“In your dreams,” Eve said.
Was Ian a groovy dad? It had honestly never occurred to her.
Maybe he was.
In fact, Ian and Caroline Newsome had been the full groovy mom and dad package.
“Come on, Eve,” Caitlin’s words echoed up the office in Eve’s wake. “Tell us how you pulled it off.”
Eve shrugged and kept walking.
She shrugged because, in all honesty, she didn’t know how someone like her—just pretty enough, just bright enough and just successful enough—had bagged a catch like Ian Newsome. And having met his children, she didn’t know how on earth she was going to keep him, either.
Five
I’m sorry it’s been so long.” Ian rolled over and planted a lingering kiss on her forehead. “I couldn’t get any decent overnight cover. Also, to be honest, their suspicions have been on high alert since they met you. Especially Hannah’s. They’re not stupid, after all.”
Eve wriggled up the mattress so his lips trailed down her face until their lips met. His blue eyes were open, staring into hers as he began to do previously unimaginable things with his fingers. They didn’t say anything else for a long time.
“I know it’s not ideal, and I promise it won’t be forever. Now they’ve met you, that’s the first hurdle over with. We just need to take it slowly, give them a chance to get used to the idea of there being someone else in our lives.” He paused. “Someone important.”
Same subject, different setting.
They had dragged themselves out of bed and were now camped on Eve’s living-room floor, sharing an impromptu picnic.
Joy surged through her. She felt irrationally, stupidly happy. As if she’d been fifteen again. Not that she’d ever felt like this when she was fifteen.
Smiling, Eve reached over the tea towel, which was doubling as a tablecloth and was laden with pita bread, hummus, carrot sticks and tubs of salad. She squeezed his hand. “I understand,” she said. “The kids come first. You don’t need to explain.”
“I do, though,” he said. But his smile was grateful as he leaned forward to kiss her again. As he did, the front of his shirt fell open, and Eve couldn’t help but stare at the trail of fair hair that led down his lean body into the waistband of his jeans.
When they were together, she felt sick with longing.
She loved him so much that she felt physically ill with wanting. And when they were apart too, most of the time. It was just that, sometimes, at night or on a Sunday, when Ian had spent the weekend with the kids and she’d exhausted TV and was on her fifth DVD of the day, she couldn’t help wondering if they really stood a chance.
There was no way he would have allowed her within a mile of his children if he hadn’t been deadly serious. But this wasn’t a regular, every-other-weekend stepmother arrangement. There would be no collecting the children on Saturday morning, dropping them back on Sunday evening, and having the following weekend to recover. This was full-time, 24/7.
She didn’t know if she could handle that. More importantly, she didn’t know if the children would let her try. But she did know she wanted to.
The bottle of sauvignon blanc shook in her hand as she refilled his glass and then her own. When she looked up, Ian was staring at her. “You all right?” he asked.
“Of course.” She smiled before taking a sip. A gulp would have given her away.
“Can I talk to you?”
Eve laughed. “Funny how you don’t ask if you can fuck me. And now you ask if we can talk!”
“Eve, be serious.”
“I was, sort of…of course you can. Either or both,” she couldn’t help adding.
The tension left his face, and he slid a hand down the front of her dressing gown to cup her breast.
“Talk first,” he said, crawling around to her side of the picnic and lying beside her, his head on his elbow, his face serious.
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
“So, tell me.”
“I’m so grateful, Eve…for everything, but above all for your patience. Believe me, I do know I’m asking a lot.” She waved his apology away. “But there are other things about Caro and me. Things that might help you understand…about Hannah.”
“What’s she said?” Eve asked before she could stop herself.
“Nothing.” Ian held up a hand. “Chill, OK? It’s going to be harder for her than for the others because she’s the eldest. When Caro became ill Hannah was seven. So she remembers…” He hesitated. “What it was like before, I guess. She remembers things the others don’t. Especially not Alfie. He never really knew his mother. Not properly.”
