As Good As It Gets? Page 23

  All I can think is: Fraser didn’t know he had a child. He never deserted us after all. How would things be today if we’d made it work and brought up our baby together? I keep replaying that morning, when we’d watched the sky lighten from Brighton seafront, and peered at the positive pregnancy test over and over, hardly able to believe it bore a thin blue line. We’d made a baby! The hormones in my pee that I’d peed onto this little stick told us so! And I think about all the times Fraser said he loved me. Maybe it wasn’t all lies.

  I feel chilled to my bones, even though the afternoon has turned oppressively muggy. Pottering around the kitchen, I try to find something useful to do.

  ‘I mean,’ Will goes on, ‘do birds actually care what their table looks like?’

  ‘No, I guess not …’

  ‘… As long as there’s bird seed on it?’

  Agh no. Do not talk about bird seed. ‘Well, it sounds quite impressive,’ I say. ‘I might have to go round for a look.’

  Will chuckles as I start to set the table for dinner. ‘If I’d known you’d be that interested, I’d have taken a picture on my phone.’

  ‘I would have liked that,’ I say, with a small laugh.

  ‘Charlotte?’

  I fix on a bright smile. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you … okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine! Why d’you ask?’

  He peers at my face. I can feel the deceit radiating out of my every pore. I’m trying to be normal, fetching chilli sauce and orange juice from the fridge, while still reeling in shock over what I learned today; that Fraser didn’t bother to find out when the baby was born because he didn’t know she was born. I’d be no more shocked to have discovered that Dad wasn’t really my dad, and that my actual father was one of those obscure members of the Luxembourg royal family that you see in Hello! magazine.

  ‘You just seem a bit weird,’ Will remarks.

  I glide across the kitchen to fetch glasses. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Um … you’re talking strangely, as if English wasn’t your first language and you’re trying to get to grips with the tenses.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I bluster.

  He throws me another quizzical look. ‘Actually, you sound like a prim telephone operator from the 1950s …’

  ‘Stop analysing me,’ I say hotly as the front door opens. Rosie bursts in, all smiles and flushed cheeks. I have never been so delighted to see her.

  ‘Guess what!’ she announces. ‘They want me for the billboard campaign. Can you believe it?’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ I exclaim, hugging her. ‘I didn’t think you’d hear so soon.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ she says, snatching an apple from the bowl and crunching into it, ‘but they called Laurie as soon as they’d seen me and it’s happening! I’m going to be on billboards all over the South East!’ She throws her arms around Will, then me – again – and even Ollie as he bowls in, tired and sunny-faced after his day out. Rosie hasn’t mentioned meeting Fraser again, since our heated exchange after Zach’s gig. Maybe this big ad campaign will take her mind off things, until I decide what the heck to do now.

  ‘Have fun at the climbing wall, Ollie?’ Will asks.

  ‘Yeah, it was great,’ our son enthuses. As we tuck into Will’s delicious Thai stir fry, I try to convince myself that my own ‘day out’ wasn’t a big deal really. We didn’t even make plans to meet again.

  So why haven’t I told Will? We don’t keep secrets from each other generally. At least, I don’t – not to sound like some paragon of virtue, but because I genuinely haven’t got up to anything even remotely devious in all the years we’ve been together. And … well, now I have. And I haven’t the faintest idea of what to do next. One thing I do know, though, is that I’m definitely not allowed to be angry about leather trouser night anymore.

  *

  I meet Liza next morning to tell her how Arlene Johnson effectively erased Rosie and me from her son’s life. ‘I can’t believe she did that,’ she exclaims, clutching her glass of green juice.

  ‘Neither can I,’ I say. ‘It’s inhuman, really. That was his child! And her grandchild. What’s she’s basically done is denied Rosie any sort of relationship with Fraser—’

  ‘I’d want to get on a train right now and confront her … where does she live again?’

  ‘Not sure. They used to be just outside Manchester, but Fraser said he’s not really in touch with her anymore.’

