Chapter Twenty-one

‘THIS HAS GOT to be the first properly sunny morning we’ve had in months,’ Jimmy said as he steered the boat back down the canal towards Farmington. ‘You can even feel the warmth on your face. Maybe spring’s on its way at last, hey, girls?’

‘Maybe,’ Leila said, sitting at his feet, happily chalking a masterpiece depiction of Jesus and a lot of angels in heaven, having tea with God, in God’s car, on the painted door of the boat.

Eloise sat opposite him on the little bench at the helm of the boat, her arms crossed, her face turned away from him, looking at the canal bank as it slowly drifted by.

‘Did you have a good weekend, Ellie?’ he asked her. ‘I mean, after the bit where we all nearly froze to death.’

‘Course I did,’ Eloise said, smiling at him. ‘I liked going to the multiplex with you and Leila and Nana Pam. I love this …’ She put her hand on her new sparkling hot-pink and silver scarf that Jimmy’s mother had bought her, and which clashed violently with her hair. ‘And even the cold and rainy night on the boat was fun, because we were with you. I just wish I didn’t have to go home, that’s all. I’d rather spend a hundred cold and rainy nights on the boat than go home to her.’

‘I wouldn’t, so don’t try and make me,’ Leila scoffed, as she drew.

Jimmy sighed. Eloise had been making digs about her mother all weekend, just the odd word here and there, and of course his mother had loved it, but it had upset both him and Leila, who at one point had punched Eloise hard in the arm, causing a full-blown fight to break out, Leila launching herself onto her sister, her arms flailing wildly.

‘Tell her to stop it!’ Leila had protested when Jimmy lifted her bodily off, copping a few punches as he did so. ‘She is not being kind!’

‘Well?’ Eloise had exclaimed when Jimmy tried to talk to her. ‘She is not being fair to us! What the stupid little baby doesn’t understand is that it’s Mum’s fault we’re not together any more.’

‘I AM NOT A STUPID LITTLE BABY!’ Leila had screamed at the top of her voice, tearing herself out of Jimmy’s arms and launching herself at Eloise again. Jimmy had had to keep them in separate rooms for half an hour after that until the pair of them had calmed down.

Jimmy had known that if he’d tried to talk to Eloise then, when she was angry, she would react just like Catherine did when she was angry, by getting even more angry. In the past, before the ladies’ loos in The Goat, Jimmy had known to wait until Catherine was mellow before trying to talk to her about anything. Eloise was sulky now, but at least she was chilled. And that meant she might actually listen to him.

‘Look, you can’t be angry at your mum, Ellie,’ he said. ‘Your mum didn’t make us break up.’

‘She did,’ Ellie said. ‘I remember it. She got really, really cross, and threw you and all your stuff onto the street. And me and her were crying and crying, but she still did it, even though she could see that we were crying because of what she was doing. She made you go and she won’t let you come back again, even though you are sorry. She said you only ever had one chance and you blew it.’

Jimmy thought for a moment, realising that if his daughter was right about that then he was in an even bigger mess than he’d first thought because if Catherine wouldn’t give him another chance, and there was every possibility that she wouldn’t, he’d be heartbroken. And although he’d been heartbroken since the day he left, he hadn’t known it until a few days ago so it hadn’t, until now, seemed nearly such a desolate prospect.

‘She threw me out because I’d done something really, really bad,’ Jimmy said. ‘Mummy’s never told you what I did because she doesn’t want you to hate me, but if I hadn’t done the really, really bad thing – then who knows? We might all still be together now.’

‘What did you do?’ Leila asked him, looking up from her drawing. ‘Stealing? Lying? Worship a false idol? Did you covet thy neighbour’s wife?’

Jimmy swallowed. When he’d started this talk he hadn’t planned far enough ahead to know quite how to answer that question. He basically hadn’t planned further ahead than the first three words he’d spoken out loud. He really needed to start thinking these things through a little bit more.

‘Do you know what covet means?’ he asked both the girls.

‘No,’ Leila said.

‘Not sure,’ Eloise mumbled.

‘Well, that’s what I did. I coveted my neighbour’s wife.’

Leila screwed up her face in an expression of disgust. ‘What, Mrs Beesley? But she’s got a beard, Daddy!’

‘No, not my actual neighbour’s wife,’ Jimmy corrected her hastily, desperately wondering if he was doing the right thing talking to them like this or if this conversation was destined to come back and haunt him. ‘Not anybody’s wife, actually; she wasn’t married. But I did covet another lady, a lady that wasn’t as beautiful or as wonderful or as important to me as your mummy is, but I did it anyway because I was stupid and confused. And your mum found out I was coveting her and she got really, really upset. So she told me to covet off.’

‘Huh?’ Eloise said.

‘Nothing,’ Jimmy answered. ‘Anyway, the point is that I don’t blame her at all. I deserved it.’

