The Stepmother Read online

  “Luke’s favorite.”

  I nodded again.

  “Smoked mackerel pâté?”

  “On rye,” I added. “Cut into little stars.”

  “Oh, my God, Bea, this is amazing…Are you sure you want to do it all?”

  “Nothing makes me happier than producing a hundred lobster profiteroles.”

  “It’s too much.”

  “You’re right, I’ll use crabsticks.” Faith started to protest again. I stopped her. “You know I love doing it and, anyway, it’s my present to Luke. Time is cheap. Time, I have.”

  “Luke’ll get so excited when he sees this.”

  I grabbed the file playfully and hugged it. “This is my master list. I have a copy for you.”

  “It’s going to be such fun—the band is phenomenal. Are you bringing someone? You know you can.”

  I shook my head.

  “What about that date you went on?”

  “Please don’t remind me.” I’d been strong-armed into a blind date by Angie. The guy was a friend of her brother, who had D-I-V-O-RC-E’d a year previously. On paper, it looked possible: architect, father of two daughters, forty-six, accomplished cook and gardener. He sounded nice, I thought. The split, I was told, had been amicable, all things considered. It was the “all things considered” that should have rung the warning bells. But since I stand in a glass house of my own, I owed it to myself to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Maybe one day someone would return the favor. I should have turned on my heels the moment I saw his entirely tucked-in self. When he ordered a green salad with the dressing on the side, I should have run. I was on my best behavior the whole day long, but even I couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.

  “He was a mad anorexic,” I said to Faith, refilling our glasses. “The man wouldn’t eat. He watched every mouthful I took. It was unnerving. He was obviously starving, so I kept offering him some, which gave him the excuse to launch into a lecture about heart disease being the number-one killer. I made some joke about it being cheaper than divorce and that was basically that. So, no, Mr. Dressing-on-the-side will not be escorting me to Luke’s fortieth. The girls are. They’re very excited about it. My mother’s taking them shopping for new outfits.”

  “That’s nice of her,” said Faith, in a way that let me know “nice” was exactly what it wasn’t.

  “Can’t wait for that little outing,” I said.

  “Don’t go, then. Let her have the girls on her own.”

  That conjured up such a horrendous sequence of disasters that I shuddered. “They’d come back looking like little czarinas.” I drank from my glass.

  “She is something of a relic, your mother.”

  My mother was born old. But old did not mean wise in this case. She claimed she was “traditional,” and though I tried to convince myself that she was not a bad person, she had turned “traditional” into an ugly word. I loved my mother, of course. But I didn’t often like her. I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

  “I’m always amazed by how normal you turned out,” said Faith.

  “Don’t be fooled,” I said, but allowed myself to enjoy the compliment.

  Faith laughed. “Did you know Maddy and Lulu asked me if they can be in charge of Charlie on the night of the party? Since I plan to be inebriated by eight, I said yes. I’m pretty sure they’d adopt him if they could.”

  Amazing how quickly a good feeling can be replaced.

  “When Jimmy brings them over to play, I can hear them in the garden, pretending he’s their brother,” she went on. “It’s the sweetest thing. Charlie calls them his sisters when he talks about them, which is all the time.” Faith watched me drain my glass. “I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m completely happy with what I have. Really, Bea, one makes sense to me.”

  I couldn’t look at her. She didn’t know what I was thinking. I waved to the bar staff, ordered a packet of posh crisps, tore it open, and seized a handful.

  “So,” said Faith, picking out one, “this guy, he was telling you off about what you ate?”

  “He had antiseptic gel in his pocket, Faith. It was nothing to do with me.”

  She nodded, but said no more on my failure to date. I used to tell everyone about future dates. But these days I kept my own counsel. Too many hopeful faces to disappoint when it flopped. Which it always did. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. That was a lie. I knew where I went wrong. I talked about my children too much. My children and Jimmy. It always came back to Jimmy.

  “So how are you going to serve all the food?” asked Faith.

  “I kept hold of the disposable party trays from the school picnic. One of the perks of organizing it was being able to pilfer some useful catering equipment.”

