by Pamela Fudge
‘Oh, can you? That’s such a relief – only I thought you might think it an awful imposition, seeing as we don’t even know each other and it is very short notice. I promise I won’t ask for anything too fiddly, but definitely chocolate rather than fruit, if that’s ok.’
For what felt like long minutes I could only stand and stare, feeling completely wrong-footed. She wanted a cake – just a bloody cake. I was close to bursting into hysterical laughter before I managed to control myself with a huge amount of effort. My shoulders sagged with relief as I said out loud, ‘You want me to make a cake – a chocolate cake?’
She looked at me a little strangely, and said, ‘Well, yes. What did you think I wanted?’
I tittered nervously, ‘Oh, you know, I do get asked for all kinds of confection – and that’s despite my business clearly being called Wendy’s Wonderful World of Cakes.’
I took my coat off and reaching for my pad and pencil I invited, ‘Do take a seat. Can I take your jacket?’
By the time we had settled, I had given her a pile of brochures to peruse and made us both tea while she flicked through the pages.
I couldn’t help thinking this was one of the oddest situations I had ever found myself in. My ex-lover’s wife turning up on my doorstep was something I most definitely hadn’t been expecting. That she wanted a cake and not my guts for garters was at least something of a relief.
I was wondering how I was going to lead up to asking whether she lived close by, when she offered that information quite freely, followed by a whole lot more, without any prompting at all.
‘We’ve just moved into the area from Durnhampton,’ she said, naming a small town a few miles away, ‘and I heard your name and cake-making skills mentioned by some of the parents at the local school.’
As we sipped our tea and discussed specifics of the order she wanted to place, she chatted easily about her life and family, giving me far more detail than I wanted – and definitely more than I needed. My head was spinning within a very short time and I had no idea how I managed to remain calm and professional as I took her contact details and made precise notes regarding her order - and all the while she talked and talked – the words tumbling from her mouth until I began to wonder if she was ever going to stop.
‘I haven’t seen her before, have I?’ Jon asked chattily, after I had shown her out and joined them in the kitchen where he and Will had evidently been busy preparing our evening meal.
The salmon fillets with fresh vegetables and new potatoes should have been appetizing – certainly the two of them lost no time in tucking into the food in front of them. I stared down at my plate, felt my stomach turn over in a most unpleasant way and looked up again quickly.
‘Probably not,’ I managed, making an effort to push the food around the plate as if I was about to eat, without actually doing anything of the sort. ‘The family are new to the area.’
‘Heard about you at the school, did she?’ Jon nodded, and not waiting for my reply he added, ‘Your fame is spreading.’
‘I think I saw that lady at school this morning,’ William chimed in, ‘she was dropping off her little girl.’
‘Her “little girl” is a year older than you, Will, and apparently she has three other children – three more daughters. The others are all at Brankstone High, one is doing A levels during this school year, one doing GCSEs and the third one has just started there.’ Once I started filling in all the details I’d been given I couldn’t seem to stop.
‘Four children,’ Will blinked, ‘all of them girls?’ He didn’t look or sound very impressed.
‘So, was the cake for one of them?’
I usually appreciated Jon’s interest in what I did, but not on this occasion. I prodded a piece of broccoli with my fork, picked it up and then put it down again. I could no more have eaten thatm or anything else from my plate, than fly to the moon at that moment.
‘Let me guess?’ Jon continued when I didn’t answer, ‘A Frozen themed cake for the youngest girl?’
William screwed up his face. ‘She won’t want anything to do with Frozen,’ he dismissed, ‘that’s just for babies. I reckon Harry Potter, because big boys and girls of my age still like Harry Potter.’
This was a game they sometimes played and usually I went along with it quite happily, but at that moment my nerves were strung so taut they were about to snap and there was more I had to say – something even more shocking than the fact that my ex-lover’s family had moved into area.
‘It’s not a child’s cake at all,’ I said, scarcely believing how steady my voice was, ‘it’s an order for an adult cake. It’s for Gareth Montgomery. He’s Catrin’s husband and the girls’ father and also the new sports’ master at William’s school. He specialises in rugby, apparently.’
Once the words were spoken, once they were out there in the open, the absolute horror of the situation I found myself in hit me with such force that I gasped out loud before running for the downstairs cloakroom.
I felt as if I had aged years by the time I returned to the kitchen, where the remains of the meal had been cleared away much to my relief, and Jon and William waited anxiously.
‘Come and sit down,’ Jon urged, jumping up and coming to place his arm tenderly around my waist, before leading me to the sitting room as if I were a precious and rather elderly lady. ‘Bring a glass of water for Mummy,’ he told Will over his shoulder. ‘She’s not very well, but she’ll be fine in a moment. It’s nothing to worry about.’
Encouraging me into a chair, Jon checked that Will had left the room before he knelt in front of me and asked the obvious question. ‘Could you be pregnant?’ I didn’t miss the note of hope in his voice and that made me feel even worse, if that was possible.
Shaking my head, I wished with all my heart that it was indeed pregnancy that had made me sick to my stomach. ‘No, I’m not pregnant.’
‘Upset tummy then?’
