for her. She checked the clock. Half past midnight. It was unlike Paul to be as late as this.
She wasn’t tired so made herself a cup of peppermint tea and took it up to the living room. She’d wait for Paul. She collapsed into the familiar comfort of their old sofa, currently reupholstered in an off-white calico (something she could never have chosen until Sam and Megan had left home) and scattered with the rose-print cushions she’d found at a brocante during the same holiday that Paul had bought the pie-dish. What a good weekend that had been. Was there this unfamiliar distance between them back then? She didn’t think so. Something had definitely happened that had stopped them communicating in their old familiar way.
Or someone? Her sudden gasp caught her by surprise. The thought was as unwelcome as it was shocking. As she tried to shake it off, it only tightened its hold. Could history be repeating itself? Yet again she dismissed the idea. Now part of the warp and weft of their marriage, his affair was an incident they’d weathered and he’d promised there wouldn’t be another. Surely this was one of the occasional downturns to be expected in a long-term partnership. But she didn’t find the thought all that reassuring.
She put down her tea and stood up to look at herself in the large mirror over the fireplace. Stuck about with invitations and cards from the children, her reflection stared back, showing a thoughtful face only slightly lined and framed by fine dark hair. She could never be as open as Bea or Ellen in discussing her relationship with Paul: it wasn’t something she wanted to air with them or with anybody, not in any detail at least. No, this was something she was going to have to work out alone.
She crossed to the assorted family photos ranged on the top of the console table and picked up their wedding picture, so old it was beginning to fade. There they stood, radiant and full of hope for the future. So much of that hope had been fulfilled, she thought. An abrupt miaow announced the arrival of Mouse, the grey stray that had adopted them about ten years earlier. Sam had found the bedraggled young cat in the bushes at the end of the garden. He had tempted him out with a saucer of milk and a bit of cold chicken, and ever since Mouse had been Sam’s most devoted fan. He hopped up beside Kate now, rubbing against her hand and clawing at her trousers.
‘Mouse! Stop it!’ She lifted him up and laid him on her lap, stroking him until his rumbling purr filled the silence. ‘There, you silly old thing. Where do you think Paul’s got to?’
She picked up her book on Africa. Reading about someone else’s experiences travelling through Ghana and other countries brought her a little closer to Sam and helped her understand something of the country where he was. She found her place, although she wasn’t in the mood to read tonight. What would Paul say when she told him Ellen had invited them for lunch? Would he be as interested in meeting Oliver as she and Bea were? Probably. He liked Kate’s friends and was pleased to see them when he did but wasn’t as involved with their lives as Kate was. As far as he was concerned, they were a part of her life that was separate from him. However, even his interest had been piqued by the arrival of Oliver. Wait till he heard about the shed. He was cynical, like Bea, and curious about who Oliver was and where he had come from.
‘I’m learning about him every day,’ Ellen had protested, when cross-questioned earlier in the evening. ‘He’s lived in France, somewhere in Centre, for the last two or three years and doesn’t like talking about what went on there. He says it’s still too painful. Something to do with the woman he lived with. But I’m happy with that. I’d rather not know. Anyway, he’ll tell me when he’s ready.’
‘But, Ellen, you’ve got to ask him,’ Bea insisted. ‘God almighty, woman! You’ve got him practically living in your house, and your children will be home in a couple of days. Suppose he turns out to be – I don’t know – a paedophile or something?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’ Ellen was outraged. ‘If there was something like that, I’d know. Why can’t you just take him as the loving, generous man I know he is? You’re my closest friends, for God’s sake. I just want you to be pleased for me. You’ll see when you meet him.’
And then she had invited them to a family lunch. Bea had looked slightly ashamed of her suggestion, apologised and accepted. As had Kate.
Kate ran her fingers up and down Mouse’s soft belly, making him stretch out his legs in pleasure. If Ellen was prepared to accept Oliver at face value, shouldn’t they? As Ellen’s friends, it was up to them to support her in whatever life choices she made. Who were they to question her judgement? Or should they, as her friends, be looking out for her when she was head over heels, possibly blind to anything that would spoil things? Kate knew Bea would take the latter view but for once she disagreed. She wanted Ellen to be happy. She wanted that for all of them. She sighed and began to read about the elephants of Knysna.
Outside, the gate banged, and Paul’s key turned in the lock. She stood up to greet him, tipping an indignant Mouse onto the floor. At last. Late he might be but this was her chance to start making things better between them.
Chapter 16
As they pulled up outside the house, Matt leaned forward, pulling against his seatbelt and blocking the window. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Where?’ Ellen didn’t look up as she rummaged in her bag for her purse.
‘There’s a man standing on the doorstep, waving.’
Despite Oliver’s attempts to persuade her, she had refused to let him come with her to Paddington to meet Emma and Matt and had asked for a couple of days alone in which the kids could settle back home. Reluctantly, he had agreed to be introduced into the household by degrees, without any fanfare. At the same time, Ellen enjoyed the thought of stealing out for secret rendezvous in the flat, keeping him a delicious secret for a little while longer, preserving the family’s status quo. Deceit might be bad but it was surely better than telling the children too soon. She was at last confident in her control of the situation and relieved she had found the right way at last. That was what her friends and family would want.
But despite all they’d agreed, here he was.
‘So, who is he, Mum?’ Emma emerged from the gloom she’d been in ever since she’d set foot in the taxi. She had spent the entire journey home staring bleary-eyed out of the window. Ellen thought she’d caught her wiping away a tear but felt it better not to say anything. If Josh the surfie was the problem, nothing she could say would make a difference. The summer was over, they had to come home and Emma had to learn to live with disappointments thrown up by life, however painful. When they had time alone, she would try to console her.
‘Have you been having something done to the house?’ Emma looked anxious that her instructions to leave her garish Indian/hippie-themed bedroom might have been ignored and that she was going to find the tasteful lilac or gardenia walls that Ellen sometimes threatened.
‘No. He’s a friend, that’s all. Come on, get out.’
‘Not the one you told me about?’
Ellen cursed the sharpness of Matt’s memory.
‘Not the boyfriend?’ He brought all the scorn of a thirteen-year-old to the last word.
‘Boyfriend!’ Emma was immediately all attention. ‘You never said anything, Mum.’
‘He’s not a boyfriend. Oliver’s just someone I met while you were away.’ She struggled to pocket her change, before bending over to pick up the two cases, leaving the kids to their backpacks. ‘You’ll like him.’
Doubt was writ very large indeed on Emma’s
