Hens Reunited (12 page)

‘So he says to me, I thought you
knew
I had sensitive nipples!’ one woman was relating to a group of friends around her on a carpet area scattered with soft toys. Her audience screeched with laughter. ‘And I said . . .’

No, Alice couldn’t really join in there. What could she say? ‘Mind if I listen? I love a good nipple anecdote.’

Definitely not. She’d be chased out of the village with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Next to an overflowing dressing-up box, a buxom woman was fitting a glittery tiara to a small girl’s head whilst narrating a different kind of story. ‘And I could smell this horrible smell, right, so I looked round and there was this great big turd on the carpet, with Alfie just about to step in it with his bare feet. And I went mental, I did, I just . . .’

Oh,
please.

Alice didn’t want to join
that
conversation either. She tuned out rapidly and stroked Iris’s back, wondering if she should leave, give it up as a bad job. She couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there in her plastic chair for another hour with nobody speaking to her. She’d come here for adult company, but she just felt invisible. Today was supposed to be the first day of the rest of her life, wasn’t it? Today she’d emerged from her post-Jake limbo, like a shy butterfly from a cocoon, wings weak and crumpled. She felt as if she were still blinking in the light, not yet able to fly.

No one would notice if she just went home, by the looks of it. No one would care, would they?

But then she might get a name for herself in the village.
Oh, there’s that weird mum who never talks to anyone.

Yeah, she was at Mothers and Toddlers the other week, never said a word to anyone else, then just buggered off home!

Probably thinks she’s too good for the likes of us! Snobby cow.

She didn’t want that. She didn’t want people getting the wrong idea about her. If no one was going to speak to her, she’d have to make the first move. She was just going to have to catch someone’s eye, strike up a conversation. Oh God! But who with? This was really difficult!

Come on, Alice
, she told herself.
Be brave. Just do it!

Across the table, two mums were sipping coffee and half-heartedly supervising their children’s glue-stick manoeuvres. ‘So she thinks she’s got a chance with Dom again, apparently,’ one said, twisting a long strand of honey-coloured hair between her fingers.

Alice’s ears pricked up. Dom? Was that her Dom they were talking about? She blushed at her own phrase. ‘Her Dom’ indeed. The over-friendly guy who’d barged into her cottage was what she meant.

‘What, Dom Fletcher?’ the other woman asked the first, with a scornful pursing of her lips. She tossed her red hair. ‘She must be barmy, then. A glutton for punishment.’

The words sank into Alice’s mind. A glutton for punishment? What was so awful about Dom, then? Was he a cheater, a heartbreaker?

She felt her mouth tightening. Weren’t they all? She should have known!

‘Mummy, Mummy!’ The little girl sitting next to the blonde woman grabbed a handful of the green shredded paper. ‘I want to make a tree with this. And a bush! I want a bush!’

The blonde mum winked at her friend. ‘You’ll get one when you’re older,’ she said, deadpan.

The redhead convulsed into giggles. ‘She won’t be so keen on the idea then,’ she said meaningfully, helping her little boy splodge some glue onto his sugar paper.

‘No,’ the blonde agreed, and turned to her baffled-looking daughter. ‘And whatever you do, love, if a bloke asks you to wax it off, tell him where to go!’

They were both rocking with giggles now, and Alice couldn’t help laughing too. Then the blonde woman gave her a friendly smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘we’re not always like this.’

The red-haired woman gave a snort. ‘What are you on about? Yes, we are,’ she laughed.

The blonde woman shrugged. ‘Shush, she doesn’t know that yet,’ she replied in a mock-whisper, indicating Alice with a tip of her head. ‘Try and give a good impression, Mags, all right?’

Alice smiled back. And took a deep breath. ‘I thought it was funny,’ she said. ‘I’m Alice, by the way. New to the village.’

The women exchanged a look. ‘We know,’ the red-haired woman – Mags – admitted. ‘You can’t fart round here without someone getting to hear about it. I’m Mags and this is Jen. And who’s Sleeping Beauty, then?’

They all considered Iris, who was still dozing with her head resting on one of Alice’s shoulders. ‘Iris,’ Alice said. ‘I know she’s a bit young to come here, but . . .’

Jen waved a hand dismissively. ‘Never too young,’ she assured Alice. ‘I came here when Poppy was – what? Five weeks old, I think. I was just so bored of being in the house, I was desperate to get out and have a chat.’

