The Staycation: This summer's hilarious tale of heartwarming friendship, fraught families and happy ever afters

by Michele Gorman

  ‘No, I’m dreading it!’ Harriet said. She wasn’t only thinking about the stifling little village now.

  ‘Me too, but at least we both got away, thanks to you. We wouldn’t have met each other if it hadn’t been for that ash cloud.’

  ‘That bloody ash cloud.’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Even with everything else, it’s still been a win, don’t you think? You got to go to Pride with Billie. That couldn’t have happened in Rome. And I, well, I probably would have been a well-massaged wife with no more backbone than when she first got on the flight. I wouldn’t have realised what Dan is really like if we hadn’t met, if I hadn’t done the fundraiser or had these two weeks here. Maybe I’d never have stood up for myself at all. And we wouldn’t be friends now. My marriage might be over but I still say thank you, you bloody gorgeous ash cloud.’

  Harriet set her own doubts aside for a moment. Sophie was right about Billie. She’d probably still get things wrong – in fact she could almost guarantee that she would – but her daughter might be a little more forgiving now. ‘Of course, yes, cheers, you bloody gorgeous ash cloud.’

  It still seemed strange that Harriet could feel so close to a woman she’d seen exactly once for a few hours. But sometimes that’s how friendship worked. At least, that’s how she remembered it working, eleven years and seven months ago, the last time she’d made a friend. ‘I’d love to stay in touch,’ she told Sophie. ‘We could schedule periodic calls after work if you like.’

  ‘Or we could just ring each other when we want a chat.’

  ‘Yes, we could do that too. Ring me any time,’ Harriet said. ‘I can always change my plans to talk.’ Strangely, she thought as she hung up, she didn’t find that idea too uncomfortable.

  Chapter 29

  Sunday

  How’s the journey going? Dan texted. Tell me when you need me.

  Sophie reread it. A month ago, she would have seen it as a thoughtful offer. Sweet Dan, as concerned and accommodating as ever, always thinking about her, ready to ride in and save the day. She used to think his apologies were sincere, too. Oh, he was good at those. Just when she most feared his anger, he flipped to the loving, contrite husband. She never questioned how out of character those apologies seemed, given the meanness of the moments before. They did their job, always reeling her straight back in.

  Now his text definitely didn’t read as helpful, not when she knew exactly what kind of bloke she was married to. He’d flounced back to London at the first sign of insurrection. He’d had the cheek to call it that, like he was some kind of army general! Worst of all, he’d taken their hire car, with an empty boot save for his overnight bag. She and the children were saddled with getting back home with all the luggage on the train.

  Now she’d pull every muscle in her body before she’d admit she needed his help.

  She supposed she’d better get used to problems like that. There could be a lifetime of them ahead.

  Instead of giving him the satisfaction of an answer, she turned off her phone.

  The leaves had deepened their green in London since they’d been away. The whole road was lush with summer vegetation. Maybe her view had been countrified, but it looked prettier than she remembered.

  Sophie winced as she heaved open their front door. Her biceps were screaming, but she’d done it. She’d got them all safely home on the train without Dan’s help.

  At least, she thought it was home. It was definitely her front door, yet something didn’t look right. First of all, she didn’t remember that border on the tiled floor in the hall. Quite a nice one, too. Second, none of her family’s belongings was strewn across it.

  ‘Where is everything?’ Katie asked.

  Sophie’s question exactly. ‘Harriet must have tidied.’ More like renovated. The only personal items in view were their jackets, and even those had been artfully arranged on their hooks like props at a photo shoot. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find everything.’

  Once the children realised that the rest of the house had received the Harriet treatment too, they dashed through playing Spot the Difference. Sophie followed more slowly, more thoughtfully. Tears pricked her eyes as she realised that Harriet had unknowingly swept away much of what reminded Sophie of her life with Dan. She hadn’t thought about that; about how it would feel to step back into a family home without her whole family. Now she didn’t have to imagine it, because this didn’t feel like their home. Or it did, because everything was familiar. It just felt like her home. The kind of home where her best self might live.

  But it didn’t take long to bump up against reality. They settled back in once they’d lugged their bags into their bedrooms and kicked off their shoes. The evening’s television was decided and thoughts turned towards dinner.

  Thoughts also turned towards Dan. There’d been no more texts from him when she’d turned her phone back on. Wherever he was staying, it clearly wasn’t going to be in their house.

  ‘Is Dad coming home tonight?’ Oliver asked. Spot was draped over his arm, her strong coils slowly undulating. She looked happy to be reunited. Or as happy as a snake ever looked.

  Sophie kept her head in the fridge for a moment. Harriet had stocked it for them, and left fresh bread and some fruit, too. She was glad she’d thought to do the same at the cottage.

  There was no sense in pretending to the children. ‘No, sweetheart, he’s not.’ Even if he did give in (and she was sure he wouldn’t), Sophie didn’t want to go back to normal. Ha, normal. What was that anyway? She’d thought they were normal for years. No, better than normal. Sophie had been smug. She must have looked ridiculous to everyone. Had they all seen what she hadn’t? She found she didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Your dad is angry with me. We’re angry with each other.’

