Just a Family Affair

by Veronica Henry

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly leapt out of her skin.

  She turned.

  Patrick was gazing at her, those eyes she knew so well scanning her countenance. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek, then gently moved his thumb across her mouth. She could feel tears welling up and shut her eyes to staunch the flow and block out the vision of his face, so familiar and yet so far out of reach. Oh God, he was kissing her. Proper kisses. Soft and gentle, like no kiss they had ever shared before. And suddenly she was in his arms and she was pulling him closer and closer and it was almost like dying, because every time they had ever been together flashed before her, but never had it been like this. It had never been like this with anyone. And Mayday knew, as she fell into a deep tunnel filled with silver stars, that it would never be like this again . . .

  Seventeen

  Honeycote House didn’t know what had hit it. For the past three days it had been undergoing a complete makeover in anticipation of the following weekend’s celebrations, and even though it was now Sunday it was clear it wasn’t over yet. Mickey and Lucy had attacked the house and grounds with vigour, enlisting help from the various gardeners, odd-job men and decorators they had employed over the years. All the paddocks and lawns had been mown to perfection, the hedges clipped with precision, the flower beds weeded and their edges cut. Lucy had gone mad with a paintbrush: everything that stood still long enough was given a touch up, including the front door and the outside loo in the stableyard, where she’d even put on a new wooden seat that didn’t wobble precariously when you sat on it. Every tub was planted up with white pansies. A lorry arrived with tons of pale yellow Cotswold chippings for the drive - it took them three hours to rake it all evenly, but when they had finished they wondered why they had never bothered before.

  Mickey and Lucy had fallen into bed exhausted on Saturday night, but found they both woke up early on Sunday raring to go as soon as the sun rose, filling the sky with a golden May glow that was impossible to ignore.

  ‘It’s amazing what a difference all this has made,’ Lucy observed, as they perused their handiwork of the day before, cups of coffee in hand. ‘Really, we’ve been total slobs all these years.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with a bit of decaying decadence,’ countered Mickey. Much as he appreciated the way the house and grounds were looking, he didn’t want some sort of precedent being set. The Liddiards had never been the type to spend the weekends mowing the lawn and washing their cars. There was too much fun to be had.

  Lucy poked him playfully in the ribs. ‘I think that’s rather glamourizing the fact that actually you can’t be arsed.’

  They spent the morning clearing out one of the stables to use as storage for the drinks. In the loose box next door, Pudding the pony was booting the door with his foot, indignant at having been locked in. He couldn’t be trusted not to escape and eat all the newly potted bedding plants.

  ‘Pudding!’ Lucy chided him. ‘You know, Mickey, I’ve been thinking . . .’

  Mickey looked away, knowing from experience that any brainwave women had at the eleventh hour was bound to involve stress or money. Or both.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s silly keeping Pudding here. We’re never going to use him again.’

  ‘You don’t mean sell him?’ Mickey looked outraged. All the children had learnt to ride on Pudding who, despite his frisky demeanour, was nudging thirty. ‘He’s part of the family.’

  ‘Exactly. So we should give him to James and Caroline. He’d be perfect for Henry and Constance. He could live in their orchard.’

  ‘I suppose he’d have more fun if he was ridden,’ Mickey admitted.

  Lucy wiped her hands on her jeans and rearranged the tendrils of hair that had come loose. ‘I want to put another coat of paint on the front door, then I promised to pop over and see how James is coping without Caroline. I’ll run it past him.’

  Mickey nodded. ‘I’ll sweep out the rest of the yard and get the hanging baskets up.’

  Lucy gave him a hug. ‘Do you know what? I’ve really enjoyed doing this. It’s therapeutic, somehow.’

  ‘Bloody hard work, if you ask me,’ grumbled Mickey. ‘Let’s go to the pub for lunch.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Lucy happily.

  Mickey watched her go. In some ways she was right. The hard physical work of the weekend had taken his mind off things. But every now and then reality swooped in and punched him in the stomach, almost taking his breath away.

