by Carrie Adams
“Saying anything to you publicly, in front of his children, is a slight to their mother. I’m sure he’s just trying to preserve their feelings.”
“What about mine?”
“Tess—”
“I know, I know. The girls come first. I’m the grown-up.”
“Now you know why I’ve never wanted children. James is just doing what he has to do, and I take my hat off to him.”
“But they’re his children. It’s easy for him.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Tess. My colleagues with kids come into work on Monday morning and they look”—he scrolled through his extensive vocabulary—“beaten. One at a time, they admit to looking forward to coming back to work to get some breathing space. Biological ties or not, children sap the living daylights out of you.”
“So I’m not the wicked stepmother?”
“No. And I bet even Super-Bea dreads the school holidays.”
“Not the mistress of arts and crafts, the queen of the cupcakes—”
“Every woman I know who has children has been reduced to tears by their offspring. I make a point of asking them, so I can remind myself on those rare occasions I get drunk and broody.”
“What do you mean rare? You get drunk all the time.”
“I said drunk and broody.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I lie awake at night taunting myself with images of a fire starting in the kitchen and then, like a computer-game, test who James would save first.”
“But, Tess, if Bea was lying next to him, he’d still run to save the girls first. That’s the price you pay when you become a parent. It’s a high price, I’ve no doubt.” He shrugged, making my head bounce. “Isn’t that why their marriage failed in the first place?”
I straightened up. I had no real answer to that question. It was my turn to shrug.
“Find out. If you understand it, you won’t fear it so much, and that wedding video won’t haunt you anymore.”
“How can I, if James won’t tell me anything?”
“He wouldn’t. He’s a decent man. And he loves you in all the right ways, which is the only reason I’m allowing you to marry him.”
“Sasha must sleep well at night, knowing you’d carry her out of a burning building.”
“Sasha?” Ben pulled a face. “No way. She’d be carrying me.”
I heard a noise behind us and turned to see a cold, wet, miserable Caspar. “Caspar! What is it? What’s happened?”
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“You’re soaking!”
“I need your help,” he said. “It’s Amber.”
Wasn’t I allowed to enjoy these warm, happy feelings a little while longer? “What happened between you two?”
He frowned. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Really? Then why isn’t she wearing her dress and why aren’t you doing your song?”
“She’s not up to it.”
“Why not?”
“She just isn’t.”
But why not? Because you got carried away. “If you think I can help, you’re wrong. Amber doesn’t really like me; I don’t think I’m your best advocate here.”
“I don’t need an advocate. I need you to help me get her off the fire escape before she freezes to death and get her back to yours without Mr. Kent seeing her.”
“Too late. He already knows.”
“About what?”
“About the…” I looked at my godson. “Fight.”
“We didn’t have a fight. Oh, forget it, I’m getting Mum. I’m sorry I disturbed your tête-à-tête.”
“It wasn’t a tête-à-tête,” I said.
“Where is she?” asked Ben.
Caspar hesitated.
“Where is she?”
He pointed to the corner of the roof terrace where a door was marked FIRE EXIT.
Ben set off at a run.
I’D THOUGHT HE WAS BEING a bit dramatic until I saw her. Huddled on the wrought-iron steps, Amber was wet, cold, and looked brittle enough to break. Her mascara was halfway down her face and her hair stuck to her thin arms and bony back. I temporarily forgot my fury.
“What’s she doing here?” she spat.
“I couldn’t find Mum,” said Caspar apologetically. “She can help. She really can.”
Amber put her head on her knees. Great. I wasn’t even their first choice. There was an open champagne bottle on the step next to her.
“Is she drunk?” I whispered to Caspar.
“It’s not that.”
“Is she drunk? I’m getting a little fed up with all this teenage melodrama.”
“Go easy, Tess,” Ben whispered.
“Tessa, I’m telling you, it’s not that—” I brushed Caspar aside, knelt down, and placed Ben’s jacket over the girl’s shoulders. “What happened, Amber?”
She buried her face in her knees.
“What happened to your dress?”
“Tessa, don’t—”
I turned to Caspar. “She told her father you’d ripped it. That’s a serious accusation. Did you?”
He looked as if I’d thrown a javelin through his heart. Of course he hadn’t. Amber started shaking. I thought for a moment she was laughing. I pulled her around to face me. She wasn’t laughing. It scared me. “Do you want me to get James?”
She shook her head vehemently.
“Oh, my God, Amber, you’re not preg—”
“Jesus, Tessa, she’s fourteen!”
I looked at Caspar. “Hey, I saw you in the hydrangea. You’re just as bad, so don’t fourteen-year-old me.”
“Tessa, that was just a joke to wind you up. We knew you were spying on us from the kitchen. What do you take me for? We’d only just met!”
“Please,” I said incredulously.
“Amber said that’s what you’d expect of her. I didn’t believe her, but she was right.”
“Amber the slut. You going to rip my dress too?”
Ben and I were momentarily too startled to talk. We both stared at Amber, who promptly put her head back between her knees and hugged her legs. Her body heaved and I thought she was going to throw up. I stepped back. I’d had a teenager fill my shoes before with vomit and didn’t want to repeat the experience. But she sobbed instead.
