Tasha attempted to zone out as she lay on her mat in Pilates, moving from plank to side stretches, all fours to standing poses. Every muscle in her body seemed to ache with tiredness.
‘You’re child-free today, aren’t you?’ Flo asked as the class came to an end.
‘Thank God! Mum’s got them for the day.’ It had become a tradition in each school holiday: Lizzie would take them off to a different museum or landmark to give Tasha a break. ‘Who has yours?’
‘Hortense, the French exchange.’
‘Oh yes. How’s that going?’ Tasha asked as they rolled up their mats.
‘Not bad. She is very quiet, which isn’t a bad thing if you ask me. She’s eighteen but she looks about twelve.’
‘Quite nice having an extra pair of hands for the summer?’
‘Exactly. All under the pretence of learning English. It’s basically like having a free au pair.’
‘Sounds great! Does she have any friends?’ Tasha laughed.
A short while later they were sitting down for lunch. ‘I actually took your advice and signed up with a recruitment agency this morning,’ Tasha said. She had arranged the meeting a while ago and had almost cancelled before realising she needed something new to focus on now more than ever.
‘Oh, really?’ Flo looked impressed. ‘Amazing! Good on you… What did you have to do?’
‘It was surprisingly straightforward. I filled out an application online and they arranged for me to go in and meet them to go through my CV and discuss what I was looking for, or not looking for as the case may be!’
‘And what happens now?’
‘They’ll send me possible jobs and we’ll see if anything interesting comes up, I suppose.’
The waitress came over and Tasha ordered a coffee, her third of the day. She still wasn’t sleeping well and caffeine was the only thing keeping her going.
‘Late night?’ Flo asked. ‘You look quite tired, you know.’
Tasha laughed weakly. If only she knew. ‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘I’m not sleeping well at the moment.’
Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. Flo immediately leant across the table, grabbed Tasha’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Tash, what is it?’ she asked. Her face was full of friendly concern.
Tasha shook her head; she couldn’t possibly tell her. She tried to stop the tears from coming but it was impossible now that they had started. Flo’s sympathy was making it harder for her to pull herself together.
‘What’s wrong?’ Flo asked again, her eyes searching Tasha’s.
She had to say something to explain her tears. ‘It’s Charlie…’ she said.
‘Is he OK?’
‘Well… not really.’ Tasha took a deep breath. She looked at Flo and decided she would come clean. If Flo judged her it was nothing more than she deserved. At least she knew that Flo was trustworthy. She wouldn’t tell anyone if Tasha asked her not to. ‘I’ve really messed up…’ Tasha wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘I… I slept with someone else.’
Flo’s eyes widened with shock but she didn’t say anything. The hand that had been holding Tasha’s flew up to her mouth. ‘Who?’ she asked.
‘No one you know, no one anyone knows…’
‘Oh, my God.’ Flo was clearly more than surprised at this news. ‘When?’
‘A couple of weeks ago. Charlie found out.’
‘Oh, Tasha. Holy shit. How? What happened?’
She told Flo a shortened version of the story. ‘Obviously I don’t need to say this but please don’t tell anyone.’
‘Of course I won’t. God, I can’t believe it. How’s Charlie now?’
‘He hasn’t spoken to me much since. I can’t exactly blame him. He’s staying in a hotel.’
‘What have you told the kids?’
‘We’ve said he’s busy working late and needs to be in the office.’
‘And the weekends? Do they think he’s working then too?’
‘Last weekend he took them to his parents’. We told everyone I was with Rosie on a girls’ weekend. This weekend he is on a genuine business trip.’
‘Oh, my God. Do you think he’s going to be OK? Do you think he’ll come around?’
‘I have no idea. I hope so. I can’t imagine what will happen if he doesn’t.’ The tears were rolling freely now. ‘I just feel so stupid. I can’t believe I could have screwed things up like this… and for what? A quick shag?’
