Zoe glanced at Freda, who tactfully backed into the kitchen with the used coffee mugs. ‘Sorry!’ she mouthed, then turned to face the window.
‘Stop over-reacting, David. He hasn’t been kicked out – I’ve just brought him home for the afternoon. He won’t tell me what the fight was about – he’s very moody at the moment. I don’t want to make him feel worse.’
‘For God’s sake, Zoe, he’s too young to be in fights! He’s seven! What next? Bunking off school to nick stuff? You’ve got custody because
you
claimed
you
were the best one to deal with all this.’
She stared out of the window into the orchard where Rachel was throwing balls for a couple of terriers. It was so peaceful, with the forest in the background and the rows of apple trees. Rachel threw the ball in a long, elegant motion; the dogs bounded eagerly after it, and dropped it at her feet for her to throw again. Easy. Neat.
‘I am dealing with it,’ she said tightly. ‘But I don’t think it helps, introducing him and Leo to—’ She made herself say it. ‘— to Jennifer so soon.’
David let out an exasperated sigh. ‘So soon? Why? We’ve been together for . . .’ Now he stopped short.
‘Go on,’ said Zoe, masochistically. ‘It can’t be longer than I’ve already guessed. You’ve got the divorce now – admitting the truth can’t change anything.’
‘It doesn’t matter how long we were seeing each other,’ he blustered, and even though Zoe didn’t feel a thing for him any more, something inside her wizened up. What a pushover, she thought. Everyone just runs rings around me.
‘He’s got to know sooner or later that we have our own lives,’ he insisted. ‘They’ve got to accept we’re not getting back together.’
‘But in the meantime I’ve got to pick up the pieces?’
Rachel was throwing two balls at a time now, much to the terriers’ delight. For a moment, Zoe wished she had Rachel Fielding’s life: cosmopolitan, sexy in an unusual, media sort of way, great legs, no ties. No one ran rings round Rachel; she did exactly what she wanted, and got what she wanted.
As soon as she thought it, Zoe wanted to wipe her traitorous brain clean.
‘And
I’m
not seeing anyone,’ she added, just to twist the knife – in whom, she wasn’t sure. ‘
I’m
trying to put the boys first.’
‘If you want to live like a nun that’s up to you,’ said David. ‘Not my problem. But Spencer is.’
He sounded so sanctimonious, like he wouldn’t kick off if she sent him the invoices for the child therapist.
Zoe rubbed her eyes. Getting bitchy wouldn’t help.
‘I’ll find out what’s been going on, and let you know what you can do,’ she said, in the calm voice Mrs Kennedy had used to such amazing effect on Spencer. ‘And in the meantime, maybe you could get a book out of the library about helping your child cope with divorce? And one for your girlfriend. Though preferably not Snow White.’
‘Very funny,’ snarled David, and hung up.
Freda poked her head around the door. ‘Are you done, pet?’ She proffered a cup of coffee. ‘Put two sugars in. Thought you needed it.’
‘Thanks.’ Zoe sank onto a chair, barely feeling the heat of the mug cupped in her hands. The dogs were barking up a storm in the kennels, and she hoped Spencer wasn’t playing up too. That was the last thing she needed: Megan deciding that Toffee and the Grahams were too much to handle.
‘Does it get easier, Freda?’ she asked. ‘Parenting?’
‘No,’ said Freda. ‘Our Lynne, bless her, was a terror. Motorcycles, boyfriends with tattoos, the lot. Then she moved to New Zealand, got married and we don’t know the half of what she and her family are up to.’ She smiled, wistfully. ‘But you get into the habit of worrying. That’s why Ted and I fostered dogs for Dorothy – gave us something else to worry about.’
‘But small enough to put on your knee.’
‘Yes! And unconditional with their love, too.’
Zoe sipped her coffee. Between her madhouse at home and the madhouse at work, the kennels were turning into the only place she felt relaxed – and that was with all the homeless dogs yapping away on the other side of the doors.
‘But enjoy it while you can,’ Freda added, unexpectedly. ‘Because before you know it, they’re off, and you’re telling a Yorkshire terrier that her mummy loves her.’
