by Tess Stimson
She pauses, but I know better than to interrupt. Trying to deflect her by reminding her that I’m not Nicky, that lightning doesn’t strike twice, will only upset her. And who am I to say how she should think or feel? I’ve never lost a child.
‘You should have seen it,’ Mum says, laughing. ‘Honestly, it was a sight. One door brown, and the rest green, but your brother was so proud of it, you’d think it was a Ferrari. There was a pair of blue fluffy dice hanging from the mirror. Nicky wouldn’t take them off – he thought it was funny.’ I can hear the smile in her voice. ‘Retro, he called it.’
Tolly is lying on his tummy now, poking at something in the grass, his mop of curls glinting russet and ochre in the sun. I watch him, unable even to imagine a world without him in it.
I was almost thirteen when Nicky died. My funny, warm, invincible big brother, his life snuffed out in an instant by a drunk driver. All that energy and love and potential, gone forever. He was only eighteen. He’d recently won a place at Imperial to study physics, and had just fallen in love for the first time. He was captain of the school rugby team and the cricket team and hated mushrooms and loved woodwork and knew the words to every song Sting had ever recorded. I was his annoying baby sister, I shouldn’t even have been on his radar, but somehow he always had time for me.
I know when anyone dies tragically young, everyone only sees their virtues and not their faults. But Nicky was one of those people who lit up a room. There was no bad side to him, no mean-spiritedness. He saw only the best in people, and then reflected it back at them.
His death changed our family forever. Luke lost his younger brother, and his best friend. The two of them were only sixteen months apart; for Luke, it was like losing half of himself. I think a good part of the reason he married Min, his first girlfriend, when they were both only twenty-one was because he couldn’t bear to be alone. I lost my protector, the person I admired most in the world. And my parents – my parents lost their child.
His funeral took place on my thirteenth birthday, but no one even realised what day it was until afterwards, including me. My childhood ended that day. I got my first period in the middle of the wake; I remember sitting in the bathroom at home, staring at the blood in my knickers, with no idea what to do. It felt like my whole body was grieving. Mum had gone through the menopause herself and hadn’t thought to get any sanitary towels in for me, so I was reduced to stuffing a flannel between my legs. For years, every month I was reminded of my brother’s loss in the most brutal, bloody way.
Mum became someone to whom you couldn’t say no. If she wanted the shattered remnants of her family with her for Christmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day – especially for Mother’s Day – we came. Luke and I never had the chance to create our own holiday traditions with our own families. Nicky’s loss rippled outwards, shaping all our lives, even those of children who hadn’t been born when he died.
‘Do you need me to pick Bella up again after rehearsal?’ Mum asks.
‘No, don’t worry. I’ll ask one of the other mothers to drop her off afterwards – I’m sure Taylor’s mother won’t mind. I really appreciate this, Mum.’
‘It’s fine, Louise. After all, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.’
A silence falls that’s filled with half a lifetime of grief.
‘Your dad is here with the car,’ my mother says, her shadowed mood passing as quickly as it came. ‘We’ll be right over. Poor Bella must be going frantic.’
‘Thanks again, Mum.’
‘And make sure you wear something nice tonight,’ she adds lightly. ‘Maybe that pale blue dress Andrew always liked?’
‘That’s a bit fancy for a school play.’
‘Oh, didn’t Andrew tell you? We’re all going to The Coal Shed afterwards for dinner. His treat. See you in a minute, darling.’
I stare at the phone in astonishment. How the hell did she pull that one off? Caz must be spitting feathers.
Min was right, I think suddenly. My mother is up to something.
Chapter 8
Caz
‘You agreed to what?’
Andy opens the fridge and grabs an energy drink, swallowing half the bottle in a single gulp. I don’t comment on the nutritional unsuitability of following a life-enhancing five-mile run with a life-diminishing hit of caffeine and sugar. I’m hardly in a position to complain about the effectiveness of the advertising campaign that brainwashed him into thinking energy drinks are healthy because his mum used to give them to him when he was sick. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says airily. ‘Celia already called the restaurant. We were lucky – they’d had last-minute cancellation, so they could fit us all in. Bloody lucky, actually, on a Saturday night.’
