by Tamar Cohen
‘Well, you’re the one who spoke to Sasha. It’s what she wants.’
‘Yes, but she doesn’t know the truth.’
‘That’s not what Dan says. I told you, he said Sienna is out of the picture.’
‘For now.’
‘Whatever. We can’t do anything about it now. They’ll be here any minute.’
Hannah sighed. ‘I know, and just look at this place. Dan’s used to living in a house with a stay-at-home wife and a cleaner twice a week. How’s he going to cope in a place where you can’t even see through the shower screen because of the limescale?’
‘That’s not limescale, it’s dirt. Anyway, who cares if Dan’s appalled by our non-existent domestic hygiene? In fact, it’d be better if he was, in a way. At least it would mean he won’t stay long.’
Josh was feeling very odd about the forthcoming visit. Growing up an only child of much older parents, he’d never really done the whole sleepover thing. His parents’ house was the kind of place where the doors had cushioned strips of padding around them to stop them from slamming and there were three sets of slippers neatly lined up in the entrance hall ready to be stepped into the moment you came through the door. As a result he’d never been entirely easy about having people to stay, always fretting about whether they needed a glass of water or a reading light, or that he might keep them awake with his snoring, even though as far as he knew he only snored when he was extremely drunk.
Hannah was different. She came from a noisy household where just thirteen months separated her from her younger sister, Gemma. Hannah had always shared a room and was therefore accustomed to going to sleep top and tailing with someone else, waking up with a visiting friend’s feet in her face, or covered in a dressing gown because someone else had filched her duvet in the night. Most of the time her mum had been the kind of parent who loved her house to be full of extra children, thinking nothing of whipping up an extra boiled egg or two in the mornings. And even when she was having one of her periodic depressive episodes where she’d confine herself to her room, the girls still invited their friends round so she knew where they were rather than risk triggering her paranoia by venturing out of the house.
Overnight guests didn’t usually cause Hannah the same kind of anxiety as Josh, but today she was very definitely stressed. She’d been working until late the night before on a feature about analysing sex dreams. ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Josh had said when she told him the subject, but she hadn’t risen to the bait. Their sex life, or lack of it, was too sensitive a subject for jokes. Then Lily had got up in the night and come into their bed with them, so she was tired and out of sorts, and not in the mood to host this summit meeting, which is what they’d unofficially christened this morning’s visit.
‘Mummy, Mummy, where’s my pink dress?’
Lily appeared in the doorway of the living room wearing only a pair of flowery pants. Josh’s heart turned over at the sight of her still rounded little belly. She had been such a chubby, happy little thing, sitting on his lap and leaning back so that he could blow raspberries into the soft skin of her tummy. But now she was lengthening out. Already she’d lost the dimples in her knees and elbows, and occasionally he’d seen a worried look he hated on her face in place of the usual shy smile.
‘It’s in the wash, Liliput,’ Hannah told her. She was busy sweeping up dirt and paperclips and batteries from the remote control and old pencils from under the sofa cushions with a dustpan and brush, so she didn’t see their daughter’s face crumple.
‘But I need it!’
‘You’ve got lots of other lovely dresses, Lil.’ Josh got up from the table where he’d been attempting to mark some essays and stood in front of her. ‘Shall we go and find one?’
‘No, I want that one. All my other dresses are stupid.’
‘Who says that?’
‘’Tember.’ Lily started crying, great, fat, round tears rolling down her pink cheeks.
Josh knelt down so that he could give her a cuddle. ‘September is just jealous,’ he said to her. ‘Remember how she wanted your wizard outfit so much her mummy and daddy had to go out and buy her one just like it?’
Lily didn’t reply, but he felt her head nodding into his shoulder.
‘Well, I’m going to have words with Sasha about it.’ Hannah had put down the dustpan and brush and was sitting back on her heels, looking across at them. ‘September shouldn’t be saying things like that. It’s not kind.’
