‘Really.’
‘She would have taken her medication properly if that was true. She didn’t love me enough. I don’t love Alice enough. She reminds me of Matt.’
‘That is enough self-indulgent twaddle!’ He was half shouting. People looked at us. I was surprised. He carried on. ‘Come on, Emma. She’s your little girl. She’s nearly three. It’s breaking our hearts to see what this is doing to her. Pick her up and hug her, for God’s sake. She’s your reason for keeping going. You have to come home with us.’
‘I can’t.’ I blinked hard and looked down the promenade, at the dozens and dozens of holidaymakers. ‘I can’t because Matt and his wife and his son live in north London and I know I’d see them everywhere. Even if it wasn’t actually them, I’d think I saw them. I couldn’t do it. It would drive me truly insane.’
Geoff stared at the horizon. After a while, he nodded.
‘Well, you’ve got to do something,’ he said. ‘You’re skinnier than a rake and you mope in bed all day. You were never like this as a teenager. Maybe you’re having your teenage years late.’
I stared at the surfers. ‘I’m not skinny.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing of you.’
‘You’re just saying that because you’ve got three daughters, two daughters and a niece rather, and you’ve been well trained.’
‘I’m not. You have lost rather an alarming amount of weight, Emma.’
We both sat for a while. I poked my thighs. No doubt about it: they were fat. Geoff was talking bollocks.
Alice was running in the shallow water with her cousins. Bella was standing nearby, watching. People walked past the table where I sat with my uncle. They probably thought we were a couple. A group of three surfers strolled nonchalantly past, wearing board shorts and carrying surfboards under their arms.
‘I’d like to learn to surf,’ I said.
‘So do it,’ Geoff said immediately. ‘That’s the first time you’ve said anything positive. Greg’s back from Asia soon. He’ll come out and show you how it’s done.’
I laughed. My cousin Greg was a brilliant surfer. ‘Will he?’
‘Not unless you’ve got your act together. I hear what you’re saying about London. We’ll get together this evening, you and Bella and I, and we’ll get Christa on the phone, and together we’ll work out a plan B.’ Geoff slumped in his chair. ‘Bloody hell. It’s hard work, this.’
I smiled at him. ‘Tell me about it.’
Hugh lay in his single bed and watched the time change from 2.59 to 3.00. He had been feeling strange, incomplete, since leaving Jo. He was living with Pete and his girlfriend, Jane. They had both said that he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted, but he knew that the welcome was cautious on Jane’s part.
If Pete had been single, the brothers could have found a flat together, but, for the first time ever, he was cohabiting. Hugh found this irritating. Pete had been perpetually single. He was the most screwed-up bloke Hugh had ever known, prone to huge passions and dysfunctional, short-lived affairs. He had always suspected that Pete had never got over Emma, his first grand passion.
He had often wondered how that had happened. The reason he, Hugh, had liked Emma so much was because she was so agreeable. She had no mystery about her, no feistiness, no unpredictability. Emma was nice. She seemed a mightily unlikely focus for Pete’s angst.
Now, just as Hugh had broken Emma’s heart and ended his marriage to Jo, Pete had settled down. Jane brooked no nonsense. Hugh found her deeply annoying. She fussed around both of them, cooking, making cups of tea, placing their shoes side by side in the hall. She had long, limp hair and she liked to hold Pete’s hand. He wished Jane away, and barely spoke to her. He wanted his brother for himself. He felt that Pete owed it to him to drop everything and spend time with him. That was what brothers did.
It was not, of course, something that Hugh had ever done for Pete. He sat up in bed and looked round the edge of the curtain. The street was silent and still. He was going to have to get his own flat soon. Jo wouldn’t let him have Olly here overnight.
The last time he had lived alone was when he lived in that skanky bedsit. He had been defined through women for the past ten years. There was nothing wrong, he told himself, with an active love life. He considered the restorative effect that a couple of meaningless flings might have on him now. He knew that he could turn his two wives into an amusing story to illustrate his rakishness. He could become the sort of man who had children liberally sprinkled around Europe. There was a certain type of woman who would love that.