  In a week’s time, this would be the setting for a joyous family occasion, with feasting, merriment and celebration. But it would be a total pantomime, with none of the guests knowing the truth behind the scenery and the masks. It was going to be a pretty convincing charade. Mickey had almost fooled himself that everything was going to be all right. And Lucy was entirely taken in. She didn’t suspect a thing. In fact, she was the happiest he had seen her in a long time.

  Mickey felt his mood plummet and the gloom take hold.

  Pudding kicked on his door. He wanted to get out.

  ‘I know exactly how you feel, mate,’ said Mickey.

  A couple of miles away, his brother James stared gloomily down into his coffee cup, trying to assemble his thoughts over the thundering noise of the television, and came to the conclusion that he was a complete arsehole.

  He didn’t like the person he had become any more than anyone else did. Caustic, ungiving, arrogant. But he was petrified. The bills flooded in week after week, and there just wasn’t the income stream to cover it. He’d lost his touch. His private client base had dwindled to nothing - not necessarily through any fault of his own, as some of them had died, others moved abroad. But he had done little to replenish them and now he was paying the price. It was becoming more and more difficult to lure customers through the door of the antique shop. Too much competition, the internet, the fashion for sleek, modern designs - there were a hundred reasons why.

  Before, he would have had time to get out and about and network amongst his contacts, pump them for information and ideas, maybe even pinch a few clients off someone else. But he was being pulled in too many different directions. As soon as five o’clock came he was keenly aware that he was expected home. He couldn’t go out for a quiet supper with the local auctioneer, or a dealer down from London, or slip up to town during the big antique fairs to get the lowdown and the gossip. He wasn’t a free agent any longer. He was a married man with three children.

  In theory, he should be happy to go home at the allotted hour. But his vision of marriage and fatherhood was so far removed from what greeted him when he walked over the threshold that he had come to resent his curfew. The chaos of the children’s tea was still all over the kitchen when he came in, the children were grizzling and Caroline was at her wit’s end. He supposed these days it was unreasonable to expect to find three bathed and fed infants waiting eagerly for their hard-working father to bestow a kiss on each of their brows before being stuffed into sweet-smelling beds and falling asleep at half past six. It was gone eight before Caroline finally came down to the kitchen and started their supper.

  Now, he realized after just twenty-four hours what hard work it was for her. Thank God Lucy had sorted out Percy for them. James had been shattered last night when he had finally got the children into bed after a day of internecine riots, tantrums and occasional bouts of vomiting, but at least he had been able to get a full eight hours sleep before they woke again. Poor Caroline had been dealing with this on major sleep deprivation until recently. James felt cowed by his discovery. And not a little ashamed. He had been so wrapped up in his own tale of woe that he had dismissed her plight as self-induced and exaggerated.

  They were, he realized, in a mess. Financial, emotional, physical, practical. And he was buggered if he could see a way out. For a start, he couldn’t bring himself to admit to failure. He just couldn’t open his mouth and tell Caroline they were practically on the breadline, that he hadn’t broken even for months, a
nd that next month’s mortgage payment was looking decidedly dodgy. He’d already worked out that he could take a mortgage holiday, but that was the start of a slippery slope. It was just a delaying tactic. Though perhaps by the time the month after was due they would know what was happening to the brewery. That was the straw he was clutching at. Getting rid of his shares would bring them some respite. Another few months at Lyttleton House, at least. And perhaps by then a miracle would have happened. Some television reality show would have made antiques all the rage. Proper antiques, not the car boot tat that was so prevalent. People were always coming into the shop with bits of old rubbish wrapped up in the Daily Mirror, wanting a valuation. Perhaps a television director would wander in one day - the Cotswolds was always full of media types on weekend breaks - and spot James’s star quality. He would be cast as an expert, become a celebrity in his own right . . .

