The Big Five O

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  The home that I live in and pay for, thought Roz, biting back any retort because it felt like a long time since she and Amy had talked like this.

  ‘In fact,’ said Amy. ‘I wondered if you had been dating and not telling me.’

  Roz’s stomach gave another unpleasant jerk. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The other night when you went out – that meeting you were so mysterious about.’

  ‘I wasn’t being mysterious – I was having a drink with Melody, as I said …’

  ‘You seem to like her a lot these days.’

  ‘She’s having a bit of a rough time,’ Roz improvised guiltily. ‘She needs someone to talk to.’

  She began to thinly slice the onion to add to the salad, hoping she sounded convincing, wondering what it had been in her demeanour that had made Amy suspicious. She hadn’t changed into her ‘stern’ outfit till she’d got to Melody’s house.

  Amy put down her phone and continued to gaze at her. ‘Mum–’

  Roz recognised the deceptively soft, slightly wheedling tone and braced herself. Amy looked down and bit her lip. ‘I was wondering …’

  If she stopped doing the dominatrix work altogether now she would really miss the extra income. Roz had two hundred pounds in cash in the drawer in her bedroom. It made such a change from poking about looking for change for a pint of milk or a bus fare.

  ‘How much?’ she said, smiling.

  Amy shook her head. ‘I wasn’t going to ask for money.’ She grinned. ‘But if you’re offering …’ Then she was abruptly straight-faced.

  ‘Tell me the story again – about Dad.’

  Roz felt her heart quicken. Was there once more an edge to Amy’s voice, a slightly weighted emphasis on the word ‘story’?

  She took a deep breath and carried on slicing. The onion was stinging her eyes, despite her leaving the root end on.

  ‘We went out for a few weeks,’ she said lightly. ‘And we drifted apart. I think he went to work abroad. I didn’t discover I was pregnant until much later.’

  ‘And you didn’t try to find him?’

  ‘Didn’t think I needed to. You and me against the world, eh?’

  Amy didn’t smile.

  ‘But you must have thought to look since?’

  ‘Not really. And anyway – where would I start?’

  Amy looked scathing. ‘Facebook? Google. You can find anyone these days.’

  Roz shrugged, wondering where this had come from. The talk with the other girls? Amy had always accepted they didn’t know where her father was. She’d gone through a stage, when younger, of making up fantastically wild stories about him being lost in a jungle or killed in a plane crash, when other children asked, but at home she’d not seemed overly bothered. Why was she suddenly asking?

  ‘I’ve looked,’ continued Amy deliberately. ‘There are lots of Mark Johnsons. I’ve narrowed them down by age and I’ve made a short list – some on Facebook and some on LinkedIn. I need you to look with me.’

  Roz’s heart was really thumping now. She glanced at the piece of paper with the column of names and locations that Amy had pushed across the table, knowing without looking that none of them was Amy’s father.

  She’d known this would come one day. Maybe she should have told a different tale but Amy had always seemed happy enough with just the two of them. Had seemed content to have been fathered by a mythical and remote figure who was tucked away in some forgotten corner of the world. Unless someone else was enquiring, her paternity didn’t get a mention from one year to the next.

  Roz took another deep breath. Amy was fifteen and had a right to know. She couldn’t lie to her for ever. Amy was also dogged when she wanted to be and would not let this drop now she’d decided she wanted to find out more.

  At the end of the kitchen counter her phone began to ring. Roz froze, staring towards it.

  ‘Look properly!’ Amy’s voice was hard.

  Roz shook her head. The phone was still ringing. ‘He won’t be on that list,’ she said slowly, seeing her daughter’s eyes narrow. ‘He won’t be there because his name’s not Mark Johnson.’

  Amy gasped dramatically. ‘You lied,’ she snarled.

  ‘I didn’t tell you the whole story.’

  ‘Granny said–’

  ‘Oh yes, I might have known she’d be involved …’

  ‘You’d always been very secretive …’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘Who is he then? Didn’t you even ask his name?’ Amy’s voice was steeped in disgust.

