The Woman Next Door

by Natasha Boydell

  Angie was caught completely off guard. They’d talked about having children, and agreed that they both wanted them, but she had assumed they were a long way off yet. She was only twenty-eight and making great strides in her career. Plus she loved the freedom that they had to go out whenever they wanted and book holidays at the drop of a hat. She’d always imagined she’d be well into her thirties before they started trying for a family. Surely they weren’t ready yet?

  She turned to him in surprise. ‘Where has this come from, Jack?’

  ‘I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately,’ Jack replied with a shrug. ‘We’re married, we love each other, what’s stopping us?’

  ‘Our lifestyle? My career?’

  ‘You’ll still have a career, Ange. I’m not asking you to become a Stepford wife. Many women build successful careers around their families, you know.’

  ‘What about our lifestyle, then? You won’t be able to go out till six in the morning and rock up pissed as a fart anymore, Jack.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he said, flinching away from her sheepishly. Then his expression became serious. ‘I’m done with it, Angie. I’ve had enough. I know I’ve been behaving like a total idiot over the last few months. I think I just needed to get it out of my system, and now I have.’

  ‘What’s brought on this sudden change of opinion?’ Angie asked.

  ‘I think I finally realised what a dick I was being on Friday night. I was sitting in a bar at 3am, staring at my beer, and I thought, What the hell am I doing here? I have a beautiful wife waiting for me in my bed at home. That’s where I want to be, not here in this dive.’

  ‘I’m thrilled that you’ve had such a life-changing revelation, Jack, I really am. But you’re not the one who has to carry the baby, go through the horror of labour and put her career on hold to care for a newborn. It’s my life that will change the most, not yours, and I’m not saying I don’t want children – because you know that I do. I just don’t know if I want them right now.’

  ‘Just think about it, Angie, that’s all I’m saying. Think about it.’

  ‘I will,’ she agreed, with no intention of actually doing so, and changed the subject.

  Three months later she was pregnant.

  Jack looked up from the barbecue now and saw her watching him. He gave her a thumbs up. ‘I think we’re about ready for those burgers, Ange,’ he called out to her, and she nodded and went back inside to fetch them. By the time she returned to the garden, Sophie and Alan had appeared through the gap in the fence.

  ‘I brought dessert,’ Sophie said, proffering a cheesecake and some ice cream.

  ‘Lovely, thanks,’ Angie replied, taking them off Sophie and heading back into the kitchen to put the ice cream in the freezer.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Sophie asked, following her in. ‘What’s happening with that court case?’

  Angie had been working on a highly publicised case for the last week. ‘The last prosecution witness should finish on Monday, then it’s our turn,’ she told her.

  ‘It’s all very exciting,’ Sophie said.

  ‘If it goes in our favour, perhaps I can put you in touch with my client as long as she agrees?’ Angie offered. ‘I think she’s fairly keen to do some publicity.’

  Sophie’s eyes lit up. ‘That would be great!’

  ‘Leave it with me.’

  ‘Thanks, Angie, I really appreciate that.’

  ‘On another note,’ Angie said, ‘I think Ellie has a little crush on Tom. I found this picture in her room the other day.’

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded drawing that Ellie had made of her and Tom together, surrounded by hearts.

  ‘Oh my goodness, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Sophie gushed. ‘Do you remember your first crush?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ Angie said, scrunching up her eyes as she tried to remember. ‘I went to a girls’ school so it was slim pickings but there was a boy at my Saturday morning drama club and I just adored him. Then one day another girl told me he’d left a note in her bag asking her to be his girlfriend and I went home and cried all day and then refused to go back to the club.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Sophie said. ‘Mine was one of my brother’s friends. I remember that I used to put my mother’s make-up and heels on whenever he came over to play. He never even noticed me.’

  ‘What a tool,’ Alan said, ambling into the kitchen.

