Summer at Shell Cottage (5 page)

Harriet, feeling slightly silly standing there in a pair of huge, unflattering, for-her-eyes-only control pants, positioned her arms over her bare breasts and bad choice of underwear.
‘What do you mean, oh shit?’

‘I .
.
.’
He raked a hand through his hair and sighed.
‘Oh, love.
I thought I’d told you.
I got it wrong, about it being a plus-one thing.’

‘You mean .
.
.
?’
Her heart beat wildly.
He
hadn’t
told her.
There was no way she would have forgotten him telling her, not when she’d been stressing out all
week about this effing party.
The effing party to which she hadn’t even been invited, as it turned out.
And now she’d obliterated her own eyebrows and brought on a virulent leg rash for
nothing!
‘I’m not going?’

He shook his head and sat down on the bed.
Harriet put on her dressing gown, feeling like the biggest idiot ever.

‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘I’m such a doofus.
And here you are, getting all ready .
.
.’

She tried to smile, although she probably still looked surprised from the stupid eyebrows.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said but inside she was deflating like a punctured balloon.
No cocktails, then.
No party.
No make-up and high heels and frock.
No giggling about all the goss to her friends at work on Monday morning.
(‘So I was saying to Zadie, right .
.
.’)

‘It does matter.
Of course it does!’
He looked at her wretchedly and somehow, despite the punctured-balloon sensation, she felt her stomach flip ever so slightly at his hangdog eyes.
‘Look – let’s blow it out,’ he said.
‘Let’s forget the dumb party, and go out, just the two of us, and have a laugh somewhere instead.
I’d much rather be
with you.’

She shook her head.
‘No, don’t worry, honestly.’
It was a relief really, she told herself.
For the best.
She hadn’t truly wanted to go anyway, had she?
But .
.
.

‘But you’ve got your sexy pants on and everything,’ he said, flicking the top of the elastic (with some effort, admittedly; he’d probably broken a finger in the attempt).
‘They’re all Matron-esque and forbidding.
I’m getting stirrings just thinking about them.’

She pulled a face.
‘I’m glad someone is.
I feel completely numb from the waist down.
God knows how I’m ever going to get them off again.’

He made a growling noise in his throat.
‘Now there’s a challenge .
.
.
Come here, gorgeous.
Let’s see if we can do something about that.’

Forty-five minutes later, Robert left in a cloud of aftershave and further apologies and Harriet tried not to feel too disconsolate.
Oh well, she told herself, putting on her
pyjamas and trudging downstairs.
There would be other parties, wouldn’t there?
Lots of other parties.
Not going tonight would give her more time to brush up on some clever things to say and
hunt down a fancy dress and sparkly shoes.

She tried not to think about those fabulous white stucco houses near Regent’s Park where the publisher lived – she’d been dying to have a nose around inside – and poured
herself an exceedingly pokey vodka tonic instead.
‘Cocktails, shlocktails,’ she said, drinking it down in three eye-watering gulps.

Just as she was on the verge of nosediving into a gloomy all-by-myself mood, Molly came back from Chloe’s house – ‘I got a lift from Chlo’s dad, don’t worry,
Mum’ – and she was pink in the cheeks and giggly, her phone pinging with new text messages which made her eyes shine even more.
Harriet felt better listening to her daughter talk about
her day and the forthcoming end-of-term party the Year 10s were throwing, and was warmed by thoughts of what a beautiful creature Molly was, all long legs and Bambi eyes and big tawny hair.

She flicked on the television.
The Alan Carr show was just starting, and they snuggled up together on the sofa, both cackling as Alan exclaimed theatrically about the week he’d just had.
There were worse Friday nights, Harriet reminded herself as Molly leaned against her.
As for the party .
.
.
what party?
She was so over it already.

Meanwhile, Robert glanced over his shoulder as he came out of Tottenham Court Road Tube station, then let himself become swallowed up by the crowd as he headed into Soho.
He
loved warm, grimy London on a Friday evening in summer, when everyone was in a good mood from finishing work and there was nothing better to do than sit outside your favourite pub and put the world
to rights with your mates.
It was at times like this he missed having a proper job and being able to clock off, bosh, on the stroke of five thirty.
He even missed the camaraderie of the courier
firm, the banter between the lads, the adrenalin rush as you bested a van driver, the joy of being outdoors each day rather than on the wrong side of a window.
Still.
He’d made his bed.
He
had to lie in it now.

