‘We’re going to be a proper commune. I can help when the baby comes: do some night feeds, if you want. Oh, it will be so exciting! Will the baby sleep in the spare room?’
I winced. No one went in there apart from Jacqui when she was pissed, and Woody before we had told the children about us. I only visited when absolutely necessary, still unable to face the piles of junk Sam had discarded when he left.
‘Maybe… You don’t think I’m mad?’
‘If anyone can do this, you can. I don’t think you’re mad for wanting to have a baby. It might be the best thing for Woody and for you. A fresh start.’ I tried to grasp onto that thought but as the weeks rolled past towards the scan date, doubt greedily ate away at it. Number one fact: I didn’t love Woody. I wondered if, when the baby came, I would magically fall for him like a heroine in a soppy film, finally arriving at a crashing conclusion that there was more to him than just his dashing physique, and appreciate that he was lovely and caring. But the reservations that held fast reared their heads soon after, right at Dara’s party.
‘Is it Woody?’ Jacqui persisted at the flat. ‘I know he’s being a bit… special.’
‘Special!’ I squawked. ‘He’s acting like a total dick. He’s forty-fucking-one and he’s behaving like this. He needs the fucking sunshine bus to take him away he’s being so special.’
Woody was strutting round the floor like a peacock on heat to the appalling chart music that was blasting out of the ancient boom box on the floor, unboxed CDs scattered like lotus flower offerings at the foot of Buddha. He was boisterously clapping his hands and trying to drag Dara’s polite friends from their sensible journalistic chats about commerce and business and babies.
‘Come on, this is supposed to be a party!’ he was crying insistently while sweating profusely and chewing his face off. This was the Woody of old. A switch had flipped in his head and it appeared he couldn’t flip it back.
‘What’s made him go all loopy?’ Jacqui asked innocently, tapping her ash into the windowsill.
‘Cocaine, I would imagine.’
‘He’s got some?’ She inhaled again, blowing the smoke away from me and out through the other open window.
‘I’m only assuming, but I have seen this many times. Him and Dara disappeared into one of the bathrooms earlier and came out all loud and weird. I think Ali has had a few lines, too.’
‘No one offered me any!’
‘I would get in there quick if you want some, or Woody will hoover it all up in no time.’
‘Nah, I’m not in the mood tonight. Wine is good enough for me today!’ I wished I could knock back a few large glasses of red. ‘I’ve never seen him go this mad before, though,’ Jacqui continued. ‘But then we are usually in the same state so I may be wrong.’
‘No, this is a different level. I think he may have double-dropped it with some ecstasy.’ I shook my head, bewildered that he could act so unfittingly at a party where we knew hardly anyone. The scales seemingly fell away from my eyes and instead of sexy Woody I noticed uneven teeth, some of them stained from continual smoking, and pasty skin perspiring profusely, drops working their way into the ratty hair, in need of a trim. There was also the frantic starey pupil-less eyes and too small T-shirt riding up, exposing a hairy bum crack. Some of Dara’s friends rolled their eyes and looked pityingly at me every time he unsuccessfully forced me to dance. I said nothing, there was no point because I felt he hadn’t done anything inherently wrong, he was just being himself. I felt naïvely hoodwinked into believing he’d grown up, or maybe it was me that was different: staid, sensible and having a gradual dawn of realisation that I was Doing The Wrong Thing. A phrase played in a loop in my head: Sam wouldn’t behave like this…
*
‘Do you want a cuppa?’ Jacqui asked, lying next to me in my bright airy bedroom the week before the scan, the mid-morning summer air wafting in through the gap at the bottom of the open window. Soothing birdsong bounced into the room but couldn’t lift my mood. I was having a really bad turn. Spinning head, bone-scraping exhaustion, a blackness within me that I could not shake and the inability to cope with the children. With closed eyes I Reikied my stomach to quell the roiling nausea. Thankfully Sonny was at nursery and Ali was going to pick him up for me this afternoon. The girls were at school. Jacqui and I were supposed to be shopping for a cheap dress for my fortieth birthday party this coming weekend, but I had to lie down. My book had ground to a halt some time ago, DJ-ing was also on pause until I felt a bit better. I wasn’t sure how the manager would feel about a middle-aged pregnant DJ spinning tunes to a mashed-up audience. It would either be viewed as achingly hip or massively uncool.
