She could call Annie, despite the fact they’d already texted each other a dozen times today, but she knew that the minute she got on the phone then Jude would appear and her sister hated it when she cut a call short because her lover had turned up.
Sure enough, minutes later, the door opened. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Jude said, raking his hands through his hair. ‘Got stuck on the phone.’
It was pushing seven o’clock.
‘Do you want to come back to my place for an hour?’ Lauren said.
Jude pursed his lips. ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Not tonight. There’s a thing on at Daisy’s school. Quiz or something. Promised I’d go.’
‘Oh, Jude.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘But these are the duties I have. You know that.’
‘I feel as if I’ve hardly seen you in the last week.’
‘So you’d like to see some more of me?’
‘Of course I would.’
He took her hand and pulled her across the office to the boardroom. ‘I can show you plenty more,’ he said seductively.
Once inside, he shut the door behind them and pressed her up against it, covering her throat with hot kisses.
‘Jude . . .’ she began to protest. What she wanted was a drink and a cuddle, to talk about his day, his weekend, not sex.
His mouth still on hers, he steered her to the boardroom table and pushed her on to it. ‘I love you,’ he murmured. ‘God, I love you.’
In a well-practised move, he hitched her skirt up and pulled her pants down in swift succession. Then he eased himself into her with a contented moan.
They’d made love this way a dozen times before and, usually, she was lost in the passion of it, the urgency. This time, as he moved above her, the table was digging into her back and she hadn’t been quite ready and it all seemed a bit rushed, a bit forced.
He came inside her. They never used protection. She was on the pill and he trusted her to take it. What if one day she just stopped taking it and didn’t tell him? she wondered. What if she found that she was pregnant? Surely that would make Jude leave his wife?
While she was thinking this, her lover was already zipping up his trousers.
‘Have to dash,’ he said, smoothing down his hair. ‘I’ll call you later if I can. See you tomorrow, darling.’
Then Jude pecked her on the cheek and hurried out of the door.
Lauren stared down at herself. It was as if she was having an out-of-body experience. She could see a woman lying on the oak table, legs akimbo with no knickers on, still in her high heels, her lover’s semen inside her. But where was he?
Gone. That’s where.
She closed her legs, got down from the table, found her underwear on the floor and tugged it back on. Had she had an orgasm? Had she even vaguely enjoyed it? Had Jude even cared? Was this what he thought that she wanted?
This felt terrible. More than terrible.
Dazed, she left the boardroom and went to go back to her desk. Her legs were shaking, unsteady. All she wanted to do now was collect her things and go home.
‘Bloody hell, girl,’ a voice said from behind her. ‘You nearly gave me a heart-attack.’
‘Zak?’ Lauren turned. ‘What are you doing here so late?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’ Both of their gazes returned to the boardroom door.
Self-consciously, Lauren straightened her skirt. A body language expert would have a field day with that.
Zak nodded towards the door. ‘I saw Jude leaving,’ he said. ‘He didn’t see me.’
Lauren realised that he could well have seen much more if he’d been there a few minutes earlier. They’d have to be even more careful from now on.
‘I’d left my wallet here,’ Zak said hastily to cover their embarrassment. ‘I was just going to grab something to eat. Join me?’
‘I’d better go home.’
‘What for?’
Lauren sagged. What for, indeed?
Zak took her arm. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I won’t take no for an answer.’ He flicked a look towards the boardroom. ‘I don’t know what’s been going on in there . . .’
But Lauren thought that he could more than likely give it a good guess.
‘Whatever it was,’ Zak continued unabashed, ‘it’s left you looking like you need a glass of wine.’
That was true. Despite trying to put on a brave face, for some reason, Lauren felt decidedly more shaken than she should.
Chapter 12
The restaurant in West Hampstead was calm and unusually quiet. The relaxing atmosphere and gentle hum of the chatter helped Lauren to stop thinking. Well, almost. This was a place that she and Jude often came to, but she decided not to share that information with her current companion. It was small, discreet and just down the road from his house and her flat. They always sat away from the window, in the far corner if possible and, if they were lucky enough to bag their favourite secluded spot, they held hands over the table.
This time they were seated front of house and Lauren could watch the people passing by on Broadhurst Gardens. As Jude wasn’t her entire focus, she could even take in the elegant white décor, the sparkling chandelier that hung in the centre of the room, the silvery flocked wallpaper, the artfully arranged vases and soothing paintings – all the things she hadn’t noticed before even though they’d been here dozens of times.
Zak ordered a bowl of pasta carbonara and a bottle of house red. She ordered a wild mushroom risotto and was now pushing it round her plate.
‘Don’t you ever eat, woman?’ Zak licked cream from his lips.
He had a good mouth, she thought. Strong. Honest. The thought brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them away. An honest mouth. Is that what Jude had? Or did her lover have a lying mouth?
‘You’re all skin and bone.’
‘I haven’t got much of an appetite, to be truthful.’ She picked up her glass and slugged back her wine. That was what was hitting the spot. Most of the time her stomach was so knotted with anxiety that it was impossible to eat, no matter how much she wanted the food.
