Once I’d made all the notes I could think of on the Post-its, I sat at the island and laid them out in front of me. On one side were the places I’d called. One reason for writing them down was so that I didn’t call them again, but it also helped to still my mind, made me think I was getting somewhere. Once it was all written down, I felt I could cope. So the notes lay in front of me like a game of solitaire, and I moved them into columns and across into rows whenever I wanted to jog my memory.
After an hour or two of that, though, I’d had enough. I just wanted to get out of the house, away from the emptiness. I set off in the car, not knowing where I was going, and drove aimlessly through the small towns of the Wirral. After a while, I realised that Matt’s mother’s house was only a few miles further up the road.
I wasn’t a huge fan of his mother, Olivia, and from the way she reacted when I first met her, I suspected I wasn’t her first choice of girlfriend for her son. So every Sunday Matt would go off to see her in Heswall, and I’d stay at home and paint my nails or go for a run. Sometimes he’d be a bit subdued when he got home, as though there’d been rows or recriminations, but he always denied anything like that had happened. He would, though, I suppose.
He often asked why I didn’t go to see my own parents. I think he felt I was just waiting for him to come home, that he’d had to rush his visit. That wasn’t my idea of fun, though. I saw them often enough for my liking, and although I knew my mum would have appreciated more frequent visits, she wasn’t going to get them. There was something about being with my parents that made me revert to childhood, and that wasn’t a place I willingly revisited.
I looked at the clock on the dashboard. Two o’clock. The time Matt went to see his mum varied, but my heart suddenly raced at the thought that he could be there now. I put my foot on the accelerator and let the road have it.
The first time I met Olivia was when Matt was working in London and visiting me for the weekend. We went along for lunch at her house on the Saturday, dragging ourselves out of bed to be on time, then finding the shower such a distraction we were late. Really late.
I remembered she’d frowned when she first saw me. My hair was damp and my cheeks were rosy. I’d had to put my make-up on in the car, we were so rushed. With that one glance I knew I didn’t live up to her expectations, and I felt it like a kick in the stomach. Immediately I asked for the bathroom and tidied myself up, but by then the damage had been done. She was polite enough, offering us lunch and a glass of wine, chatting to us about her plans for the weekend, but she seemed guarded, as though she was holding back.
We used to see her every few weeks, whenever Matt was back from London. He’d always stay with me and we’d go to see her. She’d invite us to lunch and we’d chat, but she wasn’t likely to become my best friend. I tried with her, I really did. I didn’t have much of a relationship with my own mum, but I made an effort with Olivia. I’d buy her gifts and invite her to spas and so on, but she rarely accepted, saying she was so busy at work and just wanted to relax at the weekend. What the hell did she think spas were for? I tried not to talk about her with Matt, but sometimes I had to, and nowadays we tried not to mention her. He’d go off to see her and I’d be polite when he returned, nothing more. It’s the same with a lot of in-law relationships, I suppose.
Now I approached her house carefully. She lived on quite a wide road, with enough room for cars to park on each side and still allow traffic to pass easily. I stopped a few doors away on the other side of the road and sat quietly watching her house for a while. Matt’s car was nowhere to be seen and his mum’s driveway was empty.
Although the day was grey and overcast, there were children playing out in the street. A young girl glanced into my car as she ran past, and I tensed, not wanting her to go to her parents and tell them there was an odd woman sitting outside. I pulled out my phone and pretended to be looking at something on there.
When I looked up again, I noticed something strange, and stared so hard I thought my eyes would pop. Through the driveway of Matt’s mother’s home, I could see the top of something blue; it looked like a trampoline, one of those huge kids’ ones that’s surrounded by a tall net to stop them bouncing off.
I sat back in my seat and thought for a second. Matt was an only child, like me. His mum was in her early sixties and divorced. He’d not said anything about her meeting someone else, never mind someone with young children or grandchildren. She wouldn’t have been able to put up a trampoline that size without help from him, and he hadn’t mentioned it at all.
I started the car and drove slowly up the road. As I passed the house, I glanced out of the window and saw that yes, I was right. There was a huge blue trampoline in the back garden, next to the garage.
I drove for a mile or two, then stopped the car to think. Nothing made sense. Why would Olivia have a trampoline in her garden? I had a mad moment where I thought of her bouncing on it after one gin too many. She was always at Weight Watchers; maybe they had recommended it?
Slowly I turned the car around and drove back the way I’d come. I approached from another direction this time, so that my car was on Olivia’s side of the road, her house at my passenger window. I didn’t care who was looking at me; I slowed right down as I passed and saw again the huge blue frame. Then I noticed that the curtains in the front room had changed, and on the wall next to the front door was a silver plaque with the house number on it. That was new, too. I continued further down the road, then did a U-turn and sat facing the house, though several yards away. There was no sign of life.
I got out of the car and walked towards the house. The children in the street stopped as one to watch, and I could feel their eyes boring into my back as I turned into the driveway.
