More to Life Than This

by Carole Matthews

  She stared at him open-mouthed, the effect lost in the darkness.

  ‘Night-night,’ he said sweetly, and pecked her lightly on the cheek.

  Kate felt the tears well up. I’m tired but I’m not too tired! I’m going away for a whole week, Jeffrey. Doesn’t it warrant a more romantic goodbye than this?

  Her husband turned his back to her, snuggling down into the duvet, and within moments had started to snore gently with the snuffly wet sighs of a contented hedgehog. It was Saturday night—normally the only night she could guarantee that they would make love. Kate looked down at her aged rosebud nightie and wondered if that might offer a clue as to why her husband didn’t feel the slightest bit inclined to ravish her any more.

  chapter 4

  It was Sunday morning in sunny suburbia. The packed suitcase had now moved down to the hall, and was waiting expectantly by the front door. The children were sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework and singing along chirpily to the mindless pop songs on Radio 1. Was there no one in this house who was remotely bothered about her abandoning them, leaving them to fend for themselves for a week? Everyone was so sodding cheerful! Even the cat, Erstwhile, who was normally welded to the top of the central heating boiler, had vanished on one of his few forays into Bedfordshire’s wild beyond. They couldn’t wait to see her gone, obviously.

  ‘You can get through life without endless swotting, you know,’ Kate said loudly to the back of her children’s heads. ‘Why don’t you watch a DVD of The Simpsons?’

  ‘This isn’t just ordinary homework,’ her daughter informed her condescendingly. ‘It’s a very important project, Mum. And you do want me to work hard, pass all my exams and follow in the footsteps of our prime minister’s wife, Cherie Blair, and become a barrister, don’t you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a ballerina?’

  Kerry frowned. ‘How much do they make a year?’

  ‘Probably not as much as a barrister and you’re burned out by the time you’re twenty-eight.’

  Kerry sucked the end of her pen. ‘Perhaps I could be a ballerina until my knees go and then be a QC.’ She returned to her scribbling.

  Kate made herself the tenth cup of chamomile tea she’d had this morning in the vain hope that one of them must soon hit the spot and start to relax her. Jeffrey came in from the garden, tugging his muddy boots off by the door. He had a smear of mud on his cheek and she resisted the urge to reach up and wipe it away. She was still smarting after his cold shoulder last night; what’s more, this morning he had been up and out of bed with the lark without so much as a farewell fondle.

  ‘Hi.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I’ve watered the hanging baskets.’ Riveting. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘One less thing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Yes.’ And the alarming thing was, she had been worrying about the hanging baskets. This would have to stop.

  ‘What are you two doing?’ he asked the kids.

  Kerry looked up. ‘A project on popular pesticides in African agriculture.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ He raised an eyebrow at Kate.

  ‘Fossils,’ Joe obliged.

  ‘Coffee?’ Kate suggested.

  ‘I think I need some,’ Jeffrey said.

  ‘They don’t have lessons in school these days,’ Kate observed while spooning some instant Nescafé granules into a mug. ‘They have optimum learning experiences and projects.’

  Jeffrey took the mug of boiling coffee from her. ‘Things just aren’t the same as when I was a boy.’

  ‘No,’ Kate agreed wistfully. ‘There’s electricity for a start.’

  ‘Very funny.’ Leaning against the kitchen cabinets he crossed his long legs and sipped his coffee.

  They’d recently had the kitchen refitted. Another part of this restlessness that had taken up residence in Kate’s body was the urge to redecorate. She had been terrified for one brief moment that this sudden home-building instinct was an early warning sign that she was pregnant—before she remembered that Jeffrey had braved the vasectomy clinic and the ensuing infected testicle with much complaining and recourse to antibiotics.

  It was distressed. The kitchen. Distressed is fashionable, so the builder had said. Which meant they had a brand-new kitchen with designer scuffed and chipped paintwork. The only thing that seemed to be truly distressed was her husband—firstly, by the price and secondly, because he couldn’t see anything wrong with the pristine stripped pine kitchen that it had replaced.

  ‘So, when’s this au pair coming?’ Jeffrey enquired with stage-managed reluctance.

