Another Mother's Life (12 page)

“It wasn’t Dad sitting in the back of a stolen car, was it?” Alison asked her son, shamelessly changing the subject. “No fourteen- or fifteen-year-old thinks he’s going to walk out of his house and die,” Alison said. “None of those boys or girls did. But it happened all the same. I want to protect you because whether you like it or not, I love you.”

“Yeah, you reckon,” Dominic observed sceptically, his implicit disbelief in her feelings for him hurting Alison more than any insult he could dream up.

“Yes, I do reckon. And anyway it’s better for Gemma and Amy, a better place to grow up in, and Amy will settle in eventually. You know how she hates change.”

“Sometimes things have to change whether you like them to or not,” Dominic replied steadily.

“Yes, they do,” Alison said firmly. “Like us moving here. Look, you’ll do better out here.” And then Alison gave Dominic the list of all the reasons Marc had given her when he had told her he wanted to move here. All of the reasons except for the one that counted, because he wanted to. Because he’d made it almost impossible for them to stay in London and because there was still something that he had to prove to himself here in this town.

M
arc’s kiss on her cheek woke her, his face looming over hers as she opened her eyes. She must have fallen asleep in front of the late-night film.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, kissing her lips this time. “Did you know that Rosie has left a little message under the coffee table?”

“Oh, what,” Alison said, struggling to orient herself. “That’s the perfect end, to a perfect day, that is.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up.” Marc clicked on the table lamp next to where Alison had been sitting, dazzling her temporarily, and dropped a parcel of something heavy into her lap before disappearing into the kitchen to find a cloth. Alison screwed up her eyes to look at it. It looked like a pack of greeting cards.

“I’ve had a brilliant idea,” Marc told her as he cleaned up after a rather sheepish-looking Rosie. “We need to make a splash in this town, right? To get ourselves accepted by the locals. There’s so much money to be made here, Al—and not just in the town. The
whole area’s up to its neck in cash—it’s better than Notting Hill any day of the week. No congestion charge, no one picketing the 4x4’s on the road. We want to be part of this community. And the best way to do that is to befriend the community, right?”

“Do you mean send them cards or something?” Alison said, her head still muddled by dreams and memories.

“No, I mean by throwing a party here.” Marc opened the package, pulling out a card, and handed it to Alison. “Half the invites are already sent. I used the guy from the local business forum and some other contacts I have in the area to get the guest list together. Or at least my guest list. I thought you could invite all the teachers, the head—maybe the PTA committee that I suggested you get involved with. Mothers you meet in the playground, anyone you like. Get yourself a social network so you don’t feel so isolated. Don’t you see? Instead of waiting for things to take off we can kickstart our new lives by throwing them the best party they’ve seen in years.”

Alison stared at the invitation.

“This date is a week from Saturday,” she said numbly. “That’s less than two weeks away.”

“Yes, it is,” Marc said, brushing the hair from her face. “No point in letting the grass grow under our feet, is there?”

“Marc, there is no way we’ll be ready to throw a big party in time.”

“Well, like I said, half the invites have gone out, so yes we will.” Marc grinned at her, that smile that said he’d made up his mind. “Come on, love, you’ve never let me down yet. And the kids will love it, they can invite all their friends. We’ll make a real family event for the young ones too. It might help Amy settle in.”

“Amy said she doesn’t like people, only dogs, and I know how she feels, except for the dogs bit,” Alison mumbled wearily.

“Well, people love you,” Marc said, watching her face. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

Alison glanced up at him, the muscles in her shoulders tensing as she caught his look.

“I don’t …” she protested weakly. “I haven’t even had a shower …”

His hand ran down the side of her face, his forefinger tracing the curve of her neck and breast.

“I remember the first time I saw you,” Marc said, unbuttoning her shirt with practiced ease to reveal the lace of her bra. “I wanted you right that minute.” He ran his hands over her breasts and then, lowering his head, nipped at the lace of her bra. “The second I saw you all I could think about was what you would look like naked.”

“I remember,” Alison said. The day they’d first had sex. It was an easy day to remember because it was also the day they’d first met.

It was the last week of the summer holidays. And up until that day everything in Alison’s life was going as she had planned and expected, more or less. She had one more year ahead of her at school. One more year to get the boy she really wanted to want her back, one more year to help Cathy escape and then they were off. Free as a pair of birds to study English and art history at Leeds University. She would write her novel and Catherine would study the paintings she loved so much. And Alison knew that once they were there they’d meet a hundred new friends and, best of all, hundreds of new boys, none of whom she’d have a thing to do with because by then she’d have the boyfriend she really wanted.

She’d have Jimmy Ashley. She didn’t want him forever, just for a few years, because anyone could see that Jimmy Ashley wasn’t the kind of man you married. Her affection and desire for him
had been absolutely unshakable up until the very second she’d met Marc.

It happened because she knew that Cathy had a secret, which in itself was unprecedented—Cathy never had anything interesting to hide unless it was some exploit that Alison had arranged for her. That was one of the things that Alison loved about her friend. Yes, she was quirky and different, but at least she had the guts to be absolutely honest herself. Sometimes Alison felt wornout from the effort she made to be the girl that everyone liked. Catherine might think she was the awkward one, but she had a kind of peace and grace about her that Alison aspired to. Which was why it was even more surprising to realize Cathy was hiding her secret from Alison. And Alison absolutely had to know what it was, because after all, the pair of them had been best friends since they were eight years old, since the day Alison started at her new school.

Cathy had been cowering in the center of the playground surrounded by a ring of girls who were skipping, pointing, and chanting, “Witch, witch, witch!”

“What are you doing?” Alison demanded of them, marching into the center of the circle. The first thing she noticed about the girl standing next to her was that she was very tall, with the skinniest legs Alison had ever seen. Alison took a step in front of her.