Josh turned round to her and made a face. ‘I really think we could leave this to the girls to sort out, don’t you, sweetheart?’
Hannah raised her eyebrows at him behind Lily’s back, but merely said, ‘OK, you’re right. I keep forgetting Lily’s a big girl now.’
Josh took Lily into her room to help her into her second-best dress – a scale that was decided, she explained solemnly, by how big a circle the skirt made when she twirled round in it. She was just demonstrating when the doorbell rang.
‘Hello, strangers,’ they heard Hannah say in the loud, over-bright voice she reserved for socially uncomfortable situations.
Josh was surprised by how nervous he felt suddenly, as if Dan and Sasha really were two strangers rather than their best friends.
By the time he and Lily made their way into the living room, the visitors were already installed on the sofa. Both Dan and Sasha had dark shadows under their eyes and were looking unnaturally pale, but Josh was shocked to see that they were holding hands. He shot Hannah a questioning look, but she was busy rearranging the magazines he knew for a fact she’d rearranged just minutes before.
‘So this must be a bit weird for you,’ Dan started.
‘September, Lily. Why don’t you go off into Lily’s room to play?’
It wasn’t like Hannah to interrupt anyone, but Josh was glad she had. If they were going to have this chat, far better the girls were out of earshot.
On her way out of the room, September paused and surveyed the sofa, with her hand on her hip and her head to one side. ‘Daddy. I think this is too small to be your new bed. I think you will have to come home and sleep in your proper bed.’
‘It’s not too small, princess. If I bend my knees a little it’ll be just cosy.’
After the girls had gone, silence settled over the four of them like the dust that Hannah had been half-heartedly sweeping up earlier.
‘As I was saying,’ Dan said eventually, ‘this must be pretty weird for you two.’
‘It’s pretty weird for me too,’ said Sasha. She was smiling a small, tired smile and Josh found it impossible to work out if she was being sarcastic or just honest.
Dan smiled at her and squeezed her hand in a gesture that Josh couldn’t help but find a bit creepy.
‘Sasha has been brilliant these last few days. We’ve talked about everything and I know it hasn’t been easy. Things haven’t been right between us for a little while and I think both of us realize we need to spend a bit of time apart while we – while I – sort out what the fuck’s going on in my head. I was going to rent a room somewhere nearby, but then Sasha suggested it might be better for September if I stayed here, just as an interim step. I really can’t thank you enough for agreeing to put me up.’
‘Yeah, he’s a horrible slob,’ said Sasha. Josh felt a rush of sympathy for her suddenly. She was trying so hard to put a brave face on everything, even while her world was crumbling around her.
‘Daddy!’ The shout came from the next room. There was a short silence, then it came back twice as shrill. ‘DADDY, I want you!’
Dan got to his feet. ‘Better go.’
Once he’d left the room, Sasha seemed to shrink back into the sofa cushions.
Hannah got up from the far side of the coffee table where she’d been kneeling and sat down next to her friend, putting her hand on her arm. ‘Has it been hideous?’
Sasha nodded. She leaned her head on Hannah’s shoulder. ‘I’m just so glad he’s coming here,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll hel
p him get things in perspective. He’s been working so hard recently, doing such stupid hours. No wonder he’s stressed. He just needs a bit of a break, that’s all. He needs to realize just what he’s got and how much he’d be losing.’
‘He must be mad to even think about it,’ said Josh, and he was rewarded by a flash of a smile from Sasha.
‘Batshit crazy,’ she said.
‘Who’s batshit crazy? I’m guessing it’s probably me.’
Dan had reappeared in the doorway, where he stood running a hand through his long dirty-blond hair. At least he had the grace to look sheepish.
‘How about a drink?’ Sasha seemed not to have noticed that it was barely past midday.
Josh looked pointedly at his watch, but Hannah was already on her feet. ‘Wine o’clock, is it?’
