Читать книгу Just for the Holidays: Your perfect summer read! - Sue Moorcroft - Страница 10

Natasha, Jordan and Curtis were already strapped into The Pig and Alister was loading the day’s supply of drinks and snacks when Leah, reasoning that the end justified the means, dropped the bad news on him.

‘Alister, do you mind taking the kids to the aerial activity park on your own? I’m feeling too bleugh to whiz down ziplines. First day of the month, you know.’ Smiling apologetically, she counted on the reference to her cycle to discourage protests or questions.

Alister flushed slightly as he took the car keys but was unable to resist enlarging her French vocabulary. ‘Of course I don’t mind taking the kids to le parc accrobranche. You stay here and, um, recover.’

Though she suffered a pang of guilt at jumping ship – or jumping Pig – Leah waved farewell as the vehicle reversed out of the drive. Jordan and Natasha, mouths forming Os of surprise, were obviously questioning their dad as to why Leah was left behind. Then, evidently satisfied with whatever reply he made, Natasha waved back and Jordan turned to talk to Curtis.

Once they were out of sight, Leah let herself back into the house silently and padded through the kitchen to the salon, a formal room the family hadn’t much bothered with. Its window gave a good view through the shrubs and down the empty drive to the lane though, and Leah sank onto the sofa to worry gently while she waited.

Her patience was rewarded twenty minutes later when a blue hatchback pulled up in the lane outside. Heart ticking anxiously, Leah watched the driver take out a phone and tap at it. A text to announce his arrival, she thought. Sure enough, she heard an upstairs door open – Michelle’s room – and footsteps dance down the wooden stairs. Another opening door – back door – and, moments later, Michele came into view, skipping down the drive – wearing one of her most flattering dresses. Hair freshly blow-dried. A hop into the car, the driver leaned towards Michele – kissing – for a long minute – ages – and, finally, the engine note rose and the car roared off.

Despite seeing exactly what she’d been warned she would, Leah felt sick with disappointment and dismay.

Michele had been constantly lying about her state of health to get rid of her family so that she could meet up with her lover.

It was several minutes before Leah could coax movement from her heavy limbs. What could she – or should she – do? The existence of a boyfriend made Michele’s mess worse, destroying as it did any lingering hopes of reconciliation.

Poor Jordan and Natasha. Poor Alister.

Poor, poor Alister – because Leah had recognised the car before she’d recognised the boyfriend. The metallic cobalt-blue boyracer hatchback with alloy wheels, spoilers and skirts belonged to Bailey Johns, a buff personal trainer and coach at Peak Fitness, the gym-cum-community centre used by the Milton family. Bailey coached Jordan’s soccer team and was high on his hero-worship scale; Jordan could often be found in the crowd of adolescents hanging around the car. As a fellow petrol-head, though she preferred her cars without giant air boxes or pointless light arrays, Leah chatted to Bailey on the odd occasion she picked Jordan up.

Michele, too, knew Bailey as Jordan’s footie coach. Leah remembered how Michele had seemed a reluctant joiner of Peak Fitness a year ago but soon developed unexpected gym-bunny tendencies. Leah had put it down to her realising that, at forty-three, she had to make more effort. Now, when viewed along with a growing predilection for having her hair and nails done professionally, Michele’s gym visits made a different, disappointing kind of sense.

In a fog of misery, Leah sought comfort in the familiarity of the kitchen but couldn’t even settle to baking. Her eyes burned every time she thought of Natasha’s uncertain little smile when confronted with uncomfortable situations and Jordan’s scowl when his feelings were hurt. They were young to be asked to cope with one heartache after another. They’d been so brave. But Leah would have had to be blind not to notice Natasha sometimes on the edge of tears or Jordan being especially grouchy and Alister quietly gathering them into comforting hugs.

Michele was an adult and there was nothing Leah could do about the way she chose to live her life. Yet … nothing was exactly what she couldn’t do. She took out her phone.

Leah: Can you come back to the gîte now, please? Important.

The reply pinged back after a few minutes.

Michele: ??? Aren’t you at this zipline thing? :-/

Leah: No. But Alister and the kids are.

