by Fiona Gibson
After a mammoth cleaning session, and a tense dinner prepared by Jed, I launch into the bathtime ritual. We read stories, Grace and Toby and I, while Finn practises drum rolls despite it being past his cut-off time of 7.30 p.m. I put Toby to bed – exhausted, he falls asleep instantly – and, later, I find Grace pink-cheeked and sleepy, her story tape murmuring in the background. ‘It was fun at Celeste’s,’ she murmurs. Despite having cleaned her teeth, her breath still carries a hint of lilac icing.
‘Yes, it was lovely, wasn’t it?’ I manage.
‘Wish we had a garden like Celeste’s.’
‘Me too, love.’
‘Granddad’s garden was like that.’
‘Wow, I’m surprised you remember it.’ My throat tightens as an image of Finn, picking the first runner beans, bursts into my mind.
‘Yeah, ’course I do,’ she retorts. I hug her, and am filled with warmth as she winds her slim arms around me. ‘Come in for a cuddle,’ she adds.
I climb in and lie beside her, lulled by her soft breath and not caring that I’m probably rumpling Celeste’s dress. ‘Night, love,’ I whisper later, realising that it’s already dark, and gone nine o’clock, and that I must have fallen asleep too.
From downstairs comes the low mumble from the TV. In our bedroom, I pull off my sandals, rub my sore, pink heels and step out of Celeste’s dress. It was crisply pressed when she plucked it from its hanger; now it looks as if it’s been used as pet bedding. Where should I put it? It doesn’t feel right stuffing it into our laundry basket. I hang it up on my wardrobe door, ping the Coco de Mer knickers into the laundry and pull on my sensible checked pyjamas.
Jed doesn’t look at me as I stride into the living room. ‘Well, thanks a lot,’ I murmur.
‘Thanks for what?’ His expression is uncomprehending.
‘For making me feel so out of place at that party.’
He frowns and flips the TV to mute. ‘What are you talking about? You knew people, didn’t you? Mickey was there, and Duncan, and you were introduced to—’
‘That’s not the point. As soon as we got there, you were off, stuck to Celeste’s side like a leech . . .’
‘No I wasn’t!’
‘You were, Jed. Can’t you see how it looks? It’s like, like, you’re infatuated. It’s obvious from the way you talk to her, how you look at her, all your cosy little chats about school stuff and that mosaic thing . . .’
‘We work together!’ he barks, slamming the remote control onto the cluttered coffee table, causing its back to come off and a battery to ping out. ‘When you and Simone go out, don’t you talk about work too?’
‘Probably, yes, among other things. But I can’t remember the last time I went out . . .’
‘Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?’ he shoots back. ‘It’s not like you’re trapped here, Laura. You can go out any time you like.’
I hover in the doorway, sensing our conversation heading down a completely different route from the one I intended. ‘This isn’t about Simone,’ I say firmly. ‘It’s about Celeste.’ My voice splinters, as if someone has knocked a nail through it.
Jed shakes his head. ‘You’re just being ridiculous.’
‘Do you fancy her?’
‘For God’s sake, how old are you?’ His dark eyes flash with anger. ‘Look, I know we spent quite a bit of time together. She just needed to talk about something and . . .’
‘What was it?’
‘Just . . . stuff. Nothing important . . .’
‘But why you? Why does she confide in you, Jed?’
He pauses, and the fury melts from his face as he fixes me with a cool, hard stare. ‘I don’t know, Laura. Maybe . . . maybe she just thinks I’m a nice person.’
I open my mouth to speak, to say that of course he’s a nice person, and there’s no need to imply that I don’t think he is. But as I try to arrange the words in my brain, Toby screams out, ‘Mummy! Muuum!’ from upstairs. I turn and rush up towards him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jed asks, landing at his bedside behind me.
‘Been sick,’ Toby wails, indicating the spillage of vomit on his pillow and duvet.
‘Oh love,’ I say, pulling him up onto my knee. ‘Maybe you had too many cupcakes.’ There’s a terrible smell, raw and fishy with a topnote of buttercream icing.
‘Come on, darling,’ Jed says, lifting Toby from my lap and carrying him through to the bathroom. ‘We’ll give you a wash and you can sleep in the big bed with us tonight. Would you like that?’