  “Genius.”

  “And I’ll make sure there’s enough so that all Honor has to do is a main dish.”

  A wicked smile crossed Faith’s face. “Just so long as she isn’t it.”

  My ex-mother-in-law was an increasingly full-time naturist. The urge to get naked had come to her late in life. Her husband, Peter, had tried it out, but he didn’t like his “bits and pieces” swinging about in the wind and had returned to the land of the fully clothed, where he had remained. After all, he had his fishing, and some people found that harder to live with than the occasional game of naked boules. They were a bit old for volleyball now. Having checked out the competition and come to the conclusion that the need to bare all had nothing to do with sex, he had agreed to support Honor in her latest craze. “More interesting than cross-stitch,” he had said to anyone who dared show disapproval. Peter and Honor had been married for nearly fifty years. He had fallen in love with her beauty, she with his promise of escape from the terraces of Leeds and a puritanical existence.

  “It was just luck,” she said to me when I quizzed her on the success of her marriage, “that we survived as well as we have. Frankly, even with the best intentions, it could have gone either way.”

  I don’t think luck had anything to do with it. Unified in their commitment to their family, they were also fiercely independent. And when they discussed their plans, I got the sense they were asking each other out of courtesy, never for permission.

  Peter, I suspect, is the true romantic in their union. On the eve of my marriage to his eldest son, he said, “The thing about marriage is it makes the good things twice as good and the bad things only half as bad.” Like a fool, I believed him. I believed them both.

  I DON’T KNOW WHY I agreed to this, and I deliberately hadn’t said anything to Faith about it, but the following evening I was off to a singles night for the over-forties. Can you imagine anything more depressing? What the hell was I thinking? Hadn’t the mad anorexic been enough punishment for one year? My trouble was that beneath the excess flesh lies a basically enthusiastic person. She may be buried deeper than I’d like her to be, but she’s still down there. Occasionally she makes her way to the surface, and I start accepting invitations with impunity. Needless to say, these moments coincide with a little lost poundage. But the pounds are back on and now all I want to do is dive, dive, dive. Damn that rooster and all who are packaged in him.

  I would have canceled, except in this instance I couldn’t. My friend Cathy had lost her husband to cancer. She wasn’t looking for a date. She just wanted a night out when she could pretend she wasn’t a widow and didn’t have to talk white-blood-cell count. Her husband took a long time to die. She was bored with cancer. She was bored with death. Infidelity, gay husbands, physical abuse, and good old-fashioned itches were light relief in comparison. And that was why I had to go. If laughing meant laughing at me, I would accept that, because Cathy needed a laugh. I promised I wouldn’t welsh on the night. But that was before I had to stand in my bedroom, staring at my wardrobe, trying to find something other than sweatpants and fake Ugg boots to wear. My sartorial mainstay.

  “Okay, Bea,” I said to the clothes. “You can do this. Things haven’t got
that bad.” I flicked through a couple of hangers. There were dresses I hadn’t worn since before Lulu was born. I’d always thought I’d get back to that slim person I used to be. Without mirrors, I managed to believe I’d never left. There were no mirrors in my house except the small ones above the basin in the bathroom and the downstairs privy. There is one attached to the inside door of Amber’s wardrobe, but it’s covered with cut-out photographs of Zac Efron, so even when I open the doors to put away clean clothes, I’m saved from myself by Blu-Tack.

  Tonight I wanted to make an effort. The ever-hopeful idiot at the core of me had allowed herself to imagine, miracle of miracles, that there was going to be a decent bloke at this over-forties, left-on-the-shit-pile-of-life get-together. I was going. My friend was going. We were both all right. Was it so wrong to hope?

  I pulled out a black skirt, got it halfway up my thighs, then kicked it off. During the long postpartum years I had built in a pretty good early-warning system for clothes that would not do up. I took a couple of shirts off their hangers and held them up, then spotted some black trousers I’d forgotten. I grabbed them and pulled them on. They fitted. I was suddenly enthused. High boots, nice shirt, bit of cleavage, the fabulous necklace Jimmy had given me on our tenth wedding anniversary, and I’d be okay.

