The china department was vast, with gleaming glass cabinets and floor-to-ceiling brightly lit shelving, displaying what seemed like thousands of different patterns. In between observing Carol, Susan walked around, trying to familiarise herself with it all, but she couldn’t imagine ever becoming knowledgeable enough to be able to locate a design on demand.
The money wasn’t exactly fine either. The salary was only slightly higher than the wage she’d been earning as a school secretary before her marriage. Enough to buy the weekly necessities and occasional treat, and to offer an embarrassingly paltry sum to Rosie and Ed when she got paid – they’d demur; she’d insist – but nowhere near what she’d need, if she hoped to afford even a shared living space in London for her and Harry. She had Luke’s generous monthly contribution, of course, but who knew how long that would continue? And even if it did, something felt not right about using it. She accepted that he was liable for his son’s upkeep, but it still jarred to take money from a man she’d walked out on. You’re welcome here for as long as you need, Rosie had told her. You’re not bothering us in the slightest – but they couldn’t impose on her and Ed for much longer.
‘So you’re going to stay there then,’ her mother said.
‘For the time being we will.’
‘And how’s Harry? Does he like living in London?’
‘Oh yes, he’s very happy here.’
Another not-quite-truth. It was hard to tell with her little boy of few words. He didn’t seem particularly unhappy, but being cooped up in their two little rooms for a fair bit of the time was no life for him. In Dublin he’d had their big rear garden, and a nearby park where they’d go to feed the ducks, and a drop-in crèche in the local shopping centre, and a few little friends among Susan’s circle. And even though they’d had just one room in the hotel on Roone, he’d had the beach five minutes away, and the hotel garden to run about in, and his little cousins to play with every now and again. Here he had nobody but her, and no park close enough for them to walk to.
The few times she’d taken the tube with him hadn’t been a success. He’d clung to her, big-eyed and wary – and transporting him and his buggy through the crowds and up and down the escalators had been a challenge she didn’t relish repeating too often.
‘Who’s looking after him while you’re at work?’
‘A neighbour, a friend of Rosie’s.’
Angie lived three houses away, and was a carer for her invalid mother. Angie was from the West Indies, and friendly, and professed herself delighted to look after Harry, and wasn’t charging a fortune to do it, but there were no other children in her house, and Harry had cried when she’d dropped him there this morning, and he’d been even quieter than usual when she’d collected him.
Angie might not last. Susan might have to think again, when she had time.
‘You’ll have heard the news,’ her mother said.
‘What news?’
‘About Luke, about him retiring. There was something on the radio earlier.’
Retiring?
Luke retiring?
‘I hadn’t heard,’ she said. She had no radio or television here, and she didn’t buy a newspaper, preferring to let the outside world pass her by for the moment. ‘What exactly – I mean, what was said?’
‘There was a press conference or something, I didn’t pay it too much attention. It won’t affect you now anyway.’
A press conference? He avoided them like the plague. Luke retiring. It wasn’t possible. Luke Potter, the great painter, no longer painting. She couldn’t imagine it. Maybe her mother had got it wrong.
‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I can hear Harry calling me. Talk soon.’
After hanging up she went online – and there it was. She skimmed the article, with its shock announcement and its eminent and renowned artist and its huge loss to the art world. And in the middle of all the hyperbole and drama, she read, In response to questions, the artist said, ‘I have decided to do this in order to spend more time with my family.’
She read the single sentence, and reread it, and then read it again. The artist said, not his agent or his manager or his anything. He himself had said it, so he must have been there in person.
I have decided to do this in order to spend more time with my family.
His family. The wife who’d walked out on him, taking their son with her. His family, now living in another country. And being Luke, being the infuriating contrary stubborn person he was, he hadn’t picked up the phone to tell her what he’d done, like any normal person would. He wanted to spend more time with his family, but he’d omitted to let them know that. Instead he’d held a press conference, which he despised. He’d looked into the cameras and endured the flash photography and told reporters that he was retiring, and why.
