She reckoned she probably would have been made to notice the extra effort the groundsmen had made in the park to keep the beds bright with flowers when the trees around the edge were losing their leaves – and she thought of Ben every time she checked in the Spotter’s Guide to Nature she kept in her jacket. It didn’t hurt quite so much to think of him now, or at least, when she wished he were around to share a particularly gorgeous sunset, the pang was gentle, and didn’t make her turn away from it herself.
Juliet reckoned this was progress.
Shorter park hours meant longer DIY hours at home, and when she wasn’t dog-walking, she was sanding down doors or washing walls with Lorcan, who dropped in several times a week, around his other jobs.
Slowly the house was starting to look like a proper home, albeit without a lot of furniture. As Juliet pointed out to her dad when he came to strim the mountain rowan bushes, there were several places you could stand downstairs where it was fresh paint as far as the eye could see. A spare room upstairs was done, as well as most of the downstairs, barring the kitchen; that was a whole project, Juliet knew. Finishing the kitchen also meant finally she had some time to do a few shifts for Kim but only if they fitted in around her dog-walking. Kim seemed fine with that, and Juliet was too, for the time being.
They hadn’t decorated much upstairs because Juliet had been struck by a sudden squeamishness about the bedroom. Changing it would mean painting over the last traces of Ben, and decorating it to her tastes, not theirs. And it’d also mean spending time in there with Lorcan, with the great big elephant-bed in the room, lurking there as reminder of both their complicated pasts.
It wasn’t just her. Lorcan seemed loath to discuss colours or any building work upstairs, apart from sending a mate to inspect the ominous crack. Juliet dreaded hearing that there was some kind of major defect – a few months ago, it was the symbolism of a crack in her bedroom wall that haunted her, but now she was more worried about the actual state of her house.
‘Plaster work,’ had been the verdict. ‘Just don’t get a cowboy plasterer in this time.’
It would have been nice to have had her bedroom done for Christmas, but Juliet didn’t push it, because frankly, things were busy enough as they were. Her afternoons felt like going back to school; the sky turning purple, then black outside as they worked, Lorcan teaching her new skills, and then the tea breaks they had, when they could sit back and admire the improvements, and he could eat her biscuits. So long as there were no burned bits, Lorcan would dunk it, and eat it, and compliment it. Their friendship had blossomed into a jokey, sometimes flirty, sometimes brotherly-sisterly one, and there were times when it almost tipped into something else, only for both of them to back off so fast it was hard to say who’d backed off first.
Still, she thought, on the bright side, the house was finally coming to life around her. Even if her dad was doing the garden and her next-door neighbour was doing the DIY, Myrtle Villa was starting to feel like her home.
Louise had always declined Diane’s invitations to join her merry band of volunteer dog-walkers at the weekends, on account of having better things to do with her precious time off than be hauled across the park by a pack of stir-crazy rescue dogs. She included cleaning, ironing and watching Peter wash the car in that list. Frankly, anything above dental surgery would have been preferable to getting her jeans muddy and her coat hairy.
She’d also dismissed Juliet’s claims that walking Minton had kick-started her brain after months of fuggy grief. Nice, but then surely anything was better than sitting around at home, crying?
So it was with some reluctance – and disbelief – that Louise found herself steering Minton and Hector around the park with Juliet one nippy Saturday morning in early December. Juliet had Coco and a rescue shih-tzu called Gnasher, and Diane was a good ten minutes behind them, thanks to a misbehaving pair of golden Labs.
If Peter hadn’t taken Toby out for the day, leaving her at home with her claustrophobic thoughts, she’d never have agreed to it, but now she was out, and the blood was pounding through her veins (Juliet kept up a professional’s pace), Louise had to admit it was filling in the hours quite well.
Without pausing for breath, Juliet had been telling her all about her new downstairs loo, the one kitted out with a beautiful miniature washbasin that Lorcan had got for a song off a mate doing a warehouse conversion.
