‘Do I look any different?’ Nick asked gloomily, turning his head on the white cotton pillowcase for my inspection.
‘Oh, my God,’ I said. ‘You look, you look… forty.’
‘Do I? Do I really look that old? Shit.’
I laughed, wrapping my arms round him, entwining my legs around his. It was only six a.m., but it was early June and the birds had been going barmy for the last hour. I’d even heard a cuckoo earlier, and, delighted that it had returned to Butterfield Woods after several years’ absence, I’d jumped out of bed and opened the window wider, breathing in the early morning late spring smells of our valley. The heady, hyacinth reek of the now full blown bluebells would soon be gone for another year, but the sweet scent of the double carmine climbing roses was more than ready to take its place, the pink and yellow blooms making a fabulous backdrop for the pink striped gazebos Kit had been given the job of erecting the day before. Derek, the farmer, had been out with his tractor in the fields down below our garden, and done a brilliant job cutting and collecting the new mown grass so that we’d be able to spill out from the daisy strewn lawn, if necessary, later that afternoon.
Nick and I had made love ‒ the first of his presents on this, his fortieth birthday ‒ and I had looked deep into his beautiful eyes and seen the man that I’d married, the twenty year old sublimely handsome, brown eyed, blonde haired boy that I’d fallen so in love with all that time ago at the start of my second year of university. He was still gorgeous, still had all the hair ‒ slightly darker now unless he went out in the sun, when it lightened to the colour of dark corn ‒ and was, because of the running he was so addicted to, still slim and taut. He still had the ability to make me laugh out loud, was generous and easy going and ‒ best of all ‒ for some reason, continued to love and cherish me.
What the hell had I been doing messing around ‒ risking everything ‒ with the blue eyed one? I couldn’t even bear to call him that now. Grace and I simply referred to him as The Bunion ‒ a spare piece of flesh that needs cutting out before it gives any more pain. This makes it sound as if he was the only guilty party in all of this: that I was seduced and went along with it against my will. Which is totally ridiculous. I was just as much to blame as Alex. Maybe more ‒ I was the married one, after all. Grace and I had discussed at length what it was that had made Alex make a beeline for me, why he had set out to seduce a housewife with five children when he could have had, as an extremely attractive, intelligent male, virtually any woman he wanted.
‘Not that you’re not gorgeous, of course,’ Grace had hastily interjected during one of our long winter walks and chats with the babies which, in the early weeks after I’d finally come to my senses over Alex, had tended to revolve around the man himself. ‘Any man would fancy you…’ here she’d trailed off, before adding ‘but just not do anything about it, I guess.’
‘It’s beyond me,’ I’d smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe he thought he could weed secrets about L’uomo out of me. You know, just at the point when there’s no going back, maybe he thought I’d shout, “Yes, yes, yes ‒ Nick has sold twenty thousand pairs of pants to Russia – oh, yesss!!” But as far as I know, he knew everything that was going on with the company anyway.’
Those walks with Grace, through the cold miserable months after my Flight from Manchester, kept me sane. We discussed whether I should confess all to Nick, but every time she entreated me to keep my silence ‒ that I’d only be offloading my guilt in order to make me feel better. It certainly wouldn’t make Nick feel good knowing that I’d cheated on him ‒ had sex with another man, a work colleague. This was to be my punishment, then: keeping what I’d done to Nick to myself.
