The Foster Husband

by Pippa Wright

  And on the seventh day, I heard that Tim had shagged Manda Clarke up against a tree in the Undercliff. All was right with the world. He had moved on.

  So when Dready Eddy announced that his parents were going away to Spain for a week, leaving him in charge of their enormous hillside house, I didn’t think twice about turning up at his party, even though I knew Tim would be there.

  Eddy’s parents were architects, which to we unsophisticated children of Lyme Regis, brought up before the advent of Grand Designs and its ilk, was an almost mystical profession. Entering into their starkly modernist home, built high up on the hill, glass-walled and steel-timbered, was like stepping into the future. And in the future, of course, they played the Chemical Brothers at ear-splitting volume, and had a dustbin full of ice and beer in the middle of the balcony.

  Eddy was taking his duties as host pretty seriously, which is to say that he had moved all the furniture out of the way and was offering bucket bongs in the bathroom. Beyond that it was a total free-for-all. I arrived at nine, backed up by Ellie Morrison and Jo Winters, who were ostensibly my greatest friends, but who couldn’t disguise the fact that they were buzzing with the possibility of being self-appointed handmaidens to any Kate and Tim gossip that might occur that night, our first social encounter since we’d split up.

  I considered myself lucky they’d come with me. I’d noticed that a few of my supposed friends had already started subtly distancing themselves from me, obviously hoping that doing so might increase their chances of being the next girl Tim took to the Undercliff. Well, good luck to them, if that was what they really wanted. For me it was enough to be at a party without my usual glowering shadow trailing me from room to room.

  Of course the glowering shadow was already there, leaning against a kitchen counter, his arm around a triumphant-looking Manda Clarke. Once he was sure I’d seen him, he bent his head to mash his mouth on hers, looking at me the whole time. I would like to say that I walked over there with total confidence and said hello, taking the moral high ground and being an adult about it. But come off it, I was seventeen. Of course I didn’t. I ducked behind my hair, pretended I hadn’t seen him and went out onto the balcony instead to get drunk.

  Eddy had set up speakers on the wooden decking and the bass pounded under my feet as I stepped outside, flanked by Ellie and Jo. It was still light enough to see the ocean, where the sun hovered above the horizon, casting us all in its reddish glow. It was the magic hour, when everything looks illuminated and beautiful, before darkness and cold descend. Someone put a Bacardi Breezer in my hand and I downed half of it in one go.

  Ellie giggled in my ear about a tall boy who was sitting on a railing on the other side of the balcony – none of us had seen him before, which, in our incestuous small-town group of friends, lent him an air of celebrity. Even though the balcony dropped at least twenty feet behind him, he sat on the railing with complete unconcern, swinging a beer bottle by its neck. I saw him look over at us, and he caught my eye and smiled.

  Eddy ambled over to us, affectedly casual, his dreads falling down over his face dangerously close to the glowing end of his spliff. ‘’S Will’s cousin, Max,’ he said, nodding over at the new boy. ‘Come down from London – he’s at Imperial. Um, hey, isn’t that where you’re going, Kate?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said, barely registering the fact that Eddy knew where I was going to university. I couldn’t have told you what he was doing after the summer if my life depended on it. So the dark-haired boy over there was going to be at my university, was he? Interesting.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Jo. ‘He’s looking at you, Kate. It’s like it was written in the stars. How romantic.’

  ‘Shut up, Jo,’ I muttered, elbowing her in the ribs. ‘You’re so embarrassing.’

  ‘He’s coming over,’ she hissed.

  ‘I need another drink,’ I said, nonchalantly walking over to the dustbin full of ice where all the bottles were hidden. I bent down to pick up another bottle, and looked back over my shoulder. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Yeah, great, thanks,’ said Eddy. ‘Beer, please, Kate.’

  Ellie shook her head fiercely, indicating her Bacardi Breezer, which was nearly full. Her expression clearly said to slow down. Whatever; she wasn’t my mother. This was a party. It was practically obligatory to get drunk.

