Miranda couldn’t believe how nervous she was waiting for Doug at the airport. Even more nervous than when she’d confessed all on the phone the day before.
He hadn’t said much, scarcely interrupting her while she’d rambled on. And on. And on. She couldn’t recall exactly when the tears had begun. But once they had, they didn’t stop. Not until three hours after they’d finished the call.
Doug’s parting words had been brief. ‘I’m coming over. As soon as I can. I’ll text you with the flight details.’
Of course he could have got a taxi home. But that would have meant more waiting around for Miranda. Chewing her nails. So here she was. At the airport. Surrounded by all the usual hustle and bustle. The same hustle and bustle she’d loved so much in her days working as cabin crew. She wondered if she was too old to go back to it. And, upon subsequently observing a group of uniformed, trolley-pulling twenty-year-olds, realised she probably was. Well, she’d have to look at alternatives, because she’d need a job. She certainly couldn’t expect Doug to continue supporting her. Not when they were divorced. She’d have to fend for herself.
She spotted Doug through the crowd streaming out of the arrivals hall. Her heart skipped a beat as their eyes met. He looked grave. Like he’d aged ten years since she’d last seen him only a week or so before. With shaking legs, she threaded her way over to him.
‘Hi,’ she muttered, smiling weakly.
Doug didn’t return her smile. His normally sparkling eyes looked steely. ‘You didn’t have to pick me up. I could have got a taxi.’
Miranda shrugged. ‘I know. I just thought …’ She trailed off, having no idea how to complete the sentence. ‘Do you, er, want something to eat? Or drink?’
Doug didn’t reply, but merely stood there. Looking at her. Miranda’s thundering heart picked up apace. What if he told her to go? Now. That their marriage was over and he never wanted to see her again?
‘Let’s go to the pub down the road,’ he eventually said. ‘It’ll be quieter there.’
How Miranda managed to drive to the pub, she would never know. Inside was thankfully a complete contrast to the bright lights and chaos of the airport. They found a secluded corner and sat down with their drinks. A sparkling water for her. A pint of lager for him.
‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ Doug said. ‘He was a good man.’
Miranda blinked back a tear. ‘Yes. He was. The best.’
‘I’ll stay on for the funeral. I would have come over for it anyway.’
Miranda nodded. ‘Thanks.’
A brief hiatus followed, during which Miranda’s head began to reel. What should she say? Should she …?
‘So, how’ve you been? After the, er …?’
Re-piercing the slice of lemon in her glass with the cocktail stick, Miranda shrugged. ‘A bit tired, but I’m getting there.’
‘And Josie. Does she have any idea what …?’
Miranda jerked up her head. ‘God no. By the time they allowed her out of hospital, I’d pulled myself together. I told her I’d caught a tummy bug.’
Doug nodded thoughtfully, reached for his glass and took a sip of lager.
Miranda went back to fiddling with the cocktail stick.
‘So. This thing with Eduardo …’
‘There was no thing. I can’t stand the guy. It only happened once. I was drunk. And bored. Very bored. Not that that’s any excuse.’
Doug didn’t comment. Setting down his glass, he reached for a spare beer mat and began diligently folding back the corners.
‘I’ve been thinking …’ he said at length.
Miranda’s stomach began to churn.
‘… that a lot of this is my fault.’
Miranda’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. ‘Your fault? But you weren’t even here.’
Doug sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. ‘Precisely. I’m never here. Ever since Josie was born, I’ve been gallivanting around here, there and everywhere, leaving you to cope with everything.’
‘You’ve been working hard.’
‘I’ve been working too hard. And for far too long. I’ve been so wrapped up in my career, so desperate to be a good provider for you and Josie, that I’ve lost sight of what’s really important. And it’s taken me nearly losing you to realise that.’
‘You haven’t nearly lost me.’
‘No? What if this thing with Eduardo had developed? What if you fell for him? What if you realised it was much better having a man who was around, rather than one you saw only a couple of times a year?’
