by Cathy Kelly
‘Bronzer,’ she said. ‘You need it, Stella.’
‘Thanks.’ Stella looked at her wan face in the compact mirror. There were mauve circles haunting the thin skin under her eyes. She felt as if she was ageing at double speed. ‘You don’t have the equipment for a blood transfusion in there, do you?’
Vicki smiled but didn’t laugh. ‘You look terrible, babe. Like you haven’t slept in weeks.’
Stella didn’t need anyone to tell her that. She could see it for herself. She did her best with the bronzing brush, sweeping it round her face in big generous strokes the way they did on fashion programmes. ‘It’s nothing to do with sleeping. I’m out like a light when I get into bed, I sleep the sleep of the dead. The problems start when I wake up.’
‘Your mum and dad?’
Stella snapped the compact shut. What was the point of bronzer. ‘More my dad than Mum. She’s doing fine and says she’s too busy to come to Dublin to spend some time with myself and Amelia, although I think that’s so she can avoid talking about their split and what happens next. Dad’s falling to pieces and my mother won’t talk to him.’
‘Difficult being piggy in the middle,’ said Vicki.
‘That’s only the half of it,’ Stella added grimly. ‘Problem two is Jenna. She is the rudest child I have ever met in my life. Nick and I took herself and Amelia to the cinema the other night and she was utterly obnoxious to me.’
‘Is the problem Nick’s ex-wife?’ asked Vicki. ‘Is she poisoning Jenna against you.’
Stella sighed. ‘That’s the thing, Nick says she isn’t. He says that Wendy is fine about us and is totally reasonable about Jenna and Sara spending time here. But she doesn’t seem to want to let Nick go, does that make sense? She phones Nick night and day about Jenna’s latest exploits. It’s like Wendy has this finely-tuned telepathic sense and she rings exactly when we’re going somewhere or doing something. As soon as I put dinner on the table, bam, she’s on the phone. It’s not that he shouldn’t be involved with her, it’s just that…’ Stella paused, ‘she’s always there and I think Nick’s kidding himself about how she’s dealt with everything.’
Stella couldn’t explain the infuriation of watching their meal cool and congeal on the table while Nick talked to his ex-wife, made ‘sorry’ gestures to Stella and agreed to talk to Jenna. No matter how much he praised the food afterwards, Stella was grimly convinced it was now inedible. Nick would eat more heartily than usual to make up for it, while Stella sat there with her shoulders tense and her jaw set rigidly. She’d come to hate Nick’s phone ringing. The very noise made her stomach lurch.
‘Does she always phone about Jenna?’ demanded Vicki.
‘Pretty much, yes. I don’t phone Amelia’s father over every problem. I know it’s different because Glenn’s not really part of our lives but it drives me mad that Wendy is supposed to be this intelligent woman and yet all of a sudden, she can’t deal with anything without phoning Nick up. He says she’s fine about the divorce and wants them both to get on with their lives, but,’ she paused, ‘it doesn’t seem that way to me. She wants him in her life, she’s not going to let him go.’
‘When did she start this?’ asked Vicki shrewdly.
‘When Nick told the girls we’d discussed living together.’
‘Maybe she thought there was some hope for them getting back together until that happened,’ said Vicki. ‘This is her knee-jerk reaction. She can’t help it.’
‘Why?’ asked Stella in exasperation. ‘They’re divorced, they both agreed to get divorced, it’s over. Why can’t she get on with her own life? When Glenn and I split up, I had to get on with my life. I didn’t phone him every day asking him how to programme the video.’
‘You’re not the sort of person to go to pieces, Stella,’ Vicki pointed out. ‘You’re one of life’s copers. That’s what you do. And besides, you and Glenn weren’t married that long. Nick and Wendy were married twenty years and it’s obviously hard for her to come to terms with the fact that it is over. When she got married, there was no divorce in this country, and people expected marriage to be for life. That could take some getting used to. It’s a whole life change.’
