A Minor Indiscretion (9 page)

I
'm standing outside Elliott's school, and there are five minutes to go before they all fizz out of the door with the exuberance of champagne bubbles, chattering and giggling and all looking like they've been every which way through a hedge. The Sunny Smiles Pre-School Nursery provides a lovely introduction to the rigors of education in a huge white-painted house in another pretty leafy lane full, as the advertising brochure states, of sunny smiles. The inside is currently adorned with Pokémon characters, which I'm not sure I agree with. Try as I might, I can't understand the attraction, and I'm just hoping they'll pass quickly and the next trend will be more wholesome. Will my children remember this inarticulate, pointless gaggle of monsters with the fondness I hold for Stingray or Andy Pandy (who, when you come to think of it, wasn't all that bright). I've heard the BBC are bringing back Basil Brush and Bill and Ben the Flower-Pot Men, which is a jolly good step in the right direction, if you ask me.

I'm taking this time to try to refocus my thoughts. For refocus, read, drag them screaming. As you might have gathered, I'm trying to stop thinking about Christian and concentrate instead on the choice between pizza or the ubiquitous chicken nuggets. Currently, it isn't working. A clutch of other mothers arrive, issuing forth from BMWs and soft-top Mercedes in Gucci loafers, well
cut trousers and navy blazers—the standard uniform for ladies-who-do-lunch. They nod and smile and I nod and smile back, but I don't want to be drawn into conversation today. I feel conspicuous in my glittery sweatshirt, and I want to be alone with my thoughts for the few moments I have left before I'm sucked back down into the crazy whirlpool that forms my life.

The crowd of knee-high hooligans are sprung from school and rush in all directions to their waiting parents. Elliott is always last. That child can talk for England. I thought it was mothers who were always chatting, leaving their offspring hanging around bored waiting for them to finish. With Elliott it is the other way round. His teacher, and owner of Sunny Smiles, Miss Jones, whom he adores, will probably be deaf by the time she's forty, and it will be mainly down to Elliott.

The doors of the BMWs and the Mercs clunk expensively, shutting out the noise of the children inside. There's still no sign of Elliott, so I wander toward the school with the hope of chivvying him up, otherwise Thomas and Tanya will be back at the house before us and even though they are older and have their own keys, I still like to be there when they come home. Call me old-fashioned, but that's how it is.

Inside the school it is cool and airy. There's always a sense of peace here, even when it's crammed with children. Miss Jones runs a very tight ship, although we do pay handsomely for it. Barbara, her assistant, is tidying away some pencils, placing them methodically back into a box with all the colored tips facing the same way. Miss Jones doesn't appear to be around, and neither does Elliott.

Barbara turns around when she hears me, and the smile of greeting on her face changes to an expression of concern. Instantly, I feel my insides turn cold.

“Mrs. Kingston.” Barbara puts down the pencils. “We've been trying to contact you all day.” They're the words all mothers dread, aren't they? And I think guiltily of the phone turned off and stuffed in the bottom of my handbag beneath a pile of snotty tissues. “Elliott's had a little accident.”

Elliott's always having accidents and I'm always there to look after him. I should be used to it by now, but this one grips me with the hand of terror. Barbara sees my shell-shocked face.

“Accident? What sort of accident?”

“He's all right. Really,” she reassures me. “He fell off the climbing frame and landed badly on his arm. Nicola didn't think he'd broken it, but she wanted to be sure. She took him down to the hospital.”

My hands are shaking, and Barbara clearly thinks I'm overreacting, which I probably am, but she doesn't know the whole picture, does she? She doesn't know what I've been doing. Not like you and I.

I start to back away toward the door.

Barbara follows me, now very concerned. “They'll probably be back at home by now, I shouldn't wonder. It'll be all right, Mrs. Kingston.”

“I have to go,” I say, and my voice sounds like the voice of a madwoman. “I have to see my baby.”

“We managed to get hold of Mr. Kingston.” Barbara reaches out to touch my arm and thinks better of it.

“Ed?”

“He came out of work. He'll be with Elliott and Nicola.” Now she clearly thinks I'm mad, because she's speaking slowly at me. “At the hospital.”

Ed! Ed's hopeless, I want to tell her. He can't cope with any body fluids apart from his own, and even that's debatable. One spot of blood and he passes out. He's changed one nappy in his entire life, and he gagged so much that he was sick. I had more clearing up to do after my husband than the baby. I should be there, not Ed. Elliott will be howling the place down and Ed won't have a clue what to do. He might be a whiz with cameras and videotape and techno stuff, but he goes completely to pieces when faced with a wailing child.

I back out of the room, leaving a bemused Barbara to return to her pencils, and I run, panting breathlessly, because the last time I did any running was at Thomas's sports day last year in the mothers' egg and spoon race. I run as fast as I can toward home to find out what disasters await me, and I know I am being punished for being the worst mother on the planet who, instead of knowing instinctively when my child needed me, had her head full of young boys with flat bellies and beautiful blond hair. This is payback time for my illicit pleasure, and I know that I will never, ever forgive myself for this.