‘You could do with more of this,’ Zak pointed at her food, ‘and less of that.’ The glass of wine.
‘Since when did you turn into my mother?’
‘Someone needs to look out for you,’ he said.
‘You said a glass of wine would do me good.’
‘A glass,’ he reiterated. ‘You’ve polished off a whole bottle.’
‘I’ll pay extra if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘Of course it’s not.’ Zak sounded irritated.
Just to be awkward, she topped her glass up again.
Zak’s hand covered hers on the table. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to pry. But could I just ask you, do you really think that you’re getting all that you need from this relationship with Jude?’
Lauren was taken aback at his directness. She and Zak had become good friends over the last year or so and he knew the issues she had, but they always skirted round the subject, pretending that it didn’t exist. He’d never before asked her so directly about her relationship with their boss.
‘He’s going to leave her,’ she said. ‘He’s going to leave his wife for me. This isn’t just a fling for either of us.’
‘And is that what you really want? To break up a family?’
‘She doesn’t love him,’ Lauren insisted. ‘It’s just a matter of time.’
‘Is that what he keeps telling you?’
‘It’s what I sincerely believe.’ She swigged her wine again.‘We’re not doing this lightly. I know that people will get hurt.’
‘And what if the person that gets hurt is you?’
That stunned her to silence.
Zak sighed. ‘Sorry, Lauren. That was below the belt. I didn’t ask you to come out with me to have a go at you. I just wonder exactly what it is that you see in Jude, that’s all.’ He held up his hand. ‘And no, I don’t want you to tell me.’
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They both laughed at that and it broke the tension.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lauren said. ‘I’m being a miserable old moo. In my defence, it isn’t easy not being able to be with the one you love.’
Zak gave her a wry glance. ‘Tell me about it.’ He picked at the tablecloth.
She didn’t know much about Zak’s romantic past and perhaps now wasn’t the time to pry.
‘You’re a beautiful woman, Lauren Osbourne. Don’t spend the best years of your life waiting for someone you might never have.’
‘Is that what you did?’
Her friend looked at her enigmatically. ‘It’s what I’m doing,’ Zak said.
Chapter 13
I go to the library on the way home and take out a travel book on Peru. Just out of curiosity.
I can’t go. I can’t possibly go. I just want to see where everyone else is going. For my own interest.
Finding a quiet corner, I sit on the well-worn library sofa and curl my legs beneath me. The book is filled with glorious colour photographs that bring an exotic world right on to my lap. I stroke the pages lovingly. Here’s the Cañón del Colca – a place I’ve never ever heard of which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, and Lake Titicaca, on the border of Peru and Bolivia, the second largest lake in South America that still houses people on floating islands made of reeds. I take out the itinerary that my colleagues will follow and flick to the pages covering the places being visited on the four-day charity trek. The charity trek that I’m not going to do.
Next on the list is the Nazca Lines, a collection of drawings etched into the earth as far back as 500 BC – Before Christ, not Blake Chadwick. Some say that the sophisticated drawings were made by aliens visiting the earth, some say that they’re messages to the ancient gods. I don’t know what I think, other than I’d really like to see them for myself. I let my fingers follow the mysterious outlines – the hummingbird, the monkey, the spider, the whale.
I could lose myself completely in this book. Already, I’ve been here an hour and have just begun to scratch the surface. Glancing at the clock, I think that I should be going home. Checking the book out, I slip it into the depths of my handbag. Then I can follow where my friends will be going. Lucky them, I think bitterly. Lucky, lucky them.
At home and, as soon as I open the front door, I can smell cooking.
‘Dinner’s nearly burned,’ Greg shouts from the kitchen.
I throw down my bag. ‘I didn’t know that you were cooking.’
‘I got home a bit early. Thought I’d start it.’
Greg never cooks. That’s my job. I feel like testing the temperature of his forehead, but I resist.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asks.
In Peru, I want to say. In the Colca Canyon, at the Nazca Lines, lost in the Andes. Instead, I say, ‘I popped into the library.’
Greg raises his eyebrows but asks no more questions. I notice that the table is set for four. ‘Are the kids here?’
He nods and goes back to fiddling with his dinner. ‘I just did the pork chops that were in the fridge with some carrots and new potatoes. That okay?’
‘Fine.’ I want something spicy, unusual – what do they eat in Peru? Haven’t got to that bit in the book yet. Probably something involving rice and beans and chillies. Something with a fiery bite. I’d like to wash it down with a Pisco Sour or two. Get drunk on the local hooch. Greg has what you might call a ‘narrow palate’. He prefers his food boiled or fried and eats no fruit at all and believes that carrots are the only vegetables worth consuming because they’ll prevent him from needing glasses as he gets older. Plus, despite being a lifelong, avid fisherman, he hates fish.
‘Cup of tea?’
‘I’ll make it.’
We drink it while we wait for the potatoes to boil.
‘Good day?’ Greg asks.
‘Yes.’ I can’t bring myself to tell him about the charity trek in Peru. He wouldn’t be interested. Wouldn’t want to know. Greg has never had the urge to travel to the four corners of the world. His horizons go no further than the Grand Union Canal and his other favourite bolthole, the North Norfolk coast. ‘You?’
