Goodness, Grace and Me Read online

  Oh please, not too much, I prayed, twisting round in order to see the offending body part while making a mental note to see Kit re his ‘comics’.

  Ten minutes later, thanks to India’s little fingers doing up the hooks and eyes, I was ready. Trussed up like a scarlet chicken, I was having trouble breathing, but the anticipation of a few hours with my lovely, lovely husband couldn’t keep me from smiling.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Hat, we need to talk.’

  Half asleep in a post-coital stupor, I glanced at my alarm clock. Almost midnight. The last thing I needed was a showdown about Nick’s decision to sell his soul to David Henderson. Or did he want to talk to me about something else? Someone else, even? Was the sex we’d just had a parting gift before he told me he was in love with Amanda? Playing for time I feigned sleep.

  ‘Can you smell burning?’ Nick shook me roughly, sat bolt upright and sniffed the air like a cartoon dog.

  ‘Hey, ah knows we just had some ‘haat sex’,’ I affected a Deep South American accent, ‘but ah never set the bed on fire befooah.’

  Naked, and still sniffing, Nick hopped out of bed and went towards the open window.

  ‘Fucking hell, Hattie, the potting shed’s on fire.’ And he was off, like Seb Coe at the Olympics – only slightly more demented and about one hundred percent more naked – down the stairs to the front door and out into the garden, grabbing and tugging at the hosepipe which hadn’t been reeled back in very successfully after being used for car washing by Kit a couple of weeks previously.

  Bored after an hour of trying to earn enough money to buy a new PlayStation game, Kit had obviously unceremoniously dumped the heap of twisted green rubber, where it had lain like an exhausted and defeated snake in a misjudged Houdini-type trick. Oops! Kit was going to be in trouble. Nick was, if anything, even more of an anorak over his usually neatly coiled garden hose than his bonfires. And no prizes for guessing who was going to be in trouble, big time, for setting the garden shed on fire. Unable to divest myself of the scarlet basque – I’d kept it on in the anticipation of seconds before breakfast – and unable to find any jeans or sweater, I set off just as I was and ran down to the bottom of the garden to join Nick, noticing as I went how much the wind had got up since my afternoon’s gardening session.

  The more we pulled at the hose, the more stubbornly it refused to budge. The next minute two huge fire tenders raced through the garden gates, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring and proceeded to spill what appeared to be the entire Midhope Fire Brigade onto our drive.

  ‘You looked to be having trouble,’ shouted Ralph-Next-Door, peering over the garden fence and averting his gaze from Nick’s jiggling genitalia, ‘so I dialled 999.’

  ‘Thanks Ralph,’ I gasped. ‘I can’t think how it can have started.’ I needed to bluff my way out of this one.

  ‘It’ll be that garden bonfire you lit this afternoon. Obviously flared up again with this wind.’

  Thank you Ralph and Goodnight!

  I didn’t have time to gauge Nick’s reaction to Ralph’s tale-telling before more blue flashing lights and sirens made their way through the garden gates. This time a panda car raced up the drive, parking itself neatly next to the fire engines.

  ‘Mr Westmoreland?’ a slim, very attractive WPC who made no attempt to avert her eyes from my husband’s nether regions joined us by the sulking hosepipe. ‘We’ve had a call from your alarm company to say your alarm has gone off.’

  ‘Oh shit, I’m sorry. Well, as you can see for yourself we’re not being burgled. We obviously forgot to turn it off before dashing downstairs – it’s got a five minute delayed action on it. Not much good anyway. You can’t even hear it down here.’ Nick tried to cover up his bits with the paper hanky I’d found in my jeans’ pocket.

  ‘Mum, the alarm’s going off,’ shouted a frantic Libby from the safety of the front door. And then, stating the blindingly obvious, added ‘And the potting shed’s on fire and Dad hasn’t got any clothes on.’

  As Liberty was joined at the door by Kit and India who, just to confirm it, shouted, ‘Daddy, you’ve no clothes on,’ the unlit, shadowed drive became blue once more as another cop car hurtled towards us.

