Читать книгу Mum’s the Word - Kate Lawson - Страница 6

Chapter 1

‘Candles, corkscrew, wine …’ Susie’s gaze moved slowly across the table, which was standing in the bay window of the sitting room, overlooking the garden. It was early summer and still warm, the long day just beginning to soften into evening. A breeze, gently strumming the leaves on next door’s laburnum, brought the heat down to a gentle purr.

Through the open windows, a string of fairy lights strung between the branches of the trees, bright as glow worms, twinkled and shimmered, picking out the shrubs and pots on the terrace, while the honeysuckle and glittering dark green climbers rambled nonchalantly up over the wicker trellis, perfuming the air – the whole thing set off by the golden glow of the sun sinking in the west.

‘Serving spoons, salt and pepper.’ Susie glanced up at the clock; another ten minutes and Robert ought to be arriving, always assuming he wasn’t late. Time, as Robert had once pointed out, wasn’t really his strong suit. Although actually it wasn’t time that was Robert’s problem, it was punctuality that gave him the slip. He seemed to think people had nothing better to do than wait for him, which was why Susie had cooked a casserole – although her instincts told her that tonight he would be on time. Tonight was special. Memorable. Important.

She smiled and tweaked the curtains straight. The sitting room looked wonderful, like something out of the Sunday supplements. Susie Reed entertains at home in her stylish Norfolk country cottage.

There was a vase of pink peonies in the centre of the table and acres of lighted candles arranged on various shelves and side tables close by, reflecting and glittering in the only two crystal glasses to have survived marriage, children, divorce and now singledom in the cottage on the edge of Sheldon Common. There were French-blue cotton napkins, casually folded and dropped onto the side plates – Susie didn’t want to look as if she was trying too hard; spotless matching cutlery – Robert had a whole thing about smears and the odd bit of broccoli welded on by the dishwasher; alongside a little dish of pitted olives and some bread-sticks.

In the oven the main course – chicken breasts, tiny button mushrooms, roast garlic, spring onions, ginger, cashew nuts and strips of red pepper – was doing interesting things in a clear stock.

While Susie patted and fluffed and tweaked, Milo, her mongrel, watched her from the rag rug in front of the hearth, wondering about chicken division vis-à-vis faithful hounds and long-standing lovers.

‘Susie, there is something I really need to talk to you about,’ Robert had said when he’d popped by on Tuesday evening on his way home from work. He had looked very earnest. ‘I think that we really need to talk about the future.’

The future. Susie smiled, and then huffed on a serving spoon before giving it a brisk once-over with a tea towel.

They had been going out for the best part of three years. Robert wasn’t exactly the kind of man she had ever imagined herself settling down and growing old with, but he was a nice guy. He could sometimes be a bit overbearing – pompous and snobby was how her sister had once described him, but then she was married to a man who thought anything you didn’t grow, catch or shoot yourself was fast food, so she was hardly in a position to talk about peculiar male habits.

Robert was bright and reliable, intelligent, and even though he didn’t do fun very often, he was presentable. Presentable, and tall, and well-dressed, and forty-six; he liked dogs and was a bit public school and, okay, yes, he was just a teensy-weensy bit on the bald side, but nothing that couldn’t be coped with – after all, we all have faults – and he was rather endearing, and she loved him.

Susie glanced up at her reflection, caught in the mirror above the fireplace. Candlelight was a good choice, she thought, screwing up her eyes to focus. She looked fabulous, or perhaps it was just that she wasn’t wearing her glasses.

‘There is something important that I want to discuss,’ he’d said. ‘To be honest I don’t feel I can leave it any longer.’

Something important that couldn’t wait any longer. She set the spoon back down on the table. Moving in together? Maybe marriage? Maybe both?

Would she change her name? Mrs Robert Harrison … Mrs Susie Reed, wife of Mr Robert Harrison … Or would they be hyphenated? Mr and Mrs Reed-Harrison; or did Harrison-Reed sound better? The Reed-Harrisons entertain at home in their stylish Norfolk country home.

Susie was wearing a long, elegant cream linen dress, with low-heeled brown leather sandals and some chunky wooden jewellery, although not too much because Robert wasn’t keen on frills and had a ‘strictly no fluff, feathers or sequins’ policy, since he’d been rushed to casualty with a bugle bead up his nose after a particularly raucous scout-gang show. Not that she had many of those kind of things in her wardrobe, but she might have a mad moment, a show-tune, corset, kitten-heeled mule and fishtail frock afternoon.