I snap my laptop closed. ‘Andy, I thought we said we were going to have a family celebration.’
‘This is family.’ His hair, greyer now than when we first met, stands up in sweat-soaked spikes, but thanks to a miracle of modern technology, his expensive microfibre shirt and shorts are bone dry. ‘Luke and Min can’t make it because they’ll need to get the younger boys to bed, so it’ll just be Celia and Brian.’
‘And Louise.’
‘Well, obviously Louise.’
I’m prevented from saying something I’ll regret by Kit, who runs into the kitchen, brandishing an empty Frubes tube in his fist. At least a third of the contents are now smeared all over his face and Coco pyjama top. ‘I’m still hungry, Mummy. Can I have another one?’
‘You’ve already had two,’ I say.
He lolls stickily against my lap, batting eyelashes that are wasted on a boy. ‘Please, Mummy. One more? I’ll let you work in peace?’
Andy tips his Lucozade bottle at me. ‘I told you. Blackmailers always come back for more.’
In a sudden rush of affection, I pull Kit onto my lap and snuggle him close, heedless of the yoghurt damage to my silk T-shirt. My son may not have been part of my life plan, but now that he’s here, I love the very bones of him. ‘No more Frubes, kid. And no more blackmail. I’m done with my work.’
‘I’m just going to jump in the shower,’ Andy says, standing on the back of his trainers to pull them off, and leaving them, backs still stomped down, in the middle of the kitchen floor. It’s one of his less endearing habits. ‘Then we’d better get going, if we want to beat the traffic.’
I seethe about dinner all the way to Brighton. Slightly to my surprise, I’d actually been looking forward to taking Bella out on our own. She can be a pain in the arse, and she’s stroppy and prickly and self-absorbed, but there’s a vulnerability about her, a loneliness that resonates with me. I’m an only child, raised by a single parent; I know what it’s like to feel isolated and lonely. Bella may have more family than she probably wants, much of the time, but despite all the negative attention she deliberately provokes, no one ever really sees her. She’s just a problem to be managed. She’s not cute like Tolly and Kit, or glossy and confident like most of the other shiny-haired cheerleaders at that over-privileged, entitled private school of hers. She pushes people away, and makes herself difficult to like. In many ways, she’s her own worst enemy. We have that in common, too.
For the first couple of years after Andy and I got together, Bella wouldn’t give me the time of day. Jesus, she was a piece of work. I actually caught her spitting in my coffee once. She blamed me for her parents’ split, and Andy was never going to tell her the truth about what Louise did. But things have changed between us in the last few months or so. Bella is like a cat. If I ignore her, and pretend I don’t care one way or another if she curls up in my lap, she’ll come to me, I know it.
I’ve never been great with small children; I love Kit with all my heart, but spending the entire day with a three-foot-high tyrant who thinks farts are funny is my idea of hell. But teenagers, I get. Their sense the world is out to get them, that no one takes them seriously, their anger and frustration and longing to stand out while desperate to fit in – oh, yeah, they’re playing my song.
‘I’m fine,’ I say shortly. ‘Just tired. Work, the usual.’
Andy puts his hand back on the steering wheel. ‘I couldn’t say no to Celia,’ he sighs. ‘The woman’s nearly seventy. Who knows how many of these family celebrations she’s going to see?’
Celia’s strong as an ox. She still goes running every morning, and has competed in the West Sussex Over-Fifties Tough Mudder 10K every spring for years, finishing in the top ten per cent every time. I’ve seen her forking manure onto her bloody roses like she could do it all day. She’ll outlive us all.
‘You know how much family means to her,’ Andy adds, when I say nothing. ‘And you and Louise get on pretty well, these days, don’t you? Plus, it’s good for the kids to see us all together.’
‘They’ll see us at the play.’
‘It’s not the same, is it? And it’s been a while since you spent time with Celia and Brian. It’ll be nice to see them properly again.’
