With or Without You (38 page)

He also felt desperately sorry for Tom who, though he didn’t know what the problem was, certainly sensed that there was something very wrong and had been tearful and clingy in a way that
he had never been before. Jamie had managed to persuade him to go to a friend’s house for tea so that he wouldn’t be here when Martha came home, in case his worst fears were realised
and world war three erupted. Jamie craned his neck to peer up the street, willing her to return. He needed her. He didn’t know how to cope on his own.

Just then, her little white Fiat came into view, turning into the street. Jamie’s spirits lifted immediately. Regardless of their difficulties over the past few months, he had missed her
desperately. He just didn’t function well without her.

She parked on the drive in front of the house and climbed out. Jamie watched her through the window, struck by how beautiful she looked. Different, somehow.

As if she sensed him watching her, Martha looked up and locked eyes with him. He loved her eyes. They were so expressive and he could read them so clearly. He knew instantly what they were
telling him now and he felt a sudden urge to scream, but instead he made his way to the front door and opened it. He walked towards her with a sense that he was wading through water; his legs
didn’t seem to work properly.

Martha stood stock still, frozen in one spot. She tried to smile but the corners of her mouth seemed determined to move in a downwards direction. ‘Hi,’ she murmured, unsure whether
to kiss him or to hit him.

Jamie reached out and cupped her face in his hands before bending to kiss her tenderly on the lips. ‘Welcome back,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve missed
you.’

He watched as the blood raced to Martha’s cheeks. ‘Have you?’ she stuttered, suddenly unable to meet his eye. Any remaining doubts he had completely evaporated. He could sense
it. She had been with Charlie.

They looked at each other without speaking, neither of them knowing what to say.

Eventually, Jamie broke the silence. ‘Mimi knows.’ As soon as the words had left his lips he felt a small sense of release. The burden had been too heavy for him to shoulder
alone.

Martha looked up at him sharply. ‘What? How?’ A look of panic skittered over her face.

‘She heard us arguing, the night before you went.’

Martha groaned. ‘What the hell did she hear?’

Jamie shook his head and put his hands on his hips, not knowing what else to do with them. ‘Everything. She heard everything.’

Martha looked as if she might be sick. ‘And . . . how has she been?’

‘Awful.’ Jamie wanted to reassure her but he couldn’t. She would know the truth as soon as she clapped eyes on Mimi.

‘And Tom?’ Martha had straightened up and her eyes kept darting towards the house with frightened glances. ‘Does he know too?’

‘He knows something’s not right. He just doesn’t know what.’

‘Oh those poor little babies!’ Martha murmured, drawing herself up to her full height as if steeling herself for a fight. ‘Well, we need to talk to them. Tell them that
everything’s going to be alright.’

She stepped around Jamie as she headed for the house, but he gripped her arm, harder than he’d intended, to stop her. ‘Wait!’

Martha frowned and rubbed her arm surreptitiously. ‘What?’

‘I don’t want to tell them everything’s OK if it’s not. We need to be as honest as possible with them.’

‘And?’ Martha replied, still frowning in confusion.

‘And I’m not sure that everything
is
OK. Only you can answer that question, Martha. So . . . tell me.
Is
everything OK?’

She held his look. He could see a million thoughts running through her mind but she didn’t say anything.

‘Well I guess that answers my question, then,’ Jamie said, surprised that he sounded so much more coherent and together than he felt.

‘I didn’t . . .’ Martha began, then stopped.

Jamie waited for her to continue. He was vaguely aware that it had started to rain. ‘What?’ he prompted.

‘I came home. To you,’ Martha said, finally dropping her gaze.

Jamie nodded slowly, looking up at the steel grey skies and saying a mental prayer of thanks. Whatever had happened, she had come home. She had made her choice.

‘Let’s go inside,’ he said, grabbing her bag off the back seat and following her into the house.

Mimi was coming down the stairs as they walked in through the front door. ‘Mum!’ she cried, throwing herself at Martha and wrapping her arms around her neck, before violently
bursting into tears.

Jamie dropped Martha’s bag and stood to one side as she embraced her daughter. Mimi was nearly as tall as Martha and almost pushed her over as she cried into her mum’s hair. Mimi was
as blonde as Martha was dark but they were still so alike it was breathtaking, as if they were the yin and the yang of each other.

