The Foster Husband (18 page)

He sat down next to me on the floor. ‘Well, you once told me you were a girl with morals, so I thought it looked right up your street.’

He was trying to keep a straight face, but his eyes gave him away. There was something weird going on. Had I moved in with a lunatic? Was he only revealing his true self now that we were locked
together in a mortgage?

‘I know all I need to know about morals,’ I said. I put the book down and reached for his cheek to kiss him, but he pulled away.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, picking the book up insistently. ‘You see, I’ve been thinking about what it means for a girl with your strong morals to be living in
sin.’

‘That’s hardly troubled you before.’ I laughed. ‘Living in sin!’

‘Well, it troubles me now,’ he said gravely. ‘Deeply and disturbingly. I can think of nothing else. Which is why I think you should read the section on the ethics of
love.’

‘Matt, are you drunk? Have you been taking some sort of mind-altering substance out in the kitchen?’

‘Just read it.’

I sighed and took the book out of his hand. I could tell he wasn’t going to let this drop, so I’d indulge him for now and get it over with.

‘Page seventy-eight,’ he prompted, as I scanned the contents page.

I turned to the page, but there was something odd. It had a hole in it. In fact the hole went through every other page after page seventy-eight, creating a hidden recess inside the book. And
there was something in it.

I looked at Matt, who was trying to look cool.

‘I’m pretty sure it’s morally wrong to mutilate a book, Matt,’ I teased. ‘Let alone a book on morality.’ I turned the book upside down and shook it. A small
black velvet pouch, secured by two tightly pulled strings, fell out onto the floor.

I suppose if you were the kind of girl who had long dreamed of long-stemmed roses and sparkling diamond solitaires, you would have instantly known what this meant. But Matt and I had never once
spoken about getting married. So, of course, I responded with the deeply unromantic, ‘What’s that?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Kate, will you just open it?’ said Matt, picking it up with obvious exasperation.

I untied the strings and peered into the pouch.

And inside was . . . you think I’m going to say a ring, don’t you? But it wasn’t. Matt knew me better than that. Inside, rolled up tightly like a tiny scroll, was a note, which
said, ‘I’d like to put a ring on it. But if you think I’d dare choose one without you, I wouldn’t be your future husband. Marry me?’

I looked up, astonished. I’d never seen him look so nervous. He kept pushing his hair back over and over again with the flat of his hand. I was too surprised to speak.

‘Well?’ he said at last.

‘For the sake of morality, Matt,’ I said. ‘Yes. Yes, I will, yes.’

And to celebrate I’m afraid we proved beyond doubt, on the plastic-wrapped sofa, that neither of us had any morals worth speaking of.

After days of endless rain – good for my decorating efforts, bad for my mood – Minnie and I greet the few isolated rays of sunshine that struggle through the clouds
this morning with giddy enthusiasm, skipping along the beach by the Cobb as if we haven’t been here for weeks rather than days. We celebrate the break in the weather by running up and down to
the shoreline, throwing stones to skim on the surface of the water (me) and eating disgusting things discovered in the seaweed (Minnie).

I am reassured to discover that something as simple as a little sunshine can lift my spirits, despite my circumstances. It makes me feel as if happiness is still a possibility, even after
everything. Or perhaps it’s not the weather at all, but my newfound sense of purpose. My days are suddenly and satisfyingly full with transforming Granny Gilbert’s bungalow. And all the
while I am transforming Ben with my undercover training programme.

I will say this for my sister’s fiancé. When he has learned a lesson, he doesn’t have to be reminded of it again and again like some people. Now that we have established I do
not clear up after him, he puts his own plates in the dishwasher every time. Admittedly, I have seen him allowing Minnie to lick them first, which is quite disgusting, but I feel it is better to
praise the good behaviour than criticize the bad. Nagging never worked on Matt.

There is still room for improvement of course. The day before yesterday I overheard Ben on the phone, inviting a friend round to watch the football tomorrow night. I have waited patiently for
him to tell me of this plan, since it means I am effectively banished from the living room unless I fancy spending the evening listening to the kind of tedious beery banter that greets a well-timed
fart as the height of humour. As yet he has failed to mention it. But instead of finding this annoying, I can’t help seeing it as another training opportunity.

Things are getting better. I can feel it.