“Amber, I wasn’t calling you a slut—”
Caspar reached down and grabbed her arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. She looked at him with such gratitude that I was suddenly uncertain. He lifted her into his arms, like a hero in the movies. He knocked over the champagne bottle in the process. It was empty. So she was drunk.
“I’m sorry, Caspar,” she said into his ear. “I couldn’t, I just couldn’t…”
“It’s all right. I understand,” he replied gently.
Couldn’t what? Go through with it? Lose her virginity? Tell her father the truth? I could see alcohol and exhaustion steal the last of Amber’s fight. She buried her head in Caspar’s neck and closed her eyes. He carried her up the steps and through the fire-exit door.
I knew one thing: I couldn’t let Caspar take Amber anywhere in that state without risking the end of my short engagement. “I’ll take them home,” said Ben, reading my thoughts.
“I’ll come with you.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Stay here, enjoy your party. Dance with your fabulous fiancé. We’ll get her home to yours, don’t worry.”
But I was worried, and my feet were hurting, and I wasn’t sure I had another dance in me. “Can’t I just come home with you?” I said quietly.
Ben kissed my forehead. “Not in this lifetime, my friend.”
BEN AND I MADE SURE the coast was clear, and got Caspar and his now-sleeping prize down to the street, hidden under my coat. Ben belted Amber into the back of the cab. I grabbed Caspar’s arm. “You promise me you didn’t get a bit carried away and tear the dress—I would understand. Sometimes things can hap
pen more quickly than you want them to—”
“I’d swear on my life, Tessa, but I don’t know if that would make a difference right now.”
“Of course it would. But if it wasn’t you, then who did rip her dress?”
“And call her a slut,” said Caspar, with pained bemusement.
“Who would do that, Caspar?” I waited.
“You swear you won’t tell?”
“Caspar!”
He took a deep breath. “I think it was Mrs. Kent.”
“What? You think?”
“I know it sounds far-fetched—”
“It’s ridiculous. Amber didn’t even see Bea this evening. She was at…” My voice trailed off.
“She went home to get the words for the song. She didn’t tell you because it was a surprise. I’m telling you, something happened between Amber and her mother.”
“No, Caspar. Sorry. She’s spinning you a line.”
Caspar grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way of a weaving gaggle of girls.
“She hasn’t told me anything. She wouldn’t. She loves her mother too much.”
“So what gives you the idea that—”
Caspar interrupted me. “The other day when she left your flat after the video thing, she came to my house and stayed the night. A friend of hers rang up and pretended to be Bea. Mum believed us.”
“I don’t want to know—”
“She told me her mother was out, and she didn’t want to be alone. I believed her. She obviously didn’t feel very welcome at yours.”
I ignored his pointed comment.
“The next day I was at her house and heard Amber tell her mother she’d come home the previous evening, but because Mrs. Kent was asleep on the sofa, Amber just went to bed. Well, obviously I knew that wasn’t true. She’d been at our house. Mrs. Kent was in all along.”
“So we know Amber doesn’t have a problem telling a lie.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It should be,” I said, getting angry.
“Hello, lovely,” leered some paralytic imbecile in a suit. “Wanna drink?”
“No, thanks,” I replied. He looked as though he was going to be a pest, but Caspar put his arm around me.
“Tessa, think about it. Mrs. Kent didn’t know whether Amber had come home or not.”
The drunk sidestepped away.
“That’s just not possible.”
“Unless?”
I put my hands on my hips. “What are you saying?”
“She was too drunk to remember.”
Ben put his head out of the taxi. “Come on, stop gassing! They’re missing me on the dance floor. By the way, what’s the babysitter called?”
Continuing to watch Caspar for signs of deceit, I replied, “Magda. The girls went home ages ago. I’ll phone and let her know you’re coming.”
“I can stay with Amber,” said Caspar.
“No.”
“I’ll drop him home and come back,” said Ben.
Caspar looked at me. “You still think I did it?”
I didn’t know what to think. “James wouldn’t like it. I’m trying to protect you.” He opened his mouth to protest. “Listen to me, Amber told him you did it, so go with me on this one.”
He nodded forlornly.
I watched him pull the door behind him and carefully place Amber’s head on his shoulder. I was baffled. Was this just a pubescent drunken drama or something I really had to worry about? I mean, Bea drunk was one thing, she was entitled on her night off, but ripping Amber’s dress, calling her a slut, not knowing if she was home? No way. Not the Bea I’d been told about. That was as unlikely as, well, Caspar forcing himself on Amber.
Ben leaned out of the window as the taxi pulled off. “Ah, young love…Remember that?”
They did a U-turn and were gone. “Like it was yesterday,” I replied, and walked back into my engagement party.
I FOUND JAMES AND TOLD him Ben had taken Amber home. Before he could start quizzing me, we were joined by my parents.
“Darling, there you are. We’re off, I think. I’m all danced out,” said Dad.
“What a swell party it was, Tessa,” sang my mother. “Dad and Peter are going fishing together. In Scotland!”
“What? Dad?”
