Mummy Said the F-Word (34 page)

Even though I didn’t have a ticket, it was so chaotic in the hotel foyer with all the workmen that I just walked in. And as I was a little late, there was no one collecting tickets on the door.

Anyway, I have to tell you that your current
Bambino
photo is a marked improvement on the first, but doesn’t remotely do you justice. You are lovely.

He. Was. There.

I hope you’ll forgive me for not introducing myself. You seemed so busy, talking to clusters of people, and I was reluctant to barge in. It just didn’t feel like the right time. And after your speech you just seemed to disappear.

Driiiiing. The doorbell. I hurry upstairs, just as Lola and Travis thunder down from their rooms in a race to answer it. It’s Martin and Jake.

‘I’m home, Mum!’ Jake says, grinning. He’s immediately swamped by his siblings as if they’ve spent years apart. I find myself stepping back, melting into bookshelves and walls.

‘Mum,’ Jake cries, ‘when am I getting that thing? That present you promised when we had our photo done.’

‘I can’t believe you’re still on about that!’

Martin laughs, sending Jake upstairs to change into clean clothes, and Lola and Travis to swap their PJs for daywear, as if he lives here.

Sunlight gasps into the living room as I draw back the curtains. ‘Daisy,’ I want to say to Martin, ‘what’s happening with Daisy and you?’ I used to play with her name in my head: Daisy, a fragile, skinny-petalled flower. Plucking her petals one by one, then squishing the yolk-coloured centre, her heart.

I’d nurtured wild fantasies about showing up at Purity Springs in Acton Lane with Jake, Lola and Travis all dressed in their crummiest, most pitiful clothes and bursting into Daisy’s office, screaming, ‘Look what you’ve done to us! Is this what you wanted, to ruin these poor children’s lives?’ Once I’d been removed from the premises by burly security guards, I’d planned to hurl bricks through the windows until the police came to drag me away. Travis would have enjoyed riding in a cop car. He’d have made nee-naw noises and maybe been allowed to try on a policeman’s hat.

I am no longer troubled by such embittered thoughts. Although I have lost track of the post-break-up stages, I seem to have passed a significant one without noticing.

We have an ordinary morning featuring Junior Monopoly and TV (we’re still stuck with the portable) until the syrupy sunshine coaxes us into the garden. It feels almost normal, all of us being together – as if the Purity Springs after-sales service never happened. The warm late-June afternoon stretches on and on, lending even our beleaguered back garden a faintly exotic air. Martin and I sit on the back step, each with a glass of Pinot.

‘So,’ I venture, ‘what did you want to talk about at the hospital?’

Travis thunders towards us with a wriggling bug he found under a flowerpot, and now the others are moving every pot in order to capture unsuspecting creatures.

‘Lovely, Travis,’ Martin says. ‘Don’t hurt it, will you? Put it back on the ground.’

Travis pouts and shuffles away. ‘Sam lets us keep them in jars.’

‘Does he now?’ Martin glances at me, and tension clouds his eyes.

‘The hospital,’ I prompt him. ‘You wanted—’

‘It’s … Daisy and me. She’s moved out until … we can work out what’s happening.’

‘Oh.’ I can’t say I’m about to crumple with grief. Whooping for joy, or sending champagne corks popping, doesn’t seem the right response either.

‘She and Poppy are staying with her parents in Hertfordshire.’

‘So … what went wrong?’ I try to banish any trace of glee from my voice.

He sighs deeply. ‘I suppose I’m not the kind of man she thought I was. She’s much younger, you know.’

‘I know that,’ I snap.

‘And what she wants … I couldn’t give it. Didn’t want to give it.’

‘Which is?’

He turns and looks me full in the face. My stomach twists uncomfortably. ‘Another baby,’ he murmurs.

‘She wanted a baby with you?’ I’m so grateful to our creepy-crawly collection for occupying the kids.

Martin drains his glass. ‘We had a scare. At least, that’s how I viewed it. She was furious when it turned out to be a false alarm, as if my negativity – that’s how she put it, “your negative attitude” – had caused it not to be real.’

I am astounded. He hasn’t talked like this – talked to me properly – for years. I clear my throat. ‘Martin … why don’t you want a child with her?’

His look says, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He reminds me of Jake for an instant. ‘I already have my family,’ he murmurs.

I look down at the flagstones, where ants are scuttling along a crack. ‘What are you going to do?’ I ask quietly.

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It depends.’ It’s so unlike him to sound uncertain; not the Martin I know, who I suspect was a fully fledged grown-up at age nine.