He wandered past pizzerias and nail bars, second-hand bookshops and bondage gear haunts, past the theatres and brightly lit restaurants which were already drawing in queues of backpack-laden,
selfie-snapping tourists.
On and on he walked, winding his way through the busy streets until he ducked down a side road and, with a final check over his shoulder, slipped into The Loyal Hound pub,
dingy and beer-smelling, the perfect place to hide.
He ordered a pint of bitter and a plate of chips then parked himself at an empty table with a good view of the boxing match now starting on the
TV.
Just for good measure, he switched off his phone.

With a flash of guilt, he thought about his wife at home, with her party dresses returned to the darkness of the wardrobe.
‘Sorry, love,’ he had said, and he
was
sorry.
Harriet was all good.
She was cherry-red lipstick and a great bum in a pencil skirt.
A woman who cried at soap opera weddings (seriously) and strung fairy lights around the bedroom, yet went out
each day and fought hard for all the vulnerable children in her care.
She grew flowers in the garden and collected vintage perfume bottles and could still outdo anyone on the most bad-ass curry
without breaking a single bead of sweat.

Oh yes.
Harriet was awesome.
But right now, he wasn’t sure he deserved such a woman.
Right now, it was hard to look her in the eye and tell her yet another lie.

He just had to have a bit of faith, he reminded himself bracingly, posting another chip in his mouth.
He had to hang in there and wait for his luck to change.
And it would, any day soon.
It had
to.

‘Freya?
Have you got a minute?
I need to speak to you.’

It was eight thirty on Monday morning, but Freya already felt as if she’d lived through an entire week of stress.
Dexter had woken up remembering too late that he had a geography test that
day and had glowered and thundered like one of the volcanoes in his text book.
Teddy had turned the clean laundry pile into a crumpled mess looking for his Spider-Man socks, even though there were
at least five other pairs of perfectly wearable socks neatly balled together in his drawer.
And Libby had casually announced at breakfast that her class was having a tea party that afternoon, and
she needed to bring in some party food.
With their kitchen cupboards currently home to an assortment of ageing tins – kidney beans, peach slices in syrup, the wrong kind of mushy peas –
all old enough to start claiming a pension (she really must get to the supermarket, preferably sometime this century), the only thing remotely party-ish in there was a packet of chocolate
digestives.
Unfortunately, when presented with this option, Libby got very cross, moaning that digestive biscuits weren’t at
all
party-ish, and that everyone else’s mums would
have baked cupcakes with swirly icing.
‘Well, if you’d just told me a bit
earlier
,’ Freya said through gritted teeth, feeling her patience stretching bubblegum-thin.

‘Yeah, if you’d told her earlier, Mum could have bought a packet of Hula Hoops as well.
Big woo,’ muttered Dexter sarcastically from where he was simultaneously woofing down
most of a large box of cornflakes and memorizing a map of Central America.

Freya counted to twenty under her breath in an attempt to stop herself screaming, wondered for a few deluded moments whether she should attempt to make some icing and decorate the chocolate
biscuits to look more festive – no, crazy idea, was she
insane
?
– then resorted to making their packed lunches instead.
Their packed lunches which – because she was in
dire need of a supermarket trip – were woefully boring (leftover-roast-chicken sandwich, apple, some bits of cheese and crackers) and would no doubt show up her poor neglected children yet
again compared to the packed lunches of their friends (mini salads and freshly baked sausage rolls and fairy cakes with sodding swirly icing).
Aaargh.
She thought viciously of her husband Victor,
almost certainly still fast asleep at the residential police-training centre, and deaf to all of this, and felt very much like driving down there and setting off an air horn outside his window.
Just to be spiteful.
Just so that he could share the suffering.

On the way to school, she was cut up at two different traffic lights by impatient drivers, one of whom gave her the finger.
Then she had to tell off Dexter, who had taken to using his own
invented rhyming slang wherever possible, in this case calling the second driver a ‘total Talamanca’.

