The Stepmother (10 page)

“But why?” I asked, sitting up too.

“I don't know.”

“You didn't ask?”

“'Course I bloody asked.”

“Sorry.”

We slipped into silence. I watched the room's furniture slowly take shape as my eyes got accustomed to the dark.

“This is why I hate talking about these things,” said James tensely. “People are always banging on about needing to understand the past so you can create a better future. Bollocks. The past just gets in the way. Yes she broke my heart. For a while I thought I'd been decapitated, widowed. I looked after Amber every day until she went to school. Suddenly she wasn't there. None of them were. It was hell.”

“I didn't know that,” I said, liking the thought of him and his toddler at playgroups.

“That's why we're so phenomenally close.”

I didn't know you were, I thought, as the warm image cooled. “What about your work?”

“I could work around her. Bea had a fantastic job in the City. It would have been madness for her to leave, since I was around.”

So Bea had a fantastic job, was the best mother in the world, and grew her own vegetables. I realized, suddenly, that James was right. Talking about these things was dangerous. Between knowing your enemy and blissful ignorance, I think I'd prefer to remain ignorant. Except…No. Stop it now. “I'm sorry I asked. 'Night, my love.”

I thought James would be grateful for the out, throw the duvet back over himself, and drift off, but he didn't. I felt the first rumbles of fear in my belly as he started to speak. “I've heard my friends talk about their ex-wives and I find it really offensive,” said James quietly. “I don't want to have to say, ‘Bea was this, or that, or the other,' to justify why our marriage failed. Bea is actually an extraordinary person and I loved her. I loved the woman I was married to, but, Tessa,” he turned to face me, “you have to understand this. I'm no longer married. I can't give you an easy answer to your question about why our marriage failed, except
that Bea had two children very close together at a time when I was away a lot, doing a job I didn't like. Marriage doesn't survive on tidbits.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He sighed. “I've thought about this a lot. You need to feed a marriage, Tessa.”

“What, three-course meals?”

“Exactly. Day in, day out, and five courses on the days you feel like takeout.”

I had married friends who'd been kind enough to take the sheen off the illusion. “I know it isn't easy.”

“Sounds like a drag, doesn't it?”

“Sounds like a challenge,” I replied challengingly. “I like challenges.”

He put up his hand and found my cheek. “I should have known you'd be great about this. I was afraid you'd go off me if we ever had this chat.”

“Go off you for loving your wife?” I shook my head. “No. It just confirms that you're the man I think you are. Cheating on your wife, stumbling into marriage by accident, simply existing on automatic pilot, going through the motions while more and more children were born…” I sighed. “If you'd said that, I might have gone off you.”

The words were worthy enough but, hell, I wasn't so naive that I couldn't see the detestable-ex-wife had some merits.

“You are my life now, Tessa. You and the girls. All I want is to make you happy. Seeing that smile on your face, I don't need anything else. When I make you laugh, I feel ten feet tall. Just being able to reach out and touch your leg makes me feel complete. I love you and you never, ever have to doubt that.”

That helped…and I watched the green-eyed monster slink back into the shadows. James slipped down the headboard and lay in my lap. I stroked his hair.

“I know I keep saying this, Tessa, but I feel blessed. I can't believe you exist. I think you were made for me.” He kissed the top of my thigh.

“James?” I said.

“Hmm?”

“I'm not feeling quite so full anymore.”

He turned to look up at me.

“Other way,” I said.

“Yes, ma'am.”

 

I
WAS LATE TO WORK
. Cycling from my flat in Victoria to Fulham Palace Road is one thing, a fabulous ride along the river, but from the deepest, darkest burbs of Hampstead is another, and I always underestimate how long it'll take. I bolted my bike to a spare bit of steel and knew I was going to get into trouble for caging in two other bikes. People thought I had such a glamorous job, record-company lawyer, first-name terms with all the artists, but mostly I sat around and read very, very small print with very, very long words, and the more I knew about our yard of celebrities, the less impressed I was.