  The phone had stopped. As Roz looked at the stony face of her daughter there was a small beep to indicate that someone had left a voice message.

  Swallowing hard, she reached out and picked up her mobile. Praying that Melody’s interference hadn’t come home to roost as well. She looked at the screen and was gripped with alarm.

  There was a missed call from Charlotte.

  Chapter 16

  Charlotte propped herself up in bed and reached for her glass of water. Her mouth was dry and she had a slight headache. ‘I really, really, am not going to drink today,’ she recited to herself, as she got up and walked towards the en suite, leaving Roger still slumbering behind her.

  Her legs felt tired and heavy. She needed an early night and an evening of sticking to cups of tea. She’d promised herself that yesterday, but after a broken previous night attending to Joe, who was throwing up for England, and a day scurrying about between clients, on top of the stress of everything else, it had been only too easy to sink gratefully into the sofa and accept Roger’s offer to open a bottle of her favourite Mâcon.

  Except it was more than one bottle, she thought guiltily. And she’d drunk the lion’s share. Mainly to blot out the stricken look on Roger’s face that morning when she’d told him he’d have to take the day off work to stay with their son because she had too many meetings to cancel.

  It wasn’t strictly true – only one of them was with someone who’d come specially down from London and was in a hotel waiting to see the properties she’d found for them – and she could probably have asked one of the others to sit with Joe for a while. But she wanted to see what Roger would say.

  ‘I don’t want to leave him alone,’ she’d said. ‘He’s still feeling rough and I think he’s got a temperature. One of us needs to be here.’

  ‘Of course.’ Roger had made the phone call straight away but she’d seen the look of quiet despair in his eyes.

  ‘And fancy – it’s a Wednesday!’ she’d said with grim satisfaction to Fay when she’d let her know her tailing techniques would not be required after all. ‘Whatever it is he should be doing, he’s pissed off to be missing out on it. I can tell!’

  Fay had been matter of fact, probably glad to be off the hook, but Charlotte was determined to pin her down to next week. She pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs. She usually liked this quiet time on her own, before anyone else got up, but today she felt rattled and edgy.

  She put the kettle on and got milk from the fridge – leaning down to check the level in the second bottle of wine she’d opened. There were a couple of inches left. Tonight she’d make a big, healthy salad and drink lots of water. ‘I’ll give you a rest, you poor old thing,’ she said out loud, patting her middle in the general direction of her liver and wishing, not for the first time, that she still had a dog to address.

  None of the others had picked up when she’d called the night before. Her official reason for phoning round had been to suggest another get-together – the party wasn’t that far away now and there were still details to discuss – but really she’d wanted someone to talk to. Joe had gone back to bed after a mug of soup, still looking pale; Roger was ensconced in his study, catching up, he said, on work emails after being home with his son all day.

  Charlotte had sat on a kitchen chair in the open doorway, blowing smoke out across the patio, feeling, for the first time she could ever remember, lonely. She’d sent Becky a WhatsApp and her daught
er had sounded upbeat – about to go to see a band put on by the Student Union – but not in the mood for a long exchange with her mother.

  In the old days, before Laura met Andrew and they eventually moved away, she’d have phoned her and Laura would have been there in the kitchen – sharing a bottle, talking about anything and nothing. But last night she couldn’t even call. It was Laura’s wedding anniversary – they’d be out to dinner.

  Now, Charlotte put her coffee on the table and fetched her iPad, thinking she would email Lu and see if she’d had a good time. She looked at the photo that was her screensaver – the smiley one from her birthday of the four of them, taken by the waiter at the restaurant, Becky and Joe beaming either side of her, Roger’s arm draped across her shoulders. They looked like the perfect happy family …

  Idly, she flicked through other photos. Becky and Joe at Christmas wearing Santa hats, Andrew and Lu and Stanley when they’d come to stay for Broadstairs Folk Week last summer. She and Lu holding champagne flutes, standing outside round the barbecue. Suddenly Charlotte missed her old friend deeply. She swallowed.

