The Desperate Wife’s Survival Plan (16 page)

‘I want chocolate! I want chocolate!’ he chanted, going round and round the kitchen table, all the while kicking spilt water up the kitchen cabinets.

‘I said no!’

‘I’ll tell Daddy!’

‘Enough!’ she cried. ‘We’ll get some on the way to the party, okay?’

Alexander finally stopped stomping. ‘And a new Playstation game?’ he said, an evil grin on his face. ‘Then I can tell Daddy how nice you’ve been to me today when he gets home later.’

Mrs Smith gave her stepson a smile which suggested she would like to gouge his eyes out with her false nails, but merely said, ‘Of course, darling.’

They departed a short time later, leaving Charley with a thumping headache and a hell of a mess in the kitchen.

‘I thought you were supposed to be cleaning up the mess, not making it,’ said a voice from the back door.

She turned round and shot Mike a glare. She hadn’t forgotten his previous harsh words, which had left her stewing all weekend.

‘Any chance of a coffee?’ he asked.

She ignored
him as she began to mop up the water.

‘Charley?’ he prompted. ‘Hello?’

She squeezed the mop head into the bucket before looking at him. ‘I’m not speaking to you,’ she told him.

‘Thank God for that. I thought I’d gone deaf.’

‘You were very mean to me.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Only for your own good.’

She sighed. ‘Why do you hate me?’

‘I don’t hate you. However, I still haven’t forgiven
you for breaking my yellow pencil.’

She looked up, puzzled. ‘On Friday? I don’t remember.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I mean when we were twelve.’

‘Twelve years old?’

‘Yeah. In Mrs McClusky’s class.’

Charley stared at him in utter bewilderment. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘We used to sit next to each other. You stole it out of my pencil case for something, used it and then broke
it. You were trying to impress Steve because you had a huge crush on him.’

Charley blew out a long sigh. ‘And look how well that turned out.’ She glanced at Mike. ‘Well, sorry about the pencil.’

‘That’s all right.’

With that, he left.

Charley shook her head. Who would harbour a grudge about a pencil after all these years? Men. There was something wrong with each and every one of them.

CHARLEY HAD A
secret.

The weekdays weren’t a problem. She would clean all day and then stagger back, exhausted. Her evenings were then spent slumped in front of the television, before a quick shower and into bed. But at least keeping busy meant that she didn’t have time to think about her ex-husband any more.

She didn’t really bother about making a fancy dinner either. She
still felt embarrassed and guilty about the sheer amount of food she used to waste by buying too much and then letting it go uneaten. Let alone how much money she used to squander on takeaway coffees, sandwiches and cakes.

Now she checked how much money she had in her purse before she went food shopping, and tried to spend around half what she used to. She bought food from the basic supermarket
ranges. Some of it tasted fine. Some was dreadful. Trial and error taught her which to avoid.

Some food was horribly expensive, she realised. Especially meat and fish. So the majority of her meals were jacket potatoes or pasta. She no longer bought bottled water either. It tasted just fine coming out of the tap so she made do with that, refilling a spare bottle each day to take with her to work.

Carbohydrates were abhorred by Dukan dieters, but Charley now weighed less than she had done for many years. The combination of physical work and reasonably healthy meals meant her extra pounds had just dropped off. All those years of worrying about her weight, when all she’d had to do was follow the bankruptcy diet.

But the weekends dragged. So much time and nobody to spend it with. She did
pop out and see the girls sometimes, but most of her time was spent in solitude. It was then that her mood deteriorated, as she mulled over mistakes made in the past.

Even cleaning was better than sitting around with nothing to do all day. In hindsight she could see the tediousness of her previous existence. Not that she wouldn’t have given her right arm to go back to a bit of luxury now and
then, and to her wonderful kitchen in particular.

More often than not, out of sheer loneliness, she would let her mother persuade her to come to Sunday lunch. Anything to get out of the flat.

‘Bring some ice-cream,’ Maureen would say.

