Tempting Fate (5 page)

This house was not a house they were ever supposed to have looked at when they were wanting to upgrade to something bigger. They had a long list of houses to visit, mostly fifties and sixties ranches and splits – all that was affordable given Elliott’s new residency at Norwalk Hospital.

Their realtor, flapping and stressed, announced they would have to make a quick pit stop at a house where she needed to check the back-door key.

Elliott was in the front of the car, Gabby in the rear, as their realtor turned onto a pretty street close to town, with picture-book cottages lining each side.

The house, a grey shingle, was set back from the road with a beautiful dogwood tree in the front garden. There was a natural-wood barn in the backyard, a large copper star hanging on the side of it. Once upon a time it had been a horse barn, but it was now used for storage. The house was a small Cape style; too small for Gabby and Elliott and their two young girls, the realtor pointed out, seeing how excited they were.

The downstairs had been added on to extensively and now had two newer, light-filled rooms: a sunroom
and a playroom; but the upstairs had just two bedrooms and one bathroom, all of them tiny.

‘Couldn’t we add on above the sunroom?’ Elliott peered out of the window, pointing out the flat roof.

‘You could,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But I just don’t know how much you want to put into this house.’

‘Surely adding a bedroom and bathroom would be an investment?’

‘Yes, but only if you got it at the right price. They’re asking about thirty thousand too much, and so far they’ve refused to move.’

Elliott turned to Gabby, whose face had lit up. ‘I love it,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

They made their offer, and raised it twice, only to have it rejected. Losing heart, they settled on a sixties ranch on the other side of town; it had a huge backyard, and no charm whatsoever.

The day they were going to sign the contract their realtor phoned. The owners of the cottage had rethought. They would now accept the third and final offer if Elliott and Gabby still wanted the house.

‘We do,’ Elliott said, ‘but I have to offer lower because of the money we’ve spent since then.’ He named his price, shockingly low, even to the realtor, while deciding not to tell Gabby unless and until the offer was accepted.

Three months later, they moved in.

Empty, the house needed more work than they had
imagined. Paintings that had been removed left huge rectangular stains on the walls; wooden floors were stained and thirsty as they emerged after hiding underneath rugs for more than twenty years.

They worked evenings and weekends to restore the house, while the builders worked during the day to build Olivia’s bedroom, and reconfigure and enlarge the rooms that were there. The job became larger, the contractor pointing out how easy it would be to cut off a chunk of the now-oversized master suite to create a walk-in closet and a spare bedroom. How could they not?

The walls were covered with fresh paint, the floors stripped and sanded before being stained a dark brown then oiled with Tung Oil for a glossy, rich finish. Gabby ran up simple curtain panels in a pale mushroom linen, the same panels in a fuchsia pink for the girls’ rooms.

They had little money back then. Their furniture was a mix of consignment store and hand-me-downs. If ever anyone said they were getting rid of anything, Gabby and Elliott took it, regardless of what it was, what it looked like, or whether they had room.

What they couldn’t use was stored at one end of the barn. The other was turned into a workroom where Gabby would restore furniture for their home. A huge old dresser they found at the dump one day, covered in a vile shade of green paint, was transformed into a beautiful bleached-pine period piece. Lined with linen it was perfect for their Crate & Barrel plates and bowls.

Gabby became an expert at stripping furniture and
repurposing it. Where others would see a heavy, dark, utilitarian chest of drawers, she would see an object of beauty, and once stripped and painted a soft ivory, the intricate and ugly brass pulls replaced with pretty, antique, crystal knobs, these pieces of furniture were invariably more stunning than even she expected.

Elliott made the outdoor table, and the pergola under which it sits. Gabby collected old mason jars of all shapes and sizes, filled them with votive candles and hung them at varying heights underneath the pergola.

It has become a house others describe as magical. Tiny lights twinkle from the dogwood tree in the front garden and the two apple trees in the back. It is a house that feels happy, feels like it is home to a happy family, and everyone who comes over immediately feels comfortable.

This has always felt like Gabby’s haven, a place where she is safe from the world. It is the quietest, most peaceful house she can imagine, a world away from the house in which she spent her childhood.

Gabby grew up in England. She moved to the States after university, at the age of twenty-one, initially coming just for the summer, to work as a counsellor at a girls’ camp in Maine. But life seemed so filled with possibility here that she never went home. First, she applied for a student visa, working as a nanny and studying in the evenings, then she met and married Elliott.

