by Vivien Brown
He didn’t hit me back, just sat there in silence. I watched the thin trickle of blood run down his cheek where my rings had nicked his skin. He closed his eyes and took a long slow breath. ‘Fiona. Her name’s Fiona. She’s a secretary at the office.’ He stopped and took a deep breath.
‘So, why have you suddenly decided to tell me? When, fool that I am, until five minutes ago I actually didn’t have a clue she even existed, had no suspicions about any of this.’
‘I thought it best I tell you, before you found out some other way. Before you heard it from someone else. Office gossip …’
‘So, I’m the last to know, am I?’
‘I’m sorry about that. But people notice things …’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Look, it’s over, Kate. Between me and her. I was an idiot. I can’t even explain why I did it, but I won’t be seeing her again.’
‘She’s left then, has she? Left the office?’
‘Well, no. I’ll still see her at work, obviously. But I’ll keep out of her way. Nothing more than colleagues. I promise.’
I couldn’t look at him. Did he really think that was okay? That an arrangement like that could ever work?
‘I suppose all I need to know right now is where this leaves us, Kate? I can see that you’ll need time, to think about it all, work out how you feel, but what shall I do? Do you want me to stay? Go? Sleep down here on the sofa?’
‘Oh, so what I want matters all of a sudden, does it?’
‘Of course it does. I’m talking about all this so we can decide what to do about it. Together. I want a second chance, Kate. Somehow … For the kids and for us. I want to put this right. I need to put it right. I don’t love her. I never did. I love you. I’ve always loved you.’
‘Maybe you should have thought of that a bit sooner, don’t you think? Horses and stable doors come to mind. And oats. Wild ones that you really shouldn’t have sowed.’
‘Okay. I know. If I could go back and change things, don’t you think I would? We’ll make it work from now on, I promise you. Whatever it takes.’
‘That’s two promises in as many minutes.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry.’
‘So, did you think about me, or the kids, while you were at it with this Fiona woman? Or your mum and dad? All the people you could hurt. And let’s not forget my mum and Trevor. They’ll notice too, you know. That things aren’t right. What are we supposed to tell them?’
‘Nothing. Let’s tell them nothing. Not yet anyway. Not until we know how we’re going to deal with all of this ourselves.’
‘We? There is still a we then, is there?’
‘Of course there is. I hope so, anyway. We are still a team, Kate … aren’t we?’
***
Right then I didn’t feel part of any team. All I could see was a husband sitting in front of me who I’d thought I knew so well, but now would probably never trust again. But, looking back, that was the turning point, I suppose. That pivotal moment, when what I chose to do would shape all of our futures. Should I ask him to go, make him suffer, punish him? But that would surely have punished us all, separated my children from the father they so clearly loved. Or forgive and forget? Strangely enough, when I thought hard about it, I knew this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Well, it wasn’t, was it? We’d already been there, done those things …
And yet, we were still here. Still, just about, together. We had lived through it all somehow. Miscarriage, stillbirth, Natalie’s accident. And we would live through this too. Why should I let some other woman creep in under the radar and take my husband? Take away my children’s father and jeopardise their future? Why should I be the one to roll over and give in?
It took a while, and I didn’t make it easy for him, but this wasn’t one of those unforgivable things. Perhaps it was my fault, almost as much as his. But, if it was true what he’d told me, that it was over between them, that he was sorry, then maybe we could get past it, learn from it, use it as the starting point for trying harder, holding on tighter, mending what we had left.
And we did. You know we did.
Until we were hit by the aftermath neither of us had seen coming …
Chapter 40
Jenny, 2017
Jenny looked up from the screen of her laptop and smiled. She had been researching courses and careers for a couple of weeks now and, finally, she had found what she had been looking for. It was a general counselling course, which would give her a proper recognised qualification, and from there she could start to specialise and move into working as a pregnancy counsellor. Helping frightened women, finding out they were pregnant when they hadn’t expected, or wanted, to be, and those not pregnant who had desperately hoped to be. Encouraging them to talk, taking away some of the anxiety she knew must have beset both of her own parents, and seen at first hand when she’d met up with Laura.
