‘Yes,’ said Jo, ‘that’s because the locks have been changed.’
‘I don’t think you’ve got the right to do that,’ he began. ‘And if I find you’ve done anything stupid to my stuff, then don’t think—’
‘Just get your clothes and go.’ Jo shook her head and turned away, reaching for the thick rail of the Aga to hold on to.
‘They’re in the spare room,’ added Katie. ‘I put them in bin bags.’
Greg picked up his bag: a large Mulberry overnight bag. Katie noticed, dully, that the airline tags from some recent trip were still hanging off it.
Not exciting and globe-trotting any more; just ostentatious. It was probably only a flight up to Glasgow.
She looked up to see if Jo was OK and saw that the intensity had drained out of her as quickly as it had come. Her shoulders had dropped again in a submissive, defeated slump, and her hair was starting to frizz. They must have had an early start to get back, and she probably hadn’t had time to tame her curls in the rush to get all four children ready. Katie instinctively moved around the table to stand at her side.
Greg was looking at Jo too, but not with the same sympathy that Katie was. He turned his gaze to her, and raised his eyebrow ironically, and Katie knew he was nudging her to think about what he’d said.
‘Let me know if I missed anything in the bin bags,’ she snapped.
Greg opened his mouth to say something, but Katie’s fierce glare put him off, and he strolled out of the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Jo, without looking up. ‘I . . . I’m really sorry.’
‘Forget it,’ said Katie, hugging her.
‘I know he’s been seeing someone – I’ve suspected it for ages.’ Jo bit her lips. ‘You’re his type, you know – successful, ambitious.’ There was a painful pause. ‘Thin.’
Katie winced. Jo’d never even hinted that she had a problem about her body before. She held her at arms’ length. ‘Shut up. You’re gorgeous. You know that. Please tell me you didn’t really think that I’d ever try it on with Greg. Please tell me that.’
Jo sighed. ‘No. Not really. I’m sorry. I guess I just wanted an explanation . . . something concrete to be angry with, instead of this . . .’ She made a despairing gesture. ‘This . . .
mess
.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Katie, quietly, and hugged Jo back to her shoulder.
Upstairs, they could hear Greg stomping about, opening cupboards, slamming doors.
‘We came back early because Hannah and Jack were missing you,’ said Jo, quietly. ‘We all missed you.’
Katie didn’t know what to say. So she said nothing, but squeezed harder.
‘I should tell Ross what’s going on,’ said Jo, suddenly, springing out of Katie’s embrace. ‘He’ll be wondering what’s happening.’
Ross was in the car, gamely singing the theme tune to
Big Cook Little Cook
, with Hannah and Molly, while Jack and Rowan garbled the occasional word. Katie recognised it at once as the malevolently catchy CBeebies CD that drove her so insane she pretended it wouldn’t work in her car. It still sounded horrific, but Katie thought she’d never seen anything sweeter: Ross had two thin braids in his hair, as did Hannah and Molly, and the back seat was piled with things they’d made from straws and pine-cones.
‘Mummy! Mummy!’ As soon as Hannah and Jack saw her, their faces shone with delight, and Katie thought her own heart would break, so fierce was the need to hold them.
‘Hello! Hello!’ she cried, leaning into the car to hug them. ‘Hello, Molly! Hello, Rowan!’
Molly looked somewhat startled to be hugged by Hannah’s mummy, who didn’t normally go in for such dramatic displays of affection.
‘Mummy, you’re crying,’ observed Hannah.
‘Happy tears!’ Katie wiped her face with her hand. ‘Happy tears to see my lovely babies!’
‘Is everything OK?’ asked Ross in a low tone.
‘Yes!’ Jo had dragged on her cheerful face, in front of the children. It didn’t fool Katie: the smile was too wide and the pink cheeks were due to hastily applied blusher. ‘Yes, I think Greg and I are going to have a chat, and then . . . yes, we’ll be fine.’
Katie looked at Ross, then Jo. ‘If you want to stay, Ross, I’ll take everyone back to ours.’