The London house in which she grew up was always filled with people. Her mother, once well-known as a
stage actress, had, in later years, retrained as a therapist. Never a woman who fully understood boundaries, Natasha de Roth (no one is sure where the ‘de’ came from – Gabby’s father went only by the surname of Roth) offered up their home as a sanctuary to waifs and strays, anyone who had nowhere else to go, including an assortment of rather scruffy dogs and unhappy cats.

Living in the large and once rather grand Roth/de Roth house at the top of Belsize Park Gardens always felt a bit like a game of Russian Roulette to Gabby – opening the front door after school you never knew what you were going to get.

There might be a woman standing shouting in the kitchen, being coached through a bipolar rage by her mother, who would smile cheerily and wave Gabby along as if this was perfectly normal and she should come back later.

Impromptu group-therapy sessions were normal round the kitchen table. Gabby would walk home, longing for a quiet hot chocolate and some digestive biscuits, only to find the larder empty, the biscuits having been eagerly consumed by the seven people currently weeping as they slumped on chairs pulled up to the old scrubbed pine table next to the Aga.

Gabby learned to stop at the newsagent’s in Belsize Village on her way home from school to buy some crisps, or cookies, then go straight up to her bedroom to avoid the mayhem.

She’d sit cross-legged on the floor, leaning back on
her beanbag, plugged into her Sony Walkman and surrounded by posters of The Police, Madness, The Specials. She’d eat two or three Jaffa Cakes then put the rest away for another time.

It was peaceful in her large, sun-filled bedroom at the back of the house, with views over the tree tops. Occasionally she’d hear a door slam downstairs, or the bark of laughter, but mostly, when plugged in, she was able to lose herself in daydreams.

She dreamed, even then, of a peaceful life. She dreamed of a life when she wouldn’t be surrounded by drama and chaos, by a mother who needed so desperately to be needed herself that she couldn’t possibly be there for the one person who truly did need her: her daughter.

Her father, a quiet scholarly man, who made his living as an editor on one of the broadsheets, had little to do with either of them. His way of dealing with the chaos was to remove himself, if not entirely physically, then certainly emotionally. He worked late hours at the newspaper, and would, when home, drift through the house or spend hours sitting in a cracked leather wing chair by the bay window in the living room, methodically working his way through a large pile of newspapers on the floor next to him, cigarette always in hand, bottle of Scotch resting on the table.

Gabby adored him, even though she had little to do with him. He would always light up in delight when he saw her, and might, if in the mood, briefly engage her in a discussion about politics, or Ethiopia, or what her
thoughts might be about the situation in Northern Ireland.

But soon he would be back with his papers, and Gabby would disappear off to her room, grateful to have had any kind of attention at all.

America
. The very word seemed to be lit up, heralded by angels singing. Everything about America seemed larger than life, exotic, magical. Her favourite films were American; her favourite film stars were American. She watched
Happy Days
and was nostalgic for a life she had never known; it was a life she was certain existed across the pond and longed to share. She was sure everyone in America was always happy; they had perfect, big white teeth; they had mothers and housekeepers who were always smiling, who paid them attention, thought everything they did was wonderful, baked them fresh cakes every day for when they got off the bus, the yellow school bus – oh how she wanted to travel on a yellow school bus! – after school.

They had one family vacation when Gabby was twelve. They went to New York, which was the most vibrant, exciting city she had ever been to, and Shelter Island, to stay with friends of her mother’s.

That was when Gabby fell in love. She started plotting then and there to make her way back. After university she knew she couldn’t live under her mother’s roof, and being a camp counsellor was a perfect stepping stone until she figured out what to do next, and how to stay in the States.

When she moved to New York, there were a few dates with dull men. Somewhere in her consciousness Gabby knew she had agreed to go out with them only to prove her mother wrong. ‘You recreate what you know,’ her mother had once said, gesturing around what even she had begun to call ‘the Madhouse’. ‘Or,’ she’d added, shrugging sceptically, ‘you go the other way entirely, but often that happens only after an intervention, years of therapy usually. I wonder,’ she’d said, fixing her gaze on Gabby, ‘which way will you go?’

‘Duh!’ Gabby had rolled her eyes. ‘I’m up in my bedroom desperately trying to find peace and quiet. I hardly think there’s any question about which way I’m going.’

