It's Raining Men (10 page)

‘So I’ll come around on Wednesday night?’ he recapped. ‘I’ll drive round straight after I get back from work. Sevenish. I’ll take you out for dinner –
no, I’ll cook something here and we can talk. I’ll bring a bottle of that wine you like.’

She opened her mouth to tell him that she wouldn’t be here, that she would be in a spa in Yorkshire, then she shut it again. She needed to book herself in for a treatment where he was
battered out of her system with a rolling pin. Oh God, she hoped he wouldn’t follow her up to Wellem.

‘I want your key for this house back,’ she said.

He looked surprised, but eventually said, ‘Okay,’ and struggled to unhook it from the ring of others in his hand. May wondered if one of those keys fitted the door to Kim’s
house. He seemed to be taking for ever to work it loose, and she knew he was playing for time. Eventually, he had it and placed it gently down onto the table as if it were glass and in danger of
breaking.

May didn’t move as she heard his footsteps on the oak flooring in the hallway. She stood rigid as the door opened and stayed open for ages, as if he was standing there waiting for her to
run after him and declare that she had changed her mind and wanted to invite him back to scoff the Marks & Spencer’s dinner for two. But eventually it closed and within the minute she
heard a car fire up. Then and only then did May’s shoulders slump forward and she didn’t so much cry as howl.

She reached for the phone to ring Lara or Clare, desperate to hear a kind, friendly voice, but then pulled her hand back. What would she say to them? What sort of a fool would she look? She
didn’t know them well enough to expose herself as a married man’s slut to them, even if he wasn’t actually married. Instead she sat at her table and soaked her hands with tears.
She was an idiot of the highest order and as such she deserved the heartbreak she was feeling.

Clare’s flat felt extra lonely when she walked into it that night. Lud’s things were dotted around the place and she took a long breath and began gathering them up,
either for him to collect or for her to forward: his thick woolly scarf hanging behind the door, his big blue trainers next to her smaller pink ones in the hallway, his spare watch next to her
phone, the book on the floor at his side of her bed, his razor and toothbrush, his bottle of cologne, which she opened, inhaling the scent and feeling, just for a moment, that he was in front of
her. Devoid of his homely clutter, the flat looked instantly emptier. It was as if their presence was so much bigger than their volume.

There was no cheery text from Lud that night to say that he was missing her. She felt its absence greatly. He would be in the airport now, waiting for his flight. As she packed the last bits for
tomorrow’s trip, she wondered how her parents would receive the news that she and Ludwig were no longer an item. Probably be quite delighted that she was now free to meet a good old English
chap.

Maybe it would have been better if she had started the new job immediately: going away would give her time to think and she wasn’t sure that would be a good thing. On the other hand she
did need a break, because she was so very tired and she wouldn’t have the chance to relax and recharge her batteries once she began her new position. The partners lived and breathed the
place. Sometimes she was convinced they stretched time so that they could be there even longer than twenty-four hours a day. At least she wouldn’t have time to miss Ludwig after her name
joined the list of partners’ names on the stationery – that would help matters. And the sooner she moved into the big office on the holy second floor, the more warmth would rush into
her parents’ voices when she spoke to them. The more love they would allot her. The more time they would give to her. Success equals attention. That’s how it had always been in the
Salter family.

The sound of giggling greeted Lara as she pushed open the door to Manor Gardens. It was the laughter of two teenage girls and, mixed as it was with covert whispering, it was
not a pleasant sound.

A head with swishy blonde hair appeared over the galleried landing and then quickly withdrew at being spotted. More chuckling ensued. Lara sensed she was the subject of the hilarity. She was
obviously being hailed as the wicked stepmother. She forced a smile to her face as she took off her coat and prepared to be nice-lady.

‘Hi, girls, have you eaten?’

She heard a loudly whispered imitation of what she had just said, but delivered in the sort of northern accent associated with the depths of a working pit, and then more giggles. Lara suddenly
felt like crying. Was this typical? She didn’t know anyone who had gone through the stepchildren experience to ask. She couldn’t find any common ground with Keely because Keely
wouldn’t let her find it. As for Garth – well, he hated everything that wasn’t an Xbox or something he could stick his finger into and pull a bogey out of.

