The Model Wife (34 page)

49

Clara stayed in hospital for a week. Horrified by how close she’d come to losing her, Poppy scarcely moved from her bedside. Thanks to Luke’s very public summons in the theatre, the papers were full of the story of the Cad and the Bimbo’s mercy dash to hospital, but within a few days Paris Hilton found a new boyfriend and the world moved on to other stories.

Poppy and Luke spent more time with each other than at any other point in their short marriage and when Clara was sleeping, they talked far more than they ever had before.

‘We both know it’s not working,’ she said. ‘I married you for all the wrong reasons. I wasn’t ready to be a wife. I needed someone to protect me. And you only married me because I was pregnant.’ As Luke tried to protest she held up her hand to silence him. ‘You did. That was very noble of you, but it wasn’t fair. I did a bad thing and all I can do to remedy it is to set you free; let you go back to your old life.’

‘I don’t think that’s an option.’

‘I’ll move out of the flat,’ Poppy continued. ‘Find somewhere to live with Clara. You can see her whenever you like.’

Luke shook his head. ‘I’ll move out. I mean, I already have. You two should carry on living there.’

‘Thank you. But you can’t afford to keep us there. You don’t have a job. You need to cut back on your spending.’

‘I can’t just abandon you and Clara,’ said Luke.

‘We can move somewhere much smaller. Less grand. We’ll be just fine.’

Luke’s throat caught. Poppy had lost so much weight the past few days. It bothered him that someone so much younger than him could be coming to such mature conclusions about their lives.

He reached out and traced the soft curve of her jawline. ‘Are you sure about this, Poppy? Maybe we should give it another try. For Clara’s sake at least.’

She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t work. Really. We should end it now before Clara’s old enough to understand.’

Luke knew she was right. In some ways he was relieved to be released. But still, he felt a desperate sadness at the way he’d messed up so many lives.

‘You’re a pretty amazing woman, you know. You’ve brought Clara up pretty much all by yourself and she’s turned out so well.’

‘I don’t know about that. Being a mum is so hard. You never think you’ve got it right. Any good work is almost certainly down to Brigita, not me.’

‘It’s down to you. You’ve done brilliantly.’

Her eyes shone with tears. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

‘I’ve only really understood it now.’ Luke looked choked, as Clara stirred, then opened her eyes.

‘Hi, darling,’ they both cooed.

‘Mummy,’ she said indignantly, ‘Daddy. I want chocolate.’

On the third day, Charlie came to visit. Poppy was still reeling from Louise’s revelation, though naturally not as much as Louise herself, who, after pointing the finger at the man who had ruined her life, had staggered straight from her granddaughter’s hospital bed to the pub across the road, where she had ordered Gary to buy her the largest gin and tonic available, followed by another and then another.

‘I’m so spooked,’ Poppy told him, as they sat on a hard chair in the canteen, clutching polystyrene cups of tea. The nurses had sworn they’d page her if Clara woke up.

‘You’re not half as spooked as I was. There was I constantly thinking “Bloody hell, I’m so old, this bright young girl about town’s young enough to be my daughter” and all the time you
were
my daughter. And I had a granddaughter as well.’

The memory of the time she’d tried to kiss him hovered over them both like a vulture, but neither referred to it and they never, ever would.

‘But you guessed,’ Poppy said.

‘I was starting to. Something you said about your mum in the South of France in the eighties got me thinking.’

‘And then that time you dropped me off, you had a good snoop. Brigita told me.’

‘Did she? Oh, sorry. It was wrong of me, but I just had to know. Of course you didn’t have any photos of your mum, but then I did a little googling and worked it all out.’

‘Were you going to tell me?’

‘Of course. When I went to Regent’s Park I was hoping to make a date with you then to take you out somewhere quiet and break it to you. I was bloody nervous. Terrified you’d reject me. But then fate got in the way.’

‘Didn’t you ever think of looking for me before?’ Poppy asked. ‘When I was a child?’ A bit of her couldn’t help being angry. She’d always wanted to know where her father was, why he hadn’t bothered to hunt her down.

