After the Honeymoon (33 page)

So
he
was allowed to call her that, was he? His wife gave her ex the sort of look that he’d thought was reserved only for him.

‘No,’ he heard her say. ‘It’s not you I’m upset with. Is it, Winston?’

Upset
? Winston pretended to check his phone, which had got clogged up with messages during the flight, including one from his producer. That would be nothing when she read about Nick.

‘We didn’t have a honeymoon. I didn’t want to leave my youngest. We had a lovely meal out instead.’

Author, second time around

EMMA

‘Mummy! I need a wee-wee!’

It was so hard to get back into the swing of things, thought Emma as she shepherded Gawain to the loo. To think that she’d spent most of her honeymoon wishing she was back with the children. But they’d been home for two whole weeks now and already Emma was wishing she was back in Siphalonia again. At the beginning of the week, before she’d met Yannis.

‘Too late!’ sang her son in her mother’s voice. ‘Gawain’s wet myself.’ He pointed down to his pants, pleased as punch. Oh dear. He’d been prone to the odd ‘accident’ before the honeymoon but when she’d got back, Mum had gleefully announced that she’d ‘finally got him dry’ – as though all it had taken was Emma’s absence.

But now he seemed to have regressed.

Mum and Bernie between them had taught him to tell the time. Well, the o’clock bit and the half past.
And
she’d virtually got Willow to sleep through the night by using the ‘rapid return’ technique from Dr Know’s telly programme.

But instead of being pleased, Emma just felt redundant. Clearly she wasn’t needed for motherhood, the only job she was qualified for.

Now it looked as though she was going to have to start all over again, at least when it came to potty training. Gawain still kept trying to snatch Willow’s dummy, too, as well as referring to himself in the third person – something new. Was it because he’d felt insecure when she was away? Or had her son picked up on her distress, which she’d been trying desperately to hide from Tom?

‘What’s wrong, love?’ her new husband had asked when they’d finally fallen into bed on the first night back and he’d held out his arms to her. (Now he was back in his own home, Tom seemed perfectly well, without any sign of sickness.)

‘Nothing,’ she’d replied swiftly, turning her back to him. ‘Sorry. It’s more comfortable this way, after the plane.’

As she spoke, Emma crossed her fingers. Lies were wrong, as she often told Gawain. Especially, she added to herself, when you were grown up.

‘Still upset about that stuck-up Melissa woman?’ he’d asked gently, reaching out and stroking her shoulders.

Normally, Emma would have welcomed his touch, but now it was a hideous reminder of her own unforgivable behaviour.

‘Yes,’ she’d sighed, seizing the excuse he had just handed her on a plate. ‘I
am
upset about Melissa. It’s not fair. I
didn’t
talk to the papers, whatever she said, even though I could have done. I’m not like that.’

She’d buried her face in the pillow. As if she didn’t have enough to cope with! How awful that someone as important as Winston King and his wife hated her! What would happen when she went back to school in September? Would Melissa blank her, tell everyone else not to talk to her?

‘Willow still has nappies, so why can’t Gawain?’

Her son’s voice cut into her thoughts, yanking her back to the present. Grabbing the cloth she kept behind the loo, especially for this purpose, Emma began to mop up. ‘Because you’re a big boy.’

Just as she was a big girl, she reminded herself. Too big to get drunk and do things with a man she didn’t know while her husband was ill in bed. Emma found herself digging her nails into her left arm. The pain felt good. She deserved it. No. She deserved far worse. Before her honeymoon, Emma had felt nothing but scorn for people who moaned about feeling guilty over an affair (usually on those daytime chat shows that Mum was addicted to). ‘Then don’t have one,’ she used to say out loud.

But now she understood how easily it could happen and how the self-loathing grew and grew inside, until it threatened to suck you up and suffocate you.

‘Mummy!’ Gawain was tugging at her impatiently, his little legs dangling over his toddler step. ‘Wipe bottom.’

‘Wipe
my
bottom,
please
,’ Emma retorted automatically, aware at the same time that regressive baby talk and bad manners was nothing compared with infidelity. If only, she thought, while searching for a clean pair of Spider-Man pants, she could confide in someone.

