The headquarters of Dawson Marketing, the prestigious company Molly had worked for since qualifying with a degree in marketing, was only a ten-minute walk from the station. Thanks to her senior position, she was paid extremely well, earned ridiculously large bonuses and, best of all, worked hours that suited her. Normally eight till four thirty, she had planned to leave at three today to organise the party but here she was, over an hour late.
The ten-minute walk she’d travelled every day for so long required no concentration, every corner and crossing taken automatically while her phone was glued to her ear, her focus on her plans rather than the journey. Conscious of her low battery, with a minimum of words, she confirmed the caterers and the delivery of six cases of their usual wine and arrived at the front door of her office building, already stressed.
Chatter floated around her as she took a packed lift to the fourth floor. Why had she agreed to a party? She could have proposed they go out to dinner, take over a club, something, anything that didn’t involve all this time and energy.
There were too many people in the lift, standing too close to her. A wave of heat rushed through her, colour flooding her cheeks, claustrophobia sending her heart pounding. She had to get out of the lift. Now. When it stopped at the first floor, she pushed through and out into the airier corridor. Luckily everyone was too concerned with the start of their own day to give her more than a surprised glance.
There was a stairway. It was cooler, quieter, she took the steps slowly, calming down, trying to relax. She knew damn well why she’d agreed to the party. A desperate desire to fill the house with noise and life, a determination to pack the void left by Freya and Remi’s departure with excitement and fun. Muttering to herself that she seemed to have missed out the fun part, she checked the time, swore softly and increased her pace.
By skipping a lunch break, she managed to catch up with what she needed to do and as her desk clock clicked slowly from 1459 to 1500 she switched off her computer, grabbed her bag and threw bye, have a nice weekend, see you Monday to her PA, the last couple of words trailing behind her as she hurried from the office.
She rolled tense shoulders as she sat on the tube ride home. A stop later, a man got on and sat opposite and stared intently at her for the remainder of her journey. She ignored him without difficulty; years of commuting had inured her to the weird cross-section of humanity who used the tube. Anyway, she was far too busy ticking off the list in her head. A quick phone call to remind Jack to be home early… in case he conveniently forgot… and she was back on track and in a more relaxed mood as she walked the short distance to her home.
Their house was on the quieter tree-lined end of Elystan Street in Chelsea, a two-storey Victorian house squashed between a five-storey apartment block on one side and a three-storey apartment block on the other. There was only a tiny pocket of a front garden between the pavement and the front door but behind the house there was a long walled garden, lushly planted, and so well designed as to make it appear endless. When the nearby apartments had been built, many years before, a condition of planning had ensured they were built in such a way as to ensure the privacy of their garden was maintained.
Before the children had arrived, Molly and Jack used to take advantage of this, sunbathing naked in the summer, staying outside until the only light was the tiny solar fairy lights she’d had festooned around the walls. The carefully-tended lawn was like velvet under their skin as they made love to the background symphony of London. And when they’d decided it was time to think of babies, she had a fairly good idea that Freya had been conceived there.
A smile lingered as she pushed open her front door, feeling more relaxed about the upcoming party. The smile froze as loud, angry voices coming from the living room brought her to a halt, her eyes widening in sudden fear. Burglars? A home invasion? She’d heard and read so many awful stories. Heart pounding, she’d taken one step backwards, preparing to run into the street and scream for help, when the loud voices changed to raucous laughter. Puzzled rather than terrified, she approached the living-room door and held her ear close to it. All she could hear now were low voices. With an indrawn breath, she grabbed hold of the doorknob, turned it and slowly opened the door.
Terry, oblivious to Molly’s entrance, was slouched down on the sofa with her feet in a pair of tatty trainers resting, ankles crossed, on the coffee table. A movie blared from the TV, filling the room with noise. Terry, a mug of tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other, was engrossed in it and cackled open-mouthed as a character blew another away with a blast of a shotgun.
Molly’s jaw had dropped open; she snapped it shut and yelled, ‘What the hell is going on?’ It was a rhetorical question; she could see from looking around that not much was going on at all. There was a pile of clothes on a chair waiting to be ironed. The vacuum cleaner was sitting to one side but by the look of the floor, it had yet to be used.
‘I was having a break,’ Terry said, looking up at her without a trace of guilt. She dropped her cigarette end into her coffee cup and stood.
‘You were smoking.’ And from the smell, Molly guessed it hadn’t been her first.
‘You never said I couldn’t.’
No, Molly hadn’t. She didn’t think she needed to. ‘This isn’t working,’ she said, holding a hand to her head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for today but that’s it. I need someone more reliable.’
‘Suits me,’ Terry said, and with a shrug of unconcern, put the mug down on the coffee table. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
Molly looked at the pile of ironing with a feeling of dread. Maybe she’d been too hasty; who was going to do it? Then she looked at the mug with its disgusting contents, there were some compromises she wasn’t going to make.
The echo of the front door banging behind Terry hadn’t faded when Molly realised how much extra she had to do before the party that night.
With a jolt of panic, she wondered if it were too late to cancel the whole damn thing, plead illness or temporary insanity. She couldn’t, of course, standards to maintain and all that. Her friends teased her about having the perfect family, the perfect life. While she’d always denied it with a smile of forced humility, until recently she had thought her life was pretty much perfect. Until recently.
Something had changed and she couldn’t put her finger on what that was. She and Jack had had little time for each other over the last few months between their busy jobs and the preparations for Freya and Remi’s departure but she’d thought that was understandable, that when it was only the two of them once more, they’d get back some of the intimacy they’d always enjoyed. Instead Jack had become more distant, more wrapped up in his work, working later in the evenings and working some weekends which he’d never done before.
And now, with Rebecca gone, Molly came home every day to a house empty of life, the rooms quiet, echoes of the laughter and voices of her two children almost haunting her.
With a grunt of frustration, she changed into leggings and a T-shirt and got on with the work that Terry had abandoned. There was only so much Molly was going to have time to do. Ironing would have to wait. She shoved the overflowing wicker basket into the utility room. There were such things as laundry services; she’d have to investigate.
With the vacuuming done, she ran a duster around, plumped up cushions, reorganised chairs.
An hour later, she stood and looked around with satisfaction. The stage was set.