Lovestruck (15 page)

Becki’s birthday weekend away had finally arrived. In the end it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to leave the kids in Dave’s charge, after all he was hardly Kurt Cobain. She’d huffed and puffed a bit about how she’d have to cook all their meals in advance and leave a minute-by-minute timetable, but Rosie could tell she was excited at the prospect of a break and that made Rosie excited too.

She, however, had different childcare problems. An unscheduled Saturday rehearsal had been arranged, meaning Jake couldn’t look after the boys. Dizzy was going to a cousin’s wedding. So at the last moment she’d had to ask Yolande to help out.

‘I’d love to!’ she had trilled.

Now it was Saturday morning. Rosie had been up since six with George, as usual, and had spent two hours packing – not for herself, for the boys, obviously – as both insisted on taking every toy they owned.

She’d finally succeeded in strapping them into the car. She’d actually remembered the anti-sickness wristbands. The only task remaining was to say goodbye to Jake, who was in his tracksuit doing lunges as he waited for Rolla to arrive.

‘So
you’ll drive down to your mum’s after the rehearsal?’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’ Jake replied, red in the face as he touched his toes.

‘Yes, you did. Sorry. Just … I’ve never left the boys for this long before. It makes me anxious.’

‘You have nothing to be anxious about. You’re going away to have a wicked time.’ He stood up and pecked her on the cheek. ‘We’ll speak tonight. Bye.’

‘Bye,’ Rosie said. ‘Don’t forget to make sure the boys brush their teeth. And when you come back bring Snuggle Bunny.’

‘I will.’ Jake’s phone rang. ‘Gotta take this. Have fun. Hi, Christy …’

On the drive to the Cotswolds Rosie felt discomfited. Ever since the King’s Mount fiasco, she and Jake had been so brusque, so businesslike, with each other. When they’d just met every parting had been exquisitely painful, every reunion unspeakable bliss. But now it was all, ‘Do this, do that, don’t forget, see you.’ Of course relationships couldn’t always exist at giddy heights, but some affection would be nice, some meaningful conversation. There hadn’t been any of that for weeks.

‘Mummy!’ cried Toby. ‘Play us “Happy”.’

Pharrell accompanied them on a loop for the rest of the drive. Despite the wristbands, George was sick twice. Upon arrival, Rosie had had to break the news to Yolande that toast had been deleted from Toby’s ‘like list’.

‘He
says he doesn’t like bread and this is just warm bread.’

‘So what does he eat for breakfast now?’ Yolande was rightly appalled by this news.

‘Dry Weetabix.’

‘No milk, Granny. I hate milk, remember.’

‘We’ll try you on bacon and eggs in the morning,’ Yolande had said, winking at Rosie. ‘I know it’s hard for you career girls to cook a full English.’

‘I’m not a career girl any more –’ Rosie began, but then gave up. ‘Be good for Granny!’ she said to the boys, but they had already run off into the garden, without even a backwards glance.

‘We’re going to have a lovely time,’ Yolande reassured her. ‘I’ve baked them a huge tin of cakes and I’ll bet my life by the time you return I’ll have Toby eating baked beans.’

Rosie smiled. ‘Very good, Yolande.’

She drove across country down to Berkshire, enjoying adult voices on Radio 4, instead of pop on a loop and ‘Wheels on the Bus’. She’d picked Becki up at Taplow station and they’d completed the last bit of the journey together along winding country lanes, then through the high estate gates and down the tree-lined drive, past the great fountain in the form of a giant shell with stone goddesses rising out of it, before finally pulling up in front of the magnificent house in the shadow of the evening sun, uniformed doormen flanking the great doors.

‘Now
this is what I call a hotel,’ said Becki, eyes sweeping appraisingly over the eighteenth-century mellow-stoned façade. ‘Better than the B & B in Dawlish where we went last year.’

Their room was in a wing overlooking the swimming pool, in the infamous walled garden where, back in the fifties, government ministers had cavorted with hookers. There were two single beds easily the size of Rosie and Jake’s old double, a vast telly, a sofa to flop on, tasteful prints hanging on the walls and a bookcase full of old leather-bound volumes that Rosie automatically knelt down to inspect.

