‘That sounds like a girl.’
And he realized he was busting to tell someone. ‘Not a girl, Mum. The girl.’
‘Oh, really? The girl.’
‘I met my wife yesterday.’ He felt the blush rise, hot and red. What a dick. Who said that?
She hadn’t laughed at him, hadn’t fobbed him off. She’d put the two mugs on the table, with a plate of toast, and sat down.
‘You’re not going to tell me I’m an idiot?’
‘No. I don’t think you’re an idiot, darling.’ She smiled conspiratorially.
‘Was that how it was with you?’ Nick willed her to say yes.
‘No. Not really.’
Nick bit into the toast, partly hungry and partly to create a diversion.
Daphne hadn’t finished. ‘But I think you’d find that was how it was with your dad. If you were to ask him. And if he were to admit it.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, it makes me sound bloody conceited but, yes, I think so.’
‘Did he tell you?’
She laughed. ‘God, no. I’d have thought he was a weirdo.’
Nick remembered Carrie’s teasing question. ‘But he told you eventually?’
‘Yes. Ages afterwards. When I was a done deal.’
‘So Dad thought he’d met his wife, and you thought … what?’
‘I thought he had potential.’
‘Wow. Potential. That’s harsh, Mum.’
‘What does she think? Your wife.’ Her tone was gently teasing.
‘God knows. Probably that I’m a weirdo.’ Daphne laughed, then sipped her tea. ‘Actually, maybe she thinks I might have … potential …’
Daphne had put her hand over Nick’s, on the handle of his mug of tea. ‘Well, she sounds like a good girl to me. She’s right about that, at least.’
Now Nick held his breath, then ran one finger across Carrie’s cheek in the photograph. ‘All right, weirdo.’
13
Scott had stepchildren. Two teenage stepdaughters. He had a photograph in his wallet, for God’s sake, of the four of them.
‘Pancakes! Ready!’ Scott shouted in the hallway, directing his voice at the upstairs landing. They weren’t pancakes as he knew them – the crêpe style Daphne had made for them when they were young, eaten as a treat in front of the television, with lemon juice and as much sugar as you could get away with sprinkling on them before she caught you. These were – like his whole family now – an American import. Small, thick and dry, eaten with bacon and maple syrup, they were a weekend ritual. He’d learnt how to make them from scratch, and now a stack was waiting on the warming plate of the Aga.
Saturday mornings had never been like this. They’d been for errands, dry cleaner’s, hair trims. For long workouts and admin catch-ups. Not now. Now they were for long breakfasts, the prelude to sports fixtures, cinema visits, party drop-offs and country walks ending in pub roasts. These weekends were better – they were actually rather wonderful.
The girls appeared, summoned by the smell of pancakes, one by one, bed soft, and clad in their brightly coloured Abercrombie & Fitch sweatpants, with their mother’s blonde wavy hair, and her face shape – the heart with the endlessly appealing, slightly jutting chin. As sisters, they were completely different. Hayley, the older of the two, was more serious and studious, conscientious and organized, like Heather. Meredith was the more rambunctious, with a chaotic streak that probably ought to have irritated him, but which he found enchanting. Hayley was a lark, Meredith a night owl, who practically had to be Semtexed out of bed in the mornings, unless, of course, a stack of pancakes was waiting. It was ten a.m. He’d been up since seven, and that constituted a lie-in. The peace of the early part of the day was good, but by nine, he was itching to make the batter with which he could lure them from their respective pits to join him.
For some people, Heather’s daughters might have seemed like baggage. For Scott, who hadn’t even known what was missing from his life, the girls were a bonus. He’d assumed, before he knew her, and he didn’t really know why, that she was single and childless.
She’d told him almost straight away. If he had noted brief surprise at his own reaction – that it made her more interesting to him – he hadn’t questioned it. But she’d waited months to introduce them, until she was sure of him, he reasoned, and he understood. He remembered being nervous. He’d made up his mind about Heather by then. He needed them to like him. He wanted to like them. They’d gone to Rye Playland, one late-spring Sunday – an amusement park upstate from Manhattan, by the sea, where the rollercoasters and cotton candy were ready distractions. Sitting at the top of one steep swoop, Heather and Hayley in the car in front, Meredith beside him, she’d slid under his arm for comfort, and he’d felt such a jolt, such a rush of something he couldn’t quite name.
His brother Nick was a born father, so at ease with and delighted by his children that he looked like that was what he’d been put on earth to do. Laura was a completely devoted mother. They’d been raised by Daphne, the most passionate, adoring, fiercely supportive and protective mother. But Scott had never really thought about parenthood for himself – about whether having children was important to him, a priority, or whether not having children was a mistake he’d regret in later life. He’d never had a girlfriend serious enough to make him think about it. If he’d had a biological clock, he’d never heard it ticking. Marriage, mortgages, children – that had been the stuff other people did. He’d always imagined someone would push over the first domino for him and trigger the change. No one had. Through his twenties there’d been girls – one or two had even tried to goad him into things, but he’d found it relatively easy to resist: no woman had moved him, not really. He was a logical man. Seismic shifts were caused by earthquakes, not tremors.
Laura had asked him about them, back when he’d been just getting to know them, as surprised, perhaps, as he was that he was suddenly a stepfather. He’d defined them to his sister: Hayley, he’d said, was like a cat, more aloof and less obviously affectionate, circumspect and careful, while Meredith was a puppy, boisterous, playful, desperate to love and be loved. Meredith might have been easier to win over, but that made his victories with Hayley far more valuable.
And now here they were, his three girls, sitting around the kitchen table, their knees up, eating pancakes with just a fork. If he thought sometimes that his mum would have loved them, he had to concede she might not be so wild about their table manners.
‘Delicious.’ Meredith pushed her plate away and rubbed her belly.
‘Not as good as toast with Marmite,’ Scott teased.
‘Ew! Yuck! Don’t even say Marmite.’ Meredith groaned. ‘Disgusting.’
‘Better Marmite than “yeast spread”,’ was Hayley’s sarcastic rejoinder. She arched an eyebrow, and Scott laughed.
Heather, sexy in tight jeans and a white blouse, had taken the family calendar off the wall and was going through it, a pen in one hand, a mug of black coffee in the other. Hayley read dates off her phone for her mother to write down. Matches, speech day, exam timetable. Meredith rolled her eyes at Scott, who gurned back.