It was promisingly quiet. So quiet she could hear the tick of the clock in the front sitting room. She slipped off her shoes and hunted for her comforting sheepskin slippers, already feeling herself sinking into the downward slope of the day, towards evening and bed, and another day ticked off.
There was a black-and-white film on Channel 4 that she’d ringed in her Radio Times for this afternoon; it had already started, but it was easy to pick up: some lovely doomed romance between two impeccably enunciated British actors, set during the war with plenty of uniforms and thin moustaches.
Trevor Howard had barely got his stiff upper lip out, however, when the peace of the house was shattered by the sound of two people playing recorders – in more of a competition than a duet.
Juliet closed her eyes. Could she ignore that? With the sound turned up loud on the telly?
No. They were playing at the very edge of her tolerance. And her tolerance was already five points lower than normal, thanks to the Mrs Cox thing.
‘Stay there,’ she called out to Minton. ‘Quick trip next door. Then teatime.’
The recorders got louder as she strode up the path, squeaking with tantrumy fury.
No wonder Alec’s never here, thought Juliet, clenching her fists. He’s probably not even on tour. He’s probably just lying in blissful, solitary silence in the Watford Travelodge.
She banged on the door, louder than she meant to. Then, when no one appeared to hear her, she banged again so hard the panes of glass rattled.
Where does this come from? she wondered, distracted by her own strength. Superwidow. Punching holes through concrete one minute, lying exhausted in front of the telly the next.
There was the sound of footsteps, and then Lorcan swung the door open. ‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘And I’m very, very sorry.’
‘You don’t know what I’m here to say yet,’ said Juliet.
‘I don’t,’ he agreed, ‘but I find it’s safer to apologise for them first. Saves time, with four of them on the loose. Frankly I’d rather not know what they’ve been up to.’
There was something about his bewildered expression that made it impossible for Juliet to deliver the killer lines about aural torture that she’d thought up between her front door and his. Also, he had bits of plaster stuck in his curls, and didn’t seem to realise.
‘It’s the recorders,’ she began, and as if for illustration, the playing started up again, this time a solo effort, like a PMT-riddled banshee wailing at the top of the house.
‘Roisin,’ said Lorcan. ‘She thinks she’s the gift. She’s tied a scarf to the end and she’s tootling away like she’s in a band.’ He mimed Roisin’s closed-eye swaying. ‘Very Stevie Nicks.’
‘Well, can you get her to stop?’ Juliet asked. ‘I’d hate to have to snap a recorder over my knee, but I’m willing to give it a go.’
‘I will.’ Lorcan leaned backwards and roared, ‘Roisin! Stop your racket!’ up the stairs.
The noise stopped at once.
‘It’s my fault,’ he went on, rubbing his face. ‘I’m supposed to be supervising music practice. Emer’s had to rush off to the clinic with Spike, and Salvador’s at his football night.’
‘Oh, no!’ Juliet felt bad for making a fuss. ‘Is Spike OK?’
‘Spike? Yeah, he’s fine. Whatever it is’ll come out the other end soon enough, apparently. Hey, will you come in for a cup of coffee?’ Lorcan opened the door wider. ‘We were about to make some tea, just me and the girls,’ he went on, somehow divining her reluctance to deal with a lot of faces. ‘And if you’re talking, Roisin and Florrie can’t be playing their recorders, right?’
‘Um, I won’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve left Minton. He doesn’t like being on his own. He gets worried that I’m not coming back.’
That was a bit of a lie, one she’d used a lot over the last year. Minton was fine on his own for a while; it was when she fell asleep during the day and was wakened by him desperately trying to lick her face back to life that her heart broke.
‘Fair play,’ said Lorcan. ‘We’ll keep it down, anyway. Must be driving Minton doolally.’
‘Actually, there was something,’ Juliet began, then stopped.
This was a big step, but it was so easy just to ask.
Go on, she told herself. Do it.
‘It’s about the shower.’ Juliet swallowed. ‘When’s a good time to fit it?’
‘Fan—’ He was about to say, ‘Fantastic,’ but he stopped before the whole word came out. Maybe he sensed that it was more than just a bathroom fitting. ‘I can do it this week,’ he said. ‘No time like the present. Now, listen, will you be wanting someone in to tile the wall behind it too? I’ll be making a bit of a mess of it, cutting into the tiles. I know some good quick lads who could sort that out.’
