The Missing Husband (24 page)

Jo held on to that fantasy as she skidded across the wet kitchen floor, shoving dining chairs out of the way and bumping into the wall as she lunged towards the hall. Momentum alone kept her body moving forward long after her legs and her heart came to a juddering halt. She stumbled the last few feet to the door where she had spied the silhouette of a woman.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be in,’ Kelly whispered. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

Jo forced her features into the now familiar mask and smiled. ‘No, of course not. Come in.’

With an armful of gift bags and a bouquet of flowers Kelly had to squeeze through the door that Jo was loath to open wide. ‘You may have escaped the dreaded baby shower, but I come bearing gifts from everyone.’

‘It’s lovely to see you but it really could have waited, Kelly. I’d hate to think I’m disturbing your Christmas,’ Jo said as she took the proffered bags. Her cheeks ached with the effort of the forced smile.

‘It’s no trouble and if it wasn’t me then it would have been Gary.’

Jo obliged Kelly by agreeing she’d had a lucky escape. She didn’t sound at all convincing but then she didn’t need to be, Kelly wasn’t paying attention. There had been an eruption of giddiness as her guest spotted the sleeping baby. ‘Has he got a name yet?’

‘No, still working on it,’ Jo said cheerily enough even though the question was becoming almost as tiring as caring for the baby itself. When her mother rang, and she rang regularly, she started barking names down the phone before Jo had a chance to say hello. But none of the names felt right, and they never would without David’s input.

‘There’s a baby names book in one of the bags,’ Kelly said helpfully as she continued to coo over Baby Taylor. ‘Oh, he’s so tiny! I’d be so frightened of breaking him if I tried picking him up.’

Jo looked into the bassinet. She was afraid too. ‘I’ve only just put him down so I’d rather leave him sleeping, if you don’t mind. How about we go into the kitchen and I’ll make you a hot drink while you tell me what’s been happening at work?’ She was hoping that talking about the one place where she didn’t feel like a fraud would lift her spirits and make her smiles less forced, but Kelly wasn’t there to boost Jo’s ego.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ she began, leaning back in her chair at the dining table as she watched Jo make the drinks. Her chest was swelling with pride. ‘We won the O’Dowd case.’ Kelly took a moment to revel in her success before adding, ‘I know you said we were up against it and we probably wouldn’t win but we did, Jo.’

Jo’s smile hid the grimace but only just. ‘There was no “we” in it, Kelly. You and Gary deserve to take full credit. Well done.’

‘Thanks, Jo, that’s so nice of you to say so.’

‘So is there anything else I should know about? Anything you need to talk through?’ Jo said in an effort to reassert herself as her assistant’s mentor and guide. There was a note of desperation in her voice.

‘Nothing you need worry about, certainly not on Christmas Eve.’ The smug look on Kelly’s face had been replaced with one of sympathy. ‘I suppose tomorrow is going to be really hard for you, thinking how things might have been if David was still around or worse still wondering what he’s getting up to and with who.’

‘I was trying
not
to think about it,’ Jo said, wishing it had been Gary visiting.

Oblivious to Jo’s irritation, Kelly scanned the room with a critical eye. If it wasn’t for the baby equipment lined up carefully along the counter, the kitchen wouldn’t have looked out of place in a showroom. It was all very tidy and distinctly un-festive. ‘You’re not spending Christmas here on your own, are you? Jo, if you’re stuck for somewhere to go you can always come with me to my mum’s. I’m sure she could squeeze an extra person around the dinner table and if anyone looks like they need feeding up then it’s you. You’re the first new mum I’ve seen who actually looks like she needs to put
on
weight.’

‘I’m fine,’ Jo said tersely. ‘I’m going to my sister Steph’s and then we’re travelling up to the Lakes on Boxing Day to see my parents. This is the calm before the storm.’

With perfect timing, the sound of a waking baby trickled through from the other room.

‘Sounds like he needs another feed,’ Jo said as if she knew exactly what her baby needed from the merest grumble. She took a prepared feeding bottle from the fridge and dropped it into the bottle warmer. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

In the living room, Jo whispered into her son’s ear as she picked him up. ‘Please, little one, I need you to work with me on this. I’m begging you not to make me look like a complete incompetent, not in front of Kelly.’

