Authors: Rowan Coleman
“Well, okay then,” Tiffany said eventually. “It’s not much fun being stuck in the flat on my own all day, I suppose, and I did promise Gary I wouldn’t go out in the van with him again.”
“Excellent,” Meg said, and without warning she kissed Natalie on both cheeks and enveloped both Tiffany and Jordan in a surprisingly affectionate hug that made Jordan squeal with delight.
“I’d better get back,” she said happily over her shoulder as she hurried away. “My husband hates being left alone with the kids for too long—they drive him utterly mad!”
“She’s a bit weird,” Tiffany said frankly as they watched Meg rush off into the night.
“Yes,” Natalie agreed. “But sort of wonderful, too.”
All the lights were blazing when they got back to the house, and the radiator in the hallway was creaking and clanking into life. Gary Fisher emerged from the basement just as Natalie shut the front door behind her and Tiffany.
“Learn anything?” he asked her.
“Not a thing,” Natalie said. “But Tiffany did.”
Gary nodded, his forehead wrinkling with an expression of
mild surprise. It was obvious he was amazed that Natalie seemed to get on rather well with Tiffany.
“Well, you’re sorted for tonight,” he said, nodding generally at the electric crystal chandelier that sparkled above their heads. “I’ll need to get parts in the morning so I’ll be here around ten-ish. I’ve left you a quote on the desk in there”—he gestured toward the living room. “You might want to look at it before I buy those parts.”
Natalie, whose arms were aching from carrying the baby for so long, shook her head.
“If it needs doing, it needs doing,” she said, walking into the living room, relieved to see that the baby chair was still on the table where she remembered leaving it. She carefully eased Freddie into the padded seat and he immediately began to cry.
“Um, the thing is,” Gary said as Natalie peered into the baby bag, looking for a clean nappy and cream, “I’d appreciate it if you looked at the quote, Mrs.—um, Natalie—because I want us to be very clear about what I’m charging you. It’s quite a lot. You might need to okay it with your husband…”
“Actually, Mr. Fisher,” Natalie said smartly, as she produced a nappy and some wipes from the bag, “I earn my own money, which I am confident will be more than enough to cover your bill, so I won’t have to ask anyone for permission.” She gave him a sharp smile and snatched up the piece of paper he had left for her on the desk and read it. Freddie’s cries reached a crescendo.
The bill was about three times more than she had imagined it would be, but she was determined not to be fazed by it. Even if there had been an electrician as equally good and reliable as Gary Fisher who apparently was waiting right outside the door at that very moment and who was prepared to knock fifty percent off his quote, there was no way she would have taken it. It had become a matter of honor to appear to be totally underawed by the cost.
“Oh, is that all?” Natalie said with studied nonchalance. “Do you want a check now?”
“Um, no,” Gary said awkwardly. “I’m sorry if I offended you, Mrs.—Natalie. I’ll get out from under your feet now. See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Tiffany,” Natalie said. “And thank you, Mr. Fisher.”
“No trouble,” Gary replied.
Natalie watched her newly appointed electrician and his curious entourage leave with a mixture of irritation and regret. It was nice to have the house full of people and noise again.
It was only just past seven and she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but a sudden wave of demanding exhaustion overtook her, and as Freddie had dropped off Natalie knew she had to try and sleep while she had the chance. As she climbed the stairs with Freddie weighing heavy in her arms, dribbling on her shoulder, Natalie had to stop for a moment as the pure joy and adoration that she felt every time she looked at him threatened to bring her to tears once again. It was impossible for her to regret that weekend with Jack Newhouse, because she didn’t regret Freddie. In fact, she rejoiced in his existence minute by minute. But she did regret the storm of emotions that had been battering her psyche ever since she realized Jack had taken her in completely and, what’s more, left her pregnant. She was a sensible woman of the world. God knows, not only had she been around the block a few times, she’d made some pretty comprehensive maps along the way. So what did it say about her, Natalie Curzon, that she had fallen so easily for what turned out to be just another set of cleverly crafted lines? And worse still, what did it say about her that when she did sleep, Natalie often dreamed about those few days with Jack and would catch herself waking up and wishing they were real?