Minnie and I pause our walk along the seafront to sit on the low concrete wall for a while, soaking up the weak rays of the sun. Well, I sit still, while she digs in the shingle for crabs to
chase. Above us on the boardwalk, two old men lean on a painted rail, staring out at the horizon.

‘Looks good out there, Bill,’ says one.

‘Depends what you’re looking at,’ says Bill tersely.

‘Well, I’m looking at Pam Curtis, I don’t know about you,’ says the man who isn’t Bill, and he points far out, towards an orange buoy in the water.

Only, when I follow the direction of his finger I see it’s not a buoy at all. It’s a bobbing swimming hat. And it’s not a Saturday. Mrs Curtis is breaking the rules again.

As we watch, the orange hat zigzags in towards the shore, propelled by Mrs Curtis’s impressively powerful breast-stroke. Her goggled face pulls above the water for each breath, and then
sinks below the surface so the petals of her hat appear to float like lotus flowers.

‘Morning, Pam,’ calls the one who isn’t Bill. As Mrs Curtis nears the shore, she stands up in the water to wave, exposing her dark green swimming costume as she shakes her head
to one side to get the water out of her ears.

Minnie runs down to the waterline and then shies back, barking at this unexpected figure emerging from the sea. Mrs Curtis shoos her away from the pile of clothes she has left on the beach, and
reaches for a towel to rub herself down.

‘Morning, Bill, Peter! Hello, Kate, dear!’

She pulls off her swimming cap and replaces it with the pink knitted hat I have seen before. Holding the towel around herself, she wriggles out of her swimsuit and drops it on the pebbles,
fishing with her hand for her underthings.

‘Now I see why you’re standing here, Peter, you dirty old sod,’ says Bill with a chuckle.

‘She’s never dropped that towel yet,’ Peter answers wistfully.

I hear Bill give a loud cough, and suddenly they both seem to realize that I am there below them, listening to every word.

‘’Scuse me, miss,’ says Peter, and both of their heads disappear guiltily back behind the railing.

‘Wasn’t that Prue Bailey?’ I hear Bill ask as they retreat in haste.

Mrs Curtis advances up the beach, waving; her towel rolled tightly under her arm. Minnie skirts her heels, sniffing suspiciously, still not convinced that she should trust this sea creature.

‘
It’s glorious out there today. Glorious!’

She drops her voice to a confidential whisper as she reaches me. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Eddy need know
nothing
about this, dear. What he doesn’t
know won’t hurt him.’

I nod, but don’t agree in so many words. I’m not one to tell tales, but I can’t help agreeing with Eddy that it’s probably not safe for his grandmother to swim alone each
morning, even if she is watched over by a couple of elderly swains.

‘You seem to have a few admirers, Mrs Curtis,’ I tease. ‘One of those chaps was watching you swim like his life depended on it.’

She shrieks with laughter and clutches at my arm. ‘Not Peter Turner! Oh my good
lord
, no, Kate, dear. That silly old fool, he’s been after me for
years
. But I have
absolutely no interest in a
man
at my age.’

‘Why ever not?’ I ask. Surely your interest in the opposite sex doesn’t just fade away with your hair colour?

Mrs Curtis shudders dramatically, grimacing. ‘Oh dear, no. I had quite enough of
that
with Mr Curtis, thank you very much. Are you heading back home?’

I say that we are, and Mrs Curtis and I fall into step with each other, or I should say that I fall into step with her. I’d started off slowly to accommodate her advanced age, and the
steepness of the hill that leads back up towards the cul-de-sac from the Cobb. But she is having none of it, and sets a hearty pace that I struggle to maintain. Luckily my breathlessness is
disguised by the fact that she does most of the talking.

‘While there is much to be said for marriage as an
institution
, like all institutions, it is only when you are
out
of it that you realize how much
freedom
you
have. Don’t you think, dear?’

She turns her sharp brown eyes on me enquiringly.

I’m not sure if I would categorize my unemployed aimlessness as freedom, or even as an escape. It’s far too soon for me to really know whether I have got out of the institution at
all.

‘Mmm,’ I say, partly because I am unsure of my answer, and partly because I am having trouble catching my breath on the hill. But it’s enough to encourage her to continue.

‘Not that I don’t miss Mr Curtis. He was a dear,
dear
man.’ She sighs. ‘And positively an
animal
between the sheets. Don’t look shocked, dear,
these things matter. As I’m sure you know. The only problem was that he was an animal between a
lot
of sheets, if you know what I mean. And I think you do, dear, judging by what
I’ve heard.’

