The Chance of a Lifetime

by kendra Smith

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘There’s something funny on the computer. Like a mummy willy.’

  ‘Really?’ Katie felt a cold shiver run through her. ‘OK, let me check.’ She tried to say the words normally. But when she reached the desk in the open-plan living room, her hand flew to her mouth. Staring back at her were two (what?) enormous tits, a tongue and a very neat Brazilian.

  ‘My God! What are you doing? Turn it off!’

  ‘But, Mum, it was just on the screen when I got here…’

  Then she realised what had happened. God. She couldn’t even trust the au pair…

  *

  Maria was sitting in front of Katie. It was 7 p.m. Katie had pulled the plug out of the computer, when she’d seen what James had found, silently made beans on toast for the children, let them have a huge amount of ice cream and put them all to bed without doing homework or having a bath – in fact, she couldn’t remember them doing their teeth. She had found Maria in the garden, hanging out washing. It had been 6 p.m.

  Never, in all my life, have I been so furious, thought Katie, marching up to her, and telling her to sit in the living room until she was ready.

  A strange serenity washed over her as she looked at her ‘helper’. ‘I put you in charge of looking after my children, Maria—’

  ‘Meeses Parkes, I can expl—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it!’ shouted Katie putting her hand up, as if stopping traffic.

  ‘I asked you to do the washing, look after Rory, wash the dishes, fold their laundry, NOT LOOK AT PORN! LESBIAN porn!’

  ‘But I not lesbian! I am bisexu—’

  ‘I really, really don’t want to know!’ Katie stood up. ‘Rather than steaming carrots and building wooden train tracks for Rory as I have shown you – you have been looking at that!’ Her hand swept over to the computer.

  ‘I don’t care what you look at, at home, Maria, but NOT HERE!’

  Jesus, maybe she’d even had topless parties in the house when Katie was out shopping. She felt slightly sweaty.

  ‘You have let me down, you have let the kids down,’ Katie spoke very softly, feeling drained. ‘I trusted you.’

  Maria approached Katie, handed her the keys with a face as scarlet as the last stages of an African sunset. ‘I sorry,’ she murmured.

  Katie shut the door behind her and then poured herself an enormous vodka. Sitting down heavily on the sofa, she felt better. She was glad she had got rid of Maria. What a cheek! She could cope herself… She pulled out the pair of kitten heels from her bag, stared at them. Then she thought about tomorrow and took another slug of her drink. Oh God, Ann was coming round, she realised closing her eyes.

  She’d finally agreed to seeing her once, but that was it. What more did the woman want? After she had told her what she thought about Ed and her parenting skills, she didn’t really want to be involved with her any more. She wanted to move on, put the whole thing behind her; rebuild her family. Finally build some bridges with Tom who’d sent her some beautiful emails recently. She didn’t understand what on earth was so important that she and Ann hadn’t already curtly discussed in the playground, on the phone, by text. Katie wished, quite frankly, that Ann would just leave her family in peace.

  38

  The front door buzzer was being pushed repeatedly as Katie was cooking lasagne in the kitchen. It was an unusually humid day for September. Katie had felt the beginnings of what lay ahead for the summer months when she’d hung out the washing earlier, flies buzzing around, pestering, agitated. Katie came to the door, drying her hands on a tea towel, knowing who was outside. She opened the door and let Ann in. As she walked in the room Katie was amazed at how normal it was to see her face. Everything is just the same, thought Katie, the soft downy hairs on her cheeks, those light sapphire eyes. Yet it’s not the same. She’s lain next to my husband, stroked his hair, buried her face into his chest. How on earth do we move on from here? And now Ed… But maybe we can…

  ‘Hi, Katie…’

  Ann stood in front of her and Katie stared her straight in the eye. Ann looked tired; red rings circled her eyes. The babyish face was older, more weary; there were furrows in her forehead that hadn’t been there before. She was wearing one of her baggy smocks – she looked like she had been sleeping in it. Hello again, your honour, let me introduce you to a woman who was my best friend, thought Katie. One I trusted. Who’s now betrayed me in the worst way possible.