C
hristian was sitting with his feet on the kitchen table when Robbie came home from his shift at HMV. He was nursing a bottle of Budweiser and staring glumly into the garden.

Robbie threw his backpack on the table. “We haven't been cut off, have we?”

Christian shook his head and drank deeply from his bottle.

His friend got a beer from the fridge and sat down in the chair opposite him. “What then?”

“Not now, Robbie.”

Robbie tipped his beer to his lips. “I've seen that face before.”

“You haven't.”

Robbie held his bottle like a microphone and crooned,
“No one knows the way you feel, when you're young and so in love.”

“Fuck off,” Christian said. “The tune goes nothing like that, but you're right—no one does know the way I feel.”

“Problems with Miss Beautiful Soul Mate?”

Christian sniffed and pouted miserably at the garden.

“The course of true love never runs smoothly,” Robbie said sympathetically.

“Not for me, it doesn't,” Christian agreed.

Robbie pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Christian, who refused. “I thought you'd blown out
the tourists at the market so you could spend the day together?” he said as he lit up.

“I did.”

“And?”

“We went to Kew Gardens.”

Robbie pulled a puzzled face. “Nice.”

“I thought it would be.”

“Why Kew Gardens?”

“I thought it would be romantic.”

“And was it?”

“Yes.” Christian fixed Robbie with a thoughtful stare. “It was perfect.”

“I feel at this point there must be a ‘but' coming on…”

“But…” Christian sighed heavily. “There are complications.”

Robbie laughed. “There always are with you, mate.”

“No. This time there are real complications.”

Robbie blew out a stream of smoke. “Do you want to tell Uncle Robert?”

“Only if you promise not to laugh and not to breathe a word to Becs. She'd only take the piss, and I can't cope with that now.”

“Promise.” Robbie held his hand to his heart.

Christian swigged his beer and then folded his arms across his chest, staring resolutely ahead. “For a start, she's a lot older than me.”

Robbie pursed his lips. “Not an unusual concept these days. Quite the thing, in fact. There's a lot to be said for older birds.” He sat upright. “She's not sixty or anything, is she?”

Christian glared at him. “No. She's thirty-something. But you wouldn't think so. Really you wouldn't.”

“So she's old?”

“And she's married.”

Robbie dragged on his cigarette. “Now this
is
starting to sound complicated, Christian.”

“And she has three children.”

“Fuck,” Robbie said. “Haven't they got a television?”

“And she doesn't want to see me again.”

Robbie ground out his cigarette. “That sounds like a very sensible conclusion to me.”

“I can't handle it, Robbie. This is the first time I've felt like this. I can't just let her go. I'm crazy about her.”

“You're crazy to get involved with her.”

“I know. I know. Logically I can work that all out. But she does weird things to me.”

Robbie's eyes widened and he sat up. “Tell me more….”

Christian scowled. “Emotionally weird, not plastic toys weird.”

Robbie slumped down. “Oh.”

Christian bit his lower lip and looked up at his friend. “I don't know what to do.”

Robbie shook his head. “Drop it, mate. You're way out of your depth.”

“I don't know if I can,” Christian admitted. “How can I make her love me?”

“You normally have trouble getting rid of them, Christian, not making them fall for you.”

“Bollocks.”

“We had three months of tearful telephone calls from that Tara Wotsit. You had to change your mobile phone number in the end. She was in a terrible state. And you wouldn't even talk to her.”

“This is different. That was just a fling, and she knew it. This is love. For the first time. Real love.”

“You are in very dangerous territory, Christian.”

“I can't help it. You can't govern who you fall in love with.”

“Yes, you can.” Robbie wagged his beer bottle at him. “You can stop it now and walk away. Forget her. In a few weeks, a few days, maybe even a few hours, she'll be history. A pleasant memory of what might have been if only she hadn't been old, married and with three kids.”

“I don't think so.”

Robbie finished his beer and put the bottle on the table with a decisive thunk. “Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think we should go and get ourselves very laid.”

Christian shook his head. “I don't feel like it.”

“You always feel like it.” Robbie puckered his lips and made thrusting movements with his hips. “Come on, let's hit the clubs.”

Christian smiled reluctantly. “Do you think it will work?”

“I don't know,” Robbie admitted cheerfully. “But I think it's a very worthwhile theory to put to the test.”

A grin spread across Christian's face. He stood up and grabbed
Robbie's hand in a fist. “Cheers, mate,” he said with a nod. “I feel better already.”

The front door opened and Rebecca came into the kitchen, laden down with shopping bags. She stopped and stared at them both. “Why are you two looking so smug?”

“No reason.” Christian peeped in her carrier bag as he pushed past her and she snatched it away.

Rebecca frowned. “Why do I think you're up to something?”