To Jo’s surprise, the baby was indeed hungry. He guzzled his bottle and didn’t immediately object when Jo let Kelly take over for a while but it didn’t take long before he was rebelling against another awkward embrace.

‘I’m really not comfortable with this,’ Kelly said, panic blooming on her cheeks as the newborn began to wriggle, redden and refuse his feed. For a terrifying moment, Jo thought she was going to drop the baby and her heart leapt into her mouth.

‘Here, I’d better take him.’

With the baby safely back in her arms, Jo began to go through the motions of trying to soothe him. Kelly looked on in awe as Jo eased the grumbling infant back to sleep as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to have kids,’ Kelly said.

Jo wanted to say there was nothing to it but the lie stuck in her throat.

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ Jo said after she had seen Kelly to the door. Baby Taylor remained fast asleep and completely unaware of how he had mended his mother’s tattered confidence, although Jo was under no illusion that it was anything but a temporary repair.

Jo would have been happy to avoid Christmas altogether and even Lauren’s teenage histrionics over dinner did little to distract her from her woes for long enough to enjoy the normality of the day. She wanted to be at home where she could be her usual dysfunctional self rather than the smiling automaton who satisfied the concerns of family and friends. More importantly, she wanted to be at home, just in case …

But there was one more person she was obliged to visit before she could resume her vigil. Her only consolation was that it was the only other place where David’s returning footsteps might be heard. If he wasn’t ready to come home to her, then maybe he could find the courage to visit his mum.

‘All on your own?’ Jo asked as Irene welcomed her into the cosy little house that was a stark contrast to the one Jo was desperate to return to.

Irene’s living room looked like an explosion in a tinsel factory. There were enough Christmas decorations to cover a house twice the size, remnants of Christmases past that obscured the clutter normally on display. The one exception was David’s photograph, which had an uninterrupted view of Jo’s arrival from its prime position on the mantelpiece.

Jo had the baby carrier hooked over her arm and the sleeping baby drew Irene like a magnet. Her eyes barely left him as she spoke to Jo. ‘Steve and the family came around for Christmas dinner but they didn’t stay long. Luke has a new Xbox and he couldn’t wait to get home to play on it with his dad. It can do all kinds of things, you can even control it by just waving at it!’

‘I didn’t know you were a techno geek,’ Jo said. ‘I wouldn’t know one game console from another.’

‘Hmm,’ Irene answered, avoiding Jo’s eye as she took the carrier from her and put it on the floor so she could free her grandson from his restraints.

‘Irene?’

‘I know because I was the one who bought it, but please don’t tell Sally.’

Jo sighed. ‘How is Steve ever going to learn to manage his own financial affairs if you keep bailing him out? David wouldn’t and neither should you. He shouldn’t be buying things he can’t afford.’

‘I know,’ Irene agreed, ‘but who else do I have to spend my money on?’

The slumbering baby complained briefly when she picked him up but Irene rocked him back to sleep with ease. ‘Oh, don’t go complaining, my little one. I have every intention of spoiling you too.’

Jo took a seat and was immediately aware of David watching her from the mantelpiece. ‘Making up for your sons’ failings?’ she asked.

‘You expect them to give you sleepless nights when they’re babies, but not when they’re in their thirties. I don’t know where I went wrong, Jo.’

‘Men in their thirties are old enough to take responsibility for their own actions,’ Jo said. She was looking over at the mantelpiece, not at the image of David but searching for another treasure of Irene’s that seemed to be missing. ‘You and Alan gave the boys the best start in life so they have no excuse. Alan was the perfect role model for a father. A natural.’

‘We were very happily married,’ Irene replied in a way that suggested she was only telling half the story.

Jo eyed her beadily. ‘You’ve taken down his photograph, haven’t you?’

Irene settled on the sofa next to Jo then kissed the baby’s head, leaving her lips resting gently on his scalp as she summoned the courage to speak. ‘I think I might be as angry with Alan as you are with David.’

Jo’s eyes widened and she couldn’t hide the shock. ‘Why?’