When Mimi’s tears had subsided slightly, Martha gently pushed her away so that she could look at her. ‘We need to talk to you, darling.’

‘I don’t want to talk to
him!
’ Mimi growled, shooting a look of disgust in Jamie’s direction, as wounding as if she had stabbed him with a knife.

‘Come on,’ said Martha, guiding Mimi firmly towards the kitchen. Mimi resisted at first, but finally she surrendered and allowed herself to be propelled forward into a chair. Jamie
followed, cursing his weakness and helplessness.

He and Martha took a seat either side of Mimi and looked at her carefully. Jamie was struck by how scared he felt of her, despite her youth. She was like a ticking bomb, ready to explode at any
second.

‘I don’t know how you can even look at
him
!’ she spat, addressing Martha. Despite his guilt, Jamie felt a flash of anger at Mimi’s aggression.

Martha reached out and took Mimi’s hand. ‘Listen, Mimi. I know that you heard us arguing and I’m sorry that you found out that way. But Dad and I have done a lot of talking and
we are getting through it. I’m not going to patronise you and say that everything is hunky dory because it’s not . . .’

Jamie looked at Martha, alarmed by what she might be about to say.

‘But it
is
OK,’ she continued.

Mimi wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘How can you possibly forgive him?’ she whimpered.

Martha shrugged. ‘I don’t know, darling. I just know that I have.’

Mimi turned her head haltingly so that she was looking at Jamie. As she stared at him, he could see her whole life in her face, from the first moment she was born and put straight into his arms,
all through her toddler years and her early schooldays, to this moment now. He felt overcome with gratitude towards Martha, who even in her darkest moments would put her children’s feelings
before her own.

‘I am so, so sorry, Mimi,’ he said, tentatively feeling for her hand and feeling gratified when she allowed him to take it.

‘I know that, Dad,’ she replied, her voice still wobbling. ‘But if I was Mum, I would still throw you out.’

‘Mimi!’ Martha scolded her, but Jamie put his hand up to stop her.

‘No, no it’s fine,’ he said, aware that it wasn’t fine at all, that Mimi was right.

‘I bet you wouldn’t forgive her quite so easily if she did the same to you!’ Mimi continued, her eyes blazing. She was spoiling for a fight and wasn’t going to stop until
she got one.

Jamie didn’t reply. He had asked himself that question so many times and he still couldn’t answer it. All he knew was that Martha would never have started an affair with someone
unprompted, as he had.

‘Mimi,’ Martha said, her voice a little gentler. ‘You’re a bit too young to understand this right now but every relationship has its problems—’

‘You’ve only got problems because he had another girlfriend!’ Mimi interrupted, her eyebrows knitting together as her face contorted with the pain of not understanding how this
could be happening to her.

Jamie put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. It was like having open-heart surgery without anaesthetic. Debra had never
been his girlfriend. She was just someone to have sex with. He had absolutely no feelings for her whatsoever, except that he wished desperately that he had never met her. But how to explain that to
an eleven-year-old? It was impossible. In Mimi’s young mind, everything was black and white. There were no shades of grey.

‘The point is,’ Martha continued. ‘That I have chosen to forgive your dad. In life, everyone makes mistakes . . . even me.’ She paused and glanced up at Jamie. He locked
eyes with her for a second, understanding her meaning, and gave her a tiny nod.

Martha acknowledged his gesture before continuing: ‘He says he’s sorry and I’m going to give him another chance. But it’s his only chance, Mimi, and he knows that. If he
ever does anything like this again, that will be it.’

Mimi bit furiously at her thumbnail and Jamie had to resist the urge to bat her fingers away from her mouth the way he usually did. She looked scared and terrifying at the same time. It felt as
if all three of them were holding their breath, the only sounds the ticking of the kitchen clock and the sluggish whirring of the fridge, as they waited for her to say something. Anything.
Eventually Mimi pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘OK,’ she said, looking at Martha but pointedly avoiding looking at Jamie.