‘Dexter, that’s enough,’ Freya snapped.

‘What?
I only called him a Talamanca.
It’s an area in Costa Rica.
I thought you’d be pleased I had learned something for my geography test.’

‘Tala
manca,
’ Teddy echoed gleefully, and Freya groaned deep in her throat.
Great.
And of course that would be all round the infant classes within five minutes of the day
starting, you wait.
Knowing her luck, there would be a polite phone call from the deputy head later that day:
Dr Castledine, nothing to worry about, we’re just a little concerned about
some of the language Teddy has been using lately .
.
.

Just try it, love
, Freya thought grimly.
And then I can guarantee you’ll hear some
really
bad language.

She hadn’t imagined motherhood to be like this.
Years ago, the summer she was pregnant with Dexter, she and Vic had been in Devon and had gone out for the day to a National Trust property
– a big beautiful house by the sea with sprawling, flower-filled gardens.
They’d paused for a picnic and watched, smiling, as a family had rolled down the steep grassy hill together,
laughing, then tumbled into a tangle of arms and legs at the bottom.
We’ll be like that
, Freya had thought happily, one hand resting on her bump as they munched their cheese and
salad sandwiches.
We’ll be the sort of family that rolls down hills in the sunshine, just for fun.

Only, as it turned out, they were the sort of family who squabbled in cars and never got anywhere on time and lurched from one laundry and party-food crisis to another.

And now she had arrived at work, trying to put the mayhem out of her mind, turning her head as usual to avoid the GOT A PROBLEM?
poster (
Oh, bore off
), but just five minutes after her
arrival, in had come Elizabeth, the manager of the GP practice, asking if she could ‘have a word’.
Monday, you total Talamanca
, Freya thought under her breath as she tried to
contort her face into something resembling a pleasant smile.
‘Of course!’
she replied with faux cheer.

Dr Elizabeth Donnelly was a tall, chic fifty-something woman, always immaculately turned out, with keen grey eyes that seemed to look right into you; Freya had often imagined Elizabeth’s
patients squirming uncomfortably as they confessed in a reluctant mumble that yes, okay, they probably did drink more than ten units a week, and no, all right, they supposed they didn’t
really do enough exercise, you got me there, doc.

Now that cool grey gaze was turned on Freya and she was immediately gripped by a forgotten-my-homework lurch of anxiety.
Was something amiss?
She’d come into work so hungover last Friday
she must have reeked of alcohol but whiffing a bit hokey wasn’t a crime, was it?
She swallowed, trying to push down her nerves and wishing she’d thought to chew more gum and spray on
extra perfume that day.

‘Have a seat,’ she said, gesturing to the empty chair in front of her desk.

Elizabeth closed the door and sat down with a beige cardboard file on her lap.
‘I believe you saw Ava Taylor and her mother last week,’ she began.

‘Ava and Melanie?
Yes.’
Freya gave a short laugh.
‘I see them pretty regularly, to be honest.’

Elizabeth wasn’t smiling.
If anything, she looked severe.
She opened the file, removing a handwritten letter.
‘And according to Melanie, when they came in last Thursday, you sent her
away without a prescription, telling her Ava had – ’ she peered at the blue notepaper – ‘a summer cold.’

Freya’s heart banged hard as Elizabeth raised her head and looked steadily at her, waiting for a response.
She didn’t like the sound of this.
Why had Melanie written to Elizabeth
about her appointment?
What was going on?
She tried to compose herself and remember the exact exchanges of the visit.
‘I examined Ava and she had a slight temperature as I recall,’ she
said.

‘You told Mrs Taylor, and I quote from her letter, “She has a bit of a sniffle and is probably just feeling sorry for herself”.’

Freya reddened.
Her own words sounded glib and heartless when repeated back like that.
‘Well, you know, Melanie does tend to overinflate every ailment,’ she said defensively.
‘Ava was displaying cold symptoms, but seemed quite cheerful otherwise.
She wasn’t distressed or unresponsive.’
She recalled the curious gaze of the baby as Freya had examined
her, the way Ava had bounced her hands around and how it had reminded her of a piano player.
That wasn’t an ill, fractious baby, was it?
‘I advised Melanie – Mrs Taylor – to
give her plenty of fluids and some Calpol if her temperature rose any higher.’
Come on
, she wanted to say to Elizabeth.
What’s your point here?
Any doctor would have said
the same thing.
Melanie is neurotic, that’s all.