She’d worked out how to get to the college, which shouldn’t take more than an hour or so on the underground, with a quick bus ride at the other end, and it looked as if there were still places available, so she was going to apply today. Maybe, if she was lucky, they could take her in January. She could hardly wait. Of course, it would take a while to qualify, particularly if she was going to have to find the fees herself, but the course was a part-time one, which meant a lot of work online and only actually going into the college twice a week, so, with a bit of shift juggling, she was fairly sure she could fit it in around her current job. Okay, she might have to spend another three years helping people to wash and dress, and making yet more morning porridge, but she still had to earn and it would all be worth it in the end. It was time she stopped drifting through life and took control.
Jenny scrolled down the completed application form on the screen, checking for errors. She’d always been pretty good at English. Spelling and grammar seemed to come as second nature, so it was no surprise to see that what she had written made perfect sense and was typo-free. It was whether what she’d written actually said the right things that worried her now. At school she had followed the history, English and art route, not that she was especially interested in the wars with France or the Industrial Revolution, or been all that good at drawing, really, but they were the subjects she had always done best in. Picking them had helped her to a set of slightly better than average grades at GCSE and kept her away from the dreaded sciences she had loathed with a vengeance ever since she’d been introduced to her first Bunsen burner. And, while going off to uni had never appealed, she knew that a long-term job as a carer was no longer an option either.
Maybe her school subjects weren’t exactly relevant. She hadn’t studied sociology or psychology or anything like that, but the course information had made it clear that academic excellence wasn’t what was needed. Counselling required empathy, an interest in people, an ability to listen to others and help them to explore their feelings, letting them make their own choices and choose their own path without taking over and giving advice. It was all about trust and confidentiality and caring. It was a career with her name written all over it.
She thought about Laura, about her dad, about the clients she was working with every day when she made them their breakfast and listened to their chat. Sometimes she was the only living soul they would speak to all day. Yes, she could do this. In a way, she was doing it already. Earning trust and keeping secrets. She quickly crossed her fingers, then released them again and pressed Send.
As she got up from her chair and stretched, she heard her mobile ring from somewhere upstairs. She must have left it on her bed. For a moment she was tempted to let it ring. It could be her boss trying to persuade her to take on an extra shift when she had already made it clear she needed time off for her sister’s wedding. But, then again, it could be something important. Oh, God, what if it was something to do with her dad? What if he’d taken a turn for the worse?
He was having the operation tomorrow. By Saturday, as she stood there in church with Beth, i
n their pink dresses, and walked up the aisle behind Natalie and Ollie, he would be through it and on the way to recovery and she could concentrate on enjoying the day and not worrying herself sick any more. But if things were to go wrong, if the cancer had spread, if they couldn’t remove it, if he was to die on the table … It didn’t bear thinking about. Any of it.
She bolted up the stairs two at a time and got there just as the final ring faded away into silence. Flicking the screen to view her missed calls, she was surprised to see it wasn’t her boss’s name, her dad’s or the hospital’s that was listed. It was Laura’s Aunt Clara.
Oh, no. In all the worry over her dad in the last few days, she had forgotten to worry about Laura. Oh, please, don’t let anything be wrong, she begged, to some vague god she had no real belief in and couldn’t even picture. Not again.
She dialled Clara’s number and sat down on the unmade bed, pushing Mr Flops, her old childhood toy, aside, her heart racing with fear.
‘Hi, it’s Jenny. You called me. Is everything all right? With Laura? The baby?’
The voice that croaked back down the line sounded old and tired but at the same time bursting with joy. ‘It’s a girl,’ Clara said. ‘The baby. Born at ten to three this morning, a strong and healthy eight pounds and screaming like her little lungs were fit to bust. Laura wanted me to let you know.’