  Kate glanced at her watch. ‘She should be here even as we speak.’

  On cue the doorbell rang.

  ‘See how reliable she is?’ Kate breezed out to answer the door. ‘She’ll be the answer to our prayers.’

  Jeffrey rolled his eyes heavenwards in silent disagreement.

  ‘Gidday,’ the apparition in front of him said in a broad Australian twang.

  ‘This is Natalie,’ Kate said from somewhere far away in the distance.

  This girl was what his friend Tim would call ‘totally babetastic’. Kate was right when she said that Natalie was six foot tall—she’d just failed to mention that most of it would be legs. Legs that appeared to end only beneath three inches of highly insubstantial material. Even Joe looked up from his fossil project, transfixed.

  ‘Natalie Lambert.’ The vision spoke again and reached out for the hand that wasn’t clutching his mug so hard that his knuckles had turned white.

  ‘Hi,’ he croaked as nonchalantly as he could manage. She squeezed his hand, crushing his fingers to the point where he would never be able to play the piano again. But then he had never been able to play it anyway.

  ‘Everyone calls me Nat.’

  ‘Hi, Nat,’ he croaked again, sounding in serious need of throat lozenges. ‘Jeffrey,’ was all his voice could cope with by way of introduction.

  ‘You’ve got a dirty smut,’ she said and spat on her thumb and rubbed it heartily across his cheek, fixing him with lazy slate-grey eyes that said Danger—Trouble Ahead.

  He saw a brief frown wriggle across Kate’s forehead. Natalie—Nat—winked at him. ‘That’s better, Jeffers.’

  Jeffers?

  ‘I’ll show Natalie round.’ Kate spoke out of the haze again.

  ‘F-f-fine,’ he swallowed.

  Natalie smiled at him and something that he didn’t realise was extinguished lit up inside his heart. She had more lips than Julia Roberts and wraparound teeth that gleamed pearly white from a golden tanned face. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she followed Kate from the kitchen with the elegant saunter of a racehorse that knows it’s about to win the race.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ Kate informed him loudly. ‘I need to be going soon.’

  ‘Right. Right,’ he said. ‘Right.’

  Natalie turned on the kilowatts again. She had masses of impossibly bleach-blonde hair—honey-coloured, threaded with tresses of pure white. It cascaded in wisps over her face, enhancing her beauty considerably, and she looked as if she hadn’t combed it since she got out of bed. Jeffrey gulped at the thought. When he managed to tear his eyes away from her face, he noticed that she was wearing a short denim jacket and a striped skimpy top that looked stretched to breaking point. Kate had been right about the pneumatic chest.

  Jeffrey took off his glasses and massaged his forehead. The palms of his hands had gone clammy and his heart was thundering like an express train. There was a damp line of perspiration on his top lip, and the kitchen felt a lot hotter than it had a few moments ago. No one had ever made this sort of impact on him before, not even Kate, who was, in a completely different way, a very beautiful woman.

  His wife was as dark as Natalie was light. Her hair was always slightly unruly, despite her best efforts, but most days she gave up the fight with the hair dryer in favour of breakfast. He didn’t think she had any tell-tale grey strands, but it was a while since he had looked that closely. Her bes
t feature was her eyes—striking, vivid, a make-believe blue from the strong end of the artist’s palette. Strangers noticed them across crowded rooms. They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and every emotion Kate experienced flashed through them, sparking them into life without her needing to speak. She would have made a useless poker player and he knew that he had been ignoring the unhappiness in them for too long. Kate had the subtly rounded slimness of a woman who had borne two children. His children. But the waiflike form belied her solidity and substance while, for all Nat’s physical impact, there was a slightly surreal air to her that made you feel she was likely to float tantalisingly beyond your grasp the minute you reached out for her.

  Behind Kate’s efficient façade was a vulnerability that drew people to her like iron filings to a magnet. Jeffrey had always felt an overwhelming desire to cherish and nurture her, to do right by her. Since the day he first met her as a callow youth, he knew for certain that he loved her and would one day marry her. Had this diminished over the years until they had become a weak and pallid imitation of the real thing, like vending machine coffee? He thought not. So what were these feelings for Natalie, with her come-and-get-me confidence? Lust? Desire? Passion? Feelings that were certainly unacceptable in a married, middle-aged man!

