Juliet’s brain emptied. She never knew what to say to Peter; he didn’t have the usual bloke hobbies. They usually ended up talking about his iPhone.
‘Thanks for giving up your Friday night,’ Peter went on. ‘We both really appreciate it, and I know Toby’s happy to see his Auntie Jools. Aren’t you?’
‘No problem,’ said Juliet, shifting a compliant Toby further up her hip. Peter was looking very magazine spread too, in his suit and . . . blimey, yellow shirt. House looked like Elle Decoration. Mum and baby looked like Red. Husband was like cover star of Men’s Health, but without the surf shorts. ‘I hear it’s date night?’
She looked over at Louise, but she was busy putting emergency milk bottles together on the side, and didn’t react.
Peter laughed his quick, controlled laugh. ‘I don’t remember dates taking this much organising in the old days. Still, I think it’ll be worth it. The wine’s meant to be excellent. Maybe we should do it again, and you can come too?’ He glanced between his wife and her sister. ‘Hey, how about you two girls go one evening? I’ll pick up the tab. Call it a late birthday present?’
Louise turned round and this time Juliet thought she caught an expression of constipated horror on her face.
Either Louise hates Peter saying, ‘Hey,’ too or she’s appalled at the idea of a night out with me, she thought, and was surprised by the hurt that needled her chest.
Well, she wasn’t thrilled by the idea either. What would they talk about? Louise’s guilty secret or hers? Great night out.
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘So, what do I need to know?’
Peter pointed to Louise. ‘Over to you, Lou. Don’t you have one of your famous lists?’
‘Oh, it’s not a list,’ said Louise hurriedly. ‘It’s just . . . well, it is a list, but it’s more for me than for you, so I don’t miss anything off. Some numbers – you’ve got our mobiles, of course, but this is where we are, and that’s Peter’s mum’s number, in case you need her . . .’
‘Would you like me to water any plants?’ asked Juliet. ‘Check any vegetables? Move post?’
Louise’s expression was blank.
‘It’s what I do for pet-sitting,’ explained Juliet. ‘It was a joke.’
God, it was depressing, having to explain jokes the whole time. It really made her think twice about bothering. If it wasn’t for her mother and Louise worrying about her ‘mood’, she wouldn’t.
‘Oh! Ha ha! No, it’s fine,’ said Louise, although she looked a bit askance, probably at having Toby put on the same care schedule as Bianca and Boris Cox. ‘But feel free to eat whatever you like out of the fridge, and make long-distance calls to your boyfriend.’ She stopped, and added, anxiously, ‘Joke. It’s what we used to do when we babysat the McGregors. Sorry, it’s not a joke at all now I think about it.’
‘It’s OK. You stick to the lists.’ Juliet gave Toby a heave up her hip. He was heavy, and getting heavier by the second as he started to go to sleep. It was nice, but she was bothered that one of her runaway emotions – broodiness, or regret – might ambush her before Louise and Peter had a chance to leave, and it’d get back to their mother. ‘Should we get him into bed? His batteries seem to have run flat.’
‘Yes.’ Louise reached out her arms and Juliet gratefully handed him back, just as a car sounded its horn outside.
‘Perfect timing! That’ll be our taxi,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll nip out and grab him, before he decides to take off.’
‘Great,’ said Louise. ‘I’ll be three minutes!’
Was there something a bit off about the pair of them tonight, wondered Juliet. Too many exclamation marks, too many shiny smiles. Or was she just accustomed to the silent, non-exclamation-marked company of pets?
Probably that, she thought, following Louise upstairs.
Toby went down obediently, and Juliet and Louise crept out of the blacked-out nursery.
‘I’ll call you, let you know how it’s going,’ whispered Louise as she shrugged her cropped jacket on. It matched the dress. It had probably been bought all at the same time in an ‘outfit’. Louise always bought in outfits, and she always looked coordinated, even when she was on maternity leave, living in her Sweaty Betty yoga separates.
‘No need. We’ll be fine. Have a nice time.’ Juliet found something nice to say. ‘It’s good to see you guys spending time together.’
