‘So how’s the star?’ Charlotte’s husband, Roger, kissed her on the mouth and turned to grin at me. ‘Hollywood called yet?’
‘It was hilarious,’ said Charlotte. ‘We thought Laura was going to get lynched.’ She smiled happily, clearly cheered by the bottle of wine she’d managed to procure from Kevin on the drive back.
‘It was ghastly,’ I corrected, having drunk less of it than she had. ‘Has Stanley been OK?’
‘Fine. He’s upstairs on the PlayStation with Joe.’ Roger put his arm round Charlotte’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘And Becky’s flouncing about somewhere. Don’t suppose you’ve thought about dinner?’
Charlotte waved a hand airily. ‘Not really. Have you thought about a bottle of wine? Laura and I have had a very arduous day.’
Roger rolled his eyes indulgently. ‘There’s one in the fridge. Shall I go and get us all fish and chips?’ He looked at me. ‘Are you and Stanley staying?’
I pulled a face. ‘I promised Stanley a delivered pizza apparently.’
‘Oh, well we’ll all have that,’ said Charlotte briskly. ‘There’s a leaflet in the kitchen dresser.’ She headed purposefully across the hall. ‘Roger, give the kids a shout and we’ll phone up!’
Before Roger had a chance to draw breath she’d thrown back her head and yelled herself. ‘Beckeeee!’
I followed her into her bright kitchen with the vast scrubbed pine table I’d spent many a wine-soaked night round. The assortment of empty cups and glasses on it, along with the discarded crisp packets and biscuit wrappers, suggested that the kids hadn’t exactly starved in our absence.
Charlotte opened the huge fridge and pulled out the bottle of wine. ‘Didn’t strain themselves clearing up, I see! Ah, there you are,’ she went on, as her daughter Becky appeared in the doorway. ‘Go and ask the boys what pizzas they want, Bex.’
Becky pushed back her long, dark hair and scowled. ‘Why do I have to do it?’
‘Because I just asked you to,’ said Charlotte sweetly. ‘And say hello to Laura, please – don’t be so rude.’
Becky shone a smile on me. ‘Hello, Laura,’ she said in exaggerated tones, and then in her ordinary voice, ‘what was it like?’
‘Wait till you see it!’ said Charlotte with glee. She crossed the room to the doorway. ‘Boys !’
‘You’d have loved it,’ she told Becky. ‘If Laura has to go back and you’re not at school, we’ll take you next time.’
‘I want to go on The X Factor ,’ said Becky.
‘You’re too young,’ Charlotte replied in a tone that suggested they’d had this conversation before. ‘You have to be 18.’
‘I can look 18,’ said Becky. ‘In fact,’ she added with quiet relish, ‘one of the sixth-formers at Highcourt saw me on Facebook and said he’d have thought I was 19.’
‘Well you’re not,’ said Charlotte, wagging the corkscrew. ‘You’re 13 and you remember it. Which reminds me, you can put my new lip gloss back where you found it. And my eyelash curlers. Now go and get your brother.’
Becky pulled a face, sighed loudly and moved off.
‘Little moo,’ Charlotte said, handing me the corkscrew and rummaging in a drawer. ‘I’d better get on that damn Facebook page and check it again. You should see the photos she and her mates put up. All this pouting and finger-sucking stuff – total jail bait.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve told her Roger would have a fit.’
‘What about?’ said Roger, coming up behind her.
Charlotte held up a pizza menu. ‘Found it! Nothing – just Miss 13 Going On 26 up there.’ She frowned. ‘Get that wine open, Laura, for God’s sake.’
Joe burst into the room, wearing a red football kit, with Benson, the family’s black Labrador, bounding along beside him. Stanley trailed behind in his socks. My son had taken off his tie and his shirt was untucked, with a large smear of mud down the front. The bottoms of his trousers, still much too long despite my torturous attempts to take them up, were scrunched around his feet and had already began to fray from constantly being walked on. There was another smear of mud on his face and his hair was more than usually unkempt.
‘Good day at school?’ I asked, holding out my arms to him.
‘OK.’ He looked sideways at Joe and frowned.
‘Both come and give me a kiss,’ instructed Charlotte, hugging Joe and reaching out an arm to Stanley. ‘And you, young man!’ Stanley blushed, smiled and allowed himself to be embraced. ‘Now go and give your mother a smacker.’
Stanley smiled sheepishly and came over to me, looking me up and down.
‘Is that what you wore on television?’ he asked disapprovingly. ‘What did you say?’
‘She was very good,’ said Charlotte firmly. ‘As we’ll see when it comes out. I must write it down.’ She crossed the room to where a big desk diary lay open on the work surface and picked up a pen with a flourish. ‘Weds, 9 a.m. Set video, Laura!’ She gave one of her raucous laughs. ‘Ooh, I can’t bloody wait.’
Stanley pulled a face at me. ‘I hope none of my friends see it.’
‘They’ll all be at school. And nobody we know watches that sort of thing anyway.’
Charlotte raised her eyebrows at me.
I hope.
By the time we’d finally established who was having what size pizza with which extra toppings and how many free side-orders we’d earned, it was nearly 8.00 p.m. and I was starving.