‘No, thanks. Maybe some water?’
Dara was taking Ali out for one last hurrah this evening before jetting off to Hong Kong for good.
‘Aren’t you sad?’ I’d asked her after the leaving party the previous week. ‘You do really like him, don’t you?’
‘Of course I’m sad, but I only see him once or twice a week. It’s not going to be a radical change.’
‘How has he left it?’
‘That he’s coming back over in August, and when he’s back we can plan when I’ll go out there.’
‘With Grace?’
‘Yes. I have to go before she turns two or I can’t afford it. I’ve saved up enough for a flight but he has said he would pay.’
Being so preoccupied with my own unfolding drama over the last month, I felt strangely disconnected from everyone else’s lives. On the surface, Ali seemed to be coping with her dad’s death OK, though I had no idea how, and Jacqui and her kids spent most of their time here when she wasn’t at work and they weren’t at school. ‘I wish I could move in. I just can’t bear that house. I wish I’d never bought it.’ Ali and I had repeatedly offered to help unpack the boxes that still remained untouched, but she flatly refused.
From my bed I could hear Ali upstairs on the phone; her presence in the house was always audible. As Jacqui returned with her tea and my water, fireworks detonated above.
‘Yes, Hattie, I fucked him. Twice! Once in the front seat and once in the back seat. Happy?’
‘Deary me, who’s Ali yelling at?’ Jacqui asked, setting her tea down on the bedside table. ‘The door’s shut and I can still hear every word.’
‘Hattie. Holy fuckflaps. She must have shagged Jim.’
‘What? She hates Jim!’
I revisited recent events and tallied them up against Ali’s uncharacteristic behaviour. She had been in Spain for a few weeks after the funeral without Dara and seemed peculiarly unbothered by his imminent departure. Also, Jim had recently moved into a house with Hattie very near to us. Once again Ali had seemed unruffled. I had wondered at the time if she was stock-piling fertiliser to make a bomb and blow them both up, which would explain her laissez-faire attitude.
‘It’s a thin line between love and hate.’
‘True.’ Jacqui nodded, putting her finger to her lips as a volley of words tumbled from above.
‘Ask Jim! No, I’m not with him. I’ve no idea where he is…. Do NOT come here! He’s not here!’
The attic door flung open and Ali stumbled into the wall on her way down the stairs.
‘Ali!’ Jacqui cried through the half-open door as she settled back on the bed next to me. The thudding footsteps ground to a halt and the door creaked open. Ali stood in the doorway but wouldn’t meet our eyes.
‘Oh bollocks, I thought you were both out dress shopping.’
‘I feel too shit. What’s going on?’
Ali grimaced and shame seemed to creep up from her yellow vest top, flaring across her cheeks, staining them red.
‘What did you hear?’
‘Everything,’ I replied bluntly.
‘Don’t shout at me… I’ve kind of been having a thing with Jim.’
‘What?!’ Jacqui yelped. ‘Why? How? When?’
Ali sighed and sunk down onto the edge of the bed, still avoiding eye contact.
/>
‘It’s been going on since Dad died.’
‘Wow. How have you kept that quiet? You weren’t even here for half of that time!’ I quizzed her.
‘Who started it?’ Jacqui wanted to know.
‘He did, obviously. He was here looking after Grace; he couldn’t believe that Dad had just gone so suddenly.’
‘But he was so rude to your parents the last time he saw them,’ I cried indignantly.
‘I know. He said he couldn’t believe a good man like my dad could just drop down dead when someone like his dad was still alive.’
‘I always knew he had daddy issues!’ I opined from the bed.
‘Anyway, after that he looked after Grace on and off so I could help arrange the funeral, and one day when we met him in a café he started talking about how he’d made a huge mistake, how he was missing out on Grace growing up. How he was missing me. I even got a text from his best friend’s wife telling me she was delighted Jim was thinking of getting back together with me.’
‘Fucker! Like you would just jump.’
Ali squirmed uncomfortably.