It hadn’t been near a warehouse conversion, of course. Louise had found it, Diane had paid for it, and VictorianPlumbing.com had delivered it to the Kellys’ house the previous week, ready for installation. At least Juliet was doing that bit herself, with Lorcan’s help.
‘I even got the wrench out and did the U-bend,’ she was saying, proudly. ‘Lorcan said he’d take me on as a plumber’s mate, if I want another job to add to my portfolio. I’ve got good, strong wrists, apparently. You’d love what we’ve done, Lou. It’s perfect, right down to the brass taps. I keep nipping in there, just to look at the mirror!’
Louise thought about telling Juliet where all the mysteriously convenient building supplies were coming from, but she looked so animated when she talked about her home-improvement lessons that Louise didn’t have the heart to spoil any part of it. The fact that Lorcan seemed to have magical access to everything she really wanted but couldn’t quite afford normally was part of that.
‘So are you and Lorcan . . . ?’ she began, with a leading nudge, but the clouds reappeared in Juliet’s face at once.
‘No,’ said Juliet. ‘We’re friends. I feel lucky to have made friends like Lorcan and Emer – I don’t want to spoil it.’ She kept her eyes fixed on the ball she’d thrown for Minton. ‘Anyway, I’m not ready. I think it’d be really unfair to the other person. I’m not in a position to deal with anyone else’s complications as well as my own.’
‘Is this about Michael?’ Louise asked. She didn’t add, ‘And me.’
‘Michael’s a nice guy, but I don’t want to date him,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s too weird. For you, for me, for him – nightmare. I’m walking Damson still, because she needs me, but . . . No.’
Louise could see her casting about for a change of subject.
‘So where’s Peter taken Toby today?’
‘The petting zoo in Hanleigh.’ Louise yanked Hector’s nose away from Gnasher’s rear end for the tenth time since they’d left. ‘He’s going to be there till three, so I’ve got to be back to change over.’
‘Change over?’
‘He’s going out again. With Hugh. He said he’d be back late – he might even stay over.’ Louise didn’t add that she’d actually prefer that; it was better than putting up with the angry silence that hung between them whenever Toby wasn’t around to witness his parents ignoring each other.
Peter had moved back in, moodily and for Toby’s sake only, but the atmosphere in the house was glacial at best, hostile at worst. It was like living with a flatmate you didn’t get on with.
Juliet turned to her and looked sympathetic. ‘How long’s this going to go on, Lou?’
‘This what?’
‘Stop pretending. Mum’s not here; she can’t hear you. You and Peter – not talking to each other.’
Louise stared straight ahead. The fur trim on her hood prevented Juliet from seeing the pain in her eyes, which was a good thing. In the end she’d bottled out of telling Diane, and instead managed to convince her mother that the tension was just down to a tiff about her working hours and Peter’s snoring, but Juliet was harder to fool. She had antennae for sadness now, and asked questions with a fearless directness that Louise was lacking herself these days in court.
‘How long’s he been home?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘And you’re still living like total strangers? With that . . . that rota he drew up for childcare? I don’t know how you’re coping. I’d be going mad. Wouldn’t it be better if he just moved out properly for a while, to give you chance to clear the air?’
‘No! I don’t want him t
o move out.’ Louise bit her lip. She hadn’t told anyone else this. ‘He was going to rent one of those new-build flats by the hospital, just a studio, but it seemed so final. I went mad and told him to put the money into Toby’s trust fund, not chuck it away. I don’t want people knowing our business – you know what this place is like for gossip.’
She sensed Juliet was looking at her, and she knew what she was going to say.
‘Does it matter what other people think?’
‘Yes,’ said Louise. ‘It does to me. People know me and Peter. I don’t want them talking about us.’
‘You worry too much about what people think,’ said Juliet. ‘Look at me. My husband dropped down dead in the street at thirty-two. Front page of the paper one week and forgotten the next. Anyway, you’d be surprised what you can keep quiet. The Reverend Watkins and his Weimeraner have been living in Councillor Barlow’s house for the last four months.’