‘No!’ said Jo, brightly. ‘Everyone’s settled in this one – why don’t you all pop out for some lunch and leave your car here? Swap over when you come back.’
‘If you’re sure . . . ?’
‘I am.’
Katie turned back to the car full of children. Molly was starting to look a little teary, and Hannah was fidgeting in her seat. ‘Right, then! Who wants to go for a drive-through belated birthday doughnut?’
‘Yay!’ said Ross, making thumbs-up signs to the back seat.
‘Yay!’ replied Molly and Hannah at once, in an adoring echo.
Katie couldn’t tell whether the enthusiasm was for doughnuts or Ross. She suspected equal amounts of both.
‘Doughnuts?’ said Ross, as he reversed off the drive.
His tone was level but Katie knew what he really meant was: you don’t allow doughnuts, you’re clearly trying to curry favour, I know what you’re up to.
She thought of Greg’s hopelessly inappropriate presents, and thought fiercely, at least I know what my children like.
‘I need something sweet,’ she said, and turned up the theme tune to
Balamory
.
26
For Lauren and Chris’s mates – and for anyone under forty, and a few who pretended they still were – Saturday night in Longhampton traditionally started at the far end of the high street, at the Jolly Fox Inn, the dog-eared pub opposite the town hall, but tonight Lauren was feeling neither Jolly nor Foxy, unlike the heaving crowd of under-dressed, under-age drinkers around her.
‘Another orange and soda, Lauren?’ asked Kian, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the well-built redhead serving on at the bar, who was trying not to meet his eye.
Not even looking, thought Lauren, crossly. Leering.
They’d been wedged in a booth for over an hour, and so far all they’d done was drink and listen to Kian rate the various girls in there, one of whom Lauren had seen very recently in the surgery with a funny sprain she didn’t get playing netball. Lauren hadn’t even been drinking, what with Irene phoning her daily now to ‘encourage’ her about sticking to the detox plan. If she so much as looked at a Bacardi Breezer, she could hear Irene’s disappointed sighing in her ear.
What with one thing and another, she was beginning to wonder why she’d bothered coming out at all.
To see Chris, she reminded herself, shooting him a sidelong look. But then Chris was acting rather weird, trying to divide his behaviour between a night out with the lads and a romantic evening with his fiancée: drinking, encouraging Kian and occasionally asking her if she wanted a proper drink.
‘She is an eight point three, and she is
feeling
me,’ said Kian, still giving the barmaid the eye. ‘Go on, look up, look up, you know you want to . . . Yes!’
On cue, the barmaid peeked up from under her eyelashes at Kian, rewarding him with a cheeky grin, and what was either a wink or some kind of unfortunate squint – difficult to tell with all that mascara. Lauren could see that even from a distance of fifteen metres the legendary Matthews charm bait had worked again.
She turned to Chris to roll her eyes, but Chris just shrugged indulgently, then when he saw her glowering, said, ‘What?’ under his breath.
‘Who does he think he is, Calum Best?’ she hissed, but Kian was too engrossed in winking and flashing his watch.
‘Watch and learn, my man!’ gloated Kian. ‘Watch and learn – oh, sorry, Chris. I keep forgetting you don’t need to know this stuff any more.’
Lauren glared at him, but Chris was too busy giving Kian a bloke-ish shove.
‘Anyway, drink?’ said Kian, smoothing down his hair. ‘I’m going to the bar. And I may be some time.’
‘Pint for me, mate,’ said Chris, cheerily. He banged his empty glass down on the table where four empty glasses already jostled for space with the crisp packets, and leaned back in the velvet booth, his arm around Lauren, a happy man.
‘I’ll have a Smirnoff Ice,’ said Lauren, abandoning all attempts to stay off the booze, seeing Chris and Kian definitely weren’t. ‘And get someone to come and clean this table,’ she added, as Kian swaggered off towards the crowded bar.
As soon as he was gone, Chris took the opportunity to pull Lauren closer for a beery snog, but she wriggled out of his grasp, annoyed.
‘Not here! Not in front of the whole pub!’ she snapped.
