Make Do and Mend in Applewell

by Lilac Mills

  ‘We had a bath before tea, me and Morgan,’ Robin said. ‘We were covered in sand and Daddy said we had to wash it off or you’d be cross. Are you cross, Mummy?’

  Henry nearly answered for her, but he shoved another forkful of mashed potato in his mouth instead.

  ‘Why is everyone so fascinated about whether I’m cross or not?’ Lottie asked, irritably.

  ‘Mummy’s cross,’ Morgan stated.

  ‘Oh, for—’ Lottie stopped abruptly and took a deep breath. Henry wondered what was going through her head. ‘Did you have a good time at the beach?’ she asked the boys.

  ‘I caught a starfish and Morgan had to be carried,’ Robin said.

  Morgan waved his chubby hand in the air, fingers outstretched. ‘Five!’ he yelled.

  ‘I taught him that starfishes have five arms, like his fingers,’ Henry said, anxious to dispel the atmosphere.

  ‘Daddy forgot the buggy, and we had a gingerbread man. Mine was a reindeer face and Morgan’s was Father Christmas. When is Father Christmas coming, Mummy?’

  ‘Not for ages, yet,’ she replied, staring at Morgan’s almost untouched plate of food, then she looked at Robin’s. He’d made very few inroads into his meal and was busily digging holes in his potato with his fork and making engine noises. Henry winced – he was in the dog-house again, it seemed.

  ‘When did they have the gingerbread?’ his wife asked him, and he heard the exasperation in her voice.

  ‘On the way back.’

  ‘Just before you got home, you mean? And what time was that?’

  ‘About an hour ago, maybe less.’ Henry groaned inwardly.

  ‘That will explain why they’re not eating their tea.’ Lottie glared at him.

  Henry bit his lip. It seemed he couldn’t do anything right. He’d thought he was giving them a treat, and now Lottie was berating him for it.

  The sour taste in his mouth increased.

  He put his fork down and pushed his plate away. Getting to his feet, he said, ‘I’m going out.’

  Robin stopped digging at his mashed potato and stared at him with big eyes. Sabrina paused, a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. Only Morgan seemed oblivious to the escalating tension between their parents.

  ‘Where?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Anywhere. The pub.’

  ‘Oh, so you don’t want me to spend money on our children, but you can spend money in the pub?’

  ‘One pint, that’s all. Do you begrudge me one sodding pint?’

  Lottie turned away, her mouth set in a straight line, her jaw clenched, but not before he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes. Morgan began to wail, Henry’s raised voice having startled him.

  For pity’s sake, now he’d upset the kids. What the hell kind of a father does that? At that moment, he didn’t like himself at all, and he suspected Lottie liked him even less.

  He really did need to get out of the house, if only to stop himself from causing them any more distress than he already had.

  Tears prickled the back of his eyes as he dashed into the hall, hooking his waxed cotton coat off the banister as he went past.

  He heard the front door slam loudly behind him and he flinched. It sounded as though he’d stormed out and slammed it shut in temper, when he’d actually only pulled it a little too hard as he’d shot through it.

  Debating whether to go back and explain to Lottie that he hadn’t meant to slam it, he hesitated on the step, then he shrugged. It would look even worse if he went back in now, then left again. It was better to just leave and return when he could face his family once more.

  At least she didn’t have to bath the boys, he thought – at least he’d done something right. And Robin and Morgan had had a whale of a time at the beach. They’d had a good day – until he’d spoilt it.

  His feet took him along the coastal path, in the opposite direction to the pub. He hadn’t been serious when he’d said he was going for a pint – primarily because he suspected he wouldn’t stop at just the one, and how much of a hypocrite would that make him if he drank their money away?

  Wanting to avoid people, he headed across the fields towards the coastal path. It was almost dark and there probably wouldn’t be anyone else daft enough to be on it.

