46
Jen was mooching around Selfridges Food Hall after work one afternoon. Judy had invited her over for dinner with her family on Saturday evening – an event Jen was dreading because, fond as she was of Judy, they had never really socialized away from the hotel, and she wasn’t sure what they would find to talk about. She was caught between aisles, hunting for something to take as a gift that didn’t cost too much, but that looked like a treat and not an offering from a food bank.
She was trying to decide between a box of salted caramels or champagne truffles when she turned round to check whether anything else took her fancy and bumped right into her. Poppy. Her former best friend and sister-in-law. Or, at least, Jen assumed she was soon to be her former sister-in-law. She and Jason hadn’t discussed divorce, but it was starting to feel somehow inevitable.
In fact, they hadn’t really discussed anything. She hadn’t even spoken to him since the day the story broke in the papers. He had left her polite, procedural messages a couple of times, about the house or the girls, but nothing more. She had tried calling him back at odd moments, hoping to catch him unaware, so that he would answer, but he never did. More than anything she missed having someone to chat about the mundane stories from her day with, and who would chat about theirs with her. Even the silences she had come to dread seemed comforting, in retrospect, because at least they had been shared.
‘Sorry,’ she said, on autopilot, before she looked up and registered who it was.
Poppy gasped. Let out a little ‘hi’ before she thought better of it.
Jen stood nailed to the spot. Her instinct was to throw her arms around Poppy and hug the life out of her, but she knew it wouldn’t be welcomed.
‘Hey …’
She noticed that Poppy could barely look at her. She looked like a startled antelope, caught in the moment before she made a bolt for freedom.
‘Jen,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s so good to see you. I … are you OK? Can I talk to you, just for a minute?’ Jen had no idea what she was going to say, she just knew she had to say something.
‘I don’t think I really have anything to say to you. Sorry.’ Poppy turned to walk away, nearly knocking over a display of tins of loose-leaf tea with her shoulder bag as she did so.
Jen nearly smiled. Poppy always carried unfeasibly large bags. Jen had never had any idea what was in them, apart from accumulated random mess that Poppy never got around to sorting through.
She put a hand out and grasped Poppy’s coat-clad arm, as if to stop her running away. ‘Just come and have a coffee. Ten minutes, that’s all. There are things we need to talk about.’
She marched her through to the main shop before Poppy could object again, down the escalator to one of the little cake and coffee areas. She steered her to a table in the corner and barked an order for two white coffees at a waitress without even asking Poppy what she wanted.
‘None of this was ever meant to happen.’
‘This?’ Poppy said, a look of cynicism on her face.
‘Me and Jason, Amelia and Charles. I didn’t set out to ruin everyone’s lives.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘It wasn’t my fault that your dad was living a double life. I didn’t ask to know about it.’
‘I don’t understand why you would have said it like that. In front of Jason. In front of Mum. As if you hated us. After everything –’
‘God, no, Poppy. I adored … adore you all, you know that. That was just it. I couldn’t bear seeing what Charles was doing to your mum. To all of you. I kept it to myself for months. It was awful knowing, having to face you and Jason. Not being able to confide in you …’
The coffees arrived. Poppy stirred hers violently, spoon clanking against the china, liquid sloshing up to the rim of the cup and threatening to spill over. ‘And the way you chose to tell Jason was to blurt it out on our parents’ anniversary?’
‘No one could regret that more than me.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s true,’ Poppy said.
Jen thought she could sense her soften slightly. ‘I miss you. All of you.’
‘Maybe you should have thought of that.’
‘I didn’t think at all, that’s just it. Everything had piled up on top of me, and I could hardly breathe. I felt like I was suffocating under the weight of it all. I’m so sorry.’
Jen sat with bated breath, waiting for what would come next.
‘… I accept your apology. Thank you.’ Poppy stood up, fished in her bag for her purse. ‘But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.’
‘No, Poppy …’
Her cold acceptance was harder to bear than the anger Jen had expected. It was so emotionless. As if she didn’t care about her relationship with Jen, or lack of it, she was simply being polite to a not much liked acquaintance.
‘Wait …’
Poppy put a five-pound note on the table and walked away before Jen could say any more.
From Simone that evening she heard that Jason, Poppy and Jessie had started to see their father again. Hesitantly, at first. There had been recriminations, tears, resentment. But the newspaper article that Jen had thought might blow them apart irrevocably had, in fact, had the opposite effect. The Mastersons were closing ranks. Battening down the hatches. Pulling up the drawbridge. And she was firmly on the other side of the moat. It shocked her to the core that they were all prepared to take part in the deception – because that was what it was, she knew that now – that they were a happy, harmonious, devoted family.
She called Jason, to ask him about what had happened to make him forgive his father and move on, but he told her in no uncertain terms that it was none of her business.
A few days later, Emily told her that they were planning another family get-together. A party to make up for the fact that the big anniversary celebration had been cancelled.
‘I’m coming down for it,’ she said excitedly, as blissed out and unquestioning in the face of this good news as a tambourine-wielding chanter dancing down Oxford Street.
‘I’ll stay at yours, though, obviously. If that’s OK.’
‘They’re … what? Everything’s forgotten? Back to normal?’
