Having It All Page 20

  Liz watched torn by contradictory emotions as nearly three months of jumbled news tripped off Jamie’s excited tongue. She was glad that he’d rung but furious he’d left it till now, pleased that Jamie was getting the chance to chat to him for so long, but angry that he didn’t ask to speak to her, the coward.

  Jamie turned to her, his face glowing with excitement. ‘Mum. Mum. Can Dad take us to see Father Christmas?

  Pleeeeease!’ For a moment Liz felt furious. How could she possibly say no? If David had asked her first she would at least have had the option, but she’d been set up so any refusal was out of the question. But why should she refuse? Wouldn’t that just be using the children as a weapon because she felt angry and rejected?

  Finally Jamie turned to her, a hint of apprehension in his voice. ‘Mum. Dad says can he have a word?’

  It was what she’d wanted but now she wanted to shout No! Tell him to get lost! Tell him to go back to Britt and leave us alone! But that was before she saw the pleading look on Jamie’s face and she took the phone.

  Acutely aware that this was the first time she’d spoken to him since that day in the restaurant, she tried to keep the anger and the bitterness out of her voice. ‘Hello, David. Jamie says you want to see them?’

  ‘Hello, Liz.’ His tone was as empty and guarded as her own, but in her hurt it didn’t occur to Liz that David might be fighting with emotions he didn’t know how to deal with either. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’ The silence that followed acknowledged that both knew this to be a lie. ‘When do you want them to come?’

  ‘Would next Saturday be too soon?’

  Liz had been planning a visit to the garish Santa’s Grotto in Lewes that day but it could hardly measure up to Harrods or Selfridge’s where David would take them. And for a moment Liz felt the anger of every woman left holding the babies. She gets the slog and the supermarket. He gets the glamour and the big day out.

  ‘OK.’ Liz realized she wanted to get off the phone as soon as possible. ‘There’s a train at ten-thirty. We’ll see you at Victoria.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll bring them home by car.’

  ‘David . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  Liz realized that no matter how much she wanted to know she couldn’t, in front of Jamie, ask the question that was obsessing her.

  ‘Nothing. See you on Saturday.’ And she put the phone down. She knew between now and Saturday she’d be wondering one thing, and one thing only. Would Britt be there? Would bloody Britt be taking her kids to see Father Christmas? For a moment she thought of ringing him and cancelling the whole thing, but Jamie and Daisy would be too disappointed. And anyway she needed to talk to him about money. So far he’d paid the mortgage on Holland Park and she’d managed to live without using too much of her savings but pretty soon she’d have to. Unless they faced up to the reality of their position and decided to sell the London house.

  Britt watched David put the phone down and turn away for a moment. She hadn’t been fooled by that neutral tone, she knew perfectly well it was just a front. He was still guilty as hell. What was surprising was that Liz didn’t see it and put the screws on.

  Watching his face and listening to their conversation Britt had understood a brutal truth: that if Liz wanted David back and went about it the right way, she would get him. Even now. Even on Saturday. So she’d better make sure she was bloody well there to prevent it.

  But thankfully she knew Liz too. And Liz wouldn’t go about it the right way. She would be too proud. And too uncertain she even wanted him back. And soon it really would be too late.

  ‘How were the kids?’

  David’s face lost its hunted look and lit up with love and anticipation.

  ‘They were great! They sounded really pleased to hear from me. Jamie told me everything he’s done these last months!’ For the first time in days the tension seemed to leave him and she saw the familiar boyish grin. Thank God. Now at least he might be more in the mood. She’d taken a calculated risk and it seemed to have paid off, maybe they wouldn’t even need the champagne.

  Looking him directly in the eyes, she began undoing the tiny buttons of her silk blouse.

  Liz stood in the hall holding a train timetable, wearing her new overcoat with the frogging and wondering whether she dared put on the stylish Russian shako that went with it. She’d spent half an hour deciding what to wear and though she kept telling herself it was the children he wanted to see, not her, she knew she wanted to look stunning all the same.

