The Great Escape Read online

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Josh says, stepping forward to give his mother a stiff hug.

  ‘Hello, darling. Hi, Daisy, love.’ She kisses her daughter’s cheek and stands back to appraise her. ‘Goodness,’ Petra laughs. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  Daisy frowns. ‘Er … nothing, Mum.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. It’s all tangly, sweetheart.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just been swimming and Dad said we had to hurry—’

  Petra rolls her eyes indulgently. ‘Well, anyway, get your things together – and please brush your hair, Daisy – and let’s be off.’ Yep, got to look immaculate for a scintillating afternoon of mime. As the kids head upstairs, Petra’s gaze settles briefly on the sweet peas, which Hannah has arranged hastily in a vase.

  Now that Ryan’s here, she can legitimately escape from the kitchen in which the temperature seems to have plummeted by about ten degrees. ‘I hope Daisy’s bringing plenty of books this weekend,’ Petra tells Ryan. In the utility room, Hannah drags a washload from the tumble dryer into a laundry basket. She’s kept the Marlboro Light packet, hiding it behind a broken Bakelite radio which sits on the shelf. Not to show Ryan, or as evidence to present in court, but because she doesn’t know what else to do with it.

  ‘I’ll remind her,’ Ryan says. ‘We borrowed a couple from the library last week. I suppose it’s just finding the right ones to spark her imagination.’

  ‘I just think,’ Petra adds, ‘that she should be on more challenging books, Ryan. Especially after what they said at parents’ night.’

  ‘Yes, but we can’t force her to read, can we? We can’t strap her to a chair with an open book on her lap and—’

  ‘Yes, okay, Ryan, I get the picture.’ Hannah stops and listens. She knows Daisy’s a reluctant reader. Ryan tries to encourage her, spending a small fortune on Amazon, and Hannah has asked Daisy if she’d like to be read to, which she seemed to regard as immensely patronising, as if Hannah had suggested making little Play-doh animals together. Carrying the overloaded linen basket, Hannah strides through the kitchen, keeping her expression neutral.

  As she escapes to her bedroom, Josh and Daisy pass her wordlessly as they make their way downstairs.

  ‘So,’ Petra says in the hallway, ‘have you got over your earring thing, Daisy?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Were you upset about it?’ Petra asks in a gentler tone.

  ‘Yeah. No. It’s all right,’ she mutters.

  ‘The thing is, Ryan,’ Petra adds, ‘I don’t think Daisy would have even got the idea in her head if Hannah hadn’t suggested it …’ Gritting her teeth, Hannah lowers the basket onto her and Ryan’s bed.

  ‘Hannah didn’t suggest it,’ he says lightly.

  ‘She did, Daddy!’ his daughter cries. ‘Hannah said I could have it done for the wedding when we went shopping.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not right,’ Ryan starts. ‘The way Hannah explained it, you asked her, Daisy, and kept going on …’ Hannah’s entire body is now rigid with rage. Her heart is thumping and her breaths are coming in rapid gasps.

  ‘Well, it’s not really appropriate, is it?’ Petra says, and Hannah realises how much she hates that word: appropriate. ‘You can have it done one day,’ Petra goes on, ‘when you’re a teenager. Just not yet, okay?’ Now Hannah is trapped, not knowing what to do next. She should go downstairs to say goodbye to the kids before they’re whisked off by their mother. Yet she knows she won’t be able to do this and appear calm and pleasant – like someone who might one day merit the title of stepmother.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Daisy says. There’s more chattering then, and they’re all sounding more jovial now as the children leave. Hannah hears Ryan calling goodbye from the front door.

  Hannah glowers down at the pile of laundry, which she was about to – helpfully – sort out. Right now, she could cheerfully chuck it out of the window. Petra’s voice drifts up, amused, yet still faintly accusing: ‘Daisy, you still haven’t brushed your hair.’

  Hannah stands in the middle of the bedroom and waits. She knows that Ryan will be mortified – and here he comes now, leaping upstairs. He walks into the room, places a hand on each of her shoulders and looks her right in the eye. ‘I suppose you heard all that, did you?’

  ‘Yes. You know, what I really wanted to do was haul Daisy into Claire’s Accessories and force her to have it done, but I thought you might be just a tiny bit upset.’

  He sniggers mirthlessly. ‘I thought that was your game, you evil woman. It’s a wonder you didn’t do it yourself with a rusty needle.’

