The remainder of the month of November and the early days of a cold, frosty December were filled with illicit, dangerous liaisons with Alex interspersed with drives down the M62 to Leeds to see Grace in her hospital in Headingly. Worryingly, she didn’t seem to be getting any better, and she certainly didn’t appear to appreciate my visits. For the first time ever, in the almost thirty years that we had been inseparable, I had no idea what to say to her or how to help her. I took her in the latest Marian Keyes for if she wanted a funny read ‒ and the Hilary Mantel novel I knew she still hadn’t read, as well as the crossword from our local weekly rag, but they remained unopened, untouched. I found the afternoons that I spent with her invariably ended up with me doing all the talking. I’d tell Grace what my kids had been up to; how I didn’t seem to be able to get through to Liberty; what milestones the twins had reached now that they were over six months old. I finally felt I’d achieved a modicum of success when, after relating Kit’s ‘cock and balls’ story, Grace managed a smile but, only ten minutes later, as I hugged her before leaving her once more, the shutters were back down and she had retreated into her own private misery once more.
Nick appeared to have been taken over by the Russians, and he and I were in the middle of a cold war of our own. Not that he noticed. When he actually was at home he was either on the phone, in his office, in discussion with David Henderson or fast asleep. His little black case was always at the ready, standing to attention in the hall. It reminded me of my own little case that I’d lovingly packed ready for the births of my elder children. Not for the twins. By the time I was on to the fourth event I was more than happy to wing it at the last minute and hadn’t bothered to have the little red case prepared with whale music, Evian water and outsized pants. Good job, really, when I thought back to the events of that early June afternoon in Harvey Nicks in Manchester.
Like Nick, Alex was away a lot, but he’d taken charge of the Italian side of L’uomo, leaving Nick and David to deal with new business as far away as Brazil, India and China. David was apparently in the process of headhunting two more bright young things for that part of the world, and Nick had taken me to see the building on the outskirts of Midhope that was being pulled apart and refurbished as L’uomo’s head office. Nick and David had decided against Leeds or Manchester, where offices were swanky but expensive and, with caution and prudence, deciding their main building should reflect the textile traditions of old Midhope, had converted what was the last bit of the Goodners’s mill still owned by Amanda. Both my Granny and Grandad Morgan, as well as my mother, had toiled for most of their working lives in this very building, and it seemed surreal that my husband should now be on the board of a company based in these mills. I determined I’d take my mum over there for a visit once it was no longer a building site and see what she remembered about her working days as a mill girl.
Guilt and shame at what I was up to with Alex seemed to diminish in direct proportion to the passing of the weeks. I grew more scheming and more confident in my ability to juggle Alex with everything else in my life. I seemed to bloom: my hair grew longer and shinier, my nails stopped breaking and I pushed myself onwards and upwards in my sessions at the gym with Tina Trainer. I was delighted when I could do thirty and then forty lengths at the pool in thirty minutes, loved the fact that my upper arms were taut in their little gym bunny top and ecstatic when I was in bed with Alex on midweek afternoons when I was supposed to be in Sainsbury’s. I adored the twins ‒ they were very good babies ‒ India was very happy with her new little friend at school and, once Nick and I had read the riot act to Kit, he too (after apologising to the chemistry teacher and spending a week at home without television, phone or PlayStation) appeared to settle down and get on with revising for up-and-coming school exams.
One unseasonably mild Friday morning in early December, I’d left the twins with Lilian, saying I was going to Manchester to do Christmas shopping. Nick was off travelling again and I suddenly realised Christmas was only three weeks away and, apart from ordering an ostrich ‒ OK, a turkey, but big enough to be mistaken for an ostrich ‒ I’d done very little in the way of preparation for the great event. It would be the first Christmas in years that we’d actually have any money to pay for the usual over indulgence in food and gifts, and I’d decided I wanted a totally traditional Christmas: holly, crackers, carols ‒ the lot. Problem was, so wrapped up was I in myself and my lust for Alex, I’d done very little about inviting anyone to join us for Christmas Day itself.
