by Fiona Gibson
‘Laura!’ Jed thunders. ‘I’m desperate.’
‘Just a minute—’
‘Let me in!’ He raps on the door.
Jesus, it’s like having a fourth child. Haven’t I been saying, since we had Toby, that we urgently need a second loo? It drives me insane, this constant hammering every time I’m in here for more than a second. Is it any wonder I’m a little unkempt? Naomi has not one but two ensuites, like bloody royalty – one for her, one for buffed-up hubby. Switching off the shower, I wrap myself in a towel and unlock the door.
Although clearly on the point of combustion, Jed still manages to fling me a disdainful look as if I’m something he’s narrowly avoided treading in on the pavement. He strides to the loo and starts to pee, emitting a groan of relief which I find enormously off-putting. I glare at the back of him as he sploshes noisily, deciding that it doesn’t matter if I’m poultry-like down there as I’ll never be intimate with him again. I’ll grow fatter and hairier with many cats.
For one brief moment, I wish I was playing with the children and the train set at Mum’s.
In the sanctuary of our bedroom, I examine my handiwork as Jed pads downstairs. Although I look freakish, I don’t have it in me to jump back into the shower and finish off the job. I pull on my new underwear and survey my reflection in our full-length mirror on which Toby has crayoned a person with stick legs and stick arms and a brick-shaped torso. I assume it’s supposed to be me. My face is pink from the shower, my hair straggly and dripping down my chest. The new bra is a little baggy in the cups. The knickers are cut lower than my preferred style, and lack the reinforcements required to hold in my tummy. I don’t look like a woman who’s on the brink of making her husband faint with desire. I look like a clappedout mother who buys her underwear two aisles along from the gherkins.
Gamely, I pull on the suspender belt – remembering too late that the knickers are supposed to go on top of it – then the stockings. The suspender belt’s clips are a devil to snap on. Every time I manage to get one done up, another pings off. It’s even more fiddly than Finn’s old Meccano set. Why didn’t I buy hold-up stockings? Because I planned to go for full-on foxery, haha.
I dart into Grace’s room, rummage in her craft box for scissors and snip the Hugga Bubba teddies off my underwear. As a joke, I place them on her pillow. I’m overcome by a surge of longing, wishing she were here, wishing all the children were here, and that this was an ordinary family evening with bedtime stories and tucking in and Jed and I watching a movie together. Our normal life isn’t so bad. I want too much, that’s the problem. My expectations have shot off the scale, like would-be Angelina Jolie’s at the salon. I should be content with the way things are. Look at Mum, with her art classes and volunteering, trying to fill the void where Dad used to be.
Why didn’t he tell anyone he was ill? Because he didn’t want to worry us, not even Mum. Then he had to tell her, of course, and then they told Kate because she’s eight years older than me and far more sensible and capable. It was Kate who called, when I was trying to coax Toby onto the potty, and said, ‘Laura, I’m sorry to tell you this, but I think you should know. Dad’s really ill.’
I’d known he’d been for tests, and Mum had implied that it was something to do with cholesterol or blood pressure and that a change of diet would fix everything. She didn’t mention the cancer that had spread to his spine. ‘It’s the shock,’ I told Jed, tears pouring down my cheeks. ‘If they’d warned me, I might have been ready. I might have been prepared.’ He’d kissed and held me and, for a moment, he was my boyfriend again, who always managed, somehow, to make things better. Jed knew how close I’d been to Dad.
In our bedroom, I hold up my new emerald dress. I don’t have the courage to carry it off – not with the shaving disaster lurking beneath. Instead, I pull on a more demure polka-dot sundress which used to be one of Jed’s favourites but is faded and must be at least five years old. It’s an improvement, though. I definitely look better clothed than naked. I dab on my new make-up and try to adopt an expression of hope.
Downstairs, Jed is engrossed in his book. In the kitchen, I set the pasta to boil and follow the recipe with the prawns, rocket and chilli. The chillies look so pretty, flecking the prawns with deep red, that I sling in a few extra. Maybe my culinary gene is reawakening. I’m actually enjoying myself, creating a meal from scratch that doesn’t involve sausages or the potato masher. I might not be able to make felt purses, or be half-French, but I can knock together a delicious supper and make myself look presentable (at least, half-presentable).