Irene’s gaze was fixed on the exact spot where her husband’s photograph should have been. ‘I loved Alan. We had our ups and downs but we had a wonderful life together or at least I thought we did.’ She paused only briefly as she considered how much to reveal. ‘But you might as well know, in those last few months he said some hurtful things to me, Jo. The doctor said the changes to his personality were a result of the stroke so I put up with the abuse and tried not to take it to heart.’

‘And you shouldn’t,’ Jo said. ‘He was being pumped full of drugs too, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t have known what he was saying.’

‘It still hurts to know that his dying words to me and his children were so full of hatred and bile.’

‘Why, what did he say?’ demanded Jo incredulously.

As she waited for Irene to respond, Jo’s eyes were drawn to the twinkling fairy lights on the Christmas tree in the corner of the room although she was less aware of the flashes of light than she was the darkness that separated them. Of course she had known of the struggles the family were going through during Alan’s illness but she had witnessed very little first-hand. Her father-in-law had kept everyone except immediate family away and that included Jo. She was aware he had become angry and depressed as he battled to come to terms with his life being cut short, but she hadn’t quite appreciated how that anger might have been directed at his family. What hadn’t David told her?

‘I don’t think I could repeat the last thing he said and certainly for the last two years, I’ve tried to forget it. I’ve tried to accept the doctor’s explanations because I had absolute faith in my husband’s love for me,’ Irene continued.

‘And now?’

‘What if we were both wrong? What if David had the courage to do what his father couldn’t, admit that he’s not a family man and refuse to be tied down? Look at the pig’s ear Steve makes of being a father. What if it’s a family trait?’

Irene went on to tell Jo some, if not all, of the hurtful things that Alan had said over the course of his illness; things that Irene had put to the back of her mind because they were spoken by someone who bore no resemblance to the man she had loved since she was seventeen. This imposter had deconstructed their thirty-odd year marriage piece by piece and had become obsessed with the life he could have led if he hadn’t been weighed down with responsibility. Jo imagined David being forced to listen to the same kind of thing.

‘He was fighting death, but he still found the energy to describe the life I’d stolen from him,’ Irene said.

‘The things he would have experienced instead of relying on documentaries on TV to show him what he was missing out on,’ Jo said as if reading from the crumpled piece of paper she had found stuffed down a sock.

There was gasp. ‘David told you what his dad said to him? He swore he never would, he was too ashamed.’

‘No, he didn’t tell me, though I wish he had,’ Jo said. She glanced down at the sleeping baby whose only given name so far was the one his father had called him. ‘I found a note he had written to his dad and I was never meant to see it. He talked about children being a
burden
.’

Irene picked up on the intonation and spoke the words her daughter-in-law had carefully edited, if only in a whisper. ‘
A fucking burden
. That’s what he called David and Steve. That was his parting shot to them, Jo. They were his last words.’

‘And David called the baby little FB. A coincidence, do you think?’

Irene’s body was shaking and the tears welling in her eyes obscured her view of the missing photograph. ‘I don’t know, Jo. I don’t believe David would be that heartless, but … I can’t be sure of anything any more. All of those treasured memories I had of Alan and our life together, the ones that were meant to keep me warm on dark, lonely nights, they’ve all been sullied. I can’t look back without wondering if it was real or if it was an act. Was my marriage a complete sham? Was David doing the same to you?’

Neither woman spoke for the longest time. They were both edging towards the same conclusion, one that would write off both their marriages and destroy what little self-worth still survived. Jo was staring at the Christmas tree and her eyes flitted from one branch to the next as she searched out anything that would lead to a more palatable truth. There were memories attached to every bauble hanging from the tree but it was the lopsided smile on a tattered snowman that brought back to life one in particular.

It had been Luke’s first Christmas and he would have been about nine months old at the time and it was also the year before Alan’s stroke would poison his and his son’s view of fatherhood. While the little boy’s parents could be heard arguing about something and nothing in the kitchen, David preoccupied Luke with some fantastical tale about a snowman that the baby surely didn’t understand but giggled just the same. They had been standing right there by the tree, Luke safe and secure in David’s arms and, as the story drew to a close, the little boy had started drifting off to sleep. David’s eyes were also heavy but only with pure devotion as he glanced over to Jo and mouthed, ‘I want one just like this.’