‘You liked another lady apart from Mummy?’ Leila asked him, frowning deeply. ‘That’s wrong, Daddy, because you are married.’

‘I know, and the funny thing is that I didn’t even really like the other lady,’ Jimmy said. ‘I certainly didn’t love her the way I love, loved, your mum. But I coveted her and I was stupid, which, you’ll find as you grow up, most boys are.’

‘I know that already,’ Eloise said, rolling her eyes.

‘Me too,’ Leila said. ‘And stinky.’

‘OK, well, that’s good, I think,’ Jimmy replied. ‘But the point is that the break-up was my fault. I risked everything I had over the chance to feel free and young and footloose again,’ Jimmy said. ‘But the funny thing is that ever since I’ve actually been free and footloose all I’ve felt is lonely and sad, and as if something is missing in my life. And the thing that’s missing is the thing I had to begin with. All of you.’

‘But you’ve still got us!’ Leila said. ‘Even if you did covet that lady, which is a bad sin. But we forgive you because we love you.’

‘I don’t forgive you,’ Eloise said. ‘I hate both of you now,’ but she spoke without any venom in her voice, her bottom lip protruding like it used to when she was much younger.

‘Grown-ups are often a bit rubbish,’ Jimmy said. ‘They are a lot more rubbish than kids, because at least kids always know what they want. And they know what’s good and what’s bad and most of the time they stick to it. Sometimes grown-ups forget all of those things and they stuff up.’ He paused and grinned at his daughter. ‘Do you really hate me, Ellie?’

‘No,’ Ellie said sulkily.

‘And do you really hate Mummy?’ Jimmy asked her. ‘Especially now you know the truth?’

‘Well, she could let you come back now you’re sorry, couldn’t she?’ Eloise asked him. ‘If she wanted to.’

‘She could,’ Jimmy said, feeling his chest tighten with hope. ‘But if she doesn’t want me to then we still can’t be cross with her, OK? Not ever. She loves you two. She’d do anything for you. The pair of you are her sunshine.’

Jimmy looked up at the faultless blue sky. ‘You make her feel like spring is on its way even when it’s a rainy and cold day. So don’t be hard on her any more, OK? I know you don’t want to be.’

‘I have felt bad about it, actually,’ Eloise said. ‘Poor Mummy. It wasn’t like me at all to be so mean to her.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Leila said, chalking with enthusiasm. ‘Turn the other cheek, I said.’ She looked up.

‘Right then,’ Jimmy said, taking a deep breath and feeling the nerves of what he was planning to do when he got back fizzing in his gut. ‘Full steam ahead!’

‘Don’t be silly, Daddy,’ Leila said, returning to her drawing. ‘We don’t have any steam.’

The house was quiet when Jimmy let himself and the girls in through the back door. The living room was still and quiet, dust spiralling in the still air where the sunlight streamed in through the windows. Jimmy looked around. There were two cold cups of tea on the table. Two cups: someone had been round. Probably Kirsty, he reasoned, but still he stared hard at the cups for a moment as if he might be able to determine some masculine aura around one of them. Realising what he was doing, Jimmy blinked and shook his head briefly: this was not him. He had never been, as Lennon put it, a jealous guy. And now was not the time to start.

‘Cat!’ he called out. ‘Cat? Babe? We’re back.’

‘Mum!’ Eloise and Leila shouted at once. ‘Mummy! Mum! We’re here!’

They heard a creak of floorboard upstairs as somebody got out of bed and Jimmy composed himself, methodically shutting down every single image of Catherine’s long white limbs entangled in Marc’s hairy dark ones, which appeared to him on each heartbeat as he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He fully expected his wife to appear, hair tousled, wrapped in a sheet and sleepy from an endless sex marathon.

He’d never been so glad to see her looking so terrible.

‘Hello.’ Catherine yawned, appearing in her pyjamas, rubbing her eyes, with what little make-up she wore ingrained into the skin. She mustered a weary smile. ‘Hello, girls,’ she said, holding her arms out. The girls ran to her and hugged her hard. ‘Oh what a lovely hug.’ Catherine sat down with a bump on the carpet and then toppled onto her back, a daughter in either arm. Jimmy smiled at the three of them giggling helplessly on the carpet.

‘You look terrible, Mummy,’ Leila said, peering at Catherine through the ropes of hair that lay across her face.

‘Thank you, darling,’ Catherine said. ‘I feel pretty awful. How was Nana Pam?’

‘She was great,’ Leila said. ‘We went to the multiplex and McDonald’s, and Nana Pam bought us loads of lovely things and best of all at Nana’s house it was warm so our noses and toes didn’t turn blue like –’

‘They would have done if we were Arctic explorers,’ Jimmy interjected hastily, not keen to lie to Catherine but quite keen not to see that lovely lazy smile disappear from her face quite yet.