But she didn’t dare. Mum would only say ‘I told you so’. Bernie, for all her loud talk, would be shocked. And as for confessing all to her new husband, she couldn’t even go down that road. He’d never forgive her. Indeed, he’d call her (justifiably) a hypocrite for condemning her dad and yet doing it herself. Maybe – what an awful thought – it was in the genes.

No, Emma told herself as she heard a tired cry from the children’s bedroom, indicating that Willow had woken up too soon from her morning nap. She’d just have to get on with it. Pretend it had never happened.

Lying was the only way to save her marriage.

‘Let’s go to the park today, shall we, children?’

Emma forced her voice to sound bright, even though she felt exhausted. There were only so many things you could do with an active four-year-old and a toddler who was running into everything. Since Willow had learned to walk, the house had turned into a danger zone. Every table corner was a possible hazard, and every step just one call away from Casualty.

For the last month or so, since getting back, she’d been trying out different things to keep the kids amused. Drawing, cutting and pasting at the kitchen table. (Her wax crayoning had improved vastly after the classes in Greece. And the shell animals they’d been making, from her honeymoon collection, had gone down a treat.) That wasn’t all. They’d been watching educational DVDs. Visited the kids’ indoor gym on its half-price day. Gone swimming. And then, of course, they’d had the usual rota of pre-school friends round, although that wasn’t always a great idea. It turned out that Gawain wasn’t the only four-year-old to be regressing when it came to bladder control. ‘I’m so sorry,’ grimaced the mother who was known as Too Many Kids Mum because of her addiction to pregnancy. She’d taken the bag of wet pants and shrugged. ‘It’s only started since the last one was born. I think it might be jealousy.’

But now Emma’s
Keep Gawain occupied during the holiday
ideas were running out. In fact, it would be a relief when school started next week.

‘Don’t want to go to the park,’ Gawain frowned. They’d been playing cars on the kitchen floor since breakfast and tempers were becoming decidedly frayed.

‘Ducks,’ declared Willow, her little face breaking out into a broad smile.

Emma clapped her hands with delight. ‘Yes! Clever girl! We’ll take some bread to feed them.’

Willow nodded with that bright enthusiasm you rarely saw in an adult. If only she could bottle that for ever! ‘Come on, Gawain. You’ll like it when we get there.’

Bundling her son into his little coat (it was one of those bright but nippy late August days), Emma shepherded him towards the door. ‘Wait there until I get Willow’s pushchair,’ she instructed. Honestly, it was like a military campaign getting them both out of the house! On the other hand, thank heavens for routine. It was the only way to block out those awful memories which kept coming back into her head.

Her lust. The drink. The need to be truly desired in a place where everyone else seemed to be ‘at it’ …

‘Come on. Walk nicely,’ she pleaded with Gawain, who insisted on walking precariously, one foot in front of the other, along the side of the pavement. ‘Gawain! I said not near the road! If you don’t stop, you can’t go on the slide.’

The slide was his favourite, but she could already see from the park gate that there was a long queue. This place got really busy in the summer holidays, stuffed with parents (either the bored variety or the over-enthusiastic) plus a sprinkling of au pairs, who were more interested in yabbering away on their mobiles than looking after their charges.

‘It’s my turn!’

‘No, it’s not, it’s
my
turn!’

Those voices sounded very familiar …

‘Melissa!’ Emma came face to face with the tall, slim, dark-haired woman who was trying to stop Alice and Freddie from clambering onto one of the kids’ swing seats.

Her breath caught in her throat. This was the first time she’d seen her ‘friend’ since that awful scene at the airport. All through the summer holidays, Emma had been keeping her eyes peeled, mentally preparing the speech she kept going over and over in her mind.

But now she was right in front of her, it all went out of her head.

‘Oh. It’s you.’ Melissa turned her back on Emma. ‘Stop it, you lot. You’re both too old to play on the baby seats. Why don’t you go to the pitch and putt instead?’

‘That’s for saddos.’

‘It takes one to know one.’

Goodness. They weren’t easy, were they? ‘You might like it when you’re doing it,’ suggested Emma brightly, going into work mode.

‘We don’t need any advice from you.’ Melissa’s sharp voice was so different from the kind woman who had befriended her in Siphalonia. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on your own lot?’ She threw a disdainful glance at Gawain, who was tearing towards the roundabout. Willow, meanwhile, was straining vigorously from the confines of her pushchair, uttering loud cries of ‘Out, out.’

