After the Honeymoon

by Fraser, Janey

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It was just something that Dad said when I went to see him.’

  Her mother’s face set. ‘You went to see your father?’

  I have every right, Emma wanted to say, but the pain on her mother’s face instantly made her guilty. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. He sent me a wedding card and I felt I owed him.’

  Mum got up, wrapping her coat round her. ‘You don’t owe him anything. Trust me. Now let’s get out of this place. I need to buy some more fags.’

  The run-up to Christmas was getting hectic. Gawain and Willow had both made their lists for Santa, sitting on Granny’s sofa in front of the quiz programme that she was addicted to.

  ‘Daddy says we can do another list with him on Saturday,’ announced Gawain brightly. ‘He says Santa is going to come twice this year.’

  Their son had stopped asking when they were going back home now. Instead, both children seemed to have accepted that they saw Daddy all day on Saturday instead. How adaptable they were at this age! Far more so than adults.

  Meanwhile, she ached for Tom. Yearned for his arms at night. Missed the familiarity of not having to say something, because they were comfortable with each other’s silences. As for his irritating habits, like leaving clothes on the floor or lights on, they seemed like trivialities in comparison with not having him at all.

  ‘He won’t listen to my Phil,’ said Bernie one day at work. ‘Put those roast spuds out of reach, please. I don’t want to be tempted. Phil’s tried telling your Tom that you didn’t know what you were doing but he won’t listen.’

  Emma turned away. Since Tom had thrown her out, she’d still refused to talk to her ‘friend’ apart from the odd phrase that had to be said at work like ‘More beans, please’.

  ‘Mrs Walker, Mrs Walker!’ A little girl with plaits came rushing up to her indignantly. ‘Sam won’t talk to me cos he says I kicked him under the table, but I didn’t. It was an ax idn’t.’

  Bernie gave her a look over the kitchen counter as if to say, See? We ought to teach kids to make up: set an example.

  If she thought she was falling for that one, she was mistaken. In the meantime, Emma had carried on working extra hours at the after-school club to give Mum some money towards their living expenses. Despite being tired (‘This baby of yours is a big one!’ the midwife had declared at her last antenatal), she still loved it – especially when one of the kids asked her to help with homework.

  ‘You’re good at this,’ said one of the other helpers approvingly when she’d been helping a little boy with his reading. ‘Just like a proper teacher.’

  Hah! In her dreams …

  Every now and then at work, Emma would see Melissa coming in to pick up Alice and Freddie. Since they’d sorted out that horrid misunderstanding over the journalist, she’d been very sweet to her. ‘How are you doing?’ asked Melissa one evening, glancing at her stomach.

  She busied herself with tidying up crayons, hoping Melissa wouldn’t ask about Tom.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Your husband must be very proud.’

  Emma started to nod and say that yes, he couldn’t wait to have a third. But instead, she found tears filling her eyes. ‘Actually, we’re having a bit of a break.’

  ‘No!’

  Now it was the other woman’s turn to look moist-eyed. ‘So are we, at the moment.’ She glanced around. ‘Winston’s gone back to London. But don’t mention it to anyone, will you?’

  Emma shook her head vigorously. ‘Of course not. I’m so sorry. Do you think it will be, you know, permanent?’

  Melissa shrugged. She looked thinner, Emma noticed. It didn’t really suit her. ‘I don’t know. What about you?’

  Emma’s mouth went dry. ‘I don’t know either. He won’t talk to me.’

  ‘Tell you what.’ Melissa touched her arm in that pally way she used to do in Greece. ‘Why don’t I give you a make-up lesson as a bit of a treat, to cheer you up. No, I insist. Come round to my place one day next week.’

  When Tom brought the children back after his next visit, he handed her a piece of paper with Gawain’s loopy childish handwriting.

  ‘It’s their list for Santa,’ he said briefly as they flew through the front door with Gawain yelling, ‘Granny, we’re back!’

  Emma had glanced at it. There were the usual impossible expectations like a swing and one of those motorised model planes that were far too expensive. And then, right at the bottom, were the words I WANT MY DADDY.