If pressed, Robert said that he preferred white cotton underwear from Marks and Sparks. Unlike her ex-husband, Robert had never bought Susie anything black and red with suspenders for Christmas that needed taking back. Obviously Robert just didn’t see her as that kind of woman, and Susie wasn’t sure if she should be pleased by that or not …

‘Dessert spoons,’ Susie murmured thoughtfully, touching them with her fingertips. She’d made this thing from the cookery page of the local paper for dessert, with summer fruits, double cream and Muscovado – it was currently chilling in the fridge. She planned to serve it with Florentines from Waitrose, after garnishing the top with a couple of fat raspberries and a mint leaf, all dusted down with a quick flick of icing sugar. It looked great in the photo.

Robert worked in the Environment Agency, doing something which mostly seemed to involve wearing a dark suit, sending memos, having meetings and getting really grumpy by Wednesday afternoon. They’d met at Sheldon Common’s annual midsummer’s dinner dance in the village tithe barn. He’d looked very good in black tie.

He’d said, ‘Are you the woman with the long-eared hairy mongrel who’s bought Isaac’s Cottage?’

Hardly a chat-up line to make a woman go weak at the knees, but she’d never seen herself as high maintenance and didn’t trust flash, so it wasn’t a bad opening. Apparently he had always loved the cottage, seen it every day for years as he drove home from work – and before she knew it Susie was inviting him round to take a look at what she’d done by way of renovations. He’d arrived the next day with a decent bottle of red – a good sign – she’d cooked a spag bol and they’d been seeing each other ever since.

Robert was a little more staid and sensible than she would prefer in a perfect world, but Susie was getting to the point of thinking that maybe staid and sensible might be a good thing. She’d done her share of unreliable, lying, two-timing bastards. She’d been married to one for the best part of fifteen years, and once really was enough. Maybe staid and reliable was the new rock and roll.

And besides, Robert was good with power tools and he’d got a pension plan and a good income and was always on about the future and financial security. It wasn’t that Susie couldn’t manage on her own – she could manage very well indeed and had done for years – it was just that she preferred life when there was someone to share it with, and when she considered it long and hard, Robert Harrison, if not exactly Mr Right, came out very high on the Mr Could-Do-a-Lot-Worse index.

In the kitchen the timer went ping, and while Susie wondered how she would say yes, she practised gliding effortlessly across the floor like a nun she had once seen in a film, and reconsidered the possibilities. Should she smile and say, ‘Oh Robert, of course,’ or should she make him wait, explain that she needed time to think. Or maybe she should just smile winsomely and nod, all bright-eyed and overcome by emotion.

She bobbed down to open the oven door, the heat hitting her like a slap before Susie carefully manoeuvred the cast-iron pot up onto the worktop, imagining she was Delia.

‘And here we are, piping hot and ready to serve – smells absolutely wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s have a little look, shall we?’

Susie lifted the lid; the chicken casserole was done to a turn, perfect. There were tiny new potatoes, sugar-snap peas and baby carrots in the steamer to go with it. She dipped a spoon in the sauce – maybe it needed just a tiny bit more pepper. Susie had brought a handful of chives in from the garden to chop up and sprinkle on top just before serving, hoping Robert wouldn’t be late. ‘And now, having adjusted the seasoning, just a few chives on the top to garnish – if you haven’t got chives you can always use a little freshly chopped parsley.’

Susie had had to stop being Delia out loud since dating Robert; nor was he keen on her being the woman on Gardeners’ Question Time, or Linda Barker when she was decorating either. She’d made a conscious decision to spare him the full Nigella. He’d said very early on in their relationship that he found it unnerving to hear people talking to themselves.

She looked round at the cosy kitchen and let her mind wander. Would they sell up and buy somewhere together? And what happened if Robert wanted a bungalow and she fell in love with a place with blackened beams and an ingle nook? What if he had always hankered to live on that horrible little housing estate near his fat, miserable sister and Susie couldn’t resist the lure of a narrowboat? Maybe renting somewhere together first was a better idea. Would he go down on one knee? More to the point, would he be able to get back up again, given the state of his back?

Susie sighed. None of this was straightforward at all, and it hadn’t got any easier since she’d got older. Still the same questions, still the same hopes and fears – nothing any simpler just because you were over forty.

