“It took you long enough,” Catherine commented.
“I was waiting for you to do it first,” Alison said. “But you were stronger than me. You stuck it out because you knew I was in the wrong. It seemed to go on forever.”
“It was probably about a week, if that,” Catherine said.
“Do you remember how we made up?” Alison asked.
Catherine nodded, the ghost of a smile on her lips.
“We were in gym getting changed. I sat down next to you on the bench and I said, ‘Hi, Cathy, I’m sorry.’ And you said ‘That’s okay’ and that was it. In an instant we were best friends again. It was back to you and me against the world, and I can still remember to this second the enormous relief that I felt in that moment. It was as easy as saying hi, that’s all it took to make everything all right again. And I think I’ve been living with that sense of loss and panic all these years, waiting to see you and say hi and tell you that I’m sorry.” Alison paused as she studied Catherine’s profile. “What I’m trying to say is that if you want to get to know me again it doesn’t have to be hard or painful. You can just decide to do it.”
Catherine was silent for a long time and then she turned to Alison, the morning sun igniting her hair.
“I’m going to have to insist that you don’t try to sleep with my ex-husband,” she said. “I know I don’t have a right to insist it. But if you did, that would be it between us because I … I just wouldn’t like it.”
“Don’t worry,” Alison said. “I won’t.”
Catherine nodded once. “One day, when you and I know each other properly and when I … if I feel like I can trust you again, I’ll tell you about the abortion. I have to tell you about it, Alison, about everything that happened with my parents after you left and how I got the courage up to leave home and why it’s taken me years to be able to feel good about myself again. I’ll have to tell you about it even though it will be painful and difficult. And I’ll blame you for some of what happened, which I know isn’t fair because you were only a seventeen-year-old girl and you weren’t responsible for me, but I will anyway and I think you’ll need to accept that.”
“Okay,” Alison said steadily. “I’ll be ready.”
“I’ve missed you,” Catherine said, and suddenly tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Me too!” Alison said, and then briefly, clumsily the two women reached across the table and hugged each other very hard.
And then both of them laughed, the tension in the room deflating in an instant like a popped balloon, sucking out fifteen years of time with it.
“Your face, when Kirsty picked up that brick,” Alison said with a giggle.
“And your singing,” Catherine retorted. “Thank God those windows were double-glazed, otherwise we’d have been arrested for noise pollution.” They chuckled again.
“Well, I’d better go, Marc will want to go into the dealership, I expect,” Alison said. “It’s going to wind him up something rotten that I was out with you all night. It will make him competitive, you know; he’ll want you to like him more than me.”
Catherine raised her brows and rubbed the back of her aching neck.
“Well, if you’re going to promise not to sleep with my husband, I think I can manage to return the favor.”
“No, don’t,” Alison said, making Catherine’s head snap up in surprise.
“Pardon?” she asked.
“I’m not saying sleep with him if you don’t want to. But as much as I hope I could do something with our marriage, I know now that I can’t. All I can do is try to find the best way to end it for all of us, the children especially. When Marc brought us back here, part of the reason was to try and find that ideal version of himself that he’s never quite been able to pin down since the summer he met you. Maybe that man exists, maybe he doesn’t. But I’d like him to find out if he does and I think maybe he needs you to help him with that. So if you want to, I won’t mind.”
“Right,” Catherine said, looking disbelievingly at Alison.
“So I’d like to have your girls over for tea,” Alison said. “Maybe next Wednesday?”
“They’d love that,” Catherine said slowly, suddenly feeling that her life had taken a decidedly surreal turn.
Twenty-two
This has got to be the first properly sunny morning we’ve had in months,” Jimmy said as he steered the boat back down the canal toward Farmington. “You can even feel the warmth on your face. Maybe spring’s on its way at last, hey, girls?”
“Maybe,” said Leila, who was sitting at his feet, happily chalking a masterpiece depiction of Jesus and a lot of angels in heaven, having tea with God, on the painted floor of the boat. Eloise sat opposite him on the little bench at the helm of the boat, her arms crossed, her face turned away from him, looking at the canal bank as it slowly drifted by.
