My Husband's Wife (23 page)

‘I dare say.’ Gerri toyed with a loose tendril of her long blonde hair. ‘You were right, Rosie, I did choose him.’

Rosie took a sharp breath. ‘You’re bloody mad, you are! And you’re nasty. I will never understand how anyone can take pleasure in destroying a family like you did mine.’

‘Don’t you think I have a right to be happy as well? A right to a family life?’ Gerri said, as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

Rosie gripped her bag against her chest. ‘I’m telling you now: you stay away from my kids. You fucking stay away from them!’ She didn’t like the aggression that surged through her, felt sick at the confrontation that was so far out of her comfort zone, but if ever there was a time for anger, this was it.

She heard the faint burble of laughter as she ran out of the front door. She revved the engine and pulled the car forwards to the wide gate. Her limbs were shaking. It seemed like an age before the gate whirred open. As soon as the gap was wide enough, she zoomed to freedom, pulling out onto the lane a little faster and more erratically than she normally would. When she got to the bottom of the hill, she screeched into a layby on the Esplanade and with trembling fingers phoned Mel.

‘What’s going on?’ Mel said immediately when she heard Rosie’s sobs. ‘You all right, love?’

‘Not really.’ Rosie tried to catch her breath. ‘Oh God, Mel!’ She closed her eyes and leant her head on the steering wheel, wondering how to start, where to start.

Mel robbed her of the chance. ‘I’ve just had Gerri on the phone,’ she said, ‘crying her eyes out. Said you were at the house and you went mental, threw coffee, threatened her, swore at her. She’s in a right state.’ Mel didn’t sound like her usual friendly self. Her tone was odd, a little off; it was the tone she used when referring to Kayleigh. It sounded judgemental. Rosie was shocked.

‘Mel, I’m telling you, she’s nuts! She was really horrible to me.’

‘I thought she’d invited you up to the house to get to know each other, make it easier?’

‘She did! That’s what she said, but when I got there, she was a bit snooty and weird, felt like she was showing off, really stuck up, and she was going on about seeds and stuff and made me feel like rubbish because I only know Madame Tussauds, and she lives in Kent and that’s not even London! And then she told me she was pregnant!’ Rosie closed her eyes and cupped her hand over her face; she wanted to hide from the world.

‘That’s what
she
said, that she told you about the baby and you went ballistic, threw coffee and told her to fuck off. Is that right? Did you?’

‘It’s kind of right. I did tell her to fuck off,’ Rosie admitted. There was something in her friend’s response that suddenly struck her. ‘Did you
know
she was pregnant?’ She was aware of how high pitched her voice had become.

Mel hesitated. ‘I only found out a couple of days ago.’ Her tone had softened.

‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘Do you know what, Mel, it’s easy to spout all that rubbish about how you would always choose me—’

‘I would!’

‘Well, it sure doesn’t feel like it right now. And anyway, I never expected you to choose. I know that Andy and Phil are mates, but I did expect a bit of loyalty!’ She was shout-ing now.

‘Well, I didn’t expect you to go and lose it in her house! That’s not helpful. And she’s pregnant! I know that’s hard, Rosie, but it’s how it is.’

‘You are not listening to me!’ Rosie screamed. ‘She more or less told me that she had picked Phil, picked out our family to rip apart. She was going on about a doll’s house and it felt like she was threatening me. I think she’s coming after my kids!’ Having to say the words out loud caused her breath to catch.
Oh God, oh my God!

‘I think you’re probably just upset, and shocked about the whole baby thing. And I understand why. It’s a shock, but—’

Rosie ended the call. She wasn’t interested in hearing Mel’s reasoning.

*

She collected the girls from school and walked them home, deep in thought, her eyes darting here and there as she gripped their hands. Woolacombe suddenly felt like a hostile place and she couldn’t wait to get the kids home and safe behind their front door. She gave only brief answers to their usual stream of questions, wishing they would be quiet and allow her time to think. She kept looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see a big black Range Rover snaking up behind her.

‘Mum, do you think our fish are in heaven?’ Naomi asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘If they are, how can they breathe, because heaven isn’t underwater and that’s where Moby and Jonathan need to be, otherwise they wouldn’t have died when we tipped the mug over?’ Leona asked.