“Caro and me.” The words tasted sour in Eve’s mouth. And she hadn’t been the one to speak them. When she looked up, Ian was watching her, obviously wondering whether to continue.
“What does Hannah remember?” Eve asked gently.
Ian rubbed his eyes. His skin had grayed, and in the fading light he looked older. For the first time, tiredness showed in the lines of his face.
“Caro was ill for three years. Think about that. Hannah was ten when she died. A third of her life,” he sighed. “The third she was old enough to remember properly.”
Eve felt her insides knot. She’d wanted to hear this. She needed to know how it had been. Not the public-friendly version Ian gave in interviews. Had given her in an interview. But how it really had been. Now that it was coming, she was afraid of what he might be about to tell her.
“Go on,” she forced herself to say.
“When Caro found the lump we didn’t tell Hannah or Sophie there was anything wrong. Even the hospital visits were fairly easy to hide. Alfie was tiny, the others were used to her being away. But then Caro needed a mastectomy.”
Wrapping her robe more tightly around her, Eve waited.
“She didn’t want to have to hide away every time the girls came into the bathroom or our bedroom. And, of course, she couldn’t breast-feed Alfie any more. So, we told them.”
“What?” Eve asked.
“Mommy needed an operation to make her better.”
Eve nodded.
“Then, for a long time, Caro was in remission. And then, suddenly, she wasn’t. And the rest, as you know, is terrifyingly well documented. But it’s not so much the illness that I need to explain to you. It’s my relationship with Caro.”
Eve felt sick. She wasn’t sure she did want this conversation after all. “Your relationship?” she managed.
“Yes, I’m horribly afraid Hannah has worked it out. The others haven’t. Unless she’s told them.” Ian stopped as the full implications of that hit him. “She wouldn’t,” he said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t.”
Somehow both their glasses were empty again. Eve refilled Ian’s, but when she shifted to fetch another bottle, he reached out to stop her. His grip on her wrist was gentle but solid.
“Please,” he said. “If I stop now, I’m never going to start again. And I need to tell you. I need you to know everything. If we’re going to…if we’re going to make this work.” He stared at her. “We are, aren’t we?”
She sat down. Her heart was pounding. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Look,” he said. “The night Caroline died I wasn’t there. All right? I wasn’t there. Oh, I’d been there up to then. I’d been at the hospice for weeks. Originally she came home when we realized radio and chemo were only making things worse. But eventually she had to go into a hospice. For the kids’ sake. For mine, for her own, I don’t know…but we said it was for the kids.”
Ian took a gulp of wine, then another.
“I took them to see Caro most days, after school. Or her mother did, when I was working. Although by the end I’d stopped accepting commissions. We didn’t want the kids to live their day-to-day lives in a house where their mother was dying. Of course, they knew she was ill, very ill. But going to visit, even someone who’s unrecognizably ill, is different from sitting in the same room as them day after day. If you’re si
x, I mean, or ten.
“Or even thirty-eight,” he added, almost to himself.
“I’m talking about Sophie and Hannah, because Alfie was only three. I’m not sure what he knows, even now. He’s like, ‘Is Mommy in heaven, Daddy? That’s good. You be Venom, I’ll be Spider-Man.’”
Eve smiled, she couldn’t help it. It was so Alfie.
Ian nodded.
“Anyway,” he said. “The night Caro died I took the children home, gave them a bath and put them to bed. Hannah wasn’t asleep. I knew that, because I could see light under her bedroom door. Although I pretended I couldn’t. It was our ritual. Still is. After I tucked her in, we had a long conversation about Mommy and angels. I wasn’t expecting her to get much sleep that night.”
He looked so haggard by the memory that Eve wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how, so she remained silent and hoped that was right.
“Around eleven,” Ian said, “my cell phone rang. I knew it was the hospice before I even looked at the screen. They’d agreed to call my cell phone instead of the house to avoid disturbing the kids. Caro had lapsed into unconsciousness. They thought it would be soon. Her mother was there already. Her father was on his way. Could I come back?”