‘Yes,’ I saw Will edging his way round the door holding a glass of water that was much too full, though he was carrying it very carefully, and added, ‘Just a bit of a dodgy tummy. Must be something I ate.’
Food poisoning would have been infinitely preferable to the chain of events beginning to unfold, events that were directly linked to my actions of seven years ago. I didn’t know how I could stop this insidious flow of contamination that threatened to expose me and my thoughtless behaviour of that time, and destroy everything I held dear.
I had no idea at all about what to do. I was way out of my depth in this dreadful and unforeseen situation. All these years I hadn’t thought through any of the possible consequences of my actions, just lived my life quite happily believing I had got away, if not with murder, then with something that would be equally as bad in Jon’s eyes.
Yet I had known from the day I’d come face to face with my past in that Southampton store that something so momentous couldn’t be dismissed as coincidence, and neither could anything that had happened since. I should have done something – anything – to deal with it there and then – though I wasn’t sure what.
Perhaps I could have agreed that we had met before and where, excruciating as that would have been, and asked him what, if anything, his intentions might be. At least then I would have known what I was dealing with right away, acted accordingly, and saved myself weeks of imagining the worst case scenarios.
I reminded myself that I had been prepared, only recently, to confront the Adonis and demand to know what he was about. Now that moment had passed because, as I had just discovered, it was no longer just him who had erupted into my life, but his whole family, too.
‘Have a drink of water, Mummy,’ Will offered the glass, spilling a little as he held it towards me. His little face was pinched with concern.
‘Thank you, darling.’ I forced a wide, happy smile onto my face, and sipped determinedly at water that had definitely been drawn from the hot tap and was unappetizingly warm. ‘I feel much better already.’
Tryin
g to appear normal while I was trying to cope with the thoughts that crowded through my brain wasn’t easy, but I had to digest the information that Catrin had so openly offered and deal with some very unpalatable truths that her unguarded comments had disclosed.
Such as the fact that she had either been pregnant with, or had recently given birth to her youngest daughter, while her husband and I had been carousing in a hotel bedroom. What sort of man did that make him? What sort of woman did it make me that, though I might not have known about their baby, I had known that he was married and a father and, if anything, it had made him even more appealing? I was disgusted with him and his behaviour, but I was far more appalled with myself and with mine.
Another fact I had to consider was that, though this Gareth was the father of four apparently healthy children, they were all girls. Would the fact that William was a boy make my child more appealing to him, if it turned out he was indeed the father, given that the majority of men seemed to desire a son?
I didn’t even make a protest when Will made his usual request to watch The Lion King DVD before bedtime, just enjoyed the comfort of a familiar and well-loved routine. Cuddled up together on the couch we quoted pieces of dialogue in time with the characters, and sang along to the songs at the tops of our voices.
Even as I was going through the motions though, my mind was busy working out my options and agreeing with myself that this whole business had to be sorted – and sooner rather than later. I had to make this Gareth see that the innocents in this were his wife, my husband, and all of the children who should be protected from our thoughtless behaviour at all costs.
The phone rang just as I was making a move to put William to bed and Jon answered it.
‘Tina, how are you?’ he asked, and after a couple of shared comments and a laugh, he made a move to pass the receiver to me mouthing with a smile, ‘I’ll put Will to bed. Enjoy your chat,’ then aloud to Tina he said, ‘Passing you over to the light of my life.’
Just hearing her voice made me desperate to unload all of my troubles, doubts and unmade decisions onto her, because Tina of all people would know the right thing for me to do. She was also the only person I could talk feely to about the nightmare mess I found myself in.
I couldn’t do it, of course, not yet, because I had already caught the note of excitement in her voice just from her brief, ‘Hi, Wendy.’
I managed a laugh, bright and happy, but I had to dig deep for it, before I encouraged, ‘come on then, Tina, this isn’t just a social call, is it? You have some news to share.’
‘That,’ she said, ‘is amazing. How on earth could you tell that from a simple greeting? I know,’ she went on, ‘it comes of being friends for so long. I’ve been bursting all day to tell you this, but haven’t had a minute to draw breath, never mind pick up the phone.’
‘So,’ I injected just the right amount of enthusiasm into my voice, ‘tell all. You know you can’t wait a moment longer.’
‘Leanne is engaged,’ she squealed and I immediately matched her, squeal for squeal, because I knew her well enough to know she must be delighted because any disapproval of her daughter’s choice of future partner couldn’t and wouldn’t have been hidden from me.
‘Either you’ve kept this very quiet,’ I said, ‘or Leanne has. I haven’t heard even a whisper about it.’
‘Neither had we. Well, of course,’ Tina corrected herself, ‘we knew she was seeing someone and we had even met the guy once or twice, but we hadn’t realised it was that serious. They turned up at the house late last night with a sparkler on her finger and a bottle of champagne in his hand.’
‘Oh, my God,’ I breathed, imagining the moment. ‘What a shock. What did Calum say? Is he pleased? I can tell you are.’
Well, Calum read to him from the father’s charter about taking care of his daughter – or else – but he knows the guy very well. He’s an author with the agency. You’ll have heard of Jerome Greening.’
