Valentine’s Day was a Sunday this year; Steffie was glad it was hidden at the end of the week, an afterthought.
She had been thinking of Greg rather a lot, since kissing him on Monday. It was only a kiss on the cheek – the sort of thing that friends did all the time without consequence; yet she and Greg hadn’t been friends for a long while, not since she had found out about the affair.
Could there have been a meaner time to have found out about it than on Christmas Eve, whilst making star biscuits with Jemima?
She had been making the icing, whilst Jemima rolled out the dough. Jemima kept sneezing because she had poured too much flour on to the counter. Steffie, who found whizzing icing sugar in the electric mixer a challenge, given that it filled the air with menacing particles, was trying to ignore the flour clouds in the air, was drinking sherry in a large wine glass and singing along with ‘O, Holy Night’ on the radio … when the phone rang.
It would be her mother. Her mum always rang on Christmas Eve with some last-minute catastrophe. It wasn’t ever a real problem – I can’t get salt flakes anywhere! – simply that her mum loved the drama of eleventh-hour festive preparations.
But it wasn’t her mother. It was a man’s voice.
She knew right away that it wasn’t something pleasant because the man sounded drunk. She would have hung up, but he was saying something about Greg.
Her immediate thought was that Greg had been injured, before remembering that he was out in the workshop, working on a gift for Jemima. He was varnishing – hardly dangerous.
‘Your husband’s been screwing my wife,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d like to know.’ And then the line went dead.
‘Was that Grandma?’ Jemima said, rubbing her nose and leaving flour there.
‘No,’ Steffie had said.
‘Dancing Grandmammy then?’ Jemima knew this was a babyish nickname – a name from infancy, but it had somehow stuck.
‘No,’ Steffie said again.
The anger and fear had risen so quickly, she hadn’t even felt it coming.
‘Look at all the mess!’ she shouted, turning to look at Jemima accusingly. ‘For goodness’ sake, Jemima!’
Jemima jumped in shock, pushed her bottom lip out, held the rolling pin mid-air, uncertain whether to continue.
And it was then that Greg came in, wiping his boots on the mat, pulling his hat off and tossing it on to a chair. And then he stopped.
He knew that she knew, she could tell.
But they waited until Jemima was in bed before discussing it. Even then, they had to be quiet. Steffie couldn’t shout at him and smash plates. Jemima was home, and it was Christmas Eve.
Having to keep it quiet, to suppress it all, to be dignified and measured, made it so much worse.
Somehow it had set a pattern for things to come. Steffie ultimately dealt with the news by pushing it away – far easier to just move out with Jemima than stay here simmering around Greg. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say – that he had broken her heart so succinctly it was doing well to beat.
No one declared love after uncovering infidelity. She should have done so a long time ago, but had neglected to do so. And she had paid the price for that.
And now she was living away from him, but was softening.
What was this softening?
Laziness? Amnesia? Nostalgia? Loneliness? Lust?
Possibly it was all five. Possibly these were the chief reasons why many women forgave their cheating husbands, and vice versa.
You began all hard, firm, indignant. And slowly the whole thing began to slide.
What the heck? She still loved Greg, was only human. If she slid, she slid.
She shivered, rubbed her arms. They had been airing the flat this afternoon, but it was getting cold. She pulled the windows shut and turned to Jemima, expecting her to be wearing her hat and scarf ready to go out. But she was sitting on the sofa, back straight, eyebrows raised.
Steffie knew that look, knew that something tricky was on its way. ‘Ready for our walk?’ she said hopefully.
Jemima was not going to be diverted. ‘I want to make a cake for Dad.’
‘A cake?’ said Steffie. ‘What for?’
Jemima shrugged. ‘Just thought it’d be a nice thing to do. Dad doesn’t get home-made cake now he’s on his own.’ She jumped up with her usual agility, crossing her legs one in front of the other and holding out her arms. Even when she wasn’t dancing, she was prancing. ‘Pleasey pleasey lemon squeezey.’
‘Oh, Jemima …’ said Steffie.
