to the girls’ excited chatter, the dog whining until the door was opened, then trotting beside Lucy and the buggy while the girls dashed ahead, pausing obediently on the edge of the pavement.
They went out of the gate and turned right, and Lucy glanced back over her shoulder. She couldn’t see him, he was standing at the back of the study with Emily’s words ringing in his ears, but he could read the disappointment and condemnation in her eyes.
He’d been about to go out into the hall, to say he’d go with them, but then he’d heard Em ask if he was coming.
‘No,’ Lucy had replied. ‘He’s too busy.’
‘He’s always too busy,’ Emily had said, her voice sad and resigned, and he’d felt it slice right through him.
He should have gone out into the hall there and then and said he was joining them. It wasn’t too late even now, he could pull his boots on and catch up, they wouldn’t have got far.
But he didn’t. He really, really had to finish this assignment today, so he watched them out of sight, and then he went into the kitchen, put some toast in, switched the kettle on again and made a pot of coffee. His hand shook slightly as he poured the water onto the grounds, and he set the kettle down abruptly.
Stress. It must be stress. And no wonder.
He tipped his head back and let out a long, shaky sigh. God, he’d got some work to do to make up for this. Em’s voice echoed in his head. Daddy, you broke a promise. After all he’d said to them, everything he believed in, and he’d let them down. Lucy should have explained to them, but frankly it didn’t sound as if she herself understood.
Well, she ought to. She was a doctor, too, a GP—or she had been until they’d had Lottie. She was still on maternity leave, debating going back again part time as she had before, just a couple of sessions a week.
He didn’t want her to go back, thought the children needed her more than they needed the money, and it was yet another bone of contention. They seemed to be falling over them all the time, these bones.
The skeleton of their marriage?
He pressed the plunger and poured the coffee, buttered his toast with Emily’s knife and then pulled a face at the streak of chocolate spread smeared in with the butter. He drowned it out with bitter marmalade, and sat staring out at the bedraggled and windswept garden.
He couldn’t remember when they’d last been out there doing anything together. June, maybe, when Lottie was three months old? He’d mowed the lawn from time to time, but they hadn’t cut the perennials down yet for the winter, or trimmed back the evergreens, or cleared the summer pots and tubs. Lucy had been preoccupied with Lottie, and he’d been too busy to do anything other than go to work, come home to eat and then shut himself in the study until he was too tired to work any longer. If he’d made it into the sitting room so he could be with Lucy, he’d had the laptop so he could carry on working until he fell into bed.
He must have been mad taking on the course, but it was nearly done now, this one last assignment the finish of it. That, and the exam he had to sit in a fortnight. Lord knows when he’d find time to revise for that. Lucy was taking the kids away to her parents for half term to give him some time to concentrate, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough, not if he was at work all day. And there was still this blasted assignment to knock on the head.
Refilling his mug, he took his coffee back into the study, shut the door and had another go at making sense of that overly wordy and meaningless paper.
Or maybe he should just ignore it and press on without referring to it. Then he could finish the assignment off this morning, and tonight he could take Lucy out and try and make it up to her.
Good idea.
∗ ∗ ∗
‘Don’t cook for us, I’m taking you out for dinner.’
Lucy looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Have you got a babysitter?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, good luck with that. Anyway, I don’t want to go out for dinner.’
He stared at her, stunned. He’d bust a gut finishing off the assignment so he could spare the time, and now this? ‘Why ever not? You like going out for dinner.’
‘Not when we’re hardly speaking! It’s not my idea of fun to sit opposite you while you’re lost in thought on some stupid assignment or other for a course you’ve taken on without consulting me—’
‘Well, what do you want to do?’
‘I don’t want to do anything! I want you to talk to me! I want you to share decisions, not just steam ahead and do your own thing and leave us all behind! I want you to put the kids to bed, read them a story, give me a hug, bring me a cup of tea. I don’t need extravagant gestures, Andy, I just need you back.’
He sighed shortly, ramming his hand through his hair. ‘I haven’t gone anywhere, Lucy. I’m doing this for all of us.’
‘Are you? Well, it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you’re just shutting us out, as if we don’t matter as much as your blasted career—’
‘That’s unfair.’
‘No, it isn’t! You’re unfair. Neglecting your children is unfair. When did you last put Lottie to bed?’
He swallowed hard and turned away. ‘Luce, it’s been chaos—’
‘Don’t give me excuses!’
‘It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason,’ he said tautly. ‘Anyway, I’m around tomorrow. We’ll do something then, all of us.’
‘Are you sure? You aren’t going to find something else to do?’
‘No! I’m here. All day. I promise.’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I haven’t got time for this. I’ve got work to do—’
‘Of course you have. You always have work to do, and it’s always more important than us. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you.’
This time she was the one who walked off. She shouldered past him, went into the utility room, shut the door firmly and started to tackle the ironing while Lottie was napping.
His phone rang just before eleven that night, while he was printing off the hated assignment. HR? Really?
Really.
‘Oh, you’re kidding, Steve! Not again.’
‘Sorry, Andy. There isn’t anyone else. James isn’t back in the country until tomorrow, or I’d ask him. It’s just one of those things. I’ll sort a new locum first thing on Monday, I promise.’
He gave a heavy sigh and surrendered. ‘All right—but this is the last time, Steve. And you owe me, with bells on.’
He hung up, and sat there for a while wondering