“You know my motto—never too late to try something new,” he said. A motto he lived by. I can’t remember if it was two or three degrees he’d acquired since retiring. You rarely saw him without a book in his hand. At eighty-four, he was going to take up fishing. He was an inspiration.
I smiled, comforted by the familiarity of my family. “You amaze me,” I said. “When are you going?”
“Couple of weeks’ time, for five days on the Isle of Skye. Never been.”
I immediately looked at my mother. “I’ll be fine,” she said sternly. “Do you go, Honor, on this fishing malarkey?” Honor had approached our gathering.
“Lord, no. I’m going on a retreat, actually.”
“Right, let me get you a taxi,” said James.
Honor turned back to my mother. “I go to a naturist reserve and get back to basics.”
“How wonderful. I love camping,” said Dad, who was a little hard of hearing.
I clamped my jaw shut. Naturist? My God, is no one what they seem?
“Any animals?” asked my father.
My mother smiled at Honor. “Plenty, I should imagine.”
“They’re pretty tame and tend to keep to themselves.”
“Sounds lovely,” said my mother.
“Well, you could always join me. Good for the soul to try something new.”
“That’s what I say,” observed Dad happily.
“Let me sleep on it. I’ll call you.”
My God, they’d exchanged numbers. Our four parents, still together after an aggregate of nearly a hundred years of marriage, left together. It gave me hope. Dad was right. Hope was what we all needed. James and I went down in the lift with them to the street and waved them off.
“You didn’t tell me your mother likes to dance around naked.”
“I’m told it’s more sedate than that.”
“Anything else you’re not telling me?” I asked, watching him.
“Like?”
“I don’t know…That your ex-wife likes a drink?”
“Bea!” He laughed. “A drinker!” He laughed again. “She was a party girl in her time but now retired. Ever tried looking after children on a hangover?”
I shook my head.
“Impossible.”
But what if you didn’t have to look after the children all the time? What if you had Every Other Weekend off? What if you came out of retirement, then found it hard to go back? No. I dismissed the thoughts. Something else was going on. Something I couldn’t see. We were back at the entrance to the club. James put out his hand to open the door. Suddenly, I grabbed it.
“Can we go?” I said urgently.
“You sure?”
“Very.”
“Home it is, then,” said James.
But I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to be alone with James. “I was thinking maybe that all-night kebab shop we found.”
“That’s what I like—a girl with brains and a good appetite.”
“You don’t by any chance have some sneakers on you?”
He patted his pockets. “Feet hurting?” I nodded. “I think I can sort something out, Ms. King.” Then, with no warning, he lifted me off the ground, like a hero in the movies, and swept me up into his arms. “Let’s not say good-bye to anyone.”
“No,” I replied, resting my head on his chest. “Let’s not.”
Thirteen
Sophie Guest
BY THE TIME I WAS AWAKE, JAMES HAD TAKEN THE GIRLS BACK TO Bea’s, picked up breakfast, and returned home. There was no point in bringing up the subject of the blue dress—if I did, I risked boxing myself into the corner I’d been pushed into the night before. To ease my moral dilemma, I had given my word to Cas
par that I wouldn’t say anything, but I knew I was using that oath as a shield. Asking James to believe Caspar’s side of the story was asking him to admit his daughter had lied and his ex-wife drank. That a sex-crazed teenager had tried to have his way with his daughter and was heroically defeated, was easier to accept. But the sex-crazed teenager was Caspar, and I didn’t think him capable of it. Then again, who knew what a rampant male virgin was capable of? But if Caspar had done what Amber had told James he had, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to be swept up in his arms—would she? Then again…It was no good. I was going around and around in circles and was none the wiser.
I understood why I hadn’t mentioned it, but what I was less clear about was why he hadn’t brought it up with me. Was each of us hiding something from the other? Was that how it all began? Did protecting the individual mean damaging the couple? If only, I thought for the hundredth time, I could pick up the phone and call Bea, we could sort it out in moments. But that wasn’t going to happen.
MARCH CREPT ON TOWARD EASTER, and I saw the girls only a couple of times. Amber started attending an after-school drama club on Wednesdays, so I saw even less of her. I felt she was avoiding me, but I kept my suspicions to myself. I heard from Fran that Amber was a regular visitor to her house, but no one mentioned Caspar’s name, so I didn’t either. I missed one weekend with them all, because I went to stay with my godsons in Norwich. It was their second birthday. Their mother was my friend Helen, who had died when they were very small, so I had to go.
When I did see the girls, it was all very polite and well mannered, which made me more nervous. Amber was perfectly nice but strangely absent. Every time I tried to get close, I was politely rebuffed. Even the younger two seemed quieter, and I worried we were losing them, but when I brought up the subject, James dismissed it with the assurance that everything was simply getting back to mundane normality. But that felt too remote for my liking. I wanted to find a way through the polite barrier that had been erected. Then Fate showed me one.
I KNOCKED ON LINDA’S DOOR and opened it. She was barking into her headpiece but summoned me in with a clawed hand. She pointed to the coffee machine, then her mug. Linda drank way too much strong black coffee. She had so much caffeine in her system she hummed. Her foot tapped out a tattoo under the table. I poured some, sat down, and waited.