And while it was true that I was taking myself off to the Manchester shops, I’d also arranged to meet up with Alex for lunch. He’d been away in Milan for the previous week and I was dying to see him. I was energised at the thought of a couple of hours with him and had been up with the twins since five, laid the table for breakfast, prepared porridge and cracked eggs ready for scrambling, sliced bread for the toaster and poured orange juice ready for when the kids came down. I’d showered, smoothed Aromatics body lotion into every part of my body and had just hooked myself into ‒ matching ‒ bra and knickers, when India came prancing into the bedroom.
‘You look nice,’ she said, stroking the cream cashmere sweater I was pulling over my head. ‘That feels really soft and it’s the colour of…’ she thought for a moment, ‘of porridge.’
I laughed, reaching out for her, breathing in her sleepy, toothpaste smell and kissed the top of her blonde head. Revved up with the thought that I would be seeing Alex in less than six hours, I rolled her on the bed, tickling her until she begged for mercy.
Together we took the twins downstairs and India supervised Fin and Thea while they sucked and mumbled on a finger of toast and butter each. I made India her porridge and she dribbled her initials ‒ I W ‒ across its surface with golden syrup while chattering non-stop about Martha, her new best friend: Martha had a dog called Blue, Martha loved porridge, Martha was really good at writing stories, Martha was going to be a doctor like her mummy when she grew up…
… Alex had the bluest, sexiest eyes imaginable, Alex had a gunshot scar on his back, Alex loved good Italian red wine, Alex was really good at making Mummy come…
Liberty came into the kitchen, yawned, and switched on the kettle just as Lilian let herself in through the kitchen door. The twins chortled and blew raspberries, waving soggy toast in welcome, and I felt no qualms whatsoever about leaving them with her. They loved her lilting, calm voice and the reassuring way she picked them up and held them.
Libby squinted at the jug of golden, beaten egg and grimaced. ‘God, eggs at this time of the day. How could anyone go for that?’ She poured herself a bowl of cereal, and, sitting down at the kitchen table, pulled yesterday’s local paper towards her, obviously in no mood for conversation. While Libby had always been fairly headstrong ‒ I reckoned she had a lot of Sylvia’s genes ‒ she’d been almost unbearable to live with the past few months. She very rarely sat down to chat to me, flounced out of rooms ‒ and spent a good deal of her time out of the house, at Bethany’s, on the phone or writing her diary in her bedroom. There would be an occasional ceasefire when she was almost manic with happiness, when she’d bounce around the kitchen offering to make supper, but would then, just as my own defences came down, revert to the snarling, spitting she-tiger she had become. I googled different drugs and their effect on mood, tried to get her to abandon her books and come and watch the next episode of Happy Valley with me, endeavoured to talk to her adult to adult, but to no avail. The boy she was involved with certainly wasn’t making her happy, and she was certainly keeping him to herself.
‘You look nice,’ Kit said, ten minutes later, echoing India’s earlier words before tucking into a mountain of scrambled egg, which he was surreptitiously sharing with Sam the dog. ‘Where are you off?’
‘Manchester. Christmas shopping.’ And I was, I assured my conscience, I really was.
‘In those shoes? ’ Libby asked, deigning to look up from her cereal.
‘Absolutely,’ I said, cheerfully. ‘I think the red is very Christmassy, don’t you?’
Liberty snorted in what I assumed to be derision and, leaving her cereal bowl on the table, left the kitchen without saying another word.
‘Why not Leeds?’ Kit asked. ‘The new Apple Store in the Trinity Centre is brilliant. You could get me the Mac Air for Christmas. Job done.’
‘In your dreams, buster,’ I said, chivvying India into her school duffel coat and making sure her navy regulation beret was on her head. ‘Right… everyone OK? I’ll be home by the time you’re back from school. What does everyone want for tea?’
‘Can we have a takeaway, seeing it’s Friday?’ India asked doubtfully. She knew my opinion on pizza and McDonald’s.
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said, and the kids and Lilian turned, as one, to see if I was all right. I was Lady Bountiful, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy all rolled into one.
‘What’s up with her?’ I heard Kit say as I went to get my jacket. ‘Has she won the lottery?’
‘It’s because Daddy’s coming home tomorrow,’ India said importantly. ‘Mummy loves Daddy.’
