“You know what you should do?” Orla broke into his thoughts.
“No.”
“Give her a taste of her own medicine.”
“Great idea.” Ed brightened. “I just don’t know any obliging twenty-three-year-olds.”
“How about an obliging thirty-something?”
If it was a honey trap Orla had set, he had a feeling he’d just walked straight into it.
“Where would we go?”
“Budleigh Salterton,” she joked.
“What about the kids?”
“Let Ali look after them for the weekend.” It seemed a reasonable suggestion, but then that would mean Christian Trendy Bastard having them for the weekend too.
“If we’re going to be partners, it would help to get to know each other better. Away from the work environment.”
Partners? This hadn’t cropped up before. Ed had assumed that Orla would be the boss and that he’d be the hired help. This put a whole new slant on things.
“Yes,” he said hesitantly.
Orla leaned on the back of her chair, her hand cupping her face. One black eyebrow arched imperceptibly. “After all, what’s good for the goose is surely good enough for the gander….”
And in the absence of a better suggestion, Ed decided it probably was.
CHAPTER 47
I put the phone down and turn to face Christian. “Ed wants us to have the children for the weekend.”
“All weekend?” Christian’s voice has gone up an octave. He is lying on the sofa in the kitchen and immediately swings his feet round and sits up in the manner of a man who’s just had an awful shock.
“Yes. Isn’t that great?”
“Oh no,” Christian wails. “That’s terrible.”
“No, no,” I try to reassure him. “That’s good. It means that Ed is starting to accept things.” I’m not sure about this even as I say it.
“Why can’t he have them?”
“He’s going away,” I say absently. “On business.”
“Where to?”
“I didn’t ask,” I admit.
“But the whole weekend, Ali?” Christian tosses aside his music magazine. “Two hours in McDonald’s was bad enough.”
“You don’t have to come,” I say breezily and put on my face that says, “If you loved me, you’d damn well come!”
“Where will we take them? What will we do?”
“Let me worry about that,” I say airily, thinking: Where will we take them? What will we do?
“We’ve got packing and stuff to do.”
“How long can it take to throw a few pairs of shorts in a case? There’s nothing there but sand, you said so yourself. My holidays are usually like military operations,” I say. “You forget I’m used to packing for five.”
“But it’s Friday, already. We might have had things planned.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Christian spread his hands. “Couldn’t he have let us know earlier?”
“So that you could have planned to flee the country?”
We both laugh. “You’re a hard woman, Ali Kingston,” Christian says and pulls me down onto the sofa next to him, spanking me playfully on my bottom as he does.
I pout my best soft, pouty pout. “I want you to like them,” I say. “I want them to like you.”
“I’ll try,” Christian promises, and that’s all I want.
“I know this isn’t easy.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “But they’re part of the deal.”
“Maybe I should have read the small print first before I signed up?” he says with a smile that barely reaches his mouth, let alone his eyes. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He kisses me, and any doubts I feel for the future or for spending a weekend with my own children are quelled by the passion of his embrace.
“You’re going away with another woman!” Neil shrieked in surprise, spraying the froth from the top of his beer.
“Sssh!” Ed looked round. The barmaid had inched closer. It was lunchtime and the Groucho Club was crowded. “It’s business.”
“Bollocks,” Neil said.
“It is.”
“Monkey business.”
“Orla thought it would be a good idea,” Ed said.
“I bet she did!”
“Look, Neil,” Ed reasoned, “you said yourself that I was a free agent.”
Neil frowned. “Edward. Since when have you ever listened to a word I’ve said?”
“I’m taking your advice. I’m going with the flow.”
“That was to go with the flow when it involved the soft, nice, squishy stream of Miss Nicola nursery-school teacher Jones, not the torrential battering of Ms. Ball-breaker Orla the ’Orrible.”
“It’s no good telling me that now,” Ed said. “And, anyway, Orla’s okay once you get to know her.”
“Which you no doubt will if you’re going to be ensconced with her for the weekend.” Neil frowned at his beer. “And what does Ali think of this new departure?”
“She doesn’t know,” Ed admitted. “I told her it was a business trip. But then I hardly feel I have to take Alicia’s feelings into account after she announced that she’s going to the other side of the world with the toy boy.” He gulped at his beer.
“Is she?”
Ed wiped the froth from his lip. “Maldives.”
“Really? It’s supposed to be very romantic….”
“Don’t think about going there, Neil,” Ed warned.
“…in a sandy sort of way,” his brother added quickly.
“Alicia hates sand,” Ed said thoughtfully.
“Well, there you go, mate.” Neil clapped his brother on the back cheerfully. “She’ll have a crap time.”
Ed looked rueful. “And me?”
“Cancel it, Ed.”
“I can’t.”
“She’ll understand.”
“She won’t. She’s only just about forgiven me for making her fall in the canal.”
“It’s your marriage that’s at stake here.”
“I’m not sure that it’s in Orla’s interests for it to continue.”
“And yours?”
