‘You stay there,’ said Ted to his wife, putting a kiss on her forehead as Patrick and Joanne defused the row. ‘I’ll finish the tidying up. It’s only fair.’
‘OK,’ said Sam, content now to just sit there.
The rioters were eventually calmed by their parents with threats of timeouts. Joanne and Patrick made it look so easy, Sam thought.
She just hoped she’d be able to calm her own child half as well. Ted would be brilliant at it but, for a moment, she had a glimmer of anxiety: what if she was hopeless at that type of thing? What if she hadn’t a maternal bone in her body and should have stuck to dogs?
After all, her mother had swanned into the lunch, spoken little to the children and had had the gall to think that an email was an acceptable form of contact to find out how her pregnant daughter was.
What, Sam thought again – the thought that was circling endlessly in her brain – if she was just like her mother?
Cold, unyielding, unable to form a bond with her child?
What then?
PART THREE
The Birthday
Callie
It was nearly eleven o’clock on the night of her birthday and, in her bare feet, Callie stepped delicately around the plastic bags and piles of books in Brenda’s tiny spare room and tried to work out which suitcase contained her make-up remover and night cream.
She needed to get this faceful of make-up off. To brush her teeth. To scrub the day clean from herself.
Her skin itched with the desire to be clean. Then, she wanted to fall into the single bed covered with a simple white duvet and sleep. Forever. Like Sleeping Beauty, except there would be no prince kissing her awake.
No prince at all.
No husband.
Nothing but an aching emptiness in her heart. She couldn’t cry – not because crying would make her make-up slide down her face, but because if she started to cry, she wasn’t sure how she’d manage to stop.
How long ago had it been since she sat in the chair in the hairdressing salon, drinking coffee and thinking about the party.
Years ago: that’s what it felt like.
Feeling like an addict desperate for the fix of her special remover oil and some rich face cream, she shoved and pushed the cases, wrenching them open and then shoving them to one side when they weren’t the right one. The packing had been so haphazard. Callie had just watched Brenda do it, too numb to help.
There was barely any space in the tiny spare room for all the suitcases, so Callie tried to stack them on top of each other as she searched. She had slowly managed to half pack one at home before Brenda had taken over, ripped things from the wardrobe and stuffed it all into the old cases at speed. Not the Mandarina Duck leather suitcases, she’d said and Callie, who’d sat slumped on the floor of her and Jason’s dressing room, still in her charcoal party dress but with her Manolos off, had seen a look exchanged between Brenda and the female police officer watching them.
Nothing was said but Callie understood because Brenda had explained it to her brusquely in a brief moment alone: it might be better if she took nothing valuable. Nothing that might be the proceeds of a crime which was being investigated.
‘What do they think Jason’s done?’
‘Not sure,’ whispered Brenda. ‘Something dodgy.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Callie.
‘So where is the lord and master, then?’ asked Brenda. ‘The Fraud Squad come when there’s fraud. Did you ring the lawyer?’
Callie had rung Jason’s personal lawyer many times but there was no answer.
‘Probably done a runner too,’ Brenda had snarled and began packing.
‘I can’t get my husband’s lawyer on the phone,’ Callie had said to the female police officer in the dressing room. ‘I don’t know anything about any of this . . .’ she added helplessly.
Despite her shock, Callie could sense the other woman’s disbelief and the words not spoken.
We’re here with a search warrant, Mrs Reynolds. How could you not know you were in trouble, Mrs Reynolds? How could anyone be that stupid?
Brenda had bypassed the wardrobes with the expensive evening dresses, designer suits, handbags worth the price of a small car and shoes lined up with exquisite care, but had swept out the lingerie drawer.
‘No resale value in this,’ she’d said calmly, stuffing it all into a squashy case. She’d taken the ordinary clothes: jeans, plain trousers, sweaters, the expensive little camisoles Callie loved, cardigans, her old leather jacket, the everyday things Callie wore around the house like her yoga pants, and a couple of very plain black dresses and matching shoes.
Court shoes they used to be called, Callie had thought blankly. To be worn in court?
She’d felt the nausea rise up but, somehow, it backed down into the pit of her stomach. Brenda had told her to get her creams and potions, but the only thing Callie’s shaking hand had reached for was the old make-up case under the sink with her Xanax in it. She’d stashed it in her handbag, unable to do anything else. It was a big handbag, expensive, but old. Worth money in a resale shop? Was this how she was to pack? Only take what would not be worth anything?
Brenda scooped up books, phone chargers, photos, the pile of Callie’s vitamins, her face creams, all the personal bits and bobs on her dresser.
The Loewe, Bottega Veneta and Dior handbags sat in her wardrobe in their dust bags, polished and perfect.
All the while, she tried to empty her mind, because if she allowed herself to think, it would allow her to remember that Jason was gone, leaving her with this.
As Brenda swept back into the bedroom, Poppy sat on her parents’ bed, pretty face reddened with crying, watching the TV with the headphones as if she could somehow block out what was happening.
Brenda had already dispatched Poppy’s friends and had packed up everything Poppy owned at high speed. A motley selection of bags sat ready and waiting.
Poppy wouldn’t look at her mother since she and Brenda had come in to break the news.
‘What have you done?’ she’d screamed at Callie, mascara cascading down her face as if she was auditioning for a horror movie, while Brenda was ushering her confused friends out and Callie and Poppy were left alone.
‘Nothing,’ protested Callie.
‘You must have! Where’s Daddy? He can fix it. You can’t,’ Poppy screamed and then cried again, until her face was transformed horribly with make-up, but she wouldn’t let Callie help her take it off.
‘Get away from me!’ she’d hissed.
‘Please, darling . . .’ Callie had begged, trying to hold her daughter, to comfort her, but Poppy screamed some more, until Brenda had marched in and slapped her on the cheek.