  The lump in her throat was so big that she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Tom quietly, studiously avoiding her swollen stomach, ‘we ought to have Christmas dinner together. For the kids’ sake.’

  ‘Maybe this is your chance to get Tom back,’ suggested Melissa brightly when she gave Emma that promised make-up lesson just before Christmas.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Emma doubtfully, looking round Melissa’s stunning bedroom with its lemon walls and pictures of the children on the dressing table, along with one of her ex-husband (whom she’d seen fleetingly at school) but none, surprisingly, of Winston. ‘I did something, you see, that he can’t forgive.’

  Melissa traced a thin grey-green line underneath her left eye and then her right. It made her look rather striking, even though Emma would never have thought of using that colour herself. ‘You’d be surprised what you can forgive when there are children at stake,’ she said quietly.

  Emma glanced at her friend’s closed expression in the mirror, which also reflected the huge bed behind, with a lovely rose-patterned chintzy ottoman at the end of it, and the chest of drawers with a pot of fat blue hyacinths on top. Did that mean she was ready to forgive Winston? Or her first husband? It was hard to tell and Emma didn’t feel able to ask.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said when Melissa had finished and a new Emma stared out from the mirror.

  ‘Think you can remember how to do it?’

  Emma nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I’ll write down some instructions to help.’ Melissa gave her a little kiss on the cheek. ‘Good luck.’

  Emma flushed. ‘You too.’

  On Christmas morning, Emma spent ages getting ready. ‘Bloody hell, what have you done to your face?’ demanded Mum when she finally emerged from the bathroom. ‘Don’t rub it off, love. It’s quite nice. Just that it takes some getting used to.’

  Tom’s expression, when he let them in, showed that he was surprised by the new-look Emma with her glossy lips and curled eyelashes, even though he didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, the house itself looked as though it had had a makeover. So tidy and clean! Almost as though someone had been round to sort it out.

  Tom? Or a new girlfriend? ‘Men don’t hang around long,’ Mum had warned. ‘If you want to get him back, you’ll need to act sharpish.’

  Gawain, who’d shot upstairs to his old room, wouldn’t stop jumping on his bed. ‘It’s bouncier than my one at Granny’s,’ he called out.

  Her mother, whom they’d had to ask too, of course, rolled her eyes. ‘Then you’re welcome to come back to this one, pet. Give me some peace again.’

  ‘Do you need a fag, Gran?’ Gawain called.

  ‘Not inside if you don’t mind,’ said Tom, heading for the back door. ‘I need us all to go outside together. Em, cover Willow’s eyes. I’ll do the same with Gawain.’

  Em? He hadn’t called her that since that awful night when Phil had spilled the beans. Her heart leaped with hope. Then the five of them, including Mum, who was muttering something about smoking and human rights, went down the little side path into the garden.

  ‘A swing!’ gasped Gawain. ‘A real swing!’

  Racing across, he leaped on it. Next to it, on the bright blue plastic frame, was a toddler-sized bucket seat. Willow wriggled out of Emma’s grasp, squealing with delight.

  ‘That must have cost a pretty packet,’ said Mum sharply.

  Tom shrugged. ‘I’ve been doing overtime.’

  For a bit t
hey stood there, watching the children. An onlooker might have mistaken them for an ordinary family, thought Emma wistfully. Was it too late? Judging from Tom’s coolness towards her, the answer was yes, despite her earlier optimism.

  Eventually, they went back into the house. ‘I need a double whisky to warm myself up,’ Mum grumbled. ‘Don’t be so stingy with that bottle, Tom. Give it to me.’

  By the time it came to the turkey, Mum was well and truly sozzled. ‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Emma, putting her hand over the glass when Tom offered her some wine.

  He shot the bump a distrustful glance. ‘Of course. Can’t let anything upset your baby.’

  Emma bit her lip. ‘It’s not just because I’m pregnant. I’ve decided never to drink again. Alcohol made me do things I regretted.’

  He hesitated. ‘I’ve done things I regretted too, like telling the paper about Winston King. But there are some sins that are beyond forgiveness.’