‘You say that now –’ her mother had smiled knowingly – ‘but you’re a teenager. Wait until you’re out in the world. You’re going to be attracted to men who are reminiscent of your parents, whether you like it or not.’

God, no! I love my father, Gabby had thought, but I’d hate to be married to a man so distant. And as for marrying a man anything like my mother … She’d shuddered in horror.

The dull men proved her mother wrong. They were more present than her father, and more interested in her. But they were just … rather boring. Gabby would be happy to be with them for all of about five minutes, before realizing she could never spend her time with people so unconcerned about any of the things that mattered to her.

‘What are you looking for?’ other people would ask, curious about this bright-eyed English girl with the curly hair and large smile.

‘I’m looking for peace,’ she’d always say.

‘No!’ They’d shake their heads. ‘That’s not what I meant. I mean, do you want someone tall? Short? How old? Funny? What? What are you looking for?’

‘Peace,’ she’d say again. ‘Someone who makes me feel peaceful.’

Few knew what to say after that.

Elliott was what she was looking for. From the minute he started talking to her, he made her feel peaceful. It was as if she recognized him. There were no violins or halos, no bursting stars or bolts of lightning. It was simply a quiet recognition.

You
, she thought. I
know
you.

And it is peace that has been the defining quality of their relationship. Unlike her childhood, when she never felt particularly wanted, or noticed, or happy, or safe, she feels all of these things with Elliott.

They have built a beautiful life together, with beautiful children, a beautiful home.

Why on earth, Gabby thinks, as she closes the front door after the girls have gone to school, would I do anything to screw this up?

What the hell am I thinking, even fantasizing about another man? Even in my head, this isn’t okay. Even in my head, this has to stop.

But she can’t stop thinking about it. In the car, driving to Claire’s, she has an imaginary conversation, out loud, in which her fantasy of sleeping with another man has actually become reality, and she is explaining herself to Claire, having confessed to what she has done.

‘I wasn’t thinking.’ Gabby’s voice is quiet but clear. ‘I didn’t think about my husband. I didn’t think about anything other than how good it felt to be wanted, how alive I felt knowing that someone, and someone like him, even noticed someone like me.

‘Why didn’t you stop before you went too far?

‘I tried. There was a part of me that kept saying, “Just ten more minutes, just a few more. I’ll go home soon.” But it was … I don’t know. Heady. It was like taking drugs. I was high, and I just wanted the high to keep going.

‘And if Elliott ever finds out?

‘He can’t ever find out. It would kill him. It would kill us. This is a secret I’m taking to my grave.’

Gabby exhales loudly, sighing as she climbs out of the car and pushes open the gate to Claire’s house. Thank God I didn’t do anything, she thinks. Now I just have to get the whole bloody thing out of my head.

‘Are you ready?’ she calls through the front door, not bothering to knock. ‘I’m waiting in the car.’

Claire bounds out seconds later, giving Gabby a quick hug. ‘Was it my imagination or were you just sitting in the car outside my house talking to yourself?’

Gabby flushes. ‘Oh God. I can’t believe you saw that.’

‘You were! Gabs! That’s hilarious. So, what were you talking about? Anything good? You looked pretty intense.’

Gabby sinks her head into her hands in shame. ‘I can’t believe I got caught,’ she mumbles, before looking at Claire. ‘It’s just something I do sometimes to clear my thoughts. I treat myself as my own therapist.’

‘O-kay.’ Claire laughs. ‘So how’s that working out for you?’

‘Surprisingly well.’ Gabby turns the engine on, and laughs too.

‘I do have an amazing therapist if you need one. I’ve told you this a million times, but if you ever do need someone to talk to I could totally get you in, and you’d love her.’

‘And I’ve told you a million times: no therapists.’ Gabby shudders. ‘Only the one in my head. I’ve still got all this mother stuff to get over. The poor woman put me off for life.’

‘Yes, well, not all of them are crazy.’

‘I know that. But my mother is. And I just can’t go there. I love that you keep offering, though. I just hope
that things are never desperate enough for me to want to take you up on it. What are you having done at the doctor today? You’re not having a scan yet, are you? Isn’t it too early?’

‘Just a check-up. They’ll do a blood test to confirm everything. Thank you so much for driving, Gabs. I feel kind of jittery, what with my age. I know it’s too soon to get excited, and the risks are huge, but it’s all I’m thinking about. I couldn’t sleep last night so I went online and started reading up about pregnancies in women our age. It’s pretty scary, but I have this really strong belief that everything’s going to be okay. Is that weird? Or wrong? I’m just so sure that this is supposed to be, and that I won’t have anything to worry about. Do you think everyone feels this way, even when it doesn’t turn out to be the case?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gabby says. ‘But I absolutely believe positive thinking can change the world. And the IVF wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t supposed to have this child – that much I’m sure of.’