  Sophie grinned at him and Angie watched them, thinking how easy their relationship was, like two pieces of a puzzle that fit naturally together. They were always laughing or joking with each other and she’d never seen a cross word pass between them.

  ‘Are you all right, Angie?’ Sophie asked. ‘You look a million miles away.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I was just daydreaming,’ she replied. ‘Can you help me get these salads outside?’

  By the time they had set the table, Jack was shovelling burgers onto plates and Angie went to round up the children. They all crowded round, jostling each other to get to the food first, and then dispersed as quickly as they had arrived.

  ‘Don’t you want to eat with us?’ Angie called out to them.

  ‘Nah, we’re eating in the treehouse,’ Tom replied, as the four youngest children headed up the garden, each balancing their precariously full plates with two hands. Indie took her plate inside, texting a friend with one hand as she walked, and Benji had already disappeared.

  ‘Charming,’ Angie said.

  ‘Ah, enjoy it,’ Jack said, taking off his apron and sitting down at the table. ‘They’ll all be pestering you soon enough.’ He held up his beer glass. ‘Cheers, Brennans.’

  They were still sitting outside as the sun set later that day, savouring the warmth of the summer evening. Jack had been filling them in on the football squad he coached and Alan had been regaling them with stories of some of his clients’ most unusual requests. ‘They wanted his and hers toilet thrones in the bathroom!’ he told them as they all laughed uproariously.

  Angie and Sophie went to check on the four younger children who had all fallen asleep top to tail in the den. They tiptoed around the room covering them with duvets and blankets before closing the door quietly behind them.

  ‘Alan and I can carry them home,’ Sophie whispered.

  ‘Leave them here,’ Angie replied. ‘They look so comfortable. Come and get them in the morning.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sophie agreed. ‘Thanks for a lovely afternoon, I’ve had such a great time.’

  ‘Me too. Let’s hope it’s the first of many barbecues.’

  They smiled at each other, both basking in the pleasure of an unexpected friendship, and returned to the garden to find Alan and Jack finishing off their beers.

  ‘Well I’m three sheets to the wind, so I think it’s time to go home,’ Alan said.

  Jack said goodbye and started checking the football scores on his phone but Angie watched Sophie and Alan disappear through the fence, laughing at a joke she hadn’t heard. At the last moment, Sophie looked back and waved at Angie. She smiled and waved back and then, with a glance at Jack, she started collecting the empty glasses and made her way back inside.

  7

  ‘Mu-um, where’s my schoolbag?’

  Sophie sighed impatiently, counted to ten and shouted back, ‘By the front door, where I told you it was thirty seconds ago!’

  The first day back at school was always a shock after a long, lazy summer. They’d gone on holiday to Spain, spent a long weekend with Sophie’s parents in Devon and the rest of the time they’d stayed at home, chilling out, going to the park and seeing friends. As soon as school finished the Taylor family had gone on their usual three-week summer jaunt and then the children had been at holiday clubs for a fortnight, leaving Tom and Katie pining for them like little lost puppies. They had taken to sitting in the treehouse for hours, waiting for their friends to get home from football camp, or drama camp, or wherever it was they were that day.

  Finally, in the last week of the hol
idays, the children had been at home and Sophie had barely seen Tom and Katie. She’d taken advantage of the uninterrupted time to send a few emails to her old contacts asking if they needed any freelance writers, but all she’d received was a plethora of out of office replies. Everyone, it seemed, was still on their summer holidays.

  She finished making the children’s sandwiches and looked out of the window at the back garden, which was its usual chaotic mess. Grass and dead insects were floating in the half deflated paddling pool and the lawn was littered with toys. Her eyes fell to the gap in the fence, and she thought about what a glorious summer it had turned out to be.

  Once Angie and Jack got back from holiday, they’d got into an unspoken habit of meeting up in the garden at weekends. Someone would inevitably light a barbecue or bring out some snacks. While the children played the adults sat around chatting, often for entire afternoons. She and Angie would stay out long after Alan and Jack had drifted back inside.

