A Perfect Home (25 page)

Cornwall? Confirm? Mum x

She texted back.

Yes! Love Claire.

She wondered what her situation would be by then. It was two weeks away, yet her whole life could have changed. She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was only ten to eleven, but she felt as if a full day had passed already. She went in to the study again. ‘One new message,' she read on the screen.

Dear Claire,

Thank you for your email. As I said yesterday, I don't want to be responsible for breaking up your marriage. You must make your own decisions, I cannot be involved. I think it's best to end things between us at this early stage. Thinking of you. Take care of yourself.

Stefan x

Claire read it again and then another time. She felt numb. His words sounded so detached, so unemotional, so definite. She stared ahead out of the window at the children playing on the grass; she was unable to get up. Remembering all the plans she'd made earlier that morning, she felt stupid and naïve. She sat motionless in front of the computer for a long time. Stefan's message blurred and distorted on the screen. Emily tapped on the window and asked for a drink.

In the kitchen she handed out three cups of orange juice, then sat down at the table and was still again for another long time. She stared blankly at the shelves of the dresser, cluttered with an assortment of plates, mugs, photographs, bits of Lego and children's paintings.

Emily came in.

‘When are we having lunch?' She looked at the dirty bowls waiting to be washed by the sink. ‘Have you made chocolate cakes?' she asked, dipping her finger into the remnants of the thick dark goo of sponge mixture and licking it.

Cakes
. Claire had forgotten the cakes. She got up and opened the Aga door. The hot smell of burning hit her. She pulled out the cake tray and looked at the three rows of beautifully domed, but blackened tops, cracked and gently smouldering.

‘Oh, Mum. Why didn't you take them out before?'

Claire felt tears sliding down her cheeks. All she could do was stare down at the tray in her oven-gloved hands.

‘Oh, Mummy.' Emily wrapped her arms around Claire's waist. ‘Don't cry about the cakes. We can go to the shops and buy some more. It doesn't matter.'

Oliver ran in. ‘Sally's here, Mum. She's just parking the car.' He looked at his mother, surprised. ‘What's wrong?'

‘She's burnt the cakes,' explained Emily, still with her arms around Claire.

‘Oh,' said Oliver, uncomfortably shifting from one leg to another and then quickly returning outside to play with Sally's boys who had just appeared in the garden.

Sally's voice came from outside the backdoor.

‘I've only popped round for a minute,' she called. ‘I just had to tell you what I've done this morning.' She came through the door and stopped. ‘Claire, whatever is the matter?'

Claire stood shaking with sobs, tears dripping on to the burnt cake crusts.

‘It's the cakes,' said Emily. ‘They're burned. Can I go out and play now, Mummy?'

Claire seemed unable to reply.

‘Of course you can,' said Sally. ‘I'll sort out Mummy's cakes. You go outside.'

Sally gently took the cake tray from between Claire's hands, slid off the oven gloves, and steered her towards a chair.

‘Never any good crying over burnt cakes,' she said. ‘Over burnt anything, for that matter. Otherwise I'd be in tears most days in my kitchen.' She wiped Claire's cheeks with the oven gloves, dabbing softly as though she were a child.

Claire didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. She put her head in her hands and continued to cry.

‘Come on, love,' said Sally kindly. ‘It can't be that bad.' She rubbed Claire's back as she sat down beside her. ‘What is it?' she tried again. ‘The children all look well and happy. Is it your mum? Is your mum ill?'

Claire shook her head.

‘Is it William?' asked Sally. ‘Is William all right?'

‘He's fine,' she said in a muffled voice.

‘Has he done something to upset you?'

Claire cried harder. The oven gloves could no longer contain the flow of tears and Sally passed Claire a nearby tea towel. She buried her wet face in it and was unable to answer any questions.

Sally picked up a fairy cake from the tray and peeled off the thin paper cup around it.

‘Look, they're fine on the bottom,' she said, picking off a bit of soft sponge and putting it into her mouth. ‘Delicious! You see, sometimes things look disastrous, but it's only on the surface and everything is all right underneath.' She put out her hand and stroked Claire's arm.