  ‘Why don’t you see if Laura would like a visit for a couple of days?’ Roger came up behind her and looked at the screen over her shoulder. ‘It would cheer you up a bit. Joe and I can cope here.’

  Charlotte cleared the screen and pushed the iPad away from her. ‘Why are you trying to get rid of me?’

  ‘I’m not. I was trying to be nice!’ Roger looked irritated. ‘We’ll all go then,’ he went on briskly. ‘Make a weekend of it. Stay in a hotel and take Laura and Andrew out to dinner. Then you two can go off and do girly stuff and have a catch-up and I’ll hang out with Andrew and Joe. Bound to be a match on and didn’t Andrew say he was mates with one of the governors who could sort tours of the stadium in Newcastle? Joe would love that. Why don’t we? We haven’t been away for a while …’

  Charlotte nodded dumbly – suddenly wanting to cry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to be a cow. I just miss Laura and I was thinking about Benson and how the house still seems so empty without him especially now Becky …’ She broke off as her voice cracked.

  ‘Hey.’ Roger sat down next to her and leant forward to give her a hug. ‘You’re tired. You were up all night when Joe was sick and, well–’ he smiled sympathetically at her ‘–you did have quite a bit to drink last night. You know it makes you emotional …’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Is there something else wrong?’ Roger’s eyes scanned her face. ‘You have been a bit distracted lately.’

  Charlotte hesitated. Tell me where you go on bloody Wednesdays! But if she said that then, she’d never know the truth. He would deny everything like he did before. Better to wait till Fay followed him next week and find out for sure. She wished it wasn’t eating away at her like it was.

  Roger had his hand on her shoulder. ‘If you want another dog–’ He gave her a squeeze, got up and moved towards the coffee pot. ‘But we did say after Benson we wouldn’t, didn’t we? Because of holidays. You said – as the kids grew up you wanted to travel more …’

  She nodded.

  ‘But if you want a dog, we’ll get a dog.’

  He was spooning fresh coffee into the cafetière. ‘I just want you to be happy, Char.’

  Charlotte looked up at him. He had his back to her.

  ‘I’d like that too,’ she said.

  ‘You could try telling yourself you are!’ Fay stirred her coffee vigorously and leant back against the leather sofa in Le Café. ‘A bit of mind over matter perhaps?’

  Charlotte snorted. ‘Not like you to promote mumbo jumbo.’

  Fay pulled a face. ‘I just think you should give the poor bastard a break,’ she said flatly. ‘Roger isn’t behaving like someone who is having an affair.’

  Charlotte sighed. ‘I’m not meaning to be rude, love, but how would you know? Because he suggests a weekend away – because he’s being nice? Oldest trick in the book isn’t it, be extra lovely to the wife to put her off the scent?’

  ‘Not always,’ said Fay tersely. ‘I simply don’t think–’

  ‘Well we’ll find out next week when you follow him.’

  ‘I can’t next Wednesday.’

  Charlotte let out a hiss of annoyance. ‘Oh bloody hell – why not?’

  ‘Because, funnily enough–’ Fay looked at her friend with a mixture of affection and exasperation. ‘I have a business to run.’

  Charlotte knew she sounded like a petulant child. ‘You said you would.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fay with exaggerated patience. ‘And I will. But on that particular day I have three big jobs on the go and need to be in Thanet in case I’m needed. I also have a hospital appointment.’

  ‘Oh.’ Charlotte was contrite. ‘Are you OK?’

  Fay was brisk. ‘Yes of course. It’s a routine thing.’

  Charlotte waited but Fay didn’t expand. Instead, she looked directly at Charlotte and spoke firmly. ‘I’ll do it as soon as I can.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘But you don’t want to. Perhaps it’s better if I book Private Pete.’

  He had phoned the day before, to see if she’d had any more thoughts and there was anything he ‘could do’ for her.

  His voice had been soft and soothing. ‘I believe you, Charlotte,’ he’d said. ‘In thirty years in this business, I have rarely found a wife’s instincts to be wrong …’

  Charlotte had wavered. Part of her just wanted to throw money at the problem, to let Pete follow Roger and get it sorted once and for all. But she had promised Fay she would wait for her.

