After the Honeymoon (44 page)

Rosie reached for Greco’s hand. As she did so, Winston felt a knot in his stomach. ‘So he has to stay in a cell overnight?’

The super nodded. ‘Arrangements will be made.’

‘But that’s not fair.’ Rosie was hanging on to Greco’s hand. Would Melissa be as loyal to him?

‘Rosie,’ said Winston quietly. ‘It will make it worse if you fuss. Come on. Say your goodbyes and then let’s leave them to it. Jack will be wondering where we are.’

He spoke, he realised, as though they were a normal pair of parents with a teenager at home. And for a minute, as he shepherded a weeping Rosie back to the car, he found himself wondering what life would be like if they had been a real family …

After dropping Rosie off at Gemma’s, Winston made his way back to Melissa’s place. His predecessor’s stamp was on it in so many ways that it was impossible to relax. Thank goodness he hadn’t rented out the London flat but had kept it, in case the market improved. Maybe, if things didn’t work out, he could go back there for a few weeks …

The house was silent and dark. Melissa hadn’t even left a light on for him. Padding silently up the stairs, instinct made him glance into Jack’s room. His boy – lying there, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling.

Then he saw a foot poking out from the side of the bed. A girl’s foot, unless Jack had taken to wearing bright pink nail polish. His stepdaughter was in bed with his son!

Winston’s first reaction was to yank off the duvet. ‘Go away,’ murmured Alice sleepily.

‘What the hell do you two think you’re doing?’ hissed Winston.

Jack was awake now, sitting up and putting his arm protectively around the girl. They were both fully dressed. That was something, at least.

‘We didn’t do anything.’ His son was glaring at him as though it was him, Winston, who was in the wrong.

‘We were just having a cuddle before going to bed,’ pleaded Alice. ‘Honestly. We must have fallen asleep. Please don’t tell Mum. She’ll kill me!’

Were they telling the truth? Winston thought back to the time he had almost been expelled from school for slipping out to see a girlfriend. That had been innocent too.

‘We’ll talk about it in the morning,’ he growled. ‘Meanwhile, Alice, get back to your own bed.’

Exhausted, he couldn’t tell if he’d done the right thing. Too much had happened tonight for him to be sure. He began to peel off his clothes for a brief shower in their en suite. As he did so, Winston’s eye fell on the mobile that had been left on the vanity unit.

Melissa’s.

Don’t do it, he told himself, but unable to stop, he checked the last number.

Marvyn.

From the timing, he could see that his wife had made the call at one a.m., some three hours earlier.

There was a text too. His heart racing, Winston opened it. It was from Marvyn.

Miss you
.

Followed by three kisses.

Sweating, he selected Sent messages.

Miss you too
, it said. Four kisses.

Winston felt sick as all his worst fears shone out from the screen in front of him. So he was in the way, was he? Well, not for long.

Now wide awake with shock, he hastily got dressed again, flung some clothes in a case and headed back out to the car. He’d explain to Jack later, but at the moment, he just had to get out of that house.

Dawn was breaking over London when he arrived. What a relief it was, to drive down the familiar streets with the early-morning stirring of stallholders and suited men and women rushing off to work! Anonymity. That’s what he needed, Winston told himself, opening his front door and setting down his case.

Peace and quiet. Away from the complexities of a marriage which he had, with hindsight, made too soon to a woman who hadn’t got over her first husband. As for Jack, he could still see him. He’d bring him up here, in fact. Maybe offer him and Rosie a spare room for the time being so they could spend some time together.

Meanwhile, the answerphone light was flashing, demanding his attention. Melissa? Rosie? Rufus?

‘
You have two messages
.’

‘Winston? Are you there?’

My God. It was Nick. At least, it sounded just like her.

‘This is Pam, Nicola’s mother. I’ve been thinking a lot about you since the summer. I’d appreciate it if you could call me back.’

Still reeling from the voice, Winston played the message again to make sure he had got it right.

‘I’d appreciate it if you could call me back.’

What did she want? Hadn’t the woman ruined his life already with her newspaper interview?

Unnerved, Winston played the second message.

‘Mr King?’

The voice had an American drawl. ‘My name is Kurt. I work for CBS in New York. I wonder if you’d care to give me a call. There’s something I’d like to discuss.’

‘After our honeymoon, we both caught measles from our nine-year-old bridesmaid.’