  Wait, she was about to say but was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. ‘Santa!’ screamed Gawain who was now really hyper. ‘Maybe he’s coming a third time!’

  Willow was clapping her hands as Tom, who had gone to investigate, came back with a pile of presents, each with a neatly written gift tag. ‘They were left on the doorstep,’ he said suspiciously, giving Emma a distrustful look. Then he added in a whisper. ‘From your fancy man, are they?’

  She turned over the label on top and took a sharp breath.

  To Willow, with love from Grandad.

  ‘They’re from Dad,’ she said, embarrassed.

  Mum, her face flushed from a combination of whisky and wine, gave a short laugh from the sofa where she’d been dozing. ‘Thinks he can make up for lost time, does he?’

  Gawain frowned. ‘How does time get lost, Daddy?’

  ‘Good question.’ Tom jerked his head in Mum’s direction. ‘Maybe you’d better get her upstairs, Em, and let her sleep it off.’

  He was right. Mum was well and truly out of it now, mumbling incoherently as Emma led her into the bedroom she had once shared with Tom. Everything was the same, she noticed with a pang. The yellow rose bedspread. Her dressing table. The clothes that she’d left behind in the wardrobe. It was almost as though she’d never gone.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ slurred Mum as Emma pulled back the sheets.

  ‘It’s fine. We all have too much to drink sometimes.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry about Keith.’

  Emma’s heart thudded. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If I hadn’t gone with Keith, your dad wouldn’t have gone off. I didn’t love him, you know. He was just there.’

  Then she was out, fast asleep, snoring with her mouth open. So Dad had been right! Mum had had an affair first. Scarcely able to believe it, Emma stumbled her way downstairs. Tom had put on a DVD and both Gawain and Willow were sitting in front of it, mesmerised.

  ‘I’m going out now.’ Tom rose to his feet awkwardly.

  Emma felt a stab of alarm. ‘Where?’ she asked, knowing at the same time that it was none of her business.

  He was looking decidedly shifty. ‘Promised someone I’d meet them.’

  A chill cut through her. So he had got someone else! ‘What about the children?’ It was her last card and, despite hating herself, she had to use it.

  He looked down at the pair glued to the screen. ‘They seem happy enough.’

  ‘But I’m not,’ she said softly. ‘I miss you, Tom.’

  Then it happened before she knew it. His lips came down on hers. Hard. Purposefully. Meaningfully. He kissed her in a way he had never kissed her before and, just as surprising, her own body was reacting too.

  She fancied him! Much more than she had ever done when they’d been together …

  Then he broke away, muttering something about having to go, and was out of the door before she could stop him.

  Emma was left staring through the window as Tom broke into a run down the street, out of sight. What did that kiss mean?

  And – more worryingly – who had taught him to snog like that?

  BEDDING IN ON HONEYMOON

  Honeymoon bliss is a myth! Couples are most unhappy during the first year of married life when they are still getting to know each other. They are happiest after they have clocked up forty years or more.

  According to a recent survey

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ROSIE

  Looking back over the previous weeks, Rosie couldn’t believe how much had happened. That terrible experience with poor Greco in Customs was still fresh in her memory. If it hadn’t been for Winston and his hotshot lawyer, Greco might be in prison.

  Of course, he had been very naive. ‘Didn’t you think it was odd that this French couple asked you to bring the figures back with you?’ one of the policemen had demanded.

  Greco had shrugged. ‘No. It was part of the service.’

  Rosie could see his point of view. In a culture where neighbours did things for each other as a matter of course, Greco’s actions weren’t as daft as they seemed. Besides, he was a fisherman. He spoke as he thought and wasn’t well versed in the subterfuge of a drug-driven world.

  Even so, the police might not have believed him if she and Winston hadn’t identified the French couple from the ID shots. Shortly afterwards, they’d been tracked down in Notting Hill and arrested.

  Rosie felt like jumping in the air with relief. ‘We did it!’ said Winston, giving her a high five when she told him the good news over coffee in London before Greco flew home. The touch of his skin gave her a tingly, unsettling feeling. Not a good idea, she wanted to say, glancing at Greco’s sulky expression over his latte.

