Pedigree Mum

‘Got to be somewhere?’

‘Yes, I’m showing some people round the house and need to get it ready …’ His new-found decisiveness is helping to shift the terrible gloom. After all, he is forty today: he must act his age and seize control of the day.

‘You’ve got to clean the place?’ she asks.

‘Well, I just like to freshen it up when people are coming.’ He swallows, hoping that doesn’t sound too OCD. Secretly, though, he’s itching to get home and polish the taps.

‘Why don’t I come along and help you?’ she asks brightly.

‘Oh, you don’t want to waste your Saturday doing that.’

‘I do, honestly!’ She laughs huskily. ‘It might sound weird but I love cleaning. I like all the products – the squirty stuff for the bath, all the little wipes and dimply sponges …’ Rob smiles, unsure of whether she’s having him on or not. ‘And you can’t spend your birthday all by yourself,’ she adds. ‘That would just be too sad.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind, and anyway, I’m off down to Shorling later …’

‘You live in Bethnal Green, don’t you?’ Nadine cuts in.

‘Yes, but—’

‘Well, I was planning on heading over that way anyway. My friend Jade lives in Hackney. She’s a hypnotist. She’s helping me deal with anxieties.’

‘Oh …’

‘Come on, Rob, I’ll keep you company and we can whip round your house with a J cloth. It’ll be so much quicker if there’s two of us.’

Rob nods, his hangover abating slightly as he thinks: Why not? She only wants to help, and she’ll probably get bored and head off after twenty minutes.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘D’you think you could get ready quickly, though? I really need to make a start.’

‘Sure,’ she says with a grin. ‘You know what, Rob? I really think you’ll sell it today. I’ve a feeling I’ll be your lucky charm.’

Chapter Eight

A few streets away from her old London home, Kerry pulls in and stops off for provisions. She is excited now, the way she used to be on her way to meet Rob, when she’d barely be able to eat for the delicious anticipation swirling inside her. Yet a seed of doubt is niggling too. Why wasn’t he at home when she and the kids called him this morning to wish him happy birthday? They’d all been poised, ready to burst into raucous song – yet the answerphone had clicked on. Although they’d sung anyway, it had felt faintly pathetic, singing to a machine. And why hadn’t he answered his mobile either? He was probably busy showing people the house, she reflects, loading her wire basket with smoked salmon, bagels and a bottle of champagne. Rob takes his house-selling duties terribly seriously, having clued himself up on the type of electrical wiring system they have – stuff which Kerry feels she should know about, but which overcomes her with ennui. As far as she’s concerned, these things only warrant attention when they stop working. She finds Rob’s earnestness endearing, though. It makes her want to hold him close and reassure him that everything will be okay.

At the thought of him opening the door to her, surprised and perhaps even gasping in delight, Kerry’s heart does a little flip. This weekend is just what they need to prove they still fancy each other. With his film-star looks, Rob is hard to resist … but does he still fancy her, now she’s just a pusher of chocolate breakfast cereal and songwriter for grown adults who wear rubbery bird feet?

‘Special occasion?’ The middle-aged man at the checkout smiles flirtatiously.

She chuckles. ‘Yes, it’s my husband’s fortieth. I’m buying a few treats to surprise him.’

He waggles a bushy eyebrow. ‘Very romantic. He’s a lucky man, love.’

‘Well,’ she replies with a smile, ‘I hope so.’

This small exchange has buoyed up Kerry to the point of simmering excitement as she bags up her purchases. Why doesn’t she do this more often? Their weekends in Shorling are filled up with practical talk about estate agents and the myriad of eccentricities of their new home. Is it any wonder they’re feeling a little adrift, when all they seem to do is talk about radiators and stinky drains?

Kerry carries her shopping to the car, stashes it on the back seat and sets off, passing Freddie and Mia’s old primary school. Although Freddie seemed fine – he’d only been there