Mags nodded. ‘This is the right place to come, Alice,’ she said. ‘This is where you get to hear what’s going on.’ She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll just grab you a drink, then you can tell us all about yourself. Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea, please,’ Alice said gratefully. ‘Thank you.’ She felt faint with relief that these women were talking to her. Thank goodness!

‘So,’ said Jen conversationally, after breaking up some of the green shredded-paper clumps for her daughter’s foliage, ‘I hope you realize all the men in the village are talking about you already?’

Alice coloured, feeling horribly embarrassed. ‘They what? Who?’ she asked.

Jen grinned. ‘My dad for starters,’ she replied. ‘Stanley. White hair, nosy old bugger, door-opener adviser . . .’

Alice blushed an even deeper red. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, realizing who Jen was referring to. ‘So that’s your dad? He . . . um . . . helped me get in the cottage. I couldn’t . . .’ She faltered, feeling an idiot in describing her incapability. ‘Small world,’ she said with a faint smile.

Jen rolled her eyes. ‘Very small,’ she agreed. ‘Too small. It’s like living in a goldfish bowl, isn’t that right, Mags?’

Mags was back with a chipped mug of tea and a chocolate digestive for Alice. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said breezily. ‘And everyone’s very excited about the new fish in the bowl – you, I mean,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at Alice.

Alice dunked her biscuit, glad of the opportunity to turn her gaze away. She wasn’t enjoying this conversation so much now. ‘Yeah?’ she asked, trying to sound casual about it.

‘Too right,’ Jen said. ‘They were discussing you in the pub last night. Dom Fletcher was telling them all about you.’

‘He was?’ Alice asked, startled. A hot flush stung her cheeks. ‘What . . . what did he say?’

Mags grinned. ‘Ooh, now that would be telling,’ she replied, her eyes glittering.

‘Something about the two of you being up in your bedroom was what I heard,’ Jen put in suggestively, raising her severely plucked eyebrows. ‘You’re a fast mover, Alice!’

Alice forced a laugh but inside she felt queasy. ‘It wasn’t like that!’ she protested.

Mags leaned forward. ‘What
was
it like, then?’

‘Mum,’ her son said, putting a gluey hand on her arm. ‘Can you help me?’

Mags seemed irritated by the interruption. ‘Oh, Ollie!’ she cried, shaking him off her. ‘You’ve made me all sticky!’

Jen was leaning forward too, considering Alice with narrowed eyes. ‘You know . . . there’s something dead familiar about your face, Alice. I can’t think where I’ve seen you before.’

In the tabloids
, Alice thought, feeling a lurch inside. She certainly wasn’t going to fess up as much, though. No way! Her hair was much longer now than when she’d been papped and that image of her standing in her old doorway, hand on her rounded belly, blinking in the camera flashes, had been plastered all over the press. She’d been hoping to go incognito here, hoped nobody would remember the headlines.

She forced a laugh now, wanting to change the subject and distract Jen. ‘Oh, lots of people say that,’ she said lightly, her stomach churning. ‘I’ve just got one of those faces. Common as anything, me!’

Jen wasn’t put off the scent so easily, though. ‘Hmmm,’ she said, cocking her head on one side. ‘No, it’s not that. I’ve seen you somewhere, I’m sure of it.’ She shrugged. ‘It’ll come to me.’

I bloody hope not
, Alice thought, feeling her smile slip. The last thing she needed was the village to know the truth, to dredge up all the stuff with Jake. She’d been hoping this place would be a bolt-hole, somewhere she could get over her broken marriage in private. But if the truth came out, there’d be no chance of that. If everyone knew that Iris was actually Jake Archer’s daughter . . . Christ, she’d never hear the end of it.

Iris stirred in Alice’s arms just then, stretched up her chubby little arms and opened her round blue eyes. She was silent for a moment, staring at the bustle and chaos of the room, then looked questioningly at Alice.

‘Hello sweetie,’ Alice said, stroking her cheek.

‘Awww, what a poppet,’ Jen said. ‘So, what were you saying, Alice? You were about to tell us about your little . . . how should I put it? . . .
encounter
with Dom.’

‘Brief, was it?’ Mags giggled.

‘Who said anything about briefs?’ Jen tittered. ‘I heard he wears Y-fronts.’

Mags burst into a laugh. ‘Where did you hear that? Did Natasha say that? Or Cathy?’