‘Where’s that damn phone gone now?’ said Charlotte, lifting up tea towels and moving school books. ‘Becky, have you taken it upstairs again? I’ve told you before, it stays in the kitchen.’
‘I’ll go and get them,’ said Roger.
‘There’s no need – we can have them delivered.’ Charlotte was still moving things around. ‘It drives me mad the way they do this. The idea of a cordless phone was to make things easier – now I can’t find the bloody thing. Whoops – sorry Joe, naughty Mummy,’ she added hastily as her son came back into the kitchen. ‘I’ll go and use the phone upstairs.’
Roger shook his head. ‘Really – I don’t mind going at all.’
‘What’s the point? Delivery’s free if you spend over 15 quid.’
‘But will they bring wine too? We’ve only got the one bottle and by the look of that …’
Charlotte smiled. ‘Good thinking! What would I do without you?’
Roger picked his car keys up from the table. ‘OK, I’ll see you in a bit.’
‘Take the dog with you,’ said Charlotte.
‘I’ll come too, Dad.’ Becky got up from the table.
‘I thought you had homework to do.’
‘Oh, it’s not much, I can do it later.’
Roger shook his head ‘You get it finished now.’
Becky stuck out her bottom lip and sighed. ‘It doesn’t even have to be handed in until next week.’
‘You’ll have more by then. Do it now, please.’
Becky gave another huge sigh and flounced toward the door. ‘Whatever.’
‘I won’t be long.’ Roger kissed Charlotte briefly on the cheek and went out into the hall. We heard the front door open and close.
Charlotte shook her head. ‘She doesn’t give him half the lip she gives me. If I’d said that, there’d have been a half-hour debate.’
‘Have you got homework, Stanley?’ I suddenly realised my son was very quiet beside me.
‘I’ve done it.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes !’
Charlotte topped up both our wine glasses and handed me mine. ‘I’m just going to hustle Joe into a quick bath before Rog gets back. Make yourself at home.’
I always did feel at home at Charlotte’s. It was usually noisy, often chaotic, with assorted extra children around and people coming in and out, but it always felt welcoming and warm.
Charlotte paused at the door and looked back. ‘What do you want to do, Stanley love? You can go and put the TV on if you like – or go back on the PlayStation.’
‘Thank you.’ Stanley nodded. He seemed subdued. But before I could ask him anything, he followed Charlotte out of the room.
‘I’m going to finish my game,’ he said over his shoulder. I looked at his spiky hair. Maybe he was tired – or hungry. At home, we’d have long eaten by now and he’d be having a bath himself. Or perhaps Becky had been teasing him – he could be quite sensitive. No brothers or sisters to knock off the edges – as my mother was fond of reminding me with thinly-veiled disapproval. I’d have a chat to him later.
Upstairs, I could hear the sound of running water. I sat down at the table and pulled the paper toward me, skip-reading the dreary stuff about the economy and the problem of house prices and flicking to where a survey had found most high-flying women agreed that what they needed more than anything was a wife. Someone, as one top female banker explained, to look after all the domestic minutiae, keep the house organised, and have the dinner cooked when they got home.
Hmm. Daniel wouldn’t agree with that definition. In one of his tirades about what a dreadful partner I’d been for the entire 16 years we’d been together – silly him, for not spotting it sooner – he had turned purple and spluttered that I was completely “incompetent”.
‘You,’ he’d spluttered, grasping at clichés, ‘couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.’
‘Unlike Emily,’ I’d yelled back, ‘who knows how to get a shag from one!’ A reference to the fact that the peroxide lollipop had been hired to artfully arrange barrow-loads of hops and piles of malt for a photo-shoot in a brewery in Faversham and had invited Daniel along to “watch”. He’d tried to pretend he was doing an undercover on-the-spot tax check of off-licence sales but even I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that one.
Really, I thought now, that was what galled me most about the whole business. It wasn’t him deciding that, after all, he’d prefer to get his leg over a simpering blonde 20-something instead of his increasingly grouchy and greying 42-year-old wife – given the choice between Daniel and, say, Christiano Ronaldo or that lovely young man who’d just joined EastEnders , I’d have been tempted too – or even that he’d lied and connived and tried to have the best of both worlds and would still be stringing us both along now if I hadn’t found out and thrown all his clothes in the garden. No.
It was the way he obviously had no respect for my intellect at all. He really, genuinely thought I was brainless enough to believe all his silly stories. Like the time when he came home and announced …
I was jolted out of my reverie as somewhere in the corner of the room a phone began to ring. I looked round trying to work out where the sound was coming from.
I started picking up random items of school uniform piled on the end of the work surface, wondering if Charlotte would answer it upstairs. But the phone was still flashing away as I finally located it beneath what looked like Becky’s games shirt. Maybe it was Roger with a query on the pizza order. It was a withheld number, but perhaps he had his phone set like that.
I carried the handset to the doorway. I could hear the sound of a hairdryer going upstairs. ‘Shall I get it?’ I called. There was no reply. The phone rang on. I pressed the green button.
‘Hello?’