He knew she’d hear about it. If someone didn’t ring her to tell her, he knew she’d catch it on a news report, like her mother had, or she’d read about it in a newspaper. He knew she’d get word of it somehow. Luke Potter was big news, in Ireland and London and beyond.
I have decided to do this in order to spend more time with my family.
The arrogance of him, assuming she’d come running back just because he’d given up painting for her. For all she knew he was bluffing, just to get her to come home.
But he didn’t do bluffing. What you saw with Luke was what you got. He was the most honest man she’d ever met, which was one of the things she loved about him.
She was pretty sure he’d cried on the phone to her last week. He’d asked her to go back to him, and he’d cried when she hadn’t said yes.
I have decided to do this in order to spend more time with my family.
She clicked on the article to close it – and only then did she spot the missed-calls message. She’d felt her phone buzzing in her pocket while she was among all the china, but when she’d seen that the calls were from Dublin friends, rather than from Angie with a possible Harry emergency, she’d ignored them. She’d heard the ping of a voicemail message coming through after each call, and had resolved to play them on her way home from work, and had forgotten. She listened to them now, one after the other, and each told her of Luke’s retirement.
She called Laura, but got only her voicemail. Had she heard the news about her father yet? She’d pretty much cut herself off from Luke a few years earlier. Might this new development, if it was genuine, change things now?
Would it last, Luke Potter no longer being an artist?
So many questions, so little information.
I have decided to do this in order to spend more time with my family.
She cracked open the bedroom door and heard the even breathing of her sleeping son. She tiptoed downstairs and tapped on Rosie and Ed’s sitting room door.
‘Come in,’ Rosie called. She and Ed were on the couch, watching TV. Rosie reached for the remote control and muted the volume.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Susan said, ‘but I was wondering if you’d heard anything about Luke.’
‘You want tea?’ Ed asked. ‘Or something stronger?’
‘Nothing, thanks.’
He knew. They both knew, or they would have said, Luke? What about him? Did something happen? Is he OK?
‘It was on the news,’ Rosie said. ‘I wondered whether you knew.’
‘My mother told me,’ Susan replied. ‘I just … I wasn’t sure that she’d picked it up right.’
‘He’s retiring,’ Ed said. ‘At least, that’s what was reported.’
‘That’s what she said. It’s … unexpected.’
Had they heard the bit about wanting to spend more time with his family? If they had, they’d be wondering why he hadn’t been in touch with Susan.
‘So what now?’ Rosie asked.
On the television screen a couple glided silently in tuxedo and long gown across a shining floor. So graceful they looked, her hand on his shoulder, his on the small of her back, her skirt billowing as they whirled and floated. So right they looked together
, as if they belonged in one another’s embrace.
‘I don’t know,’ Susan replied. ‘I don’t know what now.’
That was the truth, wasn’t it? She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if she could risk going back, if her heart and her soul could take another hammering if things didn’t work out again. She didn’t know what on earth to do.
She left them and returned upstairs. She sat for a while by the window in the darkness, looking out at the lights in the houses across the street.
She doubted that she’d ever be as proficient as Carol in the giant china department. She sensed that Angie wasn’t the right fit to look after Harry. She couldn’t expect Rosie and Ed, whatever they said, to put them up for more than another couple of weeks, but she balked at the thought of hunting for somewhere else to live. She imagined walking through strange rooms, trying to get a feel for them, trying to picture her and Harry there.
It was still early days, but she was beginning to suspect that London, for all its life, all its attractions, would never feel like home.
She thought of the man she’d married, twenty-three years her senior. Moody, talented, strong, irascible, generous, infuriating, compelling. The only man she’d truly loved, the only man with the power to ruin her, or make her happier than she’d ever been. She thought of him this evening, having sent his message to her through a press conference.
Waiting for her response.
She looked at her phone, sitting on the folding table.
She couldn’t do it.
