landscape, Curtis began to whoop like an ape, ‘Oo oo oo!’, crossing his eyes and swinging his arms.
Glad they were joking around rather than arguing, Ronan tucked his left arm into his pocket to relieve his sore shoulder of its weight as he turned back to his task with a wry ‘How could she resist?’
The roomy kitchen was bright with colourful tiles and fabrics. Alister was attacking the shiny crust of a baguette and Leah realised guiltily that he must have been down to the boulangerie while she’d been lazing in the sun.
Natasha was already at the table, buttering chunks of bread, tutting as her knife made a hole, while Jordan stabbed at his phone with the intensity reserved by fifteen-year-olds for anything with a screen. ‘You’re coming kayaking with us, aren’t you?’ demanded Natasha.
‘Sounds fun.’ Leah washed her hands before opening the fridge in search of cheese and cold meats. She glanced at her brother-in-law. ‘Does Michele know kayaking’s on today’s schedule?’ It didn’t seem the obvious activity for a forty-three-year-old in the early stages of pregnancy.
Alister sawed energetically, his eyes fixed rigidly on the baguette through the lenses of his glasses. ‘Haven’t seen her this morning.’
‘I have,’ Natasha piped up. ‘She’s a bit under the weather so she’s going to stay here and rest. If the boats are two-person, can I be with you, Leah? Then it’ll be girls against boys.’
Jordan glanced up from his phone. ‘We’d spend all day waiting for you. It’ll be better if I go with Leah and you go with Dad.’
Natasha pointed an indignant butter knife. ‘I said Leah first. Just because Mum’s not here –’
‘Jordan, would you make the coffee, please?’ interrupted Alister, in his head-teacher voice that managed somehow to be both mild and authoritative. ‘Natasha, how many more slices?’
Leah followed Alister’s lead in distracting the kids from bickering. ‘We’ll take the advice of the hire staff regarding distribution of paddlers between kayaks, shall we?’ As they sat down at the refectory-style table and she sliced Munster cheese onto her bread Leah added, ‘I could eat so much of this that I wouldn’t fit in a kayak.’
Jordan grinned. ‘You do have the appetite of the average gorilla.’ The conversation loosened with laughter, though Leah’s thoughts were less than cheery.
Three days they’d been in Kirchhoffen. For two of them, Michele had managed to contrive that the family went out without her. So far nobody had openly questioned it but Leah knew the oddness of this behaviour wouldn’t bypass the kids for long.
When breakfast was over, she slipped out into the hall and up the wooden staircase, its open treads sweeping up between thick spindles to the first floor, then up again to the rooms tucked beneath the gabled roof. Michele and the children had rooms on the first floor; Alister had been allocated space at the top, where there was only his room and the games room.
By treading at the edges of each step Leah found she could glide almost silently to Michele’s quarters. Without ceremony, she thrust the door open.
Dressed only in pretty underclothes and a towel swathing her hair, Michele jumped guiltily, pressing a button on her phone. ‘Come in, won’t you?’ A yellow summer dress was laid out on top of her neatly made bed.
Leah closed the door behind her. ‘Do you need anything before we go out? Natasha says you’re under the weather.’
Michele lowered her voice. ‘You know I feel lumpy in the mornings.’ Her skin did look pale and waxy.
‘We can hang on until you feel well enough to come with us.’
Michelle belted on a blue robe and dropped her phone into its pocket. ‘I can’t go kayaking in my condition and I don’t want to tell the kids why yet.’ She unwound the towel and began to rub her hair.
‘We can do something less energetic.’
‘I’d hate to ruin things for them. I’ll put my feet up today, have a lovely dinner ready for when you come home, then spend the evening with the children.’ Michele began to brush her wet hair sleek against her head. She looked different without her curls. Harder.
Or was that just how she was, these days? Harder?
Although Michele picked up the hairdryer and paused, poised, as if to hint she had other things to do than chat, Leah meandered to the bedroom chair and plumped down into its depths. ‘It’s turned out to be a good thing that Alister’s here, with you having morning sickness. I know you wouldn’t have put on me to take the kids out all the time.’
Michele’s eyes glinted oddly. ‘Alister told me last night that I’m acting like a stranger so I suppose I might do anything. What do you think? Do you still know me?’
Leah’s sympathy warred with exasperation. ‘Of course I do. I just don’t really understand what’s going on with you.’
Blinking, Michele fidgeted with the hairdryer, dropping her gaze. ‘Maybe you should.’
Leah leaned forward and covered her sister’s hands to still her fretful movements. ‘But all our lives you’ve known what you wanted. To be a wife and mother with a home in a nice area and a sensible car to ferry your kids around in. Now you’re suddenly less cautious than I am.’
Michelle shrugged. ‘Your choices are just as carefully thought out as mine. It’s just that they’re all about how to avoid having kids or a husband who would stop you from indulging yourself with car races or stunt driving. Why shouldn’t I want my life to be all about me, sometimes?’
‘Because you gave that up to have children. Shell, even if you stop being Alister’s wife you can’t stop being a mother. You’re in a strange place but none of this is easy on Jordan and Natasha.’
Michele’s shoulders began to quake. ‘I know. I’m the worst mum in the world.’
Though aware she was being manipulated, Leah was unwilling to damn Michele’s hitherto conscientious parenting. ‘You’re absolutely not, or the kids wouldn’t be so keen to spend time with you.’ She jumped to her feet and assumed a bright tone and matching smile. ‘Look, take today for yourself. Put on your pretty dress and flake out in the garden. Read, paint your nails, snooze. There’s even a hot workman next door to watch. Then maybe you’ll be ready to go out with the family tomorrow.’
‘Maybe.’ Michele managed a watery smile, picked up her hairbrush and switched on her hairdryer.
Unfortunately, the day’s kayaking on the River Ill in the forest of Illwald achieved a poor rating on the fun scale. Natasha, though she achieved her aim of sharing a boat with Leah, became tearful every time she was splashed, Jordan called her Gnasher, or one of the ugly grey bugs that plagued the river took a bite of her. As a result, she spent most of the day sporting damp eyes. Every ten minutes she’d sigh, ‘I wish Mum was with us,’ which made Jordan snap, ‘Shut up, Gnasher.’
Alister emerged from his thoughts long enough to say, ‘Bit kinder, maybe, Jordan?’ and Jordan fell to silent scowling, stabbing the khaki surface of the river with an angry paddle.
Leah drove home longing to hide away in La Petite Annexe and treat herself to a huge glass of pinot gris. Instead,
