by Beth Miller
‘Isn’t Lola good?’ Minette marvelled.
‘Sadly she’s quite experienced at this,’ Cath said. ‘Oh, that stupid nursery. I thought everything was going too well.’
‘The manager was saying she couldn’t understand how the sweets got in there.’
‘Well, clearly they don’t check thoroughly enough.’
The nurse told Cath that Lola had no signs of any breathing problems. ‘Her mouth looks fine. We think she might not have actually eaten any.’
‘What a relief,’ Cath said, ‘thank you so much.’
‘We’ll just keep her here for twenty minutes to make sure.’ The nurse gave Lola some comics to look at.
‘I seem to be making a habit of coming to hospitals with you,’ Minette said.
‘I appreciate it.’ Cath wiped her eyes, and Minette put her arm round her. ‘Times like this, it’s lousy being a single parent.’
‘You poor thing. I really want to help you more. I’ve decided I’ll definitely do the triathlon with you.’
‘Oh, that’s fantastic!’ Cath gave Minette a hug. ‘I’ll get you signed up right away.’
When Lola was free to go, they got another taxi back to Sisley Street.
‘Jeez Louise,’ Cath said, ‘look at the time. I’ll have to get Davey in a minute.’
‘Your life’s so busy,’ Minette said.
‘Yours will be too, now you’re going to do the triathlon. So,’ she moved closer and whispered, ‘we didn’t finish the conversation about Liam. What you going to do?’
‘Not see him again, I suppose,’ Minette said, making a sad face.
‘You don’t want to beat yourself up, lovie.’ Cath glanced at Tilly, cuddled in Minette’s arms. ‘You was just a bit bored, weren’t you? When we’re bored we do crazy things.’
‘I hate being bored. I never was, before. It’s not Tilly’s fault.’
‘Course it’s not. Listen, after today I owe you a whole bunch of favours. So you can always use my house to meet a certain person, if you’re worried about being walked in on.’
‘Oh, Cath, you are very bad for me,’ Minette laughed. ‘Get thee behind me.’
‘Offer’s there. We’ll all be dead in a hundred years.’
‘Thanks, but I’m going to try and keep out of trouble from now on.’
Back in her house, Cath put the telly on for Lola, then went into Davey’s new room, and admired the neatly-ordered bookshelves. It would be a real shame if Minette finished things with Liam so soon. They made such an attractive couple. She took the photo of Andy upstairs, and locked it back in her bureau. She didn’t want Davey seeing it and getting all upset.
Chapter 13
Davey
DAVEY DIDN’T LIKE his downstairs bedroom. His curtains were up and his America map was on the wall but it didn’t feel like his room. It had the same flat green carpet as upstairs. He really wanted to ask about the computer but he didn’t want his mum to get that look. Then Adam Purcell reminded him about a good way to ask things. Davey went into the kitchen and said in his smallest voice, ‘Mummy, I don’t feel well.’
‘Again, lovie? You poor thing. Another headache, is it?’
‘Tummy ache.’
His mum stopped making packed lunches and gently touched his tummy. ‘Here? Here?’
‘Yes. Could I have a quick bath?’
His mum looked at the clock. ‘Oh dear, we’re going to have to go in twenty minutes. Do you think a bath would soothe it?’
He nodded. She always sat with him while he had a bath and he could talk to her there. She would be nice to him because of his tummy ache. She carried him slowly upstairs, making a face because of her back, and let him look out of the round window while she ran the bath. Davey heard voices below and craned to see. The lady next door with the swishy black hair and kind face, Minette, was standing in her front garden talking to her boyfriend. They sounded cross. The man had a louder voice than Minette. Davey heard him say, ‘I’ve got to get to work.’