Charlie spread out his hands. ‘Of course I did. I thought about it all the time. But remember: after I left your mother I was drying out for six months. Completely out of touch with the outside world. When I came out a letter from Louise was waiting saying she’d had the baby, but she wanted nothing more to do with me. I didn’t even know if you were a boy or a girl. Of course I wrote to her a few times but I didn’t get any reply, so in the end I gave up. Decided to make a new life for myself.’ He shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘Not that I got far on that front, as you can see.’

‘You have your photo in the paper every day.’

Charlie smiled. ‘I thought you’d know by now that having your picture in the paper doesn’t mean a thing. The reality is I’m a forty-five-year-old man, living in a one-bedroom flat in Crouch End with a silly job and a series of girlfriends who always dump me when they realize how rubbish my prospects are.’ He looked at her ruefully. ‘At least I have a kind of family now.’

Poppy hugged him. ‘You do. And I couldn’t be happier. We’re going to see a lot, lot more of you, Clara and I.’

‘And what are
you
going to do?’ Charlie asked.

Now it was Poppy’s turn to shrug. ‘I don’t know. Carry on with the column I guess. What else can I do? Especially now I’m a single mother.’

‘What do you mean you’re a single mother? You’re still married to Luke. You’ve just had a bit of a blip.’

‘I’m a single mother,’ Poppy said.

Charlie reached for his daughter’s hand. ‘Why don’t you give it another try? More than anyone, I should know that you have to work at things.’

Resolutely, Poppy shook her head. ‘If Hannah doesn’t want Luke, that’s up to her. But I can’t hold on to him. I’ll never really be able to make him happy.’

‘I’m not sure anyone can do that.’

‘I’m not going to drink any more. You were right. It was getting just a tiny bit out of hand.’

‘It’s in the genes. I hate to say it, but I don’t think you should be touching the booze at all.’

‘Really?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Mineral water from now on.’

‘Tonic water’s better. Put a slice of lemon in it and you can almost fool yourself about the gin.’

Charlie squeezed her hand again and they sat in silence, neither quite able to believe they had found the other.

Thea was in the office, trying to find a nun who would come in to have a go at the Prime Minister about his stance on abortion, when her landline rang.

‘Is that Thea?’ said a soft, fresh female voice.

‘Speaking. Is that Sister Mary?’

There was a laugh that sounded as if it had been permeated with fabric conditioner. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how I end up. But no, it’s Poppy. Poppy Norton.’

‘Oh! How are you? How’s Clara?’ She must have found out about Luke and was calling to berate her.

‘She’s doing really well. We can take her home tomorrow. We had a lucky escape. I just wanted to thank you for coming to find me that night. If you hadn’t I don’t know…’

Thea swallowed. ‘Clara would have been OK, anyway,’ she said gruffly.

‘That’s not the point. The point was I got there. I owe you one. Though I’m not sure what that could be.’

‘Don’t worry. I did what anyone would have done.’

‘Goodbye, Thea.’

‘Goodbye.’

Thea found it hard to concentrate on Sister Mary, she felt so guilty. She couldn’t put it off any longer, she’d talk to Luke that night.

She got home just after nine. She wasn’t expecting to see him; he’d been more or less permanently at the hospital, just coming back to sleep and shower. But this evening, the front door wasn’t double locked and he was sitting in front of the television, the usual large whisky in his hand. It was a hot summer night and a breeze fanned in, carrying reggae noises from the barbecue down the street.

‘How’s Clara?’ she asked.

‘Going home tomorrow.’ Luke looked straight in her eyes. ‘And so am I.’

‘You’re going back to Poppy!’ It came out as a yelp. Understandably, Luke mistook her relief for hurt.

‘I’m sorry, Thea,’ he said, standing up, ‘but I’ve just made too many mistakes. I can’t keep moving on from woman to woman every time things get a bit rough. I’ve got to go home.’

‘All right,’ Thea said.

Luke was surprised. He knew he was doing a shitty thing, finally making Miss Moneypenny’s dream of domestic bliss come true only to shatter it within weeks. Poor Thea. A future of cats that she called her babies and evening classes beckoned. But he’d wasted enough time the past few years living a lie and he just couldn’t do it any more.

‘What do you mean – all right?’

‘I mean all right.’ Thea shrugged and headed towards the kitchen. ‘I’m going to have a glass of wine. Would you like one?’

Luke followed her. ‘Don’t you want to know why I’m ending it?’