It was a statement and not a question, because who would not have heard of this young author’s spectacular rise to fame. The fact that he came across as a genuinely nice person in his interviews hadn’t hindered his popularity with the reading public in the slightest and he was currently the darling of the media. I could see the announcement of the engagement making the pages of Hello magazine for sure.
A few hearts would be broken when news of his engagement leaked out to the media, and I said so to Tina. ‘Are you hiding from the press again?’ I asked, reminding her of a time years before when news of her relationship with Calum became known.
She laughed. ‘No, but it’s not common knowledge yet. We’re leaving it to the happy couple to decide exactly where and when they put out a press release. They’ve been very discreet, to the point that even we didn’t have a clue.’
‘Well, my lips are sealed,’ I assured her, ‘and I’m absolutely thrilled because I know that you both are.’
We chatted some more, about whether there would be a party of some sort to celebrate the happy occasion, about when the wedding might be and where it might be held.
I had welcomed the distraction of some good news, but it was when Tina brought the subject back to me and my life that I came back to earth painfully with an enormous bump.
‘Come on,’ she said, when I insisted that everything was fine. ‘I know you better than that. What’s the matter?’
It all came out in fits and starts. How those sightings that we had put down to coincidence had been anything but, because the Adonis was right here in town with his wife and family, and not just in the town, but he was in the school taking up a position teaching sport.
I could tell that Tina was lost for words, because she gasped and then the line hummed between us for several long moments.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I whimpered. ‘I don’t know why he’s here or what he wants. Please tell me this is one big coincidence, Tina, and that he hasn’t come to gain access to his son.’
‘You have no proof at all that he’s Will’s father, and neither does he.’ I could tell by the firm note in Tina’s voice that she was rallying, and that was just what I needed. I couldn’t deal with this all on my own any longer. ‘Possibly it is all one big coincidence, unbelievable as that seems, Wendy. I doubt very much that he’d have been idiot enough to move his wife and family to Brankstone had he known the woman he once had an affair with was living right on his doorstep. I think when you confront him – as of course you must – I’m sure you’ll find that he will be as horrified as you are.’
‘But once he knows about Will...,’
‘Look,’ Tina said, ‘to put it quite bluntly, I doubt the guy even remembers the night he spent with you, let alone exactly when it happened. You were probably one of a whole string of women. Sorry,’ she paused to let that unpalatable truth sink in, ‘but men like that aren’t known for their loyalty. I bet you weren’t the first – or the last.’
‘If only I could have got pregnant again, just to prove that Jon can father a child,’ I sighed, ‘but there’s no sign of that happening.’
‘There’s still time,’ Tina put in.
I shook my head even though I knew she couldn’t see me, and said, ‘I think I have to accept, once and for all, that Jon is not William‘s father.’
There was a sudden sound from behind me and I turned to see Jon standing in the doorway. It was crystal clear from the look on his face that he had heard every word.
Chapter 15
‘Jon,’ I whispered.
I automatically pressed the red button on the phone, cutting Tina off and, dropping the receiver, I rushed to where Jon stood as if he was carved from granite rock. His only movement was to thrust out his hands in a quite obvious effort to fend me off.
His face was drained of all colour, his blue eyes were full of deep, dark despair and his voice was hoarse as he rasped, ‘Don’t - don’t touch me. In fact, don’t you dare come anywhere near me or – I swear - I will not be responsible for my a
ctions.’
‘Let me explain,’ I pleaded, even though I knew there was no explanation in the world I could possibly give that would be acceptable to Jon. ‘Please, let me explain.’
‘Don’t waste your breath,’ he said without a single trace of emotion and, giving me one last, long look he turned and left the room. It was only when the front door closed, with a click that sounded very loud and very final, that I realised he had left the house, too.
I went after him, wrenching the door open and calling his name. He didn’t even turn his head or acknowledge in any way that he had heard me, just strode off into the darkness. I stepped outside, tempted to run after him, but then I realised that would mean leaving Will upstairs alone, and turned to go back inside. Only then did I realise that it was raining, hard, and that Jon was wearing no coat, not even a jacket, only a shirt and trousers.
‘Mummy?’
William’s small worried voice filtered down the stairs and, even as I hurried to comfort my son, I was shuddering at the sheer enormity of what my unguarded conversation with Tina had started, and wondering when and where it was all going to end.
What the hell had I been thinking to speak those damning words out loud with no thought to whoever might over-hear them? In my eagerness to share the complete horror of my situation with the one person I could trust I had shattered forever the illusion of a happy family life for Jon. Finally and carelessly I had shown it up for what it really was - a facade, a fabrication, built to cover up the lies I had created in an attempt to conceal my own treachery.
‘Mummy?’ Will said again, and I could hear the anxiety in his tone as I hesitated outside of his bedroom door.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door and stepping inside, I said, brightly, cheerfully, ‘Now, what’s all this, then, Will. Shouldn’t you be fast asleep by now?’
‘Were you and Daddy arguing?’ Will placed heavy emphasis on the word, which was hardly surprising because I was pretty sure he had never seen or heard Jon and I argue, not ever. ‘I thought I heard you shouting at each other downstairs and I got worried.’