Chapter Ten

Sam opened her eyes to Sunday morning with a heavy heart but a very clear head. She’d been trying to ring Reece all day yesterday but with no answer from him, had gone to bed quite early the night before. It had taken her ages to get to sleep and then she had woken up numerous times before catnapping and waking for good at six a.m. It had given her ample time to think things through and now she realised that Reece turning up unannounced on Friday evening might have been the best thing that could happen to them.

Sam loved Reece but wasn’t sure she was in love with him any more. Even though a part of her was relieved that she wasn’t going to break his heart by ending the marriage, it didn’t make her feel any better knowing that Reece probably felt the same too. They’d been together since forever. Sam couldn’t help thinking that if they’d managed to have a child, maybe things would have been more solid. Ideally, they would have been a family now but after trying to conceive for five years, they’d decided to let nature take its course. Unfortunately, nature never had and as well as having different interests, the lack of children had made them grow apart rather than bring them closer together. And that’s why, for her, it was better for Reece to work away than to be here all the time, constantly reminding her of what they should have by now.

Recently, she’d started looking at children in that way – in the ticking biological clock kind of way. She’d smile at babies in supermarkets and feel herself being pulled towards the rows of tiny clothes when she went shopping in Hedworth. Thirty-four was still youngish to have a child nowadays, so she knew she still had time, but Sam desperately wanted to become a mum, and soon. And although Louise’s life had been hard as a single parent, it had hurt Sam to watch her bring up Charley, envying her having a daughter of her own.

Secretly she’d wanted to broach the subject of adoption, see what Reece’s reaction would be. But as they grew further and further apart, it just hadn’t seemed appropriate. Yet another weekend had gone, and then another, and another. And now she doubted if he’d ever come back, apart from one last time to collect his belongings, maybe tie up loose ends. Reece came home to hand her his keys on Friday. If Dan hadn’t been there to put the nail in the coffin, she could have fought for him and he might have been willing to try again. But now it was too late.

She sat up in bed and hugged her knees, deciding that she wasn’t going to give up on Reece. They had been together for sixteen years; he was worth fighting for. She’d ring him again later to see if he’d answer this time. She had to try and make him see that she hadn’t cheated on him. That she’d stopped things from going too far with Dan, because it was Reece that she loved. Their marriage couldn’t be over just like that. Could it?

‘What a mess,’ she said aloud for the umpteenth time that weekend.

Louise woke up at ten thirty. Her head felt like someone was repeatedly hitting it with a brick, her mouth dry and smelling nasty. She looked around the room, her clothes and shoes thrown anywhere as she’d removed them quickly to climb into bed, to stop the room from spinning.

Like a good girl, she’d stayed at the pub with Matt and his friends until eleven as planned and then he’d insisted on walking home with her. She recalled messing around with him – at one stage she’d pushed him into someone’s hedgerow, laughing loudly as he’d bounced back at her. She remembered singing with him, and checking on Charley once she was home, finding Sophie top to toe in the bed next to her.

After showering, she went downstairs. Charley and Sophie were sitting at the kitchen table, both still in their pyjamas. Charley looked a little green, her head resting in her hands.

‘You look like I feel,’ Louise said to Charley, after flicking on the kettle. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’ve got a terrible headache.’ Charley winced as she’d moved her head slightly.

‘Oh, dear. You’re not coming down with something?’ Louise reached over and placed a hand on Charley’s forehead. ‘You’re not hot.’ She sniffed, then drew her head back as she smelt a familiar smell coming from the two girls. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘We had a little bit last night,’ said Charley.

Louise sniffed again. ‘What did you have? And where did you get the money from?’

‘I bought it, Louise,’ said Sophie, hoping to take the blame for Charley. ‘My mum gave me some money and I – I bought a bottle of vodka.’

‘Vodka?’ Louise’s face was like thunder as she stared at Charley.

‘I’m nearly sixteen!’ Charley retorted.

‘You’re still a child! And you’ll do as you’re told in my house.’

‘It’s not your house. It belongs to the bank until you’ve paid off your mortgage.’

‘Don’t be cheeky – and stop trying to change the subject. Have you any idea how much trouble I would be in if you were caught with alcohol underage?’

‘Whatever.’ Charley rested her head on the table for a moment.

‘Was there anyone else here with you, last night?’

‘No!’ Charley sat upright so quickly that she felt the room start to spin.

Louise pointed a finger close to her daughter’s face. ‘If I hear from any of the neighbours that you had boys around, Charley Pellington, I’m going to –’

‘We didn’t have anyone around!’ Charley fibbed then looked to her friend for support. ‘Did we, Sophie?’

‘No, Louise, we didn’t.’ Sophie fibbed too. But it had the advantage of calming Louise down.