‘Minnie Maltravers called and said she just couldn’t live without you.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Luke snapped, as Thea turned round from the fridge, a strange, slightly pitying smile on her face.

‘Listen, Luke, don’t worry. It wasn’t working out. You and I have had some great times over the years, but it’s been all about hotel rooms and exotic locations and adventures. It’s not about life in a small two-bedroom flat in Stockwell and arguing about who runs down to the shop to buy some Paul Newman salad dressing. That’s not how you like to live your life and it’s not how I like to live mine. You’re better off with Poppy. She can take care of you.’

470

He should have felt relief at being let off the hook so easily. But instead Luke was annoyed: first Poppy, now Thea letting him go with about as much regret as if he were a dodgy builder.

‘I’m not going back to Poppy,’ he corrected her, glad that at least in one way, he could have the upper hand. ‘I’m going back to Hannah.’

It gave him some satisfaction to see Thea’s startled expression.

‘Hannah?
She
won’t have you.’

A tiny chuckle escaped Luke’s lips.

‘Have you asked her? Because I have: she’s ecstatic I’m coming back.’

Another flash of anger at all the years she’d wasted consumed Thea. But there was no point showing her frustration. Luke would think it was to do with losing him. So all she said was, ‘That’s the best thing that could happen. After all, I forwarded Hannah that email from Poppy. So it’s right you leave me and go back to her. Poetic justice if you like.’

Luke stared at her in amazement.

‘
You
sent the email.’

Thea flushed and shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

‘You silly bitch. You sent the email.’ Luke turned and stared out of the window. ‘Do you know how much pain you’ve caused, Thea? Do you have any inkling of the damage you’ve done? That email broke up my family. It ruined people’s lives.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ It sounded so inadequate. It
was
so inadequate. Thea would have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. Perhaps it was because she’d never had a father herself that it had taken her so long to realize how essential they were to a family, how wrong it was to try and dislodge them.

‘You’re right,’ Luke said. ‘I
am
better off with Hannah.’ He picked up his suitcase. ‘The sooner I get round there the better. Goodbye, Thea.’

‘Goodbye, Luke.’ She’d thought she’d be happy, but as the door slammed shut, a big tear rolled down Thea’s cheek, followed by another, then another, as the dream she’d nurtured for so many years finally died a long-overdue death.

Why Divorce Can Never be the Answer

by HANNAH CREIGHTON

A few weeks ago, there was a bit of a to-do in the press when it was revealed that I had been reunited with my ex-husband, Luke Norton, former anchorman of the
Seven Thirty News
and contestant on this year’s
Strictly Come Dancing.
I suppose some of the uproar was inevitable.

Since Luke and I divorced three years ago, after I discovered his affair with Poppy Price,
25
, I have chronicled in some detail the pain he put me through, not to mention that of our three children. I called him a cad and Poppy a bimbo, I mocked him for his habit of buying Viagra on the internet and told the world I was better off without him.

And indeed, in many ways, life without Luke was a revelation. I revived my old journalistic career, former friendships sprang back to life, I travelled the world and rediscovered much of my old zest for life: a zest that had been buried by the crushing demands of motherhood. But for all my apparent jauntiness in the face of this calamity, I could not kill the ache in my heart, the ache any woman whose family has collapsed will recognize, the feeling that I should somehow have fought harder to save my marriage.

When I discovered my husband’s affair, after an email from his lover was mysteriously sent to my inbox, I reacted out of pique, pride and fury. After years of turning a blind eye to alleged indiscretions, the mousey housewife suddenly turned.

Without giving Luke a chance to explain himself, I kicked him out, into the arms of his pregnant lover. When he begged me to take him back I refused to listen, and instead served him with divorce papers. Friends told me I had done the right thing, that I had refused to be a ‘little woman’, a doormat. For a long time I believed them.

But as time passed, I began to think differently. Although I was still angry with Luke, I missed him and so did the children. I began to understand that his infidelities might have been abhorrent, but they were not unpardonable. I saw that in the years Luke and I had been together I had transformed from the sparky career woman he married into a drudge, whose only topics of conversation were who’d made the best jam at the school fête and our next-door neighbour’s au pair’s nose ring. I’d piled on the pounds and slopped round the house in dirty old fleeces and Ugg boots. Could I really blame him for sometimes feeling a little bored?