There was an almighty crash upstairs. Followed by an ominous silence.
‘What’s happened?’ Eve called.
Silence.
‘Daniel, what have you done?’
As she ran up the stairs, she could hear cupboard doors shutting, the boys talking in agitated whispers. Pushing open her bedroom door, she found them sitting side by side on her bed; Daniel was beaming up at her, his best friend Robbie looked terrified.
‘Nothing! It’s nothing. We haven’t done anything,’ said Daniel.
‘Well, clearly you have.’ Eve looked around the room. ‘I heard something break. What was it?’
‘Nothing!’ sang Daniel again.
But Robbie’s lower lip was wobbling. ‘It wasn’t our fault,’ he whimpered.
Eve’s eyes came to rest on her chest of drawers, against the far wall, and she suddenly realised that the photo which usually stood on it was missing: the big colour picture of the three of them. It was a selfie Ben had taken on the beach at Weston; Daniel had been a few weeks old and, despite their sleep-deprived exhaustion, they had decided they’d go out for the day.
The sun had blazed down from a cornflower-blue sky, the gulls had screeched, other people’s children had cried and laughed and shrieked, the pebbles on the beach had rattled as they’d staggered across them, Eve holding Daniel tightly to her chest as he bounced around in the sling. They’d had a drink outside a pub, then sat beside the sea, eating ice cream while Eve tucked the baby under her T-shirt and fed him. It had been a near perfect trip; the sort of day she’d dreamed they would regularly share as a family, but – as it turned out – one of the few they would actually have. Ben had held out his phone, capturing their two smiling, bronzed faces, cheeks pressed together, with Daniel’s tiny, sleepy face between them.
She had gone out and bought a frame for the photo immediately, and it had stood on her chest of drawers in the bedroom ever since: a happy memory at first and, for the last few years, a reminder of better times.
But now it had disappeared.
She marched across the room and looked in the bin and then behind the chest, dragging it away from the wall. Nothing. She went across to the built-in cupboards on the opposite wall. Wrenching open the doors, she saw the shards of shattered glass on the floor amongst her shoes, pushed into a messy pile around the empty frame, the photo bent in two beneath it.
‘Daniel!’ she said. ‘How could you?’
‘It wasn’t us!’ yelled Daniel, his cheeks pink. ‘It just fell over all by itself. We didn’t touch it. We didn’t go anywhere near it when we were doing our special kick-boxing training.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ snapped Eve, kneeling down and picking up the crumpled photograph. ‘Get out of my room, both of you. I can’t believe you’ve done this.’
Robbie really looked as if he was about to cry now, but she didn’t care.
‘Get out!’ she screamed.
The two little boys fell off the bed in a tumble of legs and arms, pushing each other towards the door, pulling it shut behind them and thundering down the stairs.
She sat back on her heels and flattened out the picture, running the tip of her finger across Daniel’s tiny, squashed newborn features. Her own eyes were stretched wide, almost sparkling in the sunlight, despite the tiredness she could still remember so well: an exhaustion so all-encompassing that at times it had been an effort to walk and talk at the same time, her bones as heavy as lead.
And Ben. He looked very handsome in this picture: his smile wide, his face tanned, the skin around his eyes crinkled as he grinned up at the camera.
Something lurched in the pit of her stomach as she looked at his face. She could still remember falling in love with this man. Ten years ago, as they first sat opposite each other in the pub, she had been aware that she was talking too loudly, laughing too easily, everything brought into such sharp focus by the presence of this dark-haired stranger.
As they worked their way through the first bottle of wine, Hannah and Jon had been disagreeing about something they’d both read in the paper, already bickering in the flirty, light-hearted way, which would set the pattern for their brief relationship. But Ben was just looking at her, grinning, raising his eyebrows as the other two sparred. She had glanced down at his hand, watching him twist the stem of his glass between his thumb and forefinger, then looked back up at his face, realising he hadn’t taken his eyes off her for what felt like a very long time. It was as if every nerve ending in her body was tingling. He liked her, that was obvious. She smiled at him and hoped it was just as obvious she felt the same, dozens of imaginary butterflies flittering around in her loins.