‘Well, thank you, Perry, for bringing me here,’ said Becki, tweaking her hair in the mirror.

‘The pleasure’s all
ours
,’ Rosie said pointedly. It had nothing to do with Jake – well, all right, his money had paid for it but it was her idea. ‘Dinner’s starting, shall we get ready?’

‘We’re going to have fun,’ Becki crowed, fingering the thick curtains proprietorially. ‘Do you think we’ll see anyone famous?’

Rosie shrugged. ‘How would I know?’

‘Surely you could find out via your contacts? Girlfriend, you’re not working this superstar lifestyle.’ She pulled her bottle of Charlie out of her bag and began dousing herself. ‘I always thought I should be an actress,’ she added musingly. ‘But then I had the kids instead. Far more satisfying ultimately, even if life is hard.’

‘Oh yes,’ Rosie said obediently.

The
dining room had dark panelled walls lined with portraits of Victorian beauties. They sat at a linen-clothed table and studied the menus.

‘I think I’ll have the sirloin steak,’ mused Becki. ‘Oh no, hang on, the fillet is more expensive. I’ll have the fillet. And oysters to start with. What wine shall we choose?’

Once dinner was in full flow, Becki sat back happily in her chair. ‘I guess you get to stay in places like this all the time.’

‘Hardly,’ Rosie said.
Stop being so snappy
. ‘You know we never go anywhere; Jake’s always working.’

‘Unlike you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, who cares if hubby’s working? You’ve had it all handed to you. Unlike some of us.’

And breathe. Rosie smiled sweetly. She was going to rise above this. But Becki was in full flow on her favourite topic of how tough life was with all these children, how challenging life was for teaching assistants, how they never had any spare cash. All true undoubtedly, but what could Rosie do except feel guilty?

Becki’s diatribe carried her all the way through to dessert, when she had had two brandies. Back in the room, she opened a whisky from the minibar and drank it in a long steamy bath filled with all the miniature goodies. Rosie got into bed and tried her hardest to go to sleep before her sister-in-law re-emerged. Why was she doing this? She missed the boys so much. At
home, all day long, she’d be yearning for ten minutes alone, but now she had a whole weekend she was desperate for a sticky hug or a sniff of their dirty hair.

She sat up in bed and called Jake. She wanted them to have a tender conversation, like old times, before she went to sleep.

Voicemail. Well, rehearsals hadn’t finished that long ago; he was probably well on his way to the Cotswolds. She called Yolande.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘Wonderful,’ Yolande replied. She sounded ecstatic. ‘The boys are fast asleep; they’ve been no trouble at all for
Granny
. And, guess what, Toby ate some cauliflower cheese!’

‘That’s great.’

‘I knew Granny’s cooking would win them round.’

Rosie sighed with longing. ‘Kiss them for me. Tell them I’ll call them in the morning.’

‘They haven’t asked after you once.’ Yolande couldn’t keep the triumph out of her voice.

‘And, uh, is Jake there yet?’

A tiny pause. ‘No, love, he said he fancied a few drinks after rehearsals, so I said don’t come down tonight, come in the morning.’

‘Ah.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Yolande said defensively.

‘Of course not. Bye, Yolande.’

She tried to sleep, but it was impossible. Bloody Jake, out drinking again with Simon, letting his mum pick up
the pieces. Of course Yolande was loving having the boys all to herself, but that wasn’t the point.
Stop it, Rosie
, she told herself, sitting up and reaching for the remote. Telly would be preferable to entertaining these thoughts. She was channel-surfing when Becki emerged from the bathroom in a thick towelling robe.

‘This is lovely. I’m going to take it home with me. I’ve always wanted one of these.’

‘If you do, they’ll bill us for it,’ Rosie said.

Becki shot her a sly look. ‘So? You can afford it, can’t you?’ She reached for the spa menu. ‘Ooh, look. I can’t wait to have some treatments. I mean, I know you do this stuff all the time, but it’s a luxury for me. Maybe I’ll have a nude sand jewel body scrub or the rose scrub clay body envelopment. I’ll book it all in the morning.’

