Another Mother's Life (35 page)

This wasn’t what he had planned when he’d met Catherine twelve years ago. He’d planned to marry her, yes, about twelve minutes after he’d met her. And after half an hour he’d wanted to have children with her, that was right. But not like this. He’d never seen his future panning out like this.

“Well, it’s chucking it down out there,” Leila said, making everyone laugh. “What are we going to do, Nanna? Not another puzzle of kittens, please—I’m bored of puzzles of kittens.”

“How about shopping?” Pam suggested, which always got a roar of approval from the consumerism-starved girls. Their mother wouldn’t like it, which was principally why Pam did.

“Ooh, yes, can I get some nail varnish?” Leila asked, her hand clasped to her face in excitement. “I really need some.”

“I’d like some new hair ribbons, please, Nanna,” Eloise added. “Some of those floaty sparkly ones with the stars and hearts on that the girls who go to ballet class wear.”

“Okay, well, you go and wash your hands and brush your hair and we’ll set off in a few minutes, okay?” Pam smiled as the girls scrambled up the stairs, climbing over each other in a race to the summit.

“Why don’t they go to ballet class?” she asked Jimmy. “Doesn’t she approve of ballet?”

“It’s expensive, and money’s tight,” Jimmy said.

Pam spent several silent moments clearly trying to hold back the words that threatened. She failed.

“All night in that … that …
boat
,” she huffed at Jimmy, keeping her voice low so that only he would hear her disapproval. “That’s no way for two girls their age to live.”

“It was one night,” Jimmy sighed.

“It’s no way for a man of
your
age to live,” Pam added, her voice tight with frustration. “It’s a wonder you’re not dead of pneumonia.”

“It’s temporary,” Jimmy said. “I sent off a new demo to record and publishing companies last week. It’s the best material I’ve ever written. It’ll get picked up, you’ll see.”

Pam sniffed dismissively. “Two years ago that boat was temporary. It’s been two years since you and Catherine separated and you’re still stuck living on that leaky old boat, still in the same situation as you were the day you left her. Why don’t you divorce her, James? At least then you can split your assets. It’s not right. Half that house is yours.”

Jimmy looked at his mum and took a painful breath.

“All of that house is Leila’s and Eloise’s, it’s their
home
. It’s about the one steady thing they’ve got. Even if we did get the divorce I wouldn’t have them move out, they need stability, Mum. It’s not their fault that me and Catherine didn’t work out.”

“No, well, if you’d listened to me and never married her in the first place …”

“Then there would be no Leila or Ellie—is that what you want?” Jimmy asked her. If he had a pound for every time he and Pam had had this identical conversation, then he’d be living in one of those penthouses in the new block they were building across the canal from his boat. But his mum never tired of having it. She never tired of being right.

“You need to get a flat of your own,” she told him. “Start afresh, face up to reality. Honestly, James, you’ve lived your life in limbo since you were seventeen years old. When are you going to grow up? Get a
proper
job, a teaching qualification like we’ve talked about. They’ll take anyone these days. I’d help you. You could live here while you went back to college.”

“No, that is not who I am,” Jimmy said, gesturing down at himself. “
This
is who I am. I’m a musician, a songwriter—a
guitarist. This
is my life. I’m not going to get a qualification or a ‘proper job’ as you call it. I
love
what I do, Mum, I’m going to keep on doing it until I get my break or I die, whichever comes first, and if either one of those things happens while I’m living on a rotting old boat, then so be it. But what I’m not going to do is give up. You don’t give up your passion.”

Pam sat back in her chair so that one chin tucked into another.

“Is that why you’ve never divorced her?” she asked.

“I cheated on
her
, I left
her
,” Jimmy said painfully. “I was the one who broke the marriage up, I did it. The reason we haven’t got the divorce settled is because of the girls. The girls aren’t ready to deal with it yet.”

“Are you sure it’s the girls who aren’t ready?” Pam said, sighing heavily. “I don’t know what your father would have said.”

