‘That they were sleeping together?’
‘Did you know?’
Laura couldn’t lie. ‘No. Not specifically. I hadn’t thought about it. I should have done.’
Claudia’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘I found the pills. She’d been to the doctor and not told me.’
Laura could feel her hurt. ‘At least she was being sensible.’
‘It still hurt. It was a jolt. She’d gone from being a kid who told me everything to being a young woman who’d take herself off to the doctor and – and I’d – I’d just missed it.’
‘I think maybe we all miss it.’
‘Even though we never stop looking?’
Laura laughed. ‘Yeah. Even though we never stop looking.’
They smiled at each other, both understanding.
Laura wanted to offer something. ‘I don’t know whether Ethan said, or maybe Saskia, my marriage ended recently. I’ve been … coping with that. Not coping with it, really …’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She didn’t say whether she’d known or not. It didn’t really matter.
They sat for a moment. They weren’t so different after all.
‘When I told Rupert he went mad. Started raving about how young she was. How she was too young. I don’t know where all that legal stuff came from.’
‘Is he going to pursue it? The legal stuff?’
‘He hasn’t decided, he says.’
‘And you?’
Her face softened. ‘I don’t want him to. It wouldn’t change anything.’
Again, the anger rose. It was so very close to the surface. ‘It would change everything for my son.’
Claudia raised her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I understand what it would mean for Ethan. What it could mean. What I meant was that it wouldn’t undo what’s happened.’
‘But it could ruin his life.’
She leant forward, spoke quickly. ‘And I know he doesn’t deserve that.’
‘Damn right he doesn’t.’
‘Believe me, I hear you.’
‘He loves her. I know they’re kids. But he really believes he loves her. I don’t think he would ever have done anything that would hurt her. I don’t actually think he has it in him to hurt anyone. He’s never been like that. But her … her least of all.’ Now she thought she might cry. Perhaps she should.
‘I know that.’
‘What happened between them might have happened sooner than any of us would like, but it happened consensually, it happened somewhere safe and warm, and I’m certain it happened in a loving way. You have no idea – and neither, apparently, did I – how few kids that holds true for. No idea at all …’
‘I do. Saskia says all of that.’
‘To just you or to both of you?’
‘He … Rupert hasn’t actually sat down with her yet. He wants to calm down.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Laura couldn’t help herself.
‘It’s how he is.’ Said as a fact, not as a defence. Everything about her made clear that he wasn’t an easy man to live with.
Laura snorted derisively. ‘You’ve got to stop your husband going to the police. To do so would be entirely wrong.’ Alex might have tried to stop her talking to Claudia in that way, from coercing, but Laura could see hope. Claudia didn’t believe Ethan deserved to be in trouble for what had happened. Claudia was her route to Rupert. She almost trusted her, sitting in that café.
Claudia nodded. ‘I’m going to try.’ There was something alarming in the way she said it. Rupert was clearly impossible to manage. He sounded awful. Like all of this was about him, not Saskia.
‘Please.’ She was begging now, for Ethan, her sweet, beautiful boy. ‘Please.’
23
Nick couldn’t stop thinking about the Micky Flanagan sketch where the comedian talked about the difference between going out and going out-out. He’d barely been out after dark since Carrie. Let alone out-out. This, however, was definitely out-out. Fran had insisted. She’d told him if he didn’t call Ed and Maureen and ask them to look after the kids she would.
‘It isn’t easy for them, with the farm.’
‘Bollocks. Don’t give me the farm excuse. I’ve never heard them give it. You know they’d drop everything. They have people to take over from them. It’s just an evening.’
‘It’s two at least. It’s a bloody long drive. I can’t ask them to do it on back-to-back days.’
‘So they’ll stay two or three nights at yours. And you’ll let them. The kids will love it. It’ll make them happy. You’ll get a break. It’s. All. Good.’
Things had been strained between him and his parents-in-law since The Conversation, so he emailed, like a coward, instead of calling. Stay a night or two. Three even. Just like Fran had said. The response was almost instantaneous. They’d be delighted. They’d sleep over. They’d missed the children, they said, which made him feel guilty. Fran had offered him a choice of activities: dinner, cinema, bowling.
‘Bowling?’
‘Why not?’
‘Sticky carpet. Smelly shoes. For a start.’
‘Okay, funster. Just a suggestion. I happen to be very good at bowling.’
‘Another reason not to go.’
He’d chosen dinner. Discovered, in that instant, a latent craving for Asian food – he hadn’t had any in for ever. In the weeks and months after Carrie died, food had come almost entirely from the freezer in Tupperware labelled by concerned friends. Endless casseroles, lasagnes, pies. He was grateful, of course. There was not an ethnic ingredient in any of it, but it was suitably heavy on the comfort and the carbs. He hadn’t faded away physically since Carrie died: instead he’d developed love handles.
Since the sympathy catering had dropped away, and their new domestic normality had established itself, he’d stuck to a small, simple and distinctly unexotic repertoire of things he knew the kids ate. They weren’t big fans of flavour, it seemed. Carrie had tried, God knows, making vegetable faces and fruit in funny shapes and hiding courgettes and carrots in bolognese, but without Carrie, he’d taken the line of least resistance to full tummies, and given up coaxing them into avocado and broad beans. He occasionally looked at plates of fish fingers and pasta shapes that were a culinary Dulux paint chart, and heard her gently admonish him.
He wasn’t any better with himself. Mostly he’d picked from their unfinished plates, fish fingers and chicken nuggets eaten at the sink. And who ordered takeaway for one? Sad bastard. Suddenly, surprisingly, with Fran’s invitation, his mouth almost watered at the thought of a chilli prawn or a green curry. So, no to bowling, but a big yes to a spicy meal eaten sitting down where other people were. It was almost – just almost – exciting.
Maureen hugged him hard when he opened the front door to the pair of them. Delilah and Arthur were in bed, but Bea was still up, and she ran into Ed’s arms. Her grandfather picked her up and held her tight. More than the others, Bea looked like her mum – exactly like the photograph of Carrie, taken when she was the same age, that Ed and Maureen had on the mantelpiece at home. Note to self, Nick thought. More grandparents, more often. Something about his grief made him possessive of his kids, but it wasn’t fair.