  This girl had pulled his eyes out, polished them off with her shirt-sleeve and pinged them back into his sockets, so that now everything seemed brighter, more sharply in focus. How long had he been walking round myopically like Mr Magoo? His mind ran over the video playback of her walking into the kitchen. It had already lodged itself in his brain for ever. With a slightly shaking hand, Jeffrey picked up the cold dregs of his coffee and swallowed them down in one.

  Natalie Lambert was, quite unequivocally, the most terrifying person he had ever met in his life.

  Kate was fussing as she came downstairs. She knew it, but couldn’t help it. It was one of the more alarming signs that she was slowly turning into her mother. Casting a sideways glance at Natalie, she chewed on her fingernail. There was no doubt that she seemed terribly capable, it was just that she looked the sort of girl who would be more comfortable sprawled across a bed in one of Andrew’s copies of Playboy rather than wielding a steam iron through a pile of school blouses. If only she’d looked slightly more like one of the Golden Girls and less like a glamour model. Kate wondered if she was really happy to leave Natalie in charge of her domain for a week. Could Jeffrey, as he so vociferously pointed out, have really coped by himself ? Probably not. The thought, at least, gave her some comfort. Some comfort. Some small comfort.

  Kate turned again to Natalie. ‘So, are you happy with the arrangements?’

  ‘Happy as a sandboy.’

  She certainly looked as if she was; she had been grinning widely since she’d walked into the kitchen. Had Natalie grinned quite so much when she’d seen her at Jessica’s house? Had she really seemed quite so tall and quite so beautiful when viewed in another setting? Too late now; Kate had made the arrangements and it was no time to be getting cold feet about the prospect of another woman rooting through her laundry basket. Perhaps she was being overly protective. Jeffrey had behaved very strangely when he met her, but then he was never very comfortable around women. He wasn’t a man’s man either; he was a potential loner and only relaxed with someone when he had known them for years. He had been dead-set against the idea, too, which probably didn’t help.

  Kate glanced at her watch. ‘I must be off. Registration is at twelve o’clock and it will take an hour or so to get there.’ She started down the stairs. ‘Now, I told you that Kerry has her keyboard lesson on Monday night at seven o’clock, while Joe’s at swimming club. Then Tuesday is Guides night and Joe is at football practice…’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Natalie assured her with a widening of her smile. ‘You’ve written it all down for me.’ She waved the piece of paper bearing the weekly chart of activities to prove that she still had it. ‘We’ll be right.’

  ‘Now, everyone has their own copy, including Jeffrey, so don’t let him tell you that he hasn’t. And there’s one stuck to the fridge, too, as a central reference point.’

  Jeffrey came out of the kitchen as they reached the bottom step. ‘You’re sounding like your mother,’ he said. ‘And you’re going to be late unless you get your skates on.’

  ‘I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly.’ Stop it! You’re in panic mode! She’ll be thinking you’re old and confused. Fortunately, she doesn’t know your mother. This is supposed to be the day you’re going to stop thinking for everyone else and think of yourself! Remember?

  ‘Ah, I’m sure we’ll all get along fine, Mrs Lewis.’ Natalie smiled at her husband. ‘Won’t we, Jeffers?’

  Kate felt strangely at a loss. ‘If you could get here about eight o’clock tomorrow morning to give them some breakfast and see them off to school?’ she asked Natalie.

  Jeffrey stepped forward. ‘Er, have you made any arrangements for the rest of the day, er, Nat?’

  ‘No, Jeffers, I’m free as a bird.’

  Natalie had an irritatingly endearing lilt to her voice at the end of every sentence, making her sound constantly surprised or overjoyed, Kate noted sourly.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to join us for a spot of Sunday lunch at the pub. It’ll give you an opportunity to get to know the children.’

  Sunday lunch? In the pub? ‘There’s a leg of lamb in the freezer,’ Kate interrupted. ‘New Zealand lamb.’