  Liza exhales loudly. She’s teaching classes today but I’ve managed to grab her for a quick chat in the yoga studio café. We are surrounded by beautiful, slender beings who appear to be so utterly at peace with themselves, I can’t imagine any of them has ever done anything at all deceptive. ‘Well,’ Liza adds, ‘I’d want to point out that she completely altered the course of your life, and denied her own son the chance of being a dad—’ She stops short. ‘I don’t mean, you know, that Will hasn’t been a brilliant father …’

  I nod.

  ‘And maybe,’ she goes on, ‘this is how things were meant to happen. I mean, if she hadn’t interfered …’

  ‘Everything would have been different.’ I, too, have ordered a juice, only mine isn’t green, but a violent purplish colour to match my hair.

  Liza looks at me. ‘You don’t regret the way things have turned out, do you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I say, with more certainty than I feel.

  ‘Does Fraser have any other children?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t know anything about him apart from the fact that he works in London – something financial – and has a place in Cheshire too. We didn’t talk about anything other than the Rosie situation …’ I take another sip of my juice. It involves beetroot and tastes rather soily; I’d hoped it might help to purify my thoughts but it seems to be failing on that count.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Liza asks.

  ‘I’ll tell Will, but I need to pick my moment. You know how he is these days.’

  She nods. ‘Did you ever find out what went on at Sabrina’s that night? After I’d left, I mean?’

  ‘No.’ I drop my voice to a murmur. ‘He’s adamant that nothing was going on with any woman, and I must’ve imagined it all, hallucinated maybe …’ I pause.

  ‘What’s going on with him, d’you think?’

  I shrug. ‘A mid-life thing, maybe? I’ve no idea. I mean, ecstasy, Liza. Will’s never even smoked a ciggie, let alone a joint. That’s one of the things I loved about him, when we met – that he seemed like such a proper, sorted grown-up who enjoyed a few beers or glasses of wine but could handle life, you know?’

  She nods. ‘Unlike Fraser.’

  ‘Well, yes, I mean, I thought he’d just run away.’

  ‘He still did really,’ she points out. ‘He just accepted his mum’s version of events and never called you to see if you were okay, or to try and help in any way. He just slunk away, like his mum wanted him to.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I check my watch. ‘God, sorry, I’ve taken up all your break—’

  She pulls a regretful face. ‘It’s fine, but I’d better go …’ I leave her to take her next class.

  ‘The thing to remember,’ I hear another instructor saying as I pass one of the studios, ‘is that it’s all about the breath. Calm, steady breathing. In … and out. In … and out …’ If only it were that simple.

  *

  When I arrive home, Will is huddled over his laptop at the kitchen table. ‘Any luck?’ I say, without thinking.

  ‘What with?’ Will’s gaze remains fixed on the screen. Looks like some environmental thing. Aware that it’s highly annoying to peer over someone’s shoulder, I move away.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just … stuff.’

  ‘No,’ he says wearily, ‘I don’t have any news about jobs yet.’ He picks up his laptop and disappears to the garden with it. Well, fine.

  I hang out with Ollie – Rosie is out on another casting – and we find ourselves making cookies tog
ether, which I’d have assumed he’d grown out of long ago. Pleasingly, though, he seems to enjoy messing about in the kitchen with me, and insists that we make a batch of crisp cookies – ‘like you did for the party’ – as well as his previously favoured chocolate chip variety. Then Saul shows up, and the two of them rush off to the park, with handfuls of still-warm cookies.

  Alone now, I head upstairs and click on my own laptop in our bedroom. Satisfied that all is quiet in the house, I check my emails.

  All junk, apart from one from Fraser.

  Can’t stop thinking about what we talked about yesterday. Need to see you again. Would that be okay? Can I call you?

  F x

  How can I say no, after what he told me? Yes, I reply, we definitely need to talk. Here’s my number …

  It takes me three attempts to type it correctly. I press send, my heart hammering like a caffeinated thing, knowing that no amount of yoga-type breathing could calm me now.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’d felt bad about not booking more time off work to coincide with the summer holidays. However, now I’m on my way to the office, on a breezy Wednesday morning, it’s something of a relief. It’s excruciating being around Will, trying to figure out the best way to tell him about my meeting with Fraser.

