School Run

by Sophie King

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve worked it all out. But we’re both to blame, Robin. It’s not just me.’

  His face lightened. ‘Then you’ll give up your job and come to Westport? But I warn you, I’m going to ask Rachel if the girls can come with us for the holidays.’

  ‘No.’

  He rubbed his eyes. ‘I knew it.’

  ‘Yes to the girls. No to Westport. We’re staying here, Robin, and facing the music. I’m not running away from anyone.’

  ‘But the loan company – you don’t understand. I borrowed money and then I invested again and lost and then—’

  ‘I do understand. My dad also knew someone who knew someone in that bloody company you borrowed from. They’ve given us time to pay it back.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We need to think about it. But you’ve got to promise me something, Robin. You can’t go shooting off like that again. I know it isn’t easy with me working . . . Actually, I’m not any more but that’s another story.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They fired me. Don’t look like that. They’ve given me money – enough to get by on for a while. Look, just come in and have a wash. We’ve missed you.’

  Robin clung to her, kissing her neck the way he used to. Nuzzling her so she began to melt. ‘You mean that?’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt weak all over at his touch. God, it was good to have him home.

  Robin buried his face in her hair. ‘We’ve done it wrong, Evie, but it’s not too late, is it?’

  She thought of what might have happened to Jack. She’d tell him, but not yet. It was all too much, too soon. ‘No, it’s not too late.’

  She could almost feel the relief washing through him.

  ‘You’re a girl in a million, Evie Brookes,’ he said. ‘A girl in a million.’

  ‘Girl?’ said Natalie, sharply. ‘Isn’t she a bit old for that?’

  They both looked at her.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Listening behind the door, as any self-respecting teenager would.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Robin.

  ‘It’s OK, Dad. We’ve got gamblers in our class too. That’s what investing is, isn’t it? We’ve had a talk on it at school. I’ve got a helpline number if you’re interested.’ She came up to Robin, pushing Evie gently out of the way. ‘Welcome home, Dad. I knew you’d come back. Want to see our reports? They’re brilliant. Evie said so.’

  NICK

  And now a very special love song, dedicated to Marlene by her husband Joe as a belated birthday present. Marlene, Joe says he loves you very much. In fact, he couldn’t live without you.’

  Nick kept the radio on while he was searching. He needed the haunting pain of the song – one that had always sent shivers down his spine – to remind him how far he had come. Juliana was dead. But he still needed to live. And not just for their daughter’s sake.

  ‘No, Dad,’ Julie had said, when he’d told her the truth about her mother’s death. ‘It wasn’t your fault. She had ambition and it killed her. When you’re obsessed like that, it takes you over. I’m ambitious too, but not like that. Poor Mum. And poor you.’

  They’d had an emotional few hours, saying all the things they should have said years ago. In the afternoon she’d had her driving lesson – which gave Nick time to do what he had put off for too long. He sifted through Juliana’s drawers, which still smelt of her signature scent. Every now and then he was distracted by things that brought her back to him with such intensity he could hardly breathe. The black stockings he had given her the Christmas before she was ill. The first Mothering Sunday card Julie had made at school. ‘To my mummy,’ it had said.

  He put it to one side.

  Then he found what he’d been looking for. The piece of paper she had left by the pills. At the time he had hidden it, scared in case someone else had found and misinterpreted it. He had pushed it to the bottom of a drawer, hoping never to see it again but also aware that perhaps he should keep it: this last word from the woman he had loved so much. The writing was shaky, indicating how weak she had been, and it was hard to make out the words. ‘I should have stopped.’

  He had always assumed she was talking about the anorexia but now he wasn’t so sure, so he went on searching for clues. He’d exhausted the drawers but maybe there was something in the bookcase, in the files they had kept on housekeeping matters. And then at the bottom, labelled ‘Miscellaneous’, he finally found what he was looking for.

