The Stepmother (12 page)

Actually, I cooked. James's phone rang as the first layer of onion came away, and he didn't end the call until I'd sprinkled the finishing touch of Lea and Perrins into the pot. Pièce de résistance, my arse.

The spaghetti was perfect. But we were missing one, so it sat, congealing, on the side, while we waited for Amber to return.

“Why don't we start?” I suggested. Lulu and Maddy had been so good and I could tell they were hungry. I'd been godmothering long enough to know what happened if you didn't feed children.

“I told her to be back at one,” said James, ignoring that it was now a quarter past.

Finally, we heard the key in the lock.

“Great! I'm starving,” said Amber, plonking herself onto a chair.

I waited for James to say something. He did: “Okay, then, let's dish up.”

I bit down on a carrot stick I had cut to stave off meltdown, and crunched it noisily.

“Mummy says it's rude if people can hear you eat,” said Amber, giving a death stare.

I stopped crunching. James put the plates of food on the table, then brought the bowl of cheese that the younger girls had helped me grate. Amber grabbed a huge handful, half the bowl. Again, I looked at James. Again, I waited for him to say something. Again, he did. “Okay, girls, tuck in.”

“We might need some more cheese,” I said, and passed the bowl to Lulu.

“Great idea,” said James, sitting down. I didn't say much else through the rest of lunch.

“That was delicious, Daddy,” said Amber, carrying plates to the dishwasher.

“Don't thank me, thank Tessa. She made it.”

I was too late to retract the it's-my-pleasure-you're-welcome expression that had started to eke across my face, and therefore returned Amber's frankly ungracious pout with a grateful smile.

“What about pudding?” asked Maddy.

I looked at James.

“We'll get ice cream later,” he said.

“There are some apples,” I said.

“Mummy always makes a pudding on weekends,” said Maddy.

Again I looked to James for help.

“I can't cook like Mummy can,” said James.

“But Tessa's here. Can't she cook? I like banana soufflé best.”

“That sounds impressive.”

“Mummy makes up her own recipes,” said Lulu.

Of course she does.

“She can give you a lesson. Then you'll know how to make it.” Maddy seemed pleased with herself. Problem solved.

“And strawberry cheesecake,” said Lulu. “I like doing the biscuit bits.”

“Obviously Tessa can't cook,” said Amber. I was astounded by how hurtful her words were. I tried to smile at Amber, but she put her earphones in and turned away. I made a mental note: book a course at Prue Leith immediately. I'd show her.

Finally, they drifted out of the kitchen and I sat down with a cup of instant coffee. Okay, I thought, okay…So we were going to have to up the ante. I was a trained negotiator and an able-bodied woman. I could
get myself out of this, and what I didn't know I would learn. I raised the cup to my lips—

“Aaahh!” The scream came from the living room. I was on my feet in less than a second. Lulu was crouched in the corner, holding her head in her hands. Maddy stood against the wall. Amber was trying hard to look nonchalant, and failing.

“What happened?” I asked, running to Lulu.

“Mummy!” she sobbed.

“Let's have a look,” I said.

“Ow!”

“What happened?” I asked again, watching a red patch develop on Lulu's pale skin just above the temple.

Amber put her hands on her hips. “Why are you looking at me?”

“I was only asking if you saw what happened.”

“She hit her head on the coffee table.”

I'd kind of figured that out on my own. Where the hell was James? Surely he didn't need another poo. “Let's get you up. There's some ice in the kitchen. We'll put it on your head.”

Lulu was still crying, but quietly. “Brave girl,” I said, leading her out of the room.

I pulled out the ice tray, but there was only one cube in it. I slammed it hard on the work surface. The cube shot across the Formica and spun into the aluminum sink. James was pacing about in the jungle out back. On the phone.

I put the solitary ice cube into some paper towels and passed it to Lulu, then refilled the tray. As I replaced it, I spotted a bag of frozen peas. Much better. I tipped a few into a clean cloth and gave that to Lulu instead.