  Katie walked to the kitchen, realising it was somehow appropriate to have their duel there. The kids were all in the garden. Their screams punctuated the hot air, the shrieks from the trampoline, the thud of a football being kicked around.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me.’

  Katie shrugged her shoulders, turned her back on her, and started slowly stirring the onions. Ann was silent.

  Then Katie turned back. ‘Listen, Ann, let’s get something straight: it’s one thing what has happened between the adults, but did you know Ed hit James again last week? I went to see the teachers and they said it’s not just James.’ Ann looked at her, startled. Katie carried on: ‘The week before it was taunting a girl in the playground. You need to chat to him.’ Katie turned back to the onions and methodically flipped them over, letting Ann absorb this information.

  After a while, Katie could hear a sniff, then Ann blowing her nose. ‘I had no idea,’ Ann said softly. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Katie. Is James OK?’

  ‘Of course he’s OK,’ bristled Katie. ‘He’s not going to let that affect him,’ she said defensively, ‘but you really need to talk to Ed. He can’t go round the school taking out your situation on his friends.’

  Suddenly Ann burst into tears. ‘Paul’s left.’

  Katie turned around and sighed, folded her arms across her chest. ‘Not surprised, really. Are you?’

  Tears were trickling down Ann’s cheek and she brushed them away. Katie glanced at her, wiped her hands on her heavy white apron, then turned back and carried on stirring the onions. Life doesn’t stop when you’re facing your husband’s mistress, she thought wryly, watching the small bits of onion turn translucent underneath her spatula. The kids still need dinner, swimming lessons go on, but the world feels different.

  She realised Ann was talking to her.

  ‘Well, no I guess not… He’s gone to his mum’s, Melbourne. He called when he got there, said he didn’t know how long he’d be, in fact,’ she sniffed, ‘didn’t know if he’d ever come back.’ Her voice grew quieter. ‘I’ve just told him that it’s over – that I wanted to start proceedings for shared custody of Ed.’ Her voice caught, then she fell silent.

  Start proceedings? Katie turned round, holding the spatula in her hand. ‘What gives you the moral high ground, Ann? You are the one who’s been unfaithful. He won’t accept that, will he?’

  ‘He won’t accept—’ She stopped. ‘There is an awful lot you don’t know, Katie.’ She shook her head. ‘What Paul’s done. It’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about – that and—’ She abruptly stopped.

  ‘What don’t I know?’ said Katie.

  ‘What he’s done to me.’ Ann looked at her and frowned.

  ‘And what about what you’ve done to him—’

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’ Ann said agitated.

  ‘Ann, it’s not his fault you couldn’t have another baby…’ Katie stared at Ann, her eyes wide.

  ‘Yes it is,’ she whispered quietly, so that Katie had to stand opposite her. ‘It’s his fault because he killed our baby.’ Tears welled up again in her eyes and she quickly brushed them away with the back of her hand.

  ‘What?’

  Katie stood with her mouth open as Ann carried on: ‘I promised that as long as he agreed to the settlement papers for Ed quickly, then nobody would know.’

  The sweet aroma of simmering onions filled the room around them. Katie felt powerless to do anything but stare at Ann. She held on to the side of the table and leant in closer. �
��What are you talking about, Ann?’

  ‘I mean, Katie, that seeing as he used to hit me, blamed me for not producing more children… that when I was in hospital that time, it wasn’t an “ectopic” pregnancy – it was a miscarriage. He’d hit me so hard I fell down the stairs. I lost the baby…’ Her voice trailed off. She took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.

  Suddenly it hit Katie right between the eyes. The realisation boomerang: it had been coming back and forth all along but she’d missed the clues: the bruised wrists, why Paul had been so rough with her at the Christmas party; Katie shook herself, felt guilty as she remembered what had happened in the pantry. Had Ann seen them? But nothing happened – Paul was drunk. But if she had, did that mean she felt she could help herself to Katie’s husband? Without warning, she felt angry again.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you’ve been through, Ann, but it doesn’t excuse you and Tom…’ Even as she said it, Katie didn’t sound convinced. She watched as tears trickled down Ann’s face, and then she was sobbing.

