Instead, she found herself stumbling to the door in the dreadful gray sweats, hair encrusted with dried-up tears, face smeared with yesterday’s makeup, teeth unbrushed, hands shaking with nervous dread.
But it didn’t matter really because he didn’t look at her. He just kneeled down and held open his arms for Alex and Ellie.
For a moment, she studied this man who was still her husband, despite weeks of separation. He looked exactly the same. He just wasn’t hers anymore.
Dammit, he should look different. There should be some sort of mark on him to show that his world had crashed down on him, his children had been taken away, and he was back to living with his parents at the age of thirty-seven.
He had no
right
to look unscathed.
She felt like punching him on the nose. No, she felt like leaning over and brushing the hair out of his eyes.
“I’ll — I’ll just nip up and get their clothes,” she said in a crusty voice. Quickly, she cleared her throat.
He glanced at her, his face smooth and blank.
“Right. Are their bags packed?”
“More or less. Look, just go through to the living room and — and make yourself at home. I won’t be long.”
Make yourself at home
. God, why had she said that? He paid the rent, didn’t he?
And now she really hated the house’s layout, because she had to sneak into the bathroom to clean herself up, and the bathroom was more or less next door to the living room. James couldn’t help but hear her sloshing around.
Still, some hosing down absolutely had to be done before she could face him again. Within about three minutes, Lizzie left the bathroom with a clean feeling mouth, some very subtle coppery lipstick, and just a touch of blush across the cheekbones and brow to try to bring her ashen face back to life. Nothing short of surgery could be done about the shadows under her eyes and the puffiness of her eyelids, unfortunately.
She took the stairs four at a time, burst into the children’s room, and began rummaging through their clothes, which lay exposed in baskets on an old bookshelf, for want of a built-in closet.
She stuffed a few outfits for each child into a hold-all, along with Ellie’s panda and Alex’s fire engine, then snatched up shorts, T-shirts, and sandals. As an afterthought, she grabbed a couple of sweaters just in case the weather turned foul. Off she raced back to the bathroom to gather toothbrushes, a hairbrush, and a couple of bath toys. Then she raced to the hallway and shoved tiny wellies and raincoats into the bulging bag. She checked her watch. About seven minutes. Not bad, all things considered.
In the living room, James sat reading a story to the children. He looked up when she came in and all animation died in his face.
“All set,” she panted. “Here, would you get these on Alex while I do Ellie?” She threw him Alex’s set of clothes. She was acting as if her life depended on getting them all out of the house as quickly as possible.
With great deftness, James began to take off Alex’s pajamas and coax him into his clothes. As he was feeding Alex’s feet into his Velcro-strapped sandals, he suddenly burst out, “Look, I’ve contacted a lawyer. I thought it would be best to get things moving.”
Lizzie paused with her hands on Ellie’s shoulders.
“A lawyer?” You’d think she’d never so much as heard of the profession.
“Yes. A divorce lawyer.”
“A
divorce
lawyer? Already? But . . . oh, don’t wriggle, Ellie . . . but we haven’t even talked things through properly.”
James raised his eyebrows — the famous eyebrows that could be so jaunty and playful. Not an ounce of skittishness between the pair of them today, unfortunately. “I don’t think there’s anything more to say, Lizzie.”
“But — surely we need a little time to — you know, to get used to being apart? Before we rush into divorce?”
James heaved up a deep sigh. “You’re all set now, son,” he said, giving Alex’s foot a little pat. The boy, looking anxiously from his father’s face to his mother’s, suddenly piped up, “Wass dah-vorce, Daddy?”
For a moment, Lizzie’s eyes met James’s. She gave a tiny little shake of her head. He frowned back and widened his eyes meaningfully. “Divorce?” she said smoothly, before James could get in with an answer. “Divorce is something you don’t need to know about right now, Alex. Mummy will explain it later. It’s a . . . a grown-up thing, not a kid thing.”
“Like din and tonic?” Ellie prompted.
“Yeah, like gin and tonic.” She wasn’t going to meet James’s eye anymore. This really wasn’t the right moment to announce to the children that their parents were planning to split the family apart by legal decree.