N
atalie decided to take cake to Meg’s house by way of celebration. She had got herself and Freddie through another night alive and relatively unscathed and she had made a decision to buy cake. Those were two good enough reasons to merit a celebration, Natalie thought. And besides, she was looking forward to a social occasion that didn’t involve her and Freddie and their house. It wasn’t the kind of occasion she would have chosen but, she supposed, cocktail parties weren’t de rigueur with new moms. And anyway, just the prospect of getting out of the house had lifted Natalie’s spirits. It wasn’t until she cheered up that that she realized she had been feeling rather down.
She had just about dragged a brush through her hair and pulled it back into a knot on the nape of her neck when Gary Fisher and his crew of two and a half arrived, one of whom was sporting a pink fake-fur gilet over a skinny-rib top that left a good three-inch gap of her flat tummy showing above her jeans.
Natalie couldn’t help openly staring at her.
“Why are you in such good shape?” she asked baldly.
“Don’t know,” Tiffany said. “It’s probably ’cos I’m young.”
“Oh,” Natalie said, who had thought up until that moment that
she
was young. “Well, pull that top down, you’ll catch a chill.”
Making the decision about what kind of cake to buy was not quite as triumphant, particularly as there were only two types in the Turkish grocers, one being Jamaican ginger cake and the other Cadbury’s chocolate mini-rolls.
“Oh I don’t know,” Natalie said, scrutinizing the two candidates. “What do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tiffany said. Natalie glanced up at her and noticed that she was leaning so far back that she looked like she might unbalance both herself and Jordan in an attempt to peer around the corner toward the darker end of the store.
“What are you looking at?” Natalie asked.
Tiffany righted herself.
“There’s this woman round there just staring at cans of tomato soup. Not looking, just staring,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Like she’s in a coma or something.” She bent back and looked again. “Still at it,” she confirmed. “Like a statue. Do you think she’s all right?”
Natalie half wanted to point out to Tiffany that it was rude to stare at mad people, but after being made to feel so ancient earlier that morning she held her tongue. Deciding to take a leaf out of Tiffany’s book instead, she peered round the corner herself. Standing with her profile to them, a blond-haired, quite presentable-looking woman was indeed staring fixedly at the canned goods.
“It might be a petit mal fit, like you get with some kinds of epilepsy,” Tiffany whispered.
Natalie glanced sideways at her and wished she’d stop surprising her with knowledge and insight; it was quite unnerving. She turned back to the woman.
“She looks familiar,” Natalie said quietly to Tiffany. She edged a little closer, pretending to need a can of peas, until she could look properly at her face. She recognized her immediately.
“Hello,” Natalie said brightly, making the woman jump. “How are you?”
The woman blinked as if she had just woken from a dream.
“It’s Natalie,” Natalie prompted her. “I was in the cubicle opposite you at the hospital, you came in the day after me. It’s Jess, isn’t it? Do you live near here? I live across the road—how are you getting on with little…?” Natalie peered at the bundle in the buggy. All she could see was a glimpse of a tiny blue hat.
“Jacob,” Jess said. “Absolutely fine.” She smiled at Natalie, who got the distinct impression that Jess had had to force every single muscle into the appropriate position to assume the expression.
“You think you’re going mad, don’t you?” Natalie said instinctively. “One minute you’re thinking about fish fingers, the next you’re crying or…standing about looking all vacant. But apparently it’s the same for everyone. Even her.” Natalie nodded at Tiffany, who had edged a little nearer. “And she’s young and thin.”
Jess’s smile seemed a fraction less fake.
“Oh,” she said, looking suddenly bashful. “I’m fine—really. I just completely forgot why I came to the shop, that’s all!”
“Was it for cake?” Natalie asked her. “We’re, or I should say I’m, trying to buy cake to take to this other woman’s house for a sort of informal moms’ meeting.” A thought occurred to her. “Why don’t you come along too? I’m sure Megan—that’s the woman I’m buying cake for—won’t mind.”
Jess looked rather shell-shocked by the invitation and a little bit panicked. Natalie sympathized. She knew that sometimes she
had days with Freddie when the thought of doing anything as impulsive as popping out for a loaf of bread seemed impossible.