‘Booze and boys at your age just don’t mix,’ Louise addressed them both. ‘I should know.’

‘Yes, you should know.’ Charley’s tone was snide.

Louise went to speak but chose to pause for a minute. ‘You might think I’m being mean watching out for you like this,’ she said eventually, ‘but I’m not. I don’t want you making the same mistakes that I did.’

‘Like having me,’ said Charley.

‘No!’ Louise sighed in exasperation. ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Yes, you did!’ she snapped. ‘Just because you got pregnant when you were young doesn’t mean that I’m going to. It’s not the law.’

As Louise stood with her mouth open, Sophie, sensing the tension in the air, jumped up. ‘I think I’d better be off,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later, Charl.’

Charley nodded and grimaced again. Her head. She hated vodka more than she hated Connor Blackstock right now. This morning, she’d woken up to three text messages asking if it was true he got her off last night.

Louise finished making her coffee, slid the one she’d made for Charley across the table and sat down in the chair that Sophie had just vacated.

‘That was a bit below the belt, don’t you think?’ she said. When Charley said nothing, she continued. ‘I only say these things because I care.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I want you to see a bit of life before you settle down. I want you to do well at school and explore the world, see where the day takes you. I don’t want you to be stuck in Hedworth like me.’

Charley started to speak but Louise went on. ‘You may think you have it hard but believe me, life gets harder. Mistakes made now will haunt you forever.’

‘I had a drink, Mum, not a baby like you.’

Louise slapped the palm of her hand on the table. ‘I had a drink and look where it got me.’

Charley’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It got you me, remember. All the times you talk about lost chances, you make me feel like it’s my fault.’

‘No, Charl. I didn’t mean—’

Charley prodded herself in the chest. ‘I was the mistake you made. How do you think that makes me feel when you go on all the time about you never having any chances in life? That you never made it any further than living in a tiny terraced house? It makes me feel guilty, especially as you’ve never told me who my father is, denying me the chance to get to know him. I have a right to know who he is but you—’

Louise leaned across to touch her hand but Charley pulled it away abruptly. She stood up, scraping the chair across the floor. ‘I hate you. You’re so selfish I’m surprised anyone would want to spend time with you. No wonder you’re lonely.’

‘I’m not lonely!’

‘Yes, you are. I hear about you in the nightclub. Damien Masters goes to my school – he tells me what you get up to with his dad because you can’t get a man of your own. It’s embarrassing, Mum, and hurtful when they call you a slapper and say that I take after you. It’s not fair.’

Louise paled. Charley knew about Rob Masters and was turning the tables, telling her off now. How did that happen?

‘Now listen here, young lady,’ she said, trying to exert her authority. ‘What I do in my private life is up to me.’

‘And what I do in mine is up to me! You don’t have any right to tell me off. I’m actually better behaved than you, and you should give me credit for that.’

Louise looked up as Charley stormed out of the room. She jumped as the kitchen door banged shut, closed her ears to the thunder of feet going up the stairs.

‘That conversation went well, Louise,’ she spoke to an empty room before raising her mug into the air in a silent salute. Yet what Charley had said brought tears to her eyes. Her daughter was getting teased for her sluttish ways, for everything she did at the weekend, when all Louise set out to do was forget about her miserable life and have a bit of fun.

But, every day, Charley was taking in everything that she did. Louise wasn’t settting a good example. Calling her a mistake was wrong, for starters. She wasn’t a mistake, nor a burden, but sometimes she wished Charley had come later in life, when she had been settled with the right man, and had been more mature about motherhood.

Louise wouldn’t swap her daughter for the world. Maybe she needed to show her that.

Charley ran upstairs and threw herself onto her bed. Sometimes she hated her mum so much that she couldn’t find the right words to express herself. What was it with her? She got a little bit tipsy on vodka and Mum thought she could lecture her, when she came home drunk EVERY weekend. Charley wished Louise was like normal mothers, who take their daughters out shopping or for coffee – or even to the cinema. When was the last time they went anywhere together? She sat and thought about it but couldn’t remember.

And now she had to put up with all this rubbish about Connor too. Charley hoped she wasn’t going to get it in the neck at school tomorrow. She couldn’t believe he’d start another rumour. She’d had enough with the one last week.

She sat up, and stared at herself in the mirror on her dressing table. What was wrong with her? Why wouldn’t she let a boy touch her? Her mother certainly didn’t have that problem. Why was Charley such a prude? Was it because she thought more of herself than her mum did? She thought she could do it but when it came down to it, she was scared. What would happen if she got pregnant like her mum did?

She was right about one thing, though. Charley didn’t want to have a baby tying her down. As soon as she was old enough, she was leaving Hedworth and going to London. She’d get a job on a magazine, become a writer. She’d make something of herself, even if her mum hadn’t.

