by Kitty Wilson
Another difference was that he was now the one attending all Penmenna School events and beginning to realize exactly what was involved. He always thought he had been pretty on top of things, smugly knowing how the PTA worked – but he now had to accept that even with the best will in the world as well as all the things Marion had in place, it was more than a little chaotic. The fact that Marion had always ensured the smooth delivery of everything PTA related was further testament to her skills.
The parents’ quiz night had descended into farce. Serena had decided that Marion’s watering down of the alcohol was mean. She had learnt that lesson. Three Dot Cottons had begun brawling in the children’s loos, Seth Armstrong had climbed the wall bars and then decided he couldn’t get down even with Hilda Ogden shouting instructions in a very not-PG way, and Ken Barlow was caught out the back of the PE shed making out with Kat Slater. The children were so much easier to manage.
Then Pippa had persuaded him to be the Easter bunny. She had said there was no joy like the simple joy brought about by doling out chocolate to a whole school of children. He quite liked the idea of it, so had happily accepted. What the teaching assistant had failed to mention was the way children climbed, bit and gouged when it came to chocolate without a very firm hand to guide them. Most of the classes were fine, but Harmony’s was terrifying.
Her constant repeating of the phrase ‘It’s not nice to hurt others whilst we express our feelings, our needs and ourselves, is it?’ proved particularly ineffective. He wasn’t convinced a mini caramel egg was worth gouging out someone’s eye, but it would seem Class Three didn’t agree. He couldn’t help but point that out to an utterly unrepentant Pippa as she administered first aid.
The other thing Pippa had failed to mention was how a whole head-to-toe fun-fur suit had a very particular smell to it, or that it didn’t have any convenient holes.
He had also thought he knew his boys inside out, was fully aware that they had a tendency towards mischief but were super smart and switched on with normal levels of sibling rivalry. He had, and he was reluctant to admit it, thought Marion’s insistence on ferrying them from activity to activity was a little unfair, born of her insecurities because of her upbringing and tied to her high aspirations for her sons. He hadn’t been convinced it was healthy, wanted them to be able to relax more, equating their busyness with the pressure his own mother had piled on with her ‘failure is not an option’ mindset. He was very much for a work–life balance and thought it was something he could encourage in Rafe, Rupert and Rufus now he was home more.
That had turned out to be a worse decision than dressing as the Easter bunny.
He had had no idea.
Marion clearly kept the boys busy as a crisis management technique. It wasn’t because she wanted them to precis in Latin, cook sous-vide food successfully before leaving primary school and take on the most challenging beach breaks with confidence as he had thought. No, it was a necessary part of keeping them alive because he learnt that, left to their own devices, these three boys would create so much mischief that every crisis team in the county needed to be on constant high alert.
He had thought that a relaxed Easter holiday would be heaven on earth. He agreed with Marion that he would be the boys’ primary carer, freeing her up to dash around the county finding perfect spaces, collaborating on exquisite menus and no doubt shrieking blue murder at florists when required.
By day four he was ringing around every club and tutor he had cancelled and begging them to fit the boys back in again. The incident back in February with Rufus stealing the school embroidery needles had nothing on the tricks the boys played upon each other given a few minutes’ spare time.
One of them – and this was the trouble, the culprit was always hard to identify; the boys had a fascinating dynamic of screaming at each other, screeching accusations and then banding together in unity should Richard get too cross – had taken all the Oreos apart and resealed them with toothpaste.
Rupert and Rafe had worked together to convince Rufus that he wasn’t smart enough to balance a glass of water on each hand. He dutifully placed his hands flat on the table for them to rest the filled glasses on and then screamed until Richard rescued him, once the boys backed away laughing knowing he couldn’t move without spilling the water everywhere. Whilst he was stuck there they raced up the stairs and mismatched all his socks. This in itself wouldn’t be so bad, but Rufus was the most like Richard and he liked order. He liked things just so and socks not in pairs was one of those little things that would drive him witless.