Minette was wearing stretchy clothes like his mum wore for running. She said something Davey couldn’t hear, then said more loudly, ‘Not going to be long, am I?’ The man went inside with the baby, slamming the door. Minette stuck out her tongue at the closed door which made Davey smile. He had never seen a grown-up do that before. She started running slowly up the street. Davey wanted to watch until she was out of sight but his mum came and carried him into the bathroom. She let him take off his pyjamas himself but she still picked him up in the nude to put him in the bath. It was embarrassing. ‘I can get in myself,’ he said, but she took no notice. She told him to lie down and let the warm water work its magic. Even though they were in a hurry to go to school, she looked like she was in a good mood.
‘Is that feeling better, little one?’
‘A bit.’
‘I knew it.’
‘Mum, when can we set up the computer?’
‘Oh lovie,’ she said, but she didn’t sound cross, just tired. ‘Do you know how many times you’ve asked me that?’
He knew he had asked a lot, but she hadn’t answered him properly on any of those times. He didn’t say anything, and after a minute she said, ‘All right Davey, listen up. That stupid computer doesn’t work anymore. It musta got broke in the move.’
‘I could fix it.’
‘I don’t think so. You feeling well enough to come out?’ She picked him up and wrapped him in a warm blue towel. ‘A computer guy came and said it was really very broken. But I’m going to get you one of your own soon.’
‘Really?’
‘Promise. One of your very own. Well, to share with Lola. I can’t afford one each.’
‘That’s brilliant, Mum, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, my little one.’ She sat him on her lap. ‘You look peaky. I think you should stay home today. I’ll have to take Lola to nursery, you’ll be all right till I get back, won’t you?’
‘Yes.’ He began drying himself, and he was ready to say the next thing. ‘I need new trainers.’ This wasn’t as important as the computer but it was becoming a problem.
‘You want the moon on a stick, don’t you?’ His mum called downstairs, ‘Lola! We are going to be LATE. Finish your breakfast NOW. What’s wrong with the old ones?’
‘They’re from Asda.’
‘Christ, peer pressure is it now? That’s all I need. I suppose the kids here are a bit more into style than in Harrogate. All right lovie, I’ll think about it.’ She put him down on the floor. ‘I don’t have time to get you down, Lola will be super-late. You stay here, put your PJs back on, and when I get home you can snuggle in bed, all right, little one?’
She ran downstairs, and he heard her talking fast to Lola. ‘I didn’t finish the sandwiches, I’ll just put the slices of bread and cheese in and you can make your own. Do-it-yourself. OK?’
That made Davey think of his dad’s bad joke:
Q: What cheese should you use to hide a horse?
A: Mascarpone.
His mum and Lola called goodbye, and the front door slammed. Davey put on his pyjamas and sat on the landing. He pushed the door of his mum’s room. He wanted to see if he could fix the computer. But the door wouldn’t budge. He pushed and pushed. Then he saw that there was a silver padlock on a chain, attached to the door handle. It was stopping the door from opening.
While he waited for his mum to come back, he told Adam his five favourite trainers:
Air Max
Adidas
Converse
Gola
Asda
The new floorboards all had slightly different grains. Davey traced the pattern of one which looked like ripples in a pond. He only stopped when he heard a noise in the street, and made his way over to the round window. He was just in time to see Minette next door coming back. Her face was red. He waved to her, but she didn’t look up.
Chapter 14
Minette
MINETTE USUALLY ENJOYED having Abe’s parents over. She always ma
de an extra-special effort with her cooking for them, revelling in their compliments, their genuine affection for her. They were appreciative of her role in Abe’s life, she knew. And she in turn was grateful for their role in her life, for the whole-hearted welcome they had given her, their unstinting love for Tilly and, of course, their kindness in financially supporting them.
Minette remembered the incredulous expression on Mr Milton’s face the day she and Abe moved in next door. He clearly couldn’t understand how ‘people like them’ – young, scruffy, not even married – could afford to buy a house in their street. He didn’t know that behind Abe stood a pair of well-off, middle-class parents, who loved him dearly. Parents who’d given Abe a cheque for a deposit on a house the minute they heard Minette was pregnant.