‘Do you want to come back?’ I want to ask. ‘Was it just a mistake, and now you want to put things right?’ The words pound in my head. He’s sitting so close I can sense the warmth from him. I don’t know if that’s what I want, if it’s a real desire or just a yearning for things to be stable and steady again. If he kissed me now, what would I do?

‘Cait,’ he says, ‘Jake wants to come home. To you, I mean.’

‘Of course he does,’ I say briskly, ‘if Daisy’s moved out and you’re going to be living God knows where … it’s hardly going to make him feel secure, is it?’ My voice rises sharply. Lola swings round and frowns.

‘It’s not just that. He made a mistake and I think he knew it as soon as he moved in with me.’

Me, not us. As if she no longer exists.

Lola scampers towards us, a glossy black beetle writhing in her palm. ‘Mummy! Daddy! Look!’

‘Bugs are their new obsession,’ I explain.

‘Can I keep it as a pet?’ Lola demands.

Martin laughs. ‘Ask Mum.’

‘Thanks.’ I grimace at him. It was always ‘Ask Mum’ at sweat-making moments, and became a joke with us:

‘How was I made? How was I born?’

‘Ask Mum.’ ‘Where did the egg come from? D’you mean an egg like that comes from a hen’s bum? Like a boiled egg?’

‘Jake needs you,’ Martin murmurs now.

I’m suspicious. Is it me he needs, or his decent-sized bedroom and all the stuff we didn’t get around to packing? Hell, I don’t care if he’s only after my pancakes. I want my boy back.

We share witching-hour duties, just as we used to. Martin supervises Lola and Travis’s bathtimes, and I read stories. Jake jumps into the shower, jutting out his bad arm to keep the cast dry, and unearths PJs from his chest of drawers.

‘Am I allowed in?’ I peer into his room, where he’s clambered into bed.

‘Yeah, of course you are.’

I take mock-fearful steps. ‘Jake, Dad says you want to come home.’

He drops his gaze and picks at his cast. Lola and Harvey have already autographed it, and Travis has adorned it with a worm drawn in fat felt tip. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I do.’

‘Are you sure, hon?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Did … something upset you at Dad’s?’ I venture.

He looks up at me, then flicks his gaze around the room, which I have cleaned to within an inch of its life, an act which has had the unfortunate effect of making the rest of the house appear instantly squat-like.

‘No, Mum,’ Jake says. ‘It’s just home.’

Saturday, 10.17 p.m.

Cait, are you there? You’ve been very elusive lately. Hope my turning up at the
Bambino
thing didn’t unnerve or upset you. Maybe I’m being oversensitive and your PC’s on the blink. Anyway, just wanted to say hi. I miss you.

R x

I don’t reply. I just delete it and take the remains of the wine from the fridge – plus a second bottle, in case the kitchen’s destroyed in an earthquake – and head upstairs to Martin in the living room.

I refill his glass, and he tells me about a contract Bink and Smithson have won. I’m only half listening, soaking in the restfulness that descends on the house when the children have gone to bed. ‘They’re making me a partner,’ he says.

‘That’s brilliant, Martin. About time, after all the hours you’ve put in.’

He shrugs, knowing that he deserves it.

‘Cait,’ he adds quietly, ‘I’ve decided it’s over with Daisy.’

‘Well, you said she’s moved out …’

‘She thinks it’s temporary, that we might still work things out, but … I wasn’t honest with her.’ His eyes meet mine. ‘I don’t love her, Cait. I don’t think I ever have.’

‘So why …?’ My voice fractures.

‘My fault. I fucked up. I was a terrible husband; I’m a terrible father …’

Tears spring into my eyes. Instinctively, I slide my arms round him. He feels so familiar, so right.

He pulls away, mustering a smile despite the tears streaking his cheeks. ‘You’re wearing my sweater,’ he whispers.

‘Yes, I often do.’

‘I thought you’d have burned it.’ He swipes an arm across his face.

I smile. ‘I never hated you that much.’

Then we’re kissing, and it’s like that first kiss in the sleazy Soho pub that we named the Snog Bar thereafter. It’s the kiss of our strong-pyjama days.

And we’re hurrying upstairs, dizzy on wine and kissing and tumbling into bed with Martin on his side, smelling warm and as sweet as toffee, as if he’d never left me.

It’s never stopped being his side.

Sunday 6.47 a.m.

Someone’s in my bed.