Eventually, after months of beating myself up, of sleepless guilt-ridden nights, of losing more weight than was good for me, of being terrified of any closeness to Nick for fear he would see, feel, smell the terror on me, Grace had taken me in hand. She booked a night away for both of us at a new health spa in Harrogate. When I’d remonstrated, said I couldn’t leave the kids, she’d said it was all sorted: Nick was at home, Lilian had agreed to stay over and Amanda was going to have Jonty. When I’d raised my eyes at that, she’d smiled and said she knew she was totally better if she could allow Amanda to get her clutches back on Jonty. ‘She is his grandmother, after all,’ she said, ‘and I know he’s in good hands, and I will love him even more when I pick him up the next day.’ We’d been pampered to within an inch of our lives, indulged ourselves in smuggled in wine and chocolate, and any talk about both our respective madness over the past year was forbidden. Instead, we talked non-stop about our friendship, the day we’d met at Midhope Grammar, our infatuation as eleven year olds for the goddess that was our head girl, Amanda. We laughed and we talked and we drank and we ate. We said ‘sod it’ to the classes and gym on offer, and instead had massages, manicures and facials. When I dropped Grace off at her parents’ house she’d hugged me and said, ‘Enough now, Hat. Let the guilt go. If you’d have been given a prison sentence for what you did, you’d be out now with good behaviour. You are a good person. You are a good mother. Let it go.’ And while she hadn’t added, ‘You are a good wife,’ I knew, for Nick and the kids’ sake, that I had to try and put what I’d done behind me and move on.
*
‘Well,’ Lilian smiled, ‘the sun certainly shines on the righteous. What a glorious day for a party in the garden. It really wouldn’t have been the same if it had been cold and rainy and you’d had to have people in the house.’ She was standing over Thea, holding on to both of her hands and guiding her along as she walked. Thea had taken her first steps a few weeks earlier and now, at almost twelve months, was determined to explore every room and every stair. Fin, more sumo wrestler than toddler, continued to crawl everywhere, showing no desire to be up on his two feet with his sister.
‘I know,’ I said, surveying the assortment of garden tables and chairs that we’d begged and borrowed from various people and which Liberty, ably helped by her assistant, India, was just beginning to dress with tablecloths and balloons. ‘I think everything’s beginning to fall into place. I’d wanted to keep it fairly simple, as you know, but it does seem to be getting bigger by the hour.’ I looked nervously at the big green rubbish bins that Nick had bought from the local garden centre for the sole purpose of filling with ice and bottles of wine. He’d said that if he really had to be forty then he might as well be forty fortified. Or some such excuse. ‘There’s enough Pimm’s to sink a ship. If you catch Kit having any, stop him. He got the taste for alcohol at Christmas when his teacher was here for lunch and he seems to think he can indulge himself now with our blessing. Well, he can’t. He’s not sixteen yet ‒ far too young to be drinking.’
‘And is the teacher invited again?’ Lilian peered over her glasses at me. ‘Because if he is, you really will have to hide the alcohol from Kit.’
‘Well, I haven’t invited him and Nick certainly hasn’t, but I’ll bet anything he’s got wind of it and will turn up. He’s very tenacious ‒ thinks he’s part of the family now. At Parents’ Evening the other week he leapt out from behind his table in the hall and kissed us both soundly on the cheek. Everyone was looking as he fell over his chair to get to us, cheerily waving and shouting, ‘Bienvenue, mes amis.’
‘Well, you’ve got so many guests coming, your man will blend into the background if he does make an appearance,’ Lilian soothed, and then laughed as we both simultaneously shook our heads at the thought of old Juan blending into anything.
‘Right, love, where do you want this pig?’ A huge mountain of a man ‒ his striped apron, emblazoned with the epitaph Big Fat Porker straining at his gut ‒ towered over me, and I wanted to giggle. He was already sweating in the morning sunshine and I could only imagine what he’d be like by the afternoon once his pig was roasted and he was carving and doling it out to the fifty or so people we’d invited. I took him down to the flat part of the garden overlooking the banking that Sebastian Henderson had, eighteen months earlier, helped to turn from an untended and unloved scrubby bit of land into an area bursting with wild flowers. Nick had always disliked the abundance of rose trees and bushes left by the previous owners but, over the years ‒ and particularly lately, with Dad’s help ‒ we’d managed to weed out those that had had it and we were now left with a beautiful display of these queens of flowers, reigning supreme in an array of pink, yellow and red.
Sebastian was already down there, helping to put up the long trestle table upon which the salads, plates and cutlery would be placed later in the day. He stopped what he was doing, grinning broadly when he saw Big Fat Porker.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Seb said, looking at his watch and indicating, with a nod of his head, the field below. ‘I was just thinking we’d have to catch and roast one of those sheep if you hadn’t turned up in the next few minutes. Pigs take hours to roast, don’t they?’
