The Mother-in-Law

by Sally Hepworth

  And even though it will never feature on a scoreboard, I’m pretty sure I just shot a goal.

  23

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  ‘Are you going to trade me in for a younger model one day?’ I whisper to Ollie.

  We’re standing on the back deck by the barbecue. Ollie is barbecuing and I am shuffling around, trying to look busy. It’s Saturday afternoon and Eamon has brought his new girlfriend, Bella, to lunch. She is twenty-two and I have never felt older in my life.

  ‘Can’t afford to,’ he says. ‘Anyway, I married a young one to begin with.’

  ‘You’ve always been a forward planner.’

  ‘I play the long game,’ he says with a wink. ‘By the way, Bella’s in the kitchen. You’d better get in there. She might start playing with matches.’ He gestures to Harriet and Archie. ‘I’ll keep an eye on the other kids.’

  Reluctantly I head to the kitchen to talk to Bella. It’s not out of loyalty to Eamon’s ex-wife—I wasn’t especially fond of Julia either. It’s purely the fact that I’m a married mother of two . . . and she’s twenty-two.

  When I get to the kitchen, Bella is standing in front of the salads, staring down at them.

  ‘Where’s Eamon?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s just gone to the bottle shop for champagne. I told him I didn’t want any, but he insisted.’ She rolls her eyes.

  ‘Oh, well, can I get you a drink in the meantime? Or something to eat? I have cheese and crackers—’

  ‘Water’s fine,’ she says, gesturing to the glass beside her.

  ‘Can I at least get you some ice?’

  ‘No, room temperature is better.’

  Better for what? I wonder, but I don’t ask lest she decides tell me. I have a vague recollection of being lectured about the perils of cold drinks (something to do with damp heat collecting in the body) when visiting a Chinese acupuncturist about a persistent neck injury a few years back, and while the acupuncture worked a treat on my neck, I am someone who is partial to an ice-cold beverage, so the unsolicited advice was an unwelcome addition to my service.

  ‘So how did you and Eamon meet each other?’ I ask instead.

  ‘He goes to my gym,’ Bella tells me. ‘He was in my body pump class.’

  ‘You’re a fitness instructor?’

  She nods, and I feel relieved. Ollie told me she was one of those fitness people on Instagram, the ones who post photos of smoothies and protein powder in amongst pictures of their abs in exotic locations. It’s comforting to know she has an actual job as well.

  ‘Well, I used to be anyway,’ she says. ‘I mostly fill in now that my business has taken off.’

  ‘Oh?’ I say, looking in the drawer for salad servers. ‘And what is your business?’

  ‘I’m a fitness influencer.’

  My hands flatten on the cutlery tray.

  ‘I have a hundred and twenty-two thousand followers on Instagram at the moment, so yeah, things are taking off. But I mean . . . I need to keep growing it.’

  I find some servers and start tossing the potato salad. I went heavy on the mayonnaise, which I now suspect was a mistake. The green salad, too, is chock full of avocado and feta and oil. ‘And how do you . . . grow it?’

  ‘You know . . . analysing the best performing posts . . . looking at the hashtags you’re using like #fitspo and #fitnessporn, keeping up to date with who is influencing in your field.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  ‘Then it’s pretty much about partnering with brands. I’ve been contacted by a really interesting up-and-coming organic juice brand and I’m going to be doing some really cool stuff with them and yeah, it’s good.’

  ‘Great!’

  I feel like I’m babysitting a friend’s teenage daughter. She is wearing a sports bra and Lycra leggings with a clear slicker over the top. To lunch! Through the slicker I notice that her breasts look suspiciously round for her slender frame. I spare a sudden thought for my own deflated breasts, destroyed by two pregnancies and two hungry babies. Ollie doesn’t seem to mind my breasts—in fact he seems rather fond of them—but all the same I indulge in a moment of mourning for my pre-baby boobs, all upright and roughly the same size as one another.

  A door slams and a moment later Eamon appears, a bottle of champagne in each hand. He waggles them about like an idiot. ‘It’s party time, ladies!’

  Eamon’s shirt is unbuttoned too far. He’s lost a bit of weight lately, the way men do when they are having affairs or midlife crises. (Ollie, God love him, has maintained a relatively stable weight, even gaining a little with each passing year, which is good news on the affair front.)

