He’s still not getting it.
He wanted to know where she was living, and when she wouldn’t say, he took offence. He wasn’t a stalker, he said. Jo knew that, she replied. She just needed her own space. He told her he was getting help, like she said. Gamblers Anonymous. She nodded, said she was glad for him, but it didn’t change anything. He asked why she was being so combative. It was like she hated him, but she couldn’t hate him. They’d been together for years. They loved each other. They’d almost had a child together.
And that was when she lost it.
‘You’re using that as some sort of bargaining tool?’
‘No, I’m not. I—’
She leant across the table and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘If we did have a baby, we’d struggle to afford nappies at the moment.’
He looked taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t have … I mean, if it had worked out, I never would have started.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘And you know what, I’m glad we never had to find out.’
That knocked him speechless for a minute or so and they sipped their drinks silently, two angry pugilists having a breather between rounds. The pregnancy a year before had been an uncalculated surprise that opened a future neither had planned for, but the subsequent miscarriage, right before the twelve-week scan, had hurt more than she’d expected. They’d agree to wait then until after they’d found a house before trying again. Life was suddenly full of opportunities.
Until he had thrown it all away.
She told him then and there, in no uncertain terms, that they were never ever getting back together. And she’d found Bright Futures online the following day.
* * *
The knot in her stomach grew tighter as she drove away from the city, following the signs to the pretty neighbouring village of Horton, with its single pub-cum-village-shop-and-post-office. For families with young kids it was ideal. Good schools, safe roads, countryside on the doorstep. For Jo, growing up car-less, it had felt like the back of beyond. She remembered vividly the feeling of relief as she’d left for uni at eighteen, swearing to herself that she’d never come back. Her dad had actually cried on the doorstep – he knew. Her mum had waved her away with a cheery smile. Perhaps she had known too. They’d never had the best of relationships.
Jo pulled off onto Blenheim Road, where the houses were all discreetly distanced from one another, with names rather than numbers. At the one called ‘The Rookery’, she turned up the gravel drive. The front of the house was already filled with cars. Her brother had painted the door red over the old blue, but otherwise the family home was just the same – externally, at least.
Paul, his wife Amelia and the kids had moved in after Dad died suddenly. It had happened without much discussion – they’d been thinking of moving to somewhere bigger anyway and it made sense while they found the right place. Jo was grateful at the time, too, because she had just transferred to Bath, and there was no way she could make the commute and be there for her mother as well. Amelia had been thinking about going back to work as a teacher, but she put it on hold.
Paul’s theory was that having family at hand and her grandkids running around would help their mum, but it hadn’t. Stella was lost without her partner of forty-five years. First it was a series of falls, after which they made some changes to the downstairs to give her a room on the ground floor. Then her mind began to suffer as well. Paul’s youngest, Will, was only three at the time, and thought it was all quite funny, but Emma, then eleven, started to find Gran frightening. She started wandering around at night too. Paul and Amelia took the decision to move her to a residential home. They’d never asked Jo for money, thank goodness, but as far as she knew they didn’t have any mortgage or rent either. It had worked out pretty well for her brother.
Not for the first time, she wondered guiltily what would happen when her mum died. The house must be worth close to a million quid.
There were lights on across the ground floor, and as she walked up carrying the hatbox, she felt like a teenager again, sneaking back after a night out. Growing up, she’d hated the remoteness of the place, envying her friends who lived within walking distance of the city centre. At sixteen, her parents had finally given in and let her head into the city on a Friday night, with strict instructions to get the last bus home. She remembered once how she’d forgotten her key, and rather than wake up her parents, she’d climbed the drainpipe onto one of the front bays, then opened the sash window from outside to get back into her bedroom.
She rang the bell. On the other side of the door, she heard the laughter of adults and the shrieking of children. No one came. She thought about ringing again, but decided to go around the back instead. She passed the bins, reached over the side gate and pulled back the bolt.
‘Hey!’ a figure jumped back. ‘Oh, it’s you!’
Jo couldn’t see the cigarette but she could smell it, and it set off a pang, even though she hadn’t touched one for years. Her niece stood in the darkness of the side passage, illuminated only by the faint light from her phone’s screen.
‘Hi Em.’
‘Why didn’t you go through the front?’
‘No one answered.’ She saw the dying embers of a fag butt. ‘Would it help to tell you those things will kill you?’
‘Please don’t tell Mum.’
‘I’m sure she knows already.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Emma sulkily. She was taller than Jo already, even though she was only fifteen. ‘Ben not with you?’
‘He couldn’t make it.’ She wasn’t even close to being able to tell her family. Ben had charmed them all from the start, like he did with everyone.
Emma pointed further down the passage. ‘Oh, well – the fun’s all round the back.’
There were people spilling out from a set of bifold doors. Paul and Amelia had redone the kitchen, she saw – extending it out another few metres with a glass-roofed orangery arrangement. It must have cost a fortune. Their guests, all effortlessly cool forty-somethings, were drinking from champagne glasses, lounging around a kitchen island and on outdoor furniture. Jo hated it already, but told herself to give it a chance.
William, her nephew, was charging past the legs of the adults, holding a very realistic Uzi machine gun. One of the guests was pretending to be shot, collapsing against a wall.
‘How many times,’ boomed Paul’s voice. ‘Stop killing people. The police will shut us down …’ He caught sight of Jo and grinned. ‘See, they’re already here! Hi sis!’
William ran towards her and Jo put down the box and braced herself as the six-year-old leapt in the air. She caught him, but almost lost her footing.
‘You weigh a tonne!’ she gasped.
‘Hi Auntie Jo,’ he said.
Amelia wafted through the crowds, a glass in hand ready to give to Jo. ‘Hello darling,’ she said. ‘Thanks for making the trip.’
‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ said Jo. Amelia was hard not to like.
Paul
