‘No.’ He was avoiding my eyes.
‘Oh, my God, you do. I can see it in your face.’ I was shocked. I’d never been remotely worried that James would meet someone in work, because 99 per cent of the people he worked with were men. Besides, I just hadn’t imagined he fancied other women any more. I’m not saying he didn’t think some women were good-looking or sexy … but actively fancy them? No. I’d never seen him like this with any of our female friends or his colleagues’ wives or anyone else we socialized with. James was always polite and charming, but never flirty.
‘For goodness’ sake, Emma, don’t start making a drama out of nothing. She’s a new colleague I get on well with.’
‘Very well, by the look of things,’ I muttered.
‘She’s easy to work with. There’s no crime in that,’ he snapped.
I opened my mouth to protest, but decided to shut it again. He was annoyed and defensive. I didn’t want to push him right into Mandy’s arms. I needed to step away and think about what to do. I changed the subject and tried my best to be breezy, but it was difficult through gritted teeth.
For the next month I’d watched James like a hawk and popped in, at different times of the day, to visit him at work. I checked his phone and his laptop when he wasn’t in the room, but didn’t find anything. As Lucy said, it was probably just a little flirtation, and there was no harm in it. But I didn’t feel so blasé. A flirt can lead to a lot more if it isn’t nipped in the bud. A flirt means you’re bored at home. Happily married men don’t flirt.
James got more sex in the weeks that followed my meeting with Mandy than he knew what to do with. I cranked it up big-time – new lingerie, scented body lotion, candles and even some dirty talk. James seemed very pleased and participated enthusiastically. It ended up being fun for both of us. But I had been shaken by what I’d seen. I realized that I needed to make more of an effort at keeping our marriage interesting and fresh. And although most nights I just wanted to put on my fleecy pyjamas and eat chocolate biscuits in bed while watching bad reality TV, I had to remember that there were two of us in our relationship.
Then, of course, James had been fired and Mandy was no longer an issue as our life was turned upside-down.
As I walked the children back to our house, I resolved that this was the night to christen our new home. I’d bought a black lacy body in Dublin, before we left, and I was going to root it out, open a bottle of wine and give James a little reminder of why he’d fallen in love with me.
I was lost in thought, planning my evening, when I heard, ‘Hey, Sis. Hey, Shrimp. Hey, Gorgeous.’
It was Babs, climbing out of a taxi, looking amazing, with perfect hair and makeup. She was wearing a ballet-length, halterneck red dress.
‘I know, I look ridiculous. This dress is so conservative, but they’ve had complaints about me showing too much flesh on the show. Apparently some frigid cow in Devon thought it was disgraceful to have so much cleavage and thigh on view on an afternoon show. I bet her husband loved it and she just got the hump with him ogling me.’
I never ceased to wonder where Babs got her confidence. It was colossal. I wished I had half of it.
‘You should consider wearing clothes that don’t show off so much flesh more often. You look much nicer and less available,’ I noted, behaving every inch the older sister. But, then, it was true.
‘I love your dress. Do a twirl, Babs, do a twirl,’ Lara demanded.
Babs obliged with a couple of spins. ‘I’ve come straight from the studio to give you the good news. I’m the best sister in the world and you can grovel at my feet.’
I put my key in the door and ushered the kids through the kitchen and into the back garden. ‘Go on – I’m waiting with bated breath.’
Babs threw her enormous bag onto a chair. ‘I’ve got you a job.’
‘What?’
‘The makeup artist on our show just handed in her notice. Before they had a chance to start looking for someone else, I said they had to hire you.’
‘You’re kidding! Really?’
‘Yes. I’m not all bad, you know. Anyway, they asked about your history and blah blah blah. I bigged you up, of course. I said you’d worked for the best show on Irish TV and done all the celebrity weddings in Ireland. So they said they’d give you a three-week trial, and if that works out, they’ll hire you on a six-month contract.’
‘But when do they want me to start? What sort of hours? What about the kids?’ I was thrilled and nervous all at once. It was too soon – I had so much to sort out and I didn’t know London at all. I’d have to get a nanny. How would I juggle everything?
Babs opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of wine. ‘You start Monday week so you’ve got plenty of time to sort out your stuff.’
