‘That’s fine. It’ll be ready in a couple of minutes if you want to give the others a shout.’

Esme was the first to respond, managing to drag herself away from the lounge where she’d been watching CBBC. While I was cooking was the only time she was allowed to watch television. Fortunately it coincided with the one point during the day when her energy levels took a momentary dip. Half an hour of recharging her batteries on the sofa while watching
Blue Peter
and she’d got her second wind.

‘Daddy,’ she said, throwing her arms around his waist.

‘Hello, Esme,’ he said, bending to kiss her. ‘What have you been up to at school today? Not knocked anyone else’s teeth out I hope.’

‘No. I’m not allowed to do handstands any more. They didn’t say anything about cartwheels, though. Maybe I can still do them.’

‘Gym club, Esme,’ I called out over my shoulder. ‘I told you to save all that for gym club. Or the park when it’s nice weather.’

I put David’s dinner on the table and went to the bottom of the stairs to call out again to Charlotte and Will. A few moments later Charlotte descended the stairs and silently entered the kitchen.

‘Hello, Lotte,’ said David. He’d called her that since she was tiny. It was quite endearing really. Although I suspected she didn’t think of it that way. ‘How’s the homework going?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ she replied. I wondered whether to warn David that was the answer he’d get to anything he cared to ask this evening, but didn’t want to embarrass Charlotte by doing so.

I watched as she picked at her food, taking an eternity to chase one chunk of sweet potato around her bowl. Next to her, David appeared to be eating in indecent haste. I waited for him to notice. To catch my eye, mouth across the table asking what was wrong. He kept on eating, eyes fixed firmly to the front while Esme chattered on about what stunts and daredevil challenges she would do if she were a
Blue Peter
presenter.

I heard Will’s footsteps galloping down the stairs and got up to take his bowl out of the simmer oven. It was only as I carried it over to the table that I caught sight of him in the hall putting his jacket on.

‘Where are you off to?’ I asked.

‘Out.’

‘I was hoping for something a bit more specific than that.’

‘With Jack and Troy.’

I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. And to resist the temptation to point out that he was still not answering the question about where.

‘What about your tea?’

‘We’re gonna get some chips.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘Sorry, Mum. I just haven’t got time.’

‘Well, if that’s going to be the case can you at least tell me next time so we don’t waste the food?’

‘OK.’

David called out from the kitchen.

‘Have you done your homework, son?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK then.’

That was it. Permission had been granted. There was nothing else I could say.

‘Home by ten then,’ I said, doing my best to raise a smile.

‘Yeah. Laters.’

Will grinned at me, knowing how much I hated the
expression and pulled the door shut behind him. I walked back through to the kitchen. Esme was still describing how she would hang-glide off Mount Everest for Sport Relief. Charlotte remained silent and had barely eaten a thing. David stood up, rinsed his bowl before putting it in the dishwasher and turned to me.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘I’d better be off.’

I nodded and walked out into the hall with him, closing the kitchen door behind me.

‘He’s gone to the park,’ I said. ‘I know he has.’

David shrugged. ‘We can’t stop him going out. You know that.’

‘Yeah, but you’ve seen the kids who hang out there. It’s Special Brew corner.’

‘He could at least drink a Scottish brew.’

‘David, I’m being serious.’

‘He’s sensible enough to keep himself out of trouble.’

‘It’s the company he’s keeping that bothers me.’

‘Why doesn’t he see Sol any more?’

‘He’s got a girlfriend. Pretty serious from the sound of it.’

‘Maybe that’s what Will needs. Keep him out of trouble.’

‘You wouldn’t be saying that if he had a girlfriend.’

David put his scarf on, adjusted his glasses in the mirror and picked up his briefcase.

‘Charlotte’s really quiet tonight,’ I said.

‘She’s always quiet.’

‘She’s hardly eaten. I’m worried the whole thing’s started up again at school.’

‘Your job,’ said David, ‘makes you worry too much. You read too much into things.’

I let out a long sigh.

David kissed me briefly on the lips. ‘Don’t wait up. It could be a long one, tonight.’

‘OK. You will remember to ask them about the protest on Monday, won’t you?’

David looked at me blankly.

‘The lollipop lady thing. You said you’d try to make it. Get some of the other councillors along.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll ask tonight.’

I nodded and opened the door for him. Watched him walk briskly down the short path and close the gate behind him.

I walked back into the kitchen. Charlotte had still barely touched her food.

‘Actually, Mummy,’ said Esme. ‘I think I might try and cartwheel to the Arctic Circle instead.’

I nodded. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about that one for a few years yet.