“Did you have a good weekend, Ellie?” he asked her. “I mean after the bit where we all nearly froze to death.”
“ ’Course I did,” Eloise said, smiling at him. “I liked going to the multiplex with you and Nanna Pam and Leila. I love this …” She put her hand on her new sparkling hot pink and silver scarf that Jimmy’s mother had bought her, which clashed violently with her hair. “And even the cold and rainy night on the boat was fun, because we were with you. I just wish I didn’t have to go home, that’s all. I’d rather spend a hundred cold and rainy nights on the boat than go home to her.”
“I wouldn’t, so don’t try and make me,” Leila scoffed as she continued to draw.
Jimmy sighed. Eloise had been making digs about her mother all weekend, just the odd word here and there, and of course his mother had loved it, but it had upset both him and Leila, who at one point had punched Eloise hard in the arm, causing a full-blown fight to break out.
“Look, you can’t be angry at your mum, Ellie,” Jimmy said. “Your mum didn’t make us break up.”
“She did,” Ellie said. “I remember it. She got really, really cross and threw you and all your stuff onto the street. And me and her were crying and crying but she still did it, even though she could see that we were crying because of what she was doing. She made you go and she won’t let you come back again even though you are sorry and she said you only ever had one chance and you blew it.”
Jimmy thought for a moment, realizing that if his daughter was right about that, then he was in an even bigger mess than he’d first thought.
“She threw me out because I’d done something really, really bad,” Jimmy said. “Mummy’s never told you what I did because she doesn’t want you to hate me, but if I hadn’t done the really, really bad thing—then who knows? We might all still be together now.”
“What did you do?” Leila asked, looking up from her drawing. “Stealing? Lying? Worshipping a false idol? Did you covet thy neighbor’s wife?”
Jimmy swallowed; when he started this talk he hadn’t planned far enough ahead to know quite how to answer that question.
“Do you know what covet means?” he asked both the girls.
“No,” Leila said.
“Not sure,” Eloise mumbled.
“Well, that’s what I did, I coveted my neighbor’s wife.”
Leila screwed up her face in an expression of disgust. “Mrs. Beesley? But she’s got a beard, Daddy!”
“No, not my actual neighbor’s wife,” Jimmy corrected her hastily, desperately wondering if he was doing the right thing by talking to them like this, or if this conversation was destined to come back to haunt him. “Not anybody’s wife, actually, she wasn’t married. But I did covet another lady, a lady that wasn’t as beautiful or as wonderful or as important to me as your mummy is, but I did it anyway because I was stupid and confused. And your mum found out I was coveting her and she got really, really upset. So she told me to covet off.”
“Huh?” Eloise said.
“Nothing,” Jimmy answered. “Anyway, the point is that I don’t blame her at all. I deserved it.”
“I know and the funny thing is that I didn’t even really like the other lady,” Jimmy said. “I certainly didn’t love her the way I love, loved your mum. But I coveted her and I was stupid, which you’ll find as you grow up most boys are.”
“I know that already,” Eloise said, rolling her eyes.
“Me too,” Leila said. “And stinky.”
“Okay, well, that’s good, I think,” Jimmy replied. “But the point is that the breakup was my fault. I risked everything I had for the chance to feel free and young and footloose again,” Jimmy said. “But the funny thing is that ever since I’ve actually been free and footloose, all I’ve felt is lonely and sad and as if something is missing in my life. And the thing that’s missing is the thing I had to begin with. All of you.”
“But you’ve still got us!” Leila said. “Even if you did covert that lady, which is a bad sin. But we forgive you because we love you.”
“I don’t forgive you,” Eloise said. “I hate both of you now.”
“Grown-ups are often a bit rubbish,” Jimmy said. He paused and grinned at his daughter. “Do you really hate me, Ellie?”
“No,” Ellie said sulkily.
“And do you really hate Mummy? Especially now that you know the truth?”
