“You be good to Daddy, now,” she whispered in the child’s ear. “Help him with things. And look after Alex for me.”
Ellie nodded. “Don’t worry, Mummy. I know yus what to do.”
Lizzie blinked rapidly. “’Course you do. I’ll phone from Australia as soon as I possibly can. And I’ll see you in a week.”
Ellie put her arms around her mother’s neck and squeezed to the point of strangulation. “Be a good girl, Mummy,” she said.
“Come along, Ellie-Belly, we need to get going,” James called. “Hop in. No more dawdling.”
As they pulled away, Lizzie was just able to see her apparently nonchalant son’s face suddenly crumple as he craned his head to watch her disappear. His mouth formed a big black “O,” and she knew he was treating the car to a full-volume, grief-stricken bellow, the sort of roar he gave when he couldn’t find his fire engine last thing at night.
“Attaboy, Alex,” she muttered to herself, dashing away her own tears. “You give Sonja Silicone- Boobs the ride of her life back to Gloucestershire! Maybe her green contact lenses will pop out with the strain.”
From: Lizzie Buckley [email protected]
Sent: 21 July
Dear Maria
Janie and baby are stable!
They induced the day we arrived — Janie’s liver was starting to pack up. She was all swollen and blotchy and yellow. Horrible. Writhing on the bed with back pain and also — this is the weird thing — almost berserk with hunger. Mum kept saying, “For God’s sake, give the poor girl some food,” but they’d only give her ice cubes.
Labor was quick once they got the pitocin going. Worst thing was the magnesium drip, Janie says. Baby girl born just after midnight, 3 lbs 1 oz; in neonatal intensive care. Every rise and fall of her chest seems such an effort. I stand at the window watching her breathe.
Janie in hospital until further notice.
Maria, will you do me a favor? James phones to let me talk to the children, and they sound fine — but I worry anyway. Could you give James a ring and check up on them? Maybe even ask them round to tea on Sunday? This is definitely not espionage, just friendly observation.
Thanks a million,
Lizzie
From: [email protected]
Sent: 22 July
Hi Lizzie
So Janie’s been discharged! What a relief. So glad to hear the baby’s getting stronger and gaining weight.
James gave us the good news. He was over with the kids for tea this afternoon, as per your instructions. We gave them fish sticks, smiley face potato thingies, and ketchup (a nod in the direction of greens). Then they watched “Kipper” and fell asleep while we had a glass of wine and polished off some curry.
James is looking a bit rough around the edges — but the twins are in good nick. James kept muttering things like, “I had no idea how little they sleep. I mean, how little they sleep concurrently.” Apparently they’ve been waking up in relays, asking for water, potty trips, night- lights, and so on.
When I asked James how he was liking the Chipping Norton house, he said he’d liked it fine until the children turned it into a complete tip. Apparently they fed a box of crayons into the radiator after drawing a mural on one of the walls. Melted wax is now bleeding out onto the white carpet.
But don’t worry. I gather he’s keeping them fed and bathed and highly entertained. Ellie informed me, “We like to stay wiff Daddy cos he lets us ride round the house on his back. Mummy never wants to play horsey.”
Are you still coming back on Thursday? When you pick up the twins I’m going to nab you for an hour — dressmaker needs to re-do measurements. James says you’ve lost a significant amount of weight. Maybe you should tell him about the running and the health food fixation so he won’t think you’ve got cancer or worse.
Hope you get to hold your niece before you come home. Thank God the crisis is over.
Bye now, see you soon.
Maria
A
s Lizzie stepped out into the arrivals hall at Gatwick, her eye was caught by a frantic flutter of color to her left. Ingrid Hatter in summer florals waved energetically, mouthing, “Welcome home!” at her.
The minute Ingrid deposited her on her own doorstep, Lizzie grabbed car keys and handbag, jumped behind the wheel, and headed off toward Gloucestershire.
From directions supplied by MapQuest, she drove without a single wrong turn straight to James’s house in Chipping Norton.
The place was in a quiet side street with absolutely no parking. Defiantly, she pulled over on the double yellow line outside number 39 — a narrow, unremarkable white house flanked by clones of itself.