  She wanted to show him that she hadn’t let herself go, that their marriage might be over, but she was still blooming. She’d noticed that women often looked better when their marriages broke up. Six months later their husbands often didn’t recognize them. Men, on the other hand, went to the dogs and drank too much lager and started picking up Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home from the pub. But women lost the few pounds they’d been meaning to shed for years and started taking more trouble with their appearance. Maybe it was true that marriage made you stop bothering, safe that you’d caught your man and could afford a bit of cellulite on the thighs.

  She ran upstairs to capture Jamie and Daisy and force them into their coats. As she did up their buttons against the freezing winter she realized she’d dressed them up too. For a moment she felt sad that seeing their father should be an occasion for Sunday best instead of the trainers-and-tracksuit event it ought to be.

  By the front door she hesitated for a moment then reached for the shako. If it was over the top, too bad. It would make her feel more confident. And today she needed all the nerve she could muster.

  Britt fiddled with the radio in irritation. She was seething that David had insisted she stay in the car while he went to meet Liz and the kids. They had to face each other sometime after all and Britt would rather it was in front of the children so Liz had to be graceful. But David had been adamant and it was the only way she’d been able to persuade him to let her come along at all. She knew he’d wanted her to stay at home, but she didn’t trust him alone with Liz, and anyway she wanted to show him what a good mother she could be when she put her mind to it.

  And she was damned if she was going to stay in the car out of sight. Reaching for a magazine from the back seat, Britt got out of the car and leaned on the bonnet reading it. A passing cabbie whistled and she waved back.

  David saw them first. He came running along the platform and swept Jamie and Daisy into his arms, almost knocking the breath out of them. She saw to her surprise that he was nervous. He couldn’t even look at her. But when he did Liz thought she saw a momentary flicker of what might have been admiration in his eyes before he looked back at the children.

  Thank God he was alone. And watching him hold the children, his eyes alight with love, she saw for the first time what this mess must have cost him too. How he, like her, must have been suffering for what he’d lost. And she smiled.

  Walking along the platform, with the children between them, Liz had the curious illusion that the last few months hadn’t happened, that they were just an ordinary family going on an outing. As they came out of the station David started to say goodbye, then, anxious to make the moment last a little longer, Liz said she’d walk to the car.

  But as they walked out of the station, Liz sensed David’s nervousness increase. And turning the corner into Buckingham Palace Road she saw why. Britt was lounging on David’s car reading Elle, wearing a suit so expensively understated and chic that Liz in her Russian coat and hat felt like the only person at the party who’d come in fancy dress.

  Without saying a word Liz kissed the children and turned back to the station.

  ‘My God! Look at that queue!’ David almost laughed at the horror in Britt’s voice when she saw the crowd waiting to see Father Christmas. ‘It’ll take hours to get to the end!’

  Harrods’ Christmas grotto was famous all over the world and most of the world’s population had clearly jetted in to see it today. Two hours spent i
n a small space with a hundred screaming children, each one on eggshells at the excitement of seeing Santa, was not Britt’s idea of fun.

  ‘Why don’t you go off and spend some more money then?’ David didn’t try to hide his irritation. ‘I’ll be fine with the kids.’

  Britt chose to ignore the implication that she was extravagant. Why shouldn’t she be, for Christ’s sake, it was her money. And she worked hard enough for it, God knows. Anyway she wasn’t going anywhere. Today she was going to show him that despite any lingering doubts he might have, beneath her tough exterior she was a sucker for children at heart.

  ‘Come to Britty!’ She reached out her arms towards Daisy, conscious what a touching picture they would make, blonde hair against blonde. Daisy clung to her father like a frightened koala bear, as though Britt were some wicked social worker come to rip her away from her family for ever, and howled.

  Britt dropped her arms, smiling nervously, and turned her attentions to Jamie. ‘So what are you going to ask Santa for, Jamie?’

  Without a second’s thought, Jamie reeled off: ‘A MantaForce Spaceship with a rocket launcher and twenty space troopers. Red Vipers are best. But Black Barracudas are OK if he hasn’t got any.’