It’s not Travis or Lola or Jake. It’s an adult male with his legs bent to fit mine and an arm strewn casually across my belly. A
naked
man’s arm. It’s attached to a body with all the respective bits and pieces in full working order, one particular bit which I was – just a few horribly short hours ago – bestowing with enthusiastic attention.

Oh, God. Kill me now with a pillow or a gun.

Pale sunlight filters through my curtains. I manoeuvre my eyeballs in the direction of the head on my other pillow. Its hair is mussed up in nutty-brown swirls. There’s faint snoring. Martin’s low, rumbly snore.

Shit.

Sweat prickles my cleavage as the awful details drip, drip into my brain. Our kiss, which had somehow continued all the way up the stairs. (Walking
and
kissing? Who says men aren’t capable of doing more than one thing at once?) The bit where we’d torn off each other’s clothes, kissing hungrily and kind of
collapsing
on to the bed.

I could weep.

Without moving my body, I slide my gaze around my bedroom. Jeans and knickers are bunched up on the floor, clearly having been yanked off in haste. Martin’s T-shirt has been flung with abandon on to my chest of drawers. My bra lies at the bottom of the bed, seemingly with clasp still fastened. Did I yank it over my head or what? Did
he
? How much did we drink last night? My sweater –
his
sweater – lies in a clump by the door. My
pillow’s
sausaged up, my neck bent at an unnatural angle. Even though I still sleep on ‘my’ side, I’m no longer used to anyone being in my bed. I’d forgotten how big Martin is – all of him, I mean, not the crucial part – and how he encroaches into my space.

I want him out. This is
my
bed. My mouth’s interior has shrivelled – why am I so dehydrated? I can taste myself, and it’s disgusting: ‘Did you know that the tongue is more responsible for bad breath than the gums or teeth?’

Whoops. We polished off that second bottle. Even so, I must have wanted to do it. I cannot blame my actions on alcohol.

As slowly as humanly possible, I creep out of bed and pluck my dressing gown from its hook on the door.

‘Hmmm,’ Martin murmurs, a small smile flitting across his lips. Maybe he’s replaying last night’s scene. My arms goosepimple. I could vomit right here, all over my bedroom floor.

‘Cait?’ he whispers.

I don’t answer.

His eyes flutter open, and he blinks in the morning light. ‘You OK, darling?’

‘Shhh.’ I slap a finger to my lips.

‘What …?’

‘The children will hear you!’ I hiss.

Martin grins sleepily. ‘It’s OK. It’s allowed. We’re their parents.’

‘Don’t you think it’d be weird for them, finding you here?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘We’ve split up, remember? You left me, or did you forget?’ My voice quivers.

Frowning, Martin props up a pillow against the headboard and sits up. The duvet falls away, exposing his torso right down to the bit where his pubes drift up towards his navel. I shudder, averting my gaze. I’d forgotten how hairy and, well,
robust
the male form looks against white sheets. Martin’s eyes are fixed on me. Even as I turn my back, retying my dressing-gown cord tighter, I can feel them boring into the back of my head.

‘You’d better get dressed,’ I say sharply. ‘It’s gone seven – Travis will be up any minute.’

‘Cait, please …’

‘What?’ I turn to glare at him.

‘You don’t regret it, do you?’

What kind of question is that? ‘Yes, of course I do,’ I bark. I don’t tell him that I enjoyed it – loved it actually – and felt alive for the first time since … Actually, I can’t remember. I don’t recall it was ever like that. It must have been, I suppose, in the early days. That’s what it felt like last night: strong-pyjama-days sex.

Martin’s face creases with concern. ‘Cait, you’re crying …’

‘No I’m not.’ I perch on the corner of the bed with my back to him and swipe my face with my sleeve. ‘Please get up and go home,’ I add desperately.

He sighs. ‘You really think it’ll upset the children to see me here?’

I nod. My entire face feels like it’s liquefying.

‘But it needn’t be just … just a one-off. I could come back. The Daisy thing … it was only …’ He pauses, scrabbling for words. ‘It was a mistake,’ he blunders on, ‘a hideous mistake that triggered something I should never have got involved with, and only did because of that pathetic getting-older thing – when you look at your life and think, Is this it?’

‘Thanks,’ I say witheringly.

‘Didn’t you ever feel like that before I left?’

I swallow. ‘Yes, I suppose I did. I just thought it was normal.’

Martin sighs. ‘I’ve never forgiven myself. Daisy knew it. She realised I’d gone into it without thinking, that I didn’t love her the way I love you.’