‘Oh. Is tiling expensive?’ Juliet asked. ‘And . . . is it hard?’
‘It’s a bit fiddly. Why? Are you thinking of doing it yourself?’
‘No, it’s just that . . .’ She glanced down at the cluttered porch, with its bags of recycling, then looked back up at Lorcan. He was studying her with his friendly blue eyes, and the honest response spilled out of her. ‘It’s just that one, I don’t have a big budget, especially if the rest of the house needs fixing, and two, I was meant to be doing this with my husband. We were going to do it together . . .’ She trailed off. How did you tell the builder you’d asked to do some work that actually you didn’t want random builders; you wanted someone to transform your house with? Someone to learn with?
‘I don’t want to rush into a major financial commitment just yet,’ she said. ‘I only need a shower.’
‘I hear you,’ said Lorcan. ‘Well, why don’t you start with the shower and see how it goes? What time are you up and about in the mornings? I keep forgetting what’s normal when I’m here.’ He rolled his eyes backwards in the general direction of the Kellys. ‘And I’ve been on a tour with Alec where we actually got ahead of the jetlag.’
Juliet thought that sounded cool, even if she didn’t quite understand how it was possible. It was mainly Lorcan’s accent. It could make going to the shops sound pretty rock ’n’ roll.
‘I’m usually up about half seven. Is it Wednesday tomorrow? I’m walking my mum’s dog in the morning.’
‘That’s fine with me. Give me a radio, and lots of tea, and I’m away. I’m not one of these philosopher builders who like to talk . . . Oh, look who it is. Longhampton’s first rock recorderist.’
One of the red-haired twins had appeared behind Lorcan, with the cat following at her heels.
‘Hello, Roisin,’ guessed Juliet. Fifty-fifty.
‘I’m not Roisin,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I’m Florrie.’
‘You can tell by the cat,’ Lorcan pointed out. ‘Florrie has familiars, but Smokey’s very scared of Roisin, isn’t she?’
‘Loorrrrcan,’ said Florrie, clinging to Lorcan’s leg but keeping her unsettling blue eyes fixed on Juliet. ‘Lorcan, are you making some chocolate brownies for tea? We always have brownies when you’re here.’
‘I’ve got a great recipe for brownies,’ said Juliet.
‘Have you indeed?’ said Lorcan. ‘It’s the only thing I make.’
‘Very domestic goddess.’
‘Well.’ He looked sheepish. ‘I’m better at the ones with added extras. If you know what I mean.’
‘Lorcan lets us clean out the bowl. Mum doesn’t,’ said Florrie. ‘Dad doesn’t even let us have brownies.’
Juliet itched to ask what the set-up was with Lorcan and the Kellys. She knew he was a roadie with Alec and had played in a band with Emer, but why was he living with them now? Was he minding the children? It was clearly something complicated and rock ’n’ roll, and although she was curious, she also felt shy, as if asking would be intruding, displaying her ignorance.
‘Sure you won’t come in?’ he asked again, but as he spoke, a taxi pulled up outside and Emer tumbled out, with Spike in tow. Her tortoiseshell hair w
as in wild corkscrews, and she was wearing a denim waistcoat over her maxi-dress. It would have looked totally Status Quo on anyone else, but somehow looked fine on Emer.
Spike was wearing a knight’s helmet, with an ‘I was brave at the hospital!’ sticker on his T-shirt. His glasses glinted through the eye slits.
‘He,’ she said, pointing to Spike, ‘has got to stop eating random things! You –’ she pointed to Florrie ‘– have got to stop telling him to. Hi, Juliet. Jayzus, is that kettle on? I’m gagging for a cup of tea.’
She rushed past Juliet in a cloud of perfume, not in an unfriendly way. Spike followed, staring at the huge bandage on his thumb through his helmet. He bumped into the side of the door, straightened himself up, then carried on.
‘Come on in,’ said Lorcan. ‘You can clean out the bowl.’
‘Muuuuum!’ Juliet heard the thunder of feet on the stairs – Roisin, she guessed. In the kitchen, the radio was turned on full blast, and Emer started singing along.