Josh followed her out to the kitchen on the pretext of helping her with the glasses. ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t care,’ she said, uncorking a bottle of white she’d unearthed from the back of the fridge. It was one of their many bones of contention since finances had got so tight. Josh felt they could economize by cutting down on drinking at home, while Hannah felt it was wine that would get them through the crisis.
‘Dan is just doing my head in,’ she hissed. ‘All this I need to sort out my head bollocks when all he’s after is a free pass to screw young models.’
‘Come on, I don’t think that’s completely fair. Have you looked at him? The guy looks wrecked. I don’t think this is easy for him.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s a million times worse for her.’
Hannah had a massive sense of female solidarity. Probably something to do with growing up in a female-dominated household. It was one of the things Josh loved most about her – her loyalty to her friends.
‘Oi, stop talking about us and bring the wine,’ called Sasha. Her voice lacked its usual confidence, but at least she was trying to keep it together.
Back in the living room, Josh reclaimed the armchair he’d been sitting in before, while Hannah knelt down at the coffee table to pour the wine.
‘A toast. To you guys,’ she said, raising her glass to Sasha and Dan. ‘I just want you to know, whatever happens we’re here for you. Both of you.’
When Josh looked over at Sasha, he saw her eyes had filled with tears.
‘Thanks, Hannah,’ she said. Her hand was clamped around Dan’s thigh. ‘I really think we’ll be OK. As long as we carry on being completely honest with each other, like we have been this week, I think we’ll make it. Won’t we, babes?’
‘Mmmm,’ Dan concurred.
Leave it now, Josh urged her telepathically. Please. But she clearly hadn’t finished.
‘You know, not many couples could have said the things we’ve said to each other this week and still be even talking to each other, let alone loving each other,’ she went on. ‘But I think we’ve reached a new level of openness and that’s what gives me the faith that we’ll end up together once Dan’s got past this little . . . blip. We’ve really laid ourselves bare, haven’t we, babes?’
Dan nodded. ‘We have. We really have.’
‘Ha!’ The sound shot like a bullet across the coffee table from where Hannah was kneeling.
‘Hannah!’ It was the voice Josh used in class when he was sending a clear warning to a pupil not to go any further. But it fell on deaf ears.
‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve kept quiet up to now, but I just can’t listen to that. Sasha has a right to know the truth. She has a right to expect you to be genuinely honest with her, Dan.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Sasha was looking from Hannah to Dan and back again as if waiting for a translation.
‘I think you’d better shut up, Hannah.’ Dan’s face was the colour of liver. Josh didn’t think he’d ever seen him look so angry.
‘No, Dan. I love you dearly, you know that, but you’re not being fair to anyone by not telling Sasha that you’ve been sleeping with someone else.’
Sasha moved her hand from where it had been resting in Dan’s and turned to face him on the sofa. ‘What’s she on about?’
‘It’s nothing.’ The purple stain on his skin made him almost ugly. In other circumstances, Josh might have quite enjoyed the transformation. ‘A silly fling I had with someone at work. It was part of the process, Sash. Me trying to work out who I am and what I feel.’
Hannah exhaled loudly. Josh willed her not to say anything. ‘We’ll leave you two to chat, shall we?’
He was getting to his feet as he spoke, but Sasha stopped him in his tracks.
‘Don’t bother. You two obviously know more about my marriage than I do.’
If ever there was a voice sharp enough to cut yourself on.
‘Did you fuck her? Did you? This fling of yours? Don’t bother answering, I can see in your face that you did. Has it been going on ages? Did you all have a bloody good laugh about it behind my back?’
Josh glanced at Hannah. Hannah loathed confrontation. But then, he reminded himself, she was the one who’d caused it.
‘Sasha,’ Hannah began, ‘I wanted to tell you. I—’
‘Bitch!’
Sasha’s normally delicate features were twisted into an almost demonic expression as she turned on Hannah and Josh felt suddenly cold.
‘What?’