As she stepped out of the car, Lizzie was smiling from ear to ear, like some sort of nutter. Heaven only knew, she’d be desperate to palm the twins off on any handy babysitter a couple of hours from now, but right now she couldn’t wait to see them.
At the top of the four steps that led up to the front door, Lizzie paused. She was poised to ring the doorbell of her husband’s new life. She was about to see it: the space he inhabited without her. This was the future James had chosen; the place where Lizzie didn’t fit in. Perhaps he’d never meant her to see it at all.
She took a deep breath and rang the bell.
A loud scampering and shrieking broke out. The door flew open and hands grabbed her at knee level, pulling her bodily into the house. She tumbled down and they swarmed onto her, Ellie sobbing, Alex jabbering at top speed.
Then James walked up, and she was staring at the beautiful feet she’d first seen in the strawberry fields of Longborough, but now she had a child’s damp cheek pressed to her face.
“Here, let me help you up.” He took her hand and she stood awkwardly, both children pressing themselves close.
James looked terrible. She’d never seen him so unkempt. He obviously hadn’t shaved in a while, nor had he bothered with a comb. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of tartan pajama pants, and he held a cup of coffee in one hand.
“How’s it been?” she asked.
He shook his head wordlessly, then gave a rueful grin. “They ran rings around me,” he said. “Thank God you’re back.”
She felt a stab of irritation. “So they can run rings around
me
?”
His eyebrows rose. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“Don’t you believe it. Anyway, are they all packed and ready to go?”
“We packed our bags las’ night, Mummy,” Alex yelled, doing a little stomping dance around the room.
“I’ll get the stuff,” James said. She watched till he was out of sight, then knelt down and gave Ellie, still tearful, several kisses and a quick hug. “Come on, sweetie, show me Daddy’s house, then.”
Ellie gave a brave sniff. “All right, but there’s nuffin in it.”
She was right. There was almost nothing in it but expensive white carpet, blank white walls, a solitary white sofa, and lots of shiny brass fixtures in the loo. Lizzie smiled to herself when she came to the place where the twins had scribbled their toddler graffiti on the paintwork. It brightened up the decor, at least. When she walked into the kitchen, the first thing she saw was the waiter-shaped wrought iron wine rack she’d once given James.
She heard his tread on the ceramic tile behind her and turned. He stood there, nursing his coffee, watching her with an unreadable look on his face.
“You always hated that thing,” she said accusingly. “What’s it doing here?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just — to remind me of our differences.”
Whump. A blow to the stomach.
“It was a
joke
,” she mumbled, blinking quickly. “The stupid wine rack was a joke.” But he’d turned away to run water over his coffee mug in the gleaming new kitchen sink and didn’t hear her.
Alex provided a welcome distraction by racing up to the wine rack and challenging it to fight. “You duh naughty knight and I gonna rescue duh princess,” he told it solemnly. “I need a helmet!” and he made a dive for the cupboard under the sink, where Lizzie caught a glimpse of a very shiny set of saucepans before James stepped up, closed the cupboard door smartly, and said, “No time for duels now, my boy. Time to go with Mummy.”
He turned to Lizzie. “You look worn out. Are you okay to drive?”
She gave a surly shrug. “I’m fine. I’m only going over to Maria’s now. She’ll give me some coffee to wake me up.” Unlike you, she added silently.
He considered her a moment. “I wouldn’t like to have to deal with this lot after that monster flight, I can tell you. Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can always keep them for another day if you need time to recover. It’s a lot tougher than I thought, looking after them twenty-four seven. But it’s easier for you, of course — you’re much better at it than I am.”
She gave a bitter sneer. “Oh yes, much better. It’s
women’s work
, after all. Too mindless and menial for the likes of
you.
But me? I thrive on it, of course. It never gets
me
down. Oh,
no
! Never.”
Oh dear. Maybe Ivana was right. Maybe she needed to unbottle all her anger so it didn’t become an exploding device.
Dashing tears from her eyes, she rushed the children out of the house. She slammed the car door decisively and was about to speed away when James rapped on her window. She rolled it down and snapped, “What?”
“The divorce petition — how’s it coming along?”
Naturally, she pulled away without answering.