  A garage bill. For a repair to the car. Dated a few days before she’d died. Damage to the front bumper. At the time, it had seemed unimportant. His wife was ill. What did it matter if the car had been dented?

  I hit a bollard. Stop fussing, Nick. You’ve done it.

  He could hear her saying it, see her, clear as day. He’d remembered wondering how she’d had the strength to get out of bed that morning.

  I needed to get out, Nick. You can’t keep me cooped up here. I’m not ill. I’m fat. Gross. And it’s all your fault. You got me pregnant and now my body’s never going to be the same. I hate you, Nick, hate you. Look at these magazines. Can you see me in them? No. And do you know why? Because everyone else is prettier and thinner. I’m finished, Nick. Finished.

  He had tried to comfort her, feeling her ribs poking sharply against him. If he had known then what he knew now he would have understood why she was so hysterical.

  She had killed a child. Had she known she’d killed him? Or had she driven off, hoping desperately he was all right? It’s only a dent, Nick. Stop fussing. I hit a bollard, that’s all.

  How much damage would a child’s body inflict? A small dent? A big one? Early, Harriet had said. The accident had been early in the day. Juliana had got up early towards the end. Somehow, despite that terrible lack of energy, she had insisted on driving herself to the newsagent at seven thirty, and returned with piles of the glossy magazines that tortured her because she was no longer in them.

  Why hadn’t she stopped? She would have been terrified. Scared witless. Unable to live with it.

  Should he tell someone what he thought? Who? Certainly not Julie. It would destroy her, especially now that she was turning the corner. Instinctively he felt Harriet might understand. But that wouldn’t solve anything. He had to put that poor mother’s mind at rest, if that was what you could call it. She deserved to know that the driver who killed – might have killed – her son was dead too.

  He leafed through the telephone book for the number he needed, then picked up the phone.

  MARTINE

  ‘More coffee, love?’

  ‘Non, merci.’

  I have had enough. I will sit here, writing my diary and waiting in this funny little shop where they play this strange radio station that speaks so fast. My beau comes to pick me up shortly. My cases are sorted. He bought them for me from his trip. They are pigskin. Rouge. Very stylish, yes?

  Dear Diary,

  I am glad to go. But I have some nice things. I am a great admirer of Sally’s clothes. And it is not wise of Simon to abandon money in his dressing room.

  I am glad I will not be here tomorrow when the newspapers come out. Sally will not admire it either. ‘Fifty Things You Did Not Know About Simon and Sally’. That is what the reporter is going to title it. I could only think of thirty-two but she can think of more.

  I can see mon chéri now coming in through the door. He is smiling but he does not look as I remembered. His hair, he is missing at the front. Goodbye, Simon and Sally. Goodbye, Josh and Alice. I am going home, at last.

  SATURDAY P.M.

  ‘Why has Daddy gone away again? He’s only just got back.’

  ‘It was us, wasn’t it? I told Bruce not to paint his room. I tried to clear it up before Dad knocked over the tin. But he should have been looking where he was going, shouldn’t he? That’s what he’s always telling us.’

  ‘Maybe he ought to meditate. It m
ight make him feel better. Our new teacher has taught us. Look, you close your eyes like this and go “One”. You sing it like a note. Go on, try!’

  ‘You’re not going out again, are you, Dad?’

  ‘Nattie’s right, Dad. You can’t – even if Benjamin does want to see you. Anyway, Mum’s coming tomorrow. Didn’t Evie tell you? With Chris. We haven’t met him before and we’ve got to be really polite. In your dreams.’

  ‘Feeling better now, Mum? Aunt Susie says we’ve got to look after you and that she can’t go until you’re better. But you are, aren’t you? When’s she going? She keeps hogging Sky and then she tells us we watch too much television. She’ll get hyper like Bruce if she carries on sitting in front of the box. Can’t you tell her? Please.’

