The Accidental Wife (16 page)

‘Help yourself to the shower,’ Catherine told him. ‘There are fresh towels in the cupboard and the thing is I don’t think you are exactly invited to the party. At least, not on my invitation. It’s for PTA members and their families.’

‘But Daddy is our family,’ Eloise said.

‘Yes, he’s our
daddy
,’ Leila added, as if Catherine was being a bit thick. ‘ ’Member? Plus mankind is one big family, Mummy.’

‘I know, darling, but …’ Catherine looked at Jimmy, who clearly wasn’t going to help her out if it meant forging an invitation to a party where there would be free booze, not to mention free food, two of his most favourite things.

‘I’m just saying I don’t think you were specifically invited. It was an open invitation to the PTA and you are not on the PTA.’

‘Well, I might as well be, the amount of discount I give your lot for my services. Look, if it’s an open invitation, how do you know if I was invited or not? Even the people who are doing the inviting don’t know who they’ve invited in that case.’

‘It’s Gemma’s mum and dad,’ Eloise told him with an air of pride. ‘She’s my new best friend and she’s getting a pony.’

‘And, Daddy, we’re going to stay up late in the dark!’ Leila told him, making a spooky face.

‘Are we?’ Jimmy grinned down at his daughter as he disengaged her and headed up to the bathroom. ‘Cool. Give me five minutes and I’ll walk with you to school.’

‘Mummy, why does Daddy come here for a shower?’ Leila asked as Jimmy’s heavy footsteps sounded on the bathroom floor above their heads.

‘Because Daddy doesn’t have a shower on the boat,’ Catherine said absently, distracted by the sound of his feet on the floorboards.

‘Daddy practically doesn’t even have a
roof
on the boat, it’s so leaky,’ Eloise mumbled.

‘Yes,’ Catherine looked thoughtful, ‘Daddy really needs somewhere better to live.’

‘Like here?’ Eloise asked hopefully.

‘Like a house or a flat with a decent roof,’ Catherine replied. ‘And some form of heating.’

‘Like here then,’ Eloise added, and Catherine remembered her agreement with Jimmy.

‘Somewhere like here, but either he’ll have to sign a record deal or I’ll have to win the lottery because at the moment we can’t afford it.’

‘We could afford it, if he lived here,’ Eloise said, and Catherine decided it was impossible to argue with her because, after all, she was right.

‘No,’ Catherine said again as the four of them walked briskly to school, running a good five minutes late because Jimmy wanted to blow-dry his hair so it didn’t go all frizzy, and the girls would not leave without him.

‘But do you really mean no?’ Jimmy asked her, striding along beside her. ‘Think of what an experience it will be for them, how much great music they will hear live.’

‘No, Jimmy, no, you are not combining your tour of
Oxfordshire
with your turn to take the girls on holiday. You are not going to drive them around unsecured in the back of a van, make them stay up all night in pubs while you perforate their eardrums and then put them God knows where while you do what you … whatever you do.’

‘
Nothing
. I do
nothing
after gigs. I have a pint or two and then go to bed
alone
in whichever B & B we’re staying,’ Jimmy said, obviously offended.

‘Well, even if that’s true, you can’t do that with a five- and an eight-year-old!’ Catherine protested, flinging out her hand in exasperation.

‘But the van’s just passed its MOT and I’d put car seats in the front for them to sit on. I’d even throw in a seat belt.’

‘No,’ Catherine repeated, throwing him her warrior queen look. ‘End of. It’s not going to happen.’

‘But why, Mum?’ Eloise asked her. ‘We could be roadies. Please, it will be fun.’

‘Daddy said we could be backing singers,’ Leila urged her. ‘Plus the van’s just passed its PMT!’

Catherine narrowed her eyes at Jimmy. ‘I will never forgive you for bringing this up in front of them.’

‘I’ll add that to the list then,’ Jimmy said in exasperation.

‘That’s not fair, Jim, and you know it. I cook for you; wives do not cook for husbands if they still give a damn about … well, you know what. Anyway, this isn’t about us. It’s about our two
little
girls. Sometimes I think you forget that you are their father and not just their friend.’

‘I know that,’ Jimmy replied, hurrying to keep up with Catherine’s long strides. ‘That’s the one thing I definitely do know. Look, OK, you’re probably right, taking them gigging isn’t my best plan. I suppose I thought it would be economical, like killing two birds with one stone. Multitasking – I know you dig that, right?’