There was something so solid and cosy about her in-laws, particularly compared to her own parents, who’d acrimoniously separated long ago. Her father, Richard, had remarried many years before, and her mother, Élise, had moved back to France when Minette went to university. Though they were both perfectly fine as parents, they’d never been as warm as Abe’s. And since she’d had Tilly they’d been, in truth, a bit disappointing. Richard’s second wife had four children, all with kids of their own. Minette thought he probably considered that he had enough grandchildren. He sent a huge teddy bear – too huge for a baby, and with a label that said it was unsuitable for children under eighteen months. And he hadn’t managed to visit them until Tilly was already six weeks old.
Élise offered to come over and stay when Tilly was a newborn, and Minette had been delighted. She expected the first few weeks with a baby would be challenging, but imagined it would be homely and loving as well, with her mother’s support. In fact, it had been the most horrible time. They were all rattled by the hostility from the Miltons, and Élise had become obsessed with Minette giving up breastfeeding. ‘Formula was good enough for you,’ she said, on several occasions, insisting that Tilly would cry less if she was properly fed.
But Abe and Minette had not sat through four sessions of Brighton’s NCT classes without learning that formula was a synonym for neglect. Though Minette found breastfeeding difficult, and so painful that she cried at most feeds, she was determined to persevere. After a week, Abe told Élise that her intervention wasn’t helpful, and she spent the rest of the stay in a sulky silence. It was a huge relief when she went home. Abe’s mum Julie then stayed for a week and was brilliant.
Julie was delighted by Minette’s French heritage, would exclaim over quite simple recipes that Minette had learned as a child. Today she made salmon en croute and a tarte tatin, knowing Julie would love them, but her usual pleasure in cooking seemed to have deserted her. She could hear Abe playing with Tilly in the living room. Abe was a good man, a great dad, so why was she mucking about? The joie de vivre of ‘we’ll all be dead in a hundred years’ had left her. Now she just felt heavy. Guilty. She was having an affair. She was cheating on her partner. She was the other woman. The phrases, such awful clichés that they ought to have lost their meaning, felt slap-in-the-face shocking now they were applied to herself. She couldn’t stand the thought of Abe finding out. It had been way too close a call that last time they made love. The only time, because the whole thing unnerved her so much that she had brusquely brushed Liam off since. He’d dropped round a couple of times when Abe was at work, but she’d not let him in. The second time he’d said plaintively, ‘We’re both at home during the day, after all. Can’t we be friends?’
‘I can’t have such good-looking friends,’ Minette said, looking nervously at the street behind him.
‘Ah, you flatterer. Can’t I just come in for five minutes? A tiny chat?’
It was lucky he didn’t know just how much willpower it took to say no. But she said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ using an image of Josie and Abe walking by to strengthen her resolve, and shut the door quickly.
Their last proper encounter – the only one, she kept telling herself, as if Abe was listening to her thoughts – was now nine days ago, not that she was keeping notes or anything. If it was all there was going to be – and it would be, OK, Abe? – then it was a pretty amazing one.
‘I’m having a crappy day, how about you?’ Liam had said.
‘Tilly’s asleep. Would you like to come inside?’ she’d replied.
‘Fuck, yeah,’ he whispered, and followed her into the house. He looked incredulous as she pushed him onto the Heal’s sofa and stripped off her clothes. She couldn’t quite believe it of herself, now. He was clearly wondering what the hell had happened to the demure girl of a few days earlier, who wouldn’t let him put his hand under her top. But it was only later, as they lay in a deliciously sweaty naked embrace on the living room floor that he said, ‘Wow, that was a slightly better reception than I was expecting.’
‘Why’s that, neighbour?’ She felt him smile against her shoulder at their private joke.
‘You seemed kind of unsure last time.’
‘Yes, well, we’ll all be dead in a hundred years.’
‘What does that mean?’ He propped himself up on an elbow to look at her properly, and she gazed back at him. God, he was impossibly lovely. His hair mussed, his broad naked shoulders, that steel pipe … thinking about it now, Minette had to put down the rolling pin for a moment and take a couple of calming breaths.