Zoe looked at the old lady, and suddenly saw a melancholy in Freda she hadn’t noticed before beneath the busy façade. She was about to ask more, when the doors burst open and Megan came in, with Toffee on the lead and Spencer trailing behind her, sulking and looking a lot like David when his team lost a home game.
‘Spencer,’ she began, with a warning tone, but Megan held up her hand. She didn’t look as cheerful as normal, but there was a set to her jaw that suggested she was determined not to lose her temper either.
‘Training!’ she said brightly. ‘That’s what Spencer needs. He’s going to teach Toffee a new trick, and Toffee’s going to teach Spencer some patience.’
Neither Toffee nor Spencer looked particularly convinced, but Megan got out her training treats and caught Zoe’s eye. ‘You want to join in, Zoe? We’re going to learn “Stay”. And this might take some practice.’
If Spencer had decided to play up for attention, Leo had gone completely the other way, and was happy to be put to bed as soon as he’d had his bath.
‘Am I a good boy?’ he murmured as Zoe tucked him into his duvet, his eyes closing in the baby-powdery darkness.
‘Yes, you’re my good boy,’ she replied, her heart aching. He was asleep by the time she pressed a quiet kiss on his forehead – or else he was pretending really well.
Zoe let Spencer stay up an extra ten minutes, ‘because he was a big boy’, but really so she could have a quiet moment to herself with him.
They sat cuddled up together on the sofa, listening to one of his story tapes while Toffee slept between them, curled on Zoe’s lap, but with his paws on Leo’s leg. Their breathing seemed to mingle in a soft puppy/child smell that Zoe loved. She tried to imprint Spencer’s sleepy face on her mind, the way his still baby-soft hair curled around his ear, the nectarine sheen of his perfect skin. He wouldn’t be curling up on her knee for much longer, but for now he was still her baby. It was impossible to imagine him lashing out in frustration, this docile angel in her arms.
She stroked his head, still warm from the bath. ‘Spence, you’d tell me if you were unhappy, wouldn’t you?’
He said nothing, and she wondered if he was asleep.
‘You can tell me everything, because I love you,’ she went on. ‘I’ll always love you. So will Daddy. It doesn’t matter what happens, because you’ll always be our most precious thing in the whole world.’
He didn’t reply and she felt relieved she’d been let off explaining something she didn’t totally understand herself, how she and David had loved each other so passionately once, and then almost immediately the babies had come along like a sign that it was perfect and meant to be. And then they’d found more and more to dislike about each other until he’d preferred to be at work – with Jennifer. She didn’t understand, and she was the grown-up.
Her gaze fell on the photograph of her and David, and Spencer and Leo, on a model railway, up in the Lakes. The last family holiday they’d had. It seemed like it had happened to someone else now. A different life. Or rather, she had the same life, what was left of it – it was David who’d struck out and started again. It had taken all her strength to leave that photograph up there, instead of cutting David out of it, like a gangrenous foot.
Maybe I was wrong to leave it, she thought. Maybe that’s why Spencer thinks Daddy will come back, so long as he’s naughty enough.
Spencer was falling asleep, going by his heavy breathing. Zoe leaned forward to rest her lips on his head, drawing his drowsy smell into her lungs. It was the sweetest perfume she’d ever known. ‘I love you, Spencer,’ she whispered and squeezed her eyelids tight shut, to stop the fierce, loving tears falling on his hair.
21
It took Rachel several days to make the appointment at the surgery, but only five minutes for Dr Carthy to confirm that she was definitely five weeks pregnant.
‘Congratulations,’ he’d said, with a quick smile, and passed her a selection of leaflet-y reading matter, none of which Rachel could believe was even vaguely relevant to her.
And that was it, she thought, as she made her way back into the sunny waiting room, still recovering. It was official. She checked her diary obediently as Lauren made her appointments for a ‘proper check-up appointment’ the following week, and then drove back to Four Oaks in a daze.
I suppose I should tell George now, she thought.