The whole house was exploding into life like a speeded-up flower opening.
This is what Lorcan meant when he said mine was a family house, thought Juliet. Only I’ve got nothing to fill it. Sadness swallowed her in a big gulp, and she needed to get away back to Minton, her wet-nosed, loyal but silent family.
‘It’s OK. Things to do. I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said hurriedly.
‘Will do.’ Lorcan seemed on the verge of saying something else, but changed his mind and grinned. ‘And if you feel like making some of those brownies, I’d be happy to taste-test them compared to mine . . .’
‘I’ll see,’ said Juliet.
As she turned to walk down the path, she caught Lorcan yanking Florrie’s plait from behind, then feigning ignorance when she spun round and yelped.
‘It’s the ghhhhooooossssst!’ he hooted, and she sprinted down the hall, screeching deliriously for Roisin.
Nothing like Ben, thought Juliet. Mum was losing her marbles.
Chapter 11
Louise wished she had a job where lunches were an actual, scheduled part of the business day – a literary agent, maybe, or something in local government – where you could take your work out to meet a nice tricolore salad, and ideally have someone else pay for it.
She knew such lunches went on, because she saw them happening through the window of Ferrari’s, Longhampton’s power-lunching restaurant, on her sprint to the sandwich shop to get the baguette she was supposed to eat without getting marks on the papers she didn’t have time to stop reading if she wanted to leave on the dot of four to get Toby from whoever was looking after him for the day.
Louise joined the queue snaking onto the High Street outside Daily Bread and felt a pang of nostalgia for something that already seemed like a different world. Lunch at home with Toby had been a leisurely affair, with much chatting about aeroplanes and trains going into tunnels, and whether Mummy’s homemade meals were a cut above the supermarket options.
Even better were the lunches she’d had out with the NCT crowd. Unashamed carb fests, where they’d confessed all their parenting faux pas and ‘where does this go?’ moments, and cackled darkly until their stitches ached about the stupid things they thought they’d do with their perfect, easy-sleeping cherubs before they actually arrived.
It wasn’t all rose-tinted, she reminded herself. Feeding Toby involved a frustrating amount of wiping up and begging. He only seemed to buck up his table manners for supper time when Peter got home in time to feed him, catch up on parenting by debrief, while Toby sat there glowing like a Pampers advert.
Was it really any wonder she’d ended up needing to turn herself into someone . . .
Stop right there, thought Louise. Stop it. Do not think about it. Get back on track. Back in the line for baguettes, back in Douglas’s good books with overtime. The old Louise Davies is back.
Her mobile rang in her pocket and she grabbed it, her mind racing between her mum, Toby, the nursery, work . . .
Another side effect of Ben’s death: no phone call now came without a frisson of possible disaster.
‘Lulu? Can you talk?’
It was Peter. Her heart sank a little bit.
‘Hi,’ she said, inching forward in the queue. ‘I’m just getting lunch.’
‘Can’t talk for long,’ he said, as he always did when he called during the day. ‘I just wanted to see if you were available on Friday night – for a date?’
‘Who with?’ Louise hated the ‘ha ha!’ tone in her voice. It felt forced, but then so did asking your wife if she was free for a date.
‘With me! I’ve managed to squeeze us into a very small wine-tasting supper that they’re running at the White Hart.’ Peter paused, waiting for her gasp of delight. ‘You know, the one that was in the paper at the weekend. In Guidley.’
‘I know where you mean.’ It was an old pub that had very expensive linens and a chef who’d escaped from the River Café with his own pasta machine. ‘It sounded amazing.’
‘Should be! Thought I’d let you know early so you could get the babysitting sorted out.’
Babysitting being something only she could sort out, of course, thought Louise, grumpily. Either from her piled-high desk in the CPS building or from the queue of a deli.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some calls and get back to you.’
Louise realised a microsecond too late that she sounded like her own assistant, but by then Peter was in the process of ringing off himself, and probably hadn’t noticed that they’d just conducted a whole conversation using the voices of bad local rep actors.
She sighed and put the phone back in her bag.
‘Hi? Next? What can I get you?’ called the number-four sandwich-maker.