They come in so keen and grateful. A couple of hits, and it's amazing how quickly the gratitude wears off. The older acts are the best to hang out with. They're the pros. They're the people who still say thank-you to the sandwich guy, and the makeup girl, and the lawyer. They're the ones who realize it's a game of luck. And they got bloody lucky.

I pushed open the door to the meeting room and took my seat with the bigwigs. I was backup in this case, otherwise I would never have been late. I made a quick apology and opened my enormous file. One of the side effects of a legal career was good biceps. I carried half the rain forest everywhere I went.

I was partially concentrating on what was being said, but the better part of my brain was trying to envisage the best way for James to tell his girls there was a new woman in his life. I had “bumped into” Lulu and Maddy a couple of times in Regent's Park, with Cora, my eight-year-old goddaughter. The perfect foil. I didn't want the girls going home talking about Tessa this and Tessa that before we were sure we were going to last.

They didn't even know my name. It hadn't been an important enough fact for them to “save,” and it was discarded from their memory at the end of any of our meetings. There were many more interesting facts for my name to compete with. Like the fact that frozen boogers were crunchy, and Mia Turner was going to be ten even though she was in year whatever, and all the other gobbledygook I overheard in the playground. I thought the zoo was a risky decision, but the animals won hands down and, once again, out of sight, out of mind. Cora was
their focus. Not me. But that was going to change. James wanted me to move in.

“What did you say?” asked Matt, my wonderful assistant, over soup and a roll.

I shrugged. “That I was flattered.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I am. It's just…”

“Your apartment is so much nicer.”

“That's not it.”

“You're not ready for suburbia?”

I was about to answer when Linda, the doyenne of the company, approached. She'd broken more acts onto the market than any other producer, partied with the hardest, and had a couple of marriages under her belt before changing tack and moving in with Sylvia, her assistant. The very first case I'd had to fight for the company was against a band Linda had brought up from nothing to superstar status: they ran off with another record company. Not uncommon. But Linda owned the backlist and they'd gone ahead with a new version of their greatest hits, arguing that the revised sound was different enough not to belong to the backlist. We won. It was worth a stack of cash, and Linda had taken me under her wing. Every other word of hers was an expletive. “You're not going sodding anywhere, sweet pea, until there's a fucking ring on your finger. I don't give a fuck about the vows, but you wanna protect your sodding rights. You hear me, girl?”

Loud and clear, Linda. “It's not really about the—”

“'Course it fucking is. Don't be naive, darling. You want to be his children's lackey, on best behavior for eternity because you don't have the right to lay down any rules? And trust me, one weekend in, you'll be washing the dirty pans, cooking the fish fingers, and picking the peas out of your hair that they've thrown at you when your back's turned.” It was sweet of her to share her thoughts with the rest of the cafeteria. “And, whatever you do, keep your fucking finances separate.”

“I honestly don't think we're going to have a problem,” I said. “They're friends, him and his ex. It's not like he walked out on them after some torrid affair that went wrong. In fact, she left him.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“Nothing.”

Linda raised an eyebrow.

I wanted to end the conversation. “You don't understand. This is a good divorce. There isn't any acrimony. I'm not going to be a problem,” I said, more emphatically than I felt.

“Like hell you're not! She hasn't seen you yet. Presumably, you're younger?”

“Yes, but—”

“And he has daughters?”

“So?”

She leaned over the table. “Darling, you're going to wish she was dead.”

“Linda!”

“I take it back. Sod the ring. Find someone with no kids. I've often caught Sue in Accounts checking you out.”

“Thanks, but—”

“Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it. Take my advice, darling. Run for the fucking hills.”

I smiled as though I was grateful for her wisdom and watched as she flung herself out of the room, but inside I was seething. Why was everyone so negative all the time?

“Let me guess? Linda's ex-stepchildren don't send Christmas cards,” said Matt, grinning over his sandwich.

“My God, that's depressing,” I said.

“Linda a stepmother? I feel more sorry for the children.”