‘Is it something William's done?' she asked. ‘Has he suggested one home improvement job too many? He's not having an affair is he? William wouldn't do something like that. He's not like the devious skunk that I've been married to for far too long.'

‘He's not having an affair,' sobbed Claire through her tea towel. ‘It's me. No, it's not. I'm not having an affair. I haven't had an affair. Well, I don't think I have. I don't know.' She burst into another fit of sobbing.

‘You don't know if you've had an affair? You're not making any sense.'

Claire sighed and sat up, wiping her eyes. She didn't look at Sally but stared at the spots on the tablecloth.

‘I fell in love with another man,' she said quietly.

Sally gasped.

‘I fell in love with another man and I think I would have left William, but now he doesn't want to see me any more,' Claire went on.

‘Who doesn't want to see you any more?'

‘The other man. He says too many people would get hurt.'

‘He's got some sense then,' said Sally. ‘Who is he?'

‘The photographer who photographed our house.'

‘You've been having an affair with the bloke who came to photograph your house and family?' Sally sounded incredulous. ‘Do you think the magazine knows he goes around destroying the lovely homes and lives he photographs?'

‘I don't think he does go around destroying other people's lives.'

‘Only yours then,' said Sally. Claire decided not to tell her about the woman in Australia. ‘I can't believe you've been having an affair.'

‘I don't think I've had an affair with him, really,' said Claire, wiping her eyes again. ‘I just liked him a lot and saw him a few times over the past few weeks and kissed him a bit.'

‘And?' asked Sally. ‘Anything else?'

‘No, not really.'

‘Mmm,' said Sally suspiciously. ‘Big Bad Bear and Sweet Betty didn't even meet but my solicitor says it could still be classed as adultery.'

‘Mum, we're starving.'

Oliver stood at the door to the garden.

‘You can have some chocolate cakes,' said Sally.

‘Yuck, they're all burnt.'

‘I've brought different ones,' said Sally. ‘You go on back and play, and we'll bring them out in a minute.'

Reluctantly, Oliver disappeared.

‘Right, here's a knife,' said Sally, handing it to Claire and taking out a brightly coloured melamine plate from a cupboard. ‘If we just take them out of the paper cases and cut the burnt tops off, they'll never recognise them.' Sally smiled. ‘You see, you're not the only one who can be deceitful here.'

‘I haven't been deceitful,' Claire protested. She had stopped crying.

‘You never told me what was going on.' Claire wanted to wince at her reproachful tone. ‘And I'm your best friend. I'm presuming that you only pretended to be visiting galleries and seeing customers and going to the dentist while I looked after your children. That's what I would call deceitful. Though when Ben had his accident and you were nowhere to be found, I did suspect something funny was going on – and that tomato on your dress; I still can't quite understand how that got there.'

‘I couldn't tell you,' Claire tried to explain. ‘I couldn't even admit how I was feeling to myself for a long time.'

The round remnants of the fairy cakes looked quite appetising, especially when Sally topped each one with a Smartie stuck on with a tiny spot of butter. The children fell on them as she took them into the garden.

‘That should keep them happy for a while,' she said, coming back in. ‘Are you feeling any better now?'

‘A bit.'

‘I just can't believe it,' said Sally, popping a charred cake top into her mouth. ‘I thought I was the one with the unhappy marriage. I thought you loved William. I thought you had the perfect marriage.'

‘All this is perfect,' said Claire, waving her arm around the room. ‘The house, the garden, the stuff. But it doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like part of me. Just because the home is perfect doesn't mean the marriage is.'

‘I know William loves you.'

Claire shrugged. ‘I think he loves the house more.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘This morning I really thought I could leave William, get a new house with the children, start again. I thought, naïvely, that I could start again with Stefan. I had stupid fantasies about choosing furniture, having breakfast together.'

‘Your fantasies are a bit on the tame side,' said Sally, laughing.