Yes, but Mummy fancies Alex like mad.
India’s words sobered me up somewhat, and by the time I’d dropped her off in the playground, cocked a snook at Sally Saxton (who was taking in my made-up face, my black leather trousers and red high heeled Louboutins) and parked the car in Midhope station prior to taking the TransPennine Express to Manchester, my earlier euphoria had dissipated.
Mummy loves Daddy.
Of course she does. She just wants to experience lust and wantonness before she’s forty. I married too young, I told myself as the train lurched out of the station. I should have had lots of men before I married and then I wouldn’t have had to go through this midlife crisis. I should have listened to Sylvia when she said Nick and I were too young to get married straight from university. She must have known this would happen once I hit my late thirties.
You silly bitch, I smiled to myself, trying to blame poor old Sylvia for my having an affair. As if.
I shook myself, scrabbled in my bag for paper and pen and, by planning my Christmas gift list, almost convinced myself that my intention that day involved nothing more sinister than a latte with an extra shot in Starbucks before heading for a good shop in House of Fraser.
*
‘Tell me about this, Alex.’
I’d shopped frantically before meeting up with Alex at lunchtime in a bar in the Northern Quarter which, in a former life, had been a pharmacy housing medicinal remedies. The antique cabinets and embossed high stools gave the place a somewhat Gothic feel. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in there on a summer’s day but today, in December, it was perfect. We’d made our way into the basement ‒where black leather sofas, sprawling like sleeping panthers, were just asking to be curled up on with an illicit lover ‒ and ordered mulled wine.
We’d chatted about things in general: the weather ‒ cold and frosty; Christmas ‒ he was going back to Italy to stay with friends who had lived there many years; L’uomo ‒ he thought David was on to a total winner and could only see the company expanding and getting bigger and bigger; children ‒ he wasn’t keen but thought perhaps, a bit like Simon Cowell, he might eventually like one to carry on his name; poetry ‒ here Alex became quite animated, waxing lyrical about Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne, seventeenth century poets I knew little about.
At no time could I really relax with him. The space around us seemed charged, edgy ‒ and eventually, without a word, Alex held out my jacket, took my hand and all my bags and parcels and led me out on to the streets of Manchester. On the first visit to Alex’s flat, after meeting him in that dreadful Marie Celeste pub, I hadn’t realised just how near to the city centre Alex actually lived. He loved cities, he said, loved living at the hub of all that was going on. Call-me-Gabs had never really been mentioned since the night of our party, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring her up. Anyway, how could I object to Alex having a girlfriend when I had a husband and five very obvious children? Oh, but I didn’t want him to be seeing her still. Couldn’t bear the thought of him wrapped around her in the way, a ten minute walk from where we’d had a drink, he was wrapped around me.
‘Tell me about this, Alex.’
‘What?’
I traced the circular scar on his brown back with my fingers before putting my mouth to it, feeling the silky, slightly puckered skin with my tongue.
Alex sighed. ‘What do you want to know?’ He turned over, taking my hands in his and began kissing me again.
‘Stop avoiding the issue,’ I said gently. ‘I just want to know a little more about you and your former life.’
For a moment he looked cross. ‘Just live for the moment, Harriet. This is enough for now.’
‘I didn’t say it wasn’t,’ I said lightly. The last thing I wanted was for Alex to think I was getting serious about him, that if I wanted to know about his past, I might be thinking of a future. Our future. I knew there wasn’t one. ‘I’m just very curious. I don’t know anything about the SBS. Tell me.’
Alex turned on to his back, bringing my head down on to his chest. ‘After university it had always been my intention to go into the City ‒ some sort of finance or corporate business ‒ but after a few years in London I felt totally claustrophobic being cooped up all day, clawing my way up the ladder, seeing people do almost anything to get a deal ‒ to be on a winning streak. So I went into the Marines, eventually became an officer and loved every minute of it. Within a couple of years I’d transferred to the SBS.’
‘Special Boat Service?’
‘Yes. I was based in Poole in Dorset and sent out on special operations at sea and around the coastline.’
‘So how did you end up in Afghanistan?’ I was puzzled. My geography isn’t wonderful but as far as I knew Afghanistan was landlocked. Not much need for boats, even special ones, I wouldn’t have thought.