A much longer pause, long enough for Leah to make and drink a cup of coffee, then:

Michele: On my way.

Leah passed the time wiping kitchen surfaces that didn’t need wiping, feeling uncomfortably like an angry parent waiting up for a misbehaving adolescent. The sensation was unreal and unfamiliar.

Finally, Michele stepped tentatively through the back door like a cat sensing trouble, gaze wary. ‘What’s up?’

Leah had to swallow unexpected tears. This isn’t about you. It’s about them. ‘You didn’t mention that you had a boyfriend.’

A pause. Michele fiddled with the buckle on her bag strap. ‘No.’

Leah refused to allow the single clipped word to wall her out. ‘I’m going to ask you again: is Baby Three Alister’s?’

Michele heaved a great sigh. ‘No.’

A fresh heart-sink. ‘Certain?’

Michele nodded.

‘Poor Alister. Does he know?’

‘He knows he’s not the father. Obviously.’ Michele gave a mirthless laugh, drifting drearily into the room as if realising there was no longer any hiding place. ‘Not difficult to deduce when we haven’t had sex in a year.’ She threw down her bag and dragged out a chair. ‘He says I have to tell the kids; he won’t do it. He’s given me a deadline of the end of the holiday, before I begin to show and they guess. It’s part of why he’s muscled his way into the holiday, to support them when I do.’

Stricken, Leah plumped down to face her. ‘Michele! No wonder he’s so broken. It must be agony for him, not just knowing you’re carrying another man’s child but worrying about how the kids are going to take it too. Why did you lie to me about it?’

Gaze shifting, Michele shrugged. ‘I didn’t. I just acted outraged and you took it as a denial.’

‘Deliberately making someone think something when it’s actually untrue is a lie. Did you think it might change whether I’d support you?’ Leah moved on to the next issue. ‘And it’s Bailey Johns. He’s all but a generation younger than Alister. And how do you think Jordan’s going to react when he finds out? He considers Bailey supercool.’

‘I keep telling you it’s a mess.’ Michele wiped a tear from beneath her eye. She didn’t look surprised that Leah knew Bailey’s identity. She’d probably worked out that letting him pick her up from the gîte had been a complacent step too far.

‘I don’t know whether to be indignant, envious or reluctantly impressed,’ Leah went on. ‘Bailey’s in his twenties!’

‘He’ll soon be thirty.’

Leah’s mind was buzzing as she tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle. ‘How on earth does Bailey come to be in France, anyway?’

‘He wanted to be near me. It’s not as if I invited him or planned it. But once he was here …’

‘Is he staying nearby?’

Michele nodded. ‘A hotel in Muntsheim.’

The sisters stared at one another. Anger began to prickle beneath Leah’s skin. Her voice dropped. ‘What the hell are you thinking? This midlife crisis is equal parts selfishness and insanity! You’re the Unstepford Wife, leaving your marriage, bringing your twinkie on holiday when you’re supposed to be with your family–’

‘My what?’ Michele looked confused.

‘Twinkie,’ Leah snapped. ‘Younger lover. Toy boy. You’re depriving your kids of their father for a fling with a twinkie.’

Michele dropped her chin on her palm and met Leah’s gaze. Now the horrible moment of discovery was over she was beginning to look relieved, almost relaxed. There was even a hint of defiance. ‘You’re trying to diminish what we have with scornful words but I’m in love. I’m in love in a way I’ve never been in love with Alister – unless it was so long ago I’ve forgotten. I got to know Bailey properly and suddenly all that was important was the next time I’d see him and the expression in his eyes when he looked at me. He knew I was married with children. He tried to keep away from me but I never tried to keep away from him because nothing else seemed to matter.’ Her eyes shimmered with tears. ‘I fell in love and the world changed.’

‘Love? Or infatuation?’

‘Call it what you want. I know what I feel.’ Michele looked defensive and rose to clatter around restlessly with the icemaker, dropping cubes into glasses, pouring iced tea from the fridge. ‘My contraception failed and I found myself pregnant like some clueless teenager. It plunged me into a nightmare of telling Alister we were over, and Natasha and Jordan we wouldn’t be living with their father any more. I hated myself for what I was doing to my children but there was no way back.’ Her laugh was like a sob. ‘Then I had to tell Bailey he was going to be a parent. But he wasn’t scared off, because he loves me.’