Amber was watching from the doorway. “Arnica,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“Arnica.” She suddenly seemed very interested in her feet. “Mum always puts it on Lulu when she takes one of her tumbles.”

“Does she fall a lot?”

Amber nodded. “She never looks where she's going. Dad keeps it in the cutlery drawer.”

“Thanks, Amber.” I tried a smile again and this time received a dis
missive shrug. I opened the drawer, found a near-empty tube of arnica, squeezed some out, and rubbed it on Lulu's head.

“Thanks, Tessa. That feels nice.”

I put my arm around her. “You're going to have a big bruise.”

“Will you kiss it better?” asked Lulu, which was how I discovered the thick, sweet taste of arnica.

James came to the window. He saw Lulu leaning into my chest and, smiling, gave me a thumbs-up. I reassured him with a smile of my own. But it was an empty gesture. I was afraid I wouldn't last the afternoon. I didn't.

 

T
HE DAY WAS ALREADY DARKENING
as I locked the car door, yet it was still hours from bedtime. I walked up to Billie's flat in West Acton and pressed the bell long and hard. She opened the door. “What are you doing here? Isn't this your first weekend playing mom?”

I pushed past her. “I sincerely hope you have wine.”

“It's been open a couple of days.”

“I don't care.”

“Oh dear. That bad.”

Billie and I used to share a flat, and I mean
share.
There were no demarcation zones between what was hers and mine. Nearly twenty years on, I still felt I could use her toothbrush and drink her wine.

“What's happened?” asked Billie, following me down the hall. I reached into the fridge, opened a cupboard, pulled out a glass, and poured. I was slurping at it as I offered some to Billie.

“It's three in the afternoon,” she said, shaking her head.

“This day is never ending,” I moaned. “I've been up for hours. Where's Cora?”

“At a party. She has about three a week. Sit down. Breathe.”

“I can't. I've only got an hour. I said I had to go to the bank.”

“The banks are shut, Tessa.”

“Shit!”

“What happened?”

“Well, it was weird being there with them in the bedroom and then
James buggered off with Amber, I made lunch—no one said thank you…”

Billie was suppressing a smile.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on. It sounds terrible.”

Her sarcasm took the wind out of my sails. I sat down. “It wasn't really that. I don't mind a bit of housework, but…Oh, I don't know. They talk about Bea all the time. Amber brought out the photo album, which was sweet.”

My old flatmate sat down opposite. “Go on.”

“She's Superwoman. Beautiful too.”

“All mothers are superwomen. And you will be too. But we learn on the hoof. It just doesn't look that way to the uninitiated.”

“No, but she's Super-superwoman.”

Billie opened her mouth to protest.

“I mean it. Vegetable patch, bakes banana soufflés, makes life-size leatherback turtles for class projects. She can probably tap dance while singing the national anthem backward.”

“Did you ever see my papier-mâché head of Nelson Mandela?”

I frowned.

“Never mind. Go on…”

“And then I was putting on some washing for the week and James just dumped a whole load of uniforms on me.” I waited for her shock and awe.

“And?”

“I'd been cooking, cleaning up, and entertaining them all day. Washing too? Is that my job?”

“You were doing some anyway,” she said, dismissing my complaint with a shrug. “And yes, frankly, it is your job. If you're really intending to do this.”

“James never usually does it.”

“Any of it?”

“Don't get me wrong, he's brilliant with them but, well, he got stuck on the phone. There was nothing he could do.” I couldn't hold Billie's gaze. “We're still at the sniffing-bottoms stage. I needed him.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“I would have thought it was obvious.”

Billie pulled a face.

“I had to come up for air. I told him I had to go to the bank and came here.”

I watched Billie scrape back her ridiculously long black hair and knot it. It was shot through with gray now, and I was struck by how quickly the last decades had passed. Here I was, though, still sitting on her sofa discussing men. “It might be nice for Bea not to have a bag of laundry dumped on her on Sunday night,” she said.

