‘Both of my girls here at once and it’s not even Christmas,’ she said, pretending to look baffled, but not quite hiding her delight. She had her chef’s apron on, and Toby on her hip, hands splayed out like starfish at the sight of his mother. A spicy waft of freshly baked Christmas cake floated through from the kitchen. ‘Eric! Turn off that television – we’ve got two visitors!’
‘Hello, Toby,’ said Juliet, in her squeaky baby voice. Probably better to use him as a distraction. ‘Have you been making Christmas cake with Granny? Bit early for that, isn’t it?’
‘We’re getting organised this year,’ said Diane, looking flustered. ‘Did some wrapping last night, didn’t we, Toby? Look, here’s Mummy! Have you two had elevenses yet? I’ll put the kettle on . . .’
Louise held her arms out and Toby leaped into them. Her brave face crumpled, and she had to press his head into her shoulder so he didn’t see her well up. Luckily, Diane didn’t notice, already on the way to the kitchen to slaughter the fatted fruit cake.
‘Do you want me to tell her?’ Juliet murmured, and Louise shook her head. She looked determined, if tired.
‘No, I will. It’s my screw-up.’
She took a deep breath, and headed towards the kitchen. ‘Mum,’ Juliet heard her say, ‘can I have a word?’
The kitchen door closed behind them.
Juliet went into the sitting room with Toby and the dogs, where her dad was watching an old episode of Antiques Roadshow.
‘Hello, love,’ he said, when she sat down on the sofa next to him. Coco leaped up between them, and he patted her head absent-mindedly. ‘Don’t tell your mother Coco’s on the sofa.’
‘I won’t,’ said Juliet. ‘I won’t tell her you’ve hidden your fudge in that SnackaJacks bag either,’ she added, helping herself.
They sat in companionable silence, Toby playing with some boxes on the floor, oblivious to the dogs. Juliet forced herself to listen to the television, instead of straining her ears to hear what was going on in the kitchen. Was that a cry of horror? Sobs?
‘Now that’s a nice bit of pottery,’ said Eric, as an old lady pretended not to know her commemorative Wedgwood bowl was worth ‘upwards of a hundred pounds’.
‘Mrs Cox has got three of those,’ said Juliet. ‘She lets her cats drink out of one of them.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
This is the whole point of family, she thought. The security of a good dull conversation about Antiques Roadshow. Whatever’s going on in the kitchen, Louise has got us. We’ll close around her, the way they did for me.
Juliet reached across Coco’s solid back and put her arm around her father, pressing her head against his checked shirt.
‘I love you, Dad,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
Eric made an embarrassed grunting noise and pushed the SnackaJacks packet towards her. Juliet helped herself to an extra-large bit with chocolate on it.
Chapter 25
Juliet lowered the baking tray onto the kitchen table and inspected the contents for scorches, spreading, cracks or weird floury bits where something hadn’t mixed right.
There weren’t any of the above. Just four lines of perfect butter cookies, golden brown and neatly edged.
‘Blimey,’ she said to Minton. ‘That’s three in a row. Do you think I might be getting the old mojo back?’
Minton wagged his tail half-heartedly, but it was past midnight, and Juliet wasn’t really expecting excitement from a dog who was usually in bed several hours earlier these days. Minton’s late-night forays to Tesco were behind him.
She broke one of the hot biscuits in half, wafted it around and then nibbled at it, burning her tongue. It tasted delicious, so delicious that she nearly cried with relief.
Juliet had been seized by a sudden need to bake at ten that night, after watching a programme about some banker who’d given up her job to make gluten-free cupcakes that looked, to Juliet, as if they tasted of knitting wool. It was the first time since Ben died that she’d actually wanted to bake something; she didn’t count the fruitless sessions she’d forced herself through. Scared of failing – because then she’d know she’d really lost it – she’d chosen a recipe she could make with her eyes closed, put on the late-night radio phone-in and let her hands go through the motions.