  ‘Well, I was tempted. I had one ready in my bag.’

  Ryan smiles wearily and rubs his hands over his forehead. ‘Jesus, Han. I’m so sorry. It’s bloody ridiculous …’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she says firmly.

  ‘Petra can be such a cow sometimes …’

  Hannah shrugs. She won’t slag off Petra, or Daisy for that matter, and clenches her back teeth together to stop bad words falling out. ‘Are you …’ Ryan hesitates. ‘Are you sure you want this, Han?’

  ‘Want what? You mean do I want you?’

  Ryan nods, and anxiety flickers in his soft brown eyes. ‘Of course I want you,’ she exclaims, pulling him close. ‘Of course I do. It’s just …’ She stops. ‘It’s pretty awful sometimes, and I know Josh isn’t exactly my greatest fan, but he’s a teenager and I’m sure it’s all normal. But with Daisy, I think she really resents—’

  ‘She’s just a kid,’ he says simply.

  ‘I know. And it can’t be easy for a little girl when her mum leaves.’

  Ryan nods wordlessly.

  ‘Listen,’ Hannah adds, taking both of Ryan’s hands in hers and squeezing them, ‘I know it’s not easy for you either, that you’re caught in the middle. We’ll work it out. I want you more than anyone I’ve ever wanted in my whole life.’

  As soon as she’s said it, she knows she means every word, and she’s kissing him now, every cell in her body feeling alive. They undress and fall into bed, forgetting about tentative plans to see a film, or go out for lunch. As Ryan pulls her towards him, and she breathes in the sweet warmth of his skin, Hannah realises she has everything she could possibly want right here.

  EIGHTEEN

  When Lou was a student living in Garnet Street, she occasionally fantasised about her Future Life. It wasn’t that she didn’t love living with Hannah and Sadie; they were a gang, with Johnny upstairs an honorary member. Yet Lou had always been aware that this was a temporary setup. That one day, when her Future Life began, she’d open her fridge and find more than a lump of antique cheese and a carton of suspect milk. There’d be fresh fish, from a proper fishmonger’s, an array of exotic vegetables like pak choi, and other mysterious edible plants she didn’t know the names of yet. The kind of things Johnny sometimes threw into his curries and stews. She’d live in a light, airy flat, with a roof terrace or even a small garden where she’d create beautiful jewellery by day and throw grown-up drinks parties with Spike by night.

  Out of the three girls in Garnet Street, Lou had been the only one to make a token effort to cook, and it was that that had lured Spike to her. Spike, the sexy, mysterious older man who played guitar like a dream and had shown up at a Christmas party at the girls’ flat, passed out on the two corduroy beanbags in the living room and tucked into the lavish breakfast Lou had knocked together the next morning. Although Spike had a room in a shared house across town, he soon became a near-permanent fixture in Garnet Street. When Hannah and Sadie had moved on, Lou and Spike decided to rent a one-bedroomed place together.

  Lou had felt confident then, during those early years, that her Future Life would be a joint project. Spike was spontaneous and fun, always up for mischief, and would write songs for her on his old acoustic guitar. Music, he assured Lou, was his path in life. Sixteen years on, that path has led him to a kind of no-man’s-land consisting of holding out for gigs, something that actually happens only once or twice
a year, which leaves an awful lot of time for lazing in front of the gas fire in their flat.

  Lou’s Future Life hasn’t quite turned out the way she planned either. If there is pak choi in the fridge, it’s been snatched from the pov shelf – her nickname for the ‘poverty shelf’ in their local supermarket where perishables teetering on their sell-by date are sold off for 10p after 9 pm. Which is why Lou Costello, aged thirty-five with a First in silversmithing and jewellery, is lurking in the supermarket on a Thursday night, watching intently (although not too obviously, she hopes) as a staff member wends her way around the aisles with a sticker gun.

  The sticker gun, which is used to mark reduced items, has assumed a ridiculous importance in Lou’s life. What’s even sadder, she thinks now, grabbing a discounted net bag of tangerines, is that she’s almost started to enjoy it. Lou experiences a distinct frisson as she snatches a knocked-down packet of only slightly wizened mangetout and a perfectly acceptable wholemeal loaf.

