Chapter 15
Clare’s flat felt extra lonely when she walked into it that night. Lud’s things were dotted around the place and she took a long breath and began gathering them up, either for him to collect or for her to forward: his thick woolly scarf hanging behind the door, his big blue trainers next to her smaller pink ones in the hallway, his spare watch next to her phone, the book on the floor at his side of her bed, his razor and toothbrush, his bottle of cologne, which she opened, inhaling the scent and feeling, just for a moment, that he was in front of her. Devoid of his homely clutter, the flat looked instantly emptier. It was as if their presence was so much bigger than their volume.
There was no cheery text from Lud that night to say that he was missing her. She felt its absence greatly. He would be in the airport now, waiting for his flight. As she packed the last bits for tomorrow’s trip, she wondered how her parents would receive the news that she and Ludwig were no longer an item. Probably be quite delighted that she was now free to meet a good old English chap.
Maybe it would have been better if she had started the new job immediately: going away would give her time to think and she wasn’t sure that would be a good thing. On the other hand she did need a break, because she was so very tired and she wouldn’t have the chance to relax and recharge her batteries once she began her new position. The partners lived and breathed the place. Sometimes she was convinced they stretched time so that they could be there even longer than twenty-four hours a day. At least she wouldn’t have time to miss Ludwig after her name joined the list of partners’ names on the stationery – that would help matters. And the sooner she moved into the big office on the holy second floor, the more warmth would rush into her parents’ voices when she spoke to them. The more love they would allot her. The more time they would give to her. Success equals attention. That’s how it had always been in the Salter family.
Chapter 16
The sound of giggling greeted Lara as she pushed open the door to Manor Gardens. It was the laughter of two teenage girls and, mixed as it was with covert whispering, it was not a pleasant sound.
A head with swishy blonde hair appeared over the galleried landing and then quickly withdrew at being spotted. More chuckling ensued. Lara sensed she was the subject of the hilarity. She was obviously being hailed as the wicked stepmother. She forced a smile to her face as she took off her coat and prepared to be nice-lady.
‘Hi, girls, have you eaten?’
She heard a loudly whispered imitation of what she had just said, but delivered in the sort of northern accent associated with the depths of a working pit, and then more giggles. Lara suddenly felt like crying. Was this typical? She didn’t know anyone who had gone through the stepchildren experience to ask. She couldn’t find any common ground with Keely because Keely wouldn’t let her find it. As for Garth – well, he hated everything that wasn’t an Xbox or something he could stick his finger into and pull a bogey out of.
‘We’ve eaten, thanks.’ Paris’s voice floated down. ‘Kristina made us something.’
Lara hoped they would stay upstairs and do whatever teenage girls did – swoon over Justin Bieber or One Direction/Take That/David Cassidy – whoever was ‘in’ at the moment. She would rather they remained out of her way and snickered about her, than watched every move she made with permanently mocking eyes.
Lara went into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, pulling out a can of diet cherry Coke and the box containing the small crustless quiche that she had earmarked for tea, seeing as she wasn’t going to be sharing a candlelit supper with James. The box felt very light. She opened it to find that it was empty but had been sealed up again and replaced on the shelf. She knew Kristina wouldn’t have done such a thing, and Garth wouldn’t have wasted precious Xbox time inventing ways to annoy her. This had all the hallmarks of a Keely prank, which is why she always kept her toothbrush in her make-up bag and a ‘dummy’ in the glass in their en-suite bathroom. She didn’t trust Keely not to do something gross with it behind her back.
Lara was totally fed up with the constant attempts to provoke her. She fought hard to push down the rising tears when Keely came into the kitchen wearing her perma-smirk, which widened even more when she saw Lara holding the empty quiche box. It was ridiculous – at work Lara could reduce grown men to rubble, at home a spotty grotty teenager with delusions of becoming the next Kate Moss was doing the very same to her.
‘Having quiche for tea, I see?’ she said, her face a perfect arrangement of innocence.
‘I was going to, but it seems someone beat me to it.’ Lara tried to laugh it off but didn’t really manage it.
‘Shame. What time is Dad coming home?’
‘Late,’ replied Lara. ‘That’s all I know.’
Keely sauntered over to the fridge and opened the door.
‘He’s always late these days,’ she huffed.
‘Well, he’s very busy at the moment,’ said Lara as breezily as she could.
‘Yeah, I noticed.’ Keely sounded genuinely annoyed – with her father, for a change.
Lara saw her chance to shine and dived in. ‘Would you like any help packing?’
‘No, thank you. Kristina’s done it.’ Keely pulled out two Pepsi bottles and closed the fridge door.
‘Okay,’ said Lara. ‘As long as you’re sorted.’
‘I am, thanks.’ This was said almost pleasantly. God – was this a breakthrough?
‘I hope you have a really nice time in France,’ said Lara with a sudden determination to win Keely over. It happened in films. Eventually the kind-hearted would-be parent broke through all the defences the child had erected and friendship flowered.
‘Of course I shall. I’ll be with my mum.’
‘Bring me back some rock,’ joked Lara with a light laugh that resulted only in Keely giving her a sideways frown.