She stayed by the window while the minutes ticked on. She remained there while the lights in the neighbouring houses winked out one by one, and the city of London surrendered slowly to the night.
Laura
‘I HAVE TO ASK YOU,’ NELL SAID, HER GREEN PARTY frock still on, her hair caught up on one side with the diamanté clip that Laura had passed on to her when she’d admired it a few weeks earlier. ‘Did you know about this?’ she asked. The colour had washed from her face: in the moonlight she looked like a ghost. ‘Did you know she was going to pin it on Andy? Did she tell you that?’ Standing on the other side of the five-bar gate, making it a barrier between them. ‘Did you know that, and say nothing?’
‘I didn’t know at the start,’ Laura said, hating the tremor she could hear in her voice.
‘At the start?’
‘I didn’t know when I told you.’
‘So you found out eventually. She told you it was Andy, and you didn’t think to come and say it to me.’
‘She didn’t tell me – at least, she only confirmed what I suspected when I challenged her.’
‘You suspected him?’ The disbelief in her tone, the awful grimace, as if the words tasted bad. ‘Why would you think he’d do such a thing when he’s going out with Tilly?’
‘I – Nell, I wondered, I did wonder if it could be him … Look, they had all that history, and she said there’d been drink taken – and I just thought it was a possibility. I had nothing to go on—’
‘No, you hadn’t, because there was nothing, and still you suspected him. And when Eve told you you were right, you kept it from me.’
‘Nell, she asked me not to say anything. She begged me.’
‘She begged you not to tell anyone she was pregnant too, and you told me.’
‘I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry, Nell. I’ve handled it all wrong. I’ve messed up.’
In the ensuing silence, something rustled in the field. Near enough to ten o’clock, a big moon lighting the place up like Christmas. Tilly had burst into the kitchen earlier, in such a state as to be practically incoherent. Laura had taken one look at her and banished the gaping boys to the sitting room, thankful that Gavin had already gone up with the girls.
How could he? Tilly had wept. I loved him – how could he do it to me?
Laura had held her and pretended to be shocked at the news, and had agreed that it was terrible, and then Nell had texted, asking to meet her at the gate, so Laura had promised not to be long, and had come out to face the music.
‘He didn’t,’ Nell said. ‘Andy. He didn’t sleep with her. He’s told us he didn’t, and we believe him. She’s lying.’
‘Nell, he was at Frog’s party.’
‘That doesn’t—’
‘And he walked her home.’
‘He’s not denying that. He says she needed looking after because she’d had a lot to drink. He says they both had. He’s being truthful, not trying to get out of anything. He brought her home and went in and made coffee, and then he left.’
A car approached, its headlights whooshing ahead of it. A horn tooted as it passed: both of them ignored it.
‘She’s pregnant, Nell,’ Laura said gently. ‘That didn’t happen by itself.’
‘It still doesn’t mean it was Andy. He’s not lying to us, I know he’s not. He wouldn’t do that.’
‘She can get a DNA test done. She can prove it’s his.’ Of course it was his. Of course Nell was having trouble believing that. ‘Listen Nell, we’re on the same side here. Of course I want to think the best of Andy, but the fact is, Eve is pregnant and she’s saying it was him, and I have to look out for Tilly. Can you imagine what this has done to her?’
‘Done to her?’ Nell demanded. ‘Andy’s the one who’s been accused, not Tilly – we’re the ones who’ll suffer the fallout, not Tilly.’
‘Nell, she’s totally distraught. You were there, you saw her.’
A beat passed. ‘She slapped his face,’ Nell said. ‘Did she tell you that?’
‘… No.’ Good for her.
‘Well, she did, in front of everyone. She didn’t even ask him if it was true. She should have more faith in him.’
Two more cars sped by. ‘Has Eve been to see Jack?’ Nell demanded.
‘I don’t know, she didn’t mention—’
‘He could put a date on it. He could tell if she’s lying.’