She brought over a glass of tea, mint and lemon floating on the top, and placed it before Leah like a peace offering. ‘Forgive me for not telling you the truth, Leah. I did need you on my side, here, supporting the family. Selfish and insane I may be but I know when I’ve got too much on my plate – and you have so little on yours. Your life’s just about you.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Leah jerked upright, stung by this offhand dismissal of her life choices.

But Michele was already onto the next point on her agenda, grabbing Leah’s hands across the table for emphasis. ‘I understand that Natasha and Jordan need their father … but Baby Three’s entitled to a father, too.’

Leah’s stomach felt lined with lead. She hadn’t been thinking through the Baby Three situation. But he or she was on the way, not just a little pudding mound under Michele’s dresses, not just a life-changing shock, but a tiny person-to-be. Inconvenient, unexpected, but as much Michele’s child as Jordan and Natasha. ‘Shit,’ she groaned. ‘What the hell are you going to do?’

Michele’s gaze grew beseeching. ‘I know you’re going to be even angrier with me – but I’m going away with Bailey. I need time to talk about the future and make the right decision for my kids. All three of them. And for me.’

‘No, Michele–!’

Michele steamrollered on. ‘It would be wrong to pretend my marriage can be saved. I’m done with pretending, with lying. I’m even going to admit to Bailey that I’m not thirty-nine.’

Leah felt pressure weighing heavily on her shoulders. ‘And while you go off and explore your options with your twinkie, I suppose you’re going to ask me to stay and help Alister look after your kids?’

‘Short term,’ Michele protested, a fresh tear forming beneath her eye. ‘Please. The children like and trust you. And it’s such a brief period out of your carefree life.’

Leah snatched back her hands. ‘Don’t make me sound like the irresponsible one!’

Michele hunched a defensive shoulder. ‘I just mean the way you’ve avoided having a partner or kids so you never have to put anybody else first. Even your job’s easy.’

Holding a deep breath for an instant before letting it hiss out slowly, Leah took stock. No matter how exasperated she was – for ‘exasperated’ read ‘wanting to shriek with rage’ – Michele’s family was in chaos and Leah couldn’t indulge in a hissy fit. ‘I’ll take issue with you about whether my job’s “easy” some other time,’ she managed, fairly calmly. ‘But it’s true that I’ve chosen the single life. You made different choices. You married Alister and you conceived Jordan and Natasha. You had an affair with Bailey and you conceived Baby Three. You don’t get to say now that it’s somebody else’s turn to live that life while you flirt with a new one.’

Michele’s gaze faltered. ‘But don’t say you won’t do it.’ The lonely tear suddenly had company, rolling down her face. ‘Please, Leah! I know I’ve messed up, and it impacts my family. I know I fell in love with the wrong man, gave way to my feelings and got pregnant but I’m buckling under the strain here. Please!’

Watching her sister begin to cry in earnest Leah tried and failed to resist being manipulated. Jordan. Natasha. Baby Three. All were her flesh and blood. The only aspect of this turmoil Leah could control was the support she could offer them. ‘Do you have any further bombshells to drop? Lies to confess? Omissions to correct?’

Michele’s head shook wildly. She wiped and blew, blew and wiped in an apparently inexhaustible flow of grief. Her skin waxed to the pallor that seemed a feature of this pregnancy and she clapped a piece of kitchen roll to her lips, shoving the remains of the iced tea aside.

‘OK,’ snapped Leah. ‘Just as long as you explain to your kids and husband before you go and you realise that this is only temporary.’ She tapped Michele’s hand to make certain of her attention. ‘On September the fourth I begin my new job. On September the ninth I’ve booked a track day with Scott. On the tenth I expect to be on my sofa watching the Italian Grand Prix in peace and silence. I chose those things and they’re my life. You need to be clear that I’ll be returning to it.’

Michele nodded wildly. ‘I understand. It won’t be for ever.’

‘It can’t be.’ Leah scraped back her chair. ‘Your life is yours.’