She drove to Maria’s house in a tearing rage. How dare he assume that raising children was a doddle for
anybody
just because they were female? What would he think about her gender-endowed coping skills if he knew she’d smashed Alex’s toy car against the wall and bruised his shoulders?
And how dare he harass her about the divorce petition? True, she hadn’t done much about organizing it beyond picking a lawyer out of the phone directory and then stuffing the paperwork he gave her into a shoe box. But she’d have thought James would show a little more sensitivity — or maybe just old-fashioned politeness — than to demand a progress report on it!
By the time she was sitting in an armchair at Maria’s house, sipping coffee, she was no longer angry, just miserable.
“I wish I’d never gone anywhere near the place,” she told Maria. “It was depressing. All those spanking new fittings, the granite countertops in the kitchen — and not a painting on the wall, not a knickknack on the mantelpiece. It barely looks inhabited. And this is where the kids are supposed to spend their weekends.”
“He’s only just moved in, really,” Maria said soothingly. “I’m sure it will be more homey in time.”
The fact that he’d moved into a separate place at all — a place of his own — was the part that grieved her most. She didn’t want it to be more homey in time. She wanted it not to exist.
But she shook her head and turned her attention back to her resentment. “He has the gall to say I’m better at looking after the twins than he is. Making out he’s such a hero to’ve taken them on when he’s their
dad
, for God’s sake. Looking as if he hasn’t slept in days. The bloody
condescension
of the man.”
“I’m sure he’s
much
better at looking after them than you are,” Maria replied with a twinkle.
Lizzie took a deep breath and went a bit purple. Then she caught Maria’s eye and gave a rueful laugh. “All right, all right. But why couldn’t he just say it was a tough job without trying to make out that it’s not a tough job for
me
? Doesn’t he bloody understand that we more or less lost our
marriage
because it’s such a tough job for me? And he has the gall to ask about the divorce petition . . .”
The doorbell rang, jangling Lizzie’s nerves.
“That must be the dressmaker.” Maria set down her tea and jumped up eagerly. “Try not to think about James now, love. Try to think ‘wedding.’ For me — please?”
Lizzie had visited the dressmaker in Stowe for a first fitting some weeks ago. How Maria had persuaded the woman to make a house call, Lizzie had no idea, but she was thankful she didn’t have to try to control the twins in the tiny front room where the woman plied her trade.
Lizzie plastered a smile on her face in a bid to pass for a happy matron of honor, not a maddened soon-to-be ex-wife. Not that the dressmaker cared. She looked as if she would have preferred it if all her clients were mannequins. Clamping her teeth on a handful of pins, she began to remeasure all Lizzie’s relevant dimensions. She wrote down the new numbers in a dog-eared notebook, alongside the old ones, tut-tutting as she went. At last she closed up her book and looked Lizzie in the eye.
“My girl,” she said, “I hope you’re not planning to lose any more inches.”
Lizzie blushed, as if caught in some decidedly underhand caper. “I’m not
planning
to,” she said.
“You’d better not, then,” the dressmaker snapped. “This dress is supposed to fit like a glove — not like a tent. I can’t have you chopping and changing your measurements all the time. If we have to alter the dress in any way, it’s going to cost Maria here an arm and a leg.”
Lizzie hung her head like a naughty schoolgirl. “Right,” she said. “ I’ll — I’ll monitor my weight then.”
“Never mind your weight, it’s your measurements that count,” the woman said sternly. “Don’t go building up any more muscle, either. I’m making this dress to fit you as you are
today
. All right?”
“Got it.”
“After all, I have my reputation to think of,” she went on sniffily as she packed up her bag of tricks. “I don’t think I’ve ever
known
a body to change so much in a few weeks. It’s just lucky you’ve gone
down
in size and not up, or we’d find ourselves without enough fabric.”
Oh, it was lovely stuff. Lizzie had never enjoyed a telling-off so much in her life. It quite boosted her flagging spirits. What bliss to be scolded for being too thin! As Maria showed the woman out, Lizzie wondered if she dared lose another inch here or there, just to provoke a real bombardment of verbal abuse at the final fitting. A blistering ticking-off about her skinniness would buoy her up nicely for the ordeal of facing James in a dinner jacket.