‘Have they?’ asked Louise, intrigued.
Juliet flushed. ‘Um, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. Anyway, how long can you keep this up? If you can’t talk to each other, you should go to counselling and let someone else referee,’ she went on. ‘If you don’t clear the air and work out what was wrong to begin with, you might as well stay locked up together in silence for the next fifty years.’
Louise turned her head, surprised by the shift in Juliet’s attitude, and the supportive impatience in her voice. Impatience with Peter, not her. When they’d talked in the car outside Michael’s house, she’d felt the disapproval coming off her sister in waves, despite the hug she’d doled out. She’d felt more chided then by Juliet’s revulsion than by her own shame, and that was saying something. ‘You really think that?’
‘Yes,’ said Juliet. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I think you were stupid, but . . .’ She unclipped Coco’s lead now they’d reached the open part of the park where dogs could run around. One or two other walkers had already unleashed their hounds and Hector was straining at the collar with excitement. ‘It has been pointed out to me that we don’t know what goes on in people’s marriages. And it’s true. We don’t.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt him,’ said Louise. ‘I never wanted that. But things weren’t right. They hadn’t been right for a while.’
‘So fix them.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ she said, thinking of Peter’s pride, his hurt silences. ‘He bottles things up. He’s an only child, like Ben, you know. Hates talking. Won’t come with me to Relate.’
‘Go on your own. He’ll soon get himself along if he thinks you’re getting a head-start on the bitching.’
Louise laughed. She’d forgotten how dry Juliet could be.
‘Seriously, Lou,’ she said, and her voice was urgent, as if Diane might catch up with them at any moment, ‘don’t let this go on any longer. I know you love him, deep down. I know he adores you. And you both adore Toby.’
‘Don’t . . .’
‘This’ll make me sound like the mad auld widow of the West Midlands, but I don’t care. I can’t let you dither around like this any more. You know what the biggest regret of my life is? That the last proper conversation Ben and I had was a row. About something so silly and trivial I can’t really remember what it was. And we weren’t even rowing about that – we were really rowing about both of us wanting a baby, but me not being sure we could manage! So it wasn’t even a proper row. It was a waste.’
‘I wish you’d told me that.’ Louise stopped walking and took her sister’s arm. She could see Juliet’s awful strained expression at the funeral in her mind’s eye, and now it took on a different shade in her head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’
‘Because I worried about what people thought.’ She raised her eyebrow. ‘And you know what? It didn’t matter.’ Juliet’s face was wretched, but she wasn’t crying. ‘I felt guilty for so long, thinking you were judging me, for moaning about him the night before he died.’
‘I never thought that,’ said Louise. ‘I was too busy worrying that I’d told you too much about Michael. I never doubted how much you loved Ben for one second. No one did.’
Minton and Hector were pulling at the lead, trying to follow Coco as she meandered around the fallen leaves, her grey muzzle twitching at the occasional smell. Juliet bent down to let them off, and they disappeared in a flurry of short legs. She didn’t let the rescue dog off, but patted his head and let him sniff her hand, rewarding his patience with a biscuit.
When Juliet stood up again, she pushed her fringe out of her eyes so Louise could see her properly. Her cheeks were pink with the cold air, and her brown eyes were very bright in her pale face. Louise couldn’t help noticing she was wearing make-up for the first time in ages, a pretty dusting of green over her eyelids, the old Juliet flickering behind the sad exterior of the new one.
‘What if Peter doesn’t come home tonight? What if he’s run over, or chokes on something at the petting zoo? What are you going to remember – the years of happiness you and he had, or this stupid silence? Talk to him. For God’s sake.’ She paused. ‘On the surface, you’ve still got it all for everyone to admire. Nice house, nice husband, lovely baby. But what have you really got in the end, if you’re not talking to each other? It’s a shell. It’s a prison.’
Louise had never seen her little sister like this: grown-up and cross and wise. ‘I will talk to him,’ she said, touched. ‘It’s his birthday next weekend. He’s thirty-nine.’