  ‘Oh, we don’t want to bother with that, darling,’ Jeffrey laughed lightly.

  She did. Every bloody Sunday. And didn’t they all moan if she suggested otherwise.

  ‘The kids will love eating out for a change.’

  ‘It won’t take long to defrost in the microwave,’ Kate insisted.

  ‘A pub lunch sounds great,’ Natalie beamed, looking straight through her.

  ‘I thought we’d go to the Bridgeman’s Arms and then maybe have a walk through Ashridge Forest while the weather’s fine,’ her husband said nonchalantly, as if it was something they did every Sunday.

  ‘That sounds cool. I haven’t been there yet.’

  Kate scowled. This wasn’t the vision of them sitting missing her that she’d anticipated. ‘I should be off,’ she said brusquely.

  ‘Let me put your case in the car.’ Jeffrey picked it up and strode outside.

  Why the rush?

  She went into the kitchen. ‘Are you going to come out and wave me goodbye?’ she asked her children a little wistfully.

  They both stood up from the table. ‘I’m glad Natalie’s going to look after us while you’re away,’ Kerry said happily. ‘She’s very pretty.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kate felt her heart sinking farther towards her newly purchased soft-soled shoes.

  ‘Andrew thinks she’s a babe. When we were all playing at Aunty Jessica’s house, he said he’d seen Natalie walking round the house in her knickers and her bra.’

  ‘Oh, did he?’ Kate’s heart, which was now somewhere round her ankles, missed a beat.

  ‘He’s probably lying,’ her daughter said loftily. ‘You know what boys are like.’

  Kate glanced at Joe. He looked immensely cheered by the prospect of seeing Natalie in her knickers. She wondered what Jeffrey would think of it.

  They all trooped out across the gravel to the waiting BMW. Jeffrey held the door open and she kissed the children goodbye. It felt as if she was leaving them for ever. She wanted to throw herself at their feet and tell them that she’d changed her mind, she was quite happy to remain in a rut and Natalie could naff off back to Jessica’s and look after nothing more vulnerable than a couple of cats and a goldfish. There was, however, some sliver of sense lodged in all this emotion that told her she would only regret it in the morning. A week wasn’t a long time to give yourself after fifteen years of wifely and maternal devotion. Was it?

  Kate turned to Jeffrey. She wanted him to take her in his arms and cling to her and beg her not to go. It was u
nlikely, given the audience of two inquisitive children and a bombshell au pair, that he would. Jeffrey was not a demonstrative man. Even on her wedding day when she had arrived at the altar next to him, radiant and blushing, he had turned to her and said those immortal words, ‘You look nice.’ He was more a man of quiet passions. But even they seemed to have gone out of the window these days.

  She wound her arms round his waist and felt his body stiffen. ‘Will you miss me?’

  ‘It goes without saying.’

  ‘I’d rather you did say it.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Lots?’

  He checked the audience and lowered it even further. ‘Lots.’

  ‘Be good,’ Kate said tearfully, as she kissed him briefly on the lips, before slipping into the car.

  ‘And you.’

  ‘Whatever you do, Jeffrey, please don’t get one of those garden makeover programmes in while I’m away. I hate surprises and I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone ripping up my herbaceous borders.’ It was bad enough thinking of Natalie Lambert rummaging about in her freezer.

  Her husband laughed. ‘I won’t. I promise.’

  Jeffrey walked back and joined the children as she turned on the engine. Natalie stood behind them, resting her hands on their shoulders. It was a scene straight out of Happy Days.

  Kate put the car into gear and started a reluctant crawl out of the drive. The children waved enthusiastically at her. Jeffrey raised his hand. It would have been better if he’d used it to blow a kiss.

  ‘Have a nice week, Mrs Lewis,’ Natalie shouted. ‘Don’t you worry about us!’

  As Kate turned out of the drive, she realised she had never felt more worried in her life.

  chapter 5

  Sonia opened the front door as soon as she heard Kate’s car in the drive. She bounded to the driver’s door and peered in the window. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘You promised to be here by eleven.’

  ‘I know,’ her friend apologised. ‘I had to show the au pair round and then I shot into Marks & Spencer on the way.’