Somehow, though, he lacked the impetus to get out there and start again. He twisted on the bed, trying to relax. He could have gone to any bar and met a woman. He had been good at that. But he didn’t want to. Casual sex was not alluring presently. He reminded himself that he had always known that he would be found out. He had known it, yet he had never thought about what would really happen. Part of him had enjoyed the risks he had taken, and the prospect of being exposed had been a heady motivator for covering his tracks. He had got into the mess because of weakness, because something had clicked between him and Emma. He had liked her a lot, so he had carried on seeing her, without ever mentioning his marriage. He had carried on deceiving Jo because he had seemed to be getting away with it. There had been a huge thrill in keeping all the balls in the air at once.
Now he was on his own. The balls had crashed to earth, and the thrill had gone. He was flat, bored, guilty. Now that he was morally free to do whatever he wanted, the excitement had vanished and there was nothing he wanted to do, no one he wanted to see.
He should have trusted his feelings for Emma, told her from the start that he was married, and left Jo. That was what he should have done, but he hadn’t. By the time he had realised that he wanted to settle down with Emma, he had been lying for too long, and it was too late to tell her the truth. She would have run a mile.
Now the truth had seeped out. Everyone knew. Those whom Jo hadn’t told straightaway were finding out. Only this afternoon, his mobile had rung, and an unfamiliar number had been displayed. He had answered warily, half hoping for Emma, half hoping for Jo.
‘Hugh! It’s Claire.’ An old school friend of Jo’s. Someone they used to see once or twice a year. Clearly, someone out of the loop. ‘Listen,’ Claire had said. ‘This is a bit awkward but I’ve just heard on the grapevine that you and Jo have split up. Is that right?’ She had paused, waiting for his confirmation, which he gave with a grunt. ‘I’m so sorry to hear it. I just wanted to say, if there’s anything Vic and I can do, just say. This is such a shock – we’ve always thought you were the perfect couple. I hope you manage to work things out.’
‘Thanks, Claire. I doubt it.’ He was annoyed with her; she was blatantly digging and he decided to get straight to the point. ‘You want to know the details? I’m surprised the “grapevine” didn’t furnish them.’
She sounded put out. ‘No! No, that’s not the case at all. Christ. I’m just trying to say that I’m sorry. We don’t want to take sides and if there’s anything we can do for either of you, just say the word and we’ll be there.’
‘Look, you may as well know. Everyone else does. You’ll start calling me a bastard in about ten seconds from now.’
‘I won’t!’
‘I’ve got another child who lives in France. I have another partner. Neither of them knew about each other. Now they both do. My daughter’s the same age as Olly.’
There was a short pause. ‘You’re shitting me.’
‘Really. Ring Jo and check.’
‘I did ring her. She was out.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m amazed at you, Hugh. You fucking bastard.’
He had hung up before she could.
He remembered Emma begging him to come back to her. He knew he couldn’t do it. The relationship could never work now. Briefly, he wondered how she was doing. She had few friends, just her family of cousins, and he hoped they were taking care of her. Then he pushed her from his mind.
After a while, he crept out of the spare room and into the living room. He picked up the telephone handset and took it back into his bedroom. He sat on the bed and imagined Emma in bed in France. Was she, he wondered, asleep? Probably not. He had not heard from her for three weeks, not since the day she had turned up in Highgate. He wondered how she was coping, whether she was coping at all. He dialled 00 33, but pressed the disconnect button before going any further. Perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps she was getting over him.
He needed to get in touch with her soon about practical matters. He knew he needed to make arrangements. He had to support Alice, to help Emma sell the house, to pay off the builders. He hoped Emma would allow him to see his daughter. Perhaps, when they came back to Brighton, he would rent a small flat there, too, so he could see Alice on alternate weekends. The other weekends he would spend with Olly. Jo had flatly refused to have Olly sleeping at Pete’s place, but she had informed him, in the new, stiff voice she now reserved for him, that when he was sorted with a flat of his own, Oliver could stay over with him on every other Saturday.
At least he had more money now. Pete and Jane weren’t charging him rent. But he knew any spare cash would go on child support, and he didn’t want money anyway.
