Nobody's Perfect

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘I’m nervous, too.’ He steps into the flat, closes the door behind him, and pulls her in for a one-armed hug, kissing the top of her head. ‘It’ll be OK. But it’s a big step. I know that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate says. It feels as though her stomach is in slightly the wrong place.

  ‘Your hair smells all – peachy.’

  Kate laughs. ‘It’s Daisy’s shampoo. I’ve run out of mine. I need to go into Marsham at the weekend and get some more.’

  Spencer holds out the plant. ‘I didn’t bring you forced roses freighted from – wherever they freight forced roses from. I brought you a cyclamen from – well, from about ten yards down the road, but the florist assures me it’s native and it would normally flower this time of year.’

  ‘That’s so sweet, Spencer, thank you.’ The flowers are dark pink, and shaped like falling, drowsy hearts. She holds her face up to kiss him.

  ‘I want to please you,’ he says, simply, then, ‘Where’s Daisy?’

  ‘She’s watching a film. Come on up.’

  Daisy is so absorbed that Spencer can put his bag in the bedroom before she even registers he’s there.

  ‘Daisy,’ Kate says, moving between girl and screen. ‘I told you Mr Swanson was coming for tea. He’s here.’

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ Spencer says. ‘I brought you this.’ Daisy’s face is a picture as she reaches out a hand to take it.

  ‘What do you say, Daisy?’ Kate says.

  ‘A balloon on a stick!’ Daisy says. She’s running her finger along the edges of the butterfly balloon where the foil makes a ridge. Kate and Spencer laugh and look at each other.

  ‘Yes, but what else?’ Kate says.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Swanson.’

  ‘That’s my pleasure,’ Spencer says. ‘And you can call me Spencer when we’re not in school. Like all the grown-ups did at Miss Orr’s party.’

  ‘Wendy’s party,’ Daisy says, and adds, ‘Mummy says she’s an outside-school friend so we can call her Wendy outside school.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Spencer says. He glances at Kate, a so-far-so-good sort of a look.

  ‘Shall we have supper, Daisy?’ Kate says. ‘Do you want to wash your hands?’

  Daisy trots off to the bathroom, and then returns to the table, where her supplements and tablets sit next to her plate. She takes them without fuss or comment. This is one of the things that makes Kate saddest.

  *

  Kate has made sure to not make the meal too much of a special occasion. She’s heated up the lasagne she bought earlier; there’s a salad to go with it, emptied from bag to bowl. There’s the usual jug of water, too. No wine, no candles. Just the everyday, plus Spencer, a way of showing Daisy that Spencer will be everyday, too.

  ‘Mummy,’ Daisy says in an almost whisper when they are settled with their food around the table. ‘Mr Swanson says I can call him something else, but I can’t remember the word.’

  ‘It’s Spencer,’ Spencer supplies. ‘It’s a bit of an old-fashioned name. My mum likes going to the cinema and she named me after a film star.’

  Daisy ponders this. ‘Like Jasmine in my class?’ she says.

  ‘Well,’ Kate says, ‘I don’t know where Jasmine’s parents got her name from, but it might have been Princess Jasmine. Or it might have been because there’s a flower called jasmine, like there’s a daisy flower.’

  ‘I’ve never had a Cinderella in my class,’ Spencer says.

  Daisy considers, looking at her mother. ‘I don’t know if the wicked stepmother would have let Cinderella go to school.’

  ‘They don’t say anything about that in the book.’ Kate shrugs, smiles. ‘I don’t know.’

  Chocolate cake from Adventures in Bread follows the lasagne; there’s a jug of cream to go with it. Kate had contemplated raspberries, too, but they were out-of-season, and expensive, so she decided against them. ‘I’m going to get fat,’ Spencer says.

  ‘You don’t see a lot of skinny CF parents, that’s for sure,’ Kate says. Then she looks at Spencer with a small nod; he smiles, nods in return.

  ‘Daisy,’ she says, ‘I want to tell you something nice.’

  ‘OK,’ Daisy says.

  Spencer’s hand finds Kate’s under the table. ‘Well, Spencer is going to be my boyfriend, and I’m going to be his girlfriend.’