“Her mum’s a witch, which makes her a witch too,” one of the other girls crowed, her soft, young face full of hate.

Alison looked at the girl next to her. “Is your mum a witch?” she asked her conversationally. The girl shook her head.

“Right then, she’s not a witch, but I am.” Alison marched up to the ringleader until they were nose to nose. “And if you say another word to my friend over there I’ll put a curse on you that will make you die the slowest and most horrible and disgusting and painful death you can think of. And if you tell anyone I said
that, then I’ll curse you anyway. One more word and you’re a corpse.”

The girls glared at Alison but she remained silent, turning on her heel with a flash of ponytail and saying “Come on” to the tall girl, then marched off, her chin in the air. Gradually the others drifted off too, whispering among themselves about the new girl.

“Got any brothers and sisters?” Alison asked her.

“No.” Catherine looked uncertain as she answered.

“Me either, I like you. You’re different from all of them,” Alison said, holding out her hand, which the other girl took. “I’m Alison, we can be best friends if you like.”

“Okay, then,” Cathy said. “I’m Catherine.”

“Right then, Cathy—want to play hopscotch?”

In the years that followed, that first offer of friendship became a pact, the two unlikely friends confident that the other one was the only person alive who really understood her.

They’d been twelve when Alison got Catherine so drunk on cider that she threw up on her mother’s feet as soon as she opened the front door and then lay on the floor laughing. After that Catherine’s parents had banned Alison from their daughter’s life outside of school. Alison remembered her mother going over to Catherine’s house, certain she’d be able to reason with Catherine’s mum, blame it on youthful experimentation, high spirits. But she hadn’t bargained for Catherine’s mother, the coldest and most unbendable human that had ever existed. But best friends were best friends, and a parental ban wasn’t about to keep them apart. Alison invented a web of complicated lies that allowed them to go out sometimes to a school disco or a party for a couple of hours, and best of all she’d figured that she could climb out her own bedroom window and into her friend’s in less than ten minutes, if she sprinted down the alley behind the houses that separated Catherine’s street from hers, without either set of parents knowing.

And the older they got, their friendship, which they still kept a secret from Catherine’s parents, fell into an easy pattern. There was Alison and Cathy and Alison and the rest of the world. Alison did her best to be the bridge that Catherine could use to cross over to the normal lives of their peers. Alison threatened anyone who wasn’t kind to Cathy and let those who were bask in her approval. But their friendship was always a two-way street. Cathy was her heart and soul, keeping her tethered to the ground when her wilder thoughts and impulses would have had her spinning off into the wild blue yonder. She knew she could tell Cathy what she could never tell her mother. She always thought that Cathy had felt the same, which was why her friend’s secret puzzled her. After all, what sort of secret could Cathy have that would require so much guarding?

Alison couldn’t imagine it.

Cathy had told her that she wouldn’t be around that afternoon. Her mum was making her stay in and study again. But Alison knew it was an excuse, she knew that Catherine’s mum would be working in the Christian bookshop and wouldn’t know if Cathy was studying at home or not. She couldn’t go round and knock for Cathy, so she waited on the iron railing behind the cherry tree just next to the old people’s bungalows. It was hot and Alison was bored after ten minutes and thinking about leaving, so it was lucky really that it didn’t take much longer for Catherine to emerge.

Alison watched as her friend walked down the road. Something about Cathy had changed—no, that was wrong; everything had.

She was wearing a long white skirt that flowed around her ankles, a skinny ribbed green shirt that set off her rippling copper hair. She had bangles on her wrists and a long beaded necklace that fell between her breasts. Cathy looked beautiful and stylish,
sexy even, with a new kind of confidence in the sway of her hips and the way she tossed her waist-length hair over her shoulder.

The way Cathy looked told Alison two things. First, that Catherine’s mother was definitely out, otherwise Catherine would never have dared to leave the house in anything other than the clothes her mother bought her. And second, that she was going to meet a male of the species.

Cathy had a boyfriend. Alison marveled at the newfound piece of information and she wondered who it could be. Who at school could possibly have fallen for Cathy Parkin? None of the boys fancied Cathy, not because she wasn’t beautiful, it was easy to see that she was, but because she didn’t have the yellow hair, the obvious breasts, or the near-naked thighs that boys in their teens appreciated so much. Alison realized it couldn’t be a boy from school that Catherine was going to meet. For a split second she thought it might be Jimmy Ashley, but she dismissed it. Even if Jimmy fancied Cathy, which he never would because she was about as far away from being a rock chick as a girl could be, Cathy would never get involved with him. She’d never betray Alison in that way, it just wasn’t in her nature.

There were only two ways to find out what was going on. She could either follow Cathy or ask her.

Alison, who was always one to take the fun option, pulled her sunglasses down onto her nose and began trailing her best friend. She giggled as she hopped in and out of bus shelters, cowered behind trees, flattened herself against a shop window. Near to laughing out loud, Alison expected Cathy to turn around at any minute and ask her what she thought she was playing at. And then she realized something: Cathy was in a world of her own, an exclusive little bubble of her own feelings and thoughts that Alison could not even guess at. For the first time in the nine years she had known Cathy, she was on the outside of her head and this
boy she was going to meet was on the inside. It took a second or two for Alison to realize, as she slowed to a walk, that what she was feeling now was jealousy.

She had to know at that instant exactly what was going on in Cathy’s life.

“Hi, Cathy, where are you going?” she said, falling into step alongside her friend, making her jump.

“I’m … oh, hello!” Cathy smiled at her, her cheeks coloring. “I thought you were with Aran. Mum’s working so I sneaked out for a walk.”