‘I do mean it,’ said Lara. ‘I want you both to have a lovely holiday. I only ever see the insides of offices when I go to France, no time for sightseeing or shopping.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll have some shopping time in Yorkshire,’ returned Keely, her voice giving the county the status of a dog turd.
‘I’m sure we shall.’
Keely took one step out of the door and then doubled back.
‘I feel sorry for you, Lara,’ she said, an alien softness in her voice.
‘For me? Why?’
‘Because you think that Dad could really fall for someone like you.’
‘Like me? What do you mean?’
‘Where do I start? High-street clothes, inferior cooking, inferior face, funny northern accent . . . is that enough to be going on with?’
No, it wasn’t a breakthrough, obviously.
Lara didn’t want the tears to appear in her eyes, but it seemed she had no choice – they sprang there in one leap and shimmered. Keely had just reduced her to as low as she could possibly get.
‘Keely, why do you feel the need to hate me so much?’
Keely’s head swung back round to her step-mother-in-training and, just for a second, she saw Lara as she really was – a good-hearted woman pushed to the brink, a kind woman who had never done her any harm. But Keely was a spoiled brat, raised by parents with primarily their own interests at heart, and that behaviour had become ingrained in her. To admit she had been a complete bitch to someone who was trying to be nice to her would be to admit that she – Keely – was wrong, and she didn’t do apologies. Besides, she enjoyed sticking the knife in Lara and twisting it. It gave her the power she felt was missing from the rest of her life: Keely didn’t have the power to get any mark at school above average, the power to be popular with her peers, the power to hold her parents’ attention and the mirror told her that she would never reach the supermodel status to which she aspired. But still, she did feel just a tad rotten then and the only way to combat the feeling was to be even more rotten. She wafted past Lara with the bottles of pop and the word ‘Loser’ thrown over her shoulder.
/> In her wake, Lara could smell her own perfume on Keely. So she had been in her room, going through her things. Her gorgeously expensive perfume – Rain – wasn’t too lower class or northern for the snobby Keely, then? And what was an ‘inferior face’? It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much. And did it make her such a bad person not to be obsessed with designer labels, as the rest of the Galsworthy family were? Lara liked shopping on the high street and she had put together a beautifully smart capsule wardrobe, even if the labels littering it were more likely to be from Next and Dorothy Perkins than Stella McCartney and Chanel.
Lara couldn’t wait for the moment Miriam took Keely – and Garth – out of her life for seven whole days. She had been craving some time alone with James, and the chance to be his girlfriend again rather than being the despised not-quite-step-mother. She resented having his children dumped on her and being extra worn out when she saw him. The thought of seven whole da— And then she remembered that of course her holiday was booked at the same time as the children’s. God forgive her, but she was on the brink of praying for an illness to pay her a visit – one that was not too big, just serious enough to give her the excuse not to go to the spa. She needed to stay with James and get them back on track. She could feel him slipping away from her a little more with every passing hour.
Chapter 17
Lara came in from work the next day to find the note she had left for Keely and Garth, a few lines to wish them a lovely week away, still couched in bags of sweets, untouched. She put it in the bin where last night she had found her missing quiche, squashed down at the bottom.
Without the hostile children there the house already felt like a different place: lighter and less threatening. Even Kristina was singing, which was something Lara had never heard her do before. James had come home early from work for once and was now all showered, scented and shaved and looking handsome in a Fred Perry blue polo shirt and jeans. Lara really didn’t want to drive up to Yorkshire that night. She wanted to stay here for the week and mosey around the house during the day, making Clare-standard dishes for James’s tea, which she would bring to the table wearing something skimpy and revealing. But her case was packed and in the hallway. She would be setting off in less than an hour to pick up her friends and travel the motorways through the night to avoid the traffic.
James poured a glass of wine, instinctively offering it to Lara first.
‘Driving,’ she said, holding up her hand against it.
‘Of course, sorry. I forgot. That’s a shame, darling.’
‘I wish I weren’t going,’ she said.
James sighed. ‘It’ll do you good to be with your friends. And it’s not as if it’s for ever. You’ll be back in the blink of an eye.’
Lara nodded, trying not to look upset that he didn’t say that he didn’t want her to go either.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I just wish I’d known that you were going to be alone in the house. It seems such a missed opportunity.’
James took a long sip of the Chenin Blanc and nodded slowly. ‘Well, can’t be helped. And you’re hardly going to Timbuktu. I do believe they have mobile signals in Yorkshire.’ He winked, polishing off that first glass of wine in double-quick time. Lara wished she could abandon all her plans, pull a glass out of the cupboard and join him.
‘Are you going to be okay in the house by yourself?’ she teased. ‘Not too lonely without me?’
‘Possibly,’ mused James. ‘I think I know the way to the kitchen and to the clean underpants in the drawer. Kristina will point me in the right direction if I get lost, I’m sure.’
‘Will you miss me?’
‘Of course I’m going to miss you.’ He replied. ‘But I’m very busy at work, as you know. At least with you gone I won’t have to feel guilty about being late home. I do feel awful that I’m leaving you alone so much with the children and their teenage hormones. It won’t be for long, I promise you. I’ll make more time for us when you come back. I’ll be counting the days and, selfish as this sounds, I hope every one speeds by.’