Jimmy looked sideways at his mother. “He’d support me,” he said quietly. “Because he always told me to follow my dream and not let myself get trapped in a life that didn’t belong to me like he …” Jimmy trailed off. His dad had died of bowel cancer when Jimmy was seventeen, something that neither he nor his mother had ever quite recovered from. “Dad always told me to give it my best shot, never give up. Don’t be a quitter, son, that’s what he said.”

“Well, he should have said quit while you’re ahead, James. Look, if everyone who ever wanted to be a pop star made it, then you wouldn’t be able to walk out your front door without bumping into them. Wanting something to happen is not enough to make it happen. You can chase your dreams when you’re thirteen or twenty-three, but you’re
thirty
-three now. It’s time you grew up.” Pam leaned forward so the girls wouldn’t hear her. “James,
you’ve got two smashing girls. Wouldn’t you like to give them what they want, a few ribbons and some nail varnish—a couple of ballet lessons? It’s not that much to ask.”

“I …” Jimmy had been about to launch into his usual defense when suddenly all his strength left him and he reached out across the table to grip his mother’s hand. Pam looked up, startled.

“What is it, son?” she asked him.

“I still love her, Mum,” he said. “I love her and I’m going to lose her. After everything I did, two years after we split up and I’ve only just realized it. I thought I could go on pretending that everything was fine between us, but I can’t. I’m going to lose her and there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

Pam watched him for a moment, her lipstick-bright lips pressed into a thin line, and then she covered his wrist with her free hand.

“There are more out there for you, James, a whole world of nice decent women who’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Who’ll appreciate you like she never has. Look at that lovely Sally Mitchell from my bingo game. She’s a lovely girl, steady, does a lovely roast. I could invite her for lunch tomorrow.”

“No, Mum,” Jim said sadly. “It doesn’t matter how nice Sally Mitchell is, or how many other women there are out there who’d be good for me. It’s Catherine I love, it’s her I want. It will always be her I want.”

“You know I don’t think she is good enough for you,” Pam said, catching hold of Jimmy’s hand when he tried to withdraw from her. “But I must say I’m surprised at you, James Ashley.”

“What? Why?” Jimmy said.

“You’re the boy who spent his entire adult life chasing after one dream and never giving up. You had good A levels. You could have gone to university, could have a good job now doing something in an office with a pension plan. But no, not my Jimmy. My
Jimmy never said ‘It’s no good I’m never going to make it I think I’ll chuck it all in and become an accountant.’ You never give up, Jimmy, you never do. And yet here you are telling me you’re giving her up without even the ghost of a fight. Now, after all these years of devoting yourself to her and your children, you’re rolling over and playing dead while she does as she pleases. That’s not my Jimmy.”

“What are you saying?” Jimmy asked warily.

“She’s the mother of your children, and I suppose a good one judging by how those angels have turned out, despite the clothes she puts them in. And you say you’ve only just realized now, but I don’t think that’s true, James. I think the light went out of you when you walked out on her and I’ve been waiting for it to come back on but it hasn’t, so … so just think—what would your father say? What did he say when he was encouraging you to learn the guitar?”

Jimmy looked puzzled for a moment and then his face cleared.

“He’d say give it your best shot, never give up, don’t be a quitter. If he was here now he’d tell me I’ve got to fight for her, go back to Farmington and tell her how I feel, tell her how she feels and why we were meant to be together. Why we were never meant to be apart. To tell her she can’t make any choices about what to do next until she knows that I still love her and that I always have. That’s what he’d tell me.” Jimmy sat up a little straighter and squared his shoulders.

“That’s what he’d say, wouldn’t he, Mum? He’d tell me to give it one more shot to make sure that I knew, absolutely knew that I had done my best.”

Pam nodded, pursing her lips. “He talked a lot of rubbish, your father,” she said, but she squeezed his hand as she said it.