“Mummy’s right, we don’t have time to talk now, but we’ll both explain it to you sometime soon,” James said in a loaded voice. “Okay, are you ready? Come on, give Mummy a hug and kiss and tell her you’ll see her tomorrow night.”
She knelt down and the children both threw themselves at her, half suffocating her with their full body weight. And she was suddenly bathed in a panicky sweat. How could she possibly let the children out of her house and into James’s car, and off down the lane toward the big, scary M25 without her? They were so little — only three; they needed their mother! What was she thinking? What was James thinking? Of course she couldn’t be expected to do this.
As if reading her mind, James suddenly said, “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. I haven’t forgotten how to look after them.”
Lizzie had the grace to blush. “Of course, they’ll be fine,” she said, straightening up, still holding onto the strong little hands. “Just don’t forget to brush their teeth. And don’t let your mother give them too many biscuits before suppertime. Oh, and please remember that Ellie doesn’t like rice and Alex won’t eat mashed potatoes. It’s easiest if you just give them pasta, really.”
James frowned. “Mum doesn’t really
do
pasta. Never mind — we’ll manage. I’ll have them back around six or seven tomorrow evening.”
Lizzie stood in the doorway and watched while he strapped them into the car seats he’d had the forethought to buy and install in his car. Somehow she resisted the urge to run out and give the seats a good tug to make sure they were properly tightened up.
The engine sprang to life and James rolled down the rear windows so that the children could wave and shout bye-bye at the tops of their voices. Then he did a quick reverse swoop and took off down the muddy driveway just a tad too fast for Lizzie’s liking. She watched the car speed away between the tall green hedge and the gently rolling field of knee-high corn. Within seconds it was gone.
Lizzie sank down in the doorway and stared at the empty driveway for way too long for a normal person. Divorce, she was thinking. So. No going back to Mill House after all. But that couldn’t be true. He was calling her bluff. Trying to scare her. Teaching her a lesson. Making a point. Anything, anything, except really and truly trying to divorce her.
“Morning, Lizzie. Are you waiting for something?”
Ingrid Hatter, walking her ridiculously small Jack Russell, had somehow crept up on her.
Sure, she was waiting for something. Only thirty-six hours and her children would be delivered back, right here, to her doorstep.
“Erm . . . no. Just — just looking at the garden. Planning my next move.”
“I see. So, this is your big child-free weekend, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. They just left.”
Lizzie watched as the Jack Russell bustled up to her garden gate, cocked his leg, and let loose a perfunctory yellow squirt.
“He’ll be limping by the time I get him back home,” remarked Ingrid. “He has to christen every tree stump and fence post along the way. Do you have any plans, then, for the weekend?”
“Plans? Yes, of course. Loads of plans. I’m going to be very, very busy.” Lizzie stood up briskly and pushed back her sleeves, as if about to get stuck into some monumental busy- ness without delay.
She wasn’t going to have Ingrid Hatter feeling sorry for her.
Ingrid looked at her doubtfully. “Jolly good, then. But if you should happen to have a spare moment, pop over to the barn for a coffee. Or a glass of wine, if you like.”
Lizzie thought of the bottle of Chardonnay she’d forced on Ingrid before noon on the day they’d met. God, the woman probably thought she was an alcoholic.
“Thanks. But I should think I’ll probably be too busy.”
“Right. But if there’s ever a bit of a lull . . .”
“Quite. Well, must be getting on with things now. Have a good walk.” And she hopped backwards into the house and closed the door. Then she sank down to the floor in the hallway and resumed her dazed gazing. But somehow all the fun had gone out of staring into the middle distance, so after a while she got up and went into the kitchen, not quite sure what she was going to do there. Of course, there was a sinkful of washing-up from the night before, but she wasn’t in the mood for standing around up to her elbows in suds. Besides, she hadn’t even had breakfast. That was it, she’d have breakfast!
She went over to the freezer and took out a family-sized tub of vanilla ice cream. Then she shuffled across the room, pulled open a drawer, and took out a spoon. Just as she was swallowing the first cold and creamy mouthful, she had a sudden awful thought.
She’d let the twins leave the house without breakfast!