‘Fine,’ said Stella in a brittle tone. ‘But I don’t see why I’m getting all the grief. They were apart before Nick met me. If Wendy got on with her life, then perhaps Jenna wouldn’t be so vile to me. I’m convinced that Jenna believes that if I wasn’t around, her parents would be back together again and that’s not fair. I didn’t split up their marriage: they did that themselves.’
‘Calm down,’ said Vicki. Stella was worrying her. She never normally lost her cool like this. ‘It’ll work out in the end.’
‘I’m glad you think so. But the odds are definitely against us, particularly if we decided to get married. They did this research and it seems that when men divorce, sixty per cent of them remarry. Out of that group, sixty per cent of the second marriages fail.’
Vicki worked the figures out in her head. ‘So out of a hundred men, you end up with twenty-four who are happily married for the second time.’
That’s not all.’ Stella’s face was grim. ‘The first five to seven years of a remarriage are as bad as the year following a divorce. In other words, hell on earth.’
‘Time is a great healer,’ ventured Vicki. ‘Anyway, you never told me you’d talked about getting married.’
‘We have,’ Stella revealed, ‘but I don’t know if that’s much of an idea seeing as how Jenna hates the sight of me. Another seven years of this and I’ll be on every anti-depressant known to woman. Nick’s not much better. He tries to hide it, but he’s deeply stressed about how Jenna reacts to me, and it is affecting our relationship. But he still thinks we can work it all out. We’re going away for a weekend together, the five of us.’
Vicki winced. ‘Jesus,’ she said.
‘My sentiments exactly.’ She sighed. ‘We must have been out of our minds to even mention moving in together to Nick’s kids. Until then, there was a sensation of living at the foot of a volcano. Now, it’s as if somebody’s put a nuclear bomb in the crater.’
Amelia was excited about the weekend. She’d spent hours packing and unpacking her belongings, and the purple denim backpack Stella had told her to bring with her books and toys was disembowelled at least twice a day. Now, it was ready, full to the brim, and with odd bulges from Barbie’s pointed feet and the lump that was Casper, the grey furry toy rabbit Stella had brought her from Paris.
Stella hadn’t deliberated so long about her own wardrobe. She’d packed to match her mood: dark.
They were going to Moon’s Hotel, a big holiday complex on the coast. Moon’s was a watchword for family holidays and Stella could remember many friends of hers heading off there with a carload of kids for weekends of tennis, swimming and with the possibility of a romantic dinner for two courtesy of the hotel’s nanny service. Stella had always felt mildly jealous of those people. Families. Moon’s was a place for families, where dads brought the kids swimming and let mum have a facial in the hotel spa.
Ironically, now that she was going there with a readymade family, she wished she wasn’t. If only it had been just her, Nick and Amelia, she’d have been so happy. In the two weeks since her parents’ devastating split, Stella had been stressed out of her head and a few days holiday seemed just what she needed. But not this sort of holiday.
When Nick arrived outside the house with Sara and Jenna already installed in the car, Stella tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach at the thought of a weekend with everyone on their best behaviour, except Jenna, who would be on her usual child-of-Satan behaviour.
But Jenna had clearly been bribed with something or other. First, she got out of the front of the car and climbed in the back so that Stella could sit in the front. Secondly, she was civil.
‘Hello, Stella, hello, Amelia,’ she said when Stella opened the back door for Amelia.
‘Hello, Jenna,’ said Stella cautiously. ‘Why don’t you si
t in the middle, Amelia, as you’re the smallest.’
Amelia climbed carefully over Jenna and plonked down beside Sara, who was curled up on the other side, eyes halfclosed. She wore her customary jeans and a hoodie, and her dark hair was unruly.
‘Hi, Sara. How are you?’ asked Stella.
‘Wrecked,’ came the reply. ‘We had exams today. I was up all night studying.’
Stella stifled a grin. She’d burned the midnight oil herself when she was at college.
‘Five in the morning was the toughest time to stay awake,’ she remarked, getting into the front seat. ‘Tiredness hits you and you want to crawl into bed, but there’s no point because you’d never wake up and when you did, you’d be like a zombie.’