Sandra, recently married, and now fully recovered

EMMA

‘Don’t say you’ve left him,’ Mum had said when Emma had turned up on the doorstep, clutching Gawain’s right hand. By her side was a slumbering Willow in the buggy, a bag slung across the handle, bulging with trainer pants and winceyette pyjamas, which she’d hastily packed before leaving.

The sound of Tom yelling at her – making both kids burst into floods of tears – still rang in her head.

‘You silly little fool.’ Mum’s voice was kinder than her words. ‘Better come in then. I’ll put the kettle on.’

Shepherding the children inside, Emma sank miserably into one of Mum’s two plastic kitchen chairs. Willow was still asleep in the pushchair, thank goodness, and Gawain was nodding off against her shoulder.

She waited until he was asleep before telling Mum what had happened. When she got to the bit about Yannis, Mum had gasped and Emma knew, from the burning on her cheeks, that she had gone bright red.

‘Tom might be dull but he’s a decent man, Em. How could you have done something so bloody daft?’

Gawain stirred and then sat bolt upright as though he hadn’t been asleep at all. ‘What does “bluddy daft” mean, Gran?’

‘It means that someone has done something stupid, love. Here, have a chocolate biscuit.’

Emma was about to say she’d been trying to reduce his sugar intake to stop him being so hyper, but what was the point? It didn’t seem important any more.

‘Going off with some complete stranger,’ continued Mum, pouring an egg cup of whisky into each of their coffees. ‘You must need your head examining.’

‘Shh,’ said Emma urgently. If Mum wasn’t careful, Gawain would grow up hating his mother for wrecking the family; just as she had with Dad.

‘I’d had too much to drink,’ she said quietly, pushing the whisky coffee away. ‘And I was nervous about having got married.’

Her mother snorted. ‘You’re meant to have nerves
before
the wedding. Not after.’

Gawain began twisting her hair round and round. It was a new habit of his, picked up from pre-school, and it hurt. ‘What are nerves, Mummy?’

‘Things that get ripped to shreds if people do daft things,’ said his grandmother tersely.

This wasn’t fair. ‘You’re the one who always said that Tom wasn’t good enough for me,’ shot Emma.

Her mother shrugged. ‘One husband is better than none when you’ve got two kids under five
and
one on the way.’

Her son was wriggling now on her lap, bored with twisting her hair. ‘Gawain is going to be five soon.’

‘Not till after Christmas, love. Then you’ll have to start being a big boy, won’t you? Now what do you want Granny to get you?’

‘A swing!’ Gawain’s eyes lit up. ‘Like the one at school.’

Her mother gave a little laugh. ‘Then let’s hope you’ll be back home by then. You won’t be able to fit a swing into my little patch.’

Gawain stuck his thumb in his mouth: another habit he’d picked up from his baby sister since the honeymoon.

‘Want to go home
now
.’

Emma looked at Mum. ‘We can’t. Not yet.’

There was a sigh. ‘All right. I suppose you can stay here for a bit, although it will be a squash.’ She gave Emma a shrewd glance. ‘But if I were you, I’d go and find your old man in the garage first thing tomorrow and put things straight. Trust me. Life’s no bowl of roses when you’re a single mum. I should know.’

But Tom wasn’t in the garage. Or so they said.

‘Sorry,’ sniffed the youth who worked with him. ‘Gone out on a job.’

He said it in such a deliberate, staged way that it was obviously rehearsed. So Tom had told him to keep her away, had he? Emma negotiated the oily patches on the garage forecourt and made her way to Corrywood School, feeling scared, sick and angry. She was going to be early for work, but that was good. It would give her time to ask Bernie why on earth she’d ratted on her.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her so-called friend ran towards her as she took her coat off. ‘Phil promised not to say anything but the drink must have loosened his tongue.’

‘That’s no excuse.’ Emma rounded on her, realising at the same time that this was exactly why she had gone too far with Yannis. Perhaps they
all
drank too much to ‘relax’ from the strain of parenting. Well, from now on, she wasn’t going to touch a drop. ‘I told you my secret in confidence. You weren’t meant to blab to anyone.’