The results sat before her on her stackable cooling racks: three storeys of crisp butter cookies made with the cutters ‘Minton’ had given her the Christmas he arrived – bones, Scottie dogs, kennels.
Juliet had churned out thousands of butter cookies over the years, cut and iced into bootees, footballs, golf bags, wedding bells. But none of them tasted as good as these did, hot from the oven in the middle of the night, cooked with some dubious out-of-date ingredients.
The rain spattered cosily against the kitchen window while the radio caller burbled on about the state of the bus station. Juliet leaned back against her unfinished kitchen cabinets and surveyed the mess of scales, bowls and spoons around her. If it wasn’t the middle of the night, she’d have called Lorcan to give her a second opinion. He liked cookies. He’d eaten enough ropey ones over the past few months – he deserved some that had turned out right.
In fact, maybe that should be her next project: brownies. A lightbulb went on over Juliet’s head. She should see if she could make better brownies than Lorcan’s famous recipe, and get the Kellys to judge.
A smile spread over her face as she scribbled the shopping list on the chalkboard – more eggs, cocoa, flour, sugar. She contemplated pulling on her boots and going out now, to the all-night Tesco, her old haunt, but decided against it. Juliet didn’t mind shopping during the day so much now.
And Louise. Louise could probably do with some biscuits too.
She pulled out her scales again, to make another batch while she was on a roll. It felt nice to be helping her family for a change, supporting them instead of being the one who needed propping up. She was still a widow, but some days Juliet was too busy being a sister, or an auntie for it to be her first thought.
‘You know what, Minton? I think I’m safe to go back to work,’ she said aloud, but as she said it, she immediately wondered if that was what she really wanted.
On the other side of town, Louise was curled up on her sofa, listening to the rain drumming on the roof of her conservatory. It was way past her bedtime too, but she was so far off falling asleep that she couldn’t be bothered going through the bedtime motions.
She desperately needed a good night’s sleep. She had to go in to work in the morning; three days off was about as far as she could stretch a mystery stomach bug when she was famous in the office for taking a case in court even when she was in the first stages of labour.
Should have made it a broken leg, thought Louise wryly. Susie from the NCT group was married to a doctor; she could have pulled in the sick note as a favour she was owed for that parking-fine advice.
As the thought wriggled across her mind, Louise blanched at the lie. She was on a truth purge now; not even white lies felt acceptable. But all she seemed to do these days was trot out little white lies, to keep everyone else happy.
The person she hated lying to most was Toby. Toby had asked for Daddy every night since Peter had stormed out, five nights ago, and she’d told him Daddy was away on a special business trip and that he’d be back soon. She wasn’t sure how much he’d understood, but the anxious look in his baby-owl eyes made her feel horrible. Being with Mummy at home instead of being at the nursery wasn’t much fun when Mummy was on the brink of tears the whole time and didn’t want to leave the house.
Juliet had called every day, ‘to check she was OK’, and Louise had finally understood how frustrated Juliet must have been when everyone was doing that to her, forcing her to say, ‘I’m fine,’ when she obviously wasn’t. Juliet had even dropped round to see if she wanted to join her and her collection of mutts on a head-clearing march around town, but Louise wasn’t so sure the disaster she’d created c
ould be sorted out by hauling a Labrador up a hill.
Her mum had called – more white lies about being fine; even Michael had called, late the previous night, after Toby was in bed.
Michael. Louise’s stomach turned over. When she’d heard his voice, she’d felt an almost physical sadness, and all the smart things she’d been going to say in her letter slid out of her brain. He’d been apologetic, and sad, but he hadn’t expressed any regrets, and he hadn’t suggested meeting again.
She’d been sad too. Hearing his voice made her realise how much she missed his observations, his questions. In a different time, or a different place, they could have been best friends, maybe more. In some parallel existence, spiralling off in another dimension, maybe they had both decided to leave and she’d become that different person she’d always secretly wanted to be – funkier clothes, interesting parties, husband who knew about land and history, not obscure programming codes she didn’t understand.