Then there were the printed-out fake adoption papers, left in the living room with Rupert’s name written on which lead to the inevitable screaming – ‘I wish I had been adopted!’
Rupert had then got his revenge by dipping onions into toffee and pretending he had made toffee apples as a peace offering. He laughed so much as his brothers bit into them that he actually slid down the wall clutching his sides.
How Richard had managed to get through the holidays without murdering at least one of them or turning to vodka as a breakfast choice, he wasn’t sure, but he had done it. The boys went back to school tomorrow and had, for the last few days, been impeccably behaved. Richard wondered if it was partly due to him losing his shit, just a little bit one day, and calling them all monsters, but not in the affectionate way he usually did, more in an I’ve-bred-three-little-sociopaths-that-are-complety-incapable-of-behaving-in-a-civil-fashion kind of way. He had beaten himself up for days afterwards, not helped by Rufus’s tearful response, ‘Mummy never shouts.’
Ultimately he rationalized that the children did need to learn about the realities of life and the realities were that constant squabbling was going to push anyone, no matter how calm they usually were, over the edge.
They had behaved a bit better after that. They had never, never seen their father lose his temper. He was always just Richard but in Daddy form: amiable, wanting to please and – he hoped – kind. It seemed shouting, a tool he had always been very much against, was occasionally what was needed.
He opened the fridge door to prep supper as Marion had texted to say she should be home by six, and promptly burst into laughter. One of the boys – and he suspected Rufus, possibly with Rafe’s help – had put googly eyes on all the fruit and veg in the fridge. The boys heard his laugh and came and sat on the stairs and watched him, shining with pride for putting a smile on his face. He couldn’t help but feel smug with the contentment that one got when one’s children worked together; it was rare and he wallowed in it for a bit.
When Marion came through the door, he had dinner bubbling away and couldn’t resist taking her to the fridge. He opened the door, hearing the patter of feet a second time as their sons came to see her reaction. Marion burst out into a most un-Marion-like guffaw, pulling out the broccoli and waving it from side to side to make the eyes move, then following it up with a carrot and a pear.
The boys sidled over to join them and Marion edged herself closer to Richard as they all squished in front of the fridge, pulling out vegetables and putting silly voices on.
Despite it being such a family moment, Richard couldn’t help but feel a frisson run through him. This was the closest Marion had stood to him for months and the very nearness of her, the smell of her was assailing his senses, making him both weak at the thought of how much he wanted everything to be right and strong at the thought of proving to her he was the man she wanted.
The boys eventually ran off after a three-act play that ended up with all the vegetables dead bar one very triumphant piece of baby sweetcorn and Marion headed up for a bath. It had become a daily ritual. She would jump into a bath whilst Richard finished off the dinner. Then he would either head out and back to Chase’s large, and largely empty home, or be invited to stay if Marion was in a particularly good mood. He had wondered if the regular bath was something she had done to avoid spending time with him when this new routine of him being there and cooking had started. But whate
ver the reason was it made him happy having her coming down the stairs all relaxed and smelling of rose oil.
Today as she headed towards the bathroom, he heard a bedroom door shut upstairs and the pitter patter of feet on the landing. His eldest son, Rafe, appeared within seconds in the kitchen and pulled the door shut behind him, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’ he said in a voice and tone mature beyond his years. Certainly not the tone of a boy who had been a bit free with the toothpaste earlier in the holidays!
‘It was,’ Richard confirmed, knowing that Rafe was talking about all of them being silly together.
‘It felt like old times,’ Rafe added and Richard felt a pang. It did. His son wasn’t wrong.
‘I know you think I’m a child but I’m actually a young adult now. In just under four years I’ll be able to get married, with consent obviously, join the armed forces and a trade union should I want to. And, oh, I almost forgot, I’ll be allowed to drive a mobility carriage too if I need to, which quite frankly is an increasing possibility the older and eviller my brothers get. Just giving you context for my maturity.’ Rafe delivered his speech with a very serious tone, no doubt also designed to demonstrate his wisdom.