  ‘I’ll have a beer, thanks,’ said Max. Our fingers touched as I passed him the ice-cold bottle, and I dropped my gaze, knowing he was still looking at me.

  In my memory all the parties that summer meld into one – even this one. I can’t be sure how clearly I remember it now that I see it all through a haze of nostalgia. I do know that I spent a lot of the evening talking to Max, but I can’t remember what we spoke about. I don’t suppose it matters, since frankly in those days all a boy had to do was have a Britpop haircut and a decent pair of trainers and he was halfway there as far as I was concerned. With the glamour of coming from London, Max could have spoken to me about sewerage works or stamp collecting and I’d have been impressed.

  I do remember feeling like I was flexing my muscles, having a sense of myself as attractive, to this stranger, just for being myself. He didn’t know me as Tim Cooper’s girlfriend. He didn’t even know who Tim Cooper was. I felt I was being granted a glimpse of my future self, the girl I might be once I’d left Lyme behind. All at once I couldn’t wait to escape this golden summer. Life seemed to be beckoning to me from London, calling me away. Max was just the personification of everything that was waiting for me.

  The rest of the group drifted back indoors as the night got colder, but the two of us stayed there, leaning against the balcony railings, talking, talking. Every now and then someone would stumble out onto the balcony for a cigarette or a beer from the dustbin, but no one approached us.

  I was going to kiss him. I was going to grab my future with both hands. But first I needed to go inside and use the bathroom.

  Max helped me stand up, I told him my head was spinning, which wasn’t a total lie as I’d drunk way too much, but it was mostly an excuse to hold onto his hand, flexing my fingers against his. I pulled away reluctantly and told him to wait there for me. He grinned and I felt my heart do a skip of anticipation inside my chest.

  I slid open the glass doors back into the Curtises’ house and was hit by a wall of body heat and music now that the speakers had been moved inside. People were dancing, and Ellie was asleep on the sofa. I stopped to check on her, but she pushed my hand away and rolled over, mumbling something about elephants. I couldn’t see Tim anywhere. Maybe he’d gone already. As I walked through the room I felt like I was gliding above them all, aloof and apart. I had Max from London waiting for me outside. The future.

  There were voices inside the bathroom and when the door opened a thick cloud of dope smoke rolled out, closely followed by one of the boys from the Lower Sixth.

  ‘He’s pulling a whitey,’ someone shouted, and I stepped quickly out of the way, just in time to avoid being splattered with vomit as he buried his face in a potted palm on the landing.

  ‘Hey, Kate,’ called Eddy, from his position crouched by the bath, a cut-off Coke bottle suspended in the water. ‘Want some?’

  ‘She’s already getting some from what I heard,’ sniggered someone I couldn’t see.

  ‘Is there another bathroom?’ I asked, pretending not to have heard.

  Eddy pushed his dreads off his face, and frowned as he tried and failed to focus on me. ‘Yeah, use the one in my mum and dad’s room. Top floor. No problem.’

  The bathroom door swung shut again.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked the boy who’d puked in the plant pot.

  ‘It’s cool, I’m cool,’ he insisted, waving me away as he slumped against the wall. I shrugged and left him there, his head hanging between his knees.

  The sound of the music was fainter as I went up the stairs to the top of the house. I could still hear laughter from the bathroom below, but up here it was hushed. Eddy’s parents’ room
was almost monastic, all whites and greys, with a concrete shelf running above the bed. Expensive art books were arranged in tasteful piles, one each for Eddy’s mum and dad. It was so different to my parents’ cluttered terraced home. This was just how I would have my bedroom when I was grown up, I decided. I couldn’t wait.

  When I came out of the bathroom, turning off the light, I was temporarily blinded by the sudden darkness in the bedroom. As my eyes adjusted, I realized I could see hundreds and hundreds of stars through the huge window that made up an entire wall of the room, facing seaward. I gasped a little and stepped forwards, craning my head to look up. My breath misted on the glass.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ said a voice.

  I spun around in shock.

  Half hidden in the dark, Tim lay on the bed, feet stretched out. Entirely bizarrely, my first thought was to tell him to get his shoes off Eddy’s parents’ immaculate bedspread.