This is it, Eve thought. Whatever he’s been wanting to say.
“Eve, I didn’t even stop to think. There was nothing to think about. I just said no. Someone had to look after the kids. Someone had to get them up, washed, make their breakfast. Someone had to carry on, and that someone was me. That was the way life was. The way I knew life was going to be from that moment on. That’s what I told the nurse, and it’s what I told Caroline’s mother when she called two hours later to tell me her only daughter had gone. She was kind enough to pretend she believed me. But I didn’t want to be there. I was done.”
Ian took a deep breath, and Eve watched him wonder if he was really going to say what he was about to say.
“The truth is,” he said, “we’d been done for years. Caro and I were only together because of the kids and the cancer; not necessarily in that order. Caro knew that, although we rarely spoke about it. And I assume her parents knew; but they were kind, they never judged me. They still don’t. The thing…the thing that worries me…”
He shrugged and eyed his now empty glass.
“I’m fairly sure Hannah knows too.”
Dusk had fallen while they’d been talking, and the room was dark but for an orange glow from a streetlight through still-open curtains, and the tiny screen of the CD player, which had long since fallen silent. For once, the Kentish Town streets around Eve’s one-bedroom apartment were quiet, without even the wail of a distant siren.
With Eve, the room held its breath.
It felt to Eve that whole minutes passed before he spoke again. As if they’d slipped into a slower time zone and if they’d gone outside they would have discovered that time had passed everywhere but there.
“I had an affair,” he said. “So did she. One. More than one. I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. It was symptomatic, I guess. Before Alfie was born. He was—what do you call them?—an Elastoplast baby, meant to stick us back together again. Poor little sod. Of course, he couldn’t. How could he? I wasn’t in love with Caroline, hadn’t been for years. She wasn’t in love with me, not any longer. We stayed together for the children, then I stayed for the cancer, then she started that damn newspaper column and our life—our family—became public property. With no way out, except the inevitable.”
Six
Eve had just discovered the real meaning of walking on air. Ian had stayed Friday night and Saturday night too, leaving on Sunday only to collect his children from Caro’s mother to take them to his own parents in West Sussex, where they were all staying for the rest of half-term.
Another first in a weekend of relationship firsts.
A full, blissful, domestic forty-eight hours together, and Eve knew she was in deeper than ever. And Ian was too, she was sure of it. He’d never have told her about Caro, about his infidelity, about hers, if he hadn’t been. Far from being thrown by it, she felt her confidence surge.
If she ran into Caitlin now, she could say, hand on heart, big smug grin on her face, “Yup, you’re right. I’ve bagged the cream of groovy dads. So hands off!”
Printouts of the pictures from last week’s feature shoot were already on Eve’s desk, with a Post-it note from Jo, the picture editor.
“Nice work,” said Jo’s hastily scrawled note. “They’re all fab, but Melanie Cheung is STUNNING.”
No kidding, Eve thought, flicking through the printouts. The lineup of case studies was on top. No prizes for guessing which one was Melanie, even if she hadn’t been the only non-blonde. Her solo portrait was even better.
Eve was about to pick up her desk phone when her cell phone rang. Ian’s number flashed up on its screen.
“Hey, you’re up early.”
He laughed. “You’ve got a lot to learn. Alfie’s been up so long he’s had second breakfast.”
“Second breakfast?”
“I blame Lord of the Rings. All those hungry hobbits. Can you talk?”
Eve glanced around. The office was empty. “Nobody in yet but me. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’ve just been thinking, wondering really, if you’d like to come around to the house this weekend? Saturday lunch, maybe? See the kids in their natural habitat. If you’re free, that is?”
If she was free? Eve couldn’t help grinning. Of course she was free.
“Sure,” she said casually. “I’ll just check my diary.”
“If you’re not, it’s…”
“Ian!” She laughed. “I was kidding! Of course I’m free. What time do you want me?”
