The Foster Husband

by Pippa Wright

  Matt shakes his head sadly. ‘It’s always all about you, Kate,’ he says. ‘You haven’t asked me a single question. Not even how are you. I don’t think you even care. You just wanted to say your piece, and now you’ve said it I think you should go.’

  ‘I do care!’ I say. ‘Matt, how could I launch into a load of small talk when we had to address the big question first? Please, you know I care.’

  Matt lifts his glasses and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

  ‘Small talk. Right. Kate, I’m tired. I just got back from Dubai, this is a bad time.’

  I bite my lower lip to stop it from wobbling like a child’s. I swallow a few times before I speak.

  ‘Can we . . . can we talk again? When you’re less tired?’

  Matt looks at me through his glasses. The kitchen light reflects brightly on the lenses so I can’t really see his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says at last. ‘You always talked a lot about compromise, Kate. But you meant that I should compromise. Not you. That can’t be how it works this time. What did you think? That you’d just say sorry and it would all be okay?’

  ‘I didn’t think that—’ I begin, but Matt holds his hand up to stop me from talking.

  ‘You’ve taken your time to think; now I need mine.’

  I stand up quickly, swinging my handbag over my shoulder and knocking over my empty beer bottle. Matt catches it before it hits the table.

  ‘Reflexes of a ninja,’ we both say at once.

  Matt smiles at me sadly.

  ‘I should go,’ I say.

  He just nods. He has a beer bottle in each hand now, which makes hugging him thankfully impossible. I just say a mumbled goodbye and let myself out.

  So. That went about as well as I’d expected.

  46

  I have driven halfway back to Lyme before I remember that I was going to treat myself to a night in a hotel. But that decision feels like it was made by an entirely different person. How could I have thought that Matt’s rejection would be softened by a night alone? There will be plenty of nights alone in the future; I don’t want another one now.

  Last time I ran to Lyme because there was nowhere else to go. It seemed like a place where nothing ever happened, where I could hide away undisturbed. If I’d thought of my family when I left London before, it was as shadowy supporting characters in a drama that was all about me. Now I am surprised to find that I want to see my family because I miss them and want to be with them. They have taken me in at my lowest ebb and proven that, despite all my mistakes, their love is unconditional.

  It turns out that showing all your flaws is what allows people to love you completely. But to do that is to take the risk, as I did with Matt, that their love may prove to be conditional after all. How can I blame him for that? While I nagged him about making a mess of my beautiful home, I was making a mess of our marriage. And when I’d pushed it to crisis point, I just ran away and refused to speak to him. Life carried on. Matt’s feelings changed.

  Who was I to think that I could give lessons in how to be married? I have learned all my own lessons far too late.

  When I finally turn the car into the cul-de-sac it is well past two in the morning. Ice on the steep hills down towards Lyme has made me drive slowly, and my body is stiff from sitting in the same position for hours.

  Minnie rushes to greet me when I let myself in to the dark bungalow. Before I say hello to her properly, I flick on the hall light. There’s a muffled scream and the bathroom door slams, only to be opened again a second later.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ says Prue, peering round the door.

  She thinks she is hidden, but I can see from the reflection of the bathroom mirror that she is wearing nothing but a towel, which she must have grabbed from the rail behind her.

  ‘Prue Bailey,’ I say, unable to stop myself from laughing. ‘You dirty stop-out. Whatever happened to your principles?’

  Protectively, she pushes the door closed even further, so that just a slice of her face shows. ‘You were meant to be staying in London!’

  I drop my overnight bag on the hall floor, and kneel to give Minnie a hug. ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘That bad?’ she asks.

  ‘Worse.’

  Prue opens the door a fraction. ‘Kitchen, two minutes. Make some tea. I need to put some clothes on.’

  ‘I should say you do.’

  She sticks her tongue out at me as she skips back towards Ben’s bedroom.

