by Carrie Adams
“What’s happened?” asked Billie, following me down the hall. I reached into the fridge, opened a cupboard, pulled out a glass, and poured. I was slurping at it as I offered some to Billie.
“It’s three in the afternoon,” she said, shaking her head.
“This day is never ending,” I moaned. “I’ve been up for hours. Where’s Cora?”
“At a party. She has about three a week. Sit down. Breathe.”
“I can’t. I’ve only got an hour. I said I had to go to the bank.”
“The banks are shut, Tessa.”
“Shit!”
“What happened?”
“Well, it was weird being there with them in the bedroom and then James buggered off with Amber, I made lunch—no one said thank you…”
Billie was suppressing a smile.
“What?”
“Nothing. Go on. It sounds terrible.”
Her sarcasm took the wind out of my sails. I sat down. “It wasn’t really that. I don’t mind a bit of housework, but…Oh, I don’t know. They talk about Bea all the time. Amber brought out the photo album, which was sweet.”
My old flatmate sat down opposite. “Go on.”
“She’s Superwoman. Beautiful too.”
“All mothers are superwomen. And you will be too. But we learn on the hoof. It just doesn’t look that way to the uninitiated.”
“No, but she’s Super-superwoman.”
Billie opened her mouth to protest.
“I mean it. Vegetable patch, bakes banana soufflés, makes life-size leatherback turtles for class projects. She can probably tap dance while singing the national anthem backward.”
“Did you ever see my papier-mâché head of Nelson Mandela?”
I frowned.
“Never mind. Go on…”
“And then I was putting on some washing for the week and James just dumped a whole load of uniforms on me.” I waited for her shock and awe.
“And?”
“I’d been cooking, cleaning up, and entertaining them all day. Washing too? Is that my job?”
“You were doing some anyway,” she said, dismissing my complaint with a shrug. “And yes, frankly, it is your job. If you’re really intending to do this.”
“James never usually does it.”
“Any of it?”
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s brilliant with them but, well, he got stuck on the phone. There was nothing he could do.” I couldn’t hold Billie’s gaze. “We’re still at the sniffing-bottoms stage. I needed him.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“I would have thought it was obvious.”
Billie pulled a face.
“I had to come up for air. I told him I had to go to the bank and came here.”
I watched Billie scrape back her ridiculously long black hair and knot it. It was shot through with gray now, and I was struck by how quickly the last decades had passed. Here I was, though, still sitting on her sofa discussing men. “It might be nice for Bea not to have a bag of laundry dumped on her on Sunday night,” she said.
“But—”
“If Bea is Superwoman, then you need to be Superwoman. Get her on-side. Do the ironing. If she likes you, they’ll like you.”
“But she isn’t in the picture anymore. She left James.”
“Tessa, don’t be thick. You have her children. The only difference about the picture now is you’re in it.”
I sat back against the sofa. Maybe Billie had been the wrong person to come to. With a failed marriage and an estranged ex, she carried too much of her own baggage to be impartial.
“I’m not being unsympathetic, Tessa, really, but with all due respect, you’re the least important person in this equation. If you want to be with James you have to make the girls your priority. They didn’t ask you to date their father. This has been foisted upon them. If Bea can see you’re putting their interests before your own, she might be okay about some other woman tucking her children in at night.”
“But you said I have to get her on-side first.”
“That’s how. Send the girls back happy.”
“That’s not going to be easy. I compare unfavorably. I can only make chocolate crispies and the girls told me they’d moved on from those in year one.”
Billie bit her lip.
“What?” I asked again.
Billie held up a hand. “You know, that’s probably no bad thing. Don’t emulate her. Worse, whatever you do don’t try to beat her. Be Tessa. Find your own thing.”
“Share with them my encyclopedic knowledge of tort?”
“Music, Tessa. Freebies. Spoil them. Hannah Montana tickets and the like.”
“Doesn’t that look a bit desperate?”
“You do it for Cora.”
“I love her. It’s easy.”
“Then fake it,” said Billie, “till you feel it.”
I stared at her. What if I can’t feel it? But I was too scared of the answer to ask the question, so I nodded.
When I got back, James and his girls were ensconced on the sofa watching Strictly Come Dancing. I didn’t want to sit on the floor or boot James out and take his place. Anyway, I had some washing, cooking, and ironing to do. A fine fairy-tale role reversal. The wicked stepmother banished to the hearth. I stopped myself. I wasn’t a stepmother yet. I wondered if I would ever become one and realized, as I thought this, that I wanted to. Desperately. I wanted to get this right. I didn’t want to be sitting on Billie’s sofa in another twenty years’ time having the same conversation. I put the first load of shirts in and started preparing the supper I had bought on the way back.
When everything was ready, I called James and the girls into the warm kitchen and watched happily as they tucked into the sizzling chicken fajitas with red peppers and sour cream. I could say one thing for those girls: they ate. At least I didn’t have to worry about any bird appetites pecking around me. I rolled myself a fajita. This was just a period of adjustment. It was bound to be a bit bumpy. All would be well. I was feeling more rational about the whole thing. Billie was right: put the girls first and the rest would fall into place.