‘Yeah,’ he croaks. While Jed sorts out Toby, I strip off the sicky duvet cover and pillow case, fighting the urge to dump them in the laundry basket on top of the Coco de Mers. By the time I’ve stuffed them into the washing machine, and am back upstairs, Jed and Toby are curled up together in our bed.
‘I was sick an’ it was horrible,’ Toby mumbles in the dark.
‘It’s okay, darling,’ I whisper. ‘Everything’s all right now. You’ll feel a lot better in the morning.’
Although Jed and Toby fall asleep within minutes, I can’t doze off. My head whirls with unsettling images of Jed and Celeste laughing and touching beneath the cherry tree. Her: sexy, lithe and beautiful. Me: fat and incontinent. Clearly, something must be done.
Heart thumping, I slip silently out of bed and pad lightly downstairs. I’ll show Jed, I think, with a surge of determination. I won’t be fat, dumpy Laura any more. I won’t need to wear vile, cellulite-melting hosiery because never again will I be the chubbiest woman at a party. I’ll be like them – the slender, toffee-coloured people.
Jed is right; nothing is stopping me going out with Simone or Beth or any of my friends around here, any time I like. He’s not exactly holding me hostage. It’s my weight, that’s what it is – and spending so many years tending to the children’s needs that I seem to have forgotten how to have fun. Is it any wonder that Jed likes hanging around with a slip of a girl in a teeny sundress? Groping in the hallway, I fish out my mobile from my bag, registering a half-eaten cupcake that someone must have planted in there.
Searching my contacts, I find Danny’s number. Didn’t we say we’d support each other after that Super Slimmers meeting? And didn’t I experience a flurry of pleasure at the thought of having a new, handsome male friend? I tap out a text: THINK EXERCISE WILL DO ME MORE GOOD THAN TUNA BAKE. FANCY RUNNING WITH ME MON EVE? LX. Fingers trembling, I press ‘send’. Almost immediately, a reply pings back.
LOVE 2, it reads. MEET U AT 8 IN LYEDALE PARK. DANNY X
Chapter Nineteen
One advantage of sticking to grape juice is the complete absence of a hangover the next day. God, I feel virtuous and pure inside. Jed, on the other hand, is slumped at the breakfast table, waxy-skinned and a tad green around the gills, sipping meekly from a Superdad mug. ‘Sure you’re up to football today?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’ Squinting in the glare of my smug glow, he nibbles an isosceles triangle of toast.
‘Is Daddy sick?’ Toby asks through a mouthful of Coco Pops.
‘No, I’m not sick,’ Jed replies. ‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’
Toby grins at him. ‘Your face is funny. It’s kinda . . .’
‘Kinda what?’
‘Sort of squidgy.’ Choking back a snigger, I pop Grace’s abandoned buttery toast crusts into my mouth.
‘Is it?’ Jed says flatly. ‘Well, there’s not much I can do about that.’
Toby spoons in cereal while continuing to study his ailing father with rapt interest. A snigger starts to form deep in my belly, and I gulp my coffee to keep it down. It’s so tempting to wind up Jed, to offer to whiz him up a hangover cure involving raw eggs and anchovies or boiled tripe.
To further crank up Jed’s unease, Finn is performing a vigorous drum solo upstairs. It’s causing our house to rattle alarmingly and seems to be going on for several weeks. That’s the trouble with old buildings. Jed and I fell in love with this place when we came to view it, enthusing that it w
as ‘quirky’ and ‘characterful’ (i.e. a wreck that no one else wanted). We never suspected that bits would start pinging off it the minute it became ours.
‘Finn’s getting really good, isn’t he?’ I remark, refilling Jed’s mug from the coffee pot. He nods and closes his eyes, as if wishing that his entire family, who inflict drum solos on him and make a big show of being perky and sans hangover, would melt away into the ether.
‘Does he have to do it so early, though?’ he groans.
‘It’s not that early, Jed. It’s half-nine.’
Jed sighs heavily, glancing up as Grace stomps in from the garden in her wellies, tramping in flecks of mud. ‘Can we make a volcano, Dad?’ she asks.
‘A what?’ He looks aghast.
‘A volcano. It’s really easy. India made one with her dad and it spurted out real lava all over the kitchen.’