At once I could see that someone else was living there. On my way to the front door, I looked through the living room window. There was a huge television in prime position on the wall above the fireplace, facing a big white leather corner sofa. A low black glass coffee table had a display of flowers made of silver and crystal, and a life-sized portrait of a young girl sat in pride of place on the wall facing the window. It was as unlike Olivia’s conservatively decorated living room as it was possible to be.
I knocked at the door. As I expected, there was no answer, and I turned to go back to my car. A little boy was watching me with interest, and as I passed him, I said, ‘Hello.’
He stared back.
‘Does Mrs Stone still live in this house?’ I asked. Stupid question really, but I didn’t know what else to say.
He looked bemused.
‘Who lives in this house, sweetheart?’ I asked.
He stared again and banged his stick against the steps.
I sighed. I was about to go and ask another child when a woman came running up.
‘I was just asking your son whether Mrs Stone still lives here,’ I said in a conversational manner.
‘Why do you want to know?’
I stared at her. ‘I’m a relative,’ I said eventually, when I realised eyeballing her wasn’t going to bring about an answer. ‘I was passing and thought I’d call in, but it looks as though she’s moved.’
‘She has. She doesn’t live here any more,’ said the woman, gripping her son’s hand tightly. ‘Not for ages.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I said. I was about to ask whether she knew where Olivia had moved to, but she walked off clutching her son to her.
I walked slowly back to the car. Ages . . . How long was that? She’d come to our house for Christmas lunch just a few months before and there had certainly been no mention of her moving then. I knew she’d been in the house for years and that she liked the area. She had lots of friends round there, but I hadn’t a clue what their names were or where they lived.
It startled me a little to realise that the last time I’d been to her house was two Christmases ago. Matt and I had taken her out for a meal when it was his birthday or hers, but apart from on those occasions, and Christmas Day, I hadn’t seen h
er. I’d considered myself lucky to get out of the weekly visits, but thinking about it now, after the first couple of weeks, Matt hadn’t put up a protest. I frowned. If I’d seen her more often, I might have known about her moving house, but then surely he should have mentioned it? I felt a sudden flash of anger. Why hadn’t he told me she’d gone? I felt a fool for thinking he was always honest with me. I’d been busy with work and had taken my eye off the ball at home, clearly.
Now it was May, and the woman in the street had said she’d moved ages ago – did she mean in the last few months? I turned to ask her, but she was already back in her house, her child with her. I saw a shadow fall across the window of her front room and knew I shouldn’t go and talk to any more children.
I sat in the car and thought about the last time I’d seen Olivia. She’d seemed OK with me; she obviously would have preferred to spend Christmas at her own house – wherever that was – but she was polite, praising the food and giving us a couple of bottles of champagne as a gift.
Then I remembered Zoopla, the property listing service. They’d have a record of the sale. Some days you just had to love the internet.
I pulled my phone from my bag and searched for her address on the website. I could hardly believe my eyes. Her house had sold on 30 November last year. Of course there was nothing to say where she’d gone to, and no way I could find that out, but it meant that she’d been to my house on Christmas Day and had sat there for more than six hours without mentioning she had moved. And Matt had picked her up that morning and taken her back in the afternoon, so clearly he’d known about it. He’d known for months and hadn’t said a word. Where had he taken her? Had they talked about me on their way home? The thought of the effort I’d made for those two liars that day made me seethe.
I remembered then that Matt’s mum had my mobile number. She’d sent me a text later on Christmas night, thanking us for lunch. Thank you so much for inviting me, she’d said. We’ll do Christmas at my house next year! I’d guessed there was a subtext there, but had thought it was along the lines of ‘I’ll show you how to make a proper Christmas lunch.’ How was I supposed to know that it was ‘Oh, and by the way, my invitation only extends to Matt. As for you, I’ve moved home and you will never know where I live’?
Of course her number was no longer on my phone, and the message, too, had disappeared. She was lucky there, I thought, because I might have called her and told her a few home truths.
I sent Katie a text:
I’ve just found out Matt’s mum has moved house. Why didn’t he tell me?
I sat there for several minutes before she replied. I had the feeling she wasn’t taking this as seriously as I was.
How do you know that? Has he been in touch?
No, no word still. I’ve just been there. Spoke to a neighbour.
Within a couple of minutes my phone beeped:
That’s weird! Tell me all about it tonight. 7 p.m. still OK? xx
12
Katie opened the door and gave me a hug. She was looking great in a new dress, her hair curled and make-up on. My heart sank. Whenever we bought new clothes, we’d put them on to show each other before wearing them to work or on a night out. Sometimes a sidelong look from Katie would have me rushing to exchange something, but then at other times she’d pick up her iPad within minutes of seeing me and buy the same outfit for herself. That night I hadn’t even thought of making an effort, and flushed as she gave me a swift sympathetic glance. She hugged me again then, and I couldn’t help it; my body yielded to her embrace.
‘You poor thing,’ she said. It didn’t make me feel any better.