  The moon was rising behind him, giving him sufficient light to allow him to pick his way along the path, and the air was still and calm, nature holding its breath. It was quiet enough to hear the boom of the waves as they crashed into the cliff face long before he unlatched the kissing-gate separating the field from the rugged path.

  Now that he’d reached the cliff top, the wind picked up, carried across the Irish Sea to cool his cheeks and ruffle his hair. It smelt of wilderness and freedom, and escape.

  As he turned left, his footsteps carrying him away from Applewell and home, he wondered what it would be like to keep walking. The coastal path stretched for nearly one and a half thousand kilometres around the Welsh coastline. He was standing roughly at the mid-point and he was currently heading south, the land on his left, the sea to his right, the water black against a midnight sky, the ground beneath his feet barely visible.

  Heaving a despondent sigh, Henry came to a halt.

  Running away wasn’t an option, no matter how appealing it seemed. Instead of walking aimlessly and risking falling in the darkness, he stepped nearer to the cliff edge, careful not to get too close, found a flattish patch of grass and sat on it. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he wrapped his arms around his legs and dropped his chin to rest on them, staring out to sea.

  Henry felt incredibly small and insignificant. Right there, right now, his troubles were nothing more than specks of dust on the wind.

  Feeling calmer and cleansed, he didn’t know how long he stayed there, but when he clambered stiffly to his feet, his backside numb with cold, his fingers and toes freezing, it was with a renewed sense of purpose.

  He’d get another job and quickly, and then he’d explain to Lottie why he had been acting the way he had. Vowing to be a better husband and father, and not allow his work worries to impact on his private life, he made his slow way home to the family that he loved more than anything else in the world.

  Chapter 8

  Lottie

  The trick to appearing to be asleep was in the breathing, Lottie decided. She’d watched her children sleep enough times to know the rhythm of it. Long ago, another life ago, she used to watch Henry sleep too, marvelling that this slumbering hunk of a man was all hers.

  Deeper breath in, shallower breath out; repeat steadily for as often as necessary.

  It was eleven fifteen when she heard the unmistakable squeak of the front door and she listened intently for the soft tread of her husband’s footsteps through the house. The fridge door opened as she strained to listen, followed by the glug of something being poured into a glass; Lottie was amazed at how far sound travelled in the darkness.

  She imagined him standing in the kitchen, one hand resting on the worktop, the other tipping a glass up to his mouth, and she wondered how many pints he’d sunk, who he’d been with, and what he’d spoken about.

  She’d never been so shocked as when he’d stormed out earlier, abandoning his barely touched meal, leaving her with her mouth open in surprise and their children with large eyes and fearful expressions. Sabrina had flinched when he’d slammed the front door, and Morgan had cried in earnest.

  The familiar creak of the third stair and then the seventh told her he was coming upstairs, and she shuffled down into the bed, pulling the duvet up to cover as much of her head as she could tolerate. She closed her eyes and began the sleep-breathing – deeper breath in, shallower breath out.

  If he thought she was awake, he might want to talk and she couldn’t face it. She was too tired, physically and emotionally, to deal with him, even though she guessed sleep might be a long time coming.

  She heard him go into the bathroom and the sound of running water told her he must be in the shower, and she knew she’d find his cloth
es puddled on the floor in the morning.

  A spill of light as he opened their bedroom door almost made her wince, and she willed herself not to react. Deeper breath in, shallower breath out…

  There was silence and no discernible movement for a moment, and she wondered what he was doing. Then she heard a sigh, and knew he was going around to his side of the bed. The mattress depressed as he sat on it and he slipped his legs under the duvet before sliding down. Lottie could tell he was trying not to wake her – maybe he was as reluctant as she to start a conversation – and she allowed herself to go floppy, concentrating on her breathing.

  He shuffled gently for a while, plumping his pillow, shifting until he found a comfortable position, and she speculated whether he could tell she was awake but was happy to go along with the charade. Eventually, though, she felt him twitch as sleep took hold, and she let out a long, slow breath and turned onto her back to stare at the ceiling. His breathing deepened and she wondered if he was faking it too, then decided he wasn’t as he let out a little snort.