A message pinged in on her phone. It was from Alex.

AP: How goes it, C?

CP: Crap as usual. I hate my mother.

AL: I hate my dad too. Got a bollocking for not doing my chores again. What are you doing today?

CP: Not sure. Might hang around the shops with Sophie. You?

AL: Not much to do here either. Wish I could come and see you. We could hang out together.

CP: Me too. I wish you weren’t so far away.

Charley sighed. She did too. She wished she could see Alex, chat to him face to face. Maybe he would understand how she was feeling. Lonely, abandoned, hurt. Why was life so cruel?

After what happened with Dan, Sam hadn’t expected to hear from Reece until some time had elapsed and he could think straight. She’d left another message on his phone but didn’t hold out much hope of a reply. So it shocked her when, at two thirty, she received a text message to say that he was on his way over to see her.

She opened the door to him, feeling nervous, not knowing what to expect. From the bags under his eyes, he looked like he’d had no sleep either. He entered, and paced the hallway until she’d closed the door. They stood in silence, neither of them knowing what to say.

‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me so soon,’ Sam started.

Reece shrugged. ‘I’ve stayed at my parents’ place since Friday.’

‘Oh!’ Sam had automatically thought he had gone back to Sheffield after their row.

‘Well, there was no way I wanted to stay here after … why did you do it, Sam?’

Sam cringed inwardly. ‘What exactly do you mean by ‘it’?’ she asked.

‘Do I have to spell it out to you?

‘Not really, but you need to know that I didn’t do what you think I did.’

Reece looked confused.

‘I didn’t sleep with Dan.’ At the mention of his name, Sam saw her husband flinch. Tears welled in her eyes.

‘Then what did you do with him?’ he asked. ‘Those were some flowers.’

Sam felt her bottom lip start to tremble as she saw the pain in his eyes. Thankfully, she’d had the sense not to take the bouquet from Dan.

‘Shall we go and sit down?’ she suggested.

They went into the kitchen, she made coffee, and they sat in the conservatory. The winter sun streamed in, it looked such a lovely day. With a pang of regret, Sam thought that they should have been out somewhere enjoying it. She closed the blinds, sat down and began to speak.

‘So, you only kissed?’ Reece asked afterwards.

‘Yes.’ Sam left out the part where Dan had his hand in her pyjama top ... he didn’t need to know every detail. ‘Yes,’ she said again.

Reece looked her straight in the eye. ‘You hurt me so much.’

‘I never meant to.’ Sam cursed as tears poured down her face. She hated crying when she was in the wrong. It made her feel weak. But she truly was sorry for what she’d done to him.

‘What would have happened if I hadn’t come back?’

‘If I was going to do anything, it would have happened by now,’ she said truthfully, although purposely omitting the details. ‘I’d been having doubts about us and he – he was there to give me what I needed, I suppose. I know it was wrong, but I just wanted some affection. I missed having you around, and I wasn’t sure that you even wanted to be around any more. When you did come home at weekends, it wasn’t right, was it? We’d become like strangers and it hurt. And, even though I want to make it better between us, I don’t know how to.’

‘So you thought sleeping with another man would do the trick?’

‘I didn’t sleep with him!’

They were silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Sam studied Reece while he stared through the window, working out what to do next. Would he accept the job in Hedworth and come home or would he leave for Sheffield and not come back? She could almost see a pendulum in his mind swinging backwards and forwards. Yes. No. Yes. No.

‘Come home,’ she pleaded. ‘Let’s see if we can work things out.’

‘I don’t know. It hurt me so much to think—’

‘I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you, but don’t you see? We’ve both let things slip. You’ve been such a huge part of my life. You were there for me when my dad died, but I’ve been lonely for so long and our marriage felt so stale. I was upset that maybe it was me who couldn’t give you children, that maybe we would have been closer if I had. My attraction to Dan was just because I want to feel desired after so long of being part of the furniture.’ She paused. ‘If you come back to Hedworth, maybe we could get back what we had. I— I really do love you.’

‘I don’t know.’ Reece swallowed. ‘I’m not sure that I trust you now.’

Sam frowned. ‘That’s a bit unfair. I’ve had to trust you when you’ve been working away for all these years. Don’t tell me there haven’t been any women who attracted your attention over in Sheffield?’

‘They haven’t exactly been falling at my feet.’ He gave a weak smile.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I know that seeing him on our doorstep, thinking that you and him …? Well, it made me so angry. You’re my wife, Sam.’

‘Then come home.’ Sam reached across to touch his face, wiping away the lone tear that trickled down his cheek. ‘Please, let’s try again.’