  ‘My instructor says I can put in for my test now. He says I’m ready. Mum was my age when she passed, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I’m g-g-glad Farty Marty’s gone. I don’t want another French person. Can we have a Croatian n-nanny n-n-next, like Hugo? She lets him skateboard in the kitchen when she’s snogging her boyfriend upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, Mandy, I am bringing someone actually. I think you’ll like her, although you might be a bit surprised. Yes. A her. You met her ages ago but she’s changed. Eleven thirty at St Nicholas’s? We’ll be there.’

  SUNDAY

  44

  HARRIET

  ‘And at eleven fifteen, this morning, Kirsty Young will be presenting a repeat series of Desert Island Discs . . .’

  Harriet made the bed up with fresh sheets, as she always did on Sundays, listening to the preview for Desert Island Discs (a programme Charlie deplored but which she adored – especially when guessing the castaway from the introduction). The pillows smelt of a new brand of conditioner. The realisation that they no longer smelt of her husband both saddened and relieved her.

  Her first night alone – the first proper one, undisguised by the term ‘business trip’ – hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought.

  The receipt had made it easier. It wouldn’t have been the same if they’d tried to start again. She’d heard of couples who had succeeded but only when one of them, usually the husband, confessed to making a mistake. Love was a different matter.

  When had he started to love this woman, whose name he refused to divulge? What had Harriet been doing at the time? Had it been a day when one of the children had been at home ill? Their first day at school? Sports day – he hadn’t made it last year? All those late nights when he’d been ‘working’, had he really been in some seedy car park somewhere or a hotel room or her house? Harriet wanted to know, but at the same time she didn’t.

  The children had been upset last night, asking why Daddy had to go away again on business, but this morning they’d seemed almost normal when they’d come in to kiss her, then gone down to watch breakfast television.

  Harriet tucked in Charlie’s side. His old side. Last week there’d been a piece in the Mail about predatory women who stalked men at work, not caring if they were married. Had she done that? That was what she wanted to ask her husband. That was what she should have asked him, when he was still at home. But now he was gone, leaving her to mop up the mess.

  She remembered how she’d felt when her father had left, closing the front door with a quiet click, leaving her mother weeping at the kitchen table. Suddenly Desert Island Discs seemed irrelevant.

  She turned off the radio and padded downstairs to sort out breakfast. Empty crisps packets and KitKat wrappers were strewn on the sitting room carpet. ‘I’ve told you before, if you’re going to help yourself to breakfast, have some cereal, not snacks. Bruce, listen to me. And you, Kate.’

  Both children remained glued to the television – well, at least that was normal behaviour. She got out the vacuum. Since Charlie had left, she’d become almost obsessive about cleaning. She’d once heard someone on the radio who had been the same after a family tragedy and the psychologist had said it was the one area of her life she could control.

  That was better.

  ‘Would you like some bacon, you two?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, please, Kate.’

  She went back into the kitchen and put the bacon under the grill. No, stupid, not eight rashers. Just six.

  ‘Why are you crying, Mum?’ asked Kate, coming up behind her.

  ‘It’s the onions, darling.’

  ‘You’re not cooking any.’

  Harriet turned the bacon over. ‘Go back into the sitting room and I’ll bring it in.’

  Eating in front of the television was a strict no-no when Charlie was at home. But he wasn’t at home, Harriet told herself, as she took two trays in and instructed them not to drop the ketchup on the carpet. Then she made herself a cup of Earl Grey in her favourite Emma Bridgewater mug. Hopeless trying to eat – her stomach was still churning with the momentous repercussions of the last two days. Only an hour to get ready for Sussex, before Pippa arrived. Only the rest of her life ahead, quite possibly on her own. But others had done it. And so could she. She had to be positive, for the children’s sake.

  EVIE

  ‘And now for your last record . . .’

  Evie had missed the name of the celebrity, which was always annoying. Not that it was important today. Lunch would be burned if her guests didn’t get here soon. Twelve, she had said. Early, to fit in with Jack’s nap. The beef was perfect and the smell was making her hungry.