“But—”

“If Bea is Superwoman, then you need to be Superwoman. Get her on-side. Do the ironing. If she likes you, they'll like you.”

“But she isn't in the picture anymore. She left James.”

“Tessa, don't be thick. You have her children. The only difference about the picture now is you're in it.”

I sat back against the sofa. Maybe Billie had been the wrong person to come to. With a failed marriage and an estranged ex, she carried too much of her own baggage to be impartial.

“I'm not being unsympathetic, Tessa, really, but with all due respect, you're the least important person in this equation. If you want to be with James you have to make the girls your priority. They didn't ask you to date their father. This has been foisted upon them. If Bea can see you're putting their interests before your own, she might be okay about some other woman tucking her children in at night.”

“But you said I have to get her on-side first.”

“That's how. Send the girls back happy.”

“That's not going to be easy. I compare unfavorably. I can only make chocolate crispies and the girls told me they'd moved on from those in year one.”

Billie bit her lip.

“What?” I asked again.

Billie held up a hand. “You know, that's probably no bad thing. Don't emulate her. Worse, whatever you do don't try to beat her. Be Tessa. Find your own thing.”

“Share with them my encyclopedic knowledge of tort?”

“Music, Tessa. Freebies. Spoil them. Hannah Montana tickets and the like.”

“Doesn't that look a bit desperate?”

“You do it for Cora.”

“I love her. It's easy.”

“Then fake it,” said Billie, “till you feel it.”

I stared at her. What if I can't feel it? But I was too scared of the answer to ask the question, so I nodded.

When I got back, James and his girls were ensconced on the sofa watching
Strictly Come Dancing.
I didn't want to sit on the floor or boot James out and take his place. Anyway, I had some washing, cooking, and ironing to do. A fine fairy-tale role reversal. The wicked stepmother banished to the hearth. I stopped myself. I wasn't a stepmother yet. I wondered if I would ever become one and realized, as I thought this, that I wanted to. Desperately. I wanted to get this right. I didn't want to be sitting on Billie's sofa in another twenty years' time having the same conversation. I put the first load of shirts in and started preparing the supper I had bought on the way back.

When everything was ready, I called James and the girls into the warm kitchen and watched happily as they tucked into the sizzling chicken fajitas with red peppers and sour cream. I could say one thing for those girls: they ate. At least I didn't have to worry about any bird appetites pecking around me. I rolled myself a fajita. This was just a period of adjustment. It was bound to be a bit bumpy. All would be well. I was feeling more rational about the whole thing. Billie was right: put the girls first and the rest would fall into place.

They got into their pajamas and I started to look forward to an evening alone with James, but then came the grim realization that on weekends Amber was not banished to her room to read but allowed to stay up and watch telly. I didn't want to watch cheap reality television, but I was unable to complain, afraid I might say something that could later be used against me by a precocious fourteen-year-old in a crooked court of her imagination. I retreated to the kitchen again and took up my place at the ironing board. Maybe rational was a fraction premature.

James walked in. “You don't have to do that,” he said, but didn't stop me.

“It's almost done.”

James put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Thank you for being such a trouper. Why don't we go around the corner and I'll buy you a drink?”

My eyes lit up. But it was a flash in the pan. “What about the girls?”

“Amber's here. She wants to watch some crappy girly film anyway. We'd only be an hour or so. She has my number.”

“Is that allowed?”

James laughed. “This isn't boarding school.”

“I mean, is it okay with Bea?”

“We do it all the time. I usually have to pop out for something—collect pizza, pick up some beer. It's fine.”

Alarm bells were ringing. But my thirst was ever thus…

Being out of the house, arm in arm with him and him alone, eased the tension that had built up in me over the day. It was only a four-minute walk to the pub on the corner, but I felt relief wash over me as we pushed open the door. James brought me a large vodka and tonic and sat down. I drank a sizable amount before I remembered to thank him. “Sorry. Thank you and cheers.”

He raised his pint. “You okay?”

I stared at him. Yes, I believed in honesty, but we had wandered into new territory and I wasn't sure how to continue.