My husband is an intelligent man. He is incredibly well informed; the only son of a BBC radio engineer and a librarian, he was a surprise late baby, born when his mother was forty-four and his father well into his sixties. He grew up listening to the World Service, and reading The Times alongside the Beano. In the twenty-two years he’s been a reporter with INN, he’s covered everything from the September 11 attacks to the civil war in Sudan, interviewing presidents, popes, countless politicians and more showbiz celebrities than you can shake a stick at. He can name the capital city, annual rainfall and GDP of every country in the world (all 195 of them, if you include the Holy See and the State of Palestine). He speaks five languages, including Arabic and Farsi, and even knows how to sign. But sometimes he can be remarkably stupid.
Celia Roberts loathes me, and in her place, frankly, I would, too. She adores Andy; as far as she’s concerned, he replaced the son she lost. She didn’t want to blame him or her nutcase of a daughter for the divorce; far easier to cast me as the scheming home-wrecker, and lay it all at my door.
On the few occasions we’ve met, she hasn’t bothered to hide what she thinks of me. If she were Andy’s mother, I’d have to put on my tin helmet and suck it up. But she’s his ex-mother-in-law! Andy and Louise are divorced. There’s no earthly reason why I should ever have to see her, never mind put up with being treated like shit on the sole of her shoe.
I let it go now, not wanting to row in front of Kit, but when we get to the house in Brighton, I work off my fury airing the place out and remaking all the beds. Andy slopes off to his study. I know he’s calling Louise. He has that familiar, hangdog air.
I’d planned to wear a simple pair of skinny black jeans this evening, with a silvery halter top I know Andy loves, but suddenly think better of it. I’m going to be walking into the school auditorium with a scarlet letter on my back. The other woman, the trophy wife. I know from experience what it’ll be like: the cold stares, the conversations that fall silent as I walk past, then resume when I’m not quite out of earshot. Louise is a popular parent; she knows most of the other mothers, she’s served on the PTA, and even got the school newspaper up and running a couple of years ago. Being hated is exhausting. I’m never going to win friends here, but there’s no need to lean into my shredded reputation.
Sifting through my wardrobe, I pull out a pale pink tweed Chanel suit I bought at cost after a photoshoot we did for Vogue last year. It’s a bit prim and Jackie O, not very me, but I knew it’d come in handy for something like this. It’s ironic: until I met Andy, I never cared what anyone thought of what I wore. I dressed for me. I’ve inherited my mother’s high breasts and good legs, and I used to like showing them off. But since we married, I’ve felt self-conscious about wearing anything too revealing. I don’t want to look like a bimbo on Andy’s arm.
My husband pulls a face when I join him in the sitting room, where he and Kit are cosied up on the sofa watching Peter Rabbit for the billionth time. ‘That’s a bit much for a school play, isn’t it?’
I look down at myself. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘It’s not my favourite look,’ Andy says doubtfully.
‘You look weird,’ Kit agrees. ‘Like an old lady.’
‘Exactly the image I was going for,’ I say crossly. I switch off the television, ignoring Kit’s howl of protest. ‘Come on. We need to get going. Louise said we had to be there early if we wanted to get good seats.’
‘Wait. Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Andy asks. He waits a beat, and then grins. ‘I’m sure we can find you some pearls somewhere—’
I thwack him with a cushion. ‘Don’t laugh. This is all your fault.’
He fends off the pillow, and catches my hand. ‘Don’t let Celia get to you,’ he says, suddenly serious. He pulls me onto his lap, and tightens his arms around my waist. ‘Wear what you want to wear, Caz. You don’t have to dress for her or anyone else.’
‘Easy for you to say.’
‘Since when did you give a shit what anyone thinks?’
He’s right. Celia Roberts and the self-righteous Mummy Mafia are never going to like me. Why keep pushing the boulder uphill?
I run back upstairs and change into the skinny jeans and halter top and a pair of skyscraper heels. Andy’s eyes light up when I come back downstairs. ‘That’s more like it,’ he says.