Before she even realized what she was doing, she’d snatched up the phone and dialed the number of James’s mobile. His phone rang four times before he picked up and asked, just a trifle tersely, “What is it, Lizzie?”
“Er . . . nothing major. Just — well, in all the rush the kids didn’t get any breakfast this morning.”
“I know. They told me.”
“So — you’ll get them something to eat?”
“No, they’re getting too fat, they can stand to miss a meal.”
“Too
fat
?”
“I’m kidding, Lizzie,” James said wearily. “As a matter of fact, we’re just sitting down to a large breakfast in a pub. Fried eggs. And orange juice. And toast.”
“Oh.”
“And if they’re still hungry we’ll stop outside Oxford and get something else.”
“Right.”
“So that’s it?”
“Yip. But — ah — I wonder if you could sort of — not mention to your mother that they left the house without eating? She might get the wrong impression, think I’m not coping.”
“Lizzie, you know I never mention
anything
to Mum if I can possibly help it. Your secret’s safe with me. But in return, I want to ask you a favor.”
A favor? That had a nice friendly ring to it. “Sure, anything.”
“Don’t keep phoning me every hour to ask about the kids.”
“That’s the favor?”
“Yes, that’s it. Don’t keep phoning all the time. They’re with me, they’re fine. If there’s any problem, you’ll be the first to know. And I’ll give you a call this evening so they can say good night. Right?”
“Right.”
Lizzie went back to her ice cream, but it just wasn’t doing the trick anymore. She felt almost too weary to be bothered to let it melt in her mouth and trickle down her throat. So she stuffed it back into the freezer, went upstairs, and climbed into bed.
She lay there for a while on the squidgy mattress under her white duvet, the spring sunshine streaming in through the sheets she’d rigged up as curtains, the sound of birdsong ringing discordantly in her ears. Why did birds have to be so bally
noisy
? Couldn’t they just shut up and let a person sleep?
But it was no use. With or without a rowdy crowd of birds outside the window, her body knew that it was around ten thirty in the morning, and nowadays her body didn’t think much of calling it a day and falling asleep even in the middle of the night.
So she got up and straightened the duvet. Then she went downstairs and had a bit of a shower, not bothering to wash her hair or anything, but at least getting rid of any muskiness under the armpits. Feeling a little more positive, she threw her gray sweats aside and pulled on a semi-respectable pair of faded old jeans and a loose white shirt. What a pity the inside seams of the jeans were starting to go. They were so comfortable. It wasn’t very uplifting to reflect that the wear and tear was being caused by her thighs rubbing together as she walked.
In the shower she’d made some definite plans for her day. It was crucial to have plans, or she’d find herself sitting on the doorstep and staring down the driveway again. First, she was going to do something practical and useful, namely, install the toilet paper holder. She’d bought a nice pine-effect one and it was high time she got it up on the wall, if only to stop Alex from using the toilet roll as an unraveling bowling ball. Then she was going to do something creative but also practical, namely, work on her nonsense verses. If she could only get the bally things finished and manage to find some sort of publisher, she would start to feel less panicky about the future.
There was no getting away from it: from where she was sitting, the future was beginning to look scary. If James wasn’t using reverse psychology on her with this whole divorce thing, if he was for real, then there was no telling what would happen, nor how quickly. Certainly James was fairly well off, but was he well enough off to support two households for years to come?
At the moment, she was simply using their joint bank account as if nothing had happened, and so far James hadn’t second-guessed any of her expenditures. He hadn’t even alluded to the fact that she’d opted for a three-bedroom house when two bedrooms would have been enough. Or that she’d chosen a town that was known as a high-rent area.
But she knew that this state of play wouldn’t last forever. Either she’d go back home, or — the unthinkable would happen. One day soon she might be faced with a fixed income in the form of maintenance payments, and wasn’t maintenance always too little for the woman to manage on? She had no way of knowing whether she’d have enough money in the future to cover both the sizable rent and the groceries, not to mention the massive winter utility bills and all the other mundane expenses of life that she hadn’t had to worry about since marrying James.
It was clear she’d be wise to start making some money of her own. Just in case.