  I know I’m being cowardly, and that I should have told him everything as soon as Fraser and I arranged to have coffee. Maybe I would have, if this had happened long ago, when I felt close to Will and we kept each other abreast of the minutiae of each other’s lives. But we don’t anymore. It’s the eggshell thing: never knowing quite how he’ll react. Not that I’m making excuses. This is no longer just about Rosie, I’ve realised, remembering how my heart started thumping alarmingly when Fraser walked into Caffè Nero: strikingly handsome in a blond, blue-eyed way, a little hesitant, and just as I’d remembered him. Even now, my stomach does a little spin at the thought. I take a moment to sit in my car in Archie’s car park, before forcing myself to banish all Fraser-related thoughts and head in to work, where I shall try to behave like a normal person.

  However, it appears all’s not well at Archie Towers either. Dee seems distracted as she runs through everything that’s happened during my time off. ‘Rupert’s been weird,’ she says, tension flickering in her eyes.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Kind of distracted and grumpy. Maybe he was missing you.’ She emits a small, mirthless snigger.

  ‘Doubt it,’ I say, pouring our coffees, and startled by her gloomy expression when I place hers on her desk. ‘Has it been that bad?’ I ask. ‘Has he had a go at you?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that. In fact, um … can I tell you something? It’s actually nothing to do with Rupert at all …’

  ‘What is it, then? Are you okay?’ I pull up a chair beside her. ‘Dee?’ I prompt her.

  She exhales. ‘Please don’t say anything. Oh God, Charlotte, I have to tell someone …’

  ‘You can tell me,’ I say gently, adding, to lighten the mood, ‘Don’t say you’ve been going around saying fry instead of cook.’

  Dee musters a small smile. ‘I wish it was that. It’s … here, let me show you.’ She opens her desk drawer and extracts an envelope which has already been ripped open. She pulls out a postcard and hands it to me.

  It depicts two teddy bears in wellies, kissing. The curly writing above the picture reads I love you beary, beary much. ‘That’s, er, sweet,’ I say. ‘Is it from Mike?’

  Dee shakes her ahead. ‘No, it was on my desk this morning when I came in.’

  ‘Who put it there? D’you have any idea?’

  She flushes cherry-pink and nods. ‘Not Rupert?’ I gasp.

  ‘God, no! Read the other side …’

  I flip the card over and read, in rather jittery biro writing: You are so lovely, Dee. Frank xxx

  ‘Frank? You mean fryer Frank?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she mutters.

  ‘He snuck up here and put this on your desk?’

  She nods.

  ‘Frank put it there?’ I almost laugh as I picture the big, handsome Spanish man, all dark eyes and five o’clock shadow in his fat-splattered Archie’s apron, Silk Cut dangling from his mouth. I’d never have had him down for a teddy bear card sort of man. Not a beary-beary-much type at all.

  ‘Yep,’ Dee says grimly.

  I look at her. ‘So … does he have a thing about you or something? What is this – a sort of non-Valentine’s day Valentine?’

  Dee turns even redder. I’ve noticed this about blondes: when they blush, there’s no hiding it. ‘Sort of,’ she replies as it begins to make sense: her uncomfortable squirming when I was setting up my picnic scene, and how tricky it was to choose pictures in which she didn’t look completely mortified.

  ‘Are you having a … a thing with Frank?’ I gasp.

  She bites her lip. ‘No, no, not at all …’

  ‘Are you sure? Because the card seems so—’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she cuts in, ‘well, nothing much. God, I don’t know. We get along, he’s lovely, we’re friends …’

  ‘Yes, I know you are,’ I say.

  ‘… And there was this thing, last week, when you were off …’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Well, er … we had a bit of a sort of, um … kiss sort-of-thing.’ I am amazed by this. Dee, who always seems so thrilled to be making a home with Mike.

  ‘Where did you kiss?’ I whisper, aware of Jen chatting to someone in the shop downstairs. Sounds like we actually have customers.

  ‘On the mouth,’ she whispers back.

  ‘No, I meant where, um, geographically—’

  ‘Oh! In the spud store.’