Louise paused at the door, keys in her hand, and suddenly her face was vulnerable beneath the perfect make-up. ‘We’re not . . .’ she whispered, then stopped. ‘I mean, Peter’s calling it a date, but we’re . . .’
‘You’re allowed to have a nice night out,’ said Juliet, firmly. ‘Life goes on, as Mum likes to say, when she forgets she’s not supposed to say it any more.’
That wasn’t quite what Louise had meant, and she knew it, but it wasn’t the time to get into that.
Louise chewed her lip. ‘We won’t be late.’
‘Go,’ said Juliet, pushing her out as the taxi hooted.
Babysitting was actually less stressful than pet-sitting, as it turned out.
Juliet settled herself on Louise’s huge leather sofa, with the television remote and a stack of Diet Cokes, a pile of glossy magazines and the baby monitor parked in her sight line. She didn’t even have to talk to Toby, as she did with Hector, or the Cox cats. She just had to listen in now and again to check he was breathing.
Peter and Louise had the full Sky package, and Juliet enjoyed flicking through it for half an hour or so, before realising that she’d seen most of it already on terrestrial TV. She didn’t really mind. As ever, just being in someone else’s house was entertainment enough. Only this felt weirder than usual, because she was in the framed family photos that filled the wall around the phone table. The old version of her, where she was half of a pair.
Juliet heaved herself off the sofa, to give it a closer, house-investigator inspection. Unlike the jumbled wall in her bedroom, Louise had clearly arranged hers with the help of a spirit level, and the frames were an artful selection, rather than a mish-mash.
There she was with Mum and Dad at Louise’s wedding, in the ‘bride’s side’ photo, with Ben standing by her, arm slung round her shoulders, beaming with pride.
Ben had been an usher, but he hadn’t hired a dove-grey morning suit, like all Peter’s university mates. He’d gone in a suit she’d bought for him, a pale-blue linen one that had matched her own simple sunshine-yellow bridesmaid’s dress much better. He’d worn it again, just a few months later, for their own spur-of-the-moment wedding.
Well, not exactly spur-of-the-moment. Not after nine years. But after the enormous complicated shenanigans of Louise and Peter’s big day, Juliet had decided that she couldn’t put her parents through that again, not for a ceremony that wasn’t really her anyway, and so she and Ben had practically eloped. The thing that she remembered most about their wedding day was the ramshackle bunch of cuttings he’d brought her in the morning, each one meaning something symbolic.
Ben wasn’t the most academic man in the world, but he knew the language of flowers better than anyone.
‘Rosemary, so you’ll remember all the happy times we’ve had. Heliotrope, for lifelong love. Eucalyptus, because I’ll always protect you . . .’
Juliet closed her eyes in Louise’s sitting room, hearing Ben’s voice in her mind, as he held each stem between his thick fingers to show her, his open, honest face full of love, and her thumbnail went automatically to her third finger, where her wedding ring had been, until seeing it every day had hurt too much, and she’d taken it off.
Everyone freaked out, but she couldn’t stand to be reminded that she was still there, the ring was still there, but the other warm, breathing part of her marriage was gone. Maybe on the anniversary, she thought, I’ll be strong enough to put it back on. On a chain round my neck, maybe.
There was a crackle on the baby monitor and Juliet sprang back to attention, her ears twisting for a cry.
Nothing. Better check,
she thought, slipping off her shoes to creep upstairs as quietly as possible.
There was more photographic evidence to inspect and enjoy on the way up: Louise’s university netball team, debating team, all gilded and lettered. Peter’s too. Peter had been in Bridge Club, Badminton Club, Orienteering Soc., all the nerdy kids’ teams, crouched in awkward poses around various Oxford courtyards.
At the top were Louise’s BAGA gymnastics certificates from school, lavishly framed as a Christmas gift from her and Diane, to go with the rest of the hall of fame. Neither Louise nor Peter did irony, so the gilt frames had been a bit wasted. They’d just thanked them, bemused, and hung it with the rest of their certificates.