  Oliver’s solemn eyes stared into hers. ‘When we get angry at school, Miss Peters makes us both say we’re sorry. No matter whose fault it is.’

  Sophie hugged her son, trying not to upset the snake in the process. ‘We will say we’re sorry, too,’ she murmured into his silky hair. ‘I don’t know if that will make everything the way it was, though.’ She reached down to hold him by the shoulders. ‘But I can promise you one thing: your dad and I love you and Katie more than anything in the world, and that will never change.’

  Katie sat with her legs over the side of her favourite chair, examining her long plait for split ends. ‘He’s not always nice to you,’ she said. ‘Is that why?’

  Sophie’s heart sank. They had noticed when she hadn’t. Children saw what she didn’t. That was humiliating, but, more importantly, she hoped it hadn’t scarred them. ‘Well, I won’t let him be unkind again.’ Sophie had a hard time controlling the wobble in her voice. ‘I think we all deserve kindness, don’t you?’

  Katie nodded. ‘Are you getting a divorce then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, even though she did already know, because as hard as it would be to get over loving Dan, she loved herself more. That was a love affair she could guarantee would last a lifetime.

  She wondered where he was now, what he was doing. Whatever it was, he was still brooding.

  The house felt strange without him. Not that he hadn’t been away before. As she thought back, he’d taken several trips on his own to do adventurous things that she wouldn’t enjoy (he’d informed her). Always at the weekends, though. Now she knew he’d had a good reason for not taking off workdays.

  His absence felt different now. He wasn’t just parasailing in Spain.

  Still, she marvelled, their life was carrying on in all the mundane ways. Laundry needed doing, though as usual it wasn’t urgent (as long as they still had a few pairs of clean pants). They got hungry, so she made dinner. Not as fancy as Dan would have done, but she hadn’t dirtied every pan and bowl in the kitchen, either.

  ‘What do you think about me going back to work?’ she asked her children as they slurped their spaghetti. ‘Not just volunteering. I mean real, paid work.’

  Katie looked at
her like she’d just proposed becoming a circus clown. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘What, do you mean legally? I’ll check my motherhood contract, but I don’t think there’s anything in there that says no.’

  ‘I mean can you?’ Katie asked.

  ‘Of course I can! I used to work, you know, before you were born. I had a full-time job just like your dad.’

  ‘Cool.’ Katie went back to her pasta.

  Yes, thought Sophie, it was rather cool. ‘It would mean some changes for us all, though. I wouldn’t be here after school, for example.’

  Katie waited till she’d finished chewing. ‘I wouldn’t mind that.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sophie laughed. ‘As long as you’re sure you wouldn’t be too upset about it.’

  The children were in their rooms when Sophie opened her wardrobe. All her shoes were there, neatly paired and perfectly aligned on the floor. Harriet had them in colour order, then by heel height. She smiled. Her friend would have weighed up all the organisational options. Maybe grouped by season first, or formality or some other system that only she saw.

  She counted eight pairs of work shoes; the ones she’d shoved into the bathroom cupboard. They all needed a good polish. Most of the heels were worn down and a few were completely knackered. She picked up her lucky shoes. She’d loved those, with their stylish heel and soft black leather and low vamp and the way they’d always made her feel so strong. A warrior woman in a kitten heel. Those were the shoes she’d worn in her interview and at every performance review, and whenever she felt like being on top of the world.

  She slipped them on. They fitted. Better, even after all these years, they still felt right. She’d wear them for her next job interview. She’d wear them if she ever had to face Dan over a solicitor’s table.

  Then she sat down, surrounded by shoes and memories, and cried.

  Chapter 30

  Home

  The week after both families went back to their old lives, nothing had changed and everything had changed. Sophie took the children to their summer activities. She did the shopping and got cross with Katie over staying up too late. When the fridge was bare, she made them all pasta from one of Harriet’s neat containers. She settled down to finish a box set she’d started before the holiday, absently snacking on the open packet of Shreddies she found in the cabinet, even though she wasn’t hungry.

  She took baby steps back into the real world, degree by degree, and it began to feel okay. Better than okay. The doubts and second-guessing were making less noise now that she was home. Surrounded by the life she knew, Sophie saw just how stifling it had been with Dan. Most of her wardrobe was an unhappy reminder of what he’d thought she should look like. They were nothing but costumes, personas that Dan wanted her to put on.

  She filled a bin bag with most of them. Maybe another woman would like to try them on. She no longer did. Sophie wasn’t sure what she did want – that’s what her future was for – but it wasn’t that. She’d say that to Dan when he eventually did ring.

  The feeling of lightness had followed her home because her husband hadn’t.

  Meanwhile, routine returned for Harriet, too. Her first Monday back at home, she woke as usual a few minutes before her alarm and left for the station at the same time she always did. She stood just where the bicycle lock-up was on the platform so that the doors of the 8.15 opened directly in front of her, and she got into the second-to-last carriage as usual. There was a free seat, but instead of opening her laptop and working for the thirty-five minutes until the conductor announced their arrival in Oxford, Harriet glanced around her. Despite probably sharing the same journey for years, she didn’t recognise her fellow commuters. The scenery, too, was unfamiliar in places.