O
h my God, look at the face on you,” Kirsty said when she opened the door to Alison. She quickly glanced over Alison’s shoulder and then dragged her indoors, slamming the door behind her.

“What was that all about?” Alison asked her, smoothing herself down as she slipped off her coat.

“What was what all about?” Kirsty looked perplexed, as if she always greeted her visitors by hurling them into the living room. She looked Alison up and down, admiring her straight, knee-length claret cord skirt, worn with soft light brown leather-heeled boots and topped off with a tightly fitting cream cashmere sweater. “Is that your standard reunion-with-an-estranged-friend outfit? I’m just asking because it doesn’t seem to provide the option for a catfight. You’d never get the blood out of that sweater.”

“Ha, ha,” Alison said mirthlessly. “Don’t wind me up, Kirsty. I don’t care how much this sweater costs, the way I’m feeling …” Alison clenched her fists and actually growled.

“What’s up?” Kirsty asked, hurriedly pouring Alison a large glass of white wine.

“When we moved here, back when I still thought we could salvage
something
from the wreckage of our marriage, Marc agreed that Friday afternoons would be family time. The one day of the week when we could guarantee that we would all sit down together and eat dinner as a family. I knew it wouldn’t ever happen and it hasn’t. Yesterday Dominic turned up and went ballistic, just wound Marc up until he blew his top and they both walked out. The girls were there, they got so upset, Gemma asked me if Marc and I were going to divorce.” Alison looked unhappily at Kirsty. “I couldn’t bear to see her any more upset, so I said no, and I meant it. I thought, I don’t care about anything except making my children happy. You see those old couples, don’t you, couples who’ve been married for about a hundred years and you think, there is no way they have loved each other for all that time, at some point they must have hated each other’s guts. But then they come to a point where they can just rub along. And for the girls’ sakes, for all our sakes I thought I could do that too, believe it or not.”

“Okay,” Kirsty said slowly, looking at the door. “Far be it from me to judge your insane reasoning, but what’s changed and made you so cross?”

“I found out Marc went round to see Cathy. I knew he would. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist it. But I’d hoped that he had, because if he had, there might still have been a chance for us. After everything he’s done to me I was still hoping for one last chance! I’m so stupid!”

“Oh
that
.” Kristy rolled her eyes. “That was nothing, it wasn’t even a kiss. It was barely a bit of hand holding, it was all very repressed, all very
Brief Encounter
. Besides, Jimmy walked in at the last minute and broke it up.”

“You knew?” Alison exclaimed, finishing her drink and pouring herself another one from the bottle that Kirsty had left on the mantelpiece. “And you didn’t tell me?”

Kirsty pursed her lips, looking at her watch as she folded her arms.

“Listen, she’ll be here in a minute, so let’s get this straight. First of all I’m doing you a favor here that you begged me to do even though I’ve only known you five minutes. And secondly, no, I didn’t tell you, but neither have I told her that you wanted to have sex with her husband. So can it with the condemnations, lady, I am not part of your Jacobean tragedy.”

“Oh,” Alison said, her crossness stalling and stuttering until it came to a standstill. “Well, okay, then.”

“And if Catherine’s not kissing Marc is enough to make you doubt your genius master plan to remain locked forever in a sham marriage, then maybe she actually did you a favor.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alison said a little sheepishly. “I heard that a lot of women are perfectly happy in sham marriages. They have the money, the status, sex with their personal trainers on tap.”

“Don’t talk to me about sex with personal trainers,” Kirsty said crossly. “Now look, let’s get this evening back on track and concentrate on what it’s really about. Getting you and Catherine talking again.”

“Okay,” Alison said, glancing at the door nervously.

“Good, well I’m nothing if not a good hostess. So help me microwave these curries.”

“I must admit,” Alison said as she vigorously stabbed the film of one of the dishes. “I was surprised that she agreed to meet me quite so easily. What on earth did you say to her to get her to agree just like that?”