They got into their pajamas and I started to look forward to an evening alone with James, but then came the grim realization that on weekends Amber was not banished to her room to read but allowed to stay up and watch telly. I didn’t want to watch cheap reality television, but I was unable to complain, afraid I might say something that could later be used against me by a precocious fourteen-year-old in a crooked court of her imagination. I retreated to the kitchen again and took up my place at the ironing board. Maybe rational was a fraction premature.
James walked in. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, but didn’t stop me.
“It’s almost done.”
James put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Thank you for being such a trouper. Why don’t we go around the corner and I’ll buy you a drink?”
My eyes lit up. But it was a flash in the pan. “What about the girls?”
“Amber’s here. She wants to watch some crappy girly film anyway. We’d only be an hour or so. She has my number.”
“Is that allowed?”
James laughed. “This isn’t boarding school.”
“I mean, is it okay with Bea?”
“We do it all the time. I usually have to pop out for something—collect pizza, pick up some beer. It’s fine.”
Alarm bells were ringing. But my thirst was ever thus…
Being out of the house, arm in arm with him and him alone, eased the tension that had built up in me over the day. It was only a four-minute walk to the pub on the corner, but I felt relief wash over me as we pushed open the door. James brought me a large vodka and tonic and sat down. I drank a sizable amount before I remembered to thank him. “Sorry. Thank you and cheers.”
He raised his pint. “You okay?”
I stared at him. Yes, I believed in honesty, but we had wandered into new territory and I wasn’t sure how to
continue.
“It’s okay to find this difficult, you know, Tessa. I find it hard spending the day with my nephew, and I have children.”
“I could certainly survive life without another game of Guess Who?”
“Lulu can sniff out fresh blood like a great white shark,” he said, taking a swig of his beer.
“You could have given me a heads-up.”
He shook his head. “Are you mad? I got to read the whole of the sports section.”
I opened my mouth to respond.
“Tessa, I’m joking. I didn’t even buy a paper.”
“Not funny.”
“The therapeutic effects of ironing didn’t help, then?”
I swallowed my response with vodka.
“I find it works better if I smack it against my head,” said James.
“I’d happily do that for you.”
He was watching me with a wry smile. “That isn’t your sense of humor returning?”
“No chance. It’s been eroded by Guess Who?”
“I’d better get you another drink. I’ll hope by the fourth round you’ll forget all about my demanding children and love me again.”
I drained my glass. “You’re in luck. I’m a sucker for punishment.” I handed it back to him empty. “It only took one.”
He held up four fingers. “It was a quadruple.”
So that was the sudden warmth spreading through my solar plexus. “You know me well.”
“I know my children.” He started toward the bar. I called his name and he turned. “I’ll get better at this,” I said. “I promise.”
“You don’t have to get better at anything. The girls adore you already.”
I shook my head.
“They do, Tessa.”
I couldn’t hide the fear in my eyes.
“What?” he asked, watching me.
I swallowed. “They talk about their mum a lot.”
James returned to the table, put his hands on it, and bent down. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s my fault. I never wanted them to think they couldn’t, that it was taboo, that our divorce was their fault. I engineered it that way. I’m sorry. Please try not to take it personally.”
I tried to appear reassured but inside I was wondering, Is that possible? Everything I said, did, ate, wore, how I drove, when I slept, was going to be judged by children who belonged, in essence, to my boyfriend’s ex-wife. It couldn’t get more personal than this. “I’ll try,” I said.
He straightened. “And, Tessa, I don’t blame you for needing to go to the bank at three-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, and it’s okay with me if you have to go to the bank every Saturday afternoon.” He paused. “Or Sunday. Just while you acclimate.”
I took his hand and kissed it. “How long will that take?”
He held on to my hand. “Forever, I hope.”
WHEN WE GOT HOME, ALL the lights were on, and I knew immediately that something was wrong. We’d stayed longer than we’d intended, because we were having such a lovely time. James refused to admit his anxiety, but his jaw was tight as he strode up the garden path, kicking up gravel. I trotted behind him, nervous and unsure. We found the girls huddled in our room. James’s room. Rapid-fire questions told us that Lulu had been sick and Bea was on her way to collect them.
James was devastated and distraught. He scooped Lulu into his lap. “How are you feeling now?” he asked.
“If you’ve bumped your head and you’re sick, it’s very dangerous,” said Amber.
“Why didn’t you call me?” James asked.
“I did. Seven times. You didn’t answer.”
The phone had been on the table in front of us the whole time. I had insisted. “It never rang,” I said.
She shot me a look. “I must have misdialed,” she retorted.
“Seven times?”
“I pressed redial. I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.
“When were you sick? Have you been sick again?” asked James, placing his hand on Lulu’s forehead.
“I was sick in my tummy.”
“How do you feel now?” he asked.
“Hang on, Lulu, have you been sick?” I asked.
“I thought I was going to be,” she said. Apologetically.
“If you bump your head—”
“Yes, Amber, we heard you the first time. Pass me the phone, please.”
James dialed Bea’s mobile number. “Hi, Bea—”
I don’t know what she said but she cut him off.