You wait three years for someone to pop the question and when the moment finally arrives, all your brain can do is come up with excuses, obstacles, shortcomings and an internal commentary that wouldn’t be out of place on a daytime TV phone-in. Bloody thing. Worse still, it had been doing it all week; she was exhausted from weighing and reweighing the possibilities, the pros and cons.

Susie opened the fridge door and peered inside. They were going to have a little roule of salmon pâté for starters, whizzed in the blender, rolled up in a smoked-salmon sleeve and then cut into slices and served with melba toast – all of which was busy chilling inside a mould at the moment. She had thought about doing big meaty prawns on mixed salad leaves, trickled with chilli dressing and served with wedges of lime, but realistically, who wanted to kiss a hand that had been peeling prawns all afternoon?

Would they get married at the local registry office? she wondered.

First time around she’d been nineteen and living with Andy in a bedsit in Cambridge. He’d rolled in at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as a skunk, and before she could ask him where the hell he’d been, he’d said, ‘I was thinking, babe, maybe we ought to get hitched – what d’ya reckon?’

But second marriages were different, they were about knowing what you wanted, and knowing that it was totally unreasonable to expect someone else to provide it for you. Second marriages were not about children or convention or being able to share a bed when you stayed at your parents’ house, they were about wanting to be together, about wanting to say that this is it. Second marriages were about who you are, not what you planned to be.

Maybe they’d jet off to somewhere hot and foreign? Get married under a palm tree, barefoot and suntanned on the white coral sands of a tropical beach. Mind you, Robert was careful with his money so that wasn’t likely, and besides he was prone to heat stroke and sweat rash, so maybe they should think about one of those new wedding venues: a quaint, out-of-the-way hotel in the Cotswolds, an old railway station in Gwent or a castle in the Scottish highlands. Much simpler when you just bought a white meringue of a dress and hotfooted it to the local church like she’d done the first time. God, marriage was a minefield – and then there would be the question of the frock, and who to invite …

Just then the doorbell rang. Smiling, Susie whipped off her apron, took one last glance in the mirror, added a deep breath and hurried down the hallway towards the front door.

She was considering the guest list as she reached the door; there was her dad, his parents, her brother and sister, his brother and sister, her kids, her friends, the guys from work …

‘I’ve told you before just to come straight in,’ Susie said, wiping her hands and pulling the door open. ‘It’s silly to ring the bell after all this ti—’

‘Hi Mum, thank god you’re in, I was going to ring only I haven’t got any credit on my phone. Have you got some money for the cab?’

‘Jack?’ Susie stared at her son. ‘What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Italy.’

Jack shuffled uncomfortably under her scrutiny, moving his weight from foot to foot. He was wearing long khaki shorts, battered army boots, a tour tee shirt that had, once upon a time in a universe far, far away, been black, and he smelt as if he needed a shower, badly.

‘I am. Well, technically I am. We got a call out of the blue, we’ve got some big presentation to do and the budget won’t run to flying the funders out there – they’re not the kind of guys who do bargain bucket and buses. It’s all gone a bit belly-up really.’ He grinned and leant in a little closer, kissing her on the cheek, a couple of days’ stubble catching her like a rasp. ‘I’ve only just got back; the flight was delayed. I went round to the flat –’ His voice cracked a little. ‘Ellie’s gone. I mean, I’m not surprised really, things have been a bit flaky over the last couple of months. Although I thought at least she would have waited till I got back home before buggering off.’

Susie stared at him. ‘Gone? Oh, I’m so sorry, Jack, I hadn’t realised things were that bad between you two – but I don’t understand, why didn’t you stay there?’

‘Apparently she’s sublet the bloody flat while I was away. I mean, how mean is that? They’re in there till September – two guys from the university. They did say I could crash on the floor if I wanted to, till I got myself sorted out, but it didn’t seem right. So I came here, I didn’t think you’d mind.’

Susie didn’t move. God, did you never get time off from being a mother? Given the circumstances, how could she tell him that she did mind, that in fact she minded quite a lot? That today, any minute now in fact, Mr Could-do-a-lot-Worse was popping round to change her life forever.

Jack lifted his nose like a hungry whippet and sniffed the air. ‘Something smells good. Nice frock, by the way. Going out somewhere, are you? Oh, and have you got that money, only I think the guy in the taxi’s still got his meter running?’

There was a little pause and then Susie picked up her bag from the hallstand, handed Jack two twenty-pound notes and watched him bound back down the path towards the waiting cab. She distinctly heard him say, ‘You’re all right, keep the change, mate – yeah, no sweat, thanks. Have a good un.’ And then he jogged back towards the door and moseyed on past her into the hallway, shimmying his rucksack off one shoulder as he went and dropping it at the bottom of the stairs where it landed with a damp thud.