  ‘How’re you doing tonight, love?’ Lou stops poking at 10p punnets of mushrooms (they’re only a little bit slimy) to see Lenny, a middle-aged smallholder with a deeply grooved forehead, brandishing his fully-laden basket beside her.

  ‘Not bad, Lenny,’ Lou replies with a smile. As he nods his approval at her basket, Lou remembers with a start that Lenny only ventures out at this late hour to grab reduced provisions to feed his pigs. Whereas Lou is shopping for herself and Spike, actual human beings. An image of her Future Life roof terrace floats teasingly into her mind.

  After paying at the checkout – Lou always senses a pitying glance from the pretty blonde girl on the till – she packs her reusable cotton shopping bags and steps out into the dusk. Something else is bothering her as she marches home. What was she thinking, buying tons of fresh stuff when she’s catching the 2.30 pm train to Glasgow tomorrow, and won’t be home till Sunday night? All this food is for Spike. She must feel guilty, Lou realises, or, more likely, she’s fallen into a habit of babying her boyfriend, without even realising it.

  Still, her spirits rise at the thought of boarding that train tomorrow. Apart from seeing Hannah and Sadie, it’ll be good for her and Spike to have a weekend apart. He’s been irritating the hell out of her lately, with his perpetual sniffing and checking of nasal hair. She’s sick of rounding up the mugs he routinely leaves dotted around the flat – not only in obvious places, like on the rug or his bedside table, but in more surprising locations such as perched on top of the toilet cistern. Maybe she’ll come back from Glasgow in a slightly more tolerant frame of mind. She might even start to fancy him again.

  Lou has turned off the main road and is heading down a residential street of neat redbrick terraces when she sees a girl striding towards her. Her fine-boned beauty catches Lou’s eye; high, sharp cheekbones, full lips, fair hair swishing this way and that. She’s engrossed in a call on her mobile and looks familiar, Lou realises now, although she can’t figure out where their paths might have crossed. Not at the pov shelf, that’s for sure.

  ‘Yeah, that’d be cool, I can do that no problem,’ the girl is saying. Lou knows that voice: posh, with husky undertones. The kind of voice you could imagine selling you hair colour or eyelash extensions. She thrusts her phone into her jeans pocket, and as they’re almost face-to-face now, Lou flashes her a bright smile.

  ‘Hi,’ says the girl vaguely.

  Lou stops. It’s bugging her that she can’t place her. ‘Sorry,’ she says as the girl passes her, ‘but I know you from somewhere, don’t I?’

  ‘Umm …’ She turns and looks at Lou quizzically. ‘Er, yeah … I think we might’ve met.’

  ‘I know. You were at that gig at the Horse and Hounds, weren’t you? You’re a friend of Charlie’s. Spike, my boyfriend, did that acoustic set – d’you remember? Just before Christmas. We chatted at the bar?’

  ‘Oh, yeah! You’re Lou, aren’t you?’ She smiles broadly and turns a bit pink. ‘Of course I remember you.’

  ‘Your name’s slipped my mind,’ Lou adds apologetically.

  ‘Astrid.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right.’

  ‘Spike was good, wasn’t he? Great voice, really held the audience in the palm of his hand. Has he been writing any more songs?’

  ‘Um, not lately, no.’ Lou doesn’t want to start discussing Spike’s preference for lying in front of their gas fire. She sees Astrid glancing down at her bulging shopping bags.

  ‘Are you a musician, Lou?’ she asks. ‘I’m sorry, it’s rude of me, but I can’t remember …’

  ‘Oh no,’ Lou laughs, the bright orange sticker on a packet of egg noodles catching her eye in the dusk. ‘I’m a jeweller. Well, I used to be – I haven’t done much lately. I’ve been working at Let’s Bounce …’ Astrid looks blank. ‘It’s a soft play centre,’ Lou adds. Still blankness. ‘You know – for kids to throw themselves round while their parents sit at the tables, depressed, reading newspapers, before vomiting on the carpet.’

  ‘Oh!’ Astrid’s nostrils flare a little.

  ‘I mean it’s the kids who throw up,’ Lou explains with a laugh.

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear that. I don’t mean glad that the kids are sick, but …’ Astrid chuckles uncomfortably.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lou says quickly, a packet of withered mangetout tumbling onto the pavement as she grabs her bags, ‘I’d better get back. I’m going away for the weekend and these are Spike’s emergency rations.’ She snatches the mangetout and jams them on top of a plastic bag of sweaty carrots.