  It is strange to relate but, when she reappears in an old jumper of Ben’s, my sister turns out to be a good person to talk to. We sit and talk and eat ginger snap biscuits in the newly white kitchen until the first pale fingers of dawn start to lighten the sky. I think a more sympathetic ear – my mother’s, for example – would have made me crumble. Instead, Prue’s brisk questioning and complete unwillingness to indulge any of my self-pity acts like a sharp kick up the arse.

  ‘Why are you so sure it’s over?’ she demands, when I’ve relayed the entire story to her. ‘He let you in the house, didn’t he? He listened. You’re giving up too easily.’

  ‘Prue, he said he needed time. I have to give him that. And it might just be too late.’

  Prue’s exasperated sigh ricochets around the kitchen. ‘Seriously? Look, I know you have some weird ideas about marriage, but unless I’ve got it totally wrong, you said you would be with Matt for better or for worse. Remember?’

  Minnie looks up from the floor at the raised voices, and I stroke her back with my foot until she drops her head back down.

  ‘Yes, Prue, but not actually against his will, you know? I can’t force us back together if he doesn’t want it.’

  ‘But what? You think you can just turn up out of the blue, say you’re sorry and then it’s all hearts and flowers? Marriage is tougher than that, Kate. You have to fight for it if you want it back.’

  I do my best not to snap that she, whose wedding is still weeks away, has no idea about marriage. But weirdly she seems to be wiser about it than I am. I take another biscuit and bite it viciously in half.

  ‘So?’ she demands while my mouth is full, as if I will turn around and get back in the car this very instant, ready to insist that Matt takes me back.

  ‘I don’t know, Prue. I just think it might be broken for good.’

  ‘Don’t just lie down and take it,’ she says. ‘If this was a work thing you wouldn’t just say, oh well, it’s ruined, I give up, would you?’

  ‘No,’ I admit.

  ‘You’d do whatever it took, wouldn’t you? You’d find a way to make it happen. So what’s the difference?’

  ‘Jeez, Prue, it’s totally different. There’s no emotional involvement with work, it’s not the same at all.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Well, if you’re prepared to fight for one but not the other, then I think you’ve got your priorities the wrong way around.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, sarcastically, but somehow it must not translate as she takes it sincerely.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she says. ‘Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking about what you can do to save this situation.’

  We sit quietly for a moment, sipping our tea. I push the biscuits towards her, but she shakes her head. I let her think that I am considering how I will save my marriage. But I am actually thinking of something else.

  ‘Speaking of situations,’ I say.

  ‘Not another word,’ warns Prue, wagging her index finger at me. ‘Not another word, or I am going straight back to bed.’

  ‘To Ben’s bed.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘So. What happened to your principles?’

  Prue fixes me with her fiercest stare, but I’m not backing down that easily. I’ve just confronted my husband about the affair that ended our marriage. This is child’s play.

  She sits stiffly on her chair. ‘We are nearly married, actually. What difference does a few weeks make?’

  ‘You tell me,’ I sa
y. ‘You’re the one who always swore she’d stay pure. So, how was it?’

  There is a long pause during which Prue cannot meet my eyes.

  ‘Amazing,’ she says at last. ‘Completely amazing.’

  ‘Really? First time?’

  She puts down her mug on the kitchen table and looks at the floor. Then she looks back up at me with a rare expression on her face. Doubt.

  ‘God, no, Kate, it was absolutely awful. Terrible.’ She shakes her head and buries her face in her hands. She mutters something indistinct, and I have to ask her to repeat it.

  ‘I said,’ she lifts her head, ‘what if I’m making a terrible mistake?’

  ‘Prue,’ I say, glad to be the one offering advice for a change, ‘it’s just sex. It’s not like the movies. It’s nearly always awful the first time.’

  ‘This . . .’ she drops her voice and looks furtively around the room, as if Minnie might be taking notes. ‘This wasn’t the first time. We did it before. Last week. And it was awful then, too.’

  ‘Twice? Twice ever and you think it’s not worth getting married?’

  Prue pulls her legs up onto the chair and wraps her arms around her knees. ‘I . . . I thought it was going to be something really special. I thought it would have been worth waiting for.’