‘I would never have thought that,’ countered Miranda.
‘And I never should have left you in Buttersley when you were so miserable. I could kick myself for doing that now. I know you never complained but I could tell you weren’t happy. You must have felt exactly like you did at that boarding school of yours.’
Miranda couldn’t reply. She’d been so ready for Doug to tell her it was all over, she could scarcely take in what he was saying.
‘Look,’ he continued, reaching across the table and taking her hand. ‘I’m not over the moon about this Eduardo thing, but I do feel partly responsible. If I hadn’t left you alone so much, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Has there been anybody else …?’
‘Of course not,’ cut in Miranda. ‘But what about you? I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d had women throwing themselves at you left, right and centre.’
Doug chuckled. And for the first time since they’d sat down, Miranda felt a glimmer of hope. ‘I can’t say I haven’t had offers. But I’ve never been interested. You’ve always been the only woman for me. Ever since you served me my first coffee on the flight to New York.’
Miranda looked directly into his eyes. ‘And now? When you know what I’ve done?’
Doug’s mouth stretched into a broad grin. ‘I haven’t changed my opinion one jot.’
*****
‘So. You ready to tell me what this is all about?’ Julia sat on Leo’s desk chair, while he lay under his duvet. He’d fainted at school and, when Julia bowled up to collect him, had looked so pale and thin that tears had sprung to her eyes. Leo had never been fat. A little on the stocky side, perhaps, but now he appeared positively skeletal. Since when had he lost so much weight? And, more poignantly, how hadn’t she noticed?
During the drive back to the house, he hadn’t uttered a word and, upon arrival, had shuffled straight off to his room. Julia, meanwhile, had checked the kitchen cupboards. Almost every one was stuffed with packets of mini Mars bars. She’d blithely carried on buying them, without noticing they weren’t being eaten. And why hadn’t she noticed? Because she’d been far too wrapped up in herself. Far too self-absorbed to be aware of what was happening to her son. It was despicable behaviour. But now wasn’t the time for self-flagellation. Now was the time to focus on Leo.
‘So?’ she gently probed.
Leo cleared his throat. ‘I, um, think I’ve been a bit stupid.’
‘We all do stupid things occasionally,’ said Julia. If anyone knew that it was her. ‘Run it past me and I’ll tell you what I think.’
A slight flush touched Leo’s cheeks. ‘Well … there’s this girl …’
Julia nodded.
‘… She’s called Betsy and she’s really cool. And dead fit. She’s in, like, every sports team there is.’
Julia nodded again.
‘And I really wanted to ask her out but I thought she’d think I was way too fat. So I …’
‘ … stopped eating and started running a marathon every day?’
Leo screwed up his nose. ‘Something like that. And now, when word of this gets out, she’s going to think I’m a total loser.’
‘Of course she won’t,’ countered Julia. ‘She’ll think you’ve been training way too hard. Which you have. But maybe you should have asked her out first, without going to all this trouble.’
‘I, um, didn’t know how to,’ Leo confessed, his flush deepening. ‘I tried to ask your advice. But you …’ He trailed off, fiddling with the edge of the duvet cover.
Julia’s heart sank. Damn. That must’ve been the day she’d pushed him aside in the hall. The day after she’d returned from Spain, when she’d been furious with Paul and Faye. All this time she’d been tarnishing Leo with the same brush as Faye, when he hadn’t caused her a moment’s worry. And the one time he’d needed her, she’d brusquely dismissed him. She couldn’t have felt any worse if she’d bagged up a litter of puppies and drowned them in the river.
‘Look, you’re shattered. Get some rest and we’ll talk about it later,’ she said.
After planting a kiss on his forehead, Julia wandered into her bedroom. Her new silk underwear still lay on the bed. Staring at her accusingly. Just what kind of mother was she, swanning around looking at knickers while her own child suffered? And then there was Faye. As much as she didn’t rank as Julia’s favourite person at the moment, the girl was still her daughter and she still needed her mother.