  ‘OK,’ says Daisy, then, ‘Amelia’s got a boyfriend, but he’s invisible.’

  ‘I’ve heard that,’ Spencer says, then, to Kate, ‘there are no secrets in my class.’

  Kate smiles, but she doesn’t want this conversation to get away from her. Anxiety is winning over excitement, in her throat, her lungs, her belly. ‘That means that Spencer is going to do lots of things with us,’ she says. ‘Like coming to Granny’s for lunch or helping us walk Beatle and Hope, and doing lots of the things that we do, along with us.’

  ‘OK,’ Daisy says again.

  Either she’s taking it really well, Kate thinks, or she hasn’t understood. But everyone says how clever she is.

  ‘And,’ Spencer adds, and Daisy’s head swivels so that her solemn gaze is on him now. ‘We will probably do some new things, the three of us together.’

  ‘What things?’ Daisy asks.

  ‘Well,’ Spencer says, ‘we might go on picnics, in the summer.’

  ‘It’s too cold for a picnic now,’ Daisy agrees.

  ‘Or we might go on some holidays together, or we might do things with my mum and dad as well as your mummy’s mum and dad.’

  ‘Who are your mum and dad?’

  ‘They’re called John and Sally and they live in Scotland.’

  Daisy nods: this seems to be the right amount of information. She turns to look at Kate again. Kate wants to laugh: it feels as though she and Spencer are up before the Head for truancy. She says, ‘And Spencer will be having sleepovers here, too, sometimes.’

  At this, Daisy’s face darkens. Kate realises what she’s thinking and adds, quickly, ‘In my bedroom. Not in your bedroom, like when Amelia came for a sleepover.’

  ‘You don’t have bunk beds,’ Daisy says in what Richenda calls her pointing-out-voice.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ says Spencer. There’s a moment of quiet. Daisy returns to her cake; Spencer, who has finished his, takes a spoonful of Kate’s, without asking, but with a grin that means she couldn’t object even if she wanted to. This is what my family is, she thinks, and she closes her eyes against the brightness of her own happiness.

  Chapter 11

  Late January

  T

  HE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY, Kate and Daisy are almost in the school playground when Jo and Amelia come out to meet them. Spencer stayed over last night; he left after an early breakfast, kissing Kate and waving to a still-sleepy Daisy. ‘See you at school,’ he had said, and Kate had laughed because it sounded so odd. But she thinks she will soon get used to it, in the same way that she is getting used to the sight of his toothbrush in the bathroom, and the way he puts mugs in the cupboard, with all of their handles facing in the same direction.

  ‘Kate!’ Jo is slightly breathless.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. We thought we would come to see you.’

  Amelia and Daisy, hand in hand, run in front of them into the playground. Kate looks at her friend more closely. ‘Jo? What is it?’

  ‘Just thought I’d come and meet you. That’s all.’

  Kate laughs. ‘Come on. You’ve never done that before. What’s going on?’ She looks into the playground and sees the mothers Jo calls the ‘Unholy Trinity’, heads together. Sarah is the daughter of the school secretary; Cara, Kate knows from her own schooldays – she was a prefect when Kate started secondary school. She now has a child in Daisy’s class, a baby in a pram, and a toddler at her side. And Serena organises the PTA. As she watches, Sarah looks around and sees her, and the conversation of the group intensifies. ‘Are they talking about me?’ Kate asks Jo.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t want you to hear so I thought I’d he
ad you off. I need more practice at this sort of thing.’

  ‘Or people need to stop gossiping,’ Kate says, her voice low. She feels a barely healed wound, just beneath her heart, start to open again. It still hurts from the teasing she got when she was offered a place at Oxford, the gleeful malice that greeted her pregnancy, the judgement when the news that Mike was the father became public knowledge. Her first thought is to leave Daisy with Jo and go home, or go to her mother, cry and complain. But that won’t solve the problem – not today, not tomorrow. Walking away won’t help Daisy. Kate is used to staring people down, when they look at Daisy with pretend sympathy, or ask how she manages on her own. But that approach isn’t going to work here. She’s going to have to confront them. And the sooner the better.

  She walks over to the group. She knows she’s shaking; hopes it isn’t visible. She senses Jo a step behind her. Three faces look around at her. ‘Hello. I thought I heard my name.’