‘I know,’ Claire says. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones. It was such hell when we were going through it, and we so nearly gave up. This was our last shot and it worked. Can you believe it?’

No, thinks Gabby sadly. She can’t.

Claire turns her head slightly to watch the streets flash by outside the car window, before speaking, as if reading Gabby’s mind. ‘You always said you wanted
another child. You’re younger than me; you could still do it. Imagine if you and I were pregnant together! It would be so much easier if I had someone my age going through it.’

‘I can’t,’ Gabby says quietly. ‘I wish I could. I wanted it so badly, but it just isn’t meant to be.’

‘Who knows?’ Claire turns back to her with a smile. ‘Accidents can happen. And there’s always IVF.’

‘Not when your husband’s had a vasectomy.’

Claire’s eyes open wide. ‘Elliott had a vasectomy? Oh God. I had no idea. And you were okay with that?’

Gabby pauses before answering. She wasn’t okay with it then, and she isn’t okay with it now. But there is nothing she can do about it, and the best she can hope for is to learn to accept it.

‘It is what it is,’ she says lightly, ignoring the pain that wraps itself around her heart.

In the waiting room, Gabby flicks through
Parenting
magazine, not taking any of it in – she has moved so far away from babies, and toddlers, and micro-managing her children’s lives in a bid to be the best mother, produce the best children.

How different she would be now, she thinks sadly. How much better, in so many respects.

Her phone buzzes. A text from Elliott:

Just telling my wife

how much I love her …

She smiles and texts back:

Love you more

xxx

Instead of putting her phone away in her bag again she decides to play a game of Words with Friends, and just as she does so a black strip appears at the top of her screen announcing she has received an email.

From: [email protected]

Her heart jumps with excitement as she scans the message and she is unaware of the delighted smile now stretching from ear to ear.

To: Gabby

Subject: To be continued …

Gabby – what an unexpected and truly great surprise it was to meet you the other day. You turned a boring business trip into what felt like a much-needed, fun-filled break. Every time I think of your sparkling green eyes I start to smile – we could all do with more friends who make us feel like that. I hope your husband made it home safely and had fun with your girls.

Life here in Malibu is as dull as ever – sand, sun, surf. It’s good to be home, although I always find myself yearning for the changing seasons when I’ve been to New England. I should have brought back a bag of white and pink blossom to put in a bowl on the table – it might have done the trick.

As it stands, I have to come back in a couple of weeks, and was hoping we could grab another drink.

Take care.

M x

Gabby’s face lights up as she reads, rereads, rereads again. Is he flirting? What does this mean? No. Impossible. He says quite specifically he could do with more friends … but … ‘sparkling green eyes’? Who says that if they’re not interested? Gabby! She sits up straight, shaking her head. What are you doing? You’re married. There’s nothing inappropriate in this email, yet it feels … inviting. Exciting.

She reads it again, not noticing Claire until she is standing right in front of her.

‘What on earth are you reading?’ says Claire. ‘You look like you’re about to explode with joy.’

‘Oh. Nothing,’ Gabby says. ‘Just an email from a friend.’

‘Really? Because you look like you’ve won the lottery.’

‘I’m fine.’ Gabby puts her phone away. ‘So tell me, how was it? What did the doctor say?’

It is hard to concentrate on the way home. Gabby finds her thoughts drifting back to the email as Claire talks; she desperately wants to reach into her bag and read it again.

She drops Claire off, declining to come in for coffee, before driving straight home, where she can read the email in solitude.

Dear Matt,

She stops typing then goes back to delete it. Not dear. He isn’t dear.
She
wasn’t dear.

Matt – what a lovely surprise to receive your email. I’m glad you got home safely and I know what you mean about the seasons here. California is a place I sometimes dream about, but I couldn’t live without the spring and the fall.

Of all the seasons, fall is my favourite. I’m picturing it now: the leaves turning all those vibrant colours, the trees with their red and orange blankets spread on the grass beneath them. And after the hot summer days I always look forward to feeling a chill in the air, because nothing’s better than lighting fires. I’m always up early, and usually downstairs with a fire lit by seven. Sometimes six. We go through wood.