  James sighed. There was no point in fantasizing. It was quite simple. He shouldn’t have bought such a big house. But he wanted his family to be brought up in the same surroundings he’d enjoyed. Lyttleton wasn’t quite as large as Honeycote House, but it had come at a price. A price he was paying every month, and it was hurting. He cursed his aspirations, his snobbery and his pride. He would rather die than downsize. The humiliation would be unbearable. And how could he do it to his wife and children?

  There was a roar of outrage from the living room as the latest video came to an end. He got up wearily to put on another one. He’d always been rather sniffy about the children being plonked in front of the television, but now he understood.

  When he came back into the kitchen, Lucy was letting herself in the back door.

  ‘I’ve had a brainwave,’ she said brightly. ‘I wondered if you would like Pudding?’

  ‘Pudding?’ James was puzzled. It was only just after breakfast.

  Lucy laughed. ‘Pudding the pony,’ she explained. ‘Connie’s just about big enough to be led on him. I thought it would do Caroline good, to get back with horses. And the exercise would—’

  ‘I can’t afford to keep a fucking pony, Lucy.’ James sat down rather heavily.

  Lucy helped herself to a coffee from the extortionately expensive Italian cappuccino machine James had bought, unable to stand a moment longer the freeze-dried coffee granules that Caroline provided.

  ‘He only eats a few pony nuts and a bit of hay.’

  ‘Wormers, vet bills, shoeing, insurance? And Connie would need a new hat and a back protector . . .’

  Lucy looked crestfallen at his lack of enthusiasm. ‘We can sort out hats—’

  ‘Lucy. Don’t you get it?’ The warning tone in James’s voice silenced her. He put his head in his hands. ‘Oh God. What a mess.’

  Lucy came and sat next to him, sliding an arm round his shoulders. He shrugged her away. When he looked up, his face was bleak, devoid of any hope. It frightened her.

  ‘What is it, James?’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Lucy. I don’t know where to turn.’

  ‘What’s the matter? I mean, I know you and Caroline haven’t been very happy lately.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’ He sighed. ‘It’s everything. Business is bad. And we aren’t getting on. We never seem to have any fun. It’s just a constant battle from dawn till dusk. And I can’t afford to get us out of the mire. We both desperately need a holiday. But I’m . . . practically broke, Lucy. And I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Have you talked to Caroline?’

  ‘God, no. She’s got enough to worry about. And we can’t exchange two words without it turning into a full-scale row.’

  ‘Well, I think you should. If you’re being beastly—’

  ‘Beastly?’ James gave a bark of sardonic laughter. It was typical of Lucy to use a word like that. Caroline would use more succinct, four letter words to describe him, he was sure.

  ‘You are being beastly, James. I’ve seen how you treat her.’ Lucy fixed him with a stern stare. ‘I think if you both went at this as a team, instead of fighting like cats and dogs, you might have a chance. But you’re at each other’s throats. Constantly.’

  ‘There’s just no respite. This bloody house is chaos. I can’t handle it.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, James. I think you’re expecting too much.’

  ‘Too much?’ James exploded. ‘You always seemed to manage.’ He pointed around the kitchen. ‘You’d never let your house get into a state like this. There were never Cheerios down the back of the sofa and potties full of wee ready to trip over. You never ran out of bog roll. You never gave Mickey macaroni cheese made with a shop-bought sauce three nights running. You didn’t look like a bag lady . . .’

  He trailed off miserably.

  As he spoke, it struck him that Lucy was root of his problems. Lucy was the dream woman against whom he had compared his own wife. He remembered when Sophie, Georgina and Patrick were little. Honeycote House always had an underlying air of calm, even though there was always something going on. Lucy seemed to juggle parties and fun while always making sure the children were clean and fed and in bed at a decent hour. His enduring memory was of the three children in their pyjamas eating boiled eggs at the kitchen table while Lucy prepared a supper party for twelve. An hour later she would reappear looking impossibly glamorous, the children tucked up in bed, ready to greet her guests with a smile and a tray of home-made canapes. There was no way on God’s earth Caroline could pull that off. It was all she could do to get their own supper on the table, and that was usually inedible.