As they’d spoken, Louise had wandered around the house and had found herself in front of her wall of wedding photographs. Her and Peter, the new Mr and Mrs Davies, dancing at their reception, Juliet and Ben hand in hand at their own wedding, their parents beaming with pride at Toby’s christening. Happy. Happy families.
I still want to be that woman, she’d thought, with a yearning that took her by surprise. The intensity of the feeling had burned away the last traces of longing for her parallel reality life, and as Michael had told her about Anna applying for full custody of Tasha, she’d realised she was listening, not fighting back jealousy.
Parallel Louise had drifted off into the realms of fantasy, trailing her fancy scarves and amusing friends, and real-life Louise had let the certainty of her decision settle inside her, anchoring her to the wooden floor of her home.
When Michael had rung off, Louise had sunk onto the sofa and cried for half an hour, from relief as much as anything else. Then she’d washed her hair and blow-dried it back into the smooth bob she used to be able to do in under five minutes.
That was last night. Tonight, no phone calls. Still no call from Peter.
The rain intensified on the conservatory roof and Louise considered the little bottle of American sleeping pills Juliet had given her, themselves an offering from her jet-lag expert neighbours. She shook the bottle. Four in there. Not enough to do ‘anything silly’, as her mother would put it. It was tempting to take one to help her get through the night, but if Juliet had resisted them with a dead husband, surely she ought to be up to coping with just a missing one? And then Toby was upstairs. She couldn’t knock herself out with a baby in the house.
Louise’s body was heavy with weariness, while her brain raced. She needed some rest. She had to face her mother in the morning when she dropped Toby off, and she’d want to know what was going on. Louise hated not knowing what to say. It made her feel so powerless, and this exhaustion was making her say stupid things.
Half a tablet. What harm would that do? It was no worse than a glass of—
A key turned in the door and Louise sprang to her feet, rushing through to the hall.
Peter was standing in the doorway, his hair plastered to his head, and the shoulders of his mac soaked. He looked ten years older, tired and drawn. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and he had a loose sort of anger about him that she didn’t recognise. He was carrying the squash bag he’d taken with him the night he’d left the house, and a suitcase she assumed he’d borrowed from his friend Hugh, with whom he’d been staying. Both bags looked empty.
As soon as Louise saw him, her lovely, quiet man, standing there in the house again, where he belonged, the carefully prepared list of points she’d made broke down under the tidal wave of words, spilling out of her mouth.
‘Peter, we need to have a proper talk,’ Louise gabbled. ‘I want to explain. I need you to understand how much you mean to me, how much our marriage means.’
‘Do you?’ he said.
‘Yes! I still love you. I always loved you. It’s just that the last year and a half has been so hard for me, with Toby and maternity leave and everything. We’re both always so tired. But it’s normal for couples to go through rough patches. You read about it all the time; it’s the hardest part of any marriage, the first few years with children. We have to readjust . . .’
Peter hadn’t moved from the door, and when she took a step towards him, her hands outstretched, he shrank, and that hurt Louise more than a slap would have done.
‘Is that what you were doing?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Readjusting? On a park bench with some married man from the NCT group?’
‘Yes,’ said Louise, riled out of her pleading by the steel in his tone. It hadn’t all been her fault. ‘I was trying to work out if I was still a person or if I only actually existed as the mother of your child.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That you stopped talking to me like an adult, once you were back at work and I was stuck at home all day! All we ever talked about was Toby’s routine, or what you’d been doing at work. I was going mad with boredom, but you didn’t want to see. I didn’t just turn into a different person when Toby was born, Peter. I’m still me!’
It was Peter’s turn to look as if he’d been slapped. ‘So it was my fault you had an affair? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘No! But Michael listened to me. He made me feel I had something to say other than, “Where are the baby wipes?”’
Peter flinched at the mention of Michael’s name, and his face hardened, as if he too had gone off piste with his prepared questions. ‘How many times did you sleep with him?’