No. She deletes it.

I go through wood like crazy from October onwards. I also turn into something of a sloth – I could curl up on the sofa with books for the rest of my life.

But having said all that, spring is wonderful too. There’s a freshness after the winter months and with all the new growth everything is bright and colourful. I’m looking out of the window now at a huge old dogwood tree whose canopy spreads over the entire front yard, and it is a rich mass of
deep-pink blossom. It is really quite beautiful. If I knew your address, I’d send you some …

How exciting that you’re coming back, and the blossom will still be glorious in two weeks.

She pauses. She should invite him over for dinner, have him meet Elliott? Isn’t that the way to have a proper friendship?

Does she, in fact, want a friendship? Isn’t she the one who always said that once you are married you do not get to make new friends of the opposite sex? Ever. You are allowed to befriend other couples, and if you get on particularly well with the husband that is allowed, but single members of the opposite sex?

No. It’s just not done.

But why not? Why should she not have a new friend? He’s by far the most interesting and glamorous person she’s met in ages. Elliott would be fascinated by him, even though she doesn’t yet want them to meet. Matt met her on her own, and this friendship has to develop on that basis before she is ready to reveal her true self.

She doesn’t want him to see her as a wife, a mother, a middle-aged housewife. For just a little while longer she wants to keep the illusion going that she is, as he thinks, clever and strong, with sparkling green eyes.

My schedule’s so crazy, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away for a drink, but if I can I definitely will. It would be fun.

She takes a deep breath.

Just as long as you promise not to get me drunk and take advantage of me … :)

Gabby x

One kiss. That’s enough. That wasn’t flirtatious, was it? Maybe just the tiniest bit, but, well, Gabby’s only having fun. It isn’t as if she’s going to actually
do
anything – she isn’t the slightest bit interested in actually doing anything – but what fun to play at being the sort of woman that men, other than their husband, want. What would be the harm?

Two emails arrive, back to back, three minutes later. The first:

33624 Malibu Cove Colony Drive, Malibu, CA. 90265. xxx

The second:

I can’t promise anything of the sort … ;)

With a spring in her step, Gabby grabs a Ziploc bag and runs out to the front garden, grinning as she stuffs the bag full with the most perfect dogwood blooms. Sealing it up, she slips the Ziploc into an envelope, scribbles Matt’s address on the front, then jumps in the car to drive over to the post office, feeling younger than she has in years.

After handing in the envelope at the counter, Gabby walks out, checking her email, hoping there might be an
additional response. She holds the phone in her hand for the rest of the day, glancing at it every few minutes, wanting to feel the exhilaration she felt earlier, when she first saw his lovely, and unexpected, email.

By nine fifteen, sitting on the sofa with her family to watch television, present in body but a million miles away in her head, she starts to feel depressed, berating herself for being so ridiculous, for acting like a lovelorn teenager when she is a forty-three-year-old married mother of two.

‘Mom? Mom? Mom!’ She breaks out of her reverie to see three sets of eyes staring at her.

‘Hmm?’ She is still worlds away.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Olivia’s voice is filled with teenage disdain. As she tilts her head, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulder, her full lips in a pout, Gabby sees, suddenly, the beauty she is becoming.

‘Nothing.’ She smiles. ‘Sorry. Just thinking about everything I have to do.’

‘Can you take me to Benefit tomorrow? I need some make-up,’ Olivia says.

‘Benefit?’ Gabby blurts out. ‘What’s wrong with CVS?’

Olivia gives her a withering look. ‘At seventeen? I need the good stuff for my skin now.’

‘I go to CVS!’ pipes up Alanna.

‘For make-up?’ Gabby looks at her eleven-year-old in horror.

Alanna shrugs. ‘Just mascara. And maybe lip gloss.’

‘First of all, no,’ Gabby says to Alanna. ‘You shouldn’t be wearing any make-up at this age, and Olivia, I don’t know about Benefit. That stuff’s expensive. Can’t we please just go to CVS?’

‘No!’ Olivia says. ‘Everyone goes to Benefit, and I can’t wear the stuff from CVS any more. It gives me allergies.’

Gabby looks at her sceptically. ‘Since when?’

Olivia doesn’t break eye contact. ‘Since it started giving me allergies.’

‘Well, what do you need? Maybe we can go to Benefit, but it depends how much you need. I don’t mind buying one or two things.’