I sat down at the table. ‘And the hours – what do you think they’ll be?’
‘Usually from about nine thirty or ten in the morning till about five, sometimes later, depending on how the show is going. Some of the women need a lot of encouragement to get undressed and look in the mirror. Sometimes it takes hours, which is such a pain in the arse. On those days we always run late.’
‘Will I have to travel?’
‘Not really. It’s mostly shot in London – we don’t have a big budget.’ Babs rummaged in the cupboards. ‘Do you have anything decent to eat?’
Wow! A job, and so soon. It had been much easier than I’d expected. It would do me good to work, though. I wouldn’t have time to dwell on the move or my loneliness. Plus I’d be earning my own money and hopefully I’d meet nice people. It was great. Except for one small detail: my sister was the star of the show.
As if she could read my mind, Babs, who had found a box of animal-shaped crackers in one of the cupboards, said, ‘Obviously I’m the most important person on the programme so you can’t try to boss me around or behave like my sister. You have to be super-nice to me and treat me with respect.’
‘Can’t I just ignore you?’
Babs waved a lion cracker at me. ‘I’m serious. This is my show.’
‘Isn’t that what all presenters think until they’re replaced?’
‘I’m not going to be replaced. The public love me.’
I resisted the urge to laugh. ‘Whose makeup will I be doing?’
‘Mine, although obviously you won’t have much work to do on me, and then you’ll have to do the women we’re making over. Some are shocking-looking, so you’ll have your work cut out for you.’
‘You have such a lovely way with words.’ I held out my hand. Babs passed me a giraffe cracker.
‘So, are you in?’
‘Absolutely. Now I just need to find a childminder.’
Yuri and Lara came running in from the garden.
‘Guess what?’ I said.
‘We’re going home!’ Yuri ran around the kitchen, cheering. ‘Yeah. I can go to Connor’s house for a play.’
My heart sank. The poor little guy missed his friends in Dublin so much. ‘No, sweetheart, we’re not going home, but Mummy’s got a new job.’
Yuri looked crestfallen.
‘Is the beautiful girl going to mind us?’ Lara asked, still dazzled by the au pair next door.
‘No, Mummy’s going to find a different minder.’ One who looks like an old troll, I thought. An old troll with rotten teeth and severe acne so Daddy won’t be tempted by her.
‘Can I have a cracker?’ Yuri asked Babs.
She shook the box. ‘Sorry, Short-fry, I ate them.’
‘But I want one.’ Yuri looked as if he was about to cry. ‘It’s mean to eat them all. It’s not fair.’
Babs laid her hand on his head. ‘Listen, Squirt, I’ve just got your mum a job. And if your mum has a job, that means she makes money. If she has money, that means she can buy loads more of these crackers for you, and more toys and sweets and all that stuff, so don’t give me a hard time. OK?’
Yuri nodded. ‘OK.’
I couldn’t believe it. If I had eaten
Yuri’s crackers, he would have had a complete meltdown, but the kids never freaked out with Babs. Maybe if the TV presenting dried up she should consider childcare. I smiled to myself. Somehow I doubted any woman of sane mind would have Babs in her home.
‘Right, amigos, I have to go. I’ve got a show to tape.’
After the children had had their snack, I decided to enjoy the lovely sunshine and sit outside on the patio. I wanted ten minutes of peace to read my magazine, so I told Lara and Yuri to do races up and down the garden. I was reading a very good article on why women are never happy with their bodies when Yuri pushed Lara. She fell down, scraped her knee and proceeded to scream like a banshee.
‘For God’s sake, Yuri, I’ve told you a million times not to push your sister.’
‘Blood!’ shrieked Lara.
I examined her knee. ‘No, pet, there’s no blood. Now, stop screaming.’
‘She pushed me first. I hate her!’ Yuri shouted.
‘Don’t say that,’ I snapped. I couldn’t stand it when they were mean to one another. They only had each other in the world, and when James and I died, I didn’t want them fighting and falling out. Because I had one adopted and one biological child, I was even more determined to make them close. Siblings had to look out for each other. I was close to my brother Sean, but he lived in New York now and was hopeless at keeping in touch. When we met up it was always great, but I only spoke to him about once every six weeks. As for Babs … When we were younger, the thirteen-year age gap had seemed huge, but we had got closer over the years, although she still drove me crazy and we did argue a lot.