Louise stared at the chalkboard and realised she wasn’t actually hungry, but she ordered a Greek-salad baguette, because that’s what she’d always had for lunch before she’d had Toby, and somehow just seeing it being prepared in the same old way brought a little bit of smoothness back to her chest.
Before Toby, Louise had been the office cheerleader for the ‘why should we cover for the mums?’ brigade, and so she tried to make her babysitting pleas while she walked back to the court for the afternoon session. She didn’t want anyone listening in and reminding her of her old smug idiocy.
Diane was her first port of call.
‘Hello, darling.’ Diane’s voice was hushed. ‘Is everything OK? I can’t really talk now.’
‘Can’t you?’ Louise checked her watch. ‘Where are you? In the library?’
‘No. Um, what’s up? Is it Toby?’
‘Sort of.’ Louise was a bit thrown by Diane’s evasiveness. Juliet had mentioned that she’d been acting a bit odd when she’d run into her the other day. There was the new haircut, for a start. And talk of laser eye surgery. ‘I don’t suppose you could have Toby for the evening on Friday, could you? Peter’s taking me out for a wine-tasting dinner at the White Hart.’
‘Oh lovely! Like a date!’ whispered Diane.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Oh, I’m so pleased you two are getting some time together. It’s really important when you’re in the early years to remember you’re not just Mummy and Daddy. If your father and I hadn’t bought the caravan after Ian was born, we—’
‘Mmm, so can you?’ Louise didn’t want her mum venturing any further down that road; there had already been several pointed conversations about ‘not waiting too late’ and the sixteen-month age gap between her and Juliet. She hoped Diane wasn’t making similar comments about ageing ovaries to poor Juliet.
She flinched, remembering some pretty tactless things she’d said to Juliet, before Ben died. Things she wished she could explain, if only she and Juliet were on their old easy terms. There was a lot that Louise wished she could go back and undo, but falling out with her sister, at the worst possible time in her whole life, was top of the list.
Diane was making apologetic noises. ‘Did you say Friday? I can’t do Frida
y. I’m helping Beryl with the supper for the book group. Thursday’s fine . . .’
‘No, it’s got to be Friday.’ Louise felt a guilty frisson of relief. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to go. Maybe there’d be a reprieve – from the date and from the romantic overtures that were bound to follow.
No, come on, she told herself. It’s like going to the gym; you enjoy it once you get there. And you love Italian food.
‘Why don’t you phone Juliet?’ her mother suggested. ‘She’ll be in. She can pop over for a few hours. If you put Toby to bed before you go out, she won’t even have to worry about settling him.’
‘What about Minton? She’d have to leave him at her house.’
‘Oh, he’ll be fine on his own for one evening,’ said Diane. ‘Or she could leave him next door with Lorcan.’
‘Lorcan?’ Louise felt painfully out of the loop. It was months since Juliet had told her anything more personal than . . . She racked her brains. Juliet hadn’t even discussed how she’d felt after the funeral. That was how bad things were.
‘Yes, the builder who lives next door with the Kellys. Very nice chap. Bit unshaven but reliable. Rather a flirt, but that never hurt anyone!’
‘She never mentioned anything like that to me,’ said Louise.
‘Didn’t she?’ Diane sounded surprised. ‘I thought . . . Well. I’m sure she will, if you two get a chance to chat properly over a bottle of wine. Like you used to.’
‘We’re both pretty busy,’ said Louise, defensively. ‘I barely get time to wash my hair since I’ve gone back to work. And I don’t want to force Jools into seeing me.’
There was a pause from Diane’s end.
‘What, Mum?’ she asked, more briskly than she meant to. ‘Go on, whatever you’re thinking.’
‘Have you two fallen out and not told me?’
Louise stopped walking and stepped into the doorway of Boots. She’d been waiting months for her mother to come out and ask that exact question, but now it was out there, hanging between them, she wasn’t sure what she should say.
Yes, she and Juliet had fallen out, but not in that hair-pulling, Jeremy Kyle fishwife, slanging-match way. It was worse than that. It had been a really simple conversation that had started well but gone down an unexpected track, like an out-of-control toboggan, and left them both startled at how little they actually knew about each other.