“Well, she could let you come back now that you’re sorry, couldn’t she?” Eloise asked. “If she wanted to.”
“She could,” Jimmy said, feeling his chest tighten with hope. “But if she doesn’t want me to, then we still can’t be cross with her, okay? Not ever. She loves you two. She’d do anything for you. The pair of you are her sunshine.”
Jimmy looked up at the faultless blue sky. “You make her feel like spring is on its way even when it’s a rainy and cold day. So don’t be hard on her anymore, okay? I know you don’t want to be.”
“I have felt bad about it, actually,” Eloise said. “Poor Mummy. It wasn’t like me at all to be so mean to her.”
“That’s what I said,” Leila said, chalking with enthusiasm. “Turn the other cheek.”
The house was quiet when Jimmy let himself and the girls in through the back door. Dust spiraled in the still air of the living room where the sunlight streamed in through the windows. Jimmy looked around; there were two cold cups of tea on the table. Two cups, someone had been round. Probably Kirsty, he reasoned, but still he stared hard at the cups for a moment as if he might be able to determine some masculine aura around one of them. Realizing what he was doing, Jimmy blinked and shook his head briefly; this was not him. He had never been, as Lennon put it, a jealous guy. And now was not the time to start.
“Cat!” he called out. “Cat? Babe? We’re back!”
“Mum!” Eloise and Leila shouted at once. “Mummy! Mum! We’re here!”
They heard a creak of a floorboard upstairs as somebody got out of bed and Jimmy composed himself, methodically shutting down every single image of Catherine’s long, white limbs entangled in Marc’s hairy, dark ones that appeared to him on each heartbeat as he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He fully expected his wife to appear with her hair tousled, wrapped in a sheet and sleepy from a sex marathon.
He’d never been so glad to see her looking so terrible.
“Hello,” Catherine yawned, appearing in her pajamas. She mustered a weary smile. “Hello, girls,” she said, holding her arms out. The girls ran to her and hugged her hard.
“Oh, what a lovely hug,” Catherine said, sitting down with a thump on the carpet and then toppling onto her back, a daughter in either arm. Jimmy smiled at the three of them giggling helplessly on the carpet.
“You look terrible, Mummy,” Leila said, peering at Catherine through the ropes of hair that lay across her face.
“Thank you, darling,” Catherine said. “I feel pretty awful. How was Nanna Pam?”
“She was great,” Leila said. “We went to the multiplex and McDonald’s, and Nanna Pam bought us loads of lovely things, and best of all at Nanna’s house it was warm so our noses and toes didn’t turn blue like—”
“Sounds lovely,” Catherine said, smiling up at Jimmy. “I haven’t had much sleep so I’m a bit—”
“Good night?” Jimmy asked hesitantly.
“Weird night.” Catherine chuckled. “Kirsty set me up on a blind date with … Alison.”
“Gemma’s mummy, Alison James?” Eloise asked her. “Are you friends too now, Mummy?”
“I think so,” Catherine said.
“Really?” Jimmy said as he crouched down on the carpet. “What was that like?” he asked, wishing very much he could lean over and kiss that smile.
“Tense, bitchy, and in the end sort of good,” Catherine said. “And I think, I actually think we might be able to coexist at the very least. Maybe even be friends again. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or if it’s because of Alison, but I feel lighter suddenly. Like I could float away.” She hugged the two girls to her. “But we didn’t get in until six this morning so …” The sentence evolved into a self-explanatory yawn.
“Is that why you are in your pajamas, Mummy?” Eloise asked her, leaning up on one elbow to peer at her mother’s face. “Were you in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon?”
“ ’Fraid so,” Catherine said, closing her eyes.
“Well, I think that’s cool,” Jimmy said. “Living it up, having a good time, remembering you’re still young and beautiful … it’s all good, so why not?”
Catherine screwed up her shut eyes. “Because it hurts,” she moaned.