  I must be mad, thought Evie. It had been her idea to feed Rachel and her lover. Usually Rachel knocked at the door to pick up the girls, flaunting herself with the latest tan. But something had made Evie tell them that when their mother rang to make arrangements for picking up they must invite her to lunch. With Chris.

  She should have known they would be late. The joint would be ruined (she must have miscalculated the cooking time) and Rachel would have the satisfaction of reminding the girls of those summer barbecues they used to have when Dad was at home. She’d tell it in such a way that an onlooker would assume Robin had left rather than her. Only Evie would know it was done for effect: Robin would be too busy talking to the girls, prolonging contact.

  No, that was unfair. She could understand it now. It must be terrible to have your child taken away from you, not just once but again and again, while the person who had made that child with you decided when – if – you could see them again. When Jack was snatched away she had been in agony. Now she saw that her husband had gone through similar pain for years. No wonder he was slightly crazy.

  ‘They’re here! They’re here!’ Leonora ran to the door and something like jealousy twinged in Evie’s chest. Since Friday the girls had been so nice to her. She was almost sorry they were going. If Rachel wasn’t around, she might be able to get quite close to them. As it was, she hardly stood a chance. How could a step-mother ever make it work when she had only a weekend here and there to forge a relationship? Still, the last week had helped more than any other time since she had known the girls. Could they have turned the corner? There was the sound of excited voices. Evie took off her apron and stepped into the hall.

  ‘Hi, Evie, how are you doing? I hear you’ve had quite a week. Thank God the girls were OK. I hear they let those boys out on bail. Typical!’

  Rachel, skin glowing from the sun, airkissed Evie’s cheek.

  ‘This is Chris, everyone. Chris, this is Leonora, Nattie, Robin, of course, Jack and Ella—’

  ‘Evie,’ corrected Robin.

  She always did that, thought Evie, grimly. You had to hand it to her: she knew how to make an entrance – this time more than ever.

  Chris had the sunniest, whitest smile she had ever seen. Evie tried, without success, to stop staring. So, too, did the girls and Robin, although Jack was too young to twig. Chris had a better tan than Rachel. She also had a better figure and a kinder smile. And just in case there was any doubt about her role, she was holding Rachel’s hand in a very flamboyant manner.

  Evie looked at the girls. Their faces were hor
ror-stricken.

  ‘Come on in, both of you. I’m so glad you could make lunch.

  It will give us time to talk for a change. Nattie and Lennie, do you want to come into the kitchen with me and get some nibbles?’

  The girls followed her. ‘What is she? A dyke?’ hissed Leonora.

  Evie held her shoulders. ‘Listen, both of you. There are times when parents don’t do the kind of things you expect.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Your mother has had some rough times. She seems happy now, so maybe we should try to be happy for her, even if Chris isn’t what we expected. All right? Now, go out there and take the olives and nuts with you. Don’t eat too many because lunch is ready.’

  Robin came in with glasses for a refill. ‘I’d never have thought it,’ he said palely. ‘Do you think it was because of me?’

  Evie laughed. ‘I’m the one who’s meant to have Jewish guilt. No, I just think Rachel looks happier than she has for years.’

  Robin shrugged on his way out with the tray. ‘Possibly. But I still find it really weird. Oh, hi Chris.’

  ‘Hi.’

  Chris rewarded him with a look of bemusement as he almost collided with her on his way out of the kitchen as she suddenly came in. Evie turned, embarrassed by Robin’s faux pas. To be honest, Chris also made her feel confused. She didn’t have a deep voice and she seemed perfectly normal. Serena at work, who was definitely that way inclined, had looked very masculine, down to her collection of embroidered waistcoats, which she wore over striped black trousers. But Chris was beautifully dressed – she could swear that was a Stella McCartney outfit – and her face was made up like that of an Yves St Laurent model.

  ‘I hear Robin’s in a bit of trouble.’

  Evie took in the cloud of perfume. Poison? Chanel? ‘Who told you?’