“Um…” Jess said.
“Only if you don’t already have plans,” Natalie said, with a wry half-smile. “Like washing romper suits or sterilizing something.”
Jess relaxed a little and she almost laughed.
“Well, I suppose I could tear myself away from folding tiny socks,” she said. “Would your friend mind, do you think?”
“Shouldn’t think so,” Natalie said, with a nod of her head. “Now, which do you prefer, ginger cake or chocolate mini-rolls? Oh, let’s go crazy and buy both.”
“James, darling, don’t chew Gripper’s bone—there’s a love,” Meg said, swiftly retrieving the dog’s toy from the mouth of her two-year-old.
“Why you’ve even got a dog I don’t know,” Frances said, wiping down Meg’s kitchen surfaces with the kind of enthusiasm that Meg found simultaneously intimidating and irritating.
As predicted, her sister-in-law had been cleaning since the moment she arrived this morning. The first thing she had done was to scrub the kitchen table that had still been covered with the detritus of a typically chaotic breakfast for six. Once that met with her approval, she put baby Henry’s car seat right in the center of the table, as if she had somehow created an exclusion zone for him that Meg’s unruly and presumably unhygienic rabble could not breach. Then she started on the floor; she had brought her own mop.
It wasn’t that Meg wasn’t grateful for the help. She was. It was just that she had asked her sister-in-law round simply for coffee and a chat, and that was partly under duress from Robert. She had not asked her to disinfect her entire house. Worse still, Frances hadn’t even asked if Meg minded if she cleaned and mopped and
scrubbed, so even though Meg was sure it was unintentional, she found Frances’s “help” really quite insulting. But there was no point in saying anything to her. Meg had learned that from personal experience over the years.
Robert always said that his little sister was determined. Meg secretly thought that was a polite term for downright terrifying. Even so, she had a soft spot for Frances. Meg could see that Frances was motivated by the urge to do what she thought was the right thing, even if
she
had the tact and diplomacy of a very angry rhinoceros. So the best thing to do, Meg decided, was to try hard not to be offended and be glad that she had a clean kitchen floor for however brief a hiatus.
Meg noticed that Gripper was attacking Frances’s mop just as enthusiastically as Frances had cleaned the floor. She shooed the large poodle out into the back garden hurriedly, hoping that Frances had been too intent on removing limescale from around the taps to notice.
“Anyway, Gripper was Robert’s idea,” Meg reminded her sister-in-law, answering what was probably a rhetorical question. “You must remember, he brought her home one night and said he thought it would be good for the kids to have a pet? I was as shocked as anyone. He’d always said absolutely no pets up until then—I don’t know what changed his mind. Alex and Hazel going on and on, I suppose. I have to admit I wouldn’t have chosen a poodle myself. I’d have gone for something a bit more cuddly and stupid.” Meg smiled indulgently. “That dog is far too clever for her own good. Do you know she can open the fridge? But Robert said they don’t shed hair, so that was that. And the kids love her.” Meg looked out of the back window at her largely unkempt garden, where Gripper was making another bid to be the first poodle to dig her way to Australia.
“Toodles the Poodles” was the name Hazel had given her when
absolutely everything she said had to rhyme. But Meg’s elder son, Alex, had protested loudly, demanding they give the puppy a proper name, the kind of name that a six-year-old boy could call out in the park. And somehow Toodles had become Gripper, which had stuck, largely because Gripper was quite butch for a poodle bitch. Meg always thought she had the spirit of a Rottweiler trapped in the wrong kind of body. Alex said she was a honed killing machine, which was true if you counted socks and, shoes as viable victims.
“Well, not shedding hair is
something
, I suppose,” Frances said, producing a large Tupperware container from her seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. “I just hope you keep on top of its…excrement,” she added distastefully. “It can cause blindness, you know. Now, I made some muffin mix this morning after you told me that you had invited other people.”
Frances managed to refer to Meg’s guests as if they were somehow an act of betrayal. “I knew you wouldn’t have baked. I’ll just pop it into the pan I’ve brought with me and into your oven. Is it clean?”