“I meant her attitude. Does everybody hate their stepmother?”

“I do,” said Matt helpfully. “She told my father that my
homosexuality
—just the way she says it makes me shiver—was purely a rebellion against his naval past.”

I was relieved at the change of subject. “Silly woman. Of course it isn't.”

Matt gave me a cheeky smile. “Of course it is. But it isn't her place to go saying such things.”

I frowned.

“Stepmothers,” said Matt, shrugging, “they can't win.”

“Thank you so very much.”

“Best to go in with your eyes open.”

“God! He only asked me to move in, not marry him. I don't think I have to worry about becoming a wicked stepmother just yet.”

“Wrong again. It's all you should be thinking about. Plan now. Plot, scheme, bribe, suck up, buy off, undermine the parent. That's essential. Divide and conquer. Basically, do whatever you have to do…but get the brats on-side.”

“They're not brats,” I said, trying to claw my way back to the funny side of this conversation.

Matt took a large bite of bread and chewed. “Not yet, they aren't.”

“No, really. The girls are great.”

“One's fourteen, right?”

I nodded.

“Batten down the hatches. You're in for one hell of a storm.”

That was enough. Sod Matt and Linda, with their shitty, negative, polluting thoughts. James Kent was the best thing that had ever happened to me, especially because he hadn't come at a high price. I hadn't broken up a marriage. He hadn't left his wife and children for me. He'd been single for
four years
. This had nothing to do with me. Maddy and Lulu were great kids. He was great with them. I had seen it with my own eyes. I didn't know Amber, because I hadn't met her. But I would. And she couldn't be so different from her sisters. James had nothing but good to say about her. I couldn't wait to meet her. I took a mouthful of soup, but it had gone cold. Suddenly I had no appetite for the bawdy cafeteria and took myself back to the sanctity of corporate law.

 

A
WEEK LATER, THE CHOSEN
Saturday arrived, and we were blessed with a prematurely spring day. James had taken his daughters out to breakfast and explained that he had a special friend he wanted to introduce to them. We had decided to meet in the park again. That way it wouldn't feel like an interview; the younger ones could play and Amber and I could chat while James went and got hot chocolate for everyone. Something like that, anyway. We tried not to overplan it.

I had changed seven times before I left my flat, and felt physically sick when the text came through and I had to leave the café I was waiting in. I checked my bag again. Everything was there. I wasn't going to sink to Matt's level of bribery and corruption, but it didn't hurt to have
a few essentials, just in case. As well as the contents of my handbag, I had brought along my secret weapon.

“You're very quiet, Godmummy T,” said Cora.

“Sorry.”

“Normally you never stop talking.”

“Coming from you, chatterbox.”

“Mrs. Bloom calls me that.”

“Mrs. Bloom?”

“My new form teacher. I'm in year four now, remember?”

“'Course you are. How did you get so big?”

“Green beans,” she said seriously, then broke into a smile. “Hey, there's Maddy and Lulu.” She slipped her hand out of mine. Cora's extraordinary. She can meet someone in the park once, then see them again a year later and tell me exactly what happened at their previous meeting, what was discussed, where they lived, and what they were wearing.

“Hi, everyone,” I said, a smile scorched onto my face—do not show them you are afraid, do not show them you are afraid. “I'm Tessa.”

“They know that,” said Cora. “Silly.”

Maddy and Lulu hovered beside each other and, for a moment, they looked like twins. I felt a fleeting sympathy for Bea. Amber stood next to her father. I put out my hand. “How do you do, Amber? You look just like your dad. Except far more beautiful.” That sounded rehearsed, but it wasn't. Amber really was staggering to look at. A combination of Kate Moss and Lily Cole. I couldn't believe she was fourteen.

“Oi,” said James, doing a jaunty model turn, “I'm not that bad.”

“Daddy!” said Amber, embarrassed, but she giggled when he put his arm around her. For a terrible moment, I wanted to rip them apart, but it was so fleeting I thought I must have imagined it. Right. It was time to deal.