Walking Back to Happiness (3 page)

‘I don’t think Louise personally stops crimes happening,’ said Juliet.

‘I do,’ said Diane. ‘They don’t get off when she’s prosecuting. They know that.’

‘But didn’t she say she wanted to be a full-time mum when Toby was born?’ Juliet forced herself not to do a sarcastic impression of the smug lectures they’d suffered about the importance of a Play-Doh-wielding mother figure in a child’s formative years. ‘I thought Peter was fine about her staying at home while he went out and played computer games for a living?’

‘He doesn’t play computer games. He
designs
them. As well you know. Anyway, it’s not about that,’ said Diane. ‘She’s spent a lot of time working her way up. She shouldn’t throw it away.’

That was such a 180-degree swivel from her previous position that Diane blushed while Juliet’s jaw dropped open. Luckily for both of them, the yelling started up in the garden with new ferocity.

As Diane made a cat’s bum face at the racket, it occurred to Juliet that the alternative to sitting Coco might be sitting Toby while her mother looked after Minton. That she definitely wasn’t up for, for any number of reasons.

‘Whatever,’ she said, raising her voice above the cacophony. ‘Bring Coco round.’

‘Thanks, love,’ said Diane. ‘Tuesday, Wednesday, alternate Thursdays. Now then,’ she added, the serious business dispensed with, ‘I might just spoil myself with a KitKat . . .’

As she dipped into the biscuit barrel, something clattered against the kitchen window and a shriek went up. Something about Spike’s inhaler.

Chapter 2

Louise had made a list the night before of all the things she needed to do before leaving for her first day back at work, but it hadn’t calmed her down. If anything, it made her panic that she’d forgotten something really important, and wouldn’t realise until she was back in her office.

Eighteen months she’d been off, with Toby. It felt like a lot longer. It felt like starting again as a trainee, with the butterflies in her stomach. Worse, because she was meant to know what she was doing.

She slugged back a mouthful of lukewarm coffee and blinked at the neat column of tasks, bullet-pointed in order of importance.

Pack Toby’s day bag.
She was doing that now.

Defrost Toby’s lunch/pack in cool bag.

Remind Peter re nursery direct debit.
Even part-time, it was stretching them. Peter had kept his gym membership but hers had gone. Thank God for her mother.

Check Juliet up/awake.

She grimaced, then picked up the kitchen phone and pressed the speed-dial button for her sister. It was impossible to predict what mood you’d get with Juliet. Spacey and miserable was the best option. Openly hostile and/or crying was the worst. Louise hated hearing her cry, but she wasn’t good at vague comfort, like her mother was, and she’d run out of helpful, practical things to say. Juliet had never been the easiest person to help.

It rang several times, and then Juliet answered, with a sleepy yawn.

Louise glanced at the clock. Ten to eight. This didn’t bode well for her schedule.

‘Morning,’ she said brightly, tapping her nail against the marble counter. Pale pink speed dry varnish. Slapped on last night in an attempt to bolster her confidence. ‘Up and about?’

‘Yes,’ said Juliet.

‘All set to drive over to Mum’s? To get Coco?’

‘There’s no need to remind me, I am aware of the orders.’ Juliet’s voice sounded teenage on the phone. Cross and resentful – and deliberately pushing it. ‘Remind me again why we all have to go to Mum’s? You’re nearer.’

‘Mum doesn’t have the right kind of car seat for Toby.’

‘What? She’s got some sort of seat in the back of her car, hasn’t she?’

Louise removed the spoon from Toby’s fat little hands and wiped his face. He looked cross, about as cross as Juliet sounded, and Louise flinched. He
knew
she was planning to abandon him. He had Peter’s eyes: trusting, and blinky.

‘It’s not the right one. Don’t say anything – she went to a lot of bother. I’m going to swap it.’

Juliet made a noise. ‘How did she get the wrong one? I thought you had a nursery list. I mean, there was only one suitable baby sling, wasn’t there? And one bouncer?’

Louise ignored the tone in Juliet’s voice, the same way she tuned out the defence solicitor’s insinuating tones in court. Just the facts.

‘I’m dealing with it. But in the meantime, it’s easier if I drop Toby off and you go round to get Coco. Before eight fifteen, ideally.’ She wiped the side of the high chair as she spoke, then dropped the wipe into the bin.

‘And what if I don’t have the right sort of car for the dog?’