Julia swiped up her purchases, shoved them back in their carrier bag and tossed it in the bottom of the wardrobe. No, as nice as her short-lived fantasy with Max had been, it had to stop. Now. She loved her children and they needed her more than Max ever would. That much had been made perfectly clear over the last few days. Okay, so bringing them up hadn’t been a barrel of laughs. And they were far from perfect, but they were still young, still trying to figure out who they really were.
And the fact that they’d been such hard work wasn’t entirely their fault. Julia had been clueless when they’d come along. Far too young and unprepared. But, on the whole, she and Paul hadn’t done too bad a job. They were good kids at heart. As for her marriage, though … that was a different kettle of fish altogether. Paul obviously didn’t need her. Not now he had Natalia. And Julia had no desire to be a spare part. So … there was only one thing to do …
*****
‘So how was the funeral? Or is that a stupid question?’
Sitting at the kitchen island in Buttersley Hall, Miranda pushed a plate of Annie O’Donnell’s triple chocolate chip cookies over to Julia, before sitting down opposite her new friend and wrapping her hands around her mug of coffee.
‘It was … interesting,’ she replied. ‘To see just what a valued member of the community Dad was. I had no idea he was involved in so many things. But then again, why would I? I all but abandoned them.’
‘Hey,’ said Julia, reaching for a biscuit. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m sure he knew you loved him.’
Miranda shrugged. ‘I doubt it, the way I’ve been acting like a spoiled brat all these years. But at least it’s not too late to try to make amends with Mum. I’ve asked her if she wants to come here and live with us.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She’s thinking about it.’
Julia nodded. ‘Not much else you can do then.’
Miranda cleared her throat. She’d been building up to asking Julia something, and if she didn’t do it now, she might just bottle it altogether.
‘Um, look. Just say no if you think this is a bit weird. But I was thinking of planting a rose bush in the garden. In memory of the baby. It didn’t seem right asking Doug to come with me to the garden centre to choose something, but I wondered, if you wouldn’t mind …’
Julia looked up at her and smiled. ‘I’d be honoured.’
Miranda wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not sure if it’s a bit morbid or not, but I’d like something to remember her by. I’m sure it was a girl.’
‘I think it’s a lovely idea,’ said Julia. ‘Do you want to go when we finish our coffee?’
Miranda nodded, a grin spreading across her face. ‘If that’s okay with you.’
*****
Going to the garden centre with Miranda proved a sobering experience, and made Julia appreciate just how lucky she was to have two healthy children. Indeed, as unlikely as it had seemed following their first unpleasant encounter, Miranda was actually proving something of an inspiration to Julia. And knowing just how brave she’d been in confessing all to her husband made Julia all the more determined to sort things out with Paul. This evening. Immediately after dinner. And, along with a mushroom risotto, she’d prepared a very considered and reasoned speech.
*****
As Paul drove home that evening his heart rate increased with every mile. He had determined to speak to Julia immediately after dinner. Tell her they couldn’t go on like this any longer. Put all his cards on the table. To say he was scared was putting it mildly. Terrified would be a much more accurate description. He only hoped, after the unpredictable way she’d been acting lately, that she didn’t chase him around the kitchen with the frying pan.
Julia was in a particularly strange mood when Paul arrived home. She was being most … polite. On her best behaviour. Exactly how she’d act if they had new neighbours round for dinner. She’d even asked how his day had been. A rare occurrence indeed. All of this … courteousness … did not help Paul’s nerves at all. In an effort to bring some semblance of normality to the proceedings, he’d tried chatting to the kids. But Faye, too, was acting strangely. Doing everything she could to help with the meal. Even offering to empty the dishwasher later. Paul had never known anything like it. Leo, meanwhile, after his recent to-do, didn’t have time to talk. He was too busy polishing off the remains of the rice pudding. Shovelling it in like there was no tomorrow. It was all most … bizarre. And it didn’t stop there.