‘What is up with you tonight?’ Chris demanded. ‘You’ve been acting up ever since we got here.’
‘Acting up? Well, maybe it’s because I didn’t expect Kian to come along this evening! I thought it was just going to be you and me. To celebrate the house! A drink – one drink – then something to eat somewhere, and then some time on our own. At your flat. Without Kian hanging around like a bad smell.’ Lauren heard how crabby she sounded, and tried to pull on a more seductive face. ‘Actually, if he’s going to hang around here chatting up barmaids, maybe we should take advantage of the empty flat right now?’
Chris fiddled with a beermat. ‘Ah, well, Kian’s already told me he’s got plans for himself tonight . . . back home. So that might not be the best idea.’
‘What?’ wailed Lauren. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’
‘Lauren, it’s his flat! I can hardly hang a sock on the door, can I?’
Lauren struggled to keep her frustration under control. ‘So if you knew that, why didn’t we just stay in this evening, then? Or we could go back now?’
I can’t believe I’m suggesting that, she thought. I’m scheduling sex like some kind of teenager and I’m twenty-two and engaged!
She stroked Chris’s thigh under the table. Chris had great thighs: long and lean and really hard from years of rugby training. ‘The only thing getting me through the last hour has been the thought of getting you, on your own, at home, out of those sexy jeans,’ she murmured. ‘Come on, Chris, let’s go. Now. Kian’s happy enough here, and I haven’t . . .’ Lauren jiggled her eyebrows meaningfully. ‘. . .
been alone
with you for days . . .’
Some hot and steamy sex, she reckoned, might just blow away the niggles at the back of her mind. That’s probably what was up, not enough tenderness and intimacy and appreciation of Chris’s gorgeous thighs.
But he didn’t move. Instead his square jaw jutted even more.
‘What if I wanted to go out, with my mate, and my girlfriend, into town? Where I might see my other mates?’
‘Other mates?’
‘Yeah, well, Kian phoned Mark and Rich, and they’re on their way . . .’
‘Chris!’ protested Lauren. ‘Saturday night was meant to be for us!’ How obvious did she have to make it?
Chris looked properly pissed off. ‘For God’s sake, Lauren, I’ve given up Wednesday nights to make a dick of myself at ballroom-dancing lessons with you, and I was out with you and your parents and
my mother
last night at that social whatever. I’ve had her on the phone already today, giving me earache about my bloody waltzing! Can’t I have one night out with my mates?’
Lauren turned so she was facing him in the booth. ‘It’s not just one night, though, is it?’ she heard herself say. ‘You never used to spend so much time out drinking when we were living together. I don’t know where you
are
half the time. I hope it’s not going to be like this when we’ve got our own house.’
‘What are you saying?’
They both knew exactly what she was saying, but neither wanted to put it into words. Words that would lead to a really big bust-up. Instead, they glared at each other mutinously.
Chris cracked first. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to . . . go home with you, but . . . I want some time out with the lads. They’re already saying I’m under the thumb cos I’m engaged, and what’s it going to look like if you’re dragging me off halfway through the night?’
‘Like, you’re the only one with a girlfriend?’
‘It’s not about that, it’s about male bonding,’ whined Chris, and that was the final straw for Lauren, because right up until they’d moved out of their houseshare, Chris and the lads had had maybe three big nights out a month, and that was as much bonding as they’d been able to deal with. Even then, he’d have binned it for one flash of her hold-ups. He didn’t need his ‘boys’ time’
that
much.
‘Oh, well, fine,’ she said, grabbing her bag. ‘If spending time with me is making you feel
under the thumb
, then go ahead. You know where you can stick your thumb.’
‘Lauren!’
She got to her feet clumsily, jolting the table so Kian’s last pint glass tipped over and spilled beer dregs on the table. ‘Don’t bother.’
‘If you’re asking me to choose between my mates and you . . .’ began Chris, but Lauren wasn’t having any of that.
She pointed a finger at him. ‘I didn’t say that.
You
did. And you were meant to be spending tonight with
me
.’