‘You would have just jumped, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, don’t tell me if Sam came crawling back now and begged, you wouldn’t say yes.’
‘You’re forgetting I can’t say yes. I’m having another man’s baby.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know what you meant. I have thought about it. It has gone too far now. I don’t know who Sam is any more. It doesn’t mean I don’t have days when I wish none of this had ever happened, but it is what it is. I can’t change it.’ Oh, but how I wished I could…
‘How did Hattie find out?’ Jacqui urged, changing tack.
‘She saw a text from Jim to me saying he missed me. But she’s suspected before and never rang me.’
‘Where’s Jim now? Is she coming here to have a fight?’
‘He’s got Grace in the park while I did admin. I need to tell him she’s found out. Hattie’s at work.’
‘Well, she suspected and then you told her.’
‘Yes. She was being vile, though. Saying he would never touch me with a barge pole, that I was disgusting and dirty and a bitch. He was just feeling sorry for me because Dad had died and they were laughing about it behind my back, about how I was falling for him again.’
‘He’s been playing you both off against each other when she’s got suspicious, telling her he’s teasing you,’ Jacqui said.
‘Why can’t she see he’s messed up, saying stuff like that?’ I wondered.
‘’Cos she’s obsessed with him. She’s hearing what she wants to hear.’
Ali’s phone started ringing. She picked it up. I could hear Jim’s irate voice from my perch on the bed.
‘Jim, she pushed me. She was being horrid.’ Jim ranted and Ali’s eyes filled with tears. ‘OK, I’ll come now.
‘He wants me to meet him in the park with Grace and tell Hattie I made it up as a way of punishing her for what happened. She’s in a cab from work.’
‘You’re not going to do it, are you?’ I asked, horrified.
‘He wants to buy some time while he works out what he wants.’
‘But what about what you want?’ Jacqui asked crossly, picking up her tea and blowing on it.
‘Were you still keeping Dara going because you actually didn’t know what you wanted?’ I said, the love quadrangle distracting me from imminent puking.
‘Yes. I like Dara loads, but he’s leaving, and Jim was there and mentioned getting back together. And I didn’t know what to think. My head was all over the place ’cos of Dad. Then we had sex and it was a bit of a game changer.’
‘In the back of the car?’ I laughed.
‘Yes, seedy, but it was amazing!’
‘Where was Grace?’ Jacqui fired.
‘With Amanda,’ Ali said, embarrassed.
‘Don’t go,’ I offered. ‘Do you want to get back together if he’s not being straight with either of you? Remember how he treated you and sold the house. He made you homeless.’
‘I know it all! Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later.’ She jumped up off the bed and ran down the stairs and out into the sunshine.
‘I feel a mess about to happen.’ Jacqui sighed ominously, putting down her tea. ‘Nothing good can come of this.’
*
Ali rushed in at five with Sonny in tow.
‘Well?’ I asked, stirring pasta sauce on the stove.
‘I dropped him in it, told Hattie it was all true.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yep. Fuck it. Jim’s about to restart the war. I can’t think about it now. I need to get ready for my date.’ And off she dashed. I wondered what fire and brimstone Jim would potentially unleash now. Knowing him, he would take his time to carefully stage-manage some devious plan to derail Ali. Jim liked to be in charge and when he wasn’t he didn’t play nice.
At two a.m. I was woken by a loud crash from upstairs. A muffled tattoo comprising bells and whistles filtered through the pillow jammed over my head. ‘The toy box,’ I muttered to myself, and attempted to block out the subsequent sex sounds with ear plugs.
24
This Is Forty
‘I’ll call Sam,’ Ali said calmly as I tried in vain to extricate myself from Sonny’s proprietorial clutches in the hallway.
‘Dad, dad, dad!’ Sonny wouldn’t let go of my dress and was attempting to burrow underneath the gossamer skirts, possibly to retrace his steps back to my womb. I wondered if he’s guessed there was yet another pretender to the throne furtively growing in there, ready to overthrow him once more. The minute I slipped on the gorgeous silver maxi dress Ali had stolen from a shoot for me, Sonny had jumped on me, cat-like. The real cat had been shut in my room with a litter tray and enough food and water to last the day. He had a few days before he was allowed his first foray into the outside world. Meg had made a ‘Private Keep Out’ notice and taped it to my door. I was certain I was going to be gifted a poo on my pillow.