“Well, if you like,” Jimmy suggested hesitantly, “if you’re okay to watch the girls for a bit, I’ll pop back to the boat, sort a few bits and bobs out, and then I can come back and cook dinner, if you want. I mean I don’t have to. But as you’re feeling rough, I could. If you like, but not if you don’t, but—”
“Would you?” Catherine asked, opening one eye. “ Could you?”
“ ’Course I can, I don’t just live on ready meals and pot noodles when I’m on my own, you know,” Jimmy told her happily. “I can do a roast. Stick a chicken in an oven, how hard can it be?”
“Then thank you, Jimmy,” Catherine said, opening both eyes to smile at him, feeling a sudden rush of warmth and gratitude toward him. “You’re my hero.”
Jimmy looked at her lying there, flanked on either side by their daughters, and he knew that if he sat on that carpet for one more second the sight would bring him to tears.
“Right, then,” he said, jumping up in one agile move. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Catherine flopped her head left to look at one daughter and then right to look at the other.
“You are going to have tea with Gemma and Amy next Wednesday,” she told them, wincing as they cheered at the news. Leila kissed her on one cheek, and then after a second of hesitation Eloise kissed her on the other.
“Mummy,” Eloise said, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Yes, darling,” Catherine said, smiling at her.
“I haven’t been kind to you very much, about you and Daddy. I thought that it was your fault, but Daddy explained it to me, about how he made you sad and angry even though he loved you and that really grown-ups are stupid a lot of the time, especially him so don’t blame you for it. So I’m sorry. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Catherine said, feeling tears spring to her eyes that somehow made the day seem all the more bright and clear. “You feel very sad, don’t you, about me and Daddy.” She looked at Leila. “You both do.”
Both girls nodded, but did not speak.
“It is sad, and I am so sorry,” Catherine told them, looking at each of them in turn. “And I am so sorry that it happened to you. When I married your daddy and we had you we never, ever planned that this would happen; we thought we would always be together, all of us. But sometimes life has a way of sweeping you off course when yo
u are not looking and turning things upside down. So I’m sorry, I’m so sorry you have to feel sad because of me and Daddy getting swept off course. But you know, we both love you so much and we will always look after you. We will always be a family.”
She hugged the girls close to her and kissed each one on the forehead.
“I expect God is proud of you, Mum,” Leila said into her hair. “Because you are trying very hard, and God loves a trier, Mrs. Woodruff says.”
“Glad to hear it,” Catherine said.
Twenty-three
Alison took a deep breath before slotting her key into the lock and opening the front door. She had no idea how Marc was going to react to her being out all night and most of Sunday. She knew since she had missed breakfast and lunch and was only just making it home in time for tea that he was bound to have noticed, but her phone had run out of charge at some point in the night and had been spared any demanding or angry messages he might have left her. So, deciding that ignorance was bliss, Alison took a long time to get back home, because she didn’t want to face Marc. Besides, she knew what would happen the moment she saw him. He’d want to know all about her night with Catherine and she didn’t want to tell him. The time she’d spent with her old friend had gone better than she could have imagined and this morning she felt for the first time in a long time as if some unnamed disjointed part of her life had clicked back into place. After she had left Catherine’s, as tired and as nauseous as she was feeling, she did for the first time what she had either neglected to do or had been unable to do since she had arrived back in Farmington. She went for a walk in her heeled tan boots and visited all of their old places.
At last Alison felt as if she had been handed a passport to her past.
Her first port of call was the tree in Butts meadow where they both used to climb and hide out for hours in its canopy, telling each other stories and jokes, reading comics and later magazines. Alison was delighted to see that the tree was still there, its branches bare now and braced for spring. She stood at the foot of its trunk and looked up into its tightly laced branches. It was there as a nine-year-old that Alison had persuaded Catherine to wind the hands on her watch back one hour so they could have some more time to finish their game. The following Monday at school Catherine had shown Alison the bruises on her legs she had suffered for the extra hour. Then Alison walked through the near silent town to the coffee shop, Annie’s Kitchen it used to be called. Alison pressed her nose against the window and peered through the glass, trying to imagine it as it used to be; now it was a PC repair shop.
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