Justin and I used to be so close when he was younger, but he’s never quite forgiven me for walking out on Matt. He would, I think, if he knew the whole picture, but I never wanted the kids to think badly of their dad; didn’t want them as hurt as I was.
The woman Matt slept with was exactly halfway between Katie’s age and mine. Funny the details you fixate on. I never saw her but I used to torture myself imagining what she looked like; imagining my husband’s hands running over her twenty-three-year-old stretchmark-free body.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Simon says. ‘It’s a good job.’
I look at him in surprise. He’s been quick to slag off Matt’s lack of ambition in the past. A piece of me feels annoyed that what I distinctly remember him calling a ‘dead-end job’ is apparently good enough for my son. Matt was at college, studying engineering. That all changed the day I realised my period was so late it could only mean one thing. Matt walked out of college and got a job that same day. It was just labouring, on a local building site, but it paid well enough. After we got married he did the Knowledge and as a wedding present his parents gave us the money for his first cab.
‘The café’s fine for now,’ I say. ‘The right thing will turn up, I’m sure.’
Justin gives a non-committal grunt and leaves the room. He goes upstairs and I hear the creak of his bed as he assumes his habitual position, lying down with his head propped just high enough to see the screen on his laptop.
‘He’ll still be living here when he’s thirty, at this rate.’
‘I want him to be happy, that’s all.’
‘He is happy,’ Simon says. ‘Happy sponging off you.’
I swallow what I want to say. It wouldn’t be fair. I was the one who said I didn’t want Simon paying rent. We even argued about it, but I won’t let him. We split the food and the bills, and he’s forever treating me to meals out and trips away – the kids too. He’s generous to a fault. We have a joint bank account and we’ve never once worried about who pays for what.
But the house is mine.
Money was tight when I married Matt. He worked nights, and I did eight till four at Tesco, and we managed like that till Justin started school. By the time Katie came along things were easier; Matt had more work than he could handle, and gradually we were able to afford a few extras. The odd meal out; even a summer holiday.
Then Matt and I broke up, and I was back to square one. Neither of us could afford to keep the house on our own, and it was years before I was able to save for the deposit on this place. I swore I’d never throw my lot in with a man again.
Mind you, I swore I’d never fall in love again, and look what happened to that.
Simon kisses me, one hand cupping my chin and then sliding around the back of my head. Even now, at the end of a long day, he smells clean; of shaving foam and aftershave. I feel the familiar heat run through my body as he wraps my hair around his hand and tugs it gently, pulling my chin up and exposing my neck to be kissed. ‘Early night?’ he whispers.
‘I’ll be right up.’
I pick up the plates along with the London Gazette, carry them into the kitchen and load the dishwasher. I drop the newspaper into the recycling bin, where the woman in the advert stares up at me. I switch off the kitchen light and shake my head at my foolishness. Of course it isn’t me. What would a photograph of me be doing in a newspaper?
4
Kelly snapped the hairband off her wrist and on to her hand, tying back her hair. It was slightly too short; the consequences of a regretted crop in August, when a fortnight-long heatwave had made it seem like a good idea to lose the heavy curtain of hair she’d had down to her waist since her student days. Two dark strands fell instantly forward again. It had taken two hours to process Carl Bayliss in the end, after discovering he was wanted on a couple of theft allegations as well as the Fail to Appear. Kelly yawned. She was almost beyond hunger now, although she had looked hopefully in the kitchen when she got in, just in case. Nothing. She should have stopped off for that kebab, after all. She made herself some toast and took it to her ground-floor bedroom. It was a large, square room with a high ceiling and walls painted white above the picture rail. Beneath it Kelly had painted the walls pale grey, covering the past-its-best carpet with two huge rugs she’d bought at an auction. The rest of the room – the bed, the desk, the red armchair she was currently sitting on – was pure Ikea, the modern lines contrasting with the sweep of the bay window into which her bed was pushed.