‘Come along then, trophy husband,’ I say, picking up my bag.
The car park at Bella’s school is surprisingly full when we arrive. Louise wasn’t kidding, I think, as Andy circles the lot looking for a space. It’s not even six-thirty, and it already looks like it’ll be standing room only inside.
But as we open the door to the auditorium, we’re blocked by a sudden flow of people leaving. I catch Andy’s eye, puzzled. Perhaps there was a matinee, too. I wish I’d known; I’d much rather have gone to an earlier show so Kit didn’t have to eat so late.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, stopping a woman in a flowery dress who looks vaguely familiar. ‘Was there an early show?’
‘Well, it was at four, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Oh. I didn’t realise there were two performances.’
She looks at me as if I’m mad. ‘There aren’t.’
‘But it doesn’t start till seven—’
‘It started at four,’ she says tersely, turning on her heel to rejoin the throng of chattering parents exiting the auditorium.
I swing round to Andy, not knowing what to say.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Andy exclaims. ‘We missed it?’
‘Louise told me it started at seven!’
‘You must have made a mistake. Jesus, Caz. Didn’t you write it down?’
‘I did not make a mistake! She told me the wrong time on purpose!’
Kit tugs my hand. ‘Is it finished? Can we go to dinner now?’
‘Of course she didn’t tell you the wrong time on purpose,’ Andy snaps. ‘She’s not a bloody bunny boiler. You obviously got it wrong.’
He sounds like he’s giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I can tell from his expression he doesn’t believe I made an honest mistake. He thinks I deliberately sabotaged Bella’s evening.
Just as Louise intended.
Chapter 9
Louise
‘They’re cutting it a bit fine,’ I mutter, craning my neck to look behind me. ‘It’s almost four. The play will be starting in a minute.’
‘Andrew will be here,’ my mother says confidently.
‘Well, they’ll be standing at the back, then. The place is packed.’
Mum puts her hand on Tolly’s shoulder as he kneels up on his chair between us. ‘Stop fidgeting, Tolly. We should have saved them some seats, Louise. There were three right next to us.’
Min leans around me to address my mother. ‘No, Celia, we absolutely should not have saved them seats. It’s bad enough Lou’s going to have to sit with that
woman at dinner. I’m so sorry we can’t come,’ she adds to me, leaning back again. ‘I don’t mind leaving Dom and Jack to babysit their brothers for a couple of hours now they’re fifteen, but not for the whole evening. They’ll kill each other or burn the place down.’
‘It’s fine,’ I whisper.
‘It’s not fine,’ Min hisses back. ‘Honestly, Lou, you can’t keep letting her do this to you.’
I wish Min had known my mother before Nicky’s death. It wasn’t just that Mum was happy, although of course she was, in the way you don’t appreciate until it’s in the rear-view mirror. When your children are healthy and safe, when your marriage is good and you have a roof over your head and food on the table, it allows you to be unhappy about a set of holiday photos that come back from Boots all blurry, or the chip in your brand-new kitchen counter. Mum worried about Nicky and Luke and me, of course, in the way every mother fears for their children; she warned us to wear our bicycle helmets and never to accept sweets from strangers, and insisted we call her if we were going to be late home. But her style of parenting was one of benign neglect, the same way she’d been raised. She let us have the freedom to make our own mistakes, to climb trees and break wrists, to refuse sunscreen and get burned.
Nicky’s death changed who she was. She didn’t wrap us in cotton wool, although that would’ve been a perfectly natural response. Instead she gathered us close, closer; she inserted herself into every aspect of our lives in a way she never had before, as protective and fiercely territorial as a tigress.
When Luke was turned down for a place studying physics at Imperial College, his first choice, without even being given an interview, Mum drove to London the next day and barged into the admissions office with his school reports in her hand, haranguing them until they agreed to see him. He was horribly embarrassed, but Mum didn’t care. Embarrassment was no longer part of her vocabulary, or her experience. She cared only about getting us what she felt we deserved, advocating for us when we couldn’t or wouldn’t advocate for ourselves.