  ‘So you’re not going back to Greece yet?’ continued Winston casually.

  Greco stiffened.

  ‘I’d like to,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘But Dad needs me. He really seems to be mellowing and keeps talking about lost time. Besides, I need to be near Jack.’

  She stopped, not wanting to say any more in front of Greco, but the truth was that you only had to look at her son’s shining face to see what a difference it had made to have a father in his life. How could she take that away?

  ‘You will come home soon, I hope,’ Greco had said, when she saw him off at the airport at the end of November.

  She nodded. ‘I’ll stay just until the new year. Look after Cara for me and keep an eye on the villa, won’t you?’

  Swiftly, he’d bent down to kiss her, watched by a rather envious-looking middle-aged woman at Departures, and for a few seconds Rosie felt herself being transported away from the hustle and bustle of Heathrow. Greco really knew how to kiss!

  They continued waving until she could see him no more. Feeling deflated – surely a good sign if she was serious about him? – she threaded her way back through the crowds towards the underground sign.

  Then her mobile rang. Her heart lifted. Was it Greco, at his departure gate, with a final goodbye?

  Winston.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you in front of Greco but things have changed.’ His voice sounded tight. ‘I’ve moved back to London. Alone. Jack really likes his school and wants to stay until the end of term. So I’ve persuaded Melissa to let Jack stay with her in the interests of his education. Meanwhile, I’d like to see him at the weekends if that’s all right with you.’

  Rosie’s head whirled. Did that mean that he and Melissa had separated, or was Winston’s move precipitated by work? And where did that leave her? She wanted to see Jack at weekends too. It didn’t seem right that other people were organising her son’s life.

  ‘I’ve got a job in a London health club,’ he added. ‘And there’s a guest room in my flat if you’d like to stay.’ There was a moment of hesitation. ‘You could bring your father up too if you want.’

  Rosie snorted. ‘That’s very kind but he’d only be terribly rude – he’s like that with everyone. And anyway, he’s not really well enough to travel. It’s best that I stay with him to make the most of the time
he’s got left.’

  Winston’s voice softened. ‘You’re a good daughter. What exactly is wrong with him?’

  Rosie took a deep breath. It was only at her last visit that Dad had come clean. ‘Cancer of the liver amongst other things. It’s inoperable, apparently. They’ve already done what they can.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  His voice felt strong, like a hand to hold on to. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Tell you what. Why don’t you and Jack come up this weekend? We could do some museums. The National Portrait Gallery has got an exhibition on.’

  Rosie felt a burst of excitement. ‘That would be lovely – provided Jack’s OK about it.’

  ‘He is. I’ve already spoken to him. If you ask me, he and Alice might just be cooling off, which is probably just as well.’

  ‘Really?’ Part of her was relieved but she was also concerned for Jack. Who had hurt whom? She needed to call him, make sure he was all right. There was nothing more painful (well, almost nothing) than unrequited teenage love.

  She should know.

  ‘I’ll text later to make arrangements,’ said Winston. He seemed to add something else – about Dad? – but she was walking down to the underground now and the signal had faded out. As Rosie stepped onto the tube, surrounded by people with heavy cases and rucksacks, or others like her who had just seen off loved ones, a thought struck her. Winston had spoken to Jack about staying on at Melissa’s before he’d discussed it with her. It made her feel pushed out and jealous.

  Even more confusing, she and Winston had just had yet another conversation about their son, like any pair of parents, and it had felt disturbingly normal.

  ‘Gemma’s mum says you’ve got a boyfriend,’ said Dad with a what’s going on? look in his eye, when she went down to see him soon after her conversation with Winston.

  He was sitting in a G-Plan armchair with frayed arms and an old red tartan rug draped over his knees, even though it was a bright day outside.

  Rosie nodded, resisting the temptation to say that she was a grown-up woman now and that boyfriends were her own business.

  ‘A Greek boyfriend,’ said Dad, adjusting his spectacles. They had a bit of sticking plaster on the side, saying ‘Short distance’. The other pair with ‘Long distance’ taped to them was on the side table, along with a copy of the Daily Express, which she had bought at his request.