‘Basically, SBS personnel are drawn from the Marines and are trained to be on standby anywhere where counter terrorism is needed. Iraq, Afghanistan…’
I sat up, an elbow on the pillow, and looked down at Alex’s beautiful face. He was frowning, seemingly pained at the memory.
‘Was it awful? Did you hate it?’ I asked gently.
Alex looked surprised. ‘Hate it? No, I loved it. Loved every minute of it until the end.’
It was my turn to look surprised. ‘The end? The end of what?’
‘Do you really want to know about all this? Wouldn’t you prefer this instead?’ Alex moved his mouth to my breast, expertly teasing and nipping.
‘No, I’d really like to know about your former life,’ I said, stroking his dark hair, burying my fingers in its springy softness.
Alex sighed again. ‘NATO launched something called Operation Medusa in an attempt to drive the Taliban out of Panjwai in Afghanistan. The SBS were working together with US forces and we were right at the vanguard of the operation. It was bloody hard work but I felt alive, felt as if I was doing something useful instead of poncing about in some overheated office trying to get one over on the next guy.’
‘Weren’t you frightened?’ I asked.
Alex didn’t say anything for a while. ‘Frightened? Depends what you mean by frightened.’
‘Well, frightened of dying, frightened of not seeing your family again?’
Alex laughed briefly. ‘It wouldn’t really have bothered me if I’d never seen my family again. Apart from Laura, my sister. So no, I wasn’t bothered about dying.’
I was shocked. Not bothered about ever seeing his family again? I knew his parents lived in Cambridgeshire somewhere, but he’d never really spoken about them. Before I could ask him more about his family he went on, ‘There was a big push. It was all noise and madness, but we were gaining ground. And then an RAF Nimrod spy plane that just happened to have five of the best men ‒ five very close friends ‒ from the SBS Signals Squadron, crashed while supporting the operation.’ Alex smiled but his eyes showed his pain. ‘They all died. And then a couple of days later I got this in the back.’
‘And that was the end of the SBS for you?’
‘Yep. I argued the toss, said once I’d recovered from the shooting I’d be OK, that my training had been so expensive that it was ridiculous to let me go ‒ but the bullet had torn part of my lung, and I didn’t meet their standards with regards to fitness after being in hospital followed by months of recuperation.’
‘And did you try?’
‘Yes, Harriet, I tried and tried again. The SBS was my family.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t really know what else to say, and it was clear that Alex had had enough of talking about it.
Half an hour later I was showered, dressed and ‒ bags and presents in hand ‒ was waiting for the train to take me back to Midhope.
When I wasn’t sneaking off to Manchester to see Alex ‒ my children teased me about my new love affair with Manchester after years of doing all my shopping in Leeds ‒ I was travelling down the M62 to see Grace. Thank goodness for Rebecca and Nick’s insistence that I needed help in the house: I couldn’t have seen either Alex or Grace without Lilian’s daily presence. To begin with I had resented another woman being around most days ‒ found it quite intrusive, having her taking over much of the work with the twins ‒ but I soon got over it. Lilian was a dream to have in the house: helping with the children, baking scones, sewing up that odd fallen hem without being asked, and I began to rely on her more and more. She wasn’t a gossip like Norma, didn’t want to have TV on at all hours, didn’t sulk if things weren’t going her way. She simply got on with helping with the twins, did a bit of cooking and ironing and wasn’t averse to extra babysitting if Libby and Kit weren’t at home and Nick and I wanted to go out. Which wasn’t very often. Entertaining clients, and constantly eating out in restaurants when he was away, meant all he wanted when he did get home was a poached egg in front of the telly and bed.
Where he slept the sleep of the knackered.
The journey down the M62 to North Leeds and Grace took me around forty minutes, and I tried to see her at least twice a week. She was in a private clinic, paid for by David Henderson, which thankfully bore little resemblance to the Bedlam type mental institution I’d conjured up in my mind. Of course she was fortunate in that she had the luxury of a private room and of one to one therapy as well as the usual group sessions but ‒ as she so rightly said ‒ at the end of the day, she was mentally ill, and wrapping it all up in soft lighting, Egyptian cotton sheets, and alternative therapies such as Pilates and aromatherapy couldn’t ever take that away.