Rachel and George had fallen into an unspoken but easy routine over the past few weeks – Saturday nights they ate at his house, where the food was excellent; Wednesdays, Rachel left Gem with Megan and took George out for dinner and a film in the out-of-town complex near Hartley, where the food was average but allowed George to make jokes about how she was missing the big city. Most days he called into the kennels, ‘in passing’, but it didn’t bother Rachel too much on the days he didn’t; George understood about leaving some space. It suited them both.
‘You know I heard on the grapevine that George has bribed his locum to do his Wednesday night call-out so he can see you,’ said Megan slyly, as Rachel arrived in the kitchen on Saturday, ready to leave. ‘Ooh, you look nice. I thought you were staying in?’
‘We are.’ Rachel pulled her hands through her hair. ‘Just because George has formal and informal wellies doesn’t mean
I
can’t make an effort.’
She was wearing some expensive jeans she’d bought off the internet in a moment of reconnection weakness and one of Dot’s swing jackets over a t-shirt. The jacket was handmade, with a gorgeous lavender satin lining – it didn’t seem to have been worn at all, apart from a faint smell of Coco.
‘I should get a move on.’ Rachel whistled for Gem. Her stomach had been fluttering all day at the thought of how she was going to break the news. No amount of meetings had prepared her for this. There was no good angle.
Megan wasn’t going to let her gossip go that easily. ‘Freda reckons you’re the first girlfriend he’s brought to the pub, and you know how long she and Ted have been here. She reckons George has got that look about him when he’s with you. She’s talking about buying a hat!’ Megan caught herself, seeing Rachel’s expression, and added, ‘’Course I told her it’s very early days yet.’
Rachel managed a bleak smile. ‘Yup.’
‘You going to be back late?’ Megan enquired.
‘I don’t know. Gem! Come here now!’
Her tone was sharper than she meant it to be, and his ears flattened nervously against his head as he sidled towards her.
‘Don’t scare him,’ said Megan. ‘I know he’s a farm dog by birth but he’s not used to being shouted at.’
Gem slunk to her side, his eyes lowered, and Rachel suddenly felt utterly inadequate. She longed to be back on her own, in her own flat, in her old world. I’m better at being on my own, she thought, and immediately realised that that option would never be available to her again.
‘I won’t be late, Megan.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder and grabbed the bottle of wine off the dresser. That was for George. He’d need it.
‘You be as late as you want,’ said Megan happily.
George pretended that he hadn’t gone to much effort – he claimed to be just back from a lambing – but the kitchen of his house smelled delicious and there were yellow tulips in the jug on the table that Rachel knew hadn’t come from his ramshackle garden.
He chatted away so easily that for the first twenty minutes Rachel was lulled into forgetting what she’d come to tell him, and it was only when he uncorked a bottle of wine that the new reality slapped her in the face again.
‘Can I tempt you?’ George showed her the bottle. ‘I’m doing some venison so I’ve gone for a Shiraz, but if you prefer something different, just say.’ He put it on the table next to her glass, and gestured towards a well-stocked wine rack. ‘My cellar’s at your disposal. I know you’re something of an expert,’ he added.
‘I’ll just have water, thanks,’ said Rachel.
‘Water? Are you all right?’ George pretended to feel her forehead and her skin tingled at the touch of his hand. She knew he was conscious of the casual contact too; they were still at the shivery ‘can I touch you?’ stage where it wasn’t a given.
Bit late for that, she thought.
‘You don’t have to pretend you don’t drink,’ he went on, cheerfully. ‘Don’t forget we’ve already got the embarrassing drunk face out of the way.’
‘No, I’m not drinking. I can’t . . . I’m . . .’ Rachel held onto the back of the chair. This was as good an opening as any.
She looked down at Gem, who had curled himself in a ball in the basket by the Aga. He looked utterly relaxed, and she realised that he probably had been here before, with Dot. He was more at home than she was. He’d probably prefer to live with George.
Rachel felt the running away urge again, more strongly. How could this be
happening
to her?
‘What? On antibiotics?’ He stirred a pan of gravy on the hotplate. ‘Something I should know?’