‘It means,’ Minette said, trying on the bravado she’d admired in Cath, ‘I’m tired of always being sensible.’
‘I seem to have lucked into a marvellous new change in attitude, then.’
Minette smiled, and ran her fingers along his thigh. ‘Maybe we’re both lucky.’
When the monitor crackled into life with a wail, they were in the middle of a second act. ‘Don’t stop,’ Minette breathed, ‘she’ll be all right for five minutes.’ It was even less than that before they were both calling out more loudly than before and clinging to each other.
‘Jesus,’ Liam said, as Minette rolled off him. ‘You’d think that a crying baby would put me off my stroke.’
‘It didn’t seem to,’ Minette purred, greatly enjoying her new persona.
‘Fairly galvanised me, I’d say.’
Minette threw on some clothes and ran up to rescue Tilly. She brought her downstairs to the kitchen, calling out, ‘Come through when you’re dressed.’
Liam did so, quickly, and leaned against the fridge. She felt him watching her while she moved around, making up the bottle, Tilly on her hip.
‘You are fucking gorgeous, you know that?’ he said.
‘Pas devant l’enfant!’
‘She can’t understand me yet.’
‘She will soon, we’ll have to start being careful.’
Liam sat at the table. ‘Well until then, I’m going to say what I think. And what I think is, fucking hell, lady, you are one hot piece of ass.’
‘You’ve gone all American,’ Minette said.
‘I’ve caught it off Cath next door, with her “neighbourhoods” and “jumping snakes”. I just had to change nationality to express the incredibleness of that last shag.’
‘God, I’m blushing.’
‘I love it that someone who screws like you blushes so easily.’
‘It was awesome,’ Minette mumbled, sitting down to give Tilly her bottle.
There was a noise at the front door, followed by the unmistakeable sound of a key turning in the lock.
‘Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Minette whispered.
‘Hi honey, I’m home!’ Abe called from the hall.
Minette and Liam stared in horror at each other, and moments later, Abe, whistling, walked into the kitchen. ‘Oh. Hello, Liam,’ he said flatly. Abe hadn’t been keen on him, not since Liam had been snitty about Cath’s charity appeal. Minette’s heart thumped so loudly she was sure Abe could hear it. The two men shook hands, watching each other warily. Minette wondered if Liam had washed his hands since … oh god. She didn’t dare look at him.
‘I just popped round for a cuppa,�
� Liam explained to Abe, his voice at a higher pitch than normal. ‘I wanted to ask if your brother, is it? The teacher? Would mind having a chat some time? About what I can expect on my course?’
‘Luckily, you’re back early,’ Minette said, wondering if she sounded as mad as Liam.
‘Yeah, there was a gas leak in the street outside the Bureau,’ Abe said. ‘Us and the whole row of shops have had to close for the day.’
‘What does it mean, a gas leak? Is it dangerous?’
‘I dunno. They’ve got British Gas out. So, where’s this tea then, Dougie?’
‘Oh, I haven’t even put the kettle on yet. I’ve been doing Tilly’s bottle. Liam only just got here a few minutes before you, Abe.’
Gradually Minette’s heartrate returned to less critical levels. Liam choked down his tea, thanked Abe for the email address, did a show of good-lord-is-that-the-time and left, managing one raised-eyebrow glance at Minette.
Yes, way too close for comfort. Remembering it now made her feel sick.
She put the tarte in the oven and started rolling out more pastry. As long as she was sensible, and didn’t meet Liam at her house any more – or anywhere! she slapped herself down – there was no reason why Abe would find out. Minette was uneasy, though, and not just because of almost being caught. It had been a bit weird the other night, when Abe went to help Cath move Davey’s bed downstairs. She was grateful to him for doing such a nice, normal, neighbourly thing like that. It seemed to somehow counterbalance her own less-wholesome neighbourly relationships. When he came back, she handed him a beer, and he raised it to her in toast.
‘Cheers, Dougie.’ He flopped onto the sofa.