Falling in Love Again (37 page)

50

KAREN

She felt both excited and scared as she opened the front door and dumped the case in the hall. Did Clive mean what he’d said in the text that had only just come through, when she’d reached Southampton?

All three cats came out to meet her, mewing madly. Don’t say Adam had forgotten to feed them as she’d asked in the note? No. It was all right, judging from the empty cans in the bin. Nicely over-fed. Just the way she had hoped.

She looked down at her phone to check Clive’s message again.

Did it work?  Will ring to see. Dinner?

First things first. Had his idea worked? She’d only know for certain if she rang Adam or even Hayley. But if it hadn’t, they might both be cross with her. When would he ring? And dinner? She was tired. But she wanted to see him again. She really did. And this time it wasn’t like wanting to see some of the others she’d ‘seen’ over the years. Somehow, this felt completely different.

A key in the lock!

‘Adam?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Hayley!’

It had seemed so long since she’d seen her! How she’d missed her cheerful face and her easy way about her. How she’d loved having another woman around whom she could laugh and joke with – not to mention her gorgeous chubby little grandson. ‘Josh!’ She flew to him, holding him close to her  before looking up at Hayley who was giving her a quizzical look.

‘Nice one.’

She flushed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Karen. You asked Adam to feed the cats when you were away. Dead on 6pm every night, you said. And at 8am every morning. Exactly the same times you put on your letter to me.’

Karen held her breath. ‘And?’

‘And we bumped into each other in the kitchen, just like you meant us to.’

‘And?’

She was beginning to smile now; just as Hayley was. Even better, she could see her aura again. Blue for energy!

‘Well, we’ve started talking again. It’s a start. He says he’s had some time to think about it and he knows it’s been difficult for me.’

‘So we thought we might start again.’ Adam’s deep voice came from the front door which, she realised was still open.

‘Thank God!’ A huge wave of relief flooded through her. They weren’t going to make the same mistakes she had. They were going to be all right. The three of them. And maybe one day . . .

‘On one condition.’

She looked up at her son. ‘What’s that?’

‘That you see Dad when he’s released. He’s coming out next week you know.’

Another flutter went through her. One that she couldn’t interpret. Excited. Scared.

‘All right.’

‘He wants you to meet him for dinner. On the Friday – when he comes out.’

‘Where?’

But even as she said it, she knew what her son was going to say.

‘The Black Horse.’

It had been their first date all those years ago. Their first date when she’d been a gawky young woman and he’d seemed so much older even though there was just a year between them.

‘All right. I’ll have dinner. But don’t you go getting any ideas, you two. It’s just dinner. Nothing else. OK?’

They grinned and Adam, she noticed happily, had his arm around Hayley. Why was it that children always wanted their separated parents to get back together – well, not always, but a lot of them.  And Paul had changed. She had to give him that. But had he changed enough?

‘There’s another thing.’ Adam looked worried. ‘It’s Gran. She’s not well. She wouldn’t let me call you before. But she’s in hospital.’

Alison rang her in a panic on the way. Something about her wedding ring which Sam had swallowed. The vet had told her not to worry – it happened. And it shouldn’t cause any complications unless Sam started to vomit, in which case she was going to take him in straight away. The ring might come out ‘the natural way’.

Normally, Karen would have worried. But Doris seemed more important.

‘Just another of her slight strokes,’ said the nurse.

‘Slight strokes?’ No one had  told her about the strokes before. Her mother-in-law was sitting propped up in bed with a two stiff, white pillows behind her. ‘Got the message, did you?’

‘I came as soon as I got it.’

‘Off gallivanting for the weekend, I hear?’

Doris looked as though she was smiling although maybe it was the way her lip was curled slightly at the edge. Not too bad this time, the nurse had said. Just a few muscles on the right side of her face including her mouth but it was showing signs of improvement.

‘Sort of. It was for my group.’

Another curled smile. ‘Ah yes. The dating thing.’

‘It’s not a dating thing, Doris. It’s a group to help single people get back on their feet.’

Doris patted the chair next to her. ‘Sit yourself down love and make yourself comfortable. ‘Sides you won’t be needing any more of those singles groups now, will you?’

Karen stiffened.

‘Don’t look like that, love. I know. The children told me. Our Paul wants to start again with you. Doesn’t he?’