Meg took a deep breath and wafted into the living room, picturing herself as a serene cloud floating over a still ocean until the urge to say something ill-advised to Frances had passed. She decided instead to let Frances discover for herself that the oven was still fragranced with last Sunday’s lunch. In fact, if she wasn’t very much mistaken, Robert’s portion, which she had optimistically dished up, was still decomposing on a plate in there where it had warmed beyond the point of no return. Robert was working a lot of weekends these days.
At least the living room was peaceful, trapping the March sun and magnifying it into an almost balmy warmth. James lay on the carpet, fixated by his
Thomas the Tank Engine
video, and Iris was
fast asleep in the family bassinet. Meg loved to see her fourth baby asleep in the cradle, even if she was already almost too big for it. She remembered when she and Robert had bought it whilst she was pregnant with Alex. Robert had said that they didn’t need anything so frilly, silly, and most of all expensive for a baby who would be too big to go in it within a few weeks. They should get a cot like everybody else. But Meg had insisted. She said she wanted something that would last for all their children, and that a cot was too big for a newborn baby to sleep in. And as they had been planning to have six children back then, she argued that it was actually extremely economical. Robert had given in like he always used to, said he’d just have to close a few more deals, that was all. Meg smiled and felt the memory of those first years pull inside her with familiar happiness. The two of them starting out; united in their vision of the future—a large happy family in a large family house. A dad who provided, a mom who was at home for her children.
Eight years later and they had achieved so much of their dream. A big old house in a nice London suburb. Enough money to send Alex and Hazel to private schools, and for Meg to stay at home with James and Iris. But even though Meg had gained so much, she felt as if she had lost something, too—that feeling of unity she used to share with Robert.
They were still a team, Meg told herself, as James launched himself from in front of the TV and into her lap, laughing when he made her go “oomph.” She kissed her younger son all over his face while he giggled and shrieked for her to stop. She and Robert were the team captains of this wonderful, miraculous family. James, Iris, Alex, and Hazel, and even Gripper—they were why Robert worked such long hours; he did it for their children and for her. So she couldn’t complain that she missed him. She’d just have to live with it.
The doorbell rang. Frances came into the living room wearing an apron with
HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS
printed on it.
“They’re here,” she said.
Meg hefted James back onto the floor and went to the door. Curiously, despite her bossiness, Frances was really quite shy, and although she might happily come and take over Meg’s house without turning a hair, she would never dream of opening the door to people she didn’t know.
“Blimey,” Natalie said, holding a Jamaican ginger cake in her hands like an offering. “You didn’t tell me you lived in a mansion—this house makes mine look like a bungalow.”
Meg laughed as she stepped aside to let Natalie, Tiffany, and then another woman in, together with three babies in buggies.
“This is Jess,” Natalie said, kissing Meg on both cheeks with chilled lips. Tiffany just nodded at her and Jess held out a hand.
“Sorry for landing myself on your doorstep,” Jess said. “Natalie found me looking vacant in the corner shop and decided I need rescuing from myself.” She smiled sheepishly. “She was right. I think I was on the verge of forgetting how to use spoken language.”
Meg smiled warmly at Jess. “More the merrier,” she said, as she shepherded the procession of mothers, buggies, and babies into the kitchen.
“Oh, I’ve got mud on your floor,” Tiffany mumbled in dismay, looking at the tracks her buggy had left across the sparkling tiles.
“Don’t worry about it,” Meg said breezily, with a wave of her hand. “The dog will be in from the garden in a minute and she’ll mess up the whole place. You can park the babies in here, then if they start crying we can just lift them out, can’t we?”
Meg caught Frances’s eye and hastily looked away again. “This
is my sister-in-law, Frances—Frances, this is Natalie, Tiffany, and Jess.”
Frances nodded stiffly at the new arrivals. “I’ll make coffee,” she said, turning her back on the group.
“Have you actually baked?” Natalie asked, sniffing the air as she took a seat at the table. “That makes my ginger cake look a bit lame.”
Meg laughed. “That’s Frances. Can’t you see—she’s a domestic goddess.” Everyone laughed except Frances, who remained with her back to the group. Meg bit her lip; she knew she shouldn’t have made the silly joke, not about Frances. But she was feeling a bit awkward and shy herself and just wanted to get the conversation going.