  ‘Champagne glasses, Luce?’ Eamon says.

  A few minutes later he returns with four glasses, filled to the brim. ‘I said I didn’t want any!’ Bella exclaims as he pushes a glass into her hand. ‘I’m on a cleanse.’

  ‘Nothing better for cleansing than champagne,’ he says cheerily.

  ‘Who is cleansing?’ Ollie asks, appearing in the kitchen with a tray of overcooked meat.

  ‘Bella,’ Eamon and I say together.

  Ollie glances at the meat on his tray the same way I looked at my salads.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Bella says, smiling. ‘I brought my own food.’

  Ollie gawps at her. ‘You brought your own food?’

  She unzips a brightly coloured cool-bag that I’d previously thought was her purse. ‘I meal prep at the start of the week, so it’s no trouble really. All I need is a plate. Easiest guest you’ve ever had, right?’ She laughs.

  I can already hear Ollie and me impersonating her tonight after they’ve left. Easiest guest you’ve ever had, right? For this reason, and this reason alone, I manage to smile.

  I give Bella a plate and she dishes up a sad-looking salad that appears to be brown rice and lettuce. The rest of us tuck into potato salad, sausages and burgers.

  ‘So how’s business, Eamon?’ I ask. ‘Things going well?’

  The one upside of Eamon being here is that I have an opportunity to ask him about the business. Since it started, Ollie has been working around the clock for months, but when I ask him how things are going, he says very little. He has a tendency to be a worrier, and I console myself with this when he seems less than optimistic. But today I’d been hoping for a little reassurance from Eamon as well.

  ‘We don’t need to talk shop today.’ Eamon puts down his glass. ‘It’s the weekend.’

  ‘I’m happy to talk shop,’ I say.

  ‘You know what would be more fun?’ Eamon puts down his glass. ‘Truth or dare.’

  Mid-sip of my champagne, I choke. Truth or dare? Eamon is forty-three, I remind myself. Forty-three.

  ‘Come on. It’s a good icebreaker. We played it the other night, didn’t we, Bells?’

  Bella nods, spearing a spinach leaf. She’s listening, it seems, but her entire focus seems to be on her food. The poor little thing is probably starving.

  ‘Okay, you can start, Bells,’ Eamon says. ‘Truth or dare?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ she says. ‘I should say dare. Because I like a physical challenge. But given the location, and the fact that we’re having lunch I’ll say . . . truth.’ She shrugs gaily.

  ‘What was it about Eamon that you first found attractive?’ It comes out of my mouth before I can help it. Normally I’d be cautious, in case it implied that there wasn’t anything attractive about Eamon and thus hurt his feelings, but lately I am less concerned about his ego. As for Bella, I expect her to fumble, to be shy, but she just reaches across the table and takes his hand, smiling unabashedly. ‘Before him, I’d only been with boys. Eamon is a man.’

  Ollie and I exchange a glance. I try not to vomit.

  ‘It’s a tough job,’ Eamon says, stretching his arms out, ‘but someone has to do it.’

  ‘All righty then,’ Ollie says, clearly as appalled as I am. I take a moment to bask in the simplicity of my mostly normal husband.

  ‘Your turn, buddy,’ Eamon sa
ys to Ollie. ‘Truth or dare?’

  ‘Dare,’ he says, which is a surprise because who, above the age of twelve, says dare? I tell myself he’s just answering quickly to move things along. I am trying to think of something, my mind going to ideas of knocking on the neighbours’ doors and running away, when Eamon puts down his glass.

  ‘I dare you to borrow a million bucks from your dad!’ he says. ‘His dad’s minted,’ he explains to Bella. ‘He’d probably have a million bucks in pocket change.’

  He laughs loudly, and I’m reminded of Jeffrey Greenan, Tom’s friend. Same awful laugh, same chauvinistic manner. Though at least Jeffrey had a very nice wife.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Ollie wipes the corners of his mouth with a paper serviette. From his body language I get the feeling this isn’t the first time this has come up. ‘There’s my mum to deal with.’

  ‘His mum’s tight,’ Eamon explains to Bella, and Ollie bristles. Eamon’s treading on rocky terrain here. Even I’m always careful about what I say about Diana. Ollie understands that she’s difficult, but she is, after all, his mother.