  ‘Had a report of a naked man in your garden, sir,’ said the older of the two uniformed policemen now walking towards us. The younger one, who clearly had the hots for the WPC in the first panda car, was trying very hard to appear nonchalant and grown up, but couldn’t help sneaking surreptitious glances at where she now stood lounging against the side of her car watching the fire and chatting with her partner. This must be better than mopping up drunks as the clubs closed, and they seemed in no hurry to move off now that they’d established our family silver was still in situ.

  Nick, looking decidedly chilly, sighed heavily before saying, with great irony, ‘Well, yes, I am that man – obviously.’

  Before he could offer any reasonable explanation as to why he was standing naked in his own garden while his garden shed burned, two things happened simultaneously, bringing what can only be described as an arresting quarter of an hour to an even more impressive conclusion.

  The two boxes of fireworks bought by my dad a few weeks ago in readiness for Guy Fawkes night, and stored down in the garden shed where they’d be out of sight and reach of an inquisitive five-year-old, joined forces with the plastic container of lawn mower petrol, blowing off what remained of the potting shed roof. A whole rainbow of flashes and sparks from several Roman Candles, Rockets and Golden Rains lit up the night sky accompanied by a succession of triumphantly loud bangs and crashes.

  From his vantage point above the garden fence a thoroughly overexcited and pyjama-ed Ralph shouted ‘Get down,’ and, falling off his upturned water butt, proceeded to do just that as yet another car, civilian this time, swept up the drive towards us.

  Grace, stopping only to pay the open-mouthed taxi driver, walked calmly over to where we stood and, surveying one naked man, one scarlet basque-attired rudey lady and various others in uniform, announced, ‘If I’d known you were having a swingers’ fancy dress bonfire party I’d have got here earlier.’

  ‘Dan’s gone,’ Grace said, explaining her presence twenty minutes later as the last of the emergency services departed and we made our way back up to the house.

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed.

  ‘What do you mean, “yes”?’ Grace asked, stopping in her tracks and turning towards me for explanation.

  ‘Well, I don’t assume your turning up here at one in the morning is just a social call.’ The events of the last hour made my retort sharper than I’d intended.

  ‘Look, I’ll go if it’s not convenient,’ she said, her voice breaking as she turned and began to walk back down the drive.

  Although she was certainly not drunk, I could smell the alcohol on her breath as I grabbed her arm and hauled her back in the direction we were going. I was relieved that she’d had the good sense to order a taxi rather than drive herself here.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come on. Let’s get inside.’ I linked my arm with hers and drew her into the sitting room where the remains of a fire still glowed dully in the grate. Throwing some more wood onto the embers, I pushed her down onto the settee and went to make us tea. Nick was already in the kitchen, now in a towelling robe, and waiting for the kettle to boil. Specks of soot freckled his face and dried blood from a cut on his hand combined to give him an air of vulnerability.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, burying my face in the warmth of his robe. It smelled of aftershave and smoke.

  ‘How could you have been so bloody stupid as to light a fire and then leave it?’ The combination of shock, cold, and embarrassment at being viewed in the buff by all and sundry, had made him angrier than I’d seen him for a long time.

  ‘I just wanted to be a real gardener. I’ll pay for it all,’ I added, hoping that might calm him down.

  ‘Harriet, you haven’t got any money to pay for it,’ he snapped, stirring his mug viciously so tha
t its contents slopped over on to the granite worktop.

  Stung into self-defence I snapped back, ‘And whose bloody fault is that?’ and instantly wished I hadn’t.

  ‘I’m going back to bed,’ Nick said coldly, pushing me away. ‘Make sure you lock up – we can do without burglars. Although,’ he said as an afterthought as he reached the door, ‘I’m sure no self-respecting thief would look twice at what we’ve got.’

  Oh bugger!

  I still had Grace in the next room to sort out. She was sitting, dry-eyed, perfectly still as she stared into the fire. I knew nothing about first aid and wondered if I should have added several teaspoons of sugar to her tea to counteract shock.