  Lottie turned again, this time towards him and tried to study her husband in the darkness, wishing she knew what was going through his head. There was a time when she could read him as well as she read Morgan, and she tried to work out when he had become such a closed book.

  As she lay there, listening to Henry sleep, something niggled at her. Lottie frowned, and she raised herself onto her elbow. What was it…?

  It took her a while to figure it out, but when she did, her frown deepened further. Underneath the tang of toothpaste, she should be able to smell the sourness of second-hand alcohol.

  It was disturbingly absent. If he’d been to the pub, he must have had soft drinks.

  If he’d been to the pub.

  Carefully, so as not to wake him, she eased herself out of bed and crept towards the door, opening it only wide enough for her to slip through. The landing light always remained on as Morgan refused to go to bed unless it was, but Henry didn’t stir at the momentary brightness flooding the room. He was so used to her having to get up in the night to see to one or other of the kids that it didn’t register with him. It never did. She was the one who always dealt with the nightmares, the requests for the toilet, the fevers, the thirst… And sometimes it got her down that Henry didn’t have to.

  That said, she couldn’t blame him, because when Sabrina was born they’d agreed that Lottie would stay at home and do the lion’s share of the childcare. She understood how hard it was for him to be out on the road all day after having night after night of broken sleep. It was dangerous and unsustainable, so it was only right she saw to the children at night. But now and again it would be nice to have him get up, and let her sleep.

  Going into the bathroom, Lottie found Henry’s clothes piled on the floor as she’d expected. Wondering if she was being silly and admitting that she was, she picked up the sweatshirt he’d been wearing and sniffed it.

  The Busy Bumble, like most pubs she’d been in, had a certain aroma – stale beer, cooked food, the faint hint of smoke from those people clustered outside the front door having a cigarette…

  Henry’s sweatshirt smelt of the sea, of cold winter air and the outdoors.

  She sniffed again, working the fabric across her face, not quite sure what she was trying to find. Some hint of where he’d been? Because as sure as God made little green apples, she didn’t for one moment think he’d been to the pub.

  Picking up his jeans, her hand delved into the pockets, but she found nothing more than a handful of loose change. She was about to let the jeans fall to the floor – he could pick up his own clothes – when she noticed something odd: there were grass and mud stains on the backside.

  She knew they had been clean on today. She’d only ironed them yesterday and he’d been wearing old joggers this morning to go to the beach, so he must have changed into them when he’d come home. Which begged the question, where had he gone this evening to get muck all over his backside?

  Lottie crept downstairs, her curiosity well and truly piqued.

  Not quite knowing what she was searching for, she examined his jacket, the one he always wore, but there was nothing in the pockets except for a memory stick in the inside one. She took it out and looked at it thoughtfully, turning it over in her fingers. It probably held work stuff, which didn’t interest her in the slightest.

  Next, she checked his wallet, all the while thinking that she couldn’t believe she was doing something like this. But now she’d started rifling through his things, she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for, although a little niggle in the back of her mind argued she knew exactly what she was searching for and praying with all her heart she wouldn’t find it. Apart from a couple of ten-pound notes, a receipt from a petrol station dated a few days ago, his bank card and a library card (when did he get one of those?), there was nothing of interest.

  Never in a million years did she think she’d be the kind of woman who didn’t trust her husband; she never thought she’d have to be.

  Lottie, aghast at what she’d just done, went back to bed, telling herself she hadn’t found anything because there wasn’t anything to find. She knew she was being paranoid; but despite arguing that she was being silly, her gut feeling continued to tell her something was wrong. And she intended to find out what.

  Just because she hadn’t discovered any evidence he was having an affair, didn’t mean he wasn’t. It just meant she hadn’t looked hard enough.