‘You bloody bitch. You let me sit here sobbing in your arms last weekend and all the time you knew! Did it make you feel powerful? Did it? Being here, all smug in your nice safe marriage, knowing my husband was fucking someone else and I didn’t know anything about it?’
‘No! It wasn’t like—’
‘Spare me!’ Sasha was slipping her feet into her silver pumps and gathering up the distressed-looking leather handbag. ‘September!’
No chance of the girls not hearing that – the word was so shrill it almost set the wine glasses trembling.
‘Sash, don’t go.’
‘Fuck off, Dan.’
Josh groaned as he noticed September appear in the doorway ahead of Lily, just in time to hear that last sentence.
‘Say goodbye to Daddy, darling. You might not see him for a little while.’
There was just time for the little girl’s eyes to grow wide with panic before Sasha had snatched her hand and was bundling her out of the door.
‘Daddy!’
The high-pitched wail was interrupted by the slamming of the communal front door, but still it continued outside, horrible and piercing, until finally the revving of Sasha’s car engine cut it off completely.
In a sense, the silence that followed it within their ground-floor flat was even worse.
Finally Josh could stand it no more. ‘That went well, I thought.’
No one laughed.
Lucie, aged six
Mummy loves me. This morning she let me brush her beautiful hair and my hair will be long like hers one day. It’s almost at my shoulders. And she hasn’t shouted at me for ages about the bad thing I did. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Eyes too big for my belly. She talks to me in French and it’s like music coming from her mouth. And we don’t talk about Eloise. Not ever. But out of sight isn’t out of mind! Daddy is happy because Mummy is happy and we are all happy. Sometimes I’m scared to breathe in case Mummy blows away.
4
‘So just call me back. Please? Even if it’s just to tell me how much you hate and despise me.’
Hannah pressed ‘end call’, put the phone down and sat staring into space. Her laptop was set up on the dining table and she was supposed to be working on a feature for a women’s weekly magazine about over-protective celebrity mums. Instead she was fretting about Sasha. That was the ninth or tenth message she’d left for her. It had been two days since that horrible scene in their living room, but Hannah could still hear the venom dripping from her friend’s voice when she called her a ‘bloody bitch’, and September’s anguished ‘Daddy!’ coming from outside as she was bundled into the car.
For a moment afterwards there�
��d been a sickening silence that Josh had tried to break with a stupid joke. Then Lily had started crying and suddenly everyone was talking at once. Dan apologizing to Hannah, Hannah apologizing to Dan, Josh apologizing to Lily.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
Hannah couldn’t remember when she’d ever felt so wretched.
‘No, it’s my fault.’ Dan had his head in his hands, his fingers dug deep into his hair. ‘I wish you hadn’t told her, but I can’t blame you. I should never have done it. I should have had more respect for Sash.’
‘Well, now it’s out there, at least you can both deal with it. Set a few ground rules, that sort of thing.’
Trust Josh to come up with a practical solution. It was his default response any time things got over-emotional. If Hannah was suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer, Josh would probably present her with a ten-point get-well plan. It was just how he was.
Afterwards Dan had gone round to his house a couple of times, but Sasha had locked the door from the inside and wouldn’t let him in. And so the three of them had sat around and got quite drunk, while Lily watched Ice Age over and over until Hannah finally had enough and took her to the park.
Later on they had indeed established ground rules. Dan wasn’t going to be in touch with Sienna, and he was going to do everything he could to work things out with Sasha, and if they couldn’t be worked out, at least to have the best break-up possible. Couples counselling, if it came to it, even if, as he said, he’d rather pull his own fingernails out. Dan had done all the right things. He’d cried, he’d appeared wracked with guilt. He’d gazed, agonized, at the photo of Sasha and September that he kept in his wallet. In short, he had not given the impression of someone who was taking the situation lightly.
After that first day, they’d hardly seen him. He had a big advertising job on that week, so he’d spent the whole of Sunday in his studio in Hoxton going over the brief, jotting down ideas and making sure he had the right equipment.