Christian kissed her cheek. “Because you have a naturally suspicious nature.”

Rebecca slapped at his hand. “Where are you going to?”

Christian winked at Robbie. “To put my lucky pulling underpants on!”

T
homas is sitting at the table doing his homework. Bless him! Tanya, on the other hand, is watching television on the little portable and snaps it off guiltily the minute I walk through the door.

“Where's Elliott?” I gasp.

Thomas looks up. “He's been at the hospital. Daddy phoned when we came in to say they're on their way home.”

“Is he all right?”

“It's just a bad sprain,” Thomas says, clearly disappointed that Elliott won't have the street credibility of a plaster cast. I'm too wound up to feel the relief I should. “Daddy says they're going to stop at McDonald's to buy tea.” Thomas smiles broadly at this prospect rather than the fact his younger brother is safe and relatively unharmed.

“Fine.”

I feel like weeping, and as soon as I sit down opposite Thomas, there is the sound of a key in the front door and Elliott comes in carrying a Happy Meal under his good arm, and he does, despite his ordeal, look remarkably happy. His other arm is swathed in a support bandage, and he is clutching a cuddly dog Beanie Baby, the joy of which seems to be distracting him from his pain. I make a note to thank Ed for the inspiration of these small psychological tactics. It's pathetic, but they work every time.

Ed, bearing the remainder of our McDonald's offering in a large brown paper bag, does not look so happy. His face is white and there are gray rings round his eyes, but most noticeable is the black storm cloud sitting just above his eyebrows. He puts the McDonald's bag down. “We've been at the hospital,” he says in a tight voice.

“I know.” I sound weary. “Barbara told me when I went to pick Elliott up.” I smile at my son. “Come here, darling.” He runs over to my side and I give him a big hug. “Were you brave?”

“No,” Elliott says. “I screamed blue murder.”

I can imagine it. Kissing him on the head, I hide a smile and reach over and pull out a chair for him. “Don't let your chips get cold.”

Ed goes to the cupboard and pulls out some plates, on top of which he plonks the McDonald's cartons. It is possibly the last thing in the world I feel like eating, but he has had to suffer my burnt offerings more than once, so I'll say nothing and be grateful. Tanya comes to the table.

She opens a burger box and examines the contents with disdain. “I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian,” she announces.

“Not now, Tanya,” I say.

“I've been trying to call you all day,” Ed says. “So has Nicola. They needed you at the school. We were right in the middle of filming for a very important client. I had to come out of work.”

“I would have had to,” I say. The accusation is out of my mouth before I can stop it, and I know that I sound too defensive. This is the first time ever that Ed has had to deal with anything like this. Honestly. He'd tell you so himself.

But the main reason I snap is because I'm cross. Cross with myself for not being there. Cross that I've failed Elliott when he needed me. Cross that I've been caught out in the one minor indiscretion I've ever dared indulge in. Cross that I went in the first place! And I'm cross that Ed can't handle one tiny crisis without resorting to emotional blackmail.

Ed looks at me over his polystyrene box. His voice is level, but his eyes are hard. “Except that you weren't at work today, Ali.”

You'll hardly believe this, but until now I didn't even consider that I might be called to account for where I was today. Where was I? What am I going to say? I can hardly tell Ed the truth in these circumstances. First I'm going to have to lie to Kath Brown
and now Ed. My face reddens. One of the other joys of having red hair is having a complexion that would be no good for a poker player. I hate blushing and do it frequently. Sometimes you could fry an egg on my cheeks, they sizzle so much. I suspect you could now. I bite my burger, stuffing a huge mouthful in so that I cannot speak even if I knew what to say, and I lower my eyes to stare at the shreds of transparent, taste-free iceberg lettuce that are in my carton. The kids are concentrating on their burgers and studiously ignore us.

“The school couldn't get hold of you. I couldn't get hold of you. Your mobile was turned off. Kath was worried sick,” he continued. “And so was I.”

I can hardly chew. My mouth has gone dry and there's bile rushing up to meet the contents, which are struggling to go down.

“Where have you been?”

I can hardly meet his eyes. “With Jemma,” I lie and, my God, the words nearly choke me.

“With Jemma?”

“We'd arranged to go shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“I thought I'd told you.”

“Not that I remember,” Ed says.

“Well, you did forget the parents' evening,” I counter, and I sound weak and feeble even to my own ears.

“So I did.” Ed gives me a relenting smile, which makes me feel a hundred and ten times worse. He bites into his burger.

I try to control the pounding of my heart and the feeling that I have a lightbulb flashing above my head with LIAR written on it.

“What did you buy?” Ed mumbles through a chip.

“What?”

“Shopping,” he reminds me. “What did you buy?”

“Er…” My mind is a complete bank. Clearly my supply of lies is exhausted already. “Nothing.”

“You went shopping with Jemma and bought nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's a first,” he snorts, and gives me a strange look even though there's now nothing at all wrong with his eye.