The First Wife (12 page)

Rachel sipped her wine and looked through narrowed eyes. ‘You may as well spell it out, matey.’

‘Must I? OK. Any idiot can see that Sarah-Jane’s mine. Anyway, she was born first. What do they say? A baby born close to the honeymoon is more likely to look like her dad?’

Rachel said nothing.

‘The other two: I don’t want to know. Please don’t ever tell me. I looked at them and imagined the worst, and it didn’t change a thing. That’s all.’

She was looking at the table, pouring herself another glass of wine. She was the only one who’d been drinking it, but the bottle was almost empty. He looked at her. She was definitely avoiding his eyes.

‘You’re a good man, Jack.’ She stood up. ‘End of. I’m going to put on some music.’

‘Sure.’

The whole of the living area was open-plan, kitchen in one corner, sofas and stereo in another. It only took her a few steps to get over there, but she fiddled with CD cases for ages before she chose one. He was expecting Madonna or Kylie, someone female who would make her feel strong and empowered, but instead she stuck on Johnny Cash. He thought that might be misery music. He had obviously not explained properly. She should have been pleased.

‘Yeah,’ she said, sitting down again. ‘Look, you’re right about Sarah-J without a doubt. And we won’t talk about it. That suits me.’ Finally, she looked him in the eyes, and he saw the girl he had fallen so dramatically in love with as a teenager. At least, he had thought it was love. More likely it had actually been lust or pheromones or something.

‘Cool,’ he said, and he reached out and took her hand. She squeezed his back. They sat there, hand-in-hand, while Johnny Cash told them why he liked to wear black. Neither of them had a thing to say.

‘When are you going, then?’ she said. ‘To Spain?’

He laughed. ‘Well, not just yet. Next winter. For a bit of a while. I’ll need to save a bit and sort things out, but I need to get out of here.’

‘You
so
need to do that,’ she said, and she was a stranger and his best friend at the same time. ‘You said it yourself. All you’ve ever wanted is to see the world, and instead you’ve been stuck here in Nowheresville, in a shit marriage. Get out there, Jack.’ She was smiling at him. ‘Just book it. You’ve got your mum’s money still in the bank, haven’t you?’

He nodded. He’d had it stashed away as a travel fund, wanted to take the whole family overseas, but Rachel had always had a reason why they couldn’t go just yet.

‘So, go! Go to Europe! Finally see bloody Spain at last. God knows, Jack, it’s time you were happy.’

‘You’d be OK with the kids?’

‘Course.’

He took in a deep breath. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I might start to make a plan. You know, I’ve got Mum’s money – but it won’t go far. I’ll save. I’ll make sure you and the kids are all right. All of them. You know,’ he forced himself to continue, ‘I meant what I just said. I love them, all of them, exactly the same, no matter what.’

‘You’re one in a million.’

He grinned. ‘Aren’t I, though?’

‘Get out there. Have a bloody ball.’

He slept on the couch that night. The next morning, he told his dad he was staying for six months, and then he was going abroad on a one-way ticket. His dad laughed and said he would never actually do it, not in a million years. That was typical John, he said. Always with the grand plans, always with the small life.

Jack, however, knew his dad was wrong this time. That knowledge would power him through.

My day began, to my surprise, with little Tommy launching himself on to me and yelling, ‘Lily! It’s Christmas!’

It was pitch black. I struggled to focus. After a bit more wriggling, I pulled him out of the way and looked at my clock radio. It was 5.45. I was completely thrown by the arrival of a little boy in my bed.

‘Happy Christmas,’ I managed. Uninvited, he got under the duvet with me. His hands and feet were freezing, and I winced as he used me as a radiator, placing his cold fingers on my waist to warm them up, and using my legs for his toes.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he replied solemnly. ‘Can we get up?’

I had no idea. ‘Have you been in to your mum and dad?’

‘They said I have to go away until half-past six.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Zac said I had to piss off. Jess said go and see Lily I didn’t dare go to Mia. Can we get up? Please can we? Because it’s actually
Christmas Day
!

I sat up, yawned again, and switched the light on. We both rubbed our eyes, then looked at each other.

‘Looks like it’s you and me,’ I said, and I reached for my thickest woolly jumper and a pair of socks. ‘So. Is there stuff in your stocking?’