‘I’ll keep checking on him, Mummy, to make sure he isn’t scared or lonely. I’ve given him a Build-A-Bear to cuddle.’ I was still astounded at the change in Meg, and hugged her tight.
‘You’re such a good cat mummy, Meg. Ginger is very lucky.’
‘Hi, Sam, yes, I’m ringing because you need to come and get Sonny… Because he’s been hitting Amanda for the last hour and a half and the party is about to start… I don’t care if you’re doing DIY, get here, please. Your son is ruining Amanda’s fortieth birthday and you need to help out. She deserves it!’ She rolled her eyes as she hung up. ‘Like DIY is important. I bet she’s got him trapped under her massive thumb.’
‘Is he coming?’
‘Yes, in half an hour.’
Quite a few local friends, and stalwart mums who had sewn me back together in the beginning after Sam’s swift departure, arrived bearing gifts, along with my brother and his wife and kids. I was unable to get people drinks or socialise because of Sonny and his vice-like grip. ‘Be nice,’ I whispered to Rob when he arrived as he hugged me hello over Sonny’s head. ‘Get all your negativity out before Woody comes.’
‘Who, me? Negative?’ Rob laughed ironically. ‘Look, as long as he treats you right, it’s good with me. It’s your life. I would always just say be careful, that’s all! And if all else fails, marry me and be my beard!’
Ali opened the door to Ursula, who came bearing a massive package wrapped in red spotty paper.
‘I can’t believe you’re the first one to hit forty. What’s happening to us? We need to stop time now before it’s too late!’ She hugged me tight and I sucked in my belly, safeguarding my secret. Ursula was quickly followed by Woody, with Sarah and Will grappling Oliver in a buggy, Maisie trailing behind holding her panda and looking her usual wan self.
‘Happy birthday, my darling girl!’ Woody cried. He looked like they’d stopped at the pub on the way here. He kissed me on the mouth and tasted of beer. I chose n
ot to look in his eyes in case I discovered something I didn’t like. I summonsed all my Beardy Weirdy inner strength and set a white light around myself. Today was going to be fine.
Woody had met an old friend one Friday night, someone who might be able to offer him local work. He returned after midnight, clearly wasted. ‘I only had one line, honestly. Sean had a whole bag, and I had the smallest one.’ Another night he was supposed to cook Ali and me dinner. ‘I was in the pub with Will. I’m sorry, gorgeous, we lost track of time. You know I love you. Shall I order a takeaway?’
‘What’s going on here?’ Woody asked Sonny as he clung ferociously to me. ‘You’re too big to get under there.’
‘Dad!’ Sonny defiantly cried.
‘It’s Mum!’ Woody tried irritably. ‘Why don’t you correct him?’ I shook my head. Now was not the time. Sonny buried himself even further and I fell against the banisters.
‘Come here,’ Woody sighed, and grabbed him without even looking at what he was doing. Sonny’s fists were bunched around the material of my dress and as Woody pulled him I heard a rip.
‘Nooooooooo!’ I cried, tears springing instantly. I loved this dress. The top half was embroidered with dainty seashells and silver sequins sewn intricately round the bust, the empire-line skirt billowing forth, hiding my burgeoning bump. For the first time in a month I felt glamorous.
‘You little shit!’ Woody gasped, dropping Sonny roughly on the floor. I wanted to punch him. This wasn’t the first time he had waded in without thinking, or acted short with Sonny. When I thought back to when I first met him all those months ago, his moods had swung unpredictably in such a short space of time.
‘Don’t say that!’ I cried angrily. ‘He’s only little. You could hurt him.’
‘He’s three! And he knows what he’s doing.’ Sarah and Will shuffled past us embarrassed, and out to the kitchen and playroom with bottles of fizz and some Cellophane-wrapped white flowers.
‘I’ve told you before,’ I hissed under my breath, ‘I tell him off. Not you.’
‘Well, what happens when I’m living here?’
The Single Mums' Mansion Page 16