  A look passes between the three; quick, but not quick enough for Kate to miss.

  Serena-of-the-PTA gives Kate a cool look. They’ve never really spoken before; they’ve had no reason to. Kate knows, though, that Serena was a police officer before she took a career break to raise her children. She probably knew Mike. ‘No,’ she says, ‘I don’t think so. We were just talking about Mr Swanson. Apparently he has a girlfriend.’

  ‘Isn’t that his business?’

  ‘I suppose it is. It depends, though, doesn’t it?’ This from Sarah, following Serena’s lead. Honestly, Kate thinks, it’s laughable. Except she isn’t laughing. She’s shaken and she’s scared; she’s gone back ten years, and she’s fourteen and out of her depth. She takes a deep breath. Don’t give them ammunition. Don’t show that this hurts.

  ‘Depends on what?’

  ‘Well,’ Serena says, as though to a three-year-old, ‘surely a relationship with a mother of a child in the class would compromise his professional integrity? Especially as that child is so clearly a favourite. If my Oliver was caught spitting in the playground, or if he was allowed to eat chocolate and sweets even though they are banned from lunchboxes, well—’

  Kate laughs, she’s so angry. ‘That’s because Daisy has cystic fibrosis, not because she’s a favourite. And what Spencer does in his own time is none of your business. But if you’re concerned you should report him, not spread nasty gossip.’

  Cara looks sideways at Serena. ‘That’s you told.’

  ‘Seriously?’ says Kate. She hates conflict but she won’t stand for this. Daisy is going to have to stand up to bullies, like every child who is different. So Kate needs to do it, too. She can feel that tears might come, so she blinks-blinks-blinks and wills them away. ‘I’m having a relationship that you know literally nothing about and you’re bitching about me like we’re still thirteen? Grow up.’

  There’s a collective intake of breath as she turns away. Daisy has lost a glove next to the hopscotch, so Kate retrieves it, then waves her daughter over and tucks it in her coat pocket. Oh, it will be good when winter has gone and they can leave the flat without ten minutes of bundling into more clothes. Kate knows what will be happening behind her back. Eye-rolling, head-shaking and, doubtless, a full debrief on the walk home. Well, let them talk.

  Wendy Orr opens the door, inviting the children in, and Kate feels as though she has never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. She can’t wait to get away from the school. She hangs back with Daisy, fussing over her zip, so that she won’t have to face Serena, Sarah and Cara again. ‘I’ve got to go to the post office,’ Jo says, having left Amelia, ‘then we can have a coffee?’

  ‘Great.’ Kate gives her a grateful smile.

  ‘See you at the bakery in half an hour, then.’

  Kate nods, calmer already. She’s dealt with it, she’s shown she won’t be bullied, it’s over. But turning back to the playground after she’s said goodbye to Daisy, she realises she’s not going to be that lucky. Cara is taking her baby from the pram, comforting him as he squalls, and the others are waiting with her. She makes to walk past. Serena makes steady eye contact, and smiles. ‘The trouble is, it’s all fun and games until somebody falls in a lake, isn’t it?’

  It’s a moment before the words land, with violence, in Kate’s solar plexus. By then Serena, Sarah and Cara have left the school playground, and Kate is alone. She puts her back to the wall, her hands on her hips, and tries to breathe deep, but it’s difficult, given the speed of her heartbeat and the fury in every cell.

  ‘Kate? What’s wrong?’ Spencer calls as he comes out of the door. He is across to her, hand on her shoulder, in three strides, his worried face close to hers. Suddenly Kate is aware of Daisy at the window, the fact Serena is probably still within earshot.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’ She longs to put her face against his shoulder, for just a moment, but doesn’t dare. She tries for a smile and walks away, surprised at the steadiness of her legs.

  *

  As she says to Melissa in a text, while she’s packaging Daisy’s meds up for the next day, she may as well have brought a chair, sat Spencer on it and then performed a striptease, because by the time she gets back to school to collect Daisy, it’s clear that everyone knows that she and Spencer are together. No one – not even Jo – knows what Serena said to Kate: she clearly hasn’t seen fit to share that on the PTA WhatsApp group. Kate doesn’t want to tell anyone, can’t bear for it all to be dragged up and discussed as gossip. She wants to walk up to Serena and say: a man we both knew died. Have some respect. But of course, she doesn’t. She can imagine the disdainful look she’d get in response, and her brain is already composing the likely retort: it’s a shame you didn’t think about respect when you started sleeping with another woman’s husband.