Oh, stop it, Juliet, thought Louise. We’re all tired. We’re all stressed.

‘You do,’ she said patiently. ‘Ben took Minton to work every day in the exact van that’s parked outside your house. Coco will be fine in the back.’

There was a pause. Louise didn’t like doing this to Juliet, forcing her out of her shell like a reluctant crab, but it was the only way. Sometimes it was better when there was only one way. That was her current mantra: forward, forward, forward, and don’t look back.

She turned to put Toby’s empty breakfast bowl in the dishwasher and her eye snagged on the long, framed photo of her wedding day, hanging in pride of place over the kitchen table. The brand new Mr and Mrs Davies, caught in the three different stages of their first dance: in a romantic ballroom hold, then Peter’s arm slung round her waist as she tipped trustingly backwards, then the
Dirty Dancing
lift they’d practised for weeks, way before it was fashionable to have big, show-stopping, choreographed numbers.

All two hundred guests were gazing open-mouthed in their direction, clearly wowed by geeky Peter and cool Louise transformed into slick dancers, but she and Peter were locked in each other’s eyes, as if there was no one else there.

They looked familiar, but that wasn’t her. It certainly wasn’t Peter. Not just because they were thinner and polished; something else was different. They looked like a couple. And, Louise realised with a guilty start, that six years on, the first thing she noticed about the photo was how elegant the table settings were.

She pulled herself up. She was
lucky
to have her husband. Reliable, cheerful Peter, who’d turned his passion for computers into a profitable software company. Peter, who joked that he’d never leave her, because that would mean dismantling their wireless set-up. Even talking to Juliet made her feel grateful that it wasn’t her sitting in a half-decorated tip, smelling of dogs and only eating KitKats.

Louise forced a cheerful note in her voice. Juliet responded very badly to pity.

‘I’m setting off now, so if you leave in the next five minutes, we’ll dovetail perfectly. You don’t even have to get dressed. Put a coat on over your pyjamas if you want – it’s what most of the school run mums do.’

‘I get dressed in the mornings,’ said Juliet huffily. ‘I’m a widow, not an invalid.’

‘Good. I’m glad to hear it!’

The bathroom door opened upstairs and then three seconds later, Peter’s feet trotted down the stairs, the same perky one-two-three, one-two-three gallop she heard every morning. He swept past her, smelling of mouthwash and aftershave, heading for the kitchen to pick up the apple for his lunchbox. She knew, from the detailed explanation over last night’s dinner, that his small company were doing some kind of communal health kick.

‘Morning,’ he called out as he passed. ‘Hell-o, my big boy!’ he went on, in much more enthusiastic tones, seeing Toby in his high chair. Toby clapped his hands with delight, and Louise suppressed a twinge of irritation. Fed, dressed, washed was Toby’s natural state as far as Peter was concerned, never mind the hour it had taken to get him to that stage while Peter was in the shower.

‘Was that Peter? He sounds cheerful,’ observed Juliet. ‘I thought Toby was teething?’

‘Peter has the luxury of earplugs.’ Louise followed him into the kitchen, trying not to catch her own haggard reflection in the hall mirror. ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes, OK? Please don’t be late. It’s my first day back and I know they’ll all be waiting for me to turn up late covered in sick.’

‘Isn’t it normally your clients who turn up covered in sick?’

‘Very funny. Come on, we need to leave.’

‘What time can I bring Coco back to Mum’s?’

‘Five-ish? I should be back by five.’ Louise ignored the whine in Juliet’s voice, and began to gather the various colour-coded bags together: Toby’s toys, his food, change of clothes. All prepared the night before while Peter was upstairs ‘researching’ some online game. ‘I appreciate this.’

‘It’s not a problem. I’d never forgive myself if Toby got some dog hair in his yoghurt.’

‘No one’s—’

‘Dogs aren’t all slavering killers, you know.’

‘I’m not saying they are,’ said Louise. She didn’t have the time or the inclination to let Juliet get on her doggy soapbox, but she could feel herself being drawn into one of their routine squabbles. ‘But Mum can’t be everywhere at once. She’d never forgive herself if Toby shoved a pencil up Coco’s nose or something. Look, why are you taking this so personally? It’s not personal.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Is it because I didn’t ask you to babysit?’

‘No!’ Juliet sounded horrified. ‘I just . . .’