  Fay sounded annoyed now. ‘Don’t you dare waste your cash. Or let a money-making dick wind you up. I said I would do it and I will.’ Fay pulled out her phone and tapped at it. ‘I’ll put it in now for the following Wednesday. If you still think there’s anything to investigate. Which I think there probably isn’t.’

  Charlotte looked at her hard. ‘Why are you so keen to defend him?’

  Fay held her gaze. ‘I’m keen to see you get a sense of perspective. I told you I did a bit of digging on your birthday and Roger didn’t seem to me like a bloke with anything to hide.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Charlotte broke her biscuit in half and dipped it morosely in her coffee.

  ‘I went to see Sherie’s sister.’ Fay abruptly changed the subject. ‘She’s completely different from the Princess, isn’t she? I couldn’t get over it. Old jeans, not a scrap of make up on – very down to earth.’ Fay nodded approvingly. ‘I liked her.’

  Charlotte gave a small chuckle. ‘Says the woman with three hundred lipsticks.’

  ‘Thirty-eight at the last count. People take you more seriously if you are groomed,’ said Fay. ‘Especially when you get a bit older. But I still like a woman who doesn’t give a shit.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s got time to – she’s got her hands full with those kids – especially the youngest one.’

  ‘I quite liked him too, actually,’ said Fay, sounding surprised. ‘He told me ‘all the crap’ was in storage. Made me laugh. I said – yes it’s my storage. And he said: ‘well, you know then.’’

  Charlotte smiled again. ‘Sherie adores him.’

  ‘Anyway – I’ve priced up her move but she says the exchange got delayed again? So the July date she’d told me isn’t going to work? I thought you’d got it going bloody quick.’

  Charlotte nodded. ‘That was the deal – exchange within six weeks. And complete a week later. It still might happen – it’s only the other side’s bank dragging their feet and the solicitor being an arse. I’m on it. Keep it pencilled for the moment?’

  Fay nodded. ‘Good. Will do. You seen Sherie?’

  Charlotte frowned as if trying to remember. ‘Only very briefly. She was just going into Bodilight – as I was coming out of the Co-op. She’s having some course of facials where they zap your jowls with these mini cattle prods. She’s booked one a week till the party, says it lift
s and firms. I couldn’t be arsed personally but it makes her happy.’

  ‘Don’t know why she doesn’t just try this.’ Fay twisted her face into a snarl and opened her mouth wide, before clamping her jaws shut again. ‘Twenty of those before you clean your teeth every night does the same thing.’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be arsed to do that either.’

  ‘Stops you getting a double chin.’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘Yeah, your boat’s looking pretty good too. I’m the only one letting myself go …’

  ‘Pah!’ Fay looked cynical. ‘I bet you’ve spent a fortune on an amazing dress for the party and you’ll be glammed to the eyeballs.’

  ‘I haven’t yet. I’ve been too distracted by–’

  ‘Didn’t you say we were having another get-together soon?’ Fay asked, interrupting before Charlotte could get started on Roger again.

  ‘I’m still trying to find a day when we can all meet – you all seem to be so busy at the moment.’

  Everyone was occupied. Charlotte pushed down the disappointment she still felt from her phone call with Laura earlier. Her good friend had explained brightly that she and Andrew and Stanley had too much on at weekends to get together before the party, and had then been much brisker than Charlotte was used to, about Charlotte’s fears over Roger being up to no good.

  ‘Oh Charlotte!’ she’d said, when Charlotte had explained that the sofa cushions had been more than usually rumpled the other evening and she’d half wondered if Roger had had a visitor while she was out collecting Joe from Karate practice. ‘Of course he didn’t!’

  She had moved straight onto quizzing Charlotte about mood swings and how hot she got at night, before suggesting a visit to the doctor for a blood test. Charlotte had pretended she would think about it and hastily changed the subject.

  ‘Laura says I should be taking sage drops.’ Charlotte gave a brief laugh now, to show how silly it all was. ‘She thinks my hormones are affecting my balance of judgement–’