‘Oh. Oh, wow!’
‘She’s going to call her Evie. It’s a name she and Ollie had talked about and chosen before, apparently. And Rose for a middle name. Evie Rose.’
‘Oh, that’s fantastic news. I can’t believe it. And Rose … for poor little lost Rosie. Ollie will love that … and such a good weight, seeing as she was early too! What does she look like? I bet she’s beautiful. When can I come and see her? And what about Ollie? Is she going to tell him now?’ For once, with everybody out of the house, Jenny didn’t have to go for the usual cloak-and-dagger whispering in corners, which was just as well, as she couldn’t have kept her voice down if she’d tried.
Clara laughed. ‘So many questions! Yes, of course she’s a beautiful baby. Gorgeous. But please, don’t say anything yet, Jenny. To Oliver, or anybody. Laura wants to do this in her own way. She’s a determined young woman and fit as a flea. I don’t think she’ll be kept in the hospital more than a few more hours. And after that … well, all I can say, dear, is that I don’t think you’ll have to wait very long to meet your new niece.’
Chapter 41
Kate, 1993 – 1996
I felt so proud of our little Natalie as she bounced back into health and happiness. Perhaps adapting to something so life-changing comes more easily to children, when there aren’t years of memories and milestones stacked up behind them and about to be knocked over like a sledgehammer hitting a pile of Lego bricks, when there isn’t all that learning suddenly undone and having to be re-learnt. She had to do things differently now, give up some of her so newly found independence and allow herself to be helped more but, part from a few frustrated tantrums, which all kids seem to go through anyway, she took it all in her stride. Although that’s probably not the most suitable of expressions as she was unlikely ever to be able to stride again.
Ollie and Beth treated her just as they always had. They made no allowance for what she couldn’t do. In fact they played upon it sometimes, in what might to others seem a cruel way, playing hide and seek in places she had no chance of accessing, running up and down stairs in front of her, knowing full well she couldn’t follow. But it wasn’t cruel. It was just kids taking her for what she was, offering her no special treatment. I loved them for it. And so did she.
So, the walls and the door frames took a battering as she learned to manoeuvre her chair, but none of us cared. It was only wood and paint, and all of that was replaceable. Natalie wasn’t. She was alive, when she could so easily not have been, and that was all that mattered.
I had worried about her when she’d started school. Well, I worried about them all, just as any mother does, but Natalie the most. They hadn’t had a kid in a wheelchair in the school before, and I’m sure most of the other children had no idea what it meant, but the staff had assured me that the three of them would be kept together, their classroom was on the ground floor, the doorways and toilets would accommodate her and the chair with ease, and everything would be fine. I remember standing at the gates that first afternoon, waiting for them to come out, seeing Ollie and Beth bouncing along, laughing, lunch boxes and book bags in hands, and wondering, with a lurch to the stomach, why she wasn’t with them.
‘I was waiting for Phil,’ she said, when she finally appeared, a small skinny boy trailing along behind her, with a lop-sided cheeky grin and a layer of ingrained dirt on his knees. ‘He’s my new friend.’
I smiled at the only other mother still left standing. ‘Yours?’ I asked.
She nodded and we both laughed.
‘Caroline King,’ she said, holding out a hand.
‘Kate Campbell.’
With Ollie and Beth holding hands by my side, we followed Natalie and Phil through the gate and along the pavement, watching as they chattered and giggled, the little boy pushing her chair as if he’d done it all his life, all the way to the corner of the next street, where, their homes being in different directions, they were forced to part company.
‘I’m going to get married to Phil,’ Natalie said that evening as they all tucked into fish fingers and beans, watching Sooty and Sweep on the TV, their uniform jumpers discarded on the nearest chair in favour of their favourite sweatshirts, the new book bags open on the carpet around them, and a new grown-upness about them I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, and Beth will be my bridesmaid, and Ollie can drive the carriage.’
‘What carriage?’ Ollie looked up, startled, and spoke through a mouthful of beans.