  Katie wanted to get to the bottom of what the hell Ann thought she was doing with Tom – and yet – and yet – the blasted she-devil was back: you were sort of thrilled Paul wanted you… that Ann might have seen you. How was she to know nothing happened? And what about Adam? It’s not hard, is it? And then she felt awful; heard Tom’s words in the hotel room go round and round in her head: two sides to every story, Katie…

  ‘I know, I know it doesn’t excuse us – Katie?’ Ann was looking up at her, brushing a pile of crumbs into the corner of the table absent-mindedly. ‘God, Katie, I’m so, so sorry. I just couldn’t help it. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘I’m not sure if it is all your fault, Ann…’ Suddenly Katie wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the gory details.

  ‘It only started just before your Christmas party last year. Tom was always so nice to me, listened to what I was saying about the IVF, seemed to genuinely be interested, so gentle, so unlike Paul…’ Her voice was quiet. She took a huge breath, then put her head in her hands. ‘I suppose I was punishing Paul. Some days were worse than others on the IVF roller coaster. Paul was so desperate for more children, so brutal with me about it all.’ She swept the crumbs to the other side of the table. ‘We’d argued for years, but I just couldn’t cope with being a failure as a woman… I started to sort of blame Paul, and then—’ she coughed ‘—then he started to blame me, punish me. First verbally, then, it got more serious.’

  Katie noticed she was rubbing her wrist. There was still a small red mark on it.

  ‘This is only the mark you can see,’ Ann said, holding up her wrists. ‘But there’s more,’ she said pulling the sleeve up on her smock. Katie gasped. As Ann’s thin cotton sleeve rose, she saw the full extent of Paul’s anger: faint red scarring right across the top of her arms and across her shoulders.

  ‘Jesus, Ann, what’s that?’

  ‘Scars from falling down the stairs when he pushed me. The nurses at the hospital were suspicious. Wanted to get the police involved. I said no at the time. They couldn’t do anything unless I agreed.’ Ann wrung her hands together and stared across at Katie. ‘He wanted a baby so badly, Katie.’ She looked up shaking her head. ‘But in fact he killed the one growing inside me.’

  A mixture of horror and sympathy flooded through Katie as she sat down heavily next to her at the table.

  ‘You can’t imagine what it did to my body. Every time I saw someone pregnant after that I’d want to kill myself; I was so low sometimes.’

  How must it feel, thought Katie, to yearn for a baby so much, to have been pregnant, lose the baby – for your husband to have killed that very baby. To live with someone you can’t trust.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave him, Ann?’

  ‘Ed,’ she said, quietly, her shoulders slumped. ‘Paul is still his dad.’ She shrugged. ‘For better, for worse, eh? And I don’t suppose Paul told you the real reason he asked you to take Ed to school that day?’

  Katie shook her head, couldn’t believe Paul had hit Ann a second time. ‘He’d hit you again?’ Katie asked gently.

  ‘No, not that time,’ said Ann shaking her head. ‘I’d taken a huge dose of Paracetamol, but then threw up. I felt awful…’

  ‘Ann – I really don’t know what to say.’ Katie stared at her friend; she felt, more than anything, pity for this woman. She felt some of her anger seep away. She reached out and held her hand. Then just as suddenly, she let it go. The smell of burning onions filled the kitchen.

  ‘Hang on, don’t make me feel guilty, Ann,’ she said, sitting up straight. ‘You thought you’d go after my husband instead, as yours was sort of faulty goods, eh?’ Katie said scraping her chair back and standing up.

  Ann stared at her, the colour in her face draining away. She looked like a little bird, a tiny sparrow drenched in sweat.

  ‘It’s all my fault, Katie, I absolutely swear. I mean, about Tom, that is.’

  ‘Really?’ Katie sighed, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Don’t you think Tom might have had just a teeny bit to do with it?’

  ‘Well…’ She wiped her sweaty fringe away from her forehead. ‘But stop punishing him, Katie – it’s been going on long enough,’ said Ann looking up, challenging her.

  Katie stared at her, mouth open. ‘How would you bloody well know what was “long enough”?’