‘Oh, look!’ Rosie stopped zapping. ‘There’s Jake.’

It was a repeat of a panel game show he’d filmed just after the first series of
Archbishop Grace
when he was starting to make his name. A group of actors and comedians and one token woman with long blonde hair and big bosoms had to answer trivial questions about telly, but their role was mainly to banter and display their wit to the world.

‘So what do we say about these benefit cheats?’ asked the compere, Rufus Shammas, a bulky potato-nosed comedian, holding up a photo of a couple with nine children, whom the press had just revealed to be living in an entirely state-funded three-million-pound mansion with a tennis court outside Crawley.

‘I
don’t see the difference between them and the billionaires and their off-shore schemes,’ said Jake. Cue rapturous applause and wolf whistles from the audience.

‘Do you want to watch this?’ Rosie asked. But Becki had the duvet pulled up over her head and was snoring loudly.

She woke annoyingly early, around six. The whole point of being away from the boys was to have lie-ins, but she simply couldn’t get back to sleep. Why hadn’t Jake gone to Yolande’s last night? she wondered. Why did he think he deserved a night off? He said he was sick of the play, of the cast and crew, so why was he hanging out with them, rather than racing down the motorway? She considered calling him and bawling him out, but she felt too weary. She had another day and night to get through with Becki; she wanted to save her energies for that.

In the end, she put on her dressing gown and went out in the dawn. Birds were singing and dew was on the grass, as – using the key they’d given her at reception – she unlocked the door of the walled garden, padded across the grass by the outdoor pool and entered the conservatory that sheltered the indoor pool. It was empty and she swam up and down thirty times, enjoying the ozoney smell and the noise of the water splashing against the tiles.

When she returned to the room Becki was standing
in front of the mirror in her nightie, turning this way and that way, admiring Rosie’s gold and diamond bracelet that she’d worn to dinner the previous night.

‘Er, hello.’

‘Hiya!’ She showed not a trace of embarrassment. ‘
This
is nice.’

‘Yes, it was a present from Jake. Shall we go to breakfast?’

Becki pouted. ‘I thought we’d have it in the room.’

Rosie thought of the fifteen-pound charge for room service. Ridiculous. ‘Let’s go down. You’ll be dressed in a minute.’ Then she added, ‘We might see some stars in the dining room.’

‘True.’ Becki headed to the wardrobe. ‘Can I wear this top? Black isn’t a good colour on you anyway.’

‘Sure. But please can I have my bracelet back?’

After a second Becki grudgingly unfastened the clip.

Breakfast was in the dining room again. By day you could appreciate the ravishing views over the manicured grounds and down to the river.

Becki droned on. ‘You have no idea what a break this is for me. You have no idea how hard life is – working, four kids … It’s non-stop.’ She glared at Rosie over her full English. ‘It’s OK for you, isn’t it? You just sit around in that big house of yours, with the cleaner.’ Rosie had made the mistake of mentioning Dizzy.

‘Jake
works hard for us to live in that house,’ Rosie said defensively. ‘It didn’t fall into our laps.’

‘Acting isn’t work,’ Becki snorted. ‘It’s playing.’ Then she froze, a mouthful of bacon halfway to her lips. ‘
Oh my God
. It’s Ellie Lewis.’

Sure enough, in the corner, eating alone, a book propped up in front of her, sat Ellie, eating a grapefruit. She was even more dazzling than Rosie remembered.

‘So it is.’

‘Well, at least we know she’s not shagging Jake.’

‘Becki!’ Rosie was horrified. Was this what everyone thought? ‘She’d never even look at Jake. And Jake hates her anyway.’

Becki shrugged. ‘Let’s go over and say hello!’

‘
No
.’

‘But you know her.’

‘No,
Jake
knows her. I’ve met her once and she wasn’t exactly friendly.’

‘You know her,’ Becki repeated firmly. ‘It would be rude not to tell her we’re here. She’ll be lonely all by herself. Do you think she is by herself? Is she still with that guy? The handsome one. What was his name?’

‘She’s probably desperate for a break.’

‘But I could get an autograph.’

‘Becki, you’re forty-two.’