Claire ignored her. ‘Then I got his email. I burnt the cakes and you came in.' She started sobbing all over again.

One cup of tea later, Claire took Sally into the study and showed her Stefan's email.

‘Sounds like he's made up his mind.' Sally peered at the screen. ‘I think he's being very sensible. Think of those poor children out there in the garden. I think he's doing the right thing, putting a stop to it before innocent people get hurt.'

‘What about you?' asked Claire. ‘You've left your husband. What about
your
children?'

‘For one thing, I didn't have much choice. The man was doing goodness knows what in front of a computer screen. Please don't tell me I should have just ignored it and carried on as before. I will never get the image of that barely dressed snake woman out of my head – I'm seriously traumatised. And secondly, I didn't have a home like this to deprive the twins of.' Sally took Claire's face in her hands. ‘I'm sure you can make things work with William. He's the father of your children, you've lived with him for years, and you've made a lovely home together. It's not worth walking away from. You hardly know this Stefan man.'

‘It's all right,' said Claire with a sigh. ‘I can feel all my determination seeping away. I'm not going anywhere.'

‘Good!' said Sally. ‘Now I want you to promise me one thing.' She smiled at Claire. ‘Next time you don't really, sort of, have an affair and fall in love with another man, could you let me know sooner so it's not such a shock? Between you and Gareth I feel as if I've started living in a bloody soap opera.'

‘I can promise you now,' said Claire. ‘There won't be a next time. I can't ever go through this again.'

‘Look at me being all domestic!' Sally took away the barely touched sandwich she had made Claire after she'd fed five children beans on toast.

‘Thank you,' said Claire gratefully.

Sally sat down beside her at the table and feigned exhaustion.

‘All that cooking's worn me out for the day!'

‘Can I ask you something, Sally?'

‘If it's my recipe for beans on toast I can't tell you, or if I did I'd have to kill you – it's top secret?'

‘Are you really as happy as you seem, now that you've separated from Gareth?'

‘No,' replied Sally. ‘It's been the worst weekend of my life. If I'm being honest, I'm heartbroken. I miss his lazy body lounging on the sofa. I miss his smelly clothes left lying all over the floor. I miss the way he always held me close to him in the night. I miss the greasy frying pan he always left on top of the hob. I suppose I just miss
him
. I keep finding bits of his Iron Maiden T-shirt all over the garden and holding them up to my face to see if I can catch his smell. I've been crying myself to sleep, the boys are playing up even more than usual, and Gareth keeps phoning me in tears. I love him. I don't want to live my life without him, but I'll never forgive him for what he put me through, for what he destroyed, so this is how it has to be.'

Claire took Sally's hand in hers. She looked so sad.

Suddenly Sally pulled herself up and smiled. ‘I'm hoping this could be the start of a whole new me though. Fitter, slimmer, more dynamic. I'm giving up sugar, including Jelly Babies, and crisps, and eating more than one family-sized pizza at a time, and I bought some running shoes this morning and I'm going to sign up for a retail management course in September. I'll show Gareth that I don't need him any more. Then he'll be so sorry.'

‘Good for you, Sally.'

Sally stood up. ‘Now, I think, Madame Bovary, that it's time to cheer ourselves up. I've already put a bottle of William's best Chardonnay in the freezer to chill and I'm going to open that box of Thornton's chocolates I found in the back of your jam cupboard. The new me doesn't start until tomorrow.'

Chapter Twenty-three

‘Dark rooms were easily opened up into light-filled living spaces.'

The week passed slowly, painfully. Claire cooked meals, took the children to play at friends' houses, drove them to an endless stream of birthday parties, Ben had his stitches out, and she pushed a trolley up and down the aisles at Waitrose almost every day.

‘You look peaky, dear,' the woman on the checkout said. ‘Summer cold?'

‘Yes,' said Claire, not meeting her eye.

She couldn't sleep. At night she sat for hours in the silence of the house drinking tea out of her camellia cup, ironing, answering Emily Love emails, sweeping the floor, and trying not to hope for word from Stefan.