Martha stood up and reached out to pull her into a deep embrace. ‘We both love you very much you know,’ she said, pushing back a strand of Mimi’s blonde hair from her face.
‘You and Tom.’

Mimi nodded uncertainly.

‘Please don’t tell Tom about any of this,’ Martha said, her voice catching slightly at the mention of his name. ‘He’s too young to understand and it would just
scare him.’

Again, Mimi murmured her assent. She pulled away from Martha and turned as if to leave the room, but Martha kept hold of her hand. ‘Mimi? Will you do something for me?’

Mimi turned. ‘What?’

‘Will you give your dad a hug?’

Jamie’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude. He didn’t deserve Martha and they all knew it. He stood up on shaky legs and made a movement towards Mimi. She hesitated, looking as if
she might bolt at any minute.

‘Please, Mimi?’ Martha added.

Jamie opened his arms and Mimi allowed him to pull her towards him. He closed his eyes as he clasped her to his chest, desperate never to let her go again. ‘I love you, darling,’ he
said into her silky hair.

Mimi nodded, and he could feel that his little girl had somehow stepped over a threshold into adulthood during the past two distressing days. ‘I love you too, Dad,’ she echoed, her
voice barely audible.

As she left the kitchen to return to the sanctuary of her bedroom and her blaring music, Jamie took Martha’s hand in his and bent to kiss her. ‘I’m glad you did what you
did,’ he murmured, stroking her hair. ‘And I’m so, so glad you came back.’ His words were loaded with meaning that only the two of them would ever understand. Jamie
suspected that she had come very close to leaving him and the prospect filled him with terror.

Martha’s eyes darkened as her pupils dilated like tiny black flowers of sadness blooming. She looked as if she wanted to say something and Jamie waited for her to speak, but she seemed too
choked to get the words out. He felt weak with relief. She had come back. It was the best he could hope for.

Charlie drove his Range Rover up Liv’s twisting driveway, a familiar feeling of dread making his chest tighten and his stomach swirl, the way it always did recently when
he collected Felix. He had been staying at the hotel ever since Liv left rehab; somehow it didn’t seem right for them to be living together when they were about to go to war over their son.
But it had meant that the wall between them had been steadily rebuilt, brick by brick.

Martha had broached the subject on their last night together, gently suggesting that maybe he should drop his custody bid. But Charlie still felt bruised by the past and wanted to make up for
what he considered were the ‘lost years’, when he and Felix had lived on different continents. It felt to him like he was due some payback.

Juanita opened the door and gave Charlie a curt nod, while making no move to let him into the house.

‘Hi,’ Charlie said, smiling despite the ominous feeling that was creeping over him. He was due to take Felix on location for a couple of days and had carefully made the arrangements
with Liv, letting her know what time he would be picking him up. Surely she wouldn’t have deliberately taken him out somewhere? ‘I’ve come to collect Felix?’ he told
Juanita, whose face was impassive, with a slight hint of hostility.

‘He not well,’ she replied, and made as if to close the door.

Instinctively, Charlie reached out and put the flat of his hand against the huge wooden door, forcing Juanita to open it again. ‘I’d like to see him,’ he said, stepping up and
into the hallway, not caring if he seemed rude.

‘Oh! But Miss Mason said . . .’ Juanita began, but Charlie didn’t hear the rest of her words as he stalked through the cool, tiled space, heading for Felix’s room with a
mounting sense of dread.

The door to Felix’s room was closed. It was the first time he had ever seen it closed and Charlie’s heart was thudding furiously as he came to a halt outside the door. He pressed his
ear to the wood and listened carefully, trying to steady his erratic breathing. He couldn’t tell if there was anyone in the room; the only thing he could hear was the air conditioning.

He put his hand on the pewter doorknob and twisted it slowly and silently. He knew, even before he opened the door, that they wouldn’t be there. That Liv had taken him.

‘Oh!’ Liv murmured in surprise as the door swung open. She was sitting on the floor beside Felix’s racing car bed, rhythmically stroking the sleeping boy’s forehead. Even
in the half-light, Charlie could see that his skin looked clammy and flushed.

‘I thought . . .’ he began, putting the palm of his hand to his chest and feeling his heart race beneath it. ‘I thought you’d gone . . .’