  ‘Your turn, Eamon,’ I say quickly, because the sooner this game is over the better. ‘Truth or dare?’

  ‘Truth,’ he says.

  ‘Let me do this one,’ Bella says, and she takes a painfully long time to come up with something, humming and huffing and pressing a forefinger dramatically to her lips.

  ‘What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?’ she says finally.

  Eamon is clearly surprised, and I get the feeling he was expecting something along the lines of ‘Have you ever had a threesome?’. I have to hand it to Bella, it’s not a bad question.

  ‘Well, divorce hasn’t been pretty,’ he says, after a slight pause. ‘The financial ruin of it, I mean,’ he says quickly to Bella. ‘I lost my house and a fair chunk of my savings. But I learned from it too.’

  He presses a forkful of sausage into his mouth and chews slowly.

  ‘What have you learned?’ I ask.

  ‘You know.’ He shrugs. ‘To put safeguards in place. That kind of thing.’

  ‘Safeguards against what?’ I ask, with a laugh. ‘Divorce?’

  ‘Safeguards against everything,’ Eamon says, as if it’s obvious.

  Even Bella is looking perplexed now. It warms her to me a little. ‘There’s no safeguard against everything,’ she says.

  Eamon swills his champagne, and winks revoltingly. ‘Money,’ he says, ‘is a safeguard against everything.’

  24

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  The next day we go to the lawyer’s office. I try to get out of it, but Gerard, Diana’s lawyer, told Ollie it would be a good idea for us all to attend, so even though Diana’s funeral is tomorrow and I have several hundred booklets to fold, readings to choose and catering to confirm, I go. But as we sit in the waiting room, my mind is a Newton’s cradle, flicking back and forth over everything I know. Diana was found dead with an empty bottle of poison by her body . . . but there was no sign of poison in her system. There is a missing cushion and evidence of smothering. Even I can see that it’s starting to look like someone staged Diana’s death to look like a suicide. But, if that was the case, why would they hide the letter away in a drawer instead of leaving it in plain sight?

  None of it makes any sense.

  When Gerard appears in the foyer of his office, Ollie, Nettie, Patrick and I are in opposite corners of the room. The arrival of Gerard, however, brings a welcome focal point and we shuffle together.

  ‘My condolences,’ he says.

  ‘Thank you,’ we mutter.

  Gerard went to school with Tom, but they were probably more acquaintances than friends. Ollie and Nettie have met him many times, and I’ve met him briefly once or twice. He’s always seemed harmless if a little dull. I have a vague memory of Tom once telling Diana that he’d invited Gerard over for a Christmas drink and Diana groaning. Clearly she thought Gerard was dull too.

  Gerard ushers us into his office and then, noticing we are two seats short, pops out into the hallway again. Ollie, Nettie, Patrick and I remain in the room in excruciating silence, looking everywhere but at each other. Nettie, I notice, doesn’t even look at Patrick.

  ‘Right then,’ Gerard says, returning pushing a wheelie chair, ‘thank you for coming in. Usually we mail out letters to our clients letting them know they are the beneficiaries of an estate, but I wanted you to come in to the office because this estate is a little more . . . Yes, in here, Sherry,’ he says to the flustered middle-aged receptionist who appears pushing a second wheelie chair. She stops it in front of Ollie and scurries out again. ‘Thanks, Sherry. Sorry, as I was saying, your parents’ estate is a little more complicated than most.’

  We nod. This isn’t news to us. An estate as large as Tom and Diana’s is bound to be complicated. It’s the reason, I assume, that Tom had Gerard act as an executor, rather than Ollie or Nettie.

  ‘Why don’t you go ahead and sit?’ he says to Ollie, who is still standing despite the chair in front of him.

  ‘I’m good here,’ Ollie replies.

  ‘As you like. Anyway, as you know, Tom and Diana have a sizable estate. There are the properties, the cars, the boat. There’s the share portfolio, the furniture, home décor, jewellery and personal effects. And there is a not insignificant amount of cash.’

  ‘Tom mentioned this once or twice,’ Patrick says with a chuckle.