Bernie’s eyes widened. This was obviously serious. ‘But I didn’t think Phil counted. I tell him everything. Don’t you do the same with Tom?’ Her hand flew to her face as she spoke. ‘Sorry. Obviously you didn’t tell him that stuff about Yannis or else this wouldn’t have happened, but …’

Emma walked away in disgust to start laying out the tables and chairs ready for the first lunch sitting. If only Tom had given her time to explain she’d been drunk. But even so, something told her he still wouldn’t have understood. She couldn’t blame him. She doubted she would have either, if it had been the other way round.

‘Mrs Walker, can I sit at another table? I don’t like Billy any more.’

‘Mrs Walker, my mum’s given me a note to say I can’t eat vegetables.’

Whoops! Here they came. Emma braced herself as Year One came flying in to take their places with all their usual demands.

‘I’ve lost my lunchbox again, Mrs Walker!’

‘Please, please, may I sit next to Daisy? She’s my best friend now!’

Maybe, Emma told herself as she attempted to make everyone happy, she’d try again with Tom. Perhaps she’d call round this evening and take the kids with her. Surely he’d be missing them by now? And besides, he couldn’t really believe that Gawain and Willow weren’t his.

Could he?

But the house was dark and cold. Empty too.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ asked Gawain in a small voice as she opened up.

Emma struggled to restrain Willow, who was fighting her pushchair straps. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do.’ He was tugging at her arm.

Why was it that kids always knew when you were fibbing?

‘You know everything, just like Jeeves.’

She couldn’t help smiling, despite what was happening.

‘Want my Spider-Man outfit.’ Gawain ran up the stairs. ‘And want my …’

He stopped at the sound of the key in the lock. Emma froze. Tom was home!

‘Daddy!’ Gawain yelled, flying down the stairs.

Her husband stood there, looking up at her. Not in his usual greasy garage overalls but in his jeans and yellow striped jumper that she’d given him last Christmas. He seemed different. More attractive, somehow, although she couldn’t say why.

‘Hello, little man!’ To her relief, he scooped up his son and held him for a few minutes before putting him down. Then he gave her a horrible cold dismissive glance. ‘What are you doing here?’

He spoke as though she had no right to be in her own home.

‘I wanted to talk to you.’ Coming down the stairs, she tried to take his arm, but Tom stepped away. There was a smell of stale beer on his breath. ‘Please, I want to explain.’

‘I’ve already heard all I want to.’ He knelt down next to Willow, doing ‘round and round the garden’ circles in the palm of her chubby little hand.

‘The children are yours, you know,’ whispered Emma.

Tom’s eyes, red and raw, locked with hers. ‘Sure?’

‘Of course I am. They both look like you, don’t they?’

He was observing them now, as if taking them in for the first time. ‘Yes.’ Then his eyes hardened as he transferred his gaze to her bump. ‘But that one isn’t.’

‘We don’t know,’ said Emma desperately. ‘It could be. But you see—’

Tom’s voice cut in. ‘I don’t want to see. Don’t you realise? Whatever you say now can’t mend what you’ve broken. We’re finished, Emma.’

This couldn’t be happening! He was the father of her children. Without him, their family wouldn’t be the same.

‘Daddy!’ called out Willow, holding out her chubby arms. ‘Play, please.’

Play, please
? It was the first time she’d heard her daughter use that phrase. Any other time and she’d have hailed it as a milestone. But Tom was shaking his head. ‘Another day, poppet.’ Then his eyes turned to her, narrowing. ‘What do you want to do then? Come back here – I can go to Phil’s – or stay at your mother’s?’

She couldn’t face the idea of being in the house alone, not right now. ‘I’ll go back to Mum’s for a bit,’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘Daddy come too!’ Gawain, sensing something was up, was clinging to his father’s legs.

‘I’ll see you at the weekend, son.’ Tom knelt next to him, ruffling his hair. ‘We’ll do something fun together. Just you and me and Willow.’

Gawain’s face fell. ‘Not Mum?’

Tom shook his head. ‘No. Just the three of us. You’ll see. It’ll be great.’

And that was how the weeks went by. Tom arrived on Mum’s doorstep every Saturday morning and took both children out for the day, coolly declaring that he’d bring them back by teatime.

‘Please let me tell you what happened,’ she said at first, but each time, he gave her a disappointed look.

‘I don’t want to know the sordid details.’

So she’d given up. If it wasn’t for the fact that she wasn’t talking to Bernie, she might have got Phil to act as a go-between. Then again, he’d already done more harm than good. It was a joke in their crowd that Phil was as thick in the head as Bernie was big-boned.