“Hang on, hang on,” he pleaded. “She didn’t throw up. She just feels a bit sick—” She cut him off again. “She couldn’t have choked, we were only around the cor—” Bea was shouting. Very loudly now. “You’re right, it won’t happen again. Sorry.” I watched Amber intently. She was staring at her father.
Maddy was yawning, so I took her hand and escorted her back to bed. “Is Mummy coming?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Lulu’s fine.”
“I told her not to eat the rice pudding.”
“What rice pudding?”
“The tin Amber gave us. It’s very sweet. I don’t like it. Lulu does, though. I think she ate the whole lot.” Maddy pointed to an upturned tin under the bed opposite, the discarded spoon welded to the carpet.
I picked it up. “You shouldn’t leave food under the bed.”
“Mummy does,” said Maddy.
“I very much doubt it.” I lifted the sticky tin off the floor.
“Don’t say I told. Midnight feasts are supposed to be secret.”
“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. Now cuddle in, little one.”
“Nigh’-nigh’, Tessa.” She curled up, stuck her thumb into her mouth, gathered the sheet in her fist, and fell asleep.
As I shut the door, James walked down the corridor, his arm around Amber. I put the tin behind my back. “Bea’s not coming,” he said. “False alarm.”
False, certainly. I walked past them without saying anything. I didn’t dare. The effects of the vodka had passed the rosy stage and moved into the black. In our bed, Lulu had fallen asleep. I turned off the light and went to the window to draw the curtains. Outside on the pavement, I watched a couple weave up the street laughing and kissing. That had been us a few moments ago. Opposite, a lone woman was standing by a nondescript car. She appeared to be staring straight up at me. I could tell from the way her large, round shoulders were shuddering that she was crying. Was that Bea? Perhaps she saw me move closer for a better look, because suddenly she lunged for the car door and climbed inside. Briefly, the interior light illuminated her face. I sighed with relief. The sad fat lady was nothing like Bea.
ON SUNDAY MORNING, I’M ASHAMED to say, I woke up in my studio on the river, with a man beating hard on his warning drums in my head. But I wasn’t taking heed. I couldn’t go around to Billie’s again, so I turned up at Al and Claudia’s house. Claudia, Al, and I have been friends since secondary school, and they therefore had no choice but to let me in. I’m sure they’d have preferred to remain in bed with each other and the papers, but it was an emergency. Because they had no children, I knew I’d get their undivided attention as well as the unconditional sympathy I was looking for. I kept forgetting we were a bit long in the tooth for that.
“So, then what happened?”
“Let’s put it like this. It didn’t end well,” I said.
“That is self-evident, Tessa, since you’re sitting in our flat bitching about James and the girls when you should be with them,” said Al.
“I’m not bitching.”
Claudia picked at a croissant. “Maybe she really was scared. Amber’s only fourteen. You left her with quite a big responsibility.” Claudia was genetically programmed to see the best in people.
“The girls were asleep. We were at the end of the road.”
“But they weren’t asleep.”
“Because Amber woke them up!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Claudia
, whose side are you on?”
“Yours, of course. Which is why I don’t think you should blow this out of proportion. She panicked when her sister felt ill and called her mum. It’s what kids do. She probably didn’t even try James’s number.”
“It was plastered all over the fridge.”
“Exactly. She was embarrassed because she’d forgotten what she was supposed to do. Then it was too late to back out, so she exaggerated Lulu’s illness and, to give credence to her story, mentioned how Lulu had banged her head. Otherwise she’d look foolish—worse, childish. And no fourteen-year-old wants that.”
I opened and closed my mouth, like a goldfish. I could just about see the logic in it. Then I recalled Amber’s beautiful face huddled in the crook of my boyfriend’s arm and shook my head. “She’s out to get me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s fourteen.”
“Going on…well, fifteen, which is bad enough, these days.”
“Now who’s being childish?” said Al.
Claudia put a restraining hand on her husband’s leg. “Tessa has a right to be upset.”
“No, she hasn’t. They went to the pub. Why couldn’t they have stayed at home and had a drink? She drank too much, then when it all calmed down she decided to have more to drink and tell James everything that was wrong with his parenting skills.”
“He spent nearly an hour ‘settling’ her.” I mimed the quotation marks, still furious a fourteen-year-old required so much “settling.” “It wasn’t like that.”
“I’m sure he didn’t feel as if you were lecturing him when you told him he indulged his daughter.”
“All I said was he couldn’t see what was in front of his eyes.” To be honest, I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said. Al was right. The half-bottle of wine had not improved my mood or my memory.
“You spent a few hours with him and his children, then decided in your arrogance that you could do it better. No wonder he let you leave.”
“Al!”
“Personally, I think you’ve both been stupid about this,” he said, un-abashed. “You were a secret until a couple of weeks ago and now, suddenly, you’re moving in! Amber may have it in for you and she’d be entitled to, frankly, but she probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Who are you? She doesn’t know you. You should have given her a lot longer than this to get to know you. How would you feel if you walked into your father’s room and there was some random bird in it, wearing his T-shirt, being called ‘darling’?”