‘Yes.’
Greg has been at the same company since he was sixteen. He started there as a delivery boy in a brown coat and has been promoted steadily over the years as the company has grown. Now he works in the offices scheduling deliveries. He likes it there. He’s comfortable. My husband has never had the desire to pursue a career, has never been ambitious for himself. He likes the company because he knows it and, though he might grumble at times that they take him for granted, I can’t ever see him leaving.
We dish out the dinner and shout up to the children, who eventually shuffle down to the kitchen table.
My daughter Ellen is working in Monsoon in the city centre and has been for the last four years. All her wages go on clothes and clubbing – certainly none of it lingers in her bank account. Bobby left school at sixteen with very little to show for it and has yet to decide what his future holds. He’s drifted in and out of jobs since then. Plumbing, he decided, was the thing for him – he lasted six weeks. Then he tried his hand at painting and decorating – that one managed to enthral him for nearly three months. Since then he’s done odd jobs, mainly cash in hand and barely enough to cover his mobile phone bill. I keep nagging him to go to college, learn a trade, do something that will ensure that he doesn’t spend the rest of his life living hand to mouth. But what can I do? He’s turned eighteen – he’s supposed to be a man, not a child any more. What I feel like doing is pinching hold of one of his ears and pulling him down to the college myself to sign him up to do something – anything.
They both take after their father. It isn’t me they’ve inherited their inert disposition from. As I’ve grown older I’ve become full of unfocused, unrealised desire and ambition. It’s just that I’ve never managed to do much about it. My role as wife and mother has taken priority and has subsumed any natural instincts to strike out and do something different. Well, no longer. This year is going to be my year.
I get a cursory hug from Ellen, and Bobby says, ‘All right, Mum?’ And they sit down.
They’re hardly ever here so that we can have a family dinner together. I’ve spent the last two years trying to make sure that they’re at least home at dinnertime so that we can all eat together, but it’s like pushing water uphill. The lure of the latest trendy bar straight from work is often more appealing than my traditional cooking. In the end, I got fed up with throwing dried-up dinners in the bin and now they largely do their own thing – which seems to involve constantly grazing from the fridge when they grace us with their presence. Dinner together as a family normally happens only on high days and holidays, and soon they’ll be gone altogether. Then it will be just me and Greg and his fishing rods. What will I do then?
My husband puts a plate in front of me. The dinner looks lovely but, suddenly, I want to cry. I think of everyone going to Peru, except me. I remember both Bobs and Ellen wailing those same words to me as children: ‘But everyone else is going . . .’ And that’s how I feel now. That’s exactly how I feel. Everyone else is going except me! Does no one hear my silent cry?
I pick up my knife and fork and then put them down again – a bit too abruptly it seems, as I make my family jump.
‘Do something with your lives,’ I blurt out.
My children and my husband look up from their pork chops and new potatoes, startled.
‘Ellen. Bobby. Both of you. Before it’s too late. Go to exotic places. Do exotic things. Sow your wild oats. Try parachuting. Dance naked in the rain. Go scuba-diving. Go to work every day loving your job. Live life to the full. You never know when it might be your last!’ I look at their terrified faces. ‘Enjoy your chops!’
There’s a stunned hiatus at the table.
Ellen glances at her brother and father uncertainly and then is the first to speak. Her voice is hushed. ‘Are you going to die, Mum?’
‘No,’ I say. But I burst into tears anyway.
Chapter 14
‘Eat your dinner,’ Greg says to the kids. ‘I’ll take your mum outside for a bit of fresh air.’
My husband helps me from the table and steers me gingerly into the garden as if I might break. Ellen comes out with a glass of water for me and then retreats hastily.
I sit on the brick wall that divides the patio from the small lawn. Greg sits down next to me. He looks like he might put his arm round me, but then he doesn’t. ‘Mind telling me what that was all about?’
I sniff my tears away. ‘Nothing, nothing. Just me being silly.’
‘You scared the life out of us all,’ he says.
‘Sorry. Sorry. It was stupid of me.’
‘Is there really nothing wrong with you?’
‘No.’ Nothing that an adventure, a bit of excitement, a trip to Peru wouldn’t cure. Then it comes to me. If I can’t go to Peru, then I could go somewhere else.
‘Why don’t we go away this weekend?’ I turn to my husband and take both of his hands in mine. They’re strong, workworn now. ‘Just the two of us. Let’s just take off somewhere.’
He looks alarmed. ‘It wasn’t you that wanted to do the parachuting thing you mentioned in that rant?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No. No. Though would it be such a bad idea?’
His expression tells me that it would.
‘Let’s do something spontaneous,’ I urge. ‘The kids can see to themselves. They’re more than old enough.’ Although they might well still burn the house down. I cross my fingers behind my back. ‘They don’t need us around.’
‘I was going to go fishing with Ray.’
That’s all my husband ever does. I bite back that particular comment as unproductive if I’m trying to be encouraging. ‘Can’t you go another time?’
Greg looks uncertain about this clearly seismic change to his preordained timetable.