‘You tipped the mug over,’ Naomi reminded her sister.

‘You did!’ Leona shouted.

‘All right, girls. Please, no arguing.’ She nipped the fracas that threatened in the bud.

‘Do you think Jesus has a fish tank?’ Leona asked.

‘He might do.’ Rosie smiled.

‘Because if Jesus put the fish in his fish tank, they’d be special Jesus fish, which would be nice, wouldn’t it, Mummy?’

‘Yes, it would be nice.’

‘Why does the lady next door have such big teeth? They are massive!’ Naomi stuck her teeth out over her bottom lip as if to demonstrate.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have Nanny and Grandad ever been in prison?’ Naomi had switched tack.

‘No.’ Rosie shook her head. ‘No, they haven’t.’

‘If they went to prison, we could live in their house,’ Leona added.

‘They are not going to prison.’

‘What’s the smallest crime you can do, so that you only go to prison for an hour or even half an hour, just so you can have a look, but you don’t have to stay there?’ Naomi was on a roll.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it doing a wee in the street, because Leo did a wee in the street?’

‘I don’t want to go to prison!’ Leona started to fret.

‘You’d only go for an hour, Leona Shitstar.’

Rosie stopped walking. ‘What did you call her?’

‘I don’t know.’ Naomi sucked in her cheeks and stared at her mum without blinking.

‘She called me Leona Shitstar.’

‘Right. That’s it! When we get home, you are both having tea and then going straight to bed. I’ve had enough today.’

‘But she called
me
shitstar – I didn’t do anything wrong!’ Leona whined.

‘You grassed her up and that shows no loyalty and that’s a shitty thing to do.’

The two girls exchanged a glance. It was Naomi who was the bravest. ‘You said “shitty”, are you going to go to bed too?’

‘Yes. Yes I am.’ She nodded at the girls and marched on.

*

It was nearly seven o’clock and she could hear their laughter coming through the floor. So much for punishment. Rosie felt out of sorts, replaying not only what Gerri had said to her, but also the way she’d said it. And she was doubly floored by Mel’s reaction, to the point where she was now wary of speaking to Mo or anyone else, in case they said or thought the same. She felt lonely. She could no longer confide in Phil, as she had for the last decade, and Kev was thousands of miles away, in the BVI.

The front doorbell rang while she was stacking the dishwasher and her heart leapt at the thought that it might be Gerri or Mel. She needn’t have worried. It was Phil.

‘Can I come in?’

She could tell by the set of his jaw that this wasn’t a courtesy call.

‘Gerri is in a bad way,’ he began as soon as he stepped into the hallway, obviously keen to get the words out.

She watched how he drew his shoulders in, as if he suddenly found the space in which he’d lived happily for all those years a little cramped now. She walked through to the kitchen and he followed her.

‘Please try and keep your voice down. The girls are in bed and I don’t want them upset or hyped up.’ She tried to keep the shiver from her bones; she was still shaken and on high alert.

‘What on earth happened today? Why were you even there?’ He paced the floor.

‘I thought you’d know. I was there because she invited me. She said it would be best for the girls, best for everyone, if we all got on, and stupidly I thought that was the right thing to do.’

He shook his head, as if that fact alone irritated him. Clearly he didn’t like the idea of his two worlds colliding.

Rosie continued. ‘She... she made me feel small. The way she spoke to me, Phil, was—’

‘Was what?’ he interrupted. ‘You’ve just said yourself, she invited you up to the house to try and build bridges.’

Rosie stared at him, the man who with every new rejection hurt her even more.
You’re my husband, Phil! How can you even look at me like that?
She took a deep breath and tried to keep a calm head, tried to speak rationally. ‘Phil, I need you to listen to me. I need you to trust me.’ She cursed the wobble of emotion in her voice. ‘We’ve been married for a very long time...’

He held her gaze.

‘...and you have only known this woman for a little while and today I saw a side to her that has frightened me. She honestly sounded nuts!’

‘Are you serious?’ He squinted. ‘When I got home, she was on the bedroom floor. She was sobbing. I couldn’t calm her down, and let me tell you,
that
frightened me.’