‘Yes. Father Christmas has actually been. Can I go and get it?’

I was unsure. ‘Get a couple of things out of the top,’ I said, in the end. ‘I don’t think anyone’ll mind that, and we’d better go downstairs and try to be as quiet as we possibly can.’

As we stumbled down the stairs, I thought of Christmases past. I could remember being about Tommy’s age. A little older. I did not want to recall the details, but as we reached the downstairs hall, Tommy’s hand in mine, trying to keep quiet, it came flooding into my head anyway.

We were in the little terraced house where I lived, in Penzance, with my parents. I must have been eight. I had the television on, and was half-watching
The Snowman.
I was surrounded by presents that I had opened on my own, first thing in the morning. I was attempting to play Connect 4 against myself, and half-heartedly threading beads onto a necklace from a set I had been given, and all the time I was listening to my parents getting drunk and laughing together in the kitchen, away from me.

I remembered plucking up the courage to tiptoe through to the kitchen, still wearing my Hello Kitty nightie, and standing in the doorway, twiddling a strand of hair around my finger. Mummy, who was tall and slender with my wild hair, and whom I idolised completely, looked at me with an expression on her face that showed me that she had entirely forgotten that I existed. She frowned at me as though I were a burglar.

‘You don’t care about me,’ I said quietly. Neither of them denied it.

‘Lily, don’t be silly,’ Dad said, after a while. He was dark-haired and film star-ish. They looked good together and they knew it. They were each other’s world. ‘All that new stuff – it’s child heaven in the living room. What’s wrong with you? Go and play with it.’

‘Go on,’ said Mummy. ‘Go and have some fun. And get dressed. Your grandparents are coming to pick you up in a minute.’

That was the end of my life with them. When the grandparents came for me, my parents said they were off for a holiday. It turned out they had known all along that they were never coming back, and I had never seen them since.

I stirred milk and hot chocolate powder in a pan, while Tommy jumped around saying, ‘It’s actual Christmas!’ over and over again. I put on some coffee for myself. It was cold in the house because the heating was only just coming on, but it would soon be warm. I flicked the radio on in the hope of finding some Christmas music, but the local radio presenters were talking about a man who was in a coma after a hit-and-run accident a couple of days ago, so I flicked it off again. Christmas was an awful time to be unhappy.

I had babysat for Tommy, lots of times, but we had never done anything like this. He was a sweet boy, with his shaggy blond hair and his rosy cheeks. I was surprised at how much his affection cheered me up.

I picked Tommy up and hugged him, let him have a ride on my back to the living room. I deposited him on the sofa, both of us giggling in a muffled sort of way, switched the tree-lights on, and went back to the kitchen to fetch our drinks.

‘Merry Christmas, Tommy,’ I said, as I put his hot chocolate down on the coffee table.

‘Merry Christmas, Lily,’ he replied. We had wished each other variations on this theme many times already. He marvelled over a remote-control car and a penguin joke book. We looked at the mountains of presents that had appeared overnight under the heavily-decorated tree. Lit by the coloured tree-lights, they looked enchanted.

A bag of chocolate coins was on the little table, and Tom kept looking at it.

‘OK,’ I said, in the end. ‘You can have three of your chocolate coins as long as you give one to me.’ It was strange, being an adult. You could say things in an authoritative voice, and people abided by your rules. He smiled and presented me with one. ‘It’s not the biggest,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s not the smallest either. It’s the most middle-sizedest.’

‘Thank you.’

Then we dipped our coins in our drinks until they were just melted enough, and he leaned up against me, and I put an arm around his little shoulders. I looked at the top of his head. This was a new and strangely warming experience. I was responsible for him, for the moment, and he wanted to cuddle up to me. I squeezed, and he responded by turning round and hugging me around the waist. It was the most lovely thing.

I spent the morning in the kitchen with Julia, eager to be useful. I was cooking the turkey, the potatoes, and a nut roast for the girls. Julia was doing puddings. We flapped around the kitchen together, drinking glasses of the new sherry that I had bought. Julia laughed at it, but I did not care. Sherry was my tipple of choice. I loved it, and the tide of memories it brought with it. As time went by, I seemed better able to pick the good memories and discard the more recent ones.