I carry our supper, cutlery and glasses of wine from the kitchen to the back garden. Our ancient iron table looks far too rusty and unhygienic to eat off, so I place everything on the garden wall while I hurry back in for a tablecloth. The only one I can find has an indelible orangey stain, but it’ll do. Grabbing a bunch of tea lights, I set the table, placing my plate over the stain. ‘Ready!’ I call from the back door.
Jed appears, still clutching his book. ‘We’re eating outside?’
‘Yes, why not? It’s a lovely evening.’ With a flourish, I light the tea lights and survey the scene.
‘Oh . . . okay. I’ll need a jacket though.’
‘Get one then,’ I say sweetly. It is a bit chilly, but I’m not going to spoil the effect of the dress with a jacket or even a cardi. I shall freeze my arse off instead.
Jed reappears in an Arctic-worthy jacket, thankfully devoid of book, and perches on a wobbly metal chair. I wait for him to register my new make-up and exclaim, ‘Wow, Laura, you look gorgeous tonight. Let me kiss you, irresistible wife!’ Nothing is forthcoming. Next time Jed and I have a hot date, I may wear a boiler suit.
I glance around our garden. The bleak rectangle is bordered by brick walls all shedding their white paint skins. The borders are already sprouting weeds. ‘You know,’ I murmur, ‘we really should do something with this place.’
‘Like what?’ Jed prods a pasta quill. He looks so good, so strong-jawed and handsome in the yellowy flicker of the tea lights, even with his big fat jacket on.
‘Get some pots,’ I suggest, ‘or hanging baskets. Maybe even some turf to make a proper lawn.’
‘Feel free,’ he says with a chuckle, ‘but I don’t imagine it’d stay perfect for long. The kids would soon mess it up.’
‘It wouldn’t have to be perfect,’ I insist. ‘It could be wild, full of colour like, like—’
‘Like . . . your dad’s garden?’ he says gently.
I nod. Dad lived for his garden. Finn would help him to plant things, when he was still eager to please. He even had a notebook in which he’d document what he’d planted and when the first shoots appeared. ‘My cornflowers came up!’ Finn wrote carefully, and Mum let us cut some to bring home. As Dad grew sicker, the borders ran wild. ‘He’ll knock it back into shape when he’s better,’ Mum would say as the exuberant colours blurred beneath a blanket of weeds. I could have helped, if I’d known. After Dad had gone, Mum had the whole garden turfed over.
‘You okay, love?’ Jed asks.
‘I’m fine.’ I muster a smile. ‘I just think the kids would enjoy the garden more if we spruced it up.’
‘There’s the park, though, isn’t there?’ He forks in some pasta and splutters dramatically. ‘God, Laura! How much chilli did you put in this?’
‘Just what the recipe said,’ I say curtly.
‘Oh, wow . . . this is bloody hot.’ He slugs his wine and starts blowing out air.
I take a tentative nibble. It tastes fine at first, if a little fiery. Then the heat builds up until an inferno tears at my throat. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ I croak, my eyes streaming as I fork in an enormous mouthful to prove just how bloody fine and delicious it is.
‘I can’t eat this,’ Jed announces, lurching inside to the kitchen. I hear the tap being turned on full blast. My entire digestive system is combusting. No amount of chilled white wine can cool my throat. I slam down my fork and mar
ch into the kitchen where Jed is bent under the kitchen tap with cold water gushing directly into his mouth.
‘It’s not that bad,’ I rasp, my mouth searing. ‘You’re acting like one of the kids.’
He straightens up and dabs his face with a tea towel. ‘Oh, isn’t it? So I suppose you don’t want some water?’
‘Um, yes please.’ He hands me a glassful, which I gulp down. ‘Sorry,’ I murmur. ‘I threw in a few extra chillies to make it look colourful.’
‘Right,’ he snorts. ‘Like a little garden or something?’
‘Something like that,’ I say as he fills a second glass for me. The back door is open, and the tea lights flicker feebly on the table.
‘Hey,’ Jed says gently, sliding his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, love. I know you went to a lot of effort.’
‘It’s okay. It was my fault.’
‘Look,’ he adds hesitantly. ‘I . . . I know I’ve been . . . wrapped up in other things lately . . .’