  ‘I didn’t know where else to go,’ she said, still intent on the flames in the sitting-room fire but accepting the tea that she now cupped in her two hands, gaining comfort from its warmth. ‘As he was getting a few things together, all I could think was, now I’ll never have a baby. They’ll never let me adopt one by myself.’ She lifted her head pitifully, but still didn’t cry.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, stroking her hand and gently removing the cup from her grasp, where it threatened to spill and burn. I don’t think she’d have noticed if it had.

  Grace sighed a couple of times before turning to me. ‘He said he had to put some distance between us for a while. That he couldn’t carry on like this any longer – this whole baby thing was destroying us.’

  Oh yeah? And the messing about with the redhead wasn’t?

  ‘He saw you last night, you know. Recognised the number plate as they got out of the taxi. Looked in the car and saw it was you.’ Grace smiled. ‘I assume that’s why you rang me this morning when I was out with Max?’

  ‘Yes. I’m really sorry, Grace. I just didn’t know whether to tell you or not.’

  ‘Well I suppose that knowing you were party to his little affair meant that he’d realised he’d have to come clean sooner or later. But I’d spent a good five minutes as soon as he got in the door this afternoon bombarding him with my plans for adoption. I was so excited, you see. Thought that this would be the answer to it all. It was only when I saw the look of utter despair on his face that I realised we were going nowhere. He actually said, “Grace, how can we even think about caring for another human being when we can’t even care about ourselves?” ’ Grace’s voice faltered as she said this but she continued ‘I told him, “I care. I care about us!” ’

  ‘And what did he say?’ I had an awful feeling I knew the answer.

  ‘That all I really cared about was trying to get pregnant. That I’d become obsessed with having a baby. That I’d reduced him to a penis and a pair of testicles.’

  ‘So, where’s he gone? To her?’

  Grace stood up and looked around for her coat. ‘He says not. Says he’s going to stay in the company flat. You know they have one in that newly converted mill just outside Midhope. They use it for corporate entertainment. Apparently, because of this bloody recession, no one is being entertained there at the moment. Look, can I ring for a taxi? I’ve left my mobile at home.’

  ‘Grace, you’re in no state to go home by yourself. Stay here.’

  Grace made a wry grin. ‘No offence, but I’m not sure I can cope with your Laura Ashley spare room. Honestly, I’d rather go home. After all I’m going to have to get used to being by myself.’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘Just give him some time and space. And at least he hasn’t actually shacked up with this woman. Have you any idea who she is?’

  ‘Camilla,’ Grace said bleakly. ‘Her name is Camilla. Arrived a couple of months ago from the Australian office. I told Dan to bring her over for supper as she didn’t know anyone. She’s petite, with that gorgeous deep-red colour of hair. She was good company, very confident and very bright and, oh bloody hell, Hattie, very young.’

  ‘How young?’ I asked carefully.

  ‘Young enough for her to think the world owes her a living, young enough to wear her hair in one long shiny auburn plait down her back, and bloody young enough not to be kept awake at night by the ticking.’

  ‘Ticking?’ I was puzzled. ‘I thought she was in finance like Dan. You didn’t say she was a teacher too!’

  ‘No, ticking. Ticking. You know, tick tock biological clock? We’ve been trying for two years – two bloody years, Hattie!’

  ‘I know you have, Grace.’

  Grace sniffed, ‘He’s just so fed up with the person I’ve become. I’m a woman obsessed and I get on his case all the time. I think it would have been better if they could have pointed a finger at one of us and said, “It’s your fault – you’re to blame. Your sperm is just weak little tiddlers.” Or “Your eggs are past their sell-by date.” But they say everything is in working order. They just tell us to go away, relax and enjoy each other. It’s very difficult to enjoy each other when you’re geared up to making sure you have sex at the right time, or I’m checking to make sure the temperature of Dan’s bath water is not too high because it might boil the little beggars, or I’m buying him underpants two sizes too big so that they’re not too tight which might suffocate them.’

  I tried not to laugh, but it didn’t matter because Grace had started giggling too, hiccuping through her tears.

  ‘I don’t really want to hear this,’ said Grace through gritted teeth as a rhythmic ticking outside on the drive announced her taxi, ‘but I need to know. Was he kissing her last night when you saw them together? Did he look happy? I mean, what were they actually doing?’