  ‘The spud store?’ I splutter involuntarily. ‘But it’s so … dark in there. And it smells kind of earthy …’ Actually, maybe it has that sort of shed-like appeal …

  ‘I know,’ she says sheepishly, fiddling with her hair.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I ask, desperate to know more: Rosie was right when she said I take an unnatural interest in other people’s lives.

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know. He’s gorgeous. Very sexy. I never planned it, you know. We were just having a smoke and then we found ourselves in there …’ Like the way I found myself replying to Fraser and then arranging to meet, and keeping the whole thing secret … how horribly easy it is to tumble into doing all kinds of illicit stuff, without actually intending to. ‘You think I’m awful,’ she bleats.

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’

  ‘But it’s so deceitful! I live with Mike, and I love him, and we’re really happy …’

  ‘Dee,’ I say, hearing Rupert arriving downstairs, ‘don’t beat yourself up about it. It was only a kiss.’

  ‘You don’t think it counts? As cheating, I mean?’

  ‘No, it absolutely doesn’t.’ As if I have the faintest idea about anything.

  ‘What would you do, if you’d done something – I don’t know, kissed someone, or had a fling … would you tell Will?’

  Making my way to my own desk, I try to formulate a sensible reply. ‘I haven’t a clue. I guess it’d depend on the situation …’

  ‘The difference is,’ she declares, ‘you’d never do anything so stupid. I feel like such an idiot, Charlotte. I mean, what was I thinking?’

  I muster what I hope is a big, reassuring smile. ‘It was only a kiss, Dee,’ I repeat, deciding that now’s not the time to tell her the spud store has CCTV.

  *

  How amazing, I reflect on the drive home, that she thinks I’ve got it all sorted. I suppose, to Dee, I must give the impression of being a proper grown-up. When you look at the facts, I guess I am; married with two children, one of whom has already earned an eye-popping day rate for looking pretty – albeit in scratchy mittens – but everyone has to start somewhere. When I was Dee’s age I’d have assumed a thirty-eight-year-old woman would have life pretty sussed. I used to think that, by that stage, I’d have a fantastic relationship with
a lovely, intelligent, funny and sexy man (that didn’t seem like too much to ask).

  Will is all of those things. Okay, the sense of humour has waned a little, but anyone’s would, if everyone kept asking about the job situation, and whether they’d ‘heard anything yet’.

  My mobile rings. Expecting it to be Will, asking me to pick up something from Tesco Metro, I pull over onto the forecourt of a shabby carpet warehouse. It’s stopped ringing by the time I’ve parked, and it’s not Will. I call the number.

  ‘Charlotte?’ the man says, and of course it’s him. My heart starts pounding. I wish it wouldn’t do that. I should be able to control my own internal organs.

  ‘Hello, Fraser,’ I croak.

  ‘I, er … I hope it’s not a bad time …’

  I fix my gaze on the rows of rolled-up carpets piled up haphazardly in the window of the store. ‘No, it’s okay.’

  He clears his throat. ‘I had to call you. I can’t stop thinking about everything …’

  Neither can I, I think, although right now all I want is to go home and pour myself a big glass of wine and sit chatting with Will in the evening sun, like we did over our sourdough and mango picnic. I want to do normal, regular things, like Tricia and Gerald next door. Well, maybe not quite like them. But our sort of normal: that’s what I need in my life right now.

  ‘Me too,’ I tell Fraser. ‘It’s on my mind the whole time.’

  ‘It’s like … everything’s changed,’ he adds.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I can’t believe she did that. My mum, I mean—’

  ‘Fraser,’ I cut in, ‘did you ever receive any letters from me? After your mum said I’d made that call?’

  ‘Er … no?’ He phrases it as a question. ‘Did you write?’

  Of course I did, idiot. That’s what people did in those days. We wrote crazy letters on Basildon Bond notepaper – outpourings of love, then anger, and sometimes we even cried on the letters, thinking, good, I’ve made it all wet! That’ll make the paper all wrinkly and he’ll realise how devastated I am! THAT’LL SHOW HIM.