‘How was the conference?’ I asked. I wasn’t particularly interested, but I guessed she’d want to talk about it, to show me how well she was doing at work. We’d always been the same, judging our own success in comparison with the achievements of the other. I had no time for that tonight, though.
‘I’m not allowed to talk about it,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I phoned my mum on my way home and she said I could get it out of my system telling her, but that if I went on about it to James, he’d leave me.’
‘That bad, eh?’
‘Thank God for her mum,’ said James, coming into the hallway and taking my jacket. ‘Taking it for the team like that. Katie did try to tell me about it on the phone in the week, but I couldn’t understand a word.’
Katie laughed. She was used to people not knowing what she was talking about when she spoke about her job. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I was boring myself.’
We sat in the living room, music playing softly in the background and a cluster of cream church candles flickering in the fireplace. They were new, and I remembered that the last time Katie had been to my house when Matt was there, I’d bought similar candles and filled my fireplace with them. She’d loved them, and now, of course, she had them in her home. The room was warm and inviting, everything that my own house wasn’t right now. It was spotless, too.
When Katie went to the kitchen to get some drinks, I expected James to say something about coming round to my house the other night, but instead he glanced at the open doorway, where we could hear Katie putting bowls and glasses on to a tray, and told me that he’d come home from work on Friday to find her mum and dad packing their steam mop into the car. They’d given the place a spring-clean, they’d said.
‘Don’t you mind them coming into your house like that?’
He shrugged. ‘I’d have had to clean it at the weekend,’ he said. ‘It’s saved me the time and they seem to like doing it.’
‘But to come in without telling you?’
‘They’re not going to do any damage, are they?’ he said. ‘Besides, they filled the fridge up too. Why would I object to that?’
I shook my head. ‘I couldn’t stand it, someone coming into my house without my knowing. It would scare me.’
‘Scare you?’ said Katie, returning with the tray. ‘Your own parents?’
James flashed a glance at me. ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he said. ‘If they want to do it, they can.’
‘I love having my mum and dad around,’ said Katie. ‘They can help as much as they like as far as I’m concerned.’
She snuggled into the corner of the sofa, the lamplight haloing her blond hair, and gave James a little pleading look. He rolled his eyes and poured us all some wine. She licked her lips, and just for a second she looked like the cat that’d got the cream. I’d seen that look regularly since I’d known her. It wasn’t just that Katie was spoiled, although she was; it was that she was adored. Her parents had longed for a child, and when they were forty, after twenty years together, they finally had Katie. From that moment she was treated like a little goddess, and they worshipped at her altar. When she moved away from home, it was as though her parents were bereaved, but then they gathered themselves together and focused on her new life, making friends with her friends, bringing her food, washing and ironing her clothes and returning them before she’d even realised they’d gone. They acted as though she was still a little girl, and she loved it, basked in it.
She was sorry for anyone whose family didn’t treat their children like demigods, but other than that, she didn’t give it a second thought. James’s family lived up in Scotland now, and I think a huge part of her was glad she didn’t have to dilute her time with her own family. She went up there with him, with good grace, a couple of times a year, but I knew she wasn’t impressed by the way they happily said goodbye at the end of a visit. Her own parents would have been distraught at the thought of not seeing her for months, and anything less than tears and promises, fifty pounds from their pension pushed into their hands, and texts as soon as they left the driveway looked to Katie as though someone didn’t care.
As for me, she couldn’t understand how I lived in the same town as my parents but rarely saw them. I’ve never been able to talk to her about that. She just wouldn’t get it. Even when we were little, I used to prefer to go to her house; I’d walk
into their kitchen and instantly relax. But then Katie loved coming to visit me, too. Our place was different when she was there, and while she played or chatted to my parents, the tension that was the track of my life just disappeared. She had a sunny expression that my mother loved, and she was always laughing. It cheered me up just to see her, and I think my parents felt the same.
I closed my eyes for a second. The last thing I needed was to think about them now. I reached over to take the glass of wine from James and noticed his guitar leaning against his armchair.
‘Been playing much?’
He nodded. ‘A bit.’
‘Whenever I’m not here,’ said Katie. ‘I bet you played every day last week, didn’t you?’
He laughed. ‘More than I do most days.’
‘He prefers playing when I’m not here,’ said Katie.
‘Because she sings along?’
He grinned at me then. ‘I can’t bear it.’
In that moment I was taken back to that summer when we were seventeen. I’d go round to James’s house after college and we’d lie at either end of his single bed while he played the guitar, and I would think I had the perfect boyfriend. Those months were the happiest of my life. One day Katie came with me, and when he began to play, we were both startled as she started to sing along. Her voice was awful, really high and reedy, and James and I had looked at each other and laughed until we’d cried.
‘What?’ she kept saying. ‘What are you laughing at?’
Now Katie and I sat curled up either end of the sofa, our feet almost touching, and James sprawled in the armchair by the fireplace. In the candlelight it was almost as though no time had passed.
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