  In the office, once the mandatory post-holiday pleasantries were finished, Harriet made her first To Do list of the day. But instead of concentrating on her work, she found herself checking her mobile, and not only at the usual scheduled intervals, either. She felt like a new girlfriend waiting to see if he’d rung.

  Finally, just before lunchtime, the text chime sent her diving for her phone. She smiled.

  Harriet waited for more, then realised she was probably meant to ask.

  Her fingers hovered over her phone. For eleven years and seven months, Harriet had worked through lunch.

  Then, pausing, she added: Or any time. x

  Dan turned up at the house midweek. Sophie’s heart had seized when she’d heard the key unbolting their front door. She knew it wasn’t Carlos. She’d got the keys back from him when she told him, once and for all, that she’d thrown away the extra-roomy condoms.

  Her heart began knocking its uneasy rhythm in her chest. It was the first time she’d really noticed it since that day in the village with the children. Her doctor was right. Stress did bring it on. Taking a deep breath, she’d unwound herself from the sofa and gone to meet her husband.

  ‘Hello.’ Dan’s voice was ice-cool.

  She matched it. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, you keep hanging up on me when I ring, so how else am I supposed to talk to you? Besides, I’ve got every right to be in my own house. I do own it, in case you’ve forgotten.’ He glanced around the hall at the (relative) neatness.

  She didn’t have a witty answer like Harriet would have done.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided that I can forgive you. It’s not your fault you’re so easily influenced with that woman yapping in your ear the whole time. Now that you’re back, I’m sure you can see how silly you’ve been.’

  ‘I don’t want your forgiveness,’ she said, walking back to the sofa. As Dan followed, a coughing fit seized her.

  ‘Listen to you. You can’t even walk around the house without your heart practically giving out. I’ve told you, you need to exercise. You’re not getting any younger.’

  Sophie wheeled round so fast that Dan nearly ran into her. ‘What I need, Dan, is for you to stop telling me what I need. Why can’t you understand that?’ He still assumed he could control her.

  Instead of giving her the courtesy of an answer, he made himself comfortable on the sofa. Then he picked up the Shreddies she’d been munching. To her surprise, she’d found she actually liked Harriet’s breakfast cereal of choice.

  Dan shook the nearly empty packet and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, so what? I can eat what I like, Dan. I can do what I like, wear what I like and, shock horror, even think what I like.’

  ‘I’m not loving this side of you. It’s delusional, Soph. If this is what you’re eating, what are you feeding my children? Are they eating dry cereal out of the box, too?’

  ‘Don’t you dare imply that I’m not taking care of them. I’ve done nothing but take care of them their entire lives. Me, not you, so don’t you dare.’

  Dan sighed. ‘I didn’t come here to fight. I came to say that this is enough. You’ve had your little Bridget Jones moment. Congratulations. Now, stop being silly and let’s get back to normal.’

  She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The children would need picking up soon. Then something occurred to her. ‘What are you doing here now? Shouldn’t you be at work?’

  ‘Yes, I should be, but this is how important my family is to me. I’m being the bigger person. I’ve taken time off, which I don’t have because you had to have your two-week holiday. Though what you needed a holiday from I can’t imagine, because you’re not even working,’ he sneered.

  Dan wasn’t wearing a suit and, she noticed, he hadn’t shaved that morning. ‘You’re lying, Dan.’

  He barely whispered. ‘What did you say?’

  Sophie wobbled hearing the threat in his voice. Then she took a deep breath. ‘I said, you’re lying. It seems you’ve been doing that quite a lot. What a shame it took me so long to notice.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. As usual,’ he said.

  ‘No? Then why don’t you answer this? What was your bonus last year?’
r />   ‘What has that got to do with anything? And that’s not your fucking business.’

  ‘Isn’t it? We celebrated it, as I recall. Very nice champagne. Except that Jeremy apologised to me for not giving you a bonus last year. So, what were we celebrating, actually? A lie. Like this. You aren’t at work, because something’s happened there. Like something happened three years ago. I know all about that.’

  ‘Oh really. And what is it that you think you know?’ He was still lounging back against the sofa cushions with his legs crossed, but his foot had started bobbing up and down.

  ‘I know that you were messing with your clients’ files and you were found out. It was reported in the papers, so don’t try to deny it.’

  ‘Well, if you’d read carefully, you’d have seen that I wasn’t found guilty of anything.’

  ‘Maybe not technically, but what I don’t get is why you’d mess with files in the first place. For all your faults, Dan, I didn’t have you down as dodgy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand how the legal process works. You’ve never been anything but an admin assistant and a stay-at-home mother. There’s nothing wrong with expediting administrative paperwork when it freed me up to concentrate on the real fee-earners. That’s what Jeremy pays me for, to get things done. Though I don’t expect you to have any idea what kind of pressure there is out there in the real world – what I’m expected to do, the hours I should be putting in. But I couldn’t work eighty-hour weeks like everyone else, could I, not when I had to take care of you too. Remember? You fell apart when your mother died. So while you’re accusing me of being dodgy, why don’t you admit that it’s your fault if I had to cut corners.’