  ‘It really all happened so quickly, Grace. One minute they were on the pavement and the next I was driving around them, frantically looking through my mirror to confirm that it was Dan that I’d seen.’

  ‘But you managed to get a good look at her, did you? She’s beautiful isn’t she?’ whispered Grace almost wistfully.

  ‘She looked totally ordinary to me,’ I lied, remembering the ravishing redhead who had stepped from the taxi alongside Daniel.

  ‘Thanks, Hat,’ she said as she went down the steps into the cold autumn night air, ‘but we both know that’s not true.’

  I was so bone-weary when I finally fell into bed that all I wanted to do was become one with it. Wanted it to envelop me and not release me until I’d caught up with a whole load of sleep. Nick was either asleep or pretending to be, and turned over away from me as I moved towards him. I knew that my jibe about whose fault it was that we were broke had really gone home, and I wanted to kick myself for lashing out at him like that. In the years since we’d gone from being pretty wealthy to just making ends meet, I’d never once blamed Nick for our change in circumstances although I knew he constantly castigated himself for it. I’d always been able to jolly him along, tell him I’d gone back to my roots where I’d never had much materially but had always been happy.

  I turned again and then sat up to look at Nick who was now definitely asleep. I thought back to last night at the Hendersons’ and how animated he’d been about David Henderson’s achievements. But at the end of the day, both Nick and I had OK jobs. We’d be fine: always a little short of the readies, maybe, as we tried to maintain this house and the kids’ private education, but we’d be fine.

  Rather than counting sheep, which steadfastly refused to run in my direction, I took to counting garden tools like those that had perished in the potting shed fire, and my last thought was that tomorrow I’d have to make Nick understand that giving up a perfectly good job in these dark days of economic turbulence in order to throw his lot in with David and Amanda Henderson was just not on. No way, Pedro.

  Chapter 5

  Nick very rarely stayed in bed on Sunday mornings and this particular one was no exception. What was different was the absence of tea, toast and the Sunday Times, which he habitually brought up to me on his return from a run or an hour down at the gym. This had started soon after we were married, but then he’d always jumped back into bed with me. Once Liberty had been born, and particularly if I’d sp
ent much of the night wandering the house trying to get her back to sleep, he’d take her downstairs and give her breakfast while I caught up on my sleep. Wonderful man that he was, he insisted on my breakfasting in bed, luxuriating in strong, freshly ground coffee and, for a special treat, blueberry muffins or croissants.

  Sylvia, Nick’s mother, had come to live with us almost two years ago. Faced with the choice of selling this house or having the newly widowed Sylvia move in with us, we opted for the latter, altering the nicest part of the house to accommodate her and her decrepit dachshund, Bertie. Hearing Bertie barking maniacally as he ran on his little legs after the balls India threw for him, I realised that Sylvia must have returned from her weekend away. Hardly a weekend, then, if she’d returned so soon. I rolled out of bed, smelling the lingering odour of acrid smoke in my hair, and headed for the window.

  The whole family, including Libby who, as far as I could remember, hadn’t seen the light of day on a Sunday morning for years, and Sylvia who, I thought savagely and unfairly, couldn’t keep her nose out of anything, was down at the incident scene looking like extras from Midsomer Murders.

  ‘But, what was she doing lighting a fire in the middle of the garden? And so near to the shed?’ Sylvia’s clipped vowels floated up and through the open window. She was probably, even now, mentally adding pyromania to my ever-increasing list of misdemeanours. They included, in no particular order: my being from the North, being working class, voting Labour and ensnaring her son who, after all, could have married Anna Fitzgerald, a District judge’s daughter from Epsom.

  Kit, I assumed, had had a dressing-down about the tangled and useless hosepipe and was, as a result, even more on my side.

  ‘She was competing with Somebody Tits More,’ he said stoutly, defending my honour against his father and grandmother who, combined, were a force to be reckoned with.

  ‘Yes, well, her competitive spirit didn’t stop her from nicking my bonfire and rebuilding it down here – right next to the shed.’ Nick was being unusually self-righteous.