  ‘Are you into Outer Space, by any chance?’ Britt smiled indulgently.

  ‘Nope’ – Jamie rolled his eyes heavenwards – ‘model trainsets.’

  Britt was trying to work out if she’d just been put down by a five-year-old when she noticed something seeping out of Daisy’s nappy on to David’s jacket. ‘David,’ she screeched. ‘The baby’s shitting all over you!’

  Three heads swivelled round at this breach of maternal etiquette. Every mother knows that babies do not shit. They poo.

  ‘Here, you take her.’ David handed Daisy over to look for a new nappy. ‘Where’s the changing bag?’

  ‘What changing bag?’

  David looked at her appalled. ‘The bag with all the nappies in it. Don’t say you left it in the car?’

  Horrified at the amount of gear Liz had sent, Britt had decided simply to bring the pushchair. She’d been sure Liz was being overprotective. In Britt’s arms Daisy changed gear from distressed to hysterical. Swearing at Britt’s inefficiency, David took her back.

  Britt looked down at the stains on her beige Betty Jackson suit.

  ‘You’ll just have to go and buy some nappies,’ snapped David.

  Britt was astonished to find that Harrods actually sold nappies. It was the kind of purchase that, thankfully, was hidden discreetly at one end of the nursery department. But to her dismay they only came in packs of forty.

  Struggling back through the crowds with the enormous pack, Britt asked herself if her carefully laid plan might not be a mistake after all. Could anything be worth the hassle of small children? Even David?

  By the time she got back, David was almost at the front of the queue. He waved at her holding a smiling, freshly changed Daisy. He grinned at a mother-of-three standing next to him.

  ‘This kind lady took pity on me and lent us a nappy.’ The woman beamed at him and glared frostily at Britt, the incompetent. ‘She even took Daisy off and put it on for me.’

  Britt glowered, fighting through the last few feet of queue with her giant pack of Pampers, her suit still stained, and her fringe sticking to her forehead from the effort of the last fifteen minutes.

  ‘Good God Britt!’ David teased, not noticing her expression. ‘You look like a harassed mum!’

  And finally they were at the front. After an hour and a half in the queue Santa took Jamie on his knee and asked him what he wanted for Christmas. For a moment Jamie didn’t answer.

  ‘Well, Sonny, what’s it to be?’ repeated Santa, faintly irritated at this unscheduled hold-up in the production line, his whiskers sticking to his face and his breath faintly redolent of vodka.

  Row after row of harassed parents looked on, eager to get their offspring on to Santa’s knee and into the tearoom as quickly as possible while Britt mopped her brow and wondered if, Jesus Christ, she might actually have damp patches under her arms.

  Jamie looked at her and spoke clearly and distinctly.

  ‘I want that lady to let my Daddy come back to live with my mummy and me.’

  Britt hailed a taxi, still fuming at what a fool she’d been made to look in front of all those people. It was all Liz’s fault. She’d obviously been coaching him to come out with something like that, telling him what a terrible woman she was to steal their Daddy, hoping it would melt Daddy’s heart and make him come running home. But with luck it was too late.

  As she passed the late-night chemist in Knightsbridge she told the taxi to stop and wait while she ran and bought a Sea-Blue Pregnancy Test, ninety-eight per cent accurate (so it boasted on the box), provided you were at least one day late. And according to her reckoning Britt was already three.

  When David dropped Jamie and Daisy off he couldn’t believe the change in the cottage. From the moment Liz opened the front door and he saw the roaring fire, the home-made decorations, the little pine dresser with its pretty china, and smelt cinnamon drifting from the kitchen, it felt like a real home. He could hardly recognize it from the cold, damp little house they used to arrive at bad-tempered and exhausted late on a Friday night, to find they were out of coal, had forgotten the milk and the sheets were still in the washing machine.

  He looked round at the friendly clutter, the piles of old newspapers stacked up to make firelighters, the patchwork quilt on the sofa, nothing particularly new or smart, but the whole house had an air of enveloping comfort.