  ‘You know, Katie,’ sighed Ann, ‘if you want the truth he said you were just so unavailable to him. He… he… said the parenting was stifling you…’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Katie, he said he wanted just a fraction of the girl that he married. And she’s there! Right here. I’ve seen her, Katie, you just get too wrapped up in all this,’ Ann swept her hands round the kitchen.

  ‘How dare you!’ Katie said in a low voice, twisting the tea towel around in her hand. ‘Don’t come here giving me marriage and housekeeping advice when you have slept with my husband. You have messed up my marriage!’ Then she bit her lip. She went over to the pan of burning onions and whisked it off the heat, threw it into the sink.

  Suddenly it was Katie’s turn for tears. Huge sobs erupted as she stared at the pan hissing in the water. The onions floated up to the surface of the greasy washing-up water like little boats in a huge ocean of bubbles.

  ‘So much of me has been suffocated with the kids, the demands, the pressure of money. God, what a mess.’

  Ann came up behind her and tried to put her hand on her shoulder. Katie shook her off and stared into the garden.

  ‘It’s not a mess, Katie,’ Ann said behind her, ‘you’ve got a fabulous husband, who doesn’t stop talking about you, half the time. He does love you. He just, I don’t know… needed to be shown some affection.’

  She knew she should be angry, but she felt oddly buoyed. Didn’t stop talking about me? She had been drowning in motherhood, yes, and being on her own for nearly four months had made her miss Tom, miss him more than she ever knew possible. She stood, staring out at the pink-tinged frangipanis and realised how much she wanted to be held again, wanted to be close to Tom, wanted the pain to go away.

  ‘Oh, Katie, I’m so, so sorry…’

  Katie frowned and turned around to watch Ann running out of the room and into the bathroom where she heard retching sounds.

  ‘Ann?’ Katie found her slumped over the toilet, sweat across her brow.

  ‘You all right? What’s wrong? You’ve looked terrible since you got here.’

  Ann stared up at Katie. Her face was a peculiar olive colour; there was a damp patch between her breasts from the sweat.

  ‘Well, yes and no.’ She managed a very small smile. ‘It’s what I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. I don’t know how to tell you this, Katie,’ she said closing her eyes and sighing deeply, then looking up at her, her blonde bob matted to her head. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Katie felt that sensation in the pit of her stomach normally reserved for those awful nightmares she kept having lately where sh
e was driving down a very steep hill in a fast car – and her foot could never reach the brake pedal.

  ‘With. Tom’s Baby?’ Katie could barely get the words out.

  Ann nodded. ‘Maybe.’ She closed her eyes. Opening them again she looked at Katie. ‘It’s twins.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I’m five months already.’

  Katie could only stare at Ann. Then she felt herself sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor.

  39

  ‘Darling – you all right? You sound terrible. I’m the one who’s been to a funeral!’ Katie’s mum was trying to be jolly, but Katie winced, hurt at the accusation. She knew she’d neglected her mum, knew she should have called before. Bad, bad daughter. And yet, the whole merry-go-round had stopped for a while, as if someone had hit the pause button. For the past few weeks, it had been like she was seeing the world again in slow motion, hearing the fairground music start up and forcing herself to step up and onto it, onto the carousel of life. The world had been going on, she’d been ‘going on’, on the outside at least. She had just got through it, felt entirely isolated, shipwrecked on the inside. Just when she was about to give Tom another chance…

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’ Katie looked round the room absent-mindedly and took a deep breath. Her mum had been to her friend’s funeral in Wales today – one of her oldest friends. She did tell her last week. Useless, useless daughter; she had forgotten to call.

  ‘Anyway, it was a lovely service,’ her mum sniffed down the phone.

  ‘Oh I’m glad, Mum. Sorry I didn’t call earlier, really I am. Got a lot on my plate.’

  ‘Always have, dear.’

  Katie took the reprimand silently. She wanted to go, wanted to get off the phone as she really would be in tears soon, after last week’s news. She wanted to tell her mum that she needed to leave for the school run, that her grandsons were fixated with poo and being naked, but she was quite sure that wouldn’t be a comfort on the day you buried one of your best friends.