‘Another time, maybe,’ he says, wincing.
‘Why not now?’
‘Because . . .’
‘Dad and Finn are off to footie in a minute,’ I cut in. ‘We can do it when they’ve gone, okay?’
‘But I want to do it with Dad!’
‘Grace, love, I am capable of mixing up a few chemicals,’ I say brightly. Her brow furrows with concern, as if I might be planning to conduct an experiment involving mains gas.
‘I’ll make a volcano with you, Mummy,’ Toby says loyally.
‘Well, thank you, Toby.’ I grin. ‘We’ll all do it together.’
As soon as Jed and Finn leave, Grace and I pore over her experiments book and assemble the required ingredients. I’m almost glad now that Celeste’s party happened and turned out to be such a disaster. After texting Danny, I feel focused and purposeful; at last, I’m doing something positive.
In the back garden, Grace warms to our project as the three of us build a soil mountain and squish a plastic cup into its peak. I had in mind a volcano of dainty proportions – a volcano-ette, really – but Grace and Toby keep piling on more and more mud, clearly enjoying themselves. Fired with enthusiasm, I fetch the vinegar, baking soda and food colouring from the kitchen and we measure everything out on the garden table. ‘This is so cool, Mum,’ Grace enthuses.
‘Well, let’s hope it works.’ I grin at her.
‘Let me pour the stuff in,’ Toby insists.
‘No, let me!’ Grace yells.
‘Hey, stop squabbling, you two,’ I say, glimpsing Celeste’s blue linen dress flapping gently on the washing line. I hand-washed it first thing this morning, taking utmost care not to traumatise it. Speedy risk assessment: vinegar plus food colouring in the vicinity. Not good. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I add, snatching it from the line.
As I drape it over the radiator, the doorbell buzzes. It’s Beth, with Jack and Kira, brandishing a carrier bag. ‘Hi, come in,’ I say, relieved to see her. ‘We were just conducting a pretty messy experiment. You can help if you like.’
‘Great,’ she says, laughing as she steps into the hall. ‘Here, I brought you this. Thought you might be able to use it, after what you were saying at playgroup about taking up running.’
I take the bag from her and pull out a navy blue tracksuit. ‘Great, thanks. I’ve just arranged my first run, actually. I’m going tomorrow.’
‘Oh, who with?’ She follows me into the kitchen as Kira and Jack wander out to join Grace and Toby in the garden.
‘Um, just someone I met at Super Slimmers.’
‘Super Slimmers? You mean you’ve joined? God, you are reinventing yourself! What’s brought this on?’
I laugh. ‘Well, I’ve only been to one meeting and I’m not sure it’s me, really, having to check what kind of face a food has before I can even think about eating it . . .’
‘A face?’ She frowns.
‘Yeah. Like this . . .’ I indicate our butter dish. ‘That would have this kind of face. And that’ – I jab a finger towards our fruit bowl of slightly wizened oranges – ‘that’s a happy face. You get the idea.’
‘Sounds pretty simple.’ She pauses. ‘You seem pretty determined, anyway. Like . . . something’s changed in you.’
‘You’re right. A few things have happened lately.’
‘Like what?’ she asks.
‘Oh, Celeste’s party, for a start – remember I told you we’d been invited?’ Beth nods, and I fill her in on the horror of the glass nuggets, my peed-on dress and Jed spending most of the afternoon slurping all over our willowy hostess. ‘I just felt so frumpy,’ I add. ‘And I met this man, Danny, at the slimming club . . .’
‘Whoa, dark horse!’ she exclaims.
‘It’s nothing,’ I say quickly. ‘But you know what’s really weird? I first met him in York and nearly sent him flying in Starbucks’ doorway. And I went to Super Slimmers and there he was . . .’
She grins mischievously. ‘Sure he’s not stalking you?’
‘I wish,’ I snigger.
‘Is he cute?’
‘Sort of. Well, yes. But it’s not about that. We’re just going to be running buddies,’ I say firmly.
‘Ah. Now I can see why you’re so keen to start pounding those pavements . . .’ I’m about to protest that Danny has absolutely nothing to do with my new health regime when mud spats against the kitchen window.
‘Oops, getting a bit boisterous out there,’ I say quickly. ‘I think we’d better intervene.’