The effort of controlling himself showed in the twitching muscle near his eye. Louise knew she’d hurt him and her bravado slipped.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters!’ Peter’s eyes flashed. ‘How many times? And don’t lie to me, Louise.’
Louise’s jaw tightened. She had a sudden flashback to the diving board she and Juliet had had to dive off at swimming club. Juliet had gone first, jumped off straight away. Even taken a run-up off the board, whereas Louise had counted the steps on the way up, picturing the drop increasing with each one.
There was no way back from this. It was going to hurt, but she had to be honest.
‘Once,’ she said. ‘Once, and I knew I’d made a mistake.’
As she spoke, Peter’s shoulders dropped and his whole body seemed to deflate. Louise realised he’d been hoping she’d say, ‘Never. We never slept together. It was just talking.’
‘I’m telling you the truth so we can start again,’ she wailed. ‘I made a mistake! I made one stupid mistake, but now I know what a mistake it was, and I want to get some help so we can rebuild our marriage, because it means everything to me. Our family’s all I’ve ever wanted . . .’
Peter pushed past her, heading for the stairs with his empty bags.
‘Where are you going?’ she yelled after him, then remembered Toby was sleeping in his nursery. ‘Don’t wake Toby.’
‘I’m going to get some more of my things,’ he said, in a furious whisper.
‘Don’t,’ begged Louise. ‘Come home. We can talk about this and sort it out. I’ve found a counsellor. We can get some . . .’
Peter spun round and glared at her. Even in the darkness he looked livid. ‘I can’t bear to be here. The whole town has seen my wife gazing into the eyes of some other man, and you want me to be here playing Happy Families? Louise, you can organise most things in your life, but you cannot organise my feelings.’
Louise recoiled, and Peter went into the bedroom and began shoving socks and pants into his squash bag, socks that she’d rolled up and filled into neat honeycomb segments.
‘I’ll come round tomorrow night after work to see Toby,’ he continued. ‘I don’t want him to suffer. If you want to go out, that’s fine.’
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I want us to talk.’
‘Well, I don’t. Not until I know wh
at I think.’ He went over to the wardrobe and shoved in an armful of shirts, still on the hangers. The hangers were Louise’s concession to her reduced ironing time. Before Toby, they’d been neatly folded and laid in the chest of drawers like tiles.
‘Are you still staying with Hugh? Does he know? What did you tell him?’
‘Seriously, Louise?’ Peter turned and looked at her disparagingly. ‘Is that all you care about? What people will think about our marriage? Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that now everyone in town’s had a good look at it?’
‘No one will know it’s me,’ she pleaded. ‘If it was so obvious, someone would have said something . . .’ But she didn’t believe it herself, and he knew it.
There was a grumble from Toby’s room, the preliminaries to a full-on scream.
‘Don’t go in,’ said Louise. ‘It’ll unsettle him to see you. I’ll do it.’
For a second, she thought Peter was about to go in, just to defy her, but he seemed to think better of it.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe,’ he said, and turned back to his packing.
With her heart aching, Louise went in to settle their son.
Chapter 26
As the autumnal days got shorter, Juliet’s timetable got tighter, as she aimed to squeeze all her dog-walking commitments into the diminishing window of daylight hours between the misty mornings and the dark afternoons.
People were already talking about it being a white winter. She had to wrap up more every day, heading out across the frost-rimmed fields in her woolly hat and big coat, with socks inside her boots to keep her toes warm when it rained. And there was no choice about going out, whatever the weather; the gloomier it got, the more calls she had from fair-weather owners, but Juliet was so busy with the clients she had that she only took on new walkers if her regulars said yes.
Minton, Hector, Coco and Damson didn’t care about the drizzle or the chilly November air, barking at the plumes of white breath that billowed out of their mouths on cold mornings after their frantic ball-chasing. Juliet soon found she was less bothered about weather conditions too. If it wasn’t for the dogs, Juliet wouldn’t have noticed the rusty autumn colour palette of the woodland ferns, or enjoyed the crackling echo of dead twigs in the woods when she was the only person there.