Skeletons (24 page)

‘Whatever is wrong with Charles, it has nothing to do with me,’ she said now, trying to keep a light tone in her voice. ‘I’m happy to be here. We’re going to have fun. All right?’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to have a go at you. Come here …’

He put his arms around her, and she let him pull her into a hug. She pushed an image of Sean out of her head. Felt herself blush with shame or embarrassment, or both.

‘I’m an idiot,’ he said. ‘Of course it’s all going to be OK.’

She nuzzled her head into his chest, willing it all to go away and for them to be back where they were a couple of months ago, living in blissful ignorance.

When they had first booked the cottage, Jen had entered into the spirit of things by researching days out on the internet, planning what they could do that Amelia and Charles would find entertaining. She had enjoyed it,
storing up surprises like Christmas presents. There was to be a visit to Woodstock and Blenheim Palace, a day spent sightseeing around Oxford itself, and she had mapped out a couple of local and not too arduous walks, in the hope that the weather would be
fine.

The first afternoon was cold but pleasant – the sharp, watery November sun low in the sky, doing its best – and so, once they had unpacked, she suggested a stroll through the countryside, ending up at another nearby village that had a shop
selling tea and cakes, and from where they could easily get a bus back. She chivvied everyone into their coats and out of the house. Keeping on the move seemed to be the key to getting through the holiday in one piece. The Devil makes work for idle hands. Don’t stand still long enough
to get into an argument. Stay occupied, and then there would be no question of anyone saying anything they shouldn’t. Don’t think about Sean. Don’t think about Rory and Elaine. Don’t think about Cass. Don’t think.

She set off at such a pace that, after a short while, Jason called out to her to ask her to slow down or they weren’t going to be able to keep up. She did as he asked, but she still walked ahead, trying to enjoy the countryside. Jason was
lagging behind with Charles and Amelia. Let him try to get to the bottom of what was preoccupying his father. She’d be interested to hear what Charles had to say.

Every other person they passed greeted Charles like the long-lost Messiah. These were his people. No doubt, if he dropped dead on one of their beautiful footpaths, they would erect a statue to him. His chest puffed up a little more each time,
like an amorous pigeon.

Amelia was talking about one of their neighbours. Someone Jason clearly knew or had heard her talk about before. Something about him putting in for planning permission to create a roof terrace that
would overlook their garden. Jen could hear Charles chip in every now and then, usually when Amelia asked him a question. She kept her head down, kept walking, tried to appreciate her surroundings. Just get today out of the way. One day at a time.

‘Happy anniversary.’

Charles held his glass of champagne aloft (only the best – Jen and Jason might be paying, but Charles had ordered – and Jen had tried not to gasp when she’d seen the price on the wine list).

‘Happy anniversary,’ she echoed, a smile plastered on to her face. She was trying.

‘Thank you, darling,’ Amelia said, misty-eyed.

‘Well, it certainly is an achievement. Not many couples can say they’ve been together – and happy – for forty-five years.’

‘Well, forty-seven really, since we dated for two years before we married.’ Amelia looked at Charles fondly as she said this.

He smiled and touched his glass to hers. Jen looked away.

They were having dinner at Le Manoir, the beautiful Raymond Blanc restaurant that was part of an opulent country-house hotel that had been way outside Jen and Jason’s budget. This meal would probably set them back a couple of weeks’
wages each. Not that she begrudged it. Or, at least, not that she had begrudged it when they’d booked it. She had been excited about being able to repay Charles and Amelia, in however small a way. They had
saved her, taking her into their
family, rescuing her from her own sterile life. Of course, now that excitement had been replaced with dread, resentment, anxiety. All of which she felt she could have come by much cheaper, if she’d wanted to.

They sat in one of the small, pretty armchair-stuffed reception rooms, having a pre-dinner drink and looking out over the gardens.

They had managed to get through more than twenty-four hours – twenty-nine and a half, in fact – without major incident. Last night, after their walk, Jen had offered to cook for them all in the cottage, and because Amelia was tired out she had
reluctantly agreed. Eschewing all offers of help, Jen had rustled up what she thought was her best dish, a chicken tagine, made with Moroccan spices and couscous. She had taken her time, relishing being on her own, trying to delay the moment when they would all have to sit down to eat
together.

Carrying the steaming dish towards the table, with three expectant faces smiling at her, she had remembered what Miss Janine, her ballet teacher when she was at primary school, used to say, over and over again: ‘Smile, girls. It
doesn’t matter if it hurts. If you put a smile on your face, no one will know.’ God, she’d hated ballet. And Miss Janine, for that matter.