Catherine scowled.

‘OK, so how about I take them to the Donnington Monsters of Rock Festival, because you never know who on the line-up might be dead this time next year. I’d be taking them to see history in the making.’

‘No.’ Catherine had to raise her voice to be heard over the chorus of pleases that followed Jimmy’s suggestion. ‘Take them somewhere rife with drunkards and drug addicts, where it will probably be raining and cold – are you insane?’

‘You’re the one who’s always saying modern children are too pampered, and that they need exposure to bacteria and germs to toughen them up,’ Jimmy countered.

‘To bacteria, yes; to subzero temperatures and crack cocaine, no,’ Catherine said. She suddenly stopped dead, which meant her disparate little family overshot her by a few steps before coming to a juddering halt.

‘Jim, please, think about what you are suggesting,’ she said, looking up into his eyes. Jimmy held her gaze for a moment or two and then dropped his eyes to his cowboy boots.

‘It’s probably not a good idea, after all, girls,’ he said, his comment greeted by a selection of groans. ‘Mum’s right. When you’re a bit older I’m definitely going to take you, but right now you
are
too young. We’ll think of something else to do. We could go and visit Nana Pam.’

Catherine glanced at him before walking on at speed, giving him that look of hers, her speciality, the look that said that as her husband he was more of a burden than a partner. It had become a frequent expression of hers during the last year or so they were living together. That constant unspoken disappointment was partly what had driven him to go with Donna Clarke to the ladies’ loos.

‘Look,’ Catherine said as she charged along at double-quick pace. ‘I know you love the girls, I know you do your best for
them
. But I just wish sometimes that you’d think further ahead than five seconds. You never seem to plan anything.’

‘I’m more of an instinctive kind of guy,’ Jimmy said with a half-smile. ‘Like a Ninja.’

Catherine’s exasperation bloomed into a reluctant smile and Jimmy found to his immense surprise that he had been holding his breath until it appeared.

Neither Gemma nor her younger sister were in the playground when the bell rang, which infuriated Eloise, who was determined to firm up a tea arrangement, party or no.

‘Where
is
she?’ she asked, holding on until the last second as her classmates filed in around her. ‘I want you to meet her, Daddy. She’s really nice.’

‘Just chill, babe,’ Jimmy said. Catherine had left him to wait with Eloise while she took Leila round to her class, a feat she normally had to juggle on her own, and one that was only just about manageable if she arrived ten minutes earlier than they had today. ‘You’ll see this Gemma in class, won’t you?’

‘But I want to go in with her,’ Eloise said, pawing the ground like an impatient colt. ‘So everyone will see we’re best friends.’

Jimmy looked down at his flame-haired girl. ‘You are everyone’s best friend, Ellie. Look, you’ve got to go in now otherwise I’ll have to sign the late book and your mum will be even more cross with me than she already is.’

‘Sorry Mummy’s angry with you, Dad,’ Eloise said, hugging Jimmy around his waist.

‘She wasn’t angry as such, just direct, and that’s never a bad thing,’ Jimmy said, edging both of them towards the school entrance, which was now deserted. ‘Besides, she was right. It’s an irritating habit she has.’

‘I was thinking on the way here,’ Eloise added, ‘if you got a
cold
or got sick or something, and were
really
poorly and you couldn’t stay on the boat any more because you might
die
, then you’d have to come and stay with us until you got better, wouldn’t you? And then maybe if you liked it, and Mummy liked it, you could stay for ever. And you wouldn’t have to worry about the stinky boat or finding more money to rent a flat.’ Eloise looked up at him, her expression serious. ‘It’s a good idea, isn’t it, Daddy?’

Jimmy took a breath. ‘But I never get sick,’ he said. ‘I’m as strong as an ox, and I love that stinking old boat, so don’t you worry about me, darling. In you go.’

Eloise looked disappointed but nevertheless she raced into class, her bright hair flying behind her, calling out over her shoulder, ‘Gemma’s got blonde hair and a blue shiny coat and she usually has some sparkly clips in her hair. If you see her with her mum, will you ask her about tea, please?’

‘Deffo,’ Jimmy called after her, although he had no intention of doing any such thing.