‘Cottage looks really great, Mum. I’ll stick my stuff upstairs, shall I?’ He bent down and started to unfasten the straps on his bag.

‘What exactly are you doing?’ asked Susie.

‘Just getting a few bits out. Where do you want the washing? Down here or upstairs? I thought I’d stick a load in straight away – you know.’

The smell from the open rucksack would have blistered paint.

‘Whoa, Jack, can you just hang on a minute? You can’t just barge in here expecting –’ She stopped for a moment as he pulled that hurt, unloved puppy face he’d perfected as a toddler. ‘– expecting to be welcomed with open arms. First of all I haven’t finished doing up the spare room yet, it’s all flat packs, bare plaster and floorboards at the moment, and secondly I’m expecting a friend round for supper any minute now.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Jack cheerfully, scooping out his dirty washing onto the hall floor. ‘I don’t mind camping out, I’m not fussy, I’ve got my sleeping bag – and I’ll watch TV in the kitchen while your friend’s here. Don’t mind me, I’ll keep the noise down. God, I’m famished, is it all right if I whip myself up a sandwich? You’ve got it really nice in here. And I love what you’ve done with the garden.’

Susie stared at him. ‘Actually, Jack, I’m really sorry but at the moment I don’t think staying here is a ver—’ she began, just as Robert stepped in through the front door.

‘Susie,’ Robert said, taken by surprise. If anything he looked even more earnest than normal, not to mention a little balder, paler and very, very tense. For a few moments he didn’t appear to notice Jack squatting down beside the rucksack.

‘How are you?’ he said.

Susie looked up at him, trying to work out whether it was nerves or if he was sickening for something. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ve been thinking over what I want to say to you for some time – the thing is, Susie –’ He paused, nose wrinkling. ‘Good god, what on earth is that terrible smell?’

Jack, who was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, looked up and grinned. ‘Hi there, Robert. How’s it going?’ He was holding a bundle of rancid socks which he dropped casually onto the floor before getting up and holding out a hand.

Susie saw Robert stiffen; Jack wiped his hands on his shorts and tried again. Robert ignored him and turned his attention back to Susie.

‘Look, I’m most terribly sorry but I really can’t stay,’ said Robert.

‘What do you mean, you can’t stay? I’ve cooked supper,’ Susie said, completely wrong-footed. ‘Salmon roule and summer chicken; it’s free-range. And I’ve done a pudding.’

Robert glanced back over his shoulder as if checking that he could still find the way out. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to go to any trouble. You know, not cook or anything.’

Susie stared at him. ‘What do you mean, not go to any trouble, Robert? I always cook when you come over. You know I do, I just thought tonight I’d do us something special …’

For the last three years they’d spent almost every weekend together, taking it in turns to stay at each other’s houses, cooking for one other. What was so different about tonight of all nights?

Robert glanced down at Jack and then said, ‘Look, is there any chance that your mother and I can have this conversation privately?’ He felt around for a name and when none came continued, ‘The thing is, I really need to get going.’ And before either Jack or Susie had time to react, he said, ‘Actually, there is no good time to tell you this; the thing is, I’ve been thinking a lot recently, Susie, and I want you to understand that I’ve not come to this decision lightly.’ The words all tumbled out on one long breath as if there was some chance he might run out of air or resolve.

‘Jack, will you please go?’ snapped Susie. Whatever Robert was going to say, the last thing she wanted was for it to be in front of her twenty-four-year-old son.

Jack pulled a face. ‘What?’

‘Please, Jack. Just go, will you?’

‘Sure,’ he said, looking hard done by. He started to get up. Slowly. Susie quelled a throwback impulse to smack his legs; couldn’t he see that he should make himself scarce? And quickly. Frustration and bewilderment bubbled up inside her. This wasn’t how she had anticipated this evening going at all.

‘And can you take all this with you?’ she said, waving at the heaving mass of washing.

‘I was going to put it in the machine,’ he protested.

‘Now, please, Jack,’ she growled.

Reluctantly and still at a glacial speed, Jack picked the backpack up. As she turned her attention back to Robert, he sloped off towards the kitchen grumbling to himself.

He’d barely closed the kitchen door when Robert said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, Susie, there’s really no easy way to say this. The thing is – I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. What I really want is a family.’