  Her lower lip trembles and I see she is close to tears.

  ‘Um, so, was it Ben’s first . . . were you Ben’s—’

  ‘Of course!’ she snaps. ‘I mean, I don’t know. But I think so.’

  ‘Oh Prue.’ I am trying not to laugh. I may have some regrets about having put it about in my youth, but at least I haven’t spent years dreaming of losing my virginity as some beautiful and spiritual experience that can only disappoint. ‘It just takes practice. Honestly. The more you, er, do it, the better it gets.’

  ‘You should know,’ mutters Prue. Her mouth twists into a smile. ‘Slapper.’

  ‘Harsh.’

  ‘Harsh,’ agrees Prue. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it. You’re not a slapper.’

  ‘Not all the time, anyway,’ I say.

  47

  Because the universe would not dare fail to give my sister what she wants, the morning of New Year’s Eve dawns with a light dusting of snow, like icing sugar on the roofs of Lyme. The winter has been unseasonably warm and wet, but this one day is crisp and clear; a low, pale sun made the hoar frost glitter on the trees as I walked Minnie first thing, and the sky is a cloudless blue. It is the perfect day for my sister’s perfect wedding.

  I have been perfectly dreading it.

  Not because of Prue. Of course I want her to have the day she dreamed of and, thanks to her ferocious planning, that is exactly what she will have. The staff of the Alexandra told us they had never met such an organized bride. Prue preened with delight at the compliment, while a fleeting glimpse of a look exchanged between the manager and deputy manager told me that by ‘organized’ they meant ‘terrifying’. The Ball-Basher Bailey baton has been passed on.

  No, I am dreading the wedding for entirely selfish reasons. Today I will have to confront my extended family and friends for the first time since I split up with Matt. I know how it is at weddings. Somehow the usual rules of politeness are loosened – probably by champagne, let’s be honest – and everyone my mother’s age and up will feel it’s quite acceptable to ask deeply personal questions. Where is your husband? Are you getting a divorce? Why couldn’t you make it work? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

  And I’m not entirely sure of the answers.

  I am hopeful about the future. I have to be. Now everything has fallen apart, it is time to start putting a new life back together. A different one. I’ve already spent my first Christmas as a single woman, and it wasn’t that bad. I went with Eddy and his girls to Mrs Curtis’s Christmas morning swim; we huddled on the shore with a thermos of tea and a hip flask of whisky as she and her hardy friends emerged from the waves. We all wished each other merry Christmas, exchanging damp hugs and toasting the festive season with our plastic mugs. Grace and Charlotte gave Minnie a squeaky dinosaur toy, and Minnie, with some assistance from me, gave them a packet of princess stickers each. Mum, Dad, Prue and I spent what is bound to be our last Christmas as a family of four, and it didn’t feel stifling or strange, it felt comforting.

  It wasn’t what I was used to, but that was fine. I can’t erase my past. It’s done. But I can build on it all over again, like the Undercliff, regenerating itself after a landslip. It will be different; not better, not worse.

  And I’ve made peace with my home town. I can’t imagine myself living here for ever, but it is more than just a place to run away to. I have friends here, family, people I can rely on. Perhaps more importantly, people who know they can rely on me.

  In any case I can’t stay here because the bungalow is sold. The estate agent called to tell us that the sour-faced woman will be taking it, despite the fact that Ben does not come as part of the deal. His call, while welcome, was unnecessary, as Mrs Curtis had already bustled over at the crack of dawn, a damp towel still tucked under her arm, to pass on the gossip she’d heard at the beach. It seems the woman’s son is nothing of the kind; he’s actually her much younger husband. The thrill of this news was not shared by Ben, who had been dragged out of bed to answer the door, but the cul-de-sac is agog with expectation.

  For all that renovating the house was my idea, the quick sale does render me imminently homeless, which is why I have started putting feelers out about work back in London. It’s time to go back. But first, it is time for Prue’s wedding.