If things didn’t work out with Alicia and, at the moment, that looked somewhere between slim and remote, then Orla was his lifeline, his escape route, his tunnel out to better things. He could put all this behind him, start afresh in a different, more glamorous life. A life where the sun would shine every day and people wouldn’t take the piss out of him for talking about Harrison Ford.
“This is so unfair, Edward. I can’t get hold of a decent woman and here you are, still technically married, and you’ve got them stacking up like junk mail.” Neil tipped some peanuts into his hand and tossed them into his mouth, snapping it shut. “Life is constantly cruel,” he moaned.
It was, Ed agreed. The one woman he wanted was about to pack her bucket and spade and increase the distance between them even further.
CHAPTER 48
I’m standing in the kitchen of my own home, feeling like a stranger. A stranger who’s just made a bad smell. The kids are sitting quietly at the table—even Elliott—and my kids just don’t do quiet. Ed is fidgeting, and I can feel my irritation rising. He is wearing his coat already and his weekend bag is at his feet, and I resist the temptation to ask him if he’s sure he’s got everything. He’s chewing his fingernails, which drives me barmy, and he’s been doing it for fifteen minutes.
“I thought I’d be gone by the time you got here,” he says for the millionth time.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Does it?”
Ed glances out of the window. He seems very agitated.
“It’s not like you to work at the weekends.”
“No,” Ed says and doesn’t meet my glance.
“Shall I make a cup of tea?”
“I might not have time to drink it.”
“Oh,” I say. I’m trying to be bright and chirpy, but no one is helping me and the whole kitchen feels like an elasti
c band stretching to twanging point. “Do you mind if I make one?”
“No. No. Go ahead.”
This is my home. My kitchen. My kettle. My tea bags. And I’m asking if I can make a cup of tea! Except that it isn’t really my home anymore. It’s more grimy than it was when I left it, and there are things left out on the work surfaces that should have been put away. I don’t seem to feel comfortable anywhere anymore. I feel as if I’m in limbo, which is the outskirts of hell according to the Bible—which I would agree with, but I have no idea why it should produce such a strange breed of dancers.
Christian is concerned that I don’t feel at home at his house. But then none of them seem to be particularly at home there either. They don’t know how anything works—or care to. They don’t clean it. They don’t cosset it. Robbie doesn’t really move from the sofa in the kitchen, and Rebecca, during the fleeting time she is there, never comes out of her bedroom. I mentioned to Christian that it might be the decoration—as every room, apart from the two which Christian has customized, has a sad, unloved air about it. The dining room is never used. It has cobwebs all over it, like something out of Great Expectations, but I haven’t had the strength to tackle it yet. It takes me all my time to tidy up after the boys—so some things are exactly like home.
Christian’s kitchen has neglect stamped all over it. When I went back there yesterday, he’d painted a six-foot mural of Lara Croft on the kitchen wall and was glowing with pride through his covering of emulsion. It is stunning. Though quite why he thought a gun-toting, large-breasted, scantily clad cartoon goddess would make it feel more homely is beyond me. He was anxious that I adore it and I do. I just have this thing about making spaghetti bolognese with a machine gun aimed at the back of my head and, no matter how hard I try, I can’t help feeling somewhat attached to floral prints and pastel shades. I blame Kath Brown.
I fill the kettle and take a mug from the cupboard, mainly because it gives me something to do rather than out of a burning desire for the delights of PG Tips. “Why aren’t you taking your car?” I ask Ed, again for something to say more than anything else.
“I…er…” he says and then stops and looks vacant.
“Who’s collecting you?”
“I…er…” he says again and, at that moment, a large shiny car pulls into the drive.
An utterly, utterly gorgeous woman gets out and stands on my gravel. She is as sleek as her car and as slender as a reed. A reed that’s been on the Vanessa Feltz Let’s Get Svelte diet. For her entire life. She’s wearing black jeans and a tan leather jacket that shrieks expensive and a cream silk roll neck underneath. Her hair is piled up on her head and she’s wearing trendy Men in Black sunglasses. She is doing casual like she’s on a catwalk. When I do casual, I do it like I’ve just fallen out of bed.
Ed doesn’t move. No one does. Only Elliott. He looks up and out of the window at the approaching woman. “That’s Orville,” he informs me.
“Orla!” everyone else says.
Ed and I exchange glances. Orla taps at the back door and then walks straight in—which even I didn’t feel comfortable about doing. She takes off her sunglasses, and her eyes are gorgeous too. They’re like the blacked-out windows of a swanky limousine. They let the occupant see out, but are far too dark to let people on the outside know what’s going on behind them. I hate her already and she hasn’t even opened her mouth.
I look at Ed. Ed looks at Orla. Orla looks at me. I look back at Orla. Who looks at Ed. Ed blushes. “This is Alicia,” he mutters.
“Hi,” she says and folds her arms across her cleavage.
“What time does your conference start?” I ask, looking at Ed.
Ed looks at Orla. Orla looks at me. I look back at Orla. Who looks at Ed. Ed blushes even more. He could well burst a blood vessel at this rate. I hope. “I…er…”
“You don’t want to be late,” I say.