And Charley would sigh, huffing and puffing that she didn’t really have time, knowing she did. So she began to keep a couple of pounds aside each week for ice-cream
ingredients, as well as one or two pounds extra to save up towards repaying her parents. It would take years, she knew. But she would pay them back.

The bankruptcy was being taken care of by the Official Receiver. It was just a matter of time and survival until it was dissolved in a year’s time.

In the meantime, she would wander down to the Saturday market, buy some fruit and knock up a batch
of strawberry or raspberry ice-cream. Punnets of in-season strawberries and raspberries were relatively cheap. The tiny ice box in the top of her fridge could hold only two slim Tupperware boxes, but that was all she needed.

Soon she had begun to grow bored with the plainer recipes, lovely as they tasted. So one Saturday afternoon in the middle of June, she had opened up the hallway cupboard
and stared at the cardboard boxes filling most of the space there.

She had already opened up the recipe book box but that wasn’t what she was interested in now. Instead she picked up another box and took it into the kitchen. Placing it on the small counter, she ripped off the packaging tape and opened up the cardboard flaps.

She stared down for a long time before reaching in and grabbing one
of the clear bottles. She knew which one it was before she had even read the label. It was rosewater. She slowly unscrewed the top before inhaling the sweet scent. Charley knew instinctively that a few drops of this would add a subtle new flavour to her raspberry ice-cream.

She carefully pulled out a tall bottle of elderflower cordial. In the past she had mixed it with sparkling water to make
a refreshing summer drink. Elderflowers, she knew, had a natural affinity with gooseberries. Now it would add new depth to a refreshing sorbet.

Charley’s hand twitched to grab the next bottle but she stopped herself, carefully folding the cardboard back over the bottle tops and replacing the box in the hallway closet. The other ingredients would wait until next week. She wanted to pace herself
and keep the excitement building within her.

When she returned from the market later that morning, Charley was laden with fresh raspberries and gooseberries. It was the height of the season when all the summer fruit was at its cheapest.

It took her the rest of the day to whip up two separate ice-creams. The raspberry and rosewater mix was creamy and rich, dotted with dark pink. The gooseberry
and elderflower sorbet was light and refreshing, a delicate pale green that was perfect for summer.

Whilst the desserts set in the freezer, Charley opened up one of the still-empty kitchen cupboards. She carefully placed the bottles of rosewater and elderflower inside.

Half an hour later, she peeled off the Tupperware lids and tested both the mixtures. She checked the texture and colour of each
ice-cream before leaning down to inhale their scents.

The two desserts smelled fresh in their own different ways, one exotic and one comforting. How extraordinary to realise that she did not need her wonderful machine in order to turn out beautiful ice-creams. That she had had just as much fun making them in her tiny, grotty little kitchen as she’d had in her £30,000 emporium.

Charley inhaled
the ice-cream scents one more time and realised what they had triggered, the feelings they evoked. They smelt like home.

SAMANTHA WAS READY
for her hot date. She was waxed, exfoliated, moisturised, painted and shining. It had taken many hours to make her beauty look this natural.

She was wearing a mini-skirt and a top with a wide neckline, which would gradually slip off her shoulder during the evening to reveal the new underwear beneath.

All this and she had cooked too.

Well, she had opened
the packets, put them on her own baking trays and hidden all the evidence in the bin. As far as Richard was concerned, she would be a domestic goddess.

Especially when he tasted Charley’s ice-cream, which Samantha was going to pass off as her own. She checked the time and brought out the block of passion fruit sorbet. It needed about twenty minutes to soften up properly, so she placed it on the
side.

The chicken and roasted vegetables smelt delicious. Everything was ready and primed, including Samantha. The only thing missing was Richard. Where the hell was he?

At that moment, her phone bleeped with a text. She groaned. Dinner would be burnt to a crisp if he was going to be late. She headed into the lounge and stared at the screen.

Sorry
, she read.
Going to have to cancel. One of
the kids is sick. Will call soon.