‘Okay.’ Richard pulled out a chair, working hard to keep the smile off his face, and wondered where this was going.
‘And I know even as a young adult it’s probably not cool for me to offer advice to you but I’d like to, if you don’t mind.’ Rafe clearly had a lot he wanted to say, and was currently holding his father’s eyes with the ferocity of a Rottweiler, bidding him to take him seriously. Richard had every intention of doing so. He had craved this sort of involvement in his son’s life from the minute he held Rafe in his arms. This was the kind of family he pictured himself having when he was a child, tied in knots of repressed fury at his father’s sky-high levels of not-giving-a-shit and his mother’s obsessive neuroses and controlling, rigid parenting. His boys were going to be free to speak, their views listened to.
‘I don’t mind. I have a lot of respect for your opinions; you are a far better judge of both situations and character than many adults I know.’ His mind went straight back to the parents’ quiz night. ‘So spill, what do you want to talk about?’
‘You and Mum.’ Rafe spoke clearly, plainly and still holding his father’s eye.
Richard tried not to gulp. He wasn’t expecting that although maybe he should have been. Oh shit. He really didn’t want to be pulled into a conversation which may have the side effect of seriously pissing Marion off, yet neither did he want to not be as honest as he could be with his son. He was aware that the way he dealt with this could well influence how often Rafe came to him throughout his teenage years. He decided, as with most things, honesty was the best policy.
‘Okay, what do you want to know?’
‘What’s going on? You move out, you split up and then instead of you being away all the time you’re suddenly here and cooking dinner every night. I don’t understand it. When you were together you were never here and now you’ve told us you’re apart you’re here all the time. And Dad, to be honest, I don’t think it’s just me that’s finding it confusing. I’m grown up, but I think both Rupert and Rufus could do with very clear messages at this stage of their lives, and to me this is a clear case of mixed messaging.’
‘Um… well, yes…’
‘Hang on, let me finish. I want to tell you what I think so you don’t feel foolish saying something that we both know isn’t going to fly. If I tell you what I think first, then perhaps we could go from there.’
‘Yes, yes we could,’ Richard agreed and wasn’t sure if he wanted Marion to hurry up and finish her bath and come and join them or take a long, long time, preferably until dinner had been burnt to a crisp and Rafe had become distracted by something else.
‘Okay then. It seems to me a lot of distance built up when you were working away and then probably, but I can’t be sure, there were some misunderstandings—’
‘Yup, there certainly were,’ Richard couldn’t help but interject. His boy was so wise.
‘Dad!’ Rafe silenced him with a look, channelling his mother beautifully. ‘And in most relationship breakdowns, even minor niggles are due to miscommunications, people not being honest about things. I know this because I am sort of in a relationship myself now, as you may have guessed, and am frequently amazed by how Sophie gets so super cross about stuff that is quite frankly made up in her head. But the first thing I know about it is when she is spitting feathers at me, whereas if she had raised it with me before rather than snowballing it in her mind it would be a lot easier to sort out. How am I supposed to know that buying her a dress with flowers on was all the evidence she needed of me being a man restricted by outdated gender norms born out of my inherent misogyny? Eh? I just wanted to get her something she had liked online a few days before. And don’t get me started on periods. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. But my guess is this is what has happened. The thing is…’ Richard wondered if his son had some super-powered lungs; how on earth did he talk so much without once appearing to stop for breath? And also, exactly how adult was his child’s relationship, because these were not things Richard was thinking about at twelve years old. ‘…you weren’t just a couple, we’re, we’re’ – he said it again for emphasis – ‘a family and we need you to make it clear what’s happening. We love having you here all the time but it’s causing the boys to think you’ll get back together. Are you? What is going on? We didn’t really get much detail before, and we’ve given you space but now we need to know more.’