Jemima was yanking her arm, pulling her to the kitchen. ‘Do we still have the heart-shaped baking tin?’
‘Heart?’ said Steffie suspiciously. ‘Why–’
‘Just tell me,’ said Jemima.
‘No,’ Steffie said. ‘We don’t. It—’
‘Didn’t fit?’ Jemima said, with a funny look on her face.
Steffie sighed in resignation, opened a kitchen cupboard and peered inside. ‘How will you get it to him?’ she asked the baking trays and a frail spider who looked starving.
‘We’ll drive over there,’ Jemima replied.
Easy as.
They had to wait for the cake to cool and the icing to set. By which time, it was beginning to get dark – was Valentine’s night.
Steffie was ordering stock online for the Silver Tree when Jemima appeared before her, holding the cake out on a plate. ‘Can we go to Daddy’s now?’ she said. ‘I’ll carry it like this.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Steffie said. ‘We’ll put it in a tin.’
‘It won’t fit. The icing will squidge.’
‘Fine,’ said Steffie. ‘Grab your coat.’
No doubt she was sounding gruff, but she didn’t want to do this – go to Greg’s on Valentine’s night procuring a sprinkly cake. The whole thing could be misconstrued, which was no doubt Jemima’s intention. It wasn’t as if she had ever worried about her father’s cake intake before.
There was little traffic in Wimborne at that time of evening. They were out of town and at Greg’s front door within ten minutes.
The lodge was set to the right of the driveway and garages. There were two garages, the left one being Jemima’s dance space. Over the years, Greg had personalised it, carving a Jemima’s Studio sign to hang above the door, decorating the walls with photographs of her idols. When she stayed with him, he sometimes found her asleep out there on the beanbag, exhausted from practice.
Steffie pulled into the driveway and gazed in the direction of the front door.
From the door, you couldn’t see arrivals to the house, could only hear tyres on gravel, see headlamps lighting the foliage and spiders’ webs. This Steffie knew from the times she had waited for Greg’s parents to arrive on Christmas Eve, Jemima by her side shivering in a dressing gown, gazing up at the sky for Father Christmas and Dancing Grandmammy, as though they would arrive together. It would be hard to say whom she considered more magical.
Steffie switched off the engine and turned her attention to the large black car she had pulled up alongside; not Greg’s old truck, but a polished vehicle that suggested affluence.
It wasn’t unusual for there to be other cars scattered around the driveway – workmates’, clients’. But there was something about this one that was troubling her. Maybe the fact that it was here, as well as them, on Valentine’s night.
‘Whose is that’s, Mummy?’ said Jemima.
‘I don’t know,’ Steffie said.
‘Well, don’t just sit there …’ said Jemima, unclicking her belt. ‘Come on.’
Steffie remained seated. The black car was higher than theirs. On the dashboard, she could see a plastic tiara. There was a princess sunshield in the side window.
She had a bad feeling about this.
Jemima was waiting for her, having managed to slide out of the car whilst holding the cake still on the plate. Lithe and nimble, she would make a good cat burglar.
‘Come on!’ said Jemima.
Steffie followed hesitantly. Jemima was already there, lit by the security light that she had prompted. ‘Will you knock, please, Mummy?’
Steffie obliged.
She could hear voices inside – a woman’s voice, heels approaching on floorboards.
Oh, flax seed.
But it was too late.
The door had swung open and there in the doorway, in the threshold of Steffie’s old home, was a woman in a long cardigan, skinny jeans and heeled boots – the pointy sort that Steffie shied away from wearing for fear of looking hard. This woman didn’t look hard, though. Her cardigan was fluffy, her lip gloss glisteny, her blonde hair straight and smooth. She smelt of vanilla and candyfloss – one of those sweet perfumes that teenagers liked.
Steffie thought she was going to be sick. She stood staring, speechless.
Luckily, Jemima wasn’t fazed at all. She rose on tiptoes, holding the cake steady, trying to look beyond the woman. ‘Is my dad here?’ she asked.
She sounded bossy, kick-ass. Good, Steffie thought. One of them ought to.