‘Apologize to your sister,’ I ordered Yuri.
‘No way.’ Yuri crossed his arms.
‘Yuri, I’m going to count to three and you’d better apologize or you’ll be in big trouble. One … two …’
‘Uhm, hello?’
I turned to my right. A woman was leaning over the fence, waving at me. Damn. I really hadn’t wanted my neighbours to hear me shouting at my children.
‘Hello!’ my neighbour said again.
I jumped up and went over. ‘Sorry. Hi, I’m Emma.’
Close up, the neighbour was pretty in a very natural way. Her hair was cut short and she was very tanned with bright blue eyes.
‘I’m Carol. Carol Richards. Number nine.’
I shook her hand. ‘Nice to meet you. We’ve just moved over from Dublin.’
Carol leant on her spade. ‘I thought I heard an accent. How are you finding it so far?’
‘It’s fine, thanks. I’ve just been unpacking and getting organized, so I haven’t really had a proper chance to look around or meet people.’
‘Who’s this, then?’ Carol pointed to Lara, who was peeping from behind my leg.
‘Oh, sorry, this is Lara, she’s three, and that’s Yuri, he’s four.’
‘And three-quarters,’ Yuri said, coming over to inspect the new person.
‘Three-quarters is very important. Nice to meet you, Yuri and Lara. What beautiful names you have.’
‘I’m adopted from Russia. My mummy says I’m her heart baby,’ Yuri piped up.
‘Wow, lucky you,’ Carol said, smiling at him.
Yuri continued with his life story: ‘Mummy said when she saw me in the orf’nage, she knew I was her little boy. Her heart told her. Some babies come out of their mummies’ tummies, like Lara, and some come in their mummies’ hearts, like me.’
I stroked the back of Yuri’s head. I loved him telling people he was my heart baby. It made me want to weep with love and pride.
‘Well, it looks as if you’ve been filled in on our family history,’ I said, laughing.
‘It’s very heartwarming.’ Carol had a lovely smile – very genuine. I liked her immediately. I could tell already that she didn’t have any agenda or angles: she was exactly who you saw.
‘Do you have babies?’ Lara asked our neighbour.
‘Lara!’ I said, embarrassed. ‘I’ve told you it’s rude to ask people that.’
‘It’s OK,’ Carol reassured me. ‘Actually, Lara, I have two boys.’
‘Are they big or small?’ Lara asked.
‘Terry is nine and Freddy is seven, but he’s tall so everyone thinks he’s nine, too. They’ve gone to the park with their granny.’
‘Yuri isn’t big at all. Mummy keeps trying to get him bigger. It’s cos of the yucky food in the orf’nage.’
What was going on? The kids were never normally so forthcoming with information. Before I could interrupt, Carol turned to Yuri and said, ‘I think you’re a perfect size.’
Yuri beamed at her and climbed up on a rock to look over her fence. ‘Wow! Your garden’s a big mess,’ he said.
Carol laughed. ‘Well, it’s actually an organized mess. You see, I grow all my own food.’
‘Do you grow cornflakes?’ Yuri asked.
‘No, but I grow rhubarb and strawberries and courgettes and aubergines and carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers and beans and lots of other things, too.’
‘Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. The only thing I like is strawberries,’ Yuri announced.
‘Yuri! Don’t be rude. It’s incredible that Carol grows all those vegetables and fruits in her garden.’
‘What’s a corgette and what’s a oberine?’ Lara asked.
I could feel my face going red. I was mortified that my daughter didn’t know those vegetables. I’d probably have Jamie Oliver knocking on my door tomorrow, berating me for being a bad mother. I’d been very conscientious about vegetables with Yuri because he really needed them to strengthen him when we’d brought him home from the orphanage. But Lara spat out every vegetable I put into her mouth, and dinner time had become a war zone. Yuri would eat vegetables if they were hidden in a sauce, but Lara could spot, smell and sense a vegetable at ten paces. She refused to eat anything except the plainest of food and, if I’m being honest, I’d kind of given up. I knew I needed to try to introduce vegetables again, but I hated fighting with Lara every night and it nearly always ended in tears – either Lara’s or mine. Sometimes even Yuri joined in.