‘Pretty much, thank goodness,’ Emily had said. ‘Grandpa’s really sorry for what he did. He says he made some stupid mistakes, but he’s realized now what’s really important to him, and he’s trying hard. It’s sweet, really.’
‘Right … well …’ Jen had said, knowing it was pointless to even try to deprogramme her. The cult had sucked her right back in. ‘It’ll be lovely to see you.’
That Monday morning, Jen had half considered phoning in sick, partly because she genuinely wasn’t feeling great – something in the takeaway curry she had had the night before had left her feeling a little worse for wear – but mostly because she knew today was the first time she would see Sean again since, well … since … and she honestly wasn’t sure if she could face it.
Judy had been full of it on Saturday night – which had been pleasant, actually. Not great fun, not something Jen felt she wanted to repeat every weekend, but a nice enough way to get through a lonely evening. Obviously, Judy knew nothing about the million ways Jen had humiliated herself the last time she and Sean had met.
‘He definitely likes you,’ she had gushed. ‘Maybe now that you’re single …’
‘I’m not single. Officially, I’m still married.’
‘You know what I mean. It’d do you good to get out there.’
Truthfully, Jen had considered it. They had Sean’s details on file, obviously. She had actually had a sneaky check to see if his mobile number was there. Written it down on a piece of paper. A couple of times she’d even come close to calling, but she wasn’t sure what she would have said. ‘Hi, remember how I debased myself by practically jumping you last time we met? Fancy a repeat performance, only this time I’m not wearing a wedding ring?’
Actually, that was a lie. She was still wearing her wedding ring. It would have felt wrong to take it off and, besides, it was practically welded to her hand, these days. Held on by bits of finger flab bulging out above and below. She would have needed a hacksaw to remove it. She had no idea if Jason still sported his. It didn’t feel like something she could ask the girls and not seem altogether pitiful.
She had even taken particular care with how she looked before she left home. Her hair was flattened to within an inch of its life. She had actually put her make-up on in the bathroom – rather than on the bus, as she usually did – so she thought her eyeliner might be straight, for once. Sometimes she arrived at work looking as if she was hoping to audition for Kiss. It wasn’t that she was hoping Sean would ask her out again. More that she didn’t want to feel he was looking at her and thinking, Yikes, I had a lucky escape.
Because things had calmed down, because her life was back on an even keel – even if it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable one – she had stopped looking so gaunt. She was actually eating meals, rather than occasionally remembering to stuff in a bag of crisps before she passed out. She still couldn’t really be bothered to cook for herself. But Morrisons had a nice line in microwave meals for idiots, and she could just about summon up the energy to take them out of the cardboard and stab them with a fork, most nights. She knew not being super skinny suited her better. That she had one of those faces that needed a bit of flesh on it, otherwise she could start to look like something Alexander McQueen might have decorated a handbag with.
She was so caught up in thinking about what the day might hold that she didn’t concentrate on where she was going and, before she knew it, she had forgotten to take her detour and she was walking right past Masterson Property. She told herself not to look inside, but the more she did so, the more her eyes were determined to disobey her. Charles wasn’t there. Of course, he wasn’t. Or at least she didn’t see him, but her heart started to beat out of her chest, thinking about how close she’d come. By the time she reached the hotel, she was practically having palpitations.
It didn’t help that she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be there or not when Sean checked in. Consequently, she jumped every time anyone approached the desk, and then experienced alternate waves of relief and disappointment when it wasn’t him. By lunchtime, she was a nervous wreck.
In the end, he showed up while she was dealing with an irate businessman who had left his shoes outside his room to be cleaned, and they had never been seen again. Jen was trying not to look at his feet, because he had the hotel’s fluffy towelling slippers on with his power suit, and, even though she was genuinely apologetic that such a thing might have happened, she was also a bit scared she might laugh.
She noticed Sean out of the corner of her eye. Felt herself turn an attractive shade of raspberry. Which, together with the hair and her green uniform shirt, probably made her look like a faulty set of traffic lights. Or a 1970s ice lolly.
She promised the businessman a full forensic investigation and directed him to the nearest shoe shop. Sean was taking his time, chatting with Judy, being his usual charming self. Once Jen was free, he looked over her way. Obviously, they were in public, so she knew he wasn’t going to say anything that might embarrass her.
‘Did I hear you telling that man you lost his shoes?’
‘They were stolen from outside his room.’
‘And you’ve sent him to Aldo in the hotel’s slippers?’
‘It was either that, or lend him my heels. And I’m only a size five.’
Sean smiled. ‘Do you see why I keep coming back here? There’s never a dull moment.’
‘We do our best.’
‘See you later.’ He smiled, and moved off towards the lift.
Judy was beaming at Jen, as if Jen had just told her she’d won Receptionist of the Year.
‘See,’ she said, as soon as the lift doors closed. ‘I told you he has a crush on you. It’s patently obvious.’
Jen rolled her eyes. ‘Stop trying to make something out of nothing, just because you’re bored.’
She felt secretly pleased, though. Whether he still liked her in that way or not, he was clearly making the effort to stay friends. The residual humiliation she still harboured deep down ebbed away a little.