‘No.’ Karen shook her head. ‘I don’t know. We’re having dinner. That’s all.’

Doris’s eyes grew soft and milky. ‘But you’ll give him a chance, won’t you, love? He needs it. He’s coming to live with me when he’s out you know and when I go, well the flat could be yours.’

Don’t try to buy me, Karen wanted to scream. ‘I have my own home, thank you,’ she said softly.

‘Yes love. But a woman like you doesn’t want to go on working for the rest of her life, does she? She needs a man to look after her. And our Paul has changed like I said. He’s always loved you, Karen. No one else. And I think you’re the same. Otherwise why didn’t you get a divorce and settle down with one of those boyfriends you’ve had over the years?’

Karen couldn’t get Doris’s words out of her head for the rest of the day. It was true. Why hadn’t she ever settled down? The weird thing was that there had been so much about Paul that was wrong and yet she’d still missed him after he’d gone.

Was it true that once you’d had children with one man, you could never really feel the same about a man with whom you hadn’t had children?

In some ways, she’d have given anything to have cancelled Clive, even though she’d been looking forward to seeing him until going to the hospital. Maybe she just needed a quiet night at home instead.

The restaurant was full. As she opened the door, Karen began to wish that she’d agreed to Clive’s first suggestion that he pick her up at home.

‘You’re here!’

He was already waiting at the table. ‘I had some missed calls from you. Thought something had happened and you had to cancel.’

She nodded as she slid into her chair but not before Clive had jumped up and pulled it back for her, beating the waiter to it. ‘I nearly did.’

‘Why?’

She stopped, interrupted by the waiter who wanted to give her the menu. ‘Because something has happened.’

‘Tell me.’

So she did. Clive was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt. He listened; made noises in the right places and quietly passed her a handkerchief – a real white linen one – when her eyes moistened at one point.

‘It seems to me as though they’re all trying to get you to do something you’re not sure about.’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

‘And you feel you ought to do what you see as the right thing with your ex-husband, first because you left him – for reasons which I have to say are very understandable – and secondly because he needs someone to look after him when he comes out of prison.’

Very true.

‘But what do YOU want, Karen?’

His hands slid out across the table.

‘What do you really want out of life?’

They were holding hers now. Every muscle in her body was tingling. Every fibre bursting into fire. I want you to take me home, she screamed inside. I want you to do things I never thought I could think of. I want to feel those strong, brown arms around me. I want you to talk while we’re making love so I know it’s me that you’re thinking of.

Then suddenly, he took his hands away. ‘I don’t want to push you, Karen. But you’re a lovely woman. You shouldn’t do something out of a sense of guilt. It’s time to think of yourself now. Tell you what, let’s order, shall we? You look as though you could do with something inside you.’

Two dinners with two different men in one week! It almost felt like sleeping with both men although, of course, that wasn’t on the cards. Not at all. And it was nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with that woman from the psychic fair.

The Black Horse! In some ways, that was romantic and in others, unimaginative. There he was, sitting at the table. Again, she hadn’t allowed him to pick her up at the front door. Much better to have her own car parked outside so she could make a quick getaway.

‘Karen.’

He brushed her cheek.

She managed a smile. He was thinner. What had he been through? She could only imagine from the bits he’d told her. Not too bad at the last prison, apparently. Yes, he’d had to share a cell with a chap who was up all night. But then after six months, he was moved up to a cell on his own. There’d been an education department and even though he already had a degree, he did an OU which helped to pass the time. They’d even helped him find a job now he was out. It wasn’t much. No one in the accounts world would touch him now, which wasn’t surprising, so he’d got a job in  catering. It was a start, he told her.

She got all this through their stilted conversation which only became a little easier when they talked about ‘the children’.

‘Fantastic that they’ve got back together, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘I gather it was your idea.’ He smiled nervously. ‘Getting them to feed the cats at the same time.’

‘Actually it was a friend’s idea.’

She waited for him to ask more but he didn’t.

‘Mum’s being let out next week.’

‘I know. I dropped round on the way here.’

‘You did? What did she say?’

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of repeating Doris’s words about giving her husband another chance. ‘You know your mum.’

He smiled, and for a second there was that flash of mutual understanding. ‘I do.’