  ‘What the fuck, Tim,’ I said. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

  He nodded smugly and stretched his hands behind his head. ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’

  ‘Where’s Manda Clarke?’ I retorted.

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about Manda,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not worried about her,’ I snapped. ‘I couldn’t care less about her.’

  Tim sat up on the bed and pouted like a child.

  ‘Is someone a bit jealous?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, massively,’ I said. ‘I came up here to cry and cry. Or to use the bathroom. And now I’m done, so if you’ll excuse me.’

  Tim jumped up from the bed so fast it made me start, standing between me and the stairs, his arms folded across his broad chest, blocking my way. He smiled at me, but it wasn’t the smile I was used to seeing on his beautiful face. This smile almost made him look ugly.

  ‘Tim, just grow up.’

  ‘Just grow up,’ he mimicked. ‘Is that guy downstairs grown up? Is he? Because he’s from London, and he’s going to university and all that shit. Is that what impresses you?’

  ‘Tim.’

  ‘Is it? Is he good enough for you, Kate? Since I’m not?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ he sneered. ‘You just used me, Kate. Used me and then dropped me when you’d had enough. You never gave a shit about me. You were only interested in what I could do for you. I made you popular and then you dumped me.’

  ‘Tim, I’m going downstairs now,’ I said. There was no point to this conversation. What good would it do to tell Tim I found him boring and possessive and clingy? He might think I didn’t care about his feelings, but it would hurt him more to hear the truth.

  He took one step towards me and clutched my wrist. I tried to pull away but he held on so hard that I cried out.

  ‘No you’re not,’ he said from between clenched teeth. He was close enough that I felt flecks of saliva on my cheek as he spoke. ‘You’re not.’

  He grabbed my other wrist and pushed me down onto the bed. I tried to kick at him with my feet, but he lay on top of me heavily, so that I was pinned down. I had always loved how strong Tim was; it had made me feel delicate in comparison, fragile. Now it made me feel scared. I knew that no matter how much I struggled, I didn’t have the strength to get him off me.

  ‘Tim, please,’ I begged. ‘Please. We can talk, is that what you want? Let’s talk.’

  Tim’s eyes glittered in the faint light. ‘Shut up,’ he said. His voice was thick in his throat.

  ‘Really, Tim, please.’

  Without letting go of my wrist he bent his elbow so that his forearm pressed against my throat. My mouth opened and closed as I tried to draw in air to scream, but all that emerged was a rasping whisper.

  I knew as soon as he pushed my legs apart with his knee what he planned to do. And I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself for letting him do it. No matter how much I tell myself that I was scared, or drunk, or physically overpowered, the truth is that there came a point when I thought that the more I resisted the worse it would be. And so I let him.

  It wasn’t as if he was a stranger. A few weeks ago I’d have done it willingly. In some way, I did think I was better than Tim. I did. This was my punishment. These were the things I told myself to justify lying still. To justify lying.

  When I came downstairs, hours later, the music had stopped. Everyone had gone. Except Eddy, of course. He looked shocked to see me appear in his living room; he must have thought he was alone in the house. He just looked at my bruised throat and my tear-streaked face and offered to walk me home, keeping a solicitous distance between us as we stumbled silently down the hill to my parents’ house.

  I always knew he must have guessed what had happened, but he never said anything about it and neither did I. My parents tried to get me to talk, but I wouldn’t. No, more than that. I couldn’t. Every time I tried, my throat closed up again, as if Tim’s arm was still there pressing on it, stopping the words from coming out.

  A few days later I left Lyme for good. And I never looked back until now.

  37

  ‘You’re late today,’ says Cathy at the bakery, bringing over my coffee. ‘Big night?’

  She lingers hopefully and I wonder if she’s already heard something about me and Eddy. It’s only to be expected that we’d have been seen on our night out – two single people in Lyme, hanging around in public. The holey jumpers probably texted the entire town with an update as soon as we left the pub. We were asking for it. But before Cathy can press any information out of me, the man himself arrives, his cheeks flushed from the cold outside.