And then, later, once they had gone up to bed, something momentous had happened. Put out the bunting! Alert the media! Hallelujah! Jason and Jen had had sex. She didn’t really know how it had happened. He had
initiated it – spurred on, she thought, by the fact that they had got through one day unscathed and she had so clearly been on her best behaviour. In truth, she was knackered, and willing sleep to help the hours to go by, but she knew that if she knocked him back
it would be months before another perfect moment presented itself and he would feel he could try again.

It was nice. No, she thought, that wasn’t fair, it was more than nice. Not exactly
Last Tango in Paris
, but then, if it had been, she wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much. She’d have been worrying about all that cholesterol
in the butter. It was what she needed. It was comforting. It made her feel emotional in a sort of ‘Thank God, I thought it was never going to happen again’ kind of way. At one point, they got a bit giggly about the fact that Charles and Amelia were just the other side of the
wall, and they had to make sure they kept the noise down. That was the best part, in all honesty. Her and Jason sharing a joke like they used to, laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Afterwards, they had fallen asleep wrapped up in each other and a tangle of sheets. When she had woken up, he’d still had his arm across her and, even though it was weighing heavily on her chest and she’d felt like she might have a
coronary, she had left it there.

In the morning, she had waited to go downstairs for breakfast until Jason was out of the shower, dressed and ready to accompany her. In the kitchen Amelia was sporting a gold bracelet that Charles had given her as an anniversary gift.
Ostentatious? No, Jen thought
ungenerously. All she needed was the matching necklace and she could join the Beastie Boys.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she’d said. Because it was. Guilt made for fabulous presents.

Charles glowed with husbandly pride. Look at me. Look what a perfect spouse I am. Look how much I must love my wife, because I’ve spent a small fortune on her!

‘Show Jen your present,’ Amelia had demanded, and Charles had been obliged to produce a little box from his pocket – an Asprey box, no less – which he’d handed to her proudly. Inside, nestled on its silk cushion, was a beautiful
gold money clip.

‘Gorgeous,’ Jen had said, holding it out to return it.

‘Look on the back,’ Amelia had insisted.

Jen had reluctantly taken the money clip out of its nest and turned it over. ‘Here’s to forty-five more’ it declared on the reverse side, with the date.

She’d felt suddenly sick. ‘What a lovely sentiment,’ she’d said, looking Charles straight in the eye for the first time in weeks. She couldn’t help herself.

He hadn’t even flinched.

Later, they had driven to Woodstock in their two cars, mooched around in the village shops for a while, had lunch in a cafe and then explored Blenheim Palace and its luscious gardens in the afternoon. By the time they’d got to Le Manoir,
Jen had felt like she could almost see the end in sight. Not counting the meal and sleeping time, they pretty much only had to get through the same amount of time as they had already survived. A day and a half. If she slept in late, went to bed early, it should go by in a
flash, they would have done their duty for the foreseeable future, she could go home, bury her head in the sand and wait for it all to go away.

Fat chance.

She never should have accepted that third glass of wine.

It wasn’t that three glasses made her feel out of control, it was just that once she had polished off the third, it then became inevitable that she would say yes to a fourth and, maybe, if it was on offer, even a fifth. And then all bets
were off.

They were actually having a pleasant evening. That was what had allowed her to let her guard down. The food was exceptional, just as Jen had imagined it would be. They had walked around the grounds oohing and aahing at the organic vegetable plot,
even though it was too late in the year for much to be going on. They had tried to spot the fat carp in the pond, but it was too dark to really be sure, and then they’d felt their way over the bridge to sit in the little pagoda.

Soon her pretend jollity started to feel no different from actual jollity. If you act like something is a certain way for long enough, then eventually it might as well be. The lines blur. Fiction becomes reality. Charles was telling an anecdote,
it was funny, they were all laughing. Everything was going to be fine.

They picked their way along the dark road, back to the cottage, hugging the hedges every time a car came towards them. At one point, Jason reached out and took Jen’s hand and she felt a wave of something approaching happiness. It made it
awkward a couple of times, when
they had to go into single file, but she didn’t let go. She didn’t want to spoil the moment. Another image of Sean popped into her head, and she pushed it away. That woman wasn’t her. In fact, Jen
didn’t know who she was, or where she had come from. She gripped Jason’s hand more tightly.

Once they got in, they should all have just gone their separate ways to bed, congratulated themselves on a great night and slept it off, but someone – Jason, actually – decided it was a good idea to open another bottle. Jen could remember briefly
thinking, ‘This isn’t the most sensible thing we could be doing. I should say no.’ But the next thing she knew, she was accepting a glass – her fourth of the evening – and joining in yet another toast, with enthusiasm.