There was a short silence. He was looking increasingly nervous now. Part of her wanted to put her arms around him and say it was all right; that he was out now; that there’d always be a family waiting for him. And part of her wanted to skip the main meal which they’d already ordered and just run.

‘I don’t really feel hungry,’ he said.

‘Nor me!’

‘But we’ve ordered, haven’t we?’

‘Do you remember when . . .’

‘When we ordered a meal for our first date and then I realised I’d left my wallet behind?’

It had been so embarrassing at the time yet now it seemed funny.

‘You wanted to run.’

He nodded. ‘I’m ashamed to say I did. But you told the manager the truth and offered to wash up.’

‘He wouldn’t let us when we explained it was our first date so we went back and paid afterwards.’

They both laughed. What was it, she wondered, about the past that made everyone feel better about the present again?

‘You look really beautiful when you laugh.’ He was looking at her now in a way that made her skin tingle just as it had the other night. ‘I mean you look beautiful all the time but when you laugh, it’s even more beautiful.’

Embarrassment made her sound abrupt. ‘Come off it.’

‘No. I mean it.’

Heavens above. What was he doing?

‘Please. Get up.’ She was horribly aware of people looking at them. But he was down there. On one knee. With a box – a blue velvet box in his hands. ‘This was Mum’s. She gave it to me. It was her mother’s engagement ring. Please, Karen. Will you do me the honour of continuing to be my wife? For real and not just in name?’

51

LIZZIE

It had been odd leaving the children for two whole nights. Weird really, considering she’d been so used to leaving them during the day. ‘I couldn’t abandon mine like that,’  Sharon had said in the past when she, Lizzie, had had to work late.

 At the time, she’d just put it down to her friend’s lack of career aspirations or even abilities.

Only now did she realise she’d been trying to achieve the impossible. Running a home, two kids and a husband plus a demanding job could only be achieved if you had ‘help’. Not a ‘friend’ who had designs on your husband. Not someone who’d been having an affair with him for two whole years. A husband who seemed to have so few feelings for her or anyone else apart from himself. Was that what computers did for you? He probably thought you clicked on an envelope to open it.

Maybe she was cracking up after all. ‘Don’t be silly,’ her mother had said when she’d expressed concerns about leaving the kids to go on the group trip to the Isle of Wight. ‘Of course you are. It’s to be expected which is why you need a break. So do the kids. They need some time with Granny. What time did you say they went to bed again?’

Now, as she made her way to her parents’ house – or what had been her parents’ house before Dad had moved to the bottom of the garden – she felt some of that self-confidence from the weekend, and the balloon scene, ebb away. What was the point? She was still here, wasn’t she? Still in the same position with two kids to bring up on her own and a husband who had fathered someone else’s child. If this wasn’t so painfully real, Lizzie would have felt she was interviewing one of the many soap stars she’d featured in
Charisma
.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Sophie met her at the door and hugged her round the waist. That was nice.

‘Did you miss me?’

‘You were only gone for a bit. ‘Sides Granddad and I have been busy.’

Granddad?

‘That’s right dear.’ Her mother came bustling out of the downstairs cloakroom, drying her hands importantly. ‘Your father decided to come back into the house because he needed a wee.’

Not surprising.

‘Gran, I’ve told you before. It’s not called a wee. It’s called the Wee box.’ Sophie made one of those despairing noises that she always did when an adult said something stupid in her opinion. ‘You ought to be careful with it – he’s getting hooked if you ask me.’

Where was Jack?

‘Doing his project on the Ingots dear.’

The Incas? But it should have been handed in weeks ago.

‘Better late than never, as I’ve been telling your father all these years. You be careful, Lizzie. If you find someone else – and of course it’s very difficult in today’s market – everything stops working when you get to a certain age. And I’m not talking about the Retail Price Index. I’m talking about your bits and pieces.’

‘Mum!’ Lizzie jerked her head at her daughter.

‘It’s all right, dear. She’s plugged into her me-pod. Makes a change from the violin, I must say. Now did you have a good time?’

‘It wasn’t a holiday, Mum. It was a sort of break where we brain-stormed.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Your generation just doesn’t seem to know how to have fun. You ought to take a leaf out of our book. Your father has booked tickets for the theatre tomorrow night. A bit boring I know but that new chap – the one who’s in all the papers – is meant to be taking his clothes off. And then we’ve signed up for belly dancing classes. Well, I have. Your father’s put himself down for the Silver Surfers one at the local authority. Can’t understand why. There aren’t any beaches for miles.’