Like Celeste? ‘I suppose we’re just not used to being together anymore,’ I cut in quickly. It feels so good, being held by him, that I don’t want to spoil it by saying her name.
‘Of course we are,’ Jed says. ‘We just don’t have the chance very often.’ He pulls back to study my face. ‘You smell good,’ he adds. ‘And you’re wearing make-up. It suits you.’
‘Oh, it’s just some old stuff I found . . .’
‘Well, you look lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ I smile, stretch up and kiss his soft lips. Then we’re kissing and kissing, and it doesn’t matter that I ruined our meal, or that Jed has spent the past four months in some parallel universe, because right now everything feels perfect. His hands, which were resting gently around my waist, slide down over my hips, pausing as he detects the suspender clips. He raises an eyebrow and smiles. ‘You have gone to a lot of effort.’
‘It’s amazing what you can buy at Tesco these days.’
‘Tesco?’ He laughs softly. ‘Classy.’ Then he clutches my hand, as if it’s something he’d lost and has just found and says, ‘We, um . . . we could just go to bed.’
‘Okay,’ I say, grinning. ‘If you insist.’
My heart is pounding as we climb the stairs together, the way it did the first time we kissed. We’d met at a party. Jed had just started out in teaching, and I’d vaguely known one of his housemates from college. What if ? was our favourite game back then. What if your date hadn’t stood you up? he’d ask me. What if you hadn’t gone home feeling totally fed up, and played that message from Helen who you hadn’t heard from in years? What if you hadn’t rung her straight back? What if she hadn’t invited you to our party? What if my girlfriend hadn’t dumped me, and I hadn’t been sitting on the stairs, pissed off, nursing a warm bottle of Becks?
He’d known instantly, he insisted, although he hadn’t been remotely aware that I’d spied him too, the moment I’d walked in. Jed is oblivious to women’s glances and flirtations. But he’d spotted me, breezing in and brimming with confidence, as if I had no expectations of the night ahead because so far it had been crapper than crapsville. ‘And you thought I was just being friendly,’ I used to tease him. ‘You had no idea how cute you were. What did I have to do? Take you home to bed! The lengths I had to go to to make you realise I was crazy about you . . .’
‘Even then, I thought I was just a sympathy lay,’ he laughed.
Jed and I reach the landing. Hell, my unfinished chicken-shave job. ‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ I murmur.
Disappointment flickers in his eyes. ‘Don’t be long this time.’
‘I’ll only be a minute. Honestly. There’s just, um, something I need to do.’
It takes longer than a minute as I strip naked and stand at the sink, trying to make myself symmetrical as speedily as possible without causing myself irreversible damage. My libido is ebbing away rapidly. The stockings have formed a crimped ring around the top of each thigh. In my eagerness to escape from that perv in Tesco, I must have grabbed too small a size.
I’m covered in suds, and water dribbles in rivulets down my legs as I try to wash them away. The floor is soaked, and I mop up the water with a fraying bath towel and an old T-shirt of Jed’s. By the time I’m back in my wretched underwear and padding tentatively into our bedroom, he is tucked up in bed with one arm slung across my pillow. ‘Hi,’ I whisper, slipping in under the duvet. I slide a hand across his chest which prompts him to roll away from me.
I study his broad, lightly tanned back and shoulders, which rise with each inhalation. Soft snores fill the room. It would appear that my hot date for tonight has fallen asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Beth and I are unloading the toys from the playgroup cupboard. The children clamour around us, their voices echoing in the dusty hall. We lift the lid from the sandpit and fill it with mini trucks and diggers; we top up the water tray, drop in some little plastic boats and set out books in the reading area. I glance at her, my best mummy-friend looking lithe and faintly Boden-esque in her narrow jeans and snug-fitting raspberry T-shirt. ‘Beth,’ I say later, fixing us a coffee from the grumbling urn, ‘how do you do it?’
‘Do what?’ she asks.
‘Stay so slim and fit. I’ve been thinking, I really have to do something. I’m sick of being like this.’ I glare down at my body in its loose jeans and even looser black top.
‘But you’re lovely as you are,’ she insists. ‘Men are always looking at you. You must realise that. You’re sexy and voluptuous and—’
‘Voluptuous? That means fat, Beth! The other day, I couldn’t even do up the zip on my biggest jeans. They’re a size sixteen!’