I look at Ed. He looks at me. I look back at him. We don’t need to speak—we’ve been married far too long for that. My eyes can convey every message I’ll ever need and now they say, Business? Bollocks!
“No.” He snatches up his case.
“I take it you won’t mind if Christian comes round here while you’re away? On business,” I add.
“No,” he says with a look that translates as, Of course I bloody mind!
“Good.” I smile magnanimously and nurse my tea. “Nice to meet you, Orville,” I say.
“Orla,” Ed hisses.
He kisses the children hastily and rushes to Orla’s side, taking her elbow, steering her to the back door.
“What shall I tell Nicola if she calls while you’re away?” I ask as he leaves. His face is dark and stormy.
“Tell her I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Before the door closes, I hear Orla saying, “Who the hell is Nicola?”
I cover my smirk, knowing I’m being childish. How is Orla to know that the only love interest Miss Jones has in this house is Elliott? It might give her something to think about while they’re doing their “business.”
I sit down with my tea and my children. I don’t know whether I want to laugh at our situation or cry. “It’s nice to be home,” I say, and my voice sounds wobblier than Jell-O.
“There was an awful lot of looking going on,” Elliott observes.
“Was there?” I say.
“I can’t wait until I get older and can do looks.” He smiles at the thought.
“You won’t need to do ‘looks’ when you’re older, Elliott,” I say. “I’ll have killed you by then.”
“You’re the one who’s going to get Daddy into trouble,” he advises me.
“Really?” I say. “Why?”
He leans toward me conspiratorially and lowers his voice. “I think Miss Jones stayed here all night.” Elliott puts his hand across his mouth and giggles. “In Daddy’s bed.”
Tanya’s head snaps up from her magazine. “Elliott, you little snitch. We don’t know that for sure!”
The one good thing about having a son with a big mouth and no idea of discretion is that I get to hear everything. Eventually.
“But she might have done?” My voice isn’t at all steady.
Tanya shrugs and retreats behind her glossy pages.
“I don’t think Orville knows,” Elliott says. “And I don’t think she’d like it.”
My hands have turned to ice, despite the warmth of my tea permeating through the cup. “She’s not the only one,” I reply.
CHAPTER 49
We have decided to take the children to a fairground, Christian and I. And it seemed like a really good idea at the time. But let’s face it, a day that starts with you poking yourself in the eye with a mascara brush just isn’t going to get better, is it?
And I couldn’t find my rings this morning. Not that I wanted to wear them, but they were conspicuous by their absence, and the dusty ceramic dish on the bedside table was empty. I don’t know where they are, and neither does Christian. But then men never know where anything is, do they? I expect I’ve put them in a safe place and as with all safe places, have totally, utterly and completely forgotten where.
Then, to top all that, I find out that my husband, even though he might almost be considered my ex-husband, has not one, but two young, pretty gorgeous women on the go which is a bit more than anyone could reasonably be expected to bear. And it’s going to take a lot more than a bit of limp pink candy floss to sort my mood out, I can tell you.
I used to love fairgrounds when I was a child. Everything about them. I loved the smells and the noise and the flashing lights. They were places of excitement and daring, exotic and glamorous. I’m sure they were. Memory seems to have a very cruel way of playing tricks.
It’s been raining for the past few days—when isn’t it? Which means that the once green and pleasant playing field upon which the fairground has disgorged itself is now a sea of sticky brown mud with the odd tuft of flattened grass struggling through. It’s a very small playing field
, and all the stalls are cramped together, so that you can’t help but walk on the mud. The skies are dark and moody, a bit like me, and the clouds roll across them like waves the color of tar. The cheery colors of the fairground, red, yellows and flashing neon struggle bravely against it, but prove themselves unequal to the task. It’s the sort of day when you should stay indoors with sheepskin slippers, a glass of mulled wine and a weepy film. With three children? What a laugh. I think I last did that in about 1980, when I had a bad bout of the flu and the mulled wine had been Lemsip. I can dream though, can’t I?
Although the full-blown rain has died down, there’s a sort of gray drizzle running from the conical rooftops, so that if you stop to look at any of the stalls it manages to drip directly down the back of your neck. Surly, scruffy people man the stalls and everything is so expensive. If you want to win one of the poor, half-dead goldfish it could end up costing you about twenty-seven quid! But you do get a “free” poster of some greased-up WWF wrestling hero to go with it, which might be some consolation when the fish dies, as they usually do, a few days later.
There are half a dozen white-knuckle rides, some of which I remember from my youth, some of which are clearly newfangled inventions and spend far too much time upside down for my liking. The children—well, the boys—are so excited and hyper. Tanya is far too cool to be hyper about anything. She is tottering over the mud in her four-inch platform shoes, pretending that it isn’t a problem. Have you ever tried to find anything to do that will keep both a fifteen-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy entertained? Don’t. It’s impossible. Totally impossible. Tanya would rather be with her friends, and she’s made that patently clear, but if I don’t insist on her coming with us, then I won’t see her at all. It’s something we’ll have to address. But not today. Not after the mascara, the rings, Orville and everything else. Not today.