‘We’re here now, lad. Don’t fret,’ Big Fat Porker wheezed importantly. ‘Never had a pig late for its dinner yet. Now then, let the dog see the rabbit and we’ll be up and running in two minutes.’
Seb grinned again, his smile lighting up his beautiful face ‒ and I had to accept, as I did on a daily basis, that there was no way I could have stopped my daughter falling in love with this god. Nick and I had soon come to the conclusion, once we’d been assured that Seb and Grace were no longer together, that we couldn’t keep Seb and Libby apart. We had insisted that they take it slowly, that Libby must concentrate on her A levels if she were to get into medical school, and had just hoped for the best. Libby was so headstrong that, with or without our blessing, she would have continued to sneak out to see him whatever we’d done. At least this way we were able to see what was going on and be there to mop up the mess if that’s what it came to. I didn’t think it would. OK, Seb was seven years older than Liberty, he had a child ‒ and he was, for heaven’s sake ‒ Amanda Goodners’s son but, at the end of the day, he appeared to have a lot of his father’s genes. He’d stood by Grace once they learned she was pregnant with Jonty, had given up his studies in London to be with his son and had tried his best to support Grace in her illness. But the smiling, relaxed Seb that stood before me now, light blue T-shirt tucked into white cut off shorts, was a million miles away from the reserved, pale young man he’d become as he struggled with Grace and the decision he’d made to be with her and Jonty.
He adored his now ten month old son, and although Grace did find it hard to let Jonty out of her sight, she was sensible enough to accept that not only did Seb have as much right over her son as did she, but that she truly wanted him to continue to play a big part in Jonty’s life. I worried constantly about Libby’s infatuation for Sebastian and where it would all end ‒ which mother of a seventeen year old wouldn’t? ‒ but by accepting and allowing their relationship I had, in many ways, got back the daughter I’d lost when she was unable to tell me who she’d fallen in love with. She was working terribly hard at her studies, determined to secure a place at one of the better medical schools ‒ but she was also blossoming into a beautiful young woman, happy to sit talking to Nick and me at the end of a family meal rather than slamming out of the room to get away from us, as had been the norm during the last couple of years. I looked across to where she was showing India how to tie the gold and silver helium balloons to the backs of chairs and knew, for the moment at least, there was nothing more that I could do in that area of my life.
*
My huge worry, once Nick had decided that he wanted a fortieth birthday party, had been the guest list and, obviously, one particular guest. How could I say to Nick that I didn’t want Alex at the party? That if he was invited, I wasn’t sticking around? When we’d sat down and decided who was to be invited he went through family first, and then friends and then work colleagues. My heart had started pounding when he ticked off: David, Bea, his secretary, James and Justin (the two bright young things who had joined L’uomo within the last few months) and then Alex. ‘Alex won’t come, though,’ Nick had said. ‘He rarely leaves Italy these days. But I’ll have to send him an invitation just the same.’
Several sleepless nights followed as I tossed and turned, terrified at the thought of Alex turning up. In the end I did something I never thought I would do again. Once Nick and the kids were out of the house, I texted Alex. I’d totally deleted all his contact numbers but his mobile number I remembered better than my own. I sent a simple message:
Alex, I beg of you, do not accept Nick’s invitation to his 40th birthday party. Harriet.
By two o’clock we were all ready for the party to start. The warm morning had segued neatly into a very warm afternoon but a pleasant, gentle breeze was keeping us from roasting like the pig at the bottom of the garden. Nick had asked one of his running mates to come along and bring his saxophone ‒ and he and a couple of others who, apparently, regularly jammed together in the local pubs and clubs, were already (with various squeaks and flats) tuning up their instruments. India, in a pink, cotton summer dress, was running round the garden hand in hand with her new best friend, Megan. Megan’s parents had come into the garden to drop off their daughter for the afternoon but had been invited to stay and were now quaffing Pimm’s and chatting with Nick and Sebastian.