Now there was just an empty ache deep inside her, as if someone had kicked her in the gut. She honestly didn’t have those sorts of feelings for him any longer: hadn’t done for years. But she missed the Ben she’d fallen in love with. How had she messed up everything so badly?
She put the photo frame to one side and began to pick up the shards of glass, piling them onto one hand until they were balanced so precariously it felt like the whole lot would spill onto the carpet again. She emptied the glass into the bin and went downstairs to get a dustpan and brush, realising as she did so that it was too quiet. The boys were nowhere to be seen.
Then, looking through the kitchen window, she saw them sitting at the end of the garden, squeezed side by side onto the plastic swing that hung from the high bough of a tree that stretched over into her garden from next door. For the first time it occurred to her that she should have asked Jake if he minded her using his tree. She knew you could pick apples from a neighbour’s tree if it overhung your garden, but she wasn’t entirely sure about swing rights.
Even from this distance, she could see Robbie’s eyes were red and blotchy. Shit. She shouldn’t have yelled at them. Plus, she’d dropped the F-bomb in front of Robbie – Juliet was definitely not the sort of parent who swore in front of her children. Would he tell her? She opened the back door, slipped on her wellies and waded through the long grass towards the swing.
‘Boys, I’m really sorry I shouted at you,’ she said. ‘It was horrible of me. I know you didn’t mean to break the photo frame. Of course you didn’t. It’s just that it’s one of my favourite pictures of you, Daniel – and it’s definitely the best one I’ve got of you, me and Daddy together. That’s why I was so upset to see it had gone.’
The boys sat, heads bowed, swinging slightly, their feet scuffing along the ground. Eve knelt in front of them and put one hand on each of their knees.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again. ‘Robbie, please don’t cry. I know it wasn’t your fault.’
The little boy looked up at her and sniffed, trying to smile. She couldn’t remember ever having shouted at him before and was deeply ashamed of herself. Would Juliet send her an angry text or back her into a corner outside the school gates, demanding an apology and saying she’d never let her son come over to play at Daniel’s again? Surely not: Juliet would understand she had been upset and frustrated. But they were friends and she didn’t want this to come between them. Bribery and corruption should put things right.
‘Let’s go and get a Happy Meal for tea!’ she said. ‘Do you want chicken nuggets or a cheeseburger?’
‘Burger!’ shouted Daniel.
‘Nuggets!’ whispered Robbie.
‘Okay, get your coats and we’ll go now,’ she said, getting up from where she’d been kneeling on the grass, damp patches spreading across the knees of her jeans. The boys jumped off the swing and raced into the house and, as she followed them, Eve decided she’d tell Juliet what had happened as soon as she dropped Robbie back, just in case he said something about it later. She would mention the photo frame, which of course had been broken by accident, and hint the boys were so upset by what they’d done that she’d taken them for a Happy Meal to cheer them up. There was probably no need to mention the fact that she’d yelled at them. Or used the F-word.
She could hear them laughing in the hall while they put on their coats and there was a trail of muddy footprints leading along the carpet towards the front door.
‘Can we have juice instead of water?’ Daniel was asking, as he jumped up to open the latch. ‘I know you always say I have to choose water, but this is different because Robbie’s coming with us and he really likes juice, don’t you, Robbie?’
‘You can have whatever you like,’ said Eve, picking up her car keys and her purse. ‘Coke, 7Up, chocolate milk.’
The two boys stared at her, open-mouthed, then looked at each other and screeched as they ran down the path towards the car. It was such a relief to see them happy again, and it wasn’t really bribery at all, Eve thought, as she slammed the door behind her. Two Happy Meals and a hefty dose of sugar were a small price to pay.