Life as an absent father was going to be grim as fuck. It was strange that, just a couple of months ago, he had been complaining to Pete that he never had any time to himself, that both families quite reasonably expected more than half of him.
He looked at the telephone for a while, then took it back to the sitting room. He went into the galley kitchen and turned the light on. He thought about tea, coffee and alcohol, but settled for a glass of water. He checked the clock. It was ten to four. The street light outside was throwing a sickly orange light onto the ceiling.
Pete coughed, and Hugh turned quickly.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said at once. ‘Did I wake you? I thought I was being quiet.’
‘You were,’ Pete assured him. ‘I was awake anyway. Heard you turn the tap on.’
‘Right.’
The two men stood in the kitchen in silence.
Alice woke up mad with excitement. At half past six, she climbed into bed with me, pulled my face round to look at her, and tugged at my hair.
‘Mummy! Mummy! Happy birthday to me! Mummy, is it mine birthday?’
I forced myself awake. The sleeping pills I was taking made me extremely drowsy at the best of times. Normally our day started at about eight. Half past six was not the best of times.
But it was Alice’s birthday. This was going to be a milestone. I had been watching the post for a gift from her father, but nothing had arrived, and today was Sunday. I wondered if he would ring. I suspected he wouldn’t; and I wondered how the loving, indulgent father Alice had adored had detached himself from her life so completely. My heart broke for her and I knew that this was going to have to be a special day. I made an effort to pull myself out of the mire.
‘Happy birthday, darling,’ I said, rolling over and hugging her.
‘You sing.’
I gave her my best rendition of Happy Birthday. She listened, beaming proudly. As soon as I finished, she demanded an encore, and joined in with me. I held her as tightly as she would let me, as we both sang, at the top of our voices: ‘Happy birthday, dear Alice!’ We were warm under my duvet, in the biggest bedroom in the house, shuttered away from the world in an obscure corner of Europe. I snuggled my face into her hair and smelt Alice’s smell. My baby girl was three. I was still nowhere near as devoted a mother as I should be, but I had managed to inter my evil self, and we were getting through the days.
She smiled up at me. ‘I’m three now. I think I need some presents.’
Everything I did was an effort. I was scraping by. I knew that Alice’s third birthday was more important than anything, and I tried to force myself to be cheerful. Matt and I had planned an extravagant party for her. We had been determined to be properly settled by 20 October. We were going to have a clown and party food, and balloons everywhere and all the children in the class were going to come to tea.
It had been a stupid, deluded dream. I had invited no one. I knew I did not have the resources for socialising, for a house full of excitable three-year-olds and their parents. I could not have coped with it. My official excuse was that our central heating was not working yet, so the house was no place for children. Unfortunately, this was true. The builders were hard at work now, but so far there had been a lot more destruction than construction. We had five gaping holes in the back wall, and the windows were not due to be fitted for another three weeks. Heating seemed to be going to come last.
‘Rosie will be here at eight,’ I told Alice.
‘Will she bring me a present?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Probably. But you mustn’t ask her straightaway. She’s coming to film your birthday.’
Rosie had been aghast and elated at the sudden change in my fortunes. She had passed an urgent request to talk to me through Andy and Fiona. As soon as I had started forcing myself to see people, Rosie had been there.
‘I’m gutted for you,’ she said smoothly. Her eyes were alight with the scent of a story. ‘And you know what? The best revenge you could ever get on that creep would be if you let me make a little film all about you. Show the world what he’s like. Just go about your normal life and I’ll work around you. It’ll be just me. I’m going to shoot it myself, edit it myself. It’s going to be a one-woman show. Or a two-woman show: mine and yours. I’m excited about it. How about it?’
I opened my mouth to say no, but found the word ‘yes’ coming out instead. I just didn’t care. So, while Plan B had involved a steady stream of family members coming to babysit me, my real companion had been Rosie. She was completely focused on her work, and since her work was me, I was becoming fond of her. I knew that I was using her as an emotional crutch and that this was completely inappropriate, but I could not bring myself to care. Rosie was in my house a lot. When she was there I had to make an effort with Alice. This was good.