‘Well, make it one to remember,’ said Juliet, and offered her the manky plastic ball-thrower contraption. ‘Here, have a go with this.’
‘What do you do?’ She took it gingerly, glad she was wearing gloves.
‘You throw the ball and watch the dogs love you for ever. Go on. It’s life-enhancing for everyone. Forget the slobber.’
Louise wasn’t sure she could, but she aimed at the middle of the park and flung. The tennis ball catapulted out of the gadget’s head with a gratifying flick and looped across the grass, sending the dogs into a volley of delighted barking as they raced to get it first. Hector’s stumpy little legs flew, all paws off the ground at once, and their ears all bounced like puppies’, even Coco’s. Their simple delight of the chase was infectious, and Louise felt her mouth widening in a smile as Minton leaped several feet in the air to grab the ball as it bounced up high over Hector’s head.
‘See?’ said Juliet, and Louise nodded in agreement.
Louise already had Peter’s present in the spare-room wardrobe: a cashmere jumper, bought in the New Year sales and wrapped in green tissue paper.
She looked at it, parcelled and labelled by her in January, then stowed away with a cedar ball tied to the ribbon to protect it from moths in the intervening eleven months.
I don’t even remember doing that, she thought, amazed. But she could remember the compulsion to wrap and twirl the ribbons, to have her present drawer topped up, to have drawer liners in, in case her mum came round and her cupboards didn’t look adult enough for a married mother of one.
What kind of a mad perfect housewife was I? she wondered. How could I act as if the world was ending after Michael on one hand, and be buying birthday presents nearly a year ahead for my husband on the other? Maybe Juliet’s only half right; maybe it’s me who needs the counsellor.
She put her bag of new presents on the dressing table and began to wrap them in the same tissue paper from the present drawer. There was a lot of it, with matching ribbons, rosettes and glitter.
It was Friday night. Toby had been dropped off at her mother’s to keep up their pretence of Date Night, even though the last three had seen Peter go off to a film with his mates, leaving Louise lying in the bath, pretending to read a novel. Tonight, though, was going to be different.
Louise had finished work early to come home via Waitrose for a selection of really nice food. She wasn’t a great cook, but she was determined to make an effort, even if most of it was carefully reheated. There was a good bottle of wine chilling in the
fridge, one of the ones he’d liked at the wine-tasting at the White Hart, and she’d cleaned the kitchen and put fresh flowers on the table.
Her fingers moved deftly, parcelling up the little gifts and dropping them into a bag, as she rehearsed what she was going to say as he opened them. She hadn’t let herself consider what might happen if he just dumped his bag and went straight out.
‘Peter, if I could turn back the clock, I’d . . .’
‘Peter, can’t we just . . .’
‘Peter, I love you,’ she said aloud, and shivered, but the sound of the front door opening stopped her in her tracks.
Louise panicked. He was at least an hour early. She hadn’t had time to shower or change or wash her hair or anything. And – she glanced anxiously at herself in the wardrobe mirror – she looked stressed and a bit creased.
For once she shoved aside her own appearance in favour of the bigger picture. She grabbed the bag of presents, ran a hand through her flat hair and dashed down the stairs to find Peter hovering in the hall, flicking through the post. He hadn’t taken his jacket off. Good sign, or bad?
‘You’re not going out tonight, are you?’ she blurted.
‘I might be going out for drinks with some guys from work,’ he said mildly. ‘Why? Did you have any plans?’
‘Yes! I mean, I’ve cooked dinner. It’s your birthday,’ she added, unnecessarily. ‘I’ve got you a present.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ he said. He sounded like meant it.
‘Glass of wine?’ asked Louise. ‘Go on! Go mad, it’s that oaky Chardonnay you liked, from that vineyard that only employs female wine-treaders for their dainty feet.’ She knew she sounded a bit demented, but she didn’t care. If she got him into the kitchen, she was halfway there. Even if she ended up jamming a chair under the door handle, she was going to cook her husband dinner and apologise.