‘Woah. Whilst what you say is wise – it really is and I am so impressed—’
‘Do try not to patronize me.’
‘Yup, okay.’ Definitely his mother’s son. ‘But actually, we can be no longer together and yet still retain a friendly working relationship as we co-parent. That’s what we’re doing. And, yes I’m sad that your mother and I are not together any more but I’m proud of the way we are making this work anyhow.’
‘Yeah but, Dad, it seems to me like you’re bending over backwards to be accommodating and I love having you around but maybe it’s time you stood up and said what it is you want rather than just doing what you’re told. Why did you split up in the first place? Are you going to get back together? Is that what you want? And if so, what can I do to help?’
Chapter Twenty-six
Marion came down from her bath feeling beautifully refreshed. No one had ever said before that working full-time was easier than being a devoted stay-at-home parent. She was very aware though that she had it easy with Richard stepping into the traditional role of home-maker and easier still by then getting the double bed to herself so she could spread-eagle out, no compromise needed.
Truth was she missed him in their bed, missed the way he curled around her as they fell asleep, feet entwined, knees tucked into knees, pelvis turned into pelvis and his arms wrapped around her giving them both comfort. A closeness she could never imagine having with anybody else. That feeling that there was nothing that could touch you, that you could sleep through the night, trip through life, with nothing bad happening to you all the time you were there, next to each other.
She couldn’t fault the man he had been since he had moved back down to Cornwall. Her venture into self-employment would have been considerably trickier if it wasn’t for his support. Being there meant work could be her sole focus so her business was going from strength to strength. She was worried that, if anything, she was a bit overbooked.
If it weren’t for Richard’s infidelity then her life would be perfect. He made no bones about the fact that he wanted her back, would do anything to have it so. And with every passing day the temptation was strong. It was hard not gently touching his leg under the table as the family ate, a hint of what she was planning for later clear in her eyes. It was hard not leaning into him as everyone chatted and giggled. But there was too much tied up here: obviously there wa
s the utter betrayal of Richard touching and kissing someone else the way she had always thought was saved especially for her. Then add into that her baggage, her mother’s stream of men through her life and his baggage, the way his father behaved, that all fed into the fear that if she forgave him now he could turn into his father and she, subsequently, would turn into his mother and they would both become parodies of the very things they swore they would never be, all those years ago as they lay under trees with textbooks open and a lifetime of hope and promise on their lips.
As she walked into the kitchen she was surprised to see Rafe and Richard caught in intense conversation, their subject matter clearly deep, both freezing as they felt her eyes upon them. That didn’t bode well.
‘That smells delicious, Richard.’
‘Yes, it’s not smelling too bad, is it? It’s new, I’ve not made it before so it might be a bit experimental. You guys are my guinea pigs… squeak squeak.’ Richard wrinkled his face up and wiggled his fingers as whiskers, his glasses moving up and down as he did so, and Marion’s heart melted a little. He was such a fool. He shared a smile with her, a proper one where the eyes spoke far more than the words and she felt a shiver rush up her spine. ‘Staying at Chase’s is rubbing off on me. Even with him not there, a desire to cook is seeping through my skin by osmosis. Here, have a taste.’ He stood up from the table and moved to the stove.
Marion walked over and leant forward, mouth obediently open as Richard carefully touched her lips with the tip of the wooden spoon, just letting her taste the flavours without burning her. She found herself stepping in a bit closer and he repeated the action. It tasted so good; her senses were floored, not so much by the smell and flavourings of the food but by Richard’s proximity to her, every sense alert and tingling.
It was muscle memory, had to be. Her body reminded by his proximity of the way he had made her feel before, time and time before, the honesty of their lovemaking, the vulnerability and the excitement. No one knew their way around her as he did and… she took a step back, remembering that Rafe was in the kitchen and flicked him a quick smile to include him and break the sexual tension boinging off the walls.