Alice listened with a growing sense of horror. She’d only talked to Dom for about two minutes, yet news of their meeting seemed to have rushed around the village like wildfire. And who were all these girls Mags and Jen were referring to, who knew Dom’s underwear situation so well? He was sounding more like the village Lothario by the second. ‘Blimey,’ she said, rather shakily. ‘Seems like he gets around a bit.’

Mags and Jen exchanged a look. ‘You could say that,’ Jen said after a moment. ‘Anyway, we’re only teasing you, Alice. Don’t mind us.’

‘Mummy, help!’ Mags’s son cried, tugging at her again, and she rolled her eyes and dabbed some glue on his picture.

Iris had reached across the table and snatched up some of the shredded paper, which she was now posting into her open mouth. ‘Oh, Iris!’ Alice said, taking it gently out again. ‘Are you trying to tell me something? Are you hungry?’

She was glad of an excuse to get to her feet and go, even though she knew Iris wasn’t really that hungry yet. The conversation with Mags and Jen had cheered her initially – hooray, friendly mums talking to her! – but her feelings had quickly turned to dismay. She didn’t like everyone knowing her business. And what did Dom think he was playing at anyway, telling everyone in the pub that he’d been in her bedroom?

‘Cheers for that, mate,’ she muttered crossly, wheeling Iris down the lane in her buggy. ‘Now I’m the village slapper, and I’ve only been here two days. Thanks a bunch!’

The cottage seemed particularly joyless when she returned to it, with its small, mean windows and dusty front path. She had to unclip Iris from her buggy outside because it was too big to wheel into the cottage. Or rather, you
could
wedge it in, just about, but it took up most of the living room like some kind of looming Mothercare-esque art installation. Not terribly practical.

She carried Iris inside, her spirits sinking. Now what? What else should she do for the rest of the day? There was lunch to make, sure, and Iris would need a nap, but she had nothing else planned. And tomorrow was similarly empty, too, and the day after that . . .

Iris was mouthing wetly on her shoulder. Hungry now. Alice put her in the high chair and tried to think where she’d unpacked the bibs. Oh God. It all felt too much, suddenly. What had she done, coming here in the first place? Getting back on her feet after the double whammy of Jake’s betrayal and Iris being born had felt such a monumental effort, she’d barely thought beyond actually moving in. For so long, she’d concentrated on coping from day to day, one step at a time, not daring to look any further ahead. She’d been so intent on trying not to dwell on the past and what might have been, that she’d forgotten to make plans for the future.

And now here she was, in this hotbed of gossip where everyone knew everyone else, and they were all talking about her.
You’re a fast mover, Alice
, she heard Jen tease in her head, and felt like crying. They were so wrong about her! Fast mover? Hardly. She was at a complete standstill, not moving anywhere.

What, exactly, had Dom said about her, anyway? She’d thought he was nice when he’d come round on Saturday. Should have known there was an agenda. He sounded as if he was the kind of bloke who liked to make conquests, and boasted to the lads about them afterwards. Ugh. It sent her cold, that sort of thing. So ungentlemanly. So unchivalrous! He certainly wouldn’t be getting a welcome if he showed up round here again.

She put her head in her hands at the small table, dimly registering that Iris was whacking a plastic spoon against her chair, but not actually feeling able to do anything about it. She wished she could rewind the last few days and move in all over again – confident and assertive, this time, able to open her own front door without help – and locking it afterwards, so that Dom hadn’t been able to wander in of his own accord. It clearly didn’t take much to get the tongues wagging around here.

Maybe she should have moved to a city, where she could have been more anonymous. If she’d gone to Bristol, she would have been near Katie and she’d have had an ally at least, rather than feeling like Alice No-mates out here in the sticks.

Her mobile phone trilled, jerking her out of her reverie. It would be her mum, no doubt, checking up on her, making sure things were okay. Just the thought of that act of kindness brought tears to Alice’s eyes and she reached into her bag for her phone.

The caller display read
Katie
and Alice blinked in surprise. How peculiar, just as she’d been thinking about her, too. They’d always had a bit of a telepathic thing, her and Katie, back when they were students and did everything together. But these days . . . well, these days the closeness was gone, inevitably. These days Katie never called her in the daytime. Daytime was school, wasn’t it? And Katie was always in teacher mode then, one hundred per cent. Gossip breaks were not scheduled into the timetable.