Juliet felt uncomfortable now, looking at it. It was meant to be an affectionate joke, but maybe Louise had thought they were being sarcastic? Cruel, even? It was tempting to take it down, now she was here on her own. It would be even better if she could say to Louise, ‘you do know we love your high-achieving, box-ticking ways, don’t you?’ but since their big row, she felt as if Louise was reading double and triple meanings into everything she said, and the gulf between them was growing every day.
The sad thing was that their falling out had come at the end of a few months when they’d been closer than they’d ever been, on the back of their weddings, and Louise having Toby, and her and Ben talking about starting their own family. Maternity leave had suited Louise; she’d loosened up a bit, let herself eat bread and watch daytime telly. When she and Ben had gone through a hard patch, it seemed very natural to open up to her big sister, but then Louise had taken a slug of wine and come out with her own bombshell.
Juliet frowned, remembering. Louise had confessed that she had a crush, and that it was getting out of hand. That in itself was bizarre enough, coming from Judgey McJudgeson, but she’d been so cagey about who it was, where they’d met and so on that Juliet had started to think that maybe the object of Louise’s crush was someone she knew.
Louise claimed to be agonised, but the feverish gleam in her eyes had given away a very different Louise to the calm, sensible wife and mother Juliet knew, and it had rattled her. She’d been the one who’d gone over there, worried about these cracks appearing in her so-called perfect marriage, but hearing Louise, who was supposed to advise her, say that sent her into fresh panic. What if all marriages self-destructed at a certain point, and that the raggedness she felt really was the beginning of the end?
If she hadn’t been distracted by the wine and her own problems, she might have been able to listen properly to what Louise was saying. Juliet wasn’t proud of her hormonal flouncing out, on reflection. Compared with the devastation that followed, what was a little crush?
There was a grumble from the nursery, which turned into a whinge. Juliet held her breath and pushed the door open, letting in a shaft of soft light as she peered round.
Toby was sitting up in his cot, staring out through the bars like a caged penguin. His hair was spiky against his pale face.
Juliet smiled, then hesitated, not sure what she should do. Was it better to leave him or pick him up? Would he sense her inexperience and bawl the house down if she tried to soothe him back to sleep?
She couldn’t get past it, because Louise was so lucky, she thought, a fierce sense of injustice piercing her chest. She had everything Juliet had lost – and she still thought she could gamble with it. It felt worse now than it had done when Louise had told her, because she didn’t even know whether Louise was still seeing this man who made her face glow like a teenager. Maybe she had that too.
Toby gazed at her through the bars, expecting some affection and attention.
Juliet went over to the cot and picked him out, feeling his sleepy weight against her chest. He nuzzled into her and she felt her heart contract.
What were you meant to say to babies? The same as you said to cats and dogs, presumably – anything that didn’t require a response. Juliet had plenty of that sort of conversation.
‘Hello,’ she murmured into his downy head. ‘Hello, Toby.’
That seemed to go down OK.
Juliet paused, feeling a bit stupid, then went on, ‘Do you know what Ben and I wanted to call your cousin, if they’d come along? Hmm? Lily, if she was a little girl. Isn’t that a pretty name? Lily Iris Falconer. Or Arthur Quentin for a boy. Don’t laugh at the Quentin; it was Ben’s granddad’s name. We thought Q would be a cool nickname. You’re the only person who knows that . . .’ She stopped. It felt strange saying it aloud; worse for hearing it, better for getting it out of her head and into the light.
‘That we thought we might have had a baby. It didn’t work out, though. Not that time. Then we didn’t really get our act together.’ She swallowed. Juliet had wept so bitterly in those bare winter months after Ben died, that thanks to their stupid arguing, she didn’t have a trace of him left after he’d gone. ‘We argued over the silliest things that didn’t matter in the end . . . Your mummy is very lucky.’
Toby said nothing. She didn’t know what he’d wanted her to do; he didn’t seem damp in the nappy area, or sick. So Juliet held him, stroking his head as she did with the cats and dogs, until his eyes drooped shut.