‘Yes,’ Eloise added. ‘That’s right. We were playing Arctic explorers at Nana Pam’s house, in the warm and not in the cold at all.’

‘Sounds lovely,’ Catherine said, smiling up at Jimmy. ‘I haven’t had much sleep so I’m a bit … you know, thingy.’

‘Good night?’ Jimmy asked her hesitantly.

‘Weird night,’ Catherine chuckled, ‘but a good one. Kirsty set me up on a blind date with … Alison.’

‘Really?’ Jimmy crouched down on the carpet, feeling rather left out being the only one of them who was perpendicular. ‘What was that like?’ he asked, wishing very much he could lean over and kiss that smile.

‘Tense, bitchy, and in the end sort of good,’ Catherine said. ‘And I think, I actually think, we might be able to co-exist, at the very least. Maybe even be friends again. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or if it’s because of Alison but I feel lighter, suddenly. Like I could float away.’ She hugged the two girls to her. ‘But we didn’t get in until six this morning so …’ The word evolved into a self-explanatory yawn.

‘Is that why you are in your pyjamas, Mummy?’ Eloise asked, leaning up on one elbow to peer at her mother’s face. ‘Were you in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon?’

‘ ’Fraid so,’ Catherine said, closing her eyes.

‘Well, I think that’s cool,’ Jimmy said. ‘Living it up, having a good time, remembering you’re still young and beautiful … it’s all good, so why not?’

Catherine screwed up her shut eyes. ‘Because it hurts,’ she moaned.

‘Well, if you like,’ Jimmy suggested hesitantly, ‘if you’re OK to watch the girls for a bit, I’ll pop back to the boat, sort a few bits and bobs out and then I can come back and cook dinner, if you want. I mean, I don’t have to. But as you’re feeling rough, I could. If you liked, but not if you don’t, but …’

‘Would you?’ Catherine asked him, opening one eye. ‘Could you?’

‘Course I can. I don’t just live on ready meals and Pot Noodles when I’m on my own, you know,’ Jimmy lied happily. ‘I can do a roast. Stick a chicken in an oven – how hard can it be?’

‘Then thank you, Jimmy,’ Catherine said, opening both eyes to smile at him. ‘You’re my hero.’

Jimmy looked at her lying there, flanked either side by their daughters, and he knew that if he sat on that carpet for one more second the sight would bring him to tears.

‘Right then,’ he said, jumping up in one agile move that his back would pay for later. ‘I’ll be back in an hour.’

Catherine flopped her head left to look at one daughter and then right to look at the other. ‘You are going to Gemma and Amy’s for tea next Wednesday,’ she told them, wincing as they cheered at the news. Leila kissed her on one cheek and then, after a second of hesitation, Eloise kissed her on the other.

‘Mummy.’ The elder girl propped herself up on one elbow.

‘Yes, darling?’ Catherine said, smiling at her.

‘I haven’t been kind to you very much, about you and Daddy. I thought that it was your fault, but Daddy explained it to me, about how he made you sad and angry even though he loved you and that really grown-ups are stupid a lot of the time, especially him, so don’t blame you for it. So I’m sorry. I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ Catherine said, feeling tears spring into her eyes that somehow made the morning seem all the more bright and clear. ‘You feel very sad, don’t you, about me and Daddy?’ She looked at Leila. ‘You both do.’

The girls nodded but did not speak.

‘It is sad, and I am so sorry,’ Catherine told them, looking at each in turn. ‘And I am so sorry that it happened to you. When I married your daddy and we had you, we never, ever planned that this would happen, that we wouldn’t always be together, all of us. But sometimes life has a way of sweeping you off course when you are not looking, and turning things upside down. It makes you feel cross and sad, and it takes a while to get used to the fact that nothing is going to be the same any more. So I’m sorry, I’m so sorry you have to feel sad because of me and Daddy getting swept off course. But, you know, we both love you so much and we will always look after you, even if Daddy lives in a boat and we live here. We will always be a family.’

She hugged the girls close to her and kissed each one on the forehead.

‘I expect God is proud of you, Mum,’ Leila said into her hair. ‘Because you are trying very hard, and God loves a trier, Mrs Woodruff says.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Catherine said.

‘And, Mummy,’ Eloise said. ‘I’m sorry I was horrible to you.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ Catherine said. ‘I know you didn’t mean it.’

‘Mummy …’ Leila said after a moment or two. ‘I was never horrible to you at all, was I? Do I get a treat?’

‘I think we all deserve one,’ Catherine said, pretending to look thoughtful. ‘How about we all … watch Beauty and the Beast until Daddy gets back with the food?’

She covered her ears to protect her pounding head from the cheers, but the meagre shelter of her hands was not nearly enough.