  Gerard folds his hands in front of him and sits forward, as if steeling himself. ‘Yes, well . . . as it turns out, Tom’s will named Diana as sole beneficiary of his estate. In the event of her death, the estate was to be divided equally between Ollie and Antoinette. However . . . a few weeks ago, Diana came to see me about making some changes.’ Gerard rubs his brow, his face becoming pinched for a second, as though he has a migraine. His eyes remain lowered. ‘During that meeting, Diana requested to name her charity the sole beneficiary of the estate.’

  The room becomes so quiet I can hear the traffic outside, the clock ticking, even the receptionist scratching around her desk outside, filing, stapling, typing.

  ‘Diana did say she was going to communicate the change to you, but it was made so recently, she obviously didn’t have the chance.’

  I feel Ollie shift behind me and I spin to face him.

  ‘Hang on. Diana’s charity is the beneficiary of . . .’ he starts.

  ‘All of it.’ Gerard glances up, locking eyes with each of us under his thick grey eyebrows. It is a look that tells me there is no joke, no misunderstanding, no confusion. ‘The houses, the cars, the share portfolio, the cash.’

  Nettie inhales sharply. Patrick rises to his feet. Ollie’s head is cocked and he is squinting a little, the way he does when Edie is trying to tell him something and he just can’t understand her. We all look around the room and, for the first time since arriving, everyone meets each other’s gaze. Several seconds pass. But no one speaks.

  25

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  I have two kids strapped into the back of the car, one of them wailing (Harriet), the other (Archie) trying to stick a grape up his nose. We’re stopped at a busy roundabout while the woman in the black SUV in front of us hands a tennis racket through the window to her sullen-looking teenage son and then proceeds to start a conversation with him with no regard for the growing line of cars behind her.

  Harriet lets out another wail.

  This kind of thing is rife in Diana’s neighbourhood. We’re headed to Diana’s now—on Tuesdays I drive them to her house at 10 am, where they stay until 2 pm when I pick them up again. We’ve moved out of our workers cottage to a bigger rental house in Hampton for more space, and one of the upsides is that it’s just a short drive to Tom and Diana’s place. Harriet is six months old now, and while I loathe the process of strapping both kids into the car, driving them there and doing the reverse journey again a few hours later, I am not so pig-headed as to refuse free c
hildcare. Even from my impossible mother-in-law.

  ‘Archie, can you put Harriet’s dummy in?’ I say, glancing in the rear-view mirror. The dummy is in his mouth and the grape is nowhere to be seen. ‘What happened to the grape?’

  ‘I ate it,’ he says, taking the dummy from his mouth and pushing it right into Harriet’s mouth. I try not to think about the streaming cold he has now almost certainly passed on to Harriet. It’s some consolation that she stops crying immediately.

  ‘Are we at Dido’s house yet?’

  ‘Nearly,’ I say, and he settles down. As irritating as it is, he loves his grandmother. She’s good with him in her own Diana sort of way. She doesn’t marvel over his artwork or beg for cuddles, but she does other things that seem to rank highly with kids . . . like looking him directly in the eye, challenging him, turning the television off and playing with him. And, of course, there’s the packet of Tim Tams on her kitchen counter that is always full when he arrives and empty when he leaves.

  It’s a few minutes to ten when I pull into Diana and Tom’s pebblestone driveway (which I hate because Archie stuffs the pebbles into his pockets and they end up all over my house). There’s a battered yellow Volvo parked by the front door. One of the cleaners, I decide. I park behind it and hoist Harriet’s baby seat out of the car. Archie unclicks himself and launches out of the car, immediately grabbing a fistful of pebbles. I walk up the steps and set the baby carrier down on the landing. The front door is ajar and an unfamiliar male voice comes from somewhere nearby.

  ‘We have an expression in Afghanistan: “In an ant colony, dew is a flood.” It means . . . a small misfortune is not small for one in need. I applied for many jobs, each time not even a response. So what you did, this is not nothing. This is something.’

  ‘Tom says you’re doing a great job.’ It’s Diana’s voice now.

  ‘Tom is very kind. And I am not as kind. I was rude to you. Forgive me.’

  I edge forward a couple of steps.

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ I hear Diana say. ‘Just go and take care of your family. I know you will do that, Hakem.’