  ‘You mean you stock the fridge for Spike when you go away?’ Astrid laughs. ‘God, Lou, he’s a lucky man.’

  ‘Oh, I know it sounds pathetic.’ Lou feels her ears burning hot, glowing like those stickers. ‘But I don’t want to come back on Sunday to find his poor, withered skeleton on the sofa. Anyway,’ she adds, realising that skeletons don’t actually wither, ‘I kind of owe him. Without Spike, you see, I wouldn’t be going at all.’

  Astrid’s eyes widen, clear and blue as a cloudless sky. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit of a shock actually, but he sold his guitar to pay for my trip, which I feel terrible about. I mean, it’s not his only guitar – he had five at the last count and how many guitars does one person actually need? But it was the first one he ever owned …’

  ‘That was … generous of him,’ Astrid says weakly, looking distinctly uncomfortable now. And no wonder, Lou thinks as they say goodbye and set off in opposite directions. What must Astrid think of her, needing Spike to sell a treasured possession just so she can go away for the weekend? She doesn’t know, of course, that Lou pays for virtually everything: bills, rent and the lion’s share of the food. With a shudder, Lou quickens her pace, vowing to be more like … like Astrid.

  Now there’s a girl who looks as if she’s got her life sorted out. She’s bright, confident, astoundingly beautiful – and positive too. While all Lou can see in Spike these days is a slightly crumpled middle-aged man with nasal hair and a collection of ancient ointment tubes, Astrid sees a beacon of talent who can hold an audience in the palm of his hand. Maybe, Lou thinks, lugging her bags upstairs to their flat, she should try to be more encouraging.

  In the kitchen, Spike is spreading Marmite onto a thick crust. She plants a speedy kiss on his cheek as he folds it over to form a sturdy sandwich.

  ‘Hi, babe,’ he says with a full mouth. ‘Good day?’

  ‘Not bad. Had a quick drink with Steph and a couple of others, then got you some provisions.’

  ‘Did you? That was good of you …’ Together, they start to unpack the shopping. Lou briefly inspects each item before placing it in the fridge, hoping she won’t return to find him collapsed on the floor, poisoned by egg noodles.

  ‘I met a fan of yours on the way home,’ she says teasingly.

  ‘Yeah?’ His face brightens. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Astrid. Nice girl, friendly, very pretty. You probably don’t remember, but she was at that gig at the Horse and Hounds. She was
singing your praises today …’

  ‘Was she?’ His face contorts into an almost comical frown.

  ‘Look at you, all bashful!’ Lou chuckles, prodding him in the ribs. ‘People do remember you, you know. You should be playing all the time. If a chick like Astrid thinks you’ve got something …’ She waggles an eyebrow suggestively.

  ‘Yeah, well …’ He blows out air and takes an enormous chomp of his Marmite sandwich.

  ‘In fact, I think she has the hots for you, Spike,’ Lou adds.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he blusters, cheeks bulging with bread.

  ‘C’mon,’ she says, grinning, ‘you’re not wearing too badly for an old fella.’ She beams at him, overcome by a sudden rush of affection. Then, wrapping her slender arms around his shoulders and reaching up to kiss his Marmitey lips, she feels, for the first time, that she might even miss him a tiny bit.

  NINETEEN

  Sadie is installed on the sofa with a plastic pump clamped to her left breast. It’s a manual pump, kindly lent to her by Polly-the-banana-freezer who she ran into at another gathering of mothers and babies. It has a small handle, a rubbery attachment device shaped like a miniature satellite dish, and its purpose is to suck every drop of milk from her body.

  She has been pumping for six weeks now – well, no, it hasn’t been quite that long, but that’s how it feels. It’s been two episodes of The Sopranos anyway, and an awful reality show about a sixteen-year-old whose parents are throwing her a lavish party. There are diamond earrings as a present, plus a car the girl can’t even drive yet, the keys for which her mother has clamped between her teeth as she bursts out of an enormous crepe-paper cake. It’s making Sadie feel quite nauseous. She’s glad the babies are being settled by Barney in the bedroom; she wouldn’t want them getting overblown ideas about their own future birthday parties. She peers down at the clear plastic bottle and sees that she has now successfully pumped about three millimetres of milk. It looks as if she’s just wrung out a breast pad. Sadie has never felt more bovine in her entire life.