‘What?’ It felt like the floor had fallen away. She reran the words in her head, trying to grasp what they meant, while Robert pressed on.

‘I’ve been mulling the idea over for a long time now, thinking that these feelings, my needs, would go away, but they haven’t. If anything they’ve got more intense. To be honest, I’ve been so depressed over the last few months, Susie. When we’ve been together I keep thinking to myself: Is this all there is, is this all there is to look forward to – is this my life?’ he said glumly, lifting his hands to encompass him, her, her life, her home, her dog. ‘Susie, the truth is that what I really want is to settle down and have a family. I want to have a baby.’

She stared at him, struggling for breath, not sure whether to burst into tears or punch his lights out.

‘What do you mean “have a baby”?’ she said, finding her voice. ‘I’m forty-five, Robert, I’ve got a baby, I’ve got two grown-up babies.’ She waved towards the kitchen door where, by the sound of it, one of them was raiding the larder. ‘I’ve already done that, I’m too –’

And then the penny dropped. ‘You don’t mean with me, do you?’ she whispered. ‘You don’t want us to have a baby, do you?’

‘I have thought about it, but as you say, Susie, you’ve already done it. You don’t want to go back to that place – even if you could. And I mean, it isn’t that likely, is it? Not at your age – not that you’re that old but, you know, babies, all that falling fertility and everything.’

Susie stared at him, wondering if he had any idea what he was saying or how it made her feel.

Robert sighed. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Susie, really I didn’t – I thought it would go away.’

‘Robert, you’re nearly forty-seven.’

‘I know, that’s the whole point. I keep thinking that if I don’t have children soon I’m never going to have them. And I’d like more than one, probably two, possibly even three, and I’d really like to start having them before I’m fifty – I mean, after that I think you’re too old, don’t you?’

Please god he was being rhetorical, thought Susie, as she carried on staring, not certain what to say, all the words and thoughts and pain and anger and hurt and indignation and the downright ridiculousness of it all snarled like a motorway pile-up in the back of her throat.

And then, against all the odds, Susie started to laugh. It was a close-run thing as to who was more surprised, she or Robert, but as she laughed some more he stared at her in horror.

‘I don’t see why on earth you’re laughing, Susie. This isn’t funny, this is my future we’re talking about,’ he said indignantly.

She was laughing so hard now that she could barely breathe. ‘You’re right, Robert, this isn’t funny, it’s crazy. It’s madness. For a start you can’t just summon up a family, you need to find the right person,’ she said, struggling with a giggle.

‘I have to take the chance, Susie. This may be my last shot,’ he said, his colour rising rapidly.

Susie shook her head, not picking up on the cheap joke, the laughter not abating. If anything she was laughing harder, tears rolling down her face. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she said, opening the front door for him. ‘Best you go and have a baby then. Take care.’

Robert stood for a second or two, looking bemused. ‘Look, Susie – you have to understand. It’s just that we want different things.’

She stared at him. ‘How was I supposed to know that?’ she said.

As he moved she noticed the last of the sunlight glinting on his bald patch. He looked uncomfortable and pained. ‘I’m sorry, Susie. I didn’t want to hurt you,’ he said, as if that made it all right.

‘Too late,’ Susie said, guiding him back towards the door.

‘I’ll ring, maybe we could talk, maybe I could pop over later in the week?’

‘Please don’t bother on my account,’ she said, closing the door behind him. There was a fragile silence and then the tears that had come with the laughter turned into great, wailing, miserable sobs; sobs that consumed her whole; sobs so huge that she could barely breathe. Bastard. The bastard.

Jesus Christ, how could she have been so totally stupid, so totally blind? Susie sat down on the bottom of the stairs feeling so many things, some of which she hadn’t got a name for – and then, very slowly, the kitchen door opened.

‘Mum? You okay?’ asked Jack, peering round the door.

‘No, not really, but I will be, just give me a minute or two,’ she said, backhanding the tears away.

He sat down beside her and put his arm around her, gently. ‘You want to tell me about it?’ he said, handing her half a dozen squares of kitchen roll.

Susie shook her head, infinitely touched by his gentleness and concern. ‘This isn’t how it works, I’m the grown-up here. I’m supposed to look after you,’ she said, between sobs.

He leant closer. ‘In that case, is it all right if I have some of that casserole, only it smells wonderful? And the veggies are done. The pinger just went – I’ve switched them off. Do you want to come in here and Delia or shall I?’