‘We’ve eaten, thanks.’ Paris’s voice floated down. ‘Kristina made us something.’

Lara hoped they would stay upstairs and do whatever teenage girls did – swoon over Justin Bieber or One Direction/Take That/David Cassidy – whoever was ‘in’ at the
moment. She would rather they remained out of her way and snickered about her, than watched every move she made with permanently mocking eyes.

Lara went into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, pulling out a can of diet cherry Coke and the box containing the small crustless quiche that she had earmarked for tea, seeing as she
wasn’t going to be sharing a candlelit supper with James. The box felt very light. She opened it to find that it was empty but had been sealed up again and replaced on the shelf. She knew
Kristina wouldn’t have done such a thing, and Garth wouldn’t have wasted precious Xbox time inventing ways to annoy her. This had all the hallmarks of a Keely prank, which is why she
always kept her toothbrush in her make-up bag and a ‘dummy’ in the glass in their en-suite bathroom. She didn’t trust Keely not to do something gross with it behind her back.

Lara was totally fed up with the constant attempts to provoke her. She fought hard to push down the rising tears when Keely came into the kitchen wearing her perma-smirk, which widened even more
when she saw Lara holding the empty quiche box. It was ridiculous – at work Lara could reduce grown men to rubble, at home a spotty grotty teenager with delusions of becoming the next Kate
Moss was doing the very same to her.

‘Having quiche for tea, I see?’ she said, her face a perfect arrangement of innocence.

‘I was going to, but it seems someone beat me to it.’ Lara tried to laugh it off but didn’t really manage it.

‘Shame. What time is Dad coming home?’

‘Late,’ replied Lara. ‘That’s all I know.’

Keely sauntered over to the fridge and opened the door.

‘He’s always late these days,’ she huffed.

‘Well, he’s very busy at the moment,’ said Lara as breezily as she could.

‘Yeah, I noticed.’ Keely sounded genuinely annoyed – with her father, for a change.

Lara saw her chance to shine and dived in. ‘Would you like any help packing?’

‘No, thank you. Kristina’s done it.’ Keely pulled out two Pepsi bottles and closed the fridge door.

‘Okay,’ said Lara. ‘As long as you’re sorted.’

‘I am, thanks.’ This was said almost pleasantly. God – was this a breakthrough?

‘I hope you have a really nice time in France,’ said Lara with a sudden determination to win Keely over. It happened in films. Eventually the kind-hearted would-be parent broke
through all the defences the child had erected and friendship flowered.

‘Of course I shall. I’ll be with my mum.’

‘Bring me back some rock,’ joked Lara with a light laugh that resulted only in Keely giving her a sideways frown.

‘I do mean it,’ said Lara. ‘I want you both to have a lovely holiday. I only ever see the insides of offices when I go to France, no time for sightseeing or
shopping.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll have some shopping time in
Yorkshire
,’ returned Keely, her voice giving the county the status of a dog turd.

‘I’m sure we shall.’

Keely took one step out of the door and then doubled back.

‘I feel sorry for you, Lara,’ she said, an alien softness in her voice.

‘For me? Why?’

‘Because you think that Dad could really fall for someone like you.’

‘Like me? What do you mean?’

‘Where do I start? High-street clothes, inferior cooking, inferior face, funny northern accent . . . is that enough to be going on with?’

No, it wasn’t a breakthrough, obviously.

Lara didn’t want the tears to appear in her eyes, but it seemed she had no choice – they sprang there in one leap and shimmered. Keely had just reduced her to as low as she could
possibly get.

‘Keely, why do you feel the need to hate me so much?’