  But then Spencer arrives with fish and chips, hot in their wrappers, and everything feels easier. Serena, Sarah and Cara are nothing to her, so she shouldn’t care. The people she cares about are here. Daisy tries to eat her chips through a coughing fit, and Kate rubs her back, and feels her little ribs, and looks at Spencer, and thinks, We are the ones that matter. This is my family now.

  ‘I bumped into your mother on the way to the fish and chip shop,’ Spencer says.

  ‘Granny?’ Daisy asks.

  ‘Yes.’ Spencer smiles at her.

  ‘Where was she going? Was she coming here, too?’

  ‘I think she was probably going to yoga, Daisy.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Daisy nods knowingly, and Spencer and Kate laugh at her seriousness. Kate will never get used to the happiness of sharing these tiny moments.

  ‘She had time for a chat, though,’ Spencer continues, ‘and she asked me to lunch on Sunday.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Richenda’s lack of enthusiasm has been weighing on Kate. This sounds like a breakthrough.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Daisy asks. ‘Because of the being a family?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Spencer says, then, his gaze back on Kate. ‘And I asked her if she thought you should book a date for your graduation.’

  Kate sits back, watching Daisy squeeze extra tomato ketchup onto her chips with more enthusiasm than accuracy, and decides not to intervene. ‘I don’t know, Spencer. It’s the grade that matters. I don’t really care about the ceremony.’

  He nods. ‘I know. But your mum and I were saying that you deserve it. Will you at least have a look at the dates? Think about it? And if you can manage it for school holidays, then we can all be there.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Kate says. She imagines walking across a stage in a cap and gown, looking out over the watching faces, picking out her mother, Daisy, Spencer. She’s always telling Daisy that she’s done well, that she’s proud of her; why shouldn’t she celebrate her own achievements, and show Daisy what’s possible at the same time? ‘You clear up,’ she says. ‘I’ll get my laptop.’

  Chapter 12

  Early February

  W

  HEN SPENCER SUGGESTS THAT th
ey have a weekend away, Kate agrees immediately. She loves the idea, of course she does. It’s a milestone in any normal relationship, a moment that says: we choose each other, we commit our time, we matter. Plus, now that she’s a school-gate pariah, with only Jo to stand by her, she cannot wait to get away from Throckton, if only for a night or two. The drowning-in-black-water dreams are back, and Daisy must be picking up on Kate’s unease, because she’s unsettled, too, rejecting her food, short-tempered when things don’t go her way. Kate feels weary to her bones. Spencer asks her if they should plan their first trip together or he should organise it. ‘Surprise me,’ she says. ‘I’d like a surprise. If that’s OK.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he says. Then, a little uncertainly, ‘We should talk about money, though. I know it’s not romantic, but—’

  ‘Oh, God, of course.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, I should have thought. Can we split the cost? Is that OK? And it doesn’t have to be luxurious. I just want to spend time with you.’ She’s noticed how carefully he watches the dial go round when he puts fuel in the car, sees him take receipts from his pocket and smooth them, keeping them to go through, while she scrumples hers into the bin.

  The following Tuesday, Spencer comes round after Daisy is in bed. He knocks, lets himself in with the key Kate has had cut for him, and comes up the stairs two at a time. Kate is reading the online prospectus for a physiotherapy Master’s degree, and looks up to see him smiling more broadly than usual, if that is possible.

  ‘We’re all sorted!’

  ‘For what?’ Kate can’t think of anything they need to get sorted for. They’ve already agreed that when Valentine’s Day comes around they’ll limit themselves to cards, and there’s no way Kate would want to eat out in public, the way things are at the moment.

  ‘Our weekend away. We’ll leave after school on Friday, be home on Sunday evening.’

  ‘This weekend?’ she asks.

  ‘Why not? I found a good deal, and we’re both ready for a break now, not in three months’ time.’