‘You pulled all-nighters, too?’ said Sara, surprised.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Stella laughed. ‘But if you do a couple of them, you soon learn to get your study done long before the exams. It’s easier than facing a whole night awake propped up with coffee.’
‘You said it!’ Sara made a cushion from a jumper, wedged it into a corner and closed her eyes. ‘Wake me when we’re there.’
Outside, Nick slammed the boot.
‘All set?’ he said, sliding into the driver’s seat. He put a hand on Stella’s and gave her a warm smile.
‘All set,’ she replied, determined not to worry about Jenna’s reaction to his affectionate action. Stella had got so used to modifying her behaviour around Jenna that she was almost reluctant to hold Nick’s hand in public.
‘It’s going to be a great weekend,’ Nick said, driving off.
Stella crossed her fingers.
Spending a lazy Saturday morning being pampered in the hotel spa had made Stella feel languorous and almost her usual serene self.
‘Have everything done,’ advised Nick the night before when Stella had examined the brochure and debated the wisdom of having a facial, back massage or manicure. ‘Sara will be in bed until lunchtime and I’ll bring Amelia and Jenna out for the morning. Then, we can try out the pool. You enjoy yourself.’
‘Jenna won’t be interested in water slides and messing around in the pool,’ Stella pointed out.
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Nick.
Filled with a sense of wellbeing after her back massage, Stella got back to their room to find a message from Nick telling her that he and the girls had returned from their jaunt into the town, and had now gone to the pool. Still in the hotel dressing gown, Stella made her way down to the sports complex. There was one pool dedicated to adults who wanted to swim laps in peace, and a larger one with slides for kids or anyone who wanted to whizz down into the water at high speed. To one side were tables grouped around a poolside café where parents could sit and watch their offspring cavort. Stella kept her eyes peeled, halfexpecting to see Jenna perched in the café, watching the youngsters enjoying themselves with a disdainful look on her face.
But there she was, standing in the pool and yelling at the top of her voice as Nick and Amelia climbed the slide to the top.
‘Face down,’ she was yelling. ‘Dad, you’ve got to come face down this time.’
‘No way,’ he yelled back.
Stella could see Amelia giggling at the thought.
‘Coward!’ yelled Jenna. ‘Amelia, make him come face down!’
With her blonde hair slicked down her back and her face wet and devoid of make-up, she looked like a child for the first time since Stella had met her. A happy child.
Stella sat down by the café and ordered a mineral water. She sat there for ages, watching the other three laughing and splashing about until finally, Amelia noticed her.
‘Mummy!’ She doggy paddled over. ‘I went down the slide, Mum!’
‘I saw you, you were very brave.’
‘Jenna went down on her front!’ Amelia said. ‘She says water goes up your nose.’
Jenna’s face closed off and the guarded, adult expression returned. For the first time in ages, Stella felt a sliver of sympathy for the girl. Nick was right: Jenna was still a child and she hadn’t been able to deal with her parents’ break-up. Stella thought of how she had reacted to Hugh and Rose’s abrupt split. The very idea still knocked her for six. If it was hard to deal with that at the age of thirty-eight, how much harder could it be for Jenna?
Nick hauled himself out of the pool.
‘C’mon, Jenna,’ he said, holding a hand down for his daughter. ‘Time for refreshment.’
Stella pulled up another chair for Jenna while Nick went to the counter to order drinks.
‘Are you having fun, Jenna?’ Stella asked, forgetting herself enough to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Jenna shrugged it off as if Stella’s hand was burning hot.
‘Sorry,’ Stella said automatically. Then she stopped. Why should she say sorry? She was trying to be kind. ‘Jenna, we have to get along. It would be easier on everyone if you made a bit of an effort.’
‘Why?’ demanded Jenna, hatred burning out of her eyes. And she turned and ran off.
Amelia turned to her mother with big, grave eyes. ‘Why doesn’t Jenna like you, Mummy?’
Stella had answers for most of Amelia’s questions, even ones about how next door’s terrier had got the four puppies in her tummy and why the puppies knew how to drink their mummy’s milk when they didn’t have their eyes opened yet. But she didn’t know how to answer this one.