‘One with horses, silly. A glass one, like Cinderella had.’
‘I thought you always said you were going to marry your daddy?’ I tried not to laugh at her earnest little face as she looked up at me.
‘Mummy, that’s silly. Girls aren’t allowed to marry their daddies. Don’t you know that?’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot. And he’s already married to me, isn’t he? So, when is this wedding?’
‘When we’re bigger. Like twelve or thirteen or something.’
‘And how do you know this Phil wants to marry you?’
‘Because he asked me, of course. When I gave him a ride on my lap in the playground. He’s nice, but he is a bit heavy. I think he might have to get a chair of his own if he’s going to be my boyfriend.’
Ollie sniggered and Beth, who didn’t seem to be listening at all, told them both to shush as she couldn’t hear the telly. I knew then that I needn’t have worried about Natalie. She still had her dreams of a normal happy future and, despite what had happened to her and all the inevitable obstacles she would still have to face, the others were keeping her grounded, treating her just the same way they always had. She was still our brave, feisty little Natalie and I knew then that she was going to cope. No, she was going to do more than just cope. She was going to thrive.
***
It was raining heavily the evening life changed so drastically for us all. Dan hadn’t come home from work, and he hadn’t phoned to say why. A shiver of dread ran through me as his plate of shepherd’s pie slowly congealed in the oven. Was he doing it again? Keeping secrets? Meeting someone else? I shook my head. Things were so much better between us now. We were talking more, sharing more, making up for lost time. Work was still busy but we were making time for us too. Family time. Sundays in the park, pushing the kids on swings, taking them for swimming lessons and to story sessions at the library, sometimes holding hands, not just with them but with each other. Getting soaked to the skin when the girls sat end to end in the bath, with Ollie in the middle, laughing like bubbly drains as they created mini tsunamis that splashed all over the walls and the toilet seat if we’d forgott
en to shut the lid, and us.
No, I had to trust him. I’d promised myself I would.
A flash of lightning shot across the curtains, followed by a huge crack of thunder that echoed around the room. I held my breath for a second or two and listened, worried that the sound was going to wake the kids at any moment and stop me from doing a huge pile of ironing I had been putting off for days. Ollie would be all right. He’d just tell himself some tale about dragons breathing fire or spacemen battling across the skies like something out of Star Wars but, even at eight years old, the girls were still scared of storms. Everything upstairs stayed quiet and still. I let myself breathe out, reached for the iron and plugged it in.
Mum and Trevor had come round after school, bringing cream cakes and a pile of comics, and some home-grown roses for me. I laughed to myself remembering that old advert from the TV that said Roses grow on you, because Trevor, even when he wasn’t carrying an armful of blooms, had certainly grown on me over the last few years. I couldn’t help but notice the warm glow in Mum’s eyes when she looked at him, and struggled to picture anything similar in the years she was with my dad. Of course, I knew why now, knew about the gambling and the debts, and although it didn’t change the love I felt for my dad at all, I had acquired a new respect for Trevor. He had definitely changed Mum’s life for the better. And mine, although I still wasn’t supposed to mention his generous gift.
But the best thing about Trevor was what he had done for Ollie. Ollie had been in and out of hospital quite a few times over the years, usually only for a day or two at a time, sometimes only for a few hours, when one of his asthma attacks was particularly bad and refused to give in to the inhaler. There were days when we were torn between Natalie and getting her to her physio appointments and Ollie, feeling breathless and unwell, and, unfair though I know it was, Natalie, whose problems seemed so much worse, always came first. Days when Ollie had to miss school, sit around quietly, avoid running around with the others. Days when he was bored. And those were the days when Trevor always appeared out of nowhere, a chessboard tucked under his arm and a carved wooden box of chessmen clutched in his hand, and over several hours of deep concentration, near silence and an air of competitive spirit so strong you could feel it, transported Ollie out of the gloom and into a world the rest of us just didn’t know how to inhabit.