I was a bit worried about Sylvia and Judge Colin. Their intention had been to arrive the night before, but Sylvia had rung to say there had been a change of plan and they wouldn’t be arriving until lunchtime. There was still no sign of them and I determined, once I’d checked that Kit and his mates were drinking only lemonade, that I’d give her a call on her mobile and see where they were.
We’d asked Derek, the farmer, if cars could be parked in one of his fields and put Kit and Tom Prestcott ‒ Kit’s buddy since primary school days ‒ on car parking duty. They appeared to be taking their responsibilities extremely seriously, beckoning and directing anyone who’d driven to the do in the manner of Italian traffic police, with arm waves and hand signals. Soon several lines of cars were neatly parked, and guests were being ushered down the field, through the house and into the garden overlooking the valley below. It did occur to me that, once tucked into the field, I wasn’t sure how the cars were going to get out again, and obviously the boys were thinking the same because they both started giggling helplessly as they surveyed their handiwork. Oh, well. No one was going anywhere for the moment: we’d sort out the problem of their getting out once someone actually wanted to get out and go home.
I went back in through the house and out into the garden, which was filling up nicely with guests. The women had taken advantage of the current heatwave and abandoned jeans and sweaters for summer dresses in all the colours of the spectrum: Amanda in blue, Di in yellow and Ralph-next-door’s wife, Deirdre, in a rather peculiar lime green. Mum and Dad had declined the invitation, saying it wasn’t really their thing ‒ and, while I’d obviously had to invite my brother John, had strongly suggested he also decline. Which he had. He and Christine were apparently having weekly counselling through Relate, but I didn’t really hold out much hope for their marriage. John’s infatuation with Amanda Henderson spanned twenty-five years, and I actually reckoned he and Christine were probably better apart. There must come a time, surely, when one says enough is enough. It was time to move on, to say goodbye to a marriage that had been a sham from the day Christine told John she was pregnant with Hollie, their only daughter ‒ and what was she to do?
Seeing Seb now holding Jonty in his arms, I looked round the garden for Grace. She was sitting on the lawn, one hand holding a glass of Pimm’s, the other wrapped around Thea (who was intent on pushing as much grass as possible down Grace’s dress) while talking to the man sitting at her side. I realised, with a jolt, that it was Daniel, her husband. We hadn’t actively invited Dan, but knew Grace had been out on a couple of dates with him ‒ this had made us both laugh, the idea of going out on a date with one’s husband ‒ and had told her to invite him along if she so wished. Which, by the way they were looking at each other, they both wished very much. I walked over to them and picked my youngest daughter off the lawn, swinging her round until she giggled uncontrollably before kissing Dan and hugging Grace.
She looked beautiful: her chestnut coloured hair had grown over the past few months and was now hanging in a glossy, layered mane down her back. Like Di, she was in yellow, but whereas Di’s dress was an ethnic lace and silk number, Grace’s dress was a beautifully styled, obviously expensive, simple shift. Teamed with a pair of strappy yellow sandals, the effect was quite stunning.
‘I’m a bit nervous,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, here I am with my husband and I really must introduce him to Seb. Seb knows I’ve been seeing Dan again, but it still feels a bit strange.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t worry too much. Look.’ I nodded my head towards Nick who, with glass in hand, was holding court with Seb, Ralph-next-door, Megan’s father and – oh, Lordy ‒ Philip Kerr. Daniel had walked over to Nick ‒ after all, they had been the best of mates before Daniel had had the affair with Camilla ‒ where they’d hugged each other in a manly, embarrassed sort of way. And now Daniel was holding out his hand to Seb. Seb seemed to hesitate for a while, but had then taken Daniel’s hand in a very ‒ also manly ‒ handshake before both of them turned to Jonty, cooing over him like a couple of old maiden aunts.
‘Well, it’s a start anyway,’ she said with some relief. ‘And before you ask, I don’t know. I’m certainly relieved that I no longer have to feel responsible for Seb’s happiness ‒ because I did, you know, feel responsible for him, which is a ridiculous way to feel about one’s lover ‒ but I’m certainly not jumping into another relationship with Dan at the moment. He wants me to. Wants me to find a house with him, would even like us to buy Seb’s share of the farmhouse and move into that now that it’s just about finished, but Jonty is my main priority. I am going to move out of Mum and Dad’s place as soon as I find somewhere I like but, at the moment, just with Jonty. And then we’ll see. I quite like going out on dates with Daniel ‒ makes me feel a bit teenagerish again.’