Sliding her cell phone back into her bag, Eve collected her thoughts and picked up her desk phone, punching in Nancy Morris’s number from memory.
“What a result,” she said when Nancy answered. “Melanie Cheung looks fabulous. If her story is even half as good, we’ve had a lucky break.”
“Good?” said Nancy. “Her story’s brilliant. She’s Chinese American, from Boston, but don’t let that put Miriam off,” she added hastily, knowing how the editor could be about non-Brit case studies. “She meets this British guy in New York, they have a whirlwind romance, he proposes and she moves to London to be with him. She was a lawyer there, pretty high-flying by the sound of it, and she chucked it all in for him. From what she says the whole episode sounds out of character, but hey, we’ve all been there.”
Speak for yourself, Eve thought. Never one for grand romantic gestures, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to let anything so insignificant as love get in the way of life. Well, not until Ian. Now she wouldn’t rule out anything.
“Like I thought,” Nancy said. “It was a classic she-wants-kids-he-doesn’t scenario. She was in her early thirties, clock ticking, and he wouldn’t even discuss it, said kids weren’t consistent with his lifestyle, apparently. He ended it, although she won’t talk about that on the record. If you ask me, she was devastated. You don’t look the way she does unless you’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the heartbreak diet.”
“Uh-huh,” Eve murmured by way of encouragement. Heartbreak had never had that effect on her. Maybe her heart had never been sufficiently broken.
“Her parents are crazy for a grandchild,” Nancy continued. “Last of their line and all that, and blame her for the breakdown of the marriage. Her mother, old-school Chinese, accuses her of putting her career before doing her duty and having a family, which, according to Melanie, couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyway, the whole thing makes her reevaluate her life. So she sells the duplex in Holland Park that was her divorce settlement and plows every last penny into her internet start-up. Which, as we now know, is reckoned to be the new NET-A-PORTER.”
“Fantastic,” Eve said, typing her password as Nancy spoke. A hundred and eighty e-mails awaited her. At least ninety per cent of those would head straight for the trash. “I
’m almost glad the first case study pulled out.”
“It gets better,” Nancy said, the grin obvious in her voice.
“Not possible.”
“The ex? He’s Simeon Jones.”
Eve racked her brain, but the name didn’t ring any immediate bells.
“Call yourself a journalist. He’s that hedge fund guy. And not just any old hedge fund guy, either. He’s the king of them, been all over the society pages since he married Poppy King-Jones, the model. You know the one. Working-class girl from Rotherham made good.”
OK, now there was a bell ringing.
“C’mon,” Nancy was getting frustrated. “Less than two years after he dumped Melanie ’cause he didn’t want to start a family, the guy is married to a supermodel and the father of a one-year-old. Although not necessarily in that order! Tell me that’s not a good story?”
Eve was impressed, but not that impressed. “So we throw a society ex into the mix,” she said. “Is that going to add to the story? I think it’ll just turn readers off.”
She’d have had more time for Melanie Cheung if she hadn’t turned out to be one of those women who’d go to the opening of an envelope. Because that was the only place you met men like Simeon Jones.
“God,” Nancy said. “There’s no pleasing some people. No wonder Miriam rates you…Melanie Cheung crawls from the ashes of her divorce to launch the most successful start-up of the year, recently valued on paper at least at”—she named an eye-watering figure—“and her ‘celebrity ex’ throws it all back in her face by rushing off to procreate with one of this country’s biggest models.
“So, not only does Melanie have to handle being dumped for one of the world’s most beautiful women, she can’t even open a magazine without seeing her ex with his picture-perfect new family. The family he refused to have with her.
“And on top of that, she’s recently started seeing a new guy, Vince something or other, I forget what. She met him through the business. It’s early days, by the sound of it, and he’s just dropped a ten-year-old daughter from his first marriage on her from a great height. Now he wants Melanie to meet her—the daughter, not the ex…. Surrounded by kids, and not one of them hers. Tough, huh?”
The Other Mothers' Club Page 5