‘I’m not sure I—’

Mrs Curtis holds out her hand to interrupt me, stopping for a moment to turn back towards the bay behind us. Wisps of hair have escaped from her pink knitted cap, and they curl around her face,
lending her the appearance of a deeply tanned and wrinkled baby.

‘You will find, dear, that these things hurt less in time. Really. Of course the
sting
is always there. The betrayal, that is. But it fades. The question you must ask yourself is,
is your marriage worth
more
than that?’

She fixes me with her beady gaze, head tilted as she waits for my answer. Minnie looks up at both of us as if she, too, would like to hear what I think.

‘Well, dear,
is
it?’

I turn to look out to sea, leaning on the wooden fence posts that have supported many a breathless tourist halfway up the hill. We have climbed high enough to be able to see the bay spread out
below us, all the way to Portland. Grey clouds are massing on the horizon; the break in the weather is already at an end.

‘How do you know?’ I ask.

Mrs Curtis leans on the fence next to me, though while my breath is still ragged, she doesn’t seem to need the support. Her red nails trace an unseen pattern on the wooden posts.

‘That is the question,’ she says. ‘How do you know?’

‘With Mr Curtis,’ I say. ‘You forgave him. But you said the sting was still there. How can you move forward after something like that? How did you put it behind you?’

Mrs Curtis dips her head to pick at a knot in the wood. ‘You just do, dear. Or you don’t. You never
know
, you just
decide
. That’s the hard bit. The
deciding
.’

‘But what if you make the wrong decision?’

Mrs Curtis laughs brightly, as if I have said something funny. She pats my hand in a brisk fashion, more as if she’s administering a gentle slap than reassuring me.

‘I know you hope I will tell you what to do, dear. I was
just
the same. But there is no right answer. You decide, and then you do the best with the decision you’ve
made.’

‘You forgave him,’ I say. ‘But you wouldn’t get married again. Is that because you wouldn’t be able to trust someone else?’

‘Oh no, dear,’ says Mrs Curtis, hooting with laughter. ‘Not to trust anyone ever again – what a sentence that would be. I’d be punishing myself if I thought
that
. Of course I could trust again. But dear, at my age –
eighty
! I know I don’t look it – there are a lot of widowed men who simply want to be looked after.
Well, I’ve done enough of that. I like to look after myself now.’

She spreads her hands out on the fence, and then tilts her head up to the sky, squinting at the clouds that are rolling in above us.

‘That’s all. Ooh, dear, was that a spot of rain? We should get back. Unless, dear,’ she turns her bright eyes on me imploringly. ‘I didn’t bring my
purse
with me, but maybe you might treat an old lady to a cup of tea?’

Mum is on the doorstep on the dot of six, as I knew she would be. She’s holding a bottle of wine and she looks so happy, her cheeks all pink and glowing from the cold,
that I almost feel guilty for using her like this. But for all that Ben has been a tremendous help with the decoration, he still has several lessons to learn. And I am teaching him one of them
tonight, with the unwitting assistance of his future mother-in-law.

‘What a sweet idea to ask me round,’ she says as she kisses me on the cheek. ‘You know I’ve been longing to see what you’ve done here. Ben’s been all
mysterious about it at the office. Said I had to wait and see.’

She casts her gaze around the hall, and I’m alarmed to see tears spring into her eyes.

‘Mum?’ I ask anxiously, taking hold of her arm.

‘Oh, it’s nothing, really.’ She puts her hand on top of mine and squeezes it reassuringly. ‘Just, I suppose it’s looked the same for years. And now –
goodness, it looks so different, doesn’t it? You’ve made such an improvement.’

She runs her free hand over the new, smooth wall. No more textured wallpaper, dented by Prue’s and my childhood bikes, or the scuffmarks from Granny Gilbert’s walker. No more stained
beige carpet. Now the walls are a cool pale green, soothing and welcoming. A mirror hangs by the front door, and the coat cupboard has been painted a matt white. The parquet floor has been buffed
to a brilliant shine thanks to the machine that Ben discovered in the hire shop; his passion for a new gadget has transformed the floors throughout the entire bungalow. It is also now impossible to
walk anywhere in socks without incurring a serious and painful fall, and Minnie tiptoes around the house with extreme caution, but it seems a small price to pay for the improvement.