‘Yes, he is,’ the woman said, gazing at Jemima, and then at Steffie. ‘Greg?’ she called over her shoulder.
Steffie couldn’t keep eye contact with the woman, gazed instead at the potted bay tree to the right of the door. Someone had added a ribbon to its base and a silver heart to its top, like a Christmas tree star. Who would have done so?
Steffie realised that she couldn’t stand here – couldn’t be stood looking like this when Greg appeared any second now.
She backed away, trying to sound cavalier, blasé. ‘Come on, Mims,’ she said. ‘Just leave the cake for Daddy … It’s getting late and you’ve got school tomorrow …’
She retreated to the car, grappled with the door handle and sat behind the wheel with her heart pounding.
Calm thoughts. Kind thoughts.
Calm and kind. She was calm and kind.
No, she wasn’t.
She wanted to punch Olivia. She had pushed over a chair in Yvonne’s office in rage just at the thought of Olivia’s face.
And now she had seen her face and it was worse than she had thought – or better. And Greg had promised not to see her, to break all contact.
Oh, what an idiot she was, to have softened.
It was all coming back to her, her form. She was stiffening up, sitting there in the car. This was what they meant when they said that old spinsters dried up. It wasn’t so much drying, as hardening, Steffie thought. If love melted the soul, hate solidified it.
She started the car and eased forward in order to see what was happening at the door. Olivia – for it was surely Olivia – was saying something to Jemima, had the nerve to be laughing. Steffie tried to lipread. All she could see was Olivia’s shiny hair under the lights.
Jemima was handing in the cake. And the door was closing.
Olivia had gone, the security light had switched off. Jemima was standing momentarily in the dark, her head bowed, her back to Steffie. And then she walked towards the car.
She got into the back seat, clipped on her belt without a word.
As they turned the car around, the security light came on again as the front door swung open. ‘Daddy!’ Jemima said. ‘It’s Daddy!’
Steffie stopped the car and Jemima jumped out and ran to her father. They embraced in the middle of the driveway, Greg holding Jemima up high, her feet off the ground.
They talked for a few moments, Greg crouched with one knee up and one on the ground so that Jemima could perch on him.
Steffie surreptitiously drew the window down an inch and listened.
‘Cake … So kind … Thoughtful … Audition Saturday … Thank you …’
This was the essence of the conversation. Then Jemima broke away and skipped to the car.
Greg was walking towards them, frowning, looking upset.
How to do this without knocking him down?
He banged on the window, but Steffie was accelerating away.
When she glanced in her rear-view mirror, he was standing with his hands behind his head, in the position that police made people adopt before arresting them.
‘Why didn’t you speak to Daddy?’ Jemima asked.
Steffie didn’t answer that question, faked a happy voice instead. ‘Pleased you did that?’
‘Yes,’ Jemima said. ‘Daddy said he’s going to have it for tea. He also said that he had a guest with him that he was trying really hard to get rid of.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Steffie.
‘No, it isn’t, Mum,’ said Jemima. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Daddy’s got someone there who’s—’
‘I heard,’ Steffie said abruptly. She softened her voice. ‘I’m sure he’ll love the cake.’
They travelled the ten minutes home in silence. When they pulled up outside their apartment, Jemima suddenly spoke. ‘Was that Daddy’s girlfriend?’ she said.
Steffie felt her cheeks redden. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why would you think such a thing?’
‘Because she’s really pretty?’ Jemima said.
Steffie felt a stab of sorrow in her chest. She turned to look at Jemima. ‘Really?’ she said. She turned forward again, pressed the car keys into her palm to stave off tears.
‘Well, I thought so,’ Jemima said. And then she got out of the car and began jumping up and down on the pavement, practising her sautés.
Steffie sat for a moment watching the sun setting at the end of the road – the grey clouds tinged with pink that were moving slowly between the gap in the buildings, reminding her with their heaviness, yet their opacity, of passing dinosaurs.
Kids could be so disloyal, so hurtful; and at their most cruel when they didn’t intend to be. For they were merely relaying the truth as they saw it: the simple injurious truth.