‘I just wanted to say,’ stuttered Emma, keeping one eye on Gawain while lifting Willow into the tyre swing, ‘that I really wasn’t responsible for talking to that journalist. You’ve got to believe that, Melissa. Can’t we just be friends again?’

There was a short silence. Emma was aware of being scrutinised. Even Alice seemed to be looking at her as though appraising her. ‘I’m sorry,’ Melissa said finally. ‘I’ve learned that you can’t always trust people. Come on, you two. We’re going.’

Emma watched them leave with a sinking heart. For a moment there, she’d thought Melissa was going to give her a brief hug and say that of course she knew Emma wouldn’t have done such an awful thing. But instead, she’d seen something in those eyes that she hadn’t seen on holiday in Greece.

Pain. Mixed with fear. Did it, Emma wondered, as she gently pushed Willow on the swing, have anything to do with that last newspaper story about Winston, the day after they’d got back from Greece?

The one about Nick Thomas.

When Tom had read out bits from his paper, she’d had to admit that it didn’t sound as though Winston had behaved very well in the Marines.

Poor Melissa. Maybe she was finding out, too, that married life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

‘Push, push!’ Willow was now demanding.

Emma did as she was told. Uh-oh. Instead of sitting quietly on the roundabout, Gawain was trying to climb all over it. It was so difficult to be in two places at once when you had two kids under five.

‘It’s OK! I’ll stop him.’ Bernie’s cheery voice rang out across the park.

Apprehensively, Emma watched her friend sprint over and lift Gawain up, tickling him. ‘Got you, you little monkey. Now if you behave yourself, Auntie Bernie will get you an ice cream.’

Why didn’t he laugh like that with her, instead of grizzling all the time? Was it possible that he’d bonded with Bernie – as well as Mum – while she’d been away?

‘Hello, stranger.’ Bernie’s voice had an edge to it. ‘Hardly seen anything of you this summer. Where’ve you been hiding yourself?’

Indeed, Emma hadn’t called round, hadn’t even rung to suggest that Bernie came over for a coffee. The truth was that if she spent time with Bernie, she might just find herself telling her about Yannis. (Even his name made her feel sick!)

On the other hand, Bernie was her friend, wasn’t she? Maybe she should take the risk. ‘Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you …’

Bernie beamed. ‘Me too.’

‘You first,’ said Emma quickly, losing her nerve.

‘No, you.’

Gawain was tugging at her jeans. ‘No arguing,’ he said bossily. No guesses where he’d picked that up from! Clearly Mum had had a hard time when they’d been away.

Bernie gave him another tickle. ‘Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted a bit of extra cash when term starts. They need someone to help with the after-school club. I can’t do it cos I agreed to help Vanessa in her shop two nights a week. Quite excited, I am, about that! Fancy myself as a fashion advisor, I do. But I did suggest to Gemma that
you
might be able to do it if your mum was able to have trouble here.’

‘You seem to have it all sorted out for me.’ Emma heard the words coming out of her mouth more sharply than she’d intended.

‘What’s up with you?’ Her friend gave her a worried look. ‘Ever since the honeymoon you’ve been like a cat on a hot tin roof. Is everything all right?’

If Bernie’s voice hadn’t been so kind and understanding, Emma would have managed to stay silent. But the sympathy, combined with her exhaustion, eroded the last part of her defences.

Just as well that Gawain was back on the swings again.

‘Oh Bernie.’ Hot tears rolled down her face as she clung to her friend. ‘I’ve done something awful. And now I don’t know what to do …’

She felt better afterwards. ‘Nothing like a good cry to let it all out,’ Bernie had said, giving her a big hug before she and the kids set off for home. ‘And don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul. You can trust me.’

What would she do without a friend like that? One Bernie was worth more than a million Melissas. The woman wasn’t worth bothering about. As for Yannis, Bernie was right. There was no point in dwelling on what she should have done. The best thing to do was to block it out and get on with her marriage.

Meanwhile, Emma felt quite excited about the after-school club opening. They could certainly do with the money. Maybe she’d drop in on Mum on the way home to sound her out.