They moved into the living room, turned the real-flame gas fire to high, and settled into the deep armchairs. She had never been a great drunk. She didn’t like the feeling of not being completely focused. Plus, she had discovered when she
was a student that she had a tipping point. A point at which long-dead and buried slights came back to life, and deeply suppressed resentments had a tendency to bubble up to the surface.

Four glasses of wine and she could usually manage to shove it all back down again, bury her true feelings where no one would see them. Five and, well, anything could happen. Consequently, she would always endeavour to move to soft drinks when she
hit the happily tipsy three-drink high, content to watch other people around her make idiots of themselves and knowing she would be the one feeling fine in the morning.

Later on, she would try to blame it on the wine – as if, without that extra glass, she would have been able to hold her tongue for ever. Underneath it all, even she knew that wasn’t the case.

Jason filled their glasses up again. Amelia, clearly not used to having so much to drink, started getting into that loop that drunk people sometimes get into of saying the same thing over and over again.

‘Forty-five years,’ she said, for maybe the fifth time that evening. ‘Forty-five years. Can you believe it?’

Jen had always loved how her mother-in-law was when she was a couple of drinks down. She became endearingly ditzy. ‘Away with the fairies,’ Charles would say (affectionately, Jen had always thought). ‘Ooh, there she goes. Yes,
she’s gone,’ he would laugh indulgently.

And Amelia would inevitably look at him with big doe eyes and say, ‘Who, dear? Who’s gone where?’

It was yet another long-standing family joke. The kind of gentle, loving banter born of a long-standing shared history that Jen had always craved. Now when he said it, though, it just seemed patronizing – as if he was laughing at his wife, not
with her.

‘She’s off,’ Charles said.

Jason laughed. Jen smarted on Amelia’s behalf.

‘I’m not off anywhere, dear,’ Amelia said in a sing-song voice. ‘I’m staying right here, with my lovely family, until you all go to bed.’

‘You do that, Mum,’ Jason said warmly.

‘I hope we’ll still be here for
your
forty-fifth.’

‘If we are, they’ll be feeding us with spoons,’ Charles said, laughing at his own joke.

‘I won’t care. Just park me in a corner and I’ll be fine. I just want to be there.’

‘They have to get there first. Jen might see sense and run off with the milkman.’ Ha ha. Aren’t I hilarious?

‘We don’t even have a milkman,’ Jason said. ‘She’d have to find one first.’

Usually, Jen would have joined in, holding her own and giving as good as she got. Tonight, she said nothing.

‘As if Jen would ever do anything like that,’ Amelia said, mistaking – as she always did, when she’d had a couple of drinks – teasing for accusation.

‘He’s joking, Amelia.’ Jen put her hand on her mother-in-law’s, and squeezed it.

‘Of course he is. I knew that. But really, though, I hope you two will always be as happy as we have been. I’m sure you will be.’

Jen said nothing.

‘I’ve been so lucky,’ Amelia said.

‘Charles is the lucky one,’ Jen said, trying to make her voice sound light and casual. Just joining in the banter.

‘Well, then, we’re both lucky. Not many couples can say they’ve been as happy as we have, for as long as we have.’

‘No,’ Jen said, looking pointedly at Charles, ‘they can’t.’

Did she imagine it? Did he have the good grace to look uncomfortable, just for a split second?

Jason was smiling, oblivious. Happy that he thought everyone was having a good time. For some reason, this irritated Jen enormously. How could he not see what a gruesome old fake his father was?

She sipped her drink. Sip. Sip.

Charles held his glass aloft. Proposed another toast.
‘Here’s to my beloved family. I love you all more than it’s possible to imagine.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Jason said, leaning over and clinking his father’s glass.

‘How lovely, darling,’ Amelia said, eyes glistening.

Jen smarted.

‘What do you say, Charles?’ Jen could hear an edge in her voice, but she couldn’t remember how to turn it off. Actually, scrub that, she didn’t want to. ‘Do you think it’s unusual these days for two people to
have the kind of relationship you’ve had?’

Charles assumed his moral-crusade TV-persona stance. He sat up a little straighter, cleared his throat. ‘Sadly, yes. I don’t believe –’

Jen had no time to listen to any more of his bullshit. She had spent her whole adult life being taken in by it. She interrupted, before he could finish whatever it was he was going to say.

‘What? A devoted, monogamous … honest relationship?’ She stared at him defiantly.

Jason, she noticed, was starting to look a little concerned. He had stopped smiling and was looking between her and his father, as if he was watching a tennis match. He must have picked up that her tone was off. This wasn’t happily tipsy
Jen, this was angry, bordering on drunk, Jen.

‘Everything OK?’ he said, with a slightly desperate note in his voice.