‘I’d have thought being with Seb made you feel like that,’ I laughed.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Being with a man fifteen years younger just makes you feel like his bloody mother, not his partner.’
We both smiled, content to be in each other’s company on this glorious summer Sunday afternoon. Grace leaned into me. ‘And are you sure The Bunion isn’t going to pitch up suddenly out of the blue?’
‘No, I can’t be sure. But Nick seemed to think he was still in Italy. And I did warn Alex not to come. Actually texted him, which was hard enough to do ‒ I never thought I’d use his number again. He never replied, so I’m assuming he’s got the message and will do the sensible thing and keep well away.’ The very thought of him pitching up here this afternoon made me sick with terror.
A commotion over by the group of men made us both look up. Anasim, the Russian, had made his entrance, brandishing a bottle of vodka in each hand but still somehow managing to grab Nikolai in his usual bear hug. With him was a very tall, very statuesque blonde woman towering above Nick in her six inch heeled Louboutins.
‘Blimey, who’s the blonde? Oh, God, Grace, does that look like a man in drag to you?’ I squinted against the sunshine, trying to get a better look at Anasim’s friend. ‘And don’t let Nick near that vodka,’ I added, as Anasim started doling out shots to the men around him. I could see a thoroughly overexcited Philip Kerr already holding out a glass for his share. ‘It’s lethal stuff. I don’t think Sylvia ever really recovered from her evening on Anasim’s vodka. Speaking of whom, I wonder where she and Colin are? I’ll just go over and say “hello” to Anasim and his friend and then give Sylvia a ring. Maybe it’s traffic.’
Leaving Thea with Grace, and checking that Fin was still asleep in the shade, I made my way over to the noisy group which Anasim was standing in the middle of, huge and grinning, the lesser mortals gathered satellite like around him, waiting for the sign from their leader to down their vodka.
‘Za vas,’ Anasim roared, and Nick, Ralph-next-door, Megan’s father and Philip Kerr shouted back ‘Za vas,’ before knocking back their shots.
‘Oooh, that is rather strong,’ Philip Kerr giggled, leaning into Anasim’s blonde friend and putting his hand on her backside.
‘Na Zdorovie ‒ you’re welcome,’ Anasim grinned at Philip and filled up his glass once more. ‘We hef the saying een Russia, “Only problem dreenkers don’t toast their vodka before they are dreenking her.” So Za vas once more, my leetle friend.’
‘Za vas,’ Philip tittered, and back went another one.
Holy Moly. I needed to rescue the teacher before he was flat on his back.
‘Ah the lofflee Cap,’ Anasim bellowed as he caught sight of me. He lifted me off the floor, my nose squashed somewhere under his armpit. He turned to the blonde, who was knocking back the shots on an equal footing with the men. ‘Thees ere ees Cap, Nikolai’s lofflee woman.’
‘Cap?’ I looked at Nick, mystified.
‘Just go with it,’ Nick laughed. ‘I think he’s heard me calling you Hat.’
I giggled and turned to the blonde as Anasim introduced us. ‘End, thees ere, Cap, is my lofflee friend, Olga.’
Well, she had to be called Olga, didn’t she? She was six foot tall without the shoes, but with the high heels she towered above us all. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but there was no mistaking the prominent Adam’s apple or the shapely, yet very muscular, legs. Olga definitely had to be a man. Trouble was, someone needed to tell Philip Kerr who, realising Olga couldn’t speak a word of English or he a word of Russian, was now wooing her in his very best French.
I was just trying to signal to Nick not to have any more vodka, and definitely not to let old Juan carry on knocking them back, when I glanced over to the door of the house. Gazing in Nick’s direction, short blonde hair immaculately styled and wearing a stunning little pink and black number, was Anna Fitzgerald.