The rice pudding completely decimated, the table cleared by his overenthusiastic daughter, and the dishwasher whirring away doing its stuff, the kids wandered off, leaving Paul and Julia alone in the kitchen.
‘Coffee?’ Julia asked, wiping down the kitchen bench.
Coffee? They never had coffee after dinner. Something was seriously amiss here. And why was she wiping down that kitchen bench again? Paul had watched her do it three times already.
‘Er, no thanks,’ he muttered, running a finger under the rim of his collar. His palms were sweating so much he couldn’t have held a cup of coffee, even if he’d wanted to. He had to bite the bullet. And he had to do it now. If he didn’t, he suspected his courage might go AWOL, never to return. His eyes scanned the room for the frying pan. It was on the draining board, Faye having vigorously scrubbed it. He wondered if Julia would notice if he slipped out and locked it in the boot of his car, but quickly dismissed the idea as being ludicrous. There’s no way his own wife would bash him over the head with it. Would she? Well, there was only one way to find out.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he suggested, his throat suddenly feeling like someone had shovelled two tons of sand into it. ‘There’s, um, something I’d like to talk to you about.’
Turning to face him, Julia leaned against the bench, fiddling with the Bart Simpson tea towel. ‘Well, er, that’s good because there’s something I’d like to talk to you about, too.’
Paul’s heart sank. He really just wanted to get this over and done with. Make it as painless as possible. But whatever Julia intended saying couldn’t be half as serious as the news he was about to break, so he’d have to let her go first.
‘Well, come and sit down and tell me what it is,’ he said.
Looking the most awkward Paul had ever seen her in her entire life, Julia slid into the chair opposite his.
‘I, er, don’t really know where to start,’ she mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
‘How about at the beginning,’ suggested Paul, it suddenly occurring to him that this might be more serious than he thought.
Julia nodded, still fiddling with the tea towel.
‘Right. Well … you know before we met that I had a relationship with a guy called Max …’
She glanced up at him for confirmation. Increasingly intrigued, he nodded.
‘… well, I bumped into him recently. In the supermarket. In the cereal aisle.’
Paul furrowed his forehead. What the hell did the cereal aisle have to do with anything?
‘I’ve seen him a few times since,’ she ploughed on, directing her speech to the tea towel in her hands. ‘And it’s made me realise that I’m just not happy, Paul. That life has passed me by in one big child-caring blur. I’ve lost sight of the real me.’ She raised her eyes and met his increasingly bemused gaze. ‘You said yourself you only see me as a wife and a mother. Well, I feel like now is the time for me to branch out and do something for myself. I’m still young enough. And I’ve never felt more ready for anything in my entire life.’
Evidently finished, she began smoothing the tea towel out on the table top. Bart Simpson stared up at Paul as if waiting for his reaction. Paul, too, was waiting for his reaction. He didn’t know what to feel. He didn’t, if he was perfectly honest, quite understand what was going on here.
‘So … what exactly are you saying? That you’re leaving me? For this Max?’
Julia shook her head. ‘No. Max has nothing to do with it. He’s just brought me to my senses. I don’t want to just trundle along like we have been doing. I want more from life. And I need to do it by myself. To discover who I am, rather than being an appendage to someone else.’
Paul couldn’t speak. He felt exactly as he had all those years ago when Julia had announced she was pregnant. The situation was surreal. There he was, all ready to confess about him and Natalia, and tell Julia he wanted to break up, and here she was doing it for him.
‘So you … you want us to separate?’
She nodded. ‘I’m just not happy. And neither are you.’
Paul opened and closed his mouth. ‘I, er, …’
‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about? Was it Natalia?’
He nodded.
‘You’re having an affair with her?’
He nodded again.
‘Well, I’ve done you a favour then, haven’t I? Ready for that coffee now?’
Paul looked down at a beaming Bart Simpson.
And nodded again.