  Lucy was an angel. Mickey didn’t deserve her. And James’s feelings for her were as strong as ever. She only had to crook her finger and he would come running.

  She was talking to him now. That low, gentle voice that he loved.

  ‘I think you’ve got a rather romanticized view of things,’ she said quietly. ‘And it wasn’t quite the same for me as it is for Caroline. For a start, I didn’t give birth to three children in quick succession. Patrick’s not actually mine, remember. He was nearly at school by the time I married Mickey and had Sophie and Georgina. And I can assure you, there were days when I looked pretty dreadful. It wasn’t easy. Besides, I’m not a career girl like Caroline. I was quite happy to keep house and look after the children. I expect Caroline’s frustrated.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. She keeps ramming it down my throat.’

  ‘Then talk to her. Talk to her about the business. See if you can come up with a plan of action between you. She’s probably got some fantastic ideas, but if you don’t give her the opportunity, if you don’t tell her there’s a problem, then she can’t help.’

  James tried to look convinced by Lucy’s argument. He knew she was talking sense.

  ‘Remember the girl you married, James. Caroline had a high-powered job when you met. She was incredibly successful. You’ve got to try and find that person and make her your ally. Not push her away.’

  ‘She pushes me away.’ James remembered the few times he had endeavoured to reach out to Caroline in bed, and her outright rejection. He could feel her recoil whenever he touched her.

  ‘All marriages have their rough patches. You’ve just got to decide to make it work, and accept that you can’t necessarily have things as you’d like them. Then try and enjoy what’s good.’

  ‘Easy to say.’

  ‘You have to. Look at me and Mickey. Our marriage hasn’t always been a bed of roses. But we got through it. Look at us now.’ She beamed. ‘We’ve had a fantastic weekend, just working on the house, getting ready for the wedding. Teamwork. That’s what it’s about.’

  For James, time stood still. He stared at Lucy, standing with her back to the sink, in her jeans and an old Sloppy Joe sweat-shirt splattered in paint, her hands curled round her mug. Here she was, lecturing him in his own kitchen about how to run his marriage, holding herself up as an example, when she had no idea of the truth. She was totally deluded. Teamwork?

  He had one second to decide whether to disabuse her. To t
ell her that her perfect marriage was a sham. For James hadn’t been fooled by Patrick’s charade for one moment. His brother hadn’t been able to meet his eye at the board meeting, when Patrick had confessed all. You didn’t grow up with someone and not learn to recognize signs of guilt. Kay’s illegitimate brat belonged to Mickey, and he was about to sell off his share of the brewery to pay for it. And Lucy didn’t have a clue.

  If James told her the truth, he would be there to pick up the pieces. Just like he had been last time, when she had originally found out about Mickey’s affair with Kay. He remembered making love to her when she’d come to him for comfort, knowing she was vulnerable but unable to resist making his dream come true.

  He gazed at her. Even in her scruffiest clothes, she was stunning. She should be his. He had the key.

  But it wouldn’t work this time around either, for he knew that he had shown his true colours. In treating Caroline the way he had, Lucy had lost all respect for him. She would never want him now. He had seen the look of disgust in her eyes on more than one occasion. And she had made it clear to him what she thought of him, that Sunday they had all gone round for Mickey’s birthday. By telling her Mickey’s secret, he would only prove that he was not worthy, for he wouldn’t be doing it for the right reasons, but purely selfish ones.

  He had a split second to make up his mind. Whether to blow everything apart. Or to put his obsession with Lucy to rest, and find a way to resuscitate his marriage.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Do you think it’s too late for me and Caroline?’ he asked her.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Lucy stoutly. ‘You’ve just got to get your act together. Having kids is hard, James, but I can assure you, it goes all too quickly. Before you know it, they’ve gone. They’re getting married. The house is empty. And it’s shit.’