Keely’s head swung back round to her step-mother-in-training and, just for a second, she saw Lara as she really was – a good-hearted woman pushed to the brink, a kind woman who had
never done her any harm. But Keely was a spoiled brat, raised by parents with primarily their own interests at heart, and that behaviour had become ingrained in her. To admit she had been a
complete bitch to someone who was trying to be nice to her would be to admit that she – Keely – was wrong, and she didn’t do apologies. Besides, she enjoyed sticking the knife in
Lara and twisting it. It gave her the power she felt was missing from the rest of her life: Keely didn’t have the power to get any mark at school above average, the power to be popular with
her peers, the power to hold her parents’ attention and the mirror told her that she would never reach the supermodel status to which she aspired. But still, she did feel just a tad rotten
then and the only way to combat the feeling was to be even more rotten. She wafted past Lara with the bottles of pop and the word ‘Loser’ thrown over her shoulder.

In her wake, Lara could smell her own perfume on Keely. So she had been in her room, going through her things. Her gorgeously expensive perfume – Rain
–
wasn’t too
lower class or northern for the snobby Keely, then? And what was an ‘inferior face’? It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much. And did it make her such a bad person not to be
obsessed with designer labels, as the rest of the Galsworthy family were? Lara liked shopping on the high street and she had put together a beautifully smart capsule wardrobe, even if the labels
littering it were more likely to be from Next and Dorothy Perkins than Stella McCartney and Chanel.

Lara couldn’t wait for the moment Miriam took Keely – and Garth – out of her life for seven whole days. She had been craving some time alone with James, and the chance to be
his girlfriend again rather than being the despised not-quite-step-mother. She resented having his children dumped on her and being extra worn out when she saw him. The thought of seven whole
da— And then she remembered that of course her holiday was booked at the same time as the children’s. God forgive her, but she was on the brink of praying for an illness to pay her a
visit – one that was not too big, just serious enough to give her the excuse not to go to the spa. She needed to stay with James and get them back on track. She could feel him slipping away
from her a little more with every passing hour.

Lara came in from work the next day to find the note she had left for Keely and Garth, a few lines to wish them a lovely week away, still couched in bags of sweets, untouched.
She put it in the bin where last night she had found her missing quiche, squashed down at the bottom.

Without the hostile children there the house already felt like a different place: lighter and less threatening. Even Kristina was singing, which was something Lara had never heard her do before.
James had come home early from work for once and was now all showered, scented and shaved and looking handsome in a Fred Perry blue polo shirt and jeans. Lara really didn’t want to drive up
to Yorkshire that night. She wanted to stay here for the week and mosey around the house during the day, making Clare-standard dishes for James’s tea, which she would bring to the table
wearing something skimpy and revealing. But her case was packed and in the hallway. She would be setting off in less than an hour to pick up her friends and travel the motorways through the night
to avoid the traffic.

James poured a glass of wine, instinctively offering it to Lara first.

‘Driving,’ she said, holding up her hand against it.

‘Of course, sorry. I forgot. That’s a shame, darling.’

‘I wish I weren’t going,’ she said.

James sighed. ‘It’ll do you good to be with your friends. And it’s not as if it’s for ever. You’ll be back in the blink of an eye.’

Lara nodded, trying not to look upset that he didn’t say that he didn’t want her to go either.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I just wish I’d known that you were going to be alone in the house. It seems such a missed opportunity.’

James took a long sip of the Chenin Blanc and nodded slowly. ‘Well, can’t be helped. And you’re hardly going to Timbuktu. I do believe they have mobile signals in
Yorkshire.’ He winked, polishing off that first glass of wine in double-quick time. Lara wished she could abandon all her plans, pull a glass out of the cupboard and join him.

‘Are you going to be okay in the house by yourself?’ she teased. ‘Not too lonely without me?’

‘Possibly,’ mused James. ‘I think I know the way to the kitchen and to the clean underpants in the drawer. Kristina will point me in the right direction if I get lost,
I’m sure.’

‘Will you miss me?’

‘Of course I’m going to miss you.’ He replied. ‘But I’m very busy at work, as you know. At least with you gone I won’t have to feel guilty about being late
home. I do feel awful that I’m leaving you alone so much with the children and their teenage hormones. It won’t be for long, I promise you. I’ll make more time for us when you
come back. I’ll be counting the days and, selfish as this sounds, I hope every one speeds by.’

Lara beamed. At last – an admission that he was going to miss her and wanted the time when she was away to go fast and an acknowledgement that he knew things weren’t easy for her in
the house.