Lara beamed. At last – an admission that he was going to miss her and wanted the time when she was away to go fast and an acknowledgement that he knew things weren’t easy for her in the house.
‘You’d better go soon, hadn’t you?’ said James, checking his Rolex. ‘By now the roads should be much clearer of traffic and the sooner you get there and are safe, the better.’
Lara moved forwards and placed her head on his chest. She loved him so much. She wished Miriam would have an epiphany and decide she wanted the children to live permanently with her in France. She felt James’s lips kiss her hair. She lifted her head and let him kiss her lips, which he did – slowly and deliciously. That felt so much better. He wasn’t going off her after all. What a stupid cow she was.
‘You take care and ring me when you get there,’ he said. ‘Drive carefully and not like a loony in that fast car of yours. Promise?’
‘Promise,’ she said.
He picked up her suitcase and carried it to the car for her.
‘I won’t ask you if you have everything, because you’re Lara and so you will have,’ he said. He always said she was the most capable, organized woman he had ever met. Then he kissed her softly on the mouth again and stood on the doorstep, waving to her until she was finally out of sight.
But in fact Lara’s brain hadn’t been functioning to full capacity recently and all the needles that Keely had been using against her had punctured her self-belief. Half an hour into her journey she realized she had forgotten her glasses. It really was too far to turn back and get them, but at the same time she needed them. She intended to do a lot of reading on holiday and she couldn’t even read a menu with big lettering very comfortably without them. Bugger. There was nothing else for it. She pulled into the side of the road, texted May that she was going to be slightly late, and turned back.
Someone had taken her space so she had to park further up the road than usual. The front door was locked. She slid in her key and breezed inside, then straight up the stairs to get them from her side of the bed where she remembered she had taken them off after making her packing list.
‘’S only m—’ she called, her words dying in her throat when she heard the small excited pants.
A female voice.
‘Yes, yes, oh God, don’t stop.’
Lara’s footsteps slowed and she took the remaining eight of them with the stealth of a Siamese cat with slippers on. Was James watching porn? But she knew he wasn’t. That voice wasn’t coming out of a TV.
‘Do you like this?’ she heard James say, followed by a crescendo of delighted female yelps. Lara pushed open the bedroom door, then froze. Secured to the bed with a selection of his best Austin Reed silk ties was a naked woman, and an equally naked James was just lifting his head from between her legs.
‘Shit, oh shit, oh shit,’ said James, attempting to scramble from the bed and reach something to cover himself up with, whilst the woman made no effort to struggle from her restraints. Her long dark hair fanned out around her head.
Tianne.
It couldn’t be anyone else.
‘Lara, it’s not what you think,’ said James, who had quickly wrapped himself in his blue robe. The one she had bought him for his birthday.
Lara didn’t know what she thought. She felt as if a bomb had been put under her world and it had just blown up and none of the pieces falling around her could be put back in any order that made sense. She viewed the carnage in front of her strangely objectively. So this was younger, smoother Tianne. Tianne who didn’t want commitment, just ‘spicy sex’, fun with no strings. She had small pointy breasts, rather pudgy thighs, a waist far from the trim one of Lara’s imaginings, and she was sporting a Brazilian. She seemed quite content to lie there, tethered to the bed – their bed .
Lara picked up her glasses from the bedside table, brushing past James, who was stuttering, holding out his hands as if he wanted to touch her but found
there was an invisible force-field holding him back.
Lara turned on her heel and marched out of the door on automatic pilot. James followed her, pleading for an audience, beseeching her to listen.
‘Please just hear me out. Listen, darling.’
With her hand stretching out to open the front door, Lara twisted back round to face him. He’s only given me oral sex once – ever – thought Lara, unable to take her eyes away. Tianne got foreplay. That hurt. She hated him. She wanted to slap him and she wanted to throw herself against him and cry and feel his arms around her.
‘Okay, then. I’m bloody listening.’ Keely would have loved the way she said that – pure South Yorkshire.
Given the platform to speak, James now found he couldn’t say anything. He stammered and stroked his forehead a bit and then paced up and down in front of Lara until eventually he halted, shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ Lara said, and smiled.
‘Is it?’ James looked delighted.
‘Is it fuck!’
‘Oh.’
‘Bitch, you said. Evil cow. I wouldn’t touch her again even with a barge pole, you said.’ Lara was shouting and hoped the podgy-thighed, fat-waisted, pointy-titted naked cow upstairs heard.
‘I know, I know,’ said James, looking very much as if he was in pain.
‘I haven’t been out of the house an hour. My, you had this well planned, didn’t you?’
‘I . . . I just . . . I just wanted . . .’
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess – a shag. A spicy shag?’ suggested Lara. ‘I think that’s obvious.’
‘I thought we were going a bit stale,’ James explained, advancing a step towards her. ‘But it was a mistake. I see that now.’
Lara’s head jerked up. She rotated her finger in the air as. ‘Er, rewind that a moment. What did you say – stale?’
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