She stared at it in a daze. Couldn’t his wife deal with the children? Why the hell did he have to do anything? How dare he treat her like this?

She considered calling him but knew it would turn into an argument and she couldn’t risk that. Best to play it cool.

That’s fine
, she replied.
No worries. See you soon, I hope.

She was pleased. The reply was cool,
a grown-up response. He would be the one to suffer. He was the one who would be upset tonight. Not her.

She padded back into kitchen and switched off the oven.

Then she picked up the box containing the ice-cream and threw it against the wall, screaming as she did so.

Caroline came out of the bathroom and went down the stairs, somewhat pleased to find her daughter still sitting on the bottom
step. Flora might be on the naughty step but at least she had remained on it.

It had been a stressful morning and Caroline’s daily score was already in the negative. She had never confessed to Jeff or any of her friends about her scoring system. Jeff was always telling her to relax, but it was all very well for him, she thought. He didn’t carry the full weight of their parental responsibility
on his shoulders.

So Caroline had come up with her perfect ten-point system. A point added for every educational outing, play session and spell of fresh air. A point deducted for each half hour of television watched, or
Disney Princess
magazine read. Food was also included in the running total. The one day that Flora had eaten at McDonald’s with Jeff for a treat, the score had been minus twenty.

Each night before going to sleep, Caroline would consider the daily score and think up new ways to get the score back to ten. She knew she was placing too much pressure on herself, but when Flora went to school, she told herself, she would relax a bit. Even take on a part-time job during school hours perhaps. In a small way, she was looking forward to being her own person again.

The money would
come in handy as well. She had already given up talking to Jeff about it. The last time she had mentioned his Christmas bonus, he had snapped, ‘And what if I don’t get a bonus? Have you seen the news? It’s not exactly boom time in the City at the moment.’

Perhaps the part-time job would help to make him feel a bit more secure. She had already seen a few advertised on-line that looked encouraging.

Caroline patted her daughter’s head as she passed by her on the stairs. Perhaps she was being a little harsh on Flora. It was only a small tear to the cover of her book.

When Caroline came back down again perhaps they could play her favourite board game. Flora was a competitive child, which would stand her in good stead at her new school.

She went back into the bathroom. Five minutes had nearly
passed. She took a deep breath before looking at the white plastic stick in the sink.

There was no mistaking the blue line. Caroline was pregnant.

Julie was tired. The hotline had been manic because the whole network had crashed the previous night. Then some idiot had reversed into her car in the car park and driven off, leaving a massive dent in the boot but no note.

On top of everything,
the puppy had whined and howled like a banshee for at least an hour last night after she had gone to bed. Eventually she had shouted at Nick to go down to the kitchen and sort the dog out. It was about time he learnt that his actions had consequences. She didn’t like the puppy, but it was a living, breathing thing. It needed taking care of.

Julie was determined to get things sorted over the weekend.
She couldn’t go on like this. She just wanted to go home each night and relax, preferably before a decent night’s sleep.

She parked her car in the driveway, noting that Nick’s was missing. Perhaps he had listened to his mother for once and taken the puppy out somewhere. The poor thing hadn’t left her house since it had arrived. It was shut in the kitchen most of the time. Luckily, Julie’s kitchen
was nothing like Charley’s former modern masterpiece. Interior design had never been a priority for her.

She went inside, relishing the peace and stillness. Until she heard a small noise from the back of the house. A whimper. Julie walked through the house and took a deep breath before opening the kitchen door. The puppy looked up and wagged its tail.

Julie sighed and put down her handbag on
the counter, just as her phone rang with a text. It was from Nick.

Gotta job up north
, she read.
See you in a month or so
.

She stared at the screen for a few seconds before calling Nick’s number. But it rang out. He obviously didn’t want to talk to her.

She sent a text back.
What about the bloody puppy?!!!

But after five minutes there was still no reply.

She glanced down at the dog who was
watching her with his big, black eyes. ‘Now what?’ she asked.