Then she laid him back in his warm cot and sat by his small white chest of drawers clutching the huge Peter Rabbit she and Ben had given him, thinking about how different her life might be, if she hadn’t put off conversations, or measured herself against other people, or waited for Ben to make a decision. But she only knew how pointless all those things were now, when it was too late, and it still didn’t stop her avoiding the big problems that swirled around her even now.
Juliet closed her eyes and listened to Toby’s snuffly breathing. It wasn’t too late for Louise to get herself together. She hoped with all her heart that Louise at least had managed to learn something from all this mess, even if she hadn’t.
It was something she was definitely going to teach Toby. Life was just a big game of Musical Chairs and no one tipped you the wink about when the music would stop.
Chapter 14
‘So how did it go with your old woman with the cats? She didn’t cop on about Boris’s shampoo and set?’
‘No.’ Juliet stuck the little plastic spacers next to her tile, trying to match Lorcan’s neat lines. ‘In fact, she asked me if I’d taken them to the groomer’s, they were looking so great.’
‘Ah. That means she did.’
Of course it meant she did. Mrs Cox had sent Juliet straight back to her piano-lesson days when she’d dropped round to pay her. ‘They look so delightfully glossy,’ she’d said. ‘Have you been giving them vitamins?’
It was the same as the ‘how long did you practise?’ question. It almost made Juliet confess on the spot. But Mrs Cox’s gimlet eye had had a twinkle in it that wasn’t entirely down to her luxury cruise, and Juliet had spent half the fee on a really good bottle of wine for Emer. She owed her.
‘I’m telling myself she didn’t,’ said Juliet. She glanced sideways to the other end of the bath, where Lorcan had already done three tiles. Two white, one glassy green. ‘Anyway, she’s off again in a few weeks’ time, so she’s asked me if I can repeat my excellent service.’
‘Off again?’
‘Again, yes. I had no idea retired people round here had such busy social lives. It’s a whole different world, let me tell you.’ Juliet was starting to revise her preconceptions about widows and cats. The cats were more likely to die alone than the owners, if this lot were anything to go by. ‘I’ve got another cat, opposite Mum’s, that I’ve got to nip in to see this weekend while its owner’s sunning herself in Nice. We used to call it the Witch’s House when we were kids. I’ve always wanted to see inside, and now I can. Which is nice.’
‘Isn’t it putting a bit of a downer on your own social life, all this pet-sitting?’ Lorcan glanced across the bath. ‘While the cat’s away . . . Juliet’s looking after it?’
‘Doesn’t bother me. It’s not like I go anywhere at weekends.’
Juliet focused on getting the next tile, a ‘feature’ green one, dead straight against the dowelling Lorcan had hammered in as a guide.
She liked the green tiles; they weren’t what she’d necessarily have chosen herself, but actually they were perfect. Under the glass was a fine layer of metallic paper, which shimmered like fish scales as the light caught it. And according to Lorcan, she’d have paid twice the price if she’d got them in a shop, instead of from his mate, who just happened to have them surplus.
‘You never go out ever?’
‘Ever.’
There was a pause and Juliet knew she should have made something up. That was the thing about Lorcan; she always forgot to make things up in the flow of talking to him, but he was the only person who made her feel that maybe her life of cats and dogs and Grief Hour and Bargain Hunt wasn’t normal.
It was because the Kellys’ life wasn’t normal, she reminded herself. Most people didn’t schedule their summer holidays around European stadium tours and/or oyster festivals, or whatever Emer had had to get back to Galway for this weekend, leaving Lorcan in charge.
‘Well, if you ever want to come down to the pub with us . . .’ he offered.
‘You’re OK,’ she said, not wanting to intrude. She and Emer saw each other most days for coffee and a dose of gossip (Emer’s was better; Juliet’s was mostly about who was using budget dog food), but she still felt a bit shy about crashing their social life. Knowing Emer’s enthusiastic approach to noise and drink, she wasn’t sure she was ready for it yet. ‘I’m not into shillelaghs. And . . . and . . . green beer.’
‘Irish people don’t just go to Irish pubs,’ he said, huffily. ‘And eat champ and drink Guinness and fight each other.’
‘Joke.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I missed it there, in amongst the casual racism. You’re still welcome. You don’t have to Riverdance.’