‘Why don’t you come over and I’ll show you the garden?’ Carol suggested.
‘Thanks. We’d love to!’ I was delighted to be getting some quality time with someone new. Carol definitely seemed like my type of person, so hopefully we could be pals.
We got to her garden via the side entrance to her house. While our side of the wall between the two houses was black, Carol’s was white and it had vegetables painted on it in bright colours. Yuri and Lara were very impressed.
As for her garden, I was stunned. What Carol had achieved with a fairly small space was incredible. I couldn’t believe the variety of fruit and veg she had managed to plant and grow. I had killed every plant I’d ever owned, including a cactus, and they were supposed to live for ever. We ate the sweetest strawberries I’d ever tasted – even Lara liked them. I was thrilled that she didn’t spit them out. Then Carol served us apple juice, made from her own apples. It tasted fantastic. We all drained our glasses. The fresh fruit tasted so much better than supermarket stuff that I made solemn vows to myself to be a better mother from that day forward and feed my children fresh things. I’d have to find a farmers’ market or something.
Carol even had a hen coop tucked behind the glasshouse. She kept four hens, which laid all her eggs. The children went from being curious to enchanted in ten seconds flat – they loved this garden of colours and scents and hidden surprises. Back over the fence, ours contained a paddling pool and overgrown grass.
‘Carol, this is amazing! Have you been working on the garden long?’ I asked.
She sipped her apple juice, savouring it. ‘Ever since we moved in, ten years ago.’
‘Well, you’ve done a fantastic job.’
‘Keith, my husband, says I’m a bit extreme. I’ve gone very green, you see. I get so furious when I see neighbours’ bins full of things they could recycle. The worst on this road is Poppy. She puts all her plastic packaging in
to her black bin. It makes my blood boil.’
Yikes! I sometimes did that too. I tried to be good, but if I was in a hurry or unpacking zillions of boxes, like I had been lately, I sometimes just shoved everything around me into the black bin. I’d have to be careful in future. I didn’t fancy Carol going through my bins and calling me to task.
‘Cooeeee!’ a voice called from behind us.
I turned to see a tall, rake-thin blonde woman tottering down the side entrance. She was wearing skin-tight white jeans, a jewelled, fitted kaftan and the most enormous sunglasses I’d ever seen – they covered three-quarters of her face.
‘I saw you from my window so I thought I’d pop around. The side gate was open, Carol. I presume you’re our new neighbour?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, I’m Emma.’
‘This is Poppy – she lives at number seven,’ Carol said.
‘Oh, right, hi, nice to meet you.’
‘We wented to your house and sawed your beautiful minder. She’s like a princess,’ Lara told Poppy.
Poppy smiled at her. ‘Aren’t you a cutie? And I love your accent. It’s adorable. Yes, Sophie is gorgeous. I like looking at pretty things. I couldn’t have anything ugly in my house – it would depress me.’ Turning to Carol, she said, ‘I honestly don’t know how you can sit in this garden – it’s like being in the middle of a muddy field.’
Carol laughed good-humouredly. ‘This garden means that we don’t eat awful processed food full of additives.’
‘I prefer Valium and white wine to food. It helps me deal with my life.’
Well, well. One of my neighbours was growing enough veg to feed half of London and the other was a lush. London certainly wasn’t boring. Curiosity got the better of me. ‘Are you having a tough time?’ I asked.
Poppy laid a hand on my arm. ‘Darling, when I met Nigel he was head of corporate law at Hendricks, Goodge and Farrow. He was handsome, wealthy and married, but unhappily so, fortunately for me. Anyway, we had a very passionate affair and he divorced his wife to make an honest woman of me. His first wife took him to the cleaner’s. We were left with very little, so we moved here.’ Poppy rolled her eyes. Clearly, Putney was a long way down the list from where she aspired to live. ‘And then once he had married me there was, as they say, a job vacancy for a mistress. The bastard left me for his secretary – don’t talk to me about clichés. So in our divorce I got half of half, which, let me tell you, was not a lot.’
Mad About You Page 4