Amelia answered for her. ‘Is it because you’re not her mummy?’
Stella bit her lip. ‘Noo,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to explain, darling. I’ll do my best when we get home, is that OK?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stella, when Nick returned. ‘My fault, I tried to be nice to her.’
Nick’s face slipped into what Stella silently called ‘the look’. It came over his features so regularly now, a tautening of the jaw along with a sorrowful and helpless look in his eyes.
She caught his hand and held it tightly, willing the look to disappear.
‘I better go and talk to her,’ he said.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Stella automatically.
She watched him go, noticing how his tall frame looked weighed down because of the way his shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, then turned to Amelia with a big grin fastened on her face.
‘What will we do now?’ she said brightly. ‘You choose.’
Amelia chose more swimming, followed by a walk in the town which led mother and daughter past a shop that had an entire section devoted to sparkly pens, cute lurid pink and purple notebooks and pencil cases decorated with marabou, sequins and feathers.
‘Why do I get the impression that you were here earlier?’ inquired Stella, smiling as Amelia headed straight for the pen department.
‘We were, but Nick said we should get back to the hotel and Jenna said we’d come back later on our own and buy things. She said she’d come with me and it would be all right because she’s a teenager. That’s almost as good as being a grown-up.’ Amelia pottered away and Stella idly looked at the fridge magnets. Normally, these wise little gems made her laugh. But she didn’t feel like laughing. She tried to work out what she did feel like. Then the word came to her: failure. She felt as if she’d failed. She’d found the man of her dreams and he came, like she did herself, with a certain amount of emotional baggage. Instead of being able to make it all work, she had made the whole situation worse. Faced with a fifteen-year-old girl’s implacable hatred, she hadn’t been able to accept that Jenna was entitled to her opinion. Accustomed to being liked and loved by everyone and accustomed to being treated with respect, Stella had not known how to deal with such naked hostility. The result was a disaster. She was stressed, Nick was even more stressed, and their dreams of a blissful united family looked a million miles away.
‘I think I like this one best,’ announced Amelia, holding up a silver pen with a pink hula girl on the top.
‘That’s lovely,’ said Stella. She bent down beside Amelia and kissed her fiercely on the cheek. �
�I love you, Amelia.’
Amelia’s beaming smile was her reward. ‘Love you too, Mummy.’ She held up a miniature notebook decorated with cartoon kittens. ‘Can I have this too?’
Worn out by her busy day, Amelia was happy to flop in front of the cartoon channel in the small adjoining room of their family suite. When they’d checked in, there had been an option of having a family suite with two rooms joining onto the master bedroom instead of one. Stella was glad she’d said no. Sara and Jenna shared a room opposite.
There was no sign of Nick so Stella assumed he was with the girls. Satisfied that Amelia was happy, she sat down on the bed and phoned her mother.
There was no answering machine in Nettle Cottage.
‘Freddie doesn’t believe in them,’ Rose had told Stella. ‘She says that if anybody wants to speak to her that urgently, they’ll keep trying.’ After seventeen rings, Stella hung up and tried her mother’s mobile, not really expecting anything. Rose had seemed only too happy to fall in with Freddie’s mañana attitude to telecommunications and rarely switched her mobile phone on.
‘I’m afraid I can’t come to the phone right now but please leave me a message,’ said Rose in calm, low tones.
Hearing her mother’s voice made tears prick behind Stella’s eyes. She hung up abruptly. What message could she leave?
I wish you and Dad were back together, because then it would feel as if some part of my life was still normal. And I could tell you all my problems instead of bottling them up because your problems are bigger than mine.
She devoured the mini-bar chocolate-coated nuts and then opened a small bottle of white wine to drink in the bath.
‘How are you getting on?’ she asked, peeping her head round the door to look at Amelia who was glued to the TV.
‘OK.’
‘I’m going to have a bath, Amelia, and then we’re going to get ready for dinner.’
But Amelia was back in thrall to the television.
The bubbles were up to her neck and her wine was almost gone when Nick arrived. He leaned down and kissed her tenderly.