  Over at Mum and Dad’s it is complete chaos. Packing crates fill the kitchen, and there are damp clothes hanging off every radiator in the house, making the air thick with the smell of wet wool. The kitchen table is piled high with bottles of suncream and travel guides. Mum is a blur of action, shuttling piles of clothes from one room to another, while still in her dressing gown.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ I ask. It’s only an hour till we’re due at the hotel, and Mum’s hair is still wet from the shower.

  ‘No, love. I know it looks like a mess, but I know where everything is, and it will only confuse things. You can go upstairs and talk to your sister while she has her hair done. It’s probably best if you’re out of the way while I pack.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Prue’s cut down his father-of-the-bride speech a bit. Well, a lot. By at least half. I think he’s having a sulk somewhere. Leaving me with all this! Honestly.’

  But despite her annoyance, there’s an air of hardly suppressed excitement about my mother. And it’s not just because she’s about to see her daughter become a bride. As soon as Prue is married, Mum and Dad are off to South America for six months, maybe longer. With Dad’s pension kicking in this year, they agreed that Prue and Ben could buy them out of Baileys’ with their share of Granny Gilbert’s bungalow money. Now the newlyweds will have free rein to maximize opportunities for growth in the south west region without stepping on the parental toes. And as a side benefit, they can live in the parental home rent-free.

  And I thought nothing ever changed in Lyme. It’s a new start for all of us.

  As I climb the stairs to the bedroom I can hear Prue telling the hairdresser exactly how she wants the flowers arranged in her hair. I push open the door to see my sister looking astonishingly beautiful. A slim column of filigreed lace is draped over a simple white shift that drops to the floor. The lace rises up to my sister’s throat and extends down to her fingers. Her fine blonde hair has been looped and plaited into a chignon, into which the browbeaten hairdresser tucks star-like white flowers and ivy leaves. Prue looks delicate, virginal and more like a princess than any of the pictures on Eddy’s girls’ stickers.

  ‘So,’ I say, leaning on the doorframe. ‘You still decided to wear white, then?’

  Prue looks up. ‘If you say anything—’

  ‘Prue, just joking. You look beautiful. Really.’

 
I move to kiss her cheek but she pushes me away, complaining that I’ll ruin her make-up. As I sit down on the bed to watch the finishing touches to her hair, my phone buzzes in my handbag.

  Prue’s head whips round. ‘Is it Matt?’

  I sigh. ‘Prue. Give it up. It’s not going to be Matt.’

  ‘But you gave him your new number, right?’ She regards herself in the mirror, turning her head from side to side. The hairdresser hovers anxiously, awaiting further instructions.

  I did. Weeks ago. And I got back a terse ‘thanks.’ Since then, nothing. At Prue’s continued urging I have sent him more texts since then. And three emails. Plus a long handwritten letter. Next she will be encouraging me to use a carrier pigeon just to ensure I have tried every possible method of contacting my former husband. But still no reply. I can’t blame him. At least now he knows he can contact me when he is ready. If he is ready.

  ‘Anyway, it’s the caterers,’ I say, looking at the lit-up screen. ‘They say do you want the champagne to keep going until everyone sits down for the meal, or do you want to put a limit on the number of bottles?’

  ‘I’ve told them this already!’ says Prue. ‘Twice! Give me the phone.’ She crooks her fingers to demand I pass it over.

  I hold it out of her reach. ‘You’re not allowed to get stressed on your wedding day, Prue, it’s the law – that’s why they’ve got my number instead of yours. I’ll sort it. Just tell me what you want. Remember I used to do this for a living, okay?’

  She glowers, unsure whether she can trust me to live up to her exacting standards. Finally her face relaxes a fraction. ‘I suppose you need the practice if you’re going back to work. Non-stop champagne is what I said, and non-stop champagne is what I want.’

  I convey this to the caterers as politely as possible, and manage to avert a canapé misunderstanding without my sister even being aware of it. By the time I get off the phone, Prue’s hair is finished and the hairdresser has gone downstairs to start on Mum. Prue has decreed my own hair can do without professional assistance, since I am not a bridesmaid, but merely the sister of the bride, so apparently no one will be looking at me.