Her logic was flawed. A doctor might be able to pinpoint the date of conception with a fair degree of accuracy, but that information wouldn’t necessarily prove a lie. It wouldn’t prove paternity, or rule it out. If Jack put the date a week before the party, say, or a week after – who was to say that Andy and Eve hadn’t slept together then?
‘He could say it happened while Andy was in college,’ Nell went on. ‘That would prove it wasn’t him, wouldn’t it?’
Clutching at straws, which was understandable – but in Laura’s mind there wasn’t an ounce of doubt. It all added up, it made sense. She wouldn’t have expected it from him, he’d always seemed like an upfront lad, but the evidence was overwhelming. Only a fool, or a stepmother who couldn’t face the reality of it, would try to protest his innocence.
‘Nell, let’s not fall out over this. Come on, it’s not worth that. We can get past this.’
Nell’s expression didn’t alter. ‘You still think he did it. You suspected him all along. You think he’s lying. This is my stepson we’re talking about. This is James’s son.’
Laura tried again. ‘Look, whatever I think, and whether Andy is responsible or not, we don’t have to let it come between us.’
But even as she said it, she recognised the nonsense of it. Of course it was coming between them – how could it not? It was such a relief not to have to keep that secret any more but Lord, the way it had come out. The way Tilly had found out, right in the middle of Henry’s party, in front of God knew how many witnesses. At least half of Roone must know about it by now, and the other half wouldn’t be far behind. Of course it was driving a wedge between her and Nell, the closest friend she had.
‘He wants to talk to her,’ Nell said. ‘Tilly. He wants to explain. He’s tried ringing her, but she won’t answer her phone. He’s going to call around in the morning.’
‘Nell, he’s the last person she wants to see right now. Ask him to try phoning again tomorrow.’
Nell shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You’ve decided he
’s guilty, without even hearing his side. I can understand that Tilly’s upset and maybe not thinking straight, but I’m shocked that you of all people would be so quick to condemn him.’ She turned abruptly and was gone. Laura looked after her in dismay. Was this the end of them? The thought of losing Nell’s friendship was unconscionable.
Back in the kitchen she found Gavin reading the day’s newspaper. ‘Where’s Tilly?’
‘Upstairs, I presume: she scarpered as soon as she saw me. She looked in a bad way. What’s going on, Laur?’
He knew nothing. He didn’t know about Eve’s pregnancy or Andy’s part in it. All he’d seen was Tilly in tears. Laura filled him in quickly.
‘Crikey,’ he said, ‘that’s a bit of a mess.’
‘You could call it that.’
‘What’s Nell saying?’
‘She’s in denial. Andy’s insisting nothing happened, and she’s taking his word for it.’
Gavin considered this. ‘Maybe nothing did happen. You only have Eve’s word for it that it did.’
‘Gav, it happened. They were at a party together. They drank too much, he walked her home, and now she’s pregnant. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t Andy. Could have been anyone.’
‘Why would she say it was him if it wasn’t?’
‘Well, here’s a thought. Maybe she’s jealous of him and Tilly. Maybe she’s trying to break them up.’
She shook her head. ‘She might well be jealous – who knows? But the fact remains that Andy walked her home after a party, and now she’s pregnant. Are you saying she just happened to have sex with someone else around the same time and decided to pin the pregnancy on Andy?’
‘I’m just saying there’s no proof it was Andy. And he’s denying it, and he’s a decent young fellow.’ Gavin spread his hands. ‘I’m saying don’t jump to conclusions, that’s all.’
Was that what she was doing? Was she wrong to believe Eve, and assume Andy was lying? She pressed her hands to her temples, trying to quiet her buzzing thoughts. What was true, what was not? How were they to know for sure, until a baby arrived and a DNA test was done? And in the meantime, fingers would point at Andy, and tongues would wag, and Nell and James would be caught in the middle. And thanks to Eve, Laura was caught up in it too.
The Birthday Party: The spell-binding new summer read from the Number One bestselling author Page 23