There was a pause at the end of the line that Louise might have listened to more carefully if she hadn’t been trying to juggle the phone and extract Toby from his chair, while indicating to Peter that the washing machine needed emptying before he left the house. ‘Fine,’ she said instead. ‘I’ll see you at Mum’s. Fifteen minutes.’

Juliet’s Victorian villa was in a suburb of Longhampton called Rosehill, a pub-and-church village that had been swallowed up as the town sprawled outwards in the prosperous years before the war when Longhampton had temporarily been the jam-and-preserve capital of the Midlands.

Her parents lived on the other side of town in an executive new-build estate that had what her dad called ‘decent-sized garages’. Getting over there meant tackling Longhampton’s complicated one-way system, something Juliet only enjoyed doing at night. At night, she could sweep around the empty lanes, letting the signs dictate her route round the ornate red-brick town hall and the park with its stiff-necked tulips that Ben had always laughed at. At rush hour, however, it was clogged with angry, impatient traffic.

Juliet was only at the first of five roundabouts, and hadn’t moved for ten minutes. The tension headache that had started as she left the security of her house intensified as the radio kept reminding her that she was going to be late, then later, and her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

The van was heating up, and it seemed to release traces of Ben’s familiar smell. Soap. Earth. Sweat. But there was nowhere to pull over and cry, like she could at night, so Juliet swallowed and turned up the radio, forcing herself to sing so she wouldn’t think.

It wasn’t great, but it was an improvement on the weeks when she couldn’t even open the van door, and her dad had had to run it round the block for her to keep the battery charged.

She struggled through the traffic, keeping her cool for Minton’s safety’s sake, and finally parked outside her mum’s house, behind Louise’s Citroën Picasso. Coco was sitting on the doorstep, an anxious expression on her elderly face. If she’d had a label and a little suitcase, she couldn’t have looked more tragic, thought Juliet.

‘At last!’ Diane came rushing out. She had a pinny tied over her navy slacks, a J cloth in one hand and Dettol spray in the other. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Juliet. She opened her door, leaving Minton sticking his nose out of the gap in the passenger window.

‘We were starting to get worried.’ Diane was peering at her, checking for signs of widowly meltdown. ‘We thought you . . . Well, you’re here now. Come on in, Louise is just getting Toby settled.’

Juliet wanted to point out that Louise was only going back to work, not going into space. It was just another step in her perfect life plan.
She
was the one who no longer had a life plan.

‘Oh, finally,’ said Louise when she entered the kitchen.

It was spotless. Diane’s standards had ramped right up with the arrival of Toby. She’d even bought a steam cleaner to meet Louise’s exacting criteria on hygiene, and the kitchen smelled pine-fresh. Juliet noted that she was the only person wearing shoes, including her dad, who was keeping well out of it in the sitting room, studying a Guide to Wales with his beige-socked feet up on a stool and his reading glasses perched on his bald head.

‘Hello, Dad!’ she called through.

‘
Bore da
, Juliet
cariad
!
Shw mae
?’ he said, then added, ‘Don’t ask me anything else, it’s as far as we’ve got.’

Louise rolled her eyes and unpacked some home-frozen food from the cool bag. ‘Any excuse to get out of the house,’ she muttered.

‘Just because I’m old doesn’t mean my brain’s gone,’ said Eric. ‘Or my hearing.’

‘
Bore da
, Toby,’ said Juliet.

Toby gazed solemnly back at her from the table with Peter’s round brown eyes, topped with Louise’s blonde hair. Though she’d never actually said it out loud, Juliet was always reminded of penguins when she saw Toby. Fluffy, serious penguin chicks, regarding the world from under Louise’s protective feet.

‘Well done, you, for driving over here in the traffic.’ Diane appeared from the hall, closed the door behind her to keep Coco at bay and grabbed Juliet’s hands. She squeezed them, as she would a small child. ‘That’s another hurdle you’re over, eh? The roundabouts in rush hour!’

Juliet smiled wanly.

‘Now, I’ve made a list.’ Diane dug in her bag and handed her a piece of paper. ‘It’s very important that you take Coco out before eleven. She always needs to do a –’ she dropped her voice – ‘a
solid toilet
after breakfast but before her main walk. I usually take her out at lunchtime, once round the park, and up to the woods alternate days. Today’s a wood day. She likes to be on the lead going up, but not coming back – it makes her feel more grown-up. I haven’t fed her because going in the car makes her gassy, so here’s a bag with her kibble. Try her on half a cup before—’