  Ridiculous how panicked he’d been when Liz said she wanted to give up work and make a real home for them. And it had been his mother’s fault. Thanks to her ‘home’ didn’t mean security and comfort as it did to other people, but suffocation and sacrifice. And it had scared the shit out of him.

  For a moment he pictured her. His mother. That perpetually dusting martyr in her apron, forever poised, dustpan in hand, to catch any crumbs you dared to drop on to the immaculately Hoovered carpet, snatching your plate away to wash it up before you had even finished eating. But as he accepted a cup of tea he suddenly saw that it wasn’t the home that Liz had created that reminded him of the bleak days of his childhood. It was Britt’s beautiful museum.

  David put down his empty cup. He knew it was time he went, but he didn’t want to leave. ‘Would you mind if I just stayed to do bathtime?’

  Unconsciously Liz glanced up at the clock. It was seven o’clock already. She’d expected him to leave hours ago, but he’d shown no signs of doing so. In fact she was almost irritated at how easily he’d slotted into her life here, how quietly and unobtrusively he’d just sat down on the floor and played snap with Jamie as though he lived here all the time.

  But wasn’t that what she wanted him to do? Why else had she gone to so much trouble to make the place feel welcoming, even putting cinnamon in the oven, an old estate agent’s trick, as though she were selling him her new lifestyle like you sell a house. Knowing that what people really buy isn’t bricks and mortar or six rooms plus bath, but the atmosphere of the place. And she realized that part of her – the strong, sensible part – wanted to say ‘No, you cannot do bathtime. Because to do bathtime would pretend that the last three months hadn’t happened, that they didn’t lie between us like a jagged wound, dressed now and healing but still painful to the touch.’

  But the other part – the weak and lonely part – knew that a light would go out when he closed the front door not just for her but for Jamie and Daisy too. So, ‘Yes’, she said, ‘you can do bathtime.’ But don’t expect me to do it with you because that would be to go too far.

  And as he went upstairs with the children she heard the shouts and squeals of delight she hadn’t heard for months and she turned up the radio to blot out the carefully buried memories those happy sounds brought back.

  When David came down carrying Jamie and Daisy, squeaky clean in their pyjamas, into the warm, scented
room he felt an overpowering urge to ask her forgiveness, to beg her to take him back.

  ‘Liz, I need to talk to you. Not in front of the children . . .’

  ‘You seemed to be able to talk to Britt in front of the children, why not me?’

  David felt her anger lashing out at him and he knew he deserved it. ‘I’m sorry, Liz. Britt shouldn’t have been there today.’

  ‘Too right!’ Liz felt the resentment she’d repressed begin to bubble up at the memory of Britt’s self-satisfied smile.

  ‘Listen. We could talk when they’ve gone to bed . . .’

  ‘No, David.’

  ‘Please, Liz.’

  For a second she was tempted. But she didn’t believe he’d really changed. If he’d been really sorry he wouldn’t have let Britt within a mile of the children! If nothing else that single act of callousness condemned him.

  ‘I’m sorry, David. But we don’t have anything to say.’ She leaned over and took Daisy from his arms and carried her up to bed.

  David sat in his car outside the cottage in the total blackness of the countryside and watched the light come on in the upstairs bedroom. Why, for God’s sake had he let Britt talk him into letting her come along today? He could have killed her when he’d seen her lounging on the car. But it had been his fault, in the end, not hers. He should have just insisted.

  For a moment he thought of going back in whether Liz wanted him to or not and making her hear him out. But Liz was too angry and resentful to listen. And it was all because of Britt.

  With a flash of insight, David saw the answer. He had to leave Britt. Then perhaps Liz would listen to him. And in that moment of decision he realized that that was what he wanted to do anyway. Whether Liz wanted him back or not. Suddenly he felt more cheerful.

  Britt sat in the immaculate black-and-white bathroom of her flat and stared at the tiny phial in its plastic holder. She’d just added the two drops of midstream urine to the solution provided.