‘She was laughing when I left, sneering at me! And she tipped her own coffee on the—’

‘Rosie, stop it! Just stop it!’ He sighed. ‘She is as house-proud as they come. You expect me to believe she tipped her own coffee onto her own imported, eighteen-grand carpet?’

She stared at him. If he thought she was lying, then they’d turned down another dark road that they’d never travelled before.

‘She said she told you about the baby.’

‘Ah, yes, the baby. Congratulations!’

‘Yes! That’s exactly how she said you reacted – nastily, sarcastically – and that then you couldn’t stop, you swore at her, threatened her, told her to fucking be careful and to stay away from the girls. Is that true?’

‘I did say something like that, yes, but that’s not exactly how it happened. She’s twisting it! She pushed me into a corner and now no one is hearing what I’m saying. She was threatening, scary.’

‘Scary? Have you seen her?’ He gave a short burst of laughter, which made Rosie feel big and clumsy.

She crossed her arms over her torso as he carried on berating her.

‘I am genuinely surprised by what you’ve done. Surprised and...’ He chose his words carefully. ‘Disappointed. She didn’t deserve that. She’s gone out of the way to make the girls welcome, bought them a bloody dog!’

His words lit the touch paper that saw her fear and frustration erupt. She heard Gerri’s words.
‘To be thrown over by your man is one thing, but to have your kids rather spend time with a dog...’

‘What about what I deserve, Phil? Is anyone considering that? It’s like the blows just keep coming. First I lose you, then I have to smile and wave the girls off as and when you feel like taking them, and now, not only is she having a baby, but she was bloody awful to me today. And yet I’m being made to feel like the one in the wrong!’ She cursed her distress, wishing she could present a stronger front.

She saw him glance at his wrist before putting his hands on his hips. There was somewhere else he wanted to be. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said angrily.

‘Why are you being like this? I didn’t mean you to find out about the baby like this. I planned on telling you when the time was right, the next time I saw you.’

‘Well don’t worry about that. I’m sure I would have heard it eventually, from Mel or Andy or someone else in town like Mrs Blackmore’s granddaughter in the Spar.’

‘Andy’s my mate. What do you suggest, that I just drop him?’

‘No, but I am still your wife, whether you like it or not, and I am the mother of your children and you could at least give me the courtesy of not letting me be the last to know about something so important.’ She noted the way he was restlessly shifting his weight from foot to foot. ‘And even now, you can’t wait to be gone. You’re so on edge. It’s like I don’t know you, Phil. As if you have just erased the last twelve years of our lives. Well, the bad news is, I am not going to disappear, no matter how convenient that would be for you.’

He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I didn’t plan any of this.’

‘Oh God, not that again! And let me tell you, even if
you
didn’t,
she
did! She said as much today, said she chose you. And you were so weak and predictable, you didn’t exactly make it difficult for her, did you?’

‘The way you talk, Rosie, you make me sound callous, but I’m not. I love my kids.’

‘Well, good, because you’ve got another one on the way. Mind you, it should be easy, it’s not like you have to worry about lack of finances or lack of space!’ She remembered that night, lying against him in their little bed, recalled the feel of his bare chest beneath her cheek, the way she felt like her heart might burst with longing for the baby that wasn’t to be.

Phil took a deep breath. ‘It’s not...’

‘It’s not what?’

‘It’s not all perfect. Despite what you think, what you see, it’s not all easy.’ He looked at her.

‘What?’ She folded her arms across her chest and stared at him.

‘I’m just saying... I am happy, I am. But it’s not all perfect. I mean, yes, the house is amazing, but it’s not mine, and leaving the kids, dropping them off, is really hard for me. And Gerri, she’s... she’s a handful. Hard work... you know... and it feels very soon for a baby. I don’t know.’ He ran his hand over his face. He was chatting to her like they used to, when they were friends, partners in everything, before he left. When they could discuss anything and everything.

She continued to stare at him, absorbing his words, analysing their meaning. Things in the garden high up on the cliff in Mortehoe were apparently far from rosy. This was what she had longed to hear. To be given hope when at her lowest ebb. The number of times she had lain in bed in the early hours, waiting for dawn to break and imagining him saying those words. But it was too late now. The flame had been all but extinguished and Geraldine Farmer was having his baby.