  The previous weekend they’d ended up chatting in the garden until midnight. They had sat side by side in reclining chairs, a bottle of wine between them and the scent of jasmine lingering in the air. Angie was great fun although she was still a closed book when it came to talking about herself. She never gave anything personal away but she was surprisingly easy to talk to.

  They discussed Sophie’s career, or lack of it, and Angie was the only person other than Alan who knew the full extent of her never-ending writer’s block. It had been a relief to finally be honest with someone. They talked about parenting too, its challenges, its rewards. As mothers they couldn’t be more different. Sophie knew she hovered around Tom and Katie like a hummingbird whereas Angie was more hands off, telling her that she and Jack believed in giving their children the freedom to make mistakes and be who they wanted to be.

  There was no doubt that the Taylor children were confident and felt free to follow their own paths. She’d noticed it particularly with Benji, the eldest. He hated studying, loathed sport and was only happy when he was at drama class or rehearsing for a play. She thought that someone as successful and motivated as Angie would be pushing him to do well academically. Or perhaps Jack would be disappointed that his oldest son didn’t like football. But they didn’t seem to care.

  ‘He’s only got to scrape through his GCSEs and then he can go to drama school,’ Jack had said one evening, when they were having dinner together.

  ‘You don’t mind if he doesn’t do his A-levels?’ Sophie had asked, intrigued.

  ‘Christ no, Benji would hate that. The quicker we get him out of that place and into a performing arts school the better.’

  Sophie had turned to Angie, curious to see her response, but she had nodded in agreement. She was too embarrassed to confess that she had already started contacting tutors for Tom, in the hope that he might get through the eleven-plus exams and secure a place at a grammar school. As a teenager herself, she had loved drama but her parents had refused to let her go to performing arts school. She had diligently stayed on for her A-levels and then gone to journalism college, putting all thoughts of Broadway behind her. She thought now how lucky Benji was to have such supportive parents, who made it so easy for him to pursue his dream.

  In contrast, she found herself worrying about how much she hovered around Tom and Katie, fretting about whether they were fitting in at school, what marks they got in their spelling tests, whether they’d do well in their SATs, whose sleepover they hadn’t been invited to. When she had voiced her fears to Angie, though, she had dismissed them as though they were nothing.

  ‘You love them, they’re happy, they’re safe, don’t worry about it,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but I’m like a mother hen, clucking around them all the time,’ Sophie persisted.

  ‘That’s because you care and that’s the most important thing. I’ve seen a lot of unhappy, unloved children in my career, Sophie, and I can tell you that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Stop beating yourself up; you’re an excellent mother.’

  And with that the conversation was over as far as Angie was concerned. Sophie sometimes wished she had her confidence, her certainty. Despite their growing friendship she was still a little intimidated by Angie and how she managed to juggle her life so effortlessly. It wasn’t just her career but her family life too. She sometimes stole glances at Angie and Jack, observing how Angie looked at him so adoringly, how tactile he was with her. They are so in love, she thought, even after all these years of marriage and four children. While she adored Alan with every bone in her body, it was a very different kind of relationship.

  It wasn’t that they had lost the passion because they never really had it in the first place. And it had never bothered Sophie because they were happy and they loved each other. As her mother always said: ‘The most important four words for a successful marriage are “I’ll do the dishes”.’

  But occasionally she would glance over at Angie and Jack, dancing to a song or feeding each other olives, and she would feel a short, sharp pang of envy. It was as if they were living in a movie.

  Whereas her life, she thought as she finished off the packed lunches, was definitely not a Hollywood blockbuster.

  ‘We’re leaving in T-minus three minutes,’ she called out to the children who were slung across the sofa like sloths, watching cartoons. ‘Shoes and coats, now.’

  She herded a reluctant Tom and Katie out of the house and spotted Jack locking up next door, with Freddy and Ellie in tow. She waved and waited for him to catch up.