‘Well, sizes vary from shop to shop,’ she says firmly, nibbling a pink wafer biscuit. ‘They’re irrelevant really.’
‘Not when you’re going up in size. Then it’s horribly relevant, I can assure you . . .’
‘Oh, Laura. You look great, honestly. Anyway, no one’s the same after having kids, are they?’
‘I bet you are,’ I say.
‘You might think so, but I’m a disaster down here.’ She pats her taut stomach. ‘But after having two children, what can I expect?’
I set down my cup and tip out boxes of building blocks for the younger children. ‘The thing is, I don’t expect to be like I was before the children,’ I add. ‘I’d just like to not be expanding, to be able to resist all the snacks and biscuits . . .’
‘What’s brought this on, hon?’ she murmurs.
‘Oh, I don’t know. That mums’ race, I suppose. Me getting all dressed up for Jed the other night, even buying new underwear, even stockings . . .’
‘Whoa,’ she says with a grin. ‘Lucky Jed.’
‘Well, he wasn’t. By the time I climbed into bed, he was already asleep.’
‘You should’ve been quicker,’ she sniggers. ‘What took you so long?’
I smirk, deciding that playgroup isn’t the place to tell Beth about my chicken-shave job. ‘I was getting ready,’ I murmur.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, make sure you’re quicker next time. He was probably just knackered. You should see Pete, falling asleep virtually every time he sits down. It’s a man thing. They come home and switch off and, next thing, it’s full-on REM sleep. Next time, give him a sharp prod and wake him up, especially if you’ve gone to all the bother of wearing stockings. I mean, what a bloody waste!’
I laugh, thinking, if only it was that simple. ‘I can imagine how he’d react if I rudely interrupted his beauty sleep,’ I murmur.
As the session progresses, the noise level increases to earsplitting levels. Jack, Beth’s three-year-old, grabs a scooter and hurtles recklessly across the gleaming wooden floor, bellowing out a shrill siren noise. Meanwhile, Toby proceeds to bang the metal xylophone furiously. ‘Not so loud!’ I call over.
‘I’m playing music,’ he yells back.
‘Yes, I know, but—’
‘No, it’s mine!’ he screams as a pig-tailed blonde tries
to wrestle the hammer from his grasp.
‘Toby, it’s not yours.’ I rush towards him, but not fast enough to stop him whacking the girl on the forehead with the hammer. Screaming, she tears across the hall to be scooped up by her furious, red-faced mother. It’s their first time here. I doubt if they’ll ever come back.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I witter, scuttling over to check on the damage, as if I’m responsible for the throbbing pink splodge on the weeping child’s forehead. In a way, I guess I am. I’m Toby’s mother, his prime carer who’s supposedly in charge of teaching him how to behave nicely and kindly to others. Although he still demands to come to playgroup, and clearly enjoys it, he’s one of the oldest kids here and has really outgrown it. Maybe these violent outbursts are due to the fact that I’m not stimulating him enough.
‘It’s okay,’ the girl’s mother says, her eyes steely. ‘I don’t think she’s concussed or anything.’
‘God, I hope not. I’m so, so sorry. I think he was just, er, overexcited.’
The woman pulls in her lips and turns away from me. ‘Come on, Emily, darling. Let’s find you someone else to play with.’ Someone who’s not intent on causing GBH, is what she means.
‘You must never hit anyone like that,’ I bark, marching back to the music corner where Toby looks totally unconcerned. ‘That was very, very naughty and you’ve made a big pink mark on that little girl’s head. I want you to go over and say sorry.’
‘No!’ he yells, haring off to play with the doll’s house at the far end of the hall. He doesn’t play gentle games with it. The miniature people don’t sit around having quaint tea parties. If Toby’s involved, there has to be a fire, a burglary or some dreadful natural disaster. ‘It’s my xylophone,’ I hear him muttering.
Beth hands me another polystyrene cup of insipid coffee. ‘I can’t control him,’ I murmur, trying to steady my breathing. ‘God knows what he’ll be like when he starts school.’
‘Jack’s just the same. He drives Kira crazy, always trying to barge in and trash her room. And this morning he pulled down one of the living room curtains to wear as a cape . . .’