The first couple of visits I made were hard work. She appeared not to want me there and, apart from asking about the children and Nick in polite chit-chat, wouldn’t open up to me at all. Seb had obviously been to see her, taking Jonty with him, but he’d said she made no move to take the baby from him, didn’t appear to want to hold or cuddle him and had seemed relieved when the visits were over. I felt for Seb: here was a very young man who was suddenly responsible for a baby that he’d not planned on having in the first place, as well as a partner who didn’t appear to want much to do with him or her baby.
And then, a week or so after my Christmas shopping trip to Manchester, when Alex had opened up to me about the SBS, I left the children with Nick ‒ it was a Sunday and he’d been home just a day ‒ and set off for Leeds and the hospital once more. I can’t say that I was looking forward to the visit. Nick was tired and cranky and hadn’t relished being in charge of the twins who, like their father, were also tired and cranky. But I didn’t want to be at home with Nick: I was frightened of my lack of desire for him, and frightened that he would know this and demand an explanation.
Grace wasn’t in her room and I had to ask one of the nurses where she was. She led me to a large communal space, where I found her chatting to a woman of around her own age. Grace actually smiled when she saw me and came over and kissed me.
‘Let’s go and get a coffee, shall we?’ She took me up in a lift to a small sitting room where patients were able to help themselves to a whole array of different teas and coffees.
‘How are you?’ I asked, pleased with the change in her appearance. She’d washed her hair, was wearing make-up and seemed much more herself.
‘Hat, I’ve felt so much better these past couple of days. I’ve been undergoing some really interesting therapies. I’ve had something called psychoeducation therapy, where I was told more about the psychology behind my condition and then done some art therapy where I had to talk about what I’ve been feeling while making a piece of pottery.’ She looked at me and laughed. ‘Can you believe that? Feeling a bit better because I was making a bloody pot?’
‘Grace,’ I said, ‘I’ve been so worried about you. We all have. What’s it like in here?’
‘OK, really. A bit like a five-star hotel. I’m beginning to put weight on ‒ I’m going to have to watch it or I won’t be able to get into the old skinny jeans when I go home. Trust Amanda to know about such a place. You come here if you’re addicted to cocaine, alcohol, are anorexic or bulimic ‒ and, of course, are rich into the bargain. Don’t know what happens if you’re living in a high-rise and feel like I did. Jump, I suppose.’
I could tell she was embarrassed, bringing up the fact that she’d wanted to kill herself, but I decided to bite the bullet and ask her. ‘You don’t still want to die, Grace, do you? ’ I asked gently.
‘No… no, I don’t. Honestly, I don’t, Hat. And actually, talking to the staff here, even if I hadn’t had the money to come here, I’d have been OK. There are specialist MBUs you can go to.
‘MBUs?’
‘Mother and baby units. In fact, discussions are now on as to whether, because apparently I am doing so well…’ Grace paused and I could see she was as proud as if she’d got all A stars at GCSE, ‘… I shouldn’t transfer to one myself next week.’
‘You mean have Jonty with you?’
‘Yes. I’m a bit nervous about it, I have to admit. But I’m his mother. I am, aren’t I, Hat? I’m his mum.’
‘Grace, of course you’re his mum. Why on earth would you doubt that?’
Tears welled in her eyes, but she actually giggled. ‘It’s usually the father who one can’t be sure about, isn’t it? No, I mean, I know I’m physically his mother…’ she paused again, ‘but I haven’t been there for him ‒ emotionally, I mean. He’s always preferred Amanda to me.’
‘And how do you know that? He told you, did he?’
We both laughed. ‘Well, I think the plan is that next week I’ll move to this specialist MBU and have Jonty with me until I’m OK on my own with him. Apparently there aren’t many of them around. There is one in Leeds but they seem to think it’s full. I might have to go over to Manchester.’
‘There isn’t one in Midhope?’
‘Harriet, if there isn’t even a bloody Starbucks in Midhope, what chance is there of being something as specialised as one of these MBUs?’
We laughed again.
She was getting better.