  ‘I don’t normally see you at this time,’ she said. ‘Are the kids not at breakfast club today?’

  ‘No,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ve decided to reduce my hours for a couple of months. We thought it would be good for Indie to have someone at home more until she’s settled into secondary school. She’s been feeling very anxious. So I’m on school run duty.’

  ‘Poor Indie,’ Sophie said. ‘I remember my first few days of big school well and they were terrifying. Is today her first day?’

  ‘Yes. Of course she insisted on making her own way there and Benji had to stay at least six feet away from her at all times.’

  ‘Wow, she’s so grown up!’ The thought of her children walking to school on their own filled Sophie with terror. She was going to be a nervous wreck when they were older.

  She got the distinct impression that Indie was pretty sassy, though. Of all Angie’s children, she was the one that Sophie knew the least. She seemed to spend most of her time at friends’ houses or glued to her phone. God help her parents when she was a proper teenager, Sophie thought, she was going to give them a hard time. In contrast, Ellie was the sweetest, most easy-going child that she had ever met. Even now, she gave Sophie a beaming smile and a quick cuddle before dashing off to catch up with the others, who had scooted ahead.

  ‘Are you looking forward to holding the fort?’ Sophie asked Jack as they made their way down the road together.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Jack said. ‘I love being with the children, even though they walk all over me when Angie’s not around. Angie says it’s because I’m basically a kid myself. I’m glad for a bit of time off work too: this year’s been intense. I feel like me, Angie and the kids have all been ships that pass in the night to be honest, so it’ll be nice to have some time at home.’

  Sophie nodded, as if she knew what he meant, but it had been a long time since she’d experienced the work intensity he was talking about. She remembered the old newspaper days, when she was on a deadline and the adrenaline was coursing through her body as she typed furiously, trying to write a story in time. But she didn’t miss it, she thought now, not anymore.

  ‘Well done on that piece in the press by the way, it was great,’ Jack said.

  True to her word, Angie had put Sophie in touch with her client after the court case and she’d ended up getting an exclusive interview. She had sold it for an eye-watering fee to a national newspaper. It had felt good to be earning money again, but she still hadn�
�t experienced the rush of pleasure of seeing her words in print like she used to. It was probably time to accept that her heart simply wasn’t in it anymore. But she had no idea what else she could do instead.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said to Jack. ‘It was Angie who made it all happen.’

  ‘She’s great like that.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘I still don’t know how she finds the time to do everything.’

  ‘I know, she’s amazing. A real role model to the children, too.’

  A role model? That made Sophie think. Was she a good role model to her children? Yes, she was there to cuddle them and wipe away tears when they fell or had rows with friends, to help them with their homework and prepare them a home-cooked meal. Was that enough anymore or did she need to juggle a successful career to be considered a good mother these days too? Had parenting always been this complex and confusing, a constant battle of comparing yourself to others and worrying about whether you were doing it right?

  ‘How did you two meet?’ she asked Jack, changing the subject.

  ‘We were at uni together, we both studied law although I realised two weeks in that I’d made a mistake and never got round to switching courses. Angie of course graduated top of the class. Back then we were just friends, but we bumped into each other years later and got together.’

  ‘Did you fancy her at uni?’ Sophie asked playfully.

  ‘I think most people fancied Angie but we were all a bit terrified of her. She was always so intelligent, so driven, as if the pettiness of student life was beneath her, if that makes sense.’

  Even after knowing Angie for a short time it made complete sense to Sophie.

  ‘The lads used to call her the ice princess,’ he said, chuckling, before quickly adding, ‘I’ve never told her that, mind.’

  ‘So, what was different when you met up again?’ she asked him.

  ‘We’d just grown up a bit, I think. As soon as I saw her, I remembered how amazing she was and I thought, don’t be a douchebag and let this one go. So I gave it to her straight and luckily, she felt the same. And here we are fifteen years later, married with four kids. How about you and Alan?’