Flo shook her head. She could tell Flo was thinking exactly that. She knew she would be just as shocked by her behaviour as Tasha herself was.
‘Look, I don’t want to make you feel worse, but I can see it might take him a bit of time to get his head around all this.’
‘I know.’ Tasha sighed. ‘Last night he asked to meet up on Tuesday to talk.’
‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’
‘I hope so. We’re meant to be going to Dorset the following week.’
‘Of course!’
‘God knows what we’ll tell the children if he doesn’t feel he can come. Maybe he should go and I should stay behind? But how would I explain that to the kids?’
They talked through the various options. It felt good to have someone to share her turmoil with other than Rosie. Apart from Becca, who Tasha was adamant could never find out what she had done, Flo was the only other friend she felt close enough with to talk to about all this. She had been worried that Flo would judge her, that she wouldn’t understand. And she probably didn’t, but rather than telling her off and making her feel guilty she was trying her best to support her. Listening and trying to give advice rather than preaching. She could probably tell that Tasha felt guilty enough already without needing any help from her.
After lunch she had a couple of hours to herself before Lizzie was due to bring the children home. She stripped and remade the beds, hung the washing out and loaded the machine with dirty sheets. Then she sat down to check her emails. She scrolled through some of the initial job specifications that had come into her inbox from the agency following her meeting that morning. Nothing looked too appealing. She closed the laptop with a sigh and went out into the garden to deadhead the roses. The air was heavy with their musky scent. As she snipped each stem she watched the velvet petals fall to the ground in a delicate pirouette. As always, she was able to draw peace from the presence of nature and its intricate, mesmerising beauty.
Tasha was immersed in the task when the doorbell rang. Her pulse quickened slightly in case it was Javier but the voices she heard as she went inside reassured her that it was not. She opened the front door.
‘Hi, Mum!’ chorused the children as they charged inside.
‘Hi, darling!’ Lizzie said. ‘What a day!’ She looked completely worn out.
‘How was it?’ Tasha asked.
‘Wonderful, thanks!’ They had gone to the Natural History Museum to visit a new exhibition about whales.
‘Did you know the blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived on Earth?’ Max was clutching a new book of whale facts and beaming with excitement.
‘I didn’t! How incredible! Did Grandma buy you that lovely book? That was very kind of you, Mum.’
‘Did you know their tongue can weigh as much as an elephant?’ Bella asked.
‘And their heart can weigh as much as a car!’ Flora added.
‘Gosh, how amazing! It sounds like you are all budding whale experts!’ Tasha laughed. ‘I’m so glad you had such a lovely time.’
‘I am dying for a cup of tea,’ Lizzie gasped. She had collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs. Her dark grey hair was escaping from the tortoiseshell clips that rested an inch or two away from each temple.
‘I’m not surprised! Thanks so much for entertaining them all day, Mum. I’ll put the kettle on. And I’ve got some brownies for tea.’ This elicited squeals of excitement from the children.
‘I hear Charlie has been staying at work this week,’ Lizzie said. ‘I didn’t realise that was even possible!’
Tasha had no idea how to handle this. She stupidly hadn’t thought through what to say to her mother. She should have known the children might bring it up.
‘Yes, they have some facilities,’ she said vaguely. ‘There’s a mad deal on at the moment and everyone is there around the clock.’
Luckily her mother knew very little about the world of asset management and the ways of the City. She seemed to accept this without question, moving the conversation on swiftly. ‘I’m meeting Sandra at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’ Sandra was an old colleague from when Lizzie had worked at Sotheby’s. Tasha’s mother had given up her career when she had had her but was still a fanatical art lover.
‘Where are you going with her?’
‘The National Gallery.’
‘How lovely!’
‘I’m determined to make the most of my time in London.’
‘Well, it’s a real treat for us,’ Tasha said, looking fondly at her mother, grateful to have her with her. ‘You should come and stay more often.’