  ‘Brr,’ he says, stamping his feet on the mat by the door. ‘Freezing out there.’

  ‘Going to snow, apparently,’ says Cathy, looking from me to Eddy with blatant interest.

  ‘Is it now?’ says Eddy affably, rubbing at his short hair. ‘White Christmas, maybe?’

  ‘That would be nice,’ I say. ‘Prue would love snow for her wedding.’ I’m surprised by how calm and collected I sound, idly chatting about the weather with my local friends, when inside my stomach is churning with guilt and panic. Not the kind of excited panic that had me kissing Eddy last night, but the far more familiar kind that makes me want to flee the bakery as fast as I can.

  There was something about the way Eddy acted last night that makes me think for him last night was a little more meaningful than a drunken kiss. I don’t know exactly how I feel about it yet, but I do know that I’m in no way ready for a relationship – haven’t I proved that I’m no good at them? – and it terrifies me that Eddy might want that.

  Eddy seems entirely unaffected by what happened, asking after Cathy’s granddaughter, and wondering if someone called Bill will be selling Christmas trees out front again this year. While Cathy launches into a long description of the terrible chilblains that may affect Bill’s seasonal business, I look at Eddy with new eyes.

  If anything he seems less nervous than usual, more relaxed, laughing at Cathy’s gossip. But perhaps he’s just faking it, like me. His eyes flick over to me as he listens to Cathy, and I drop my gaze back down to my coffee in embarrassment. I only realize after I’ve looked up again how flirtatious that seems.

  Cathy watches the two of us and wipes her hands on her apron briskly. ‘Can’t stand here chatting all day, can I? You stop distracting me, Eddy Curtis, you bad man.’

  She flicks him with a tea towel as she leaves.

  ‘I think she fancies you,’ I tease, as Eddy sits down opposite me at the trestle table. He leans down to pat Minnie hello.

  ‘Pheromones,’ says Eddy, his eyes twinkling. ‘She can’t help herself. Neither could you.’

  ‘Eddy!’ I laugh. My face burns so hotly you could probably pick up a slice of bread off the counter and press it against my cheek to make toast.

  ‘What?’ he says, sliding his leg alongside mine under the table, unseen by Cathy or any of the other customers. ‘Come on, you’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen.’

&nbs
p; I realize as he says that that it is pretty much exactly what I was going to do. I shift my leg very slightly away from his, and his forehead contracts into a quizzical frown.

  ‘Course not,’ I say carefully.

  ‘Kaaaate?’ says Eddy, drawing my name out so that it lasts for ages. His lips curl up into a little smile. It is impossible not to smile back a bit.

  ‘Look, I just don’t know if that was such a great idea,’ I say. ‘I mean, I had fun and everything, but Eddy, you’re great, but . . .’ My words peter out slowly.

  Eddy raises his eyebrows. ‘Well, I’m shocked,’ he says teasingly. ‘I was wondering when we were going to post the banns.’

  ‘Very funny,’ I mutter.

  Eddy clumsily puts a hand over mine. ‘Kate, just chill. It’s no big deal. I know you’re not ready to rush into anything. But let’s not pretend it didn’t happen. That’s never a good thing to do.’

  Oh Eddy, I think. If only you knew. Pretending things didn’t happen is practically my way of life.

  ‘God, this is embarrassing,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  Eddy shrugs. ‘I don’t think it’s embarrassing,’ he says gently. ‘I like you, Kate. I always have done. Last night was fun. But if you just want to be friends, then that’s okay too.’

  I lift my head to look at Eddy properly. His face is so open and clear, it’s as if I can see right into his thoughts, and they’re all ordered and rational and sane.

  ‘Jesus, Eddy,’ I say. ‘When did you turn into such a grown-up?’

  He laughs, throwing his head back, as if I’ve said something completely hysterical. But I mean it, I really do. How did he get to be so sorted and straightforward, when he’s messed up his marriage just like I did? Where’s his self-doubt? His crushing sense of worthlessness?