All these year-round tanned women, with their smart hairdos and high heels just to have coffee in, did his head in, even more than the groupies that hung around at his gigs. At least he knew what those women wanted with him, and all it required to deal with them was basic evasive techniques.

He thought of Janine Seymour, who had cornered him in the pub last night. When it had come to chucking-out time she had thrust him up against a wall and put his hand up her top. But while Janine Seymour had a lot of the qualities required for the CV of a real woman, particularly with her curves and enthusiasm, she still didn’t match up to Jimmy’s exacting standards. Many a young woman, her eyes glittering with vodka and bristling with self-assurance, had pounced on Jimmy after a gig like Janine had, but in the end Jimmy always
declined
because, despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, fifteen minutes in the ladies’ loo at The Goat pub with Donna Clarke was really all it was based on.

So making small talk with whatever the name for the posh wives was – glamour mamas, or something – wasn’t on Jimmy’s agenda. He didn’t have the stomach for those women, as brown and as shiny as they might be. He liked real women. Women you could have a laugh with.

Jimmy had really only ever met one real woman in his life, and he’d married her. Married her, had children with her and then saw himself settling into a life that wasn’t meant for him. Husband, father, even a wage slave. He’d seen his dream slipping away and the more settled he and Catherine became, the less chance he thought he ever had of hearing her tell him she loved him. When he’d gone to the loo holding Donna Clarke’s hand he had wanted to escape Catherine and make her want him all at once.

Two years later, he realised that somehow he’d failed to do either.

The story of my bloody life, he thought, his head down.

‘My God, Jimmy Ashley!’ Jimmy stopped dead and looked at the blonde woman standing in front of him. Good-looking, nice shiny hair, a long white mac and high-heeled boots under some faded jeans. She was unquestionably one of them, so how on earth did she know his name? He couldn’t see her at one of his gigs somehow, unless she had a thing for slumming it, and besides, he was fairly sure he’d remember sleeping with her and her orthodontist-whitened teeth.

‘Run in, love, you’ll just about make it,’ she said to a blonde little girl in a shiny blue coat. ‘Don’t want to sign that book again!’

Another little kid, one about Leila’s age, was clutching her arm.

‘Right then,’ Jimmy said, preparing to leave, but the woman just looked at him expectantly.

‘It’s great to see you again after all this time,’ the woman gushed, her face flushing. Jimmy was confused but intrigued.

‘Is it?’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s good to see you too …’ There was a long gap where the absence of a name flashed like a neon sign.

‘Alison,’ the woman said, her smile fading just a fraction. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Jimmy gazed at her. She looked nice for one of them, though he was fairly certain he had never seen her before in his life. It seemed wrong to offend her right out. He smiled at her, interested to note her blush deepen.

‘Honestly I don’t, but I can’t think why. It must have been that serious water-skiing accident that I don’t remember having last year, because only serious amnesia would be a good enough reason not to remember you.’

To his amazement the woman giggled like a sixteen-year-old, and then there was something about her that seemed familiar.

‘I’m
Alison
,’ she told him as if her name was sure to remind him. ‘Alison James. When you knew me I was Alison –’

‘Mrs James?’ The woman looked up as the head teacher popped her head out of the reception door. ‘Any chance of a quick word before you take Amy in? I know you are already running late.’

‘Of course,’ Alison said, looking disappointed as she smiled at Jimmy. ‘Time-keeping is not my strong point.’ She reached into her bag and handed Jimmy an invitation. ‘We’re having a house-warming party on Saturday – can you come?’

‘Oh, you’re Gemma’s mum,’ Jimmy said, as if that should be reason enough to know who she was. ‘I’m already coming with my wife, well, ex-wife sort of, and my daughters. My Eloise is very keen on your Gemma.’

‘You’re Ellie’s dad?’ Alison looked surprised. ‘I’d never pictured you as a dad. I don’t know why, maybe because you look the same. You teach my son guitar – he’s just started at the school? Dominic.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Jimmy began to relax. ‘He’s a talented kid. When he’s not sulking. A lot of them sulk these days. They think if they’re not depressed they’ve got no cred. Only thing is, most of them haven’t got anything decent to be depressed about.’

‘Mrs James?’ The head appeared again and this time there was a definite edge to her voice.

‘Do you know what, Jimmy? It’s been really good to see you,’ Alison said, laying her hand on his arm.