It was a female voice, speaking hurriedly, almost breathlessly. ‘Can’t you see what’s under your nose?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your husband – can’t you see what’s going on?’ Daniel? I thought stupidly. Was this old news or was he having yet another affair? These weren’t Emily’s cool tones. ‘It’s me he wants to be with. He’s just left me …’
Then I realised with a sick start – of course it wasn’t Daniel. This was Charlotte’s phone. This woman, whoever she was, was talking about …
I heard Charlotte’s feet on the stairs and slammed the phone down.
‘Who was that?’ Charlotte crossed to the fridge.
‘Double glazing.’ I realised my hands were shaking.
‘Urgh. Get them all the bloody time. Hope you gave ’em short shrift.’
‘Yes, I did.’
Charlotte, wine bottle in hand, turned to look. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m just – I don’t know–’ I tried to laugh. ‘Bit dopy. Think I need something to eat.’
‘Yeah, me too. Where’s Roger? He’s been ages. I bet he’s sneaked off to the pub on the way back. No wonder he was so keen to go!’
She pulled open a drawer and got a handful of cutlery out. ‘Here, chuck these round the table. I’ll give him a ring.’
I began to lay out knives and forks, heart still pounding. Charlotte pressed numbers out on the phone.
‘Oh, are you?’ I heard her say. Then she laughed. ‘Thought you’d buggered off to the boozer. OK!’ She put the phone back down on the work surface. ‘He’s outside – long queue, apparently. Not run off with the barmaid yet!’
I forced a smile back but my stomach was churning. Not Roger; not big, smiling, affectionate, dependable Roger. I found myself staring at him as he came in.
He was smiling in the perfectly ordinary way I’d seen him smile a hundred times before – plonking the wine on the table, unpacking the pizza boxes, sorting slices onto Joe’s and Stanley’s plates. I swallowed.
‘You OK?’ He looked directly at me.
‘She’s all sugar-depleted and doo-lally,’ said Charlotte, before I could answer. ‘You know what she’s like.’ A large slice of American Hot with extra peppers landed on my plate. ‘Get that down your neck and have another drink.’
‘Thanks. And thanks for going to get them.’ I held Roger’s eyes for a fraction longer than usual but he didn’t appear to notice, grinning easily at me as he always did.
‘No problem.’
Charlotte sat down opposite me. ‘Yes, most impressive. Without even having to be asked too. There’s hope for you yet, my love.’ She grinned at Roger and raised her glass. ‘My hero!’
Stanley was monosyllabic in the cab on the way home and once indoors went upstairs without speaking at all.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said, when I went into his bedroom to say goodnight. He was sitting on the edge of bed in his Batman pyjamas, looking very young. He gazed at me miserably.
‘I hate school.’
‘No you don’t, darling – you’re just tired. You know what you’re like – you always hate things when you stay up too late.’
Stanley shook his head. ‘It’s horrible. I wish I’d never gone there. I wish I was still at St Katherine’s.’
I sat down beside him and patted his arm. ‘But you’re all grown up now. And incredibly clever. And I’m so proud of you.’ I gave him a kiss.
Stanley wrinkled his nose. ‘But I don’t like it at Highcourt.’
‘You said you loved it the first week.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did. And you like your teachers.’
Stanley’s voice rose. ‘I don’t. Mr Jenkins hates me and I haven’t got any friends.’
‘You’ve got Connor.’
‘He’s not in my class, is he?’
I recognised the stubborn negativity Stanley always displayed when overtired. I used to like to think he got it from Daniel, but if I was honest I saw shades of my mother and knew it was a behaviour pattern that had my genes stamped all over it. I took a deep breath.
‘Look, darling – it’s always difficult at first, at a new school. You’ll make friends soon. Come on, get into bed.’
‘I won’t. The only ones I like are all friends already. They all go on the bus together in the mornings.’
‘Do you want to go on the bus?’
‘No. I don’t know.’
It was clear we weren’t going to get anywhere much tonight. I pulled back the duvet and prodded him. ‘Move.’
He sighed and lay down. I made a fuss of tucking him up.
‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’ I turned the light off. ‘Go to sleep now.’
‘I’m fat.’ Stanley’s voice was small in the darkness.
I stopped in the doorway. ‘You’re gorgeous. And not at all fat. Has somebody said something to you?’
‘No – but I am.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Well, I’m not skinny, am I? Not like Jonathan.’
I pictured the boy from Sam’s primary school who was now at Highcourt with him too. ‘Jonathan looks like a famine victim – some children are just like that.’
‘And he eats much more than I do.’
‘Well, there you are, then.’
‘Do you think I have too many pizzas?’
I turned the light back on. ‘Has Emily said something to you?’
Stanley turned away from me and faced the wall.
‘Not really.’
‘Stanley, has she?’
‘I just feel worried about everything.’
‘Oh darling.’ I sat down on the edge of his bed and stroked his hair. ‘Everything will be OK, I promise,’ I said softly. ‘There’s nothing to be anxious about.’ I patted his shoulder, trying to be reassuring, hoping he couldn’t sense what I was really feeling. I was worried too …