‘Hang on.’ This was all getting too much. ‘Do I take it that you and Dad have made up?’

‘Course we have!’

Lizzie swung round to see Dad wearing a sweatshirt with NEVER TOO OLD TO OGLE on the front. What had come over them?

‘It was your postcard that did it.’ Her father put an arm around Mum and it made her feel funny inside. ‘The one from the Isle of Wight. It brought back all those memories.’

‘Of when you were little and we took you there,’ chipped in Mum, almost girlishly. ‘Made us realise we couldn’t give up so many years.’

Thank heavens for that.

‘Talking of years,’ added Mum quietly. ‘There’s someone who wants to see you. In there.’

And before she knew what was happening, Lizzie found herself being pushed into the small room off the hall which was optimistically described as Dad’s study.

No. It couldn’t be.

‘Lizzie.’

Tom moved towards her, his eyes set in an expression which suggested he didn’t know how she was going to react. ‘Please – don’t turn round. Look at me.’

So she did. He looked thinner. Tired, which was to be expected given that he was probably up every night with a screaming baby. Or maybe he just stayed in bed like he used to when the children were little.

She knew exactly why he was there.

‘Don’t worry.’ She eyed him stonily. ‘I’ve signed them.’

‘Signed what?’

‘The papers. The ones that the solicitor sent. Very generous of you to admit unreasonable behaviour. I thought from what you and Sharon told me, that I’d brought it all on myself. Not paying you enough attention, I believe you said.’

‘Please.’ He caught hold of her sleeve. ‘I didn’t want to send them. Sharon made me.’

‘And I suppose Sharon made you have an affair in the first place?’

Tom sat down, covering his face with his hands. She almost felt sorry for him. Why couldn’t she feel any anger?

‘I deserve this. It is my fault – well partly. But I felt miserable, Lizzie. I didn’t feel you cared any more. You were always with the kids or working. It was never me you were interested in.’

Please! When he’d gone through this before at the beginning, she had agreed. Blamed herself. But now, with the hindsight of time and the group, she could see it more clearly.

‘It’s called family life, Tom. Everyone else copes. Anyone with morals that is.’

His face changed. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of having an affair. What about that photographer chap? You were pretty quick off the mark with him, weren’t you. Or is that over now?’

‘It never began actually.’

He snorted. ‘And you expect me to believe that. Listen, Lizzie. I’ve come here to say I’ve made a mistake.’ His face softened again and he stood up trying to hold her. ‘I miss you even though you look . . . different. I miss the kids. I miss coming back to my place instead of a house that belongs to someone else. I want to forget all this. Put it behind us. Be normal again.’

This was incredible! ‘And what about the baby – your baby.’

‘Providing it is mine . . .’

‘Stop.’

Lizzie could feel her anger now. Bubbling up inside her. Red and raw and as bright as the balloon she’d just released. ‘You need to feel the anger,’ Violet had said amidst the spits. ‘Only then, can you heal.’

Well she was feeling it now all right!

‘That baby’s the spitting image of you. It cries when it needs something and it only thinks about itself.’

‘That’s not very nice.’ Tom’s face was crumpling. ‘What about the kids. Don’t you want us to get back together for their sake?’

‘No.’

The word flew out of her mouth with more strength than she had known herself capable of. ‘It wouldn’t be for their sake. It would be for yours. And frankly, I think it would do them good to learn the real lesson in life.’

‘What’s that?’

That was something she’d got from the Isle of Wight weekend. ‘The importance of being true to yourself. Goodbye Tom. And here are the papers. You can take them with you. There’s a space for you to sign at the bottom.’

‘Wait! What will you do?’

‘I’m not sure yet. But you know what, Tom? I’ll survive. The solicitor says I have the right to stay in the house until the kids are older, just in case you and Sharon had designs on it.’

The look on his face suggested that that’s exactly what he might have had in mind. It made her feel braver. Surer about what she was doing. ‘In some ways, you’ve done me a favour in coming here. At least I finally know what you’re really like.’

He turned to go.

‘By the way. There is one thing you can have.’

‘Yes?’ He spoke hopefully.

‘That awful boat coffee table. It’s at the tip if you want to collect it. Providing it’s still there.’