‘It’s working!’ Toby yelps as Beth and I step outside to witness ‘lava’ bubbling up from the cup and fizzling down the craggy slopes. Beth gawps at Grace and Toby’s red-splattered faces.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, laughing. ‘It’s food colouring. It’ll all wash off – eventually.’ We’re all giggling as we grab handfuls of earth to divert the lava flow. Even Kira joins in while Toby smears mud onto his face, war-paint style.
‘You never let us do stuff like this,’ Kira chides her mother.
‘Yes, well, I’m a rotten old spoilsport,’ Beth says.
‘Laura? What are you . . .’
‘Oh, Jed! I didn’t realise you were back.’ Laughing, I push back my dirt-splattered hair.
‘Pitch was too muddy to play,’ he says.
‘Daddy, we made a volcano!’ Grace exclaims. ‘It’s way better than India’s.’
‘That’s brilliant.’ Jed smirks at me. ‘So Mum’s good at this stuff after all.’
‘Well, we managed,’ I say, catching Finn stealing a glance at Kira, who’s smiling winningly, and muddily, back. Catching me looking, he blushes scarlet and scuttles inside.
While Jed heads upstairs to change out of his tracksuit, Beth ushers her kids to the front door. ‘Well, good luck with your run,’ she says with a teasing grin.
‘Thanks. Are you sure you don’t want your running kit though? It looks practically new.’
‘No, you can have it,’ she says, ‘as long as you tell me how you and your, um, friend get on . . .’
‘Oh, stop it. He’s just someone to run with, that’s all, to keep me motivated.’
‘Yeah, ’course he is.’ Smirking, she calls for Kira and Jack who troop reluctantly towards her.
‘Anyway,’ I add, ‘I’ll phone you with a full, detailed report after the run – if I survive.’
‘Look forward to it,’ she laughs, taking Jack’s hand as they head down the street.
*
All through Monday at work, I can’t stop thinking about my maiden run. I should have gone out for a couple of jogs on my own, just to loosen up and make sure everything’s working properly. I mean, you wouldn’t take an old banger that’s been stuck in the garage for months on a driving holiday around Europe. You’d give it a little runabout first. What if I fall over again, like at sports day, or throw up in public? I need to practise – but where, without being seen? I try jogging experimentally around the living room, which makes Toby clutch himself with laughter.
Another problem is feet. Having tried on Beth’s tracksuit – it’s a little tight but, mercifully, pretty stretchy – I round up all my f
ootwear and set it all out in a line on our bedroom floor. The effect is of a tragic car boot sale. Witness: turquoise wedge sandals with mud/slug-like stain not entirely removed. Boots of Shame as removed by Danny at Tub Club. Collapsed loafers. Polka-dot wellies housing one large spider. Black strappy sandals as worn to Celeste’s party which caused a particularly painful welt on my left ankle, which would have been bearable – almost pleasurable – if I’d had a fantastic time and acquired it through dancing. And that’s it, my footwear collection in its entirety. Nothing screams athletic prowess.
How could I have overlooked this? I get forty minutes’ break at lunchtime. I could have bought trainers and had the lard lipo-sucked out of my arse at that clinic next to the gym that carries out ‘non-surgical cosmetic procedures’. I could have also practised jogging back and forth past the salon. That would have kept the clients entertained while they sat under the lamps, waiting for their highlights to take.
I know. Finn has spare trainers. We’re roughly the same size and surely he won’t mind if I borrow them. I creep into his room which, despite yesterday’s operation clean-up, is an absolute cesspit with clothes and bedding strewn everywhere, as if a gigantic wind machine has whirled everything around. I open his window to let in a gasp of fresh air, in the hope of dispersing the fug. I peer into his chaotic wardrobe, spotting that red notebook he’d been clutching lying at the bottom, amidst a tangle of PJs and socks and discarded football kit. Gingerly, I pick it up. On the cover he’s written FINN’S PRIVATE BOOK KEEP OUT ON PAIN OF DEATH. The effort required not to flick through its pages triggers a tic in my left eyelid. It would be so easy to have a little peek. I stare at it, then quickly put it back where I found it, snatch his glowing white trainers from beneath a mud-splattered football top and shut the wardrobe door firmly.