‘Unfortunately, Ava must have deteriorated quite rapidly after she came in,’ Elizabeth said in her unnervingly calm, measured way.
‘She was admitted to A&E later that
night, gravely ill, where she was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia.
She’s been in intensive care ever since.’

All the air seemed to leave Freya’s lungs.
For a moment she felt as breathless as poor tiny Ava must have done.
‘Oh God,’ she said hoarsely.
She
had
listened to
Ava’s chest, though, she told herself.
She was sure she’d listened, and there had been no wheezing or any shortness of breath.
Had there?
All of a sudden she couldn’t be certain.
She’d been on automatic pilot, feeling miserable and thinking about drinking gin, she remembered guiltily.

Her mouth dry, she took a gulp of too-hot coffee, barely noticing the way it scalded.
Bronchial pneumonia,
shit.
That was never good, particularly when it concerned a six-month-old
infant.
‘Is she going to be okay?’

‘Mrs Taylor didn’t go into details.’
Elizabeth gave a small sigh.
‘I’m afraid to say, she has made an official complaint about your conduct and the way you handled
her inquiry.’
She glanced back down at the letter.
‘She claims you were negligent and didn’t take her worries seriously.
She also claims that because of your response – that
Ava was healthy and merely had a cold – she delayed going to the hospital because she didn’t want to make a fuss.’

Melanie Taylor didn’t want to make a fuss?
Christ, that would be a first.
Freya couldn’t help but fight her corner.
‘Elizabeth, I don’t believe I was negligent,’
she said, trying to control the trembling in her voice.
‘I gave the baby an examination, I checked her temperature and breathing, I looked in her mouth.
Her chest was clear, her throat looked
a bit sore – which I did mention to Mrs Taylor – but there was no evidence of coughing or rapid breathing, and only a slight fever.’
She was getting into her stride now, voice
rising.
‘I’m sorry to hear that Ava’s condition worsened so quickly, but isn’t that often the case with bronchial pneumonia in infants?
I’m not a fortune teller, I
can’t see three hours into the future when a baby takes a turn for the worse!’

Oops.
She probably shouldn’t have said that last bit.
She’d been doing so well until then, too.
Now she could feel herself getting pink in the face and rattled.

Elizabeth’s gaze was coolly appraising as always.
Her eyebrows twitched together in a small frown and then, after an agonizing pause, she said delicately, ‘I don’t like to ask
this, as I’m sure it must be wrong, but Mrs Taylor has also accused you of .
.
.
er .
.
.
“drinking on the job”, as she called it.
Obviously, I am confident this is a ridiculous
claim but I have to mention it to you, as your manager.
She said she saw a bottle of alcohol in your handbag.’

Hot colour flared in Freya’s cheeks and she couldn’t speak for a moment.
‘That’s just .
.
.’
She spluttered, the words refusing to be summoned.
‘That’s
ludicrous,’ she got out, crossing her fingers under the desk.
‘And completely untrue.’

Oh no.
So Melanie
had
seen the gin bottle sticking out like that.
No wonder she had gone nuclear.
Freya hung her head, unable to look Elizabeth in the eye.
It was, without a doubt, the
worst moment ever in her professional career.
She had not been drinking on the job.
Sure, she might have been momentarily tempted, and yes, she’d felt miserable enough to have a bottle of gin
at hand for that evening’s recreational use.
But she hadn’t actually drunk any at work.
Ever.
It wasn’t as if she had a
problem
!

Elizabeth cleared her throat.
‘Is everything all right, Freya?’
she asked gently.
‘I know you’ve recently lost your father, but .
.
.’

Freya’s palms became clammy.
Don’t say her boss believed Melanie.
Had Elizabeth noticed all those early-morning hangovers, the scent of desperation that had clung so persistently in
recent weeks?
Her imagination went into overdrive and she found herself envisaging random bag-checks for all staff members, a breathalyser installed in the reception area.