  There was something else that niggled at her, too – if he was seeing another woman, who the hell could it be?

  It wouldn’t be anyone who lived in Applewell: keeping a secret in a small village such as the one they lived in was nigh on impossible. Therefore it must be someone at work. Or someone he’d met through work, considering head office was a fair drive away. A farmer, maybe? Or how about someone who owned a stables?

  Once the thought had lodged in her head, she was unable to shift it. Did it explain why he was so late home recently? Was he playing around?

  Did she want to know? Or could she turn a blind eye and allow life to go on as normal?

  Lottie’s heart filled with dread and her stomach with knots, and it was a long time before she finally drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 9

  Lottie

  Lottie stabbed her brush into the pot of paint with barely controlled venom. She wasn’t quite imagining her husband’s cold, black heart as being the recipient of her paintbrush attack, but she wasn’t far off it. He’d said hardly a word to her all day yesterday, although he had played a game of tag with the kids in the garden, so his relationship with his children seemed to have been repaired.

  She said seemed, because every so often she’d catch Sabrina watching her and Henry with a wary expression in her eyes. Their daughter hadn’t forgotten the little contretemps on Saturday evening, although the boys seemed to have. The four years between their eldest and their middle child made all the difference. Sabrina had always been far more observant than Robin, and that didn’t help either.

  Although Lottie had tried her best to appear normal, Henry wasn’t making it easy. Yesterday morning when she’d asked him, ‘How was the Busy Bumble?’ his brusque reply of, ‘All right, I suppose,’ hadn’t done anything to allay her suspicion that he hadn’t gone to the pub at all.

  ‘Damn it!’ Now look what he’d made her do! Instead of concentrating on the job in hand, she’d been so busy being annoyed at Henry that she’d overloaded the brush and had dripped white paint over the blue paint.

  Cursing soundly – under her breath, because she never said words like that aloud in case the children were in earshot – Lottie dabbed off what she could, throwing the used rag into a bag. She’d rinse it under the outside tap later, when she washed the brush.

  The boat-bed was looking pretty good, even if she said so herself. Henry still hadn’t been out to the shed to look at it, which upset her a little. She would have thought he’d display
some interest, considering he was the one who’d found the boat in the first place. If the shoe had been on the other foot, she’d have been demanding daily updates. The whole thing only served to highlight the growing distance between them.

  Lottie checked the time. ‘For fu—four fat snakes,’ she amended. Grabbing her phone with paint-smeared fingers, she found Delia’s number. ‘Hi, it’s me, Lottie. You wouldn’t do me a huge favour, would you, and pick Morgan up from nursery? I’m running late. I can meet you at the corner.’

  ‘No need, I’ll drop him round to yours.’

  ‘Would you? That’s so kind. How about if you and Tyrone stay for a spot of lunch?’

  Delia was more than happy to, and Lottie made a quick phone call to the school to let them know Delia would collect Morgan. Once that was done, she hastily cleaned up after herself and changed out of her overalls. She’d picked them up in UnderCover one day last week, and they were a godsend, allowing her to peel them off in a matter of seconds and reveal clean, non-paint-spattered clothes underneath.

  Lottie was in the kitchen when she heard Delia’s ‘Coo-ee!’ as she knocked and came straight in, Morgan and Tyrone racing ahead and hurtling into the kitchen, bringing with them a blast of chilly air. The temperature was steadily dropping and Lottie was thankful she had a heater in the shed, otherwise she’d never be able to work in there over the winter. Although, it was a wonder Henry hadn’t whinged about the amount of electricity she was using.

  Lottie braced for impact as her son barrelled into her, and she dropped into a crouch to accept his enthusiastic kisses, in between his almost incoherent reports of what he’d done in nursery that morning.

  When he ran out of steam, she straightened up, stroked his hair, gave Tyrone a hug, and kissed Delia on the cheek. ‘Thank you so much for fetching him for me – I owe you, big time.’