I ached, day and night, with my secret crush. I was never going to tell anyone how I felt about Harry. It was useless: I had heard the way he spoke to his wife, and I liked her, and they were a perfect couple. Everyone knew that. The way I felt was my secret, and I tried to see it as a temporary thing, and proof that one day I might be able to fall in love with someone I could actually have.

When everything that needed to be in the oven was there, and everything else was prepared, I made coffee for the grown-ups and yet more hot chocolate for the children, and we put the contents of a box of Quality Street out in little bowls, and went to the sitting room to open our presents.

Julia smiled at me as we left the kitchen. I looked away I was almost overcome, and I did not want to let her see it.

‘This is what it’s all about,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think? You hear everyone being cynical all over the place about Christmas, but I bloody love it. It’s the best day of the year, and I don’t care what anyone says.’

‘Depends where you are,’ I pointed out. I hoped Al was all right. I was seeing him later, but I would have liked to text him and wish him a Happy Christmas. Everyone else had a mobile phone.

Mia came into the room, dressed in a flowing white top and a tiny skirt, with bare legs and thick socks. Her hair was in a ponytail, and her face was white. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas, Mia,’ I said, and Julia went and kissed her.

‘Did you have a good night?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ Mia said, and she actually smiled properly. ‘Met Joe in town. I thought we were going to be hanging out with his friends, but it was actually just the two of us.’

‘Like a date?’ I checked.

She looked away, a little smile on her lips. ‘Yeah. Like that.’

‘I’m glad you had fun,’ Julia told her, then looked to me. ‘He
is
suitable, Lily? I know I’ve asked you a hundred times.’

‘Yes,’ I told her, again. ‘He’s perfectly suitable.’ Again, I did not mention the pornography.

When Julia left the room, sorting out the beginning of the grand present opening, I touched Mia’s shoulder. A package had arrived for her yesterday, from Plymouth. I had taken it from the post woman, as it was slightly too big for the letterbox. Then I had given it straight to Mia, without anyone else seeing.

‘Was that thing yesterday from . . .’ I asked, looking round, not wanting to finish the sentence for some reason.

‘Yeah,’ she said, eyes wide. She took a toffee from a bowl. ‘It’s from her. Haven’t opened it yet. Not sure whether to, really.’ She unwrapped the toffee, put it in her mouth and left the room.

Julia was strict about opening the presents in an agonisingly slow manner, and I relished it, recalling exactly how dead I had felt with my parents, being able to rip everything open whenever I wanted with nobody watching. Zac was given the role of Father Christmas, and he solemnly put on a red and white hat and gave parcels out in rotation. John and Julia had bought a new laptop computer for the children, and the air filled with whoops of delight and, shortly afterwards, with arguments about which websites they would visit, and who would have first go. I hoped no one would make me go on it. I would watch what they did first, before I revealed my absolute ignorance of how these things worked.

I had a red handbag from Julia, some sheer red tights from Mia, a bottle of bubble bath from the twins, and Tommy had made me a model Santa out of polystyrene, at school. Its face was painted in an odd grimace, its hat at a drunken angle, and I hoped that I would keep it for ever.

I had carefully bought a present for each member of the family from Trago Mills, the department store in town. My funds were low, but I had managed some floral toiletries for Julia, a scarf for John (because he had lost his old one a couple of weeks ago), a huge box of chocolates for each twin, some make-up for Mia, and a lot of surprisingly cheap craft stuff for Tommy.

As he opened his pots of paint, brushes, and brightly coloured card, Julia raised her eyebrows in my direction.

‘Erm, thanks for that, Lily!’ she joked.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, don’t be silly. It’s good for him to have wholesome things to do at home. I shouldn’t be afraid of a bit of mess. It’s too easy to leave all of that to school.’

Tommy’s eyes were bright. ‘Thank you, Lily,’ he said, beaming. ‘I’ve never had my actual own paints at home before.’

He came and hugged me again. I realised that if I ever managed to move on in the world, I would miss Tommy terribly.

I watched Zac and Jess opening the cards that Mia had given them.

‘Oh wow!’ said Zac, as two twenty-pound notes fluttered out of his.