  I reached behind me to check what trousers they were that had been hiding from me all this time. Then I read the label. “Mimi Maternity.” I straightened up and stood stock-still. That couldn’t be right. I’d given all my maternity stuff to Faith when she was pregnant with Charlie. Surely I’d read it wrong. I forced myself to peel back the waistband again. “Mimi Maternity NYC.” I sat down on the bed. If only those trousers could talk.

  Jimmy had gone to New York when I was pregnant with Amber. He was about to hit the big time. Universal wanted to make him executive producer on a show he’d put together. The money was going to be brilliant. He came home with all these wonderful clothes, even though I had only a couple of months left of my pregnancy.

  I pulled off the maternity trousers and threw them across the room. They had been a bad omen. The deal had fallen through. As deals do. Not that we cared. We had a beautiful baby girl. Our happiness was secure. Other deals would happen. I had a good job. We were young. What mattered was our little unit. Jesus, I was so fucking naive.

  I put my jeans back on, knowing they were past the washing stage and well into the running-about-on-their-own stage. But they fitted and I felt comfortable in them. Especially with my long black jacket and the cripplingly high boots that put me at a willowy, ha-ha, five foot six. Eyedrops and concealer covered most of the damage the Mimi Maternity trousers had caused; makeup did the rest.

  When the doorbell went, I was ready. As ready as I’d ever be. Okay, over-forty single males, here I come…

  “You look great,” said Cathy as I opened the door.

  “So do you,” I replied.

  We were both lying.

  We had decided not to drive and I followed Cathy to the minicab. The “event” was taking place in a private room in a bar on the wrong side of Camden High Street. I was nervous as hell when I walked in. Naturally, the women outnumbered the men by three to one, but I was pleased to see that a lot of the women smiled semi-conspiratorially at me. Well, hey, at least I might make a friend, I thought.

  “Bar,” said Cathy.

  “You bet.”

  It was a moneymaking racket, that was for sure. First, we’d had to pay to join this illustrious gang. Second, we’d had to cough up for the event, and third, they’d jacked up the bar prices. I peered over the bar menu at Cathy. “Can I tempt you with a gin-based Take a Chance for the reasonable sum of twelve pounds fifty?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” she said, trying to grab the menu. I held firm and pretended to study it again.

  “Or a very refreshing The One. A fruity mix of juice and white rum served with a little false hope.”

  “Bea!”

  “No, hang on, found it. A very large Will You Please Shag Me I’m Desperate!” I looked up at Cathy. “That one comes with a cherry.”

  Cathy was still chuckling when she ordered the wine. White for me. Red for her. Bottles. No point doing things by halves.

  We watched for a while as the more experienced participators worked the room, handing out cards to all the men before the competition had a chance to stake claim.

  Because I was with Cathy, I didn’t find it intimidating. Instead I found it funny. Not Blackadder funny, more Mr. Bean funny, which, on reflection, isn’t very funny at all. Cathy and I stayed by the bar, having a quick catch-up. It lasted so long that, after a while, the men started to sidle up to us. A relatively decent-looking one made a beeline for Cathy, so I made my excuses and went to the loo to give her some space. When I returned, she was in full swing about her evil ex-husband who had got the babysitter pregnant. Only I knew it was an act. A bit of sport. A break from the mourning. I chatted to the young Polish girl behind the bar, who had been in England a few months and was finding life difficult. She missed her family. So did I. Water always finds its own level. But then something strange happened.

  A young-looking man—might have been forty, might have been younger—came and leaned up at the bar next to me. He introduced himself as Robert. He seemed a bit too good for an outfit like this, and I wondered if he was lying about his age to get in to where the pickings didn’t need picking up. I made a silent vow to myself not to seem grateful for his attention. I’d be friendly, but that wasn’t the same thing. He asked me about myself. So I told him.

  “I’m forty-two, I have three daughters and got divorced two years ago.” If I were a product, my label would read “No Frills.”

  “Do you work?”

  I felt the shame creep into my cheeks. “No. Well, I look after three kids.”

  “That must be tough,” he said kindly. “On your own.”

  “Sometimes I think it’s easier,” I replied honestly. “The parenting bit. You get to do it your way. Total autonomy. Except every other weekend and Wednesdays.” Except those Wednesdays when something came up.

  “Who decides these things? Why is it every other weekend and Wednesdays? I think it should be split equally.”

  “Why? Nothing else about parenting is equal.”

  He took a step back and raised his hands in mock surrender.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to sound so defensive.”

  “No, no, fair point, I’m sure.”

  I was crap at this. I searched my stagnant brain for a cheery opening. Reopening. Nothing came to mind.

  “So, how old are your children?” he asked.

  “Fourteen, nine, and eight.”

  “Ouch,” he said, squirming as if he’d bitten into a bad skate.

  Now what had I done?

  “Two pregnancies in under two years, brave woman.” I thought he was being nice, but I could have sworn he glanced at my stomach. I shifted in my seat.

  “So they’re at school now?”

  “Shit!” I slapped my forehead. “I knew I’d forgotten to pick something up.”

  He laughed unnecessarily loudly. I couldn’t decide which of us was regretting the conversation more.

  “So, you have a bit of time to yourself, then.”

  “Not really,” I replied, wanting to end this stilted, fruitless exchange.

  “But you can find an hour here or there, can’t you? If you’re honest with yourself.”

  I frowned in confusion. What on earth was he going to suggest? That I cancel all my coffee mornings, ha-ha, and meet up for a quickie?

  He pointed a finger at me. “Good,” he said. “You should be easy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Settle down.” He leaned closer to the name tag still plastered onto the lapel of my obviously-doesn’t-quite-hide-everything jacket. Then he reached inside his pocket and pulled out a card. He handed it to me. “Bea,” he said, “my name is Robert Duke. I’m a personal trainer. Use me, and you won’t
ever have to come to one of these tragic functions again.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but was so stunned I couldn’t find any words.

  “Listen, I know I’ve shocked you, but, Bea, you more than anyone in this place needs to be shocked. Remember the beautiful woman you were before pregnancy, breast-feeding, and exhaustion ripped you apart? She’s still there. Underneath all this shit.” He shook me slightly. I felt things wobble but was incapable of resisting. “I understand how hard it is, how frightening, but you can change. And I will help you every painful step of the way. But, my God, it’ll be worth it. Think of it—you could be in a bikini by the summer.” All I could do was stare at him. My resistance, my voice, my spine…gone. Who was this guy—the divorcée whisperer? “I know you’ve been through hell, Bea, but I can help you. This I know. You’re a great lady in bad shape.”

  Again I opened my mouth. Again nothing came out.

  Then he touched my shoulder, so gently that I almost fell off the stool. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be a bad lady in great shape?”

  With that, he squeezed my shoulder and was gone. The spell, or whatever it was, shattered. A strange sob came out of my mouth as I found myself sitting in a shitty bar on the wrong side of a bad bottle of wine at a soul-shatteringly sad event for leftovers like me. I stared at the card. “Bastard!” I hissed. It felt good. “Motherfucking-bastard-shit!” I threw back the rest of my wine, ripped up the card, and ran.

  WHAT FOLLOWED AT HOME WAS nothing short of disgusting. What saddened me most was that it wasn’t the first time it had happened. Worse than that, I knew I had sworn over the heads of my sleeping children that it wouldn’t happen again, but there I was, cramming food into my mouth without the slightest idea of how to stop. The first to go were, of course, the bloody Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes. I didn’t bother with the bowl. Four stale Wagon Wheels biscuits that had been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas chased the cereal. My kids don’t like Wagon Wheels. They’re right. Foul things. Didn’t stop me scoffing the lot.

  Robert Duke. I spat out chunks of marshmallow and biscuit as I regurgitated his name. “I’ll show you a bad lady!” Cheese next. Cheddar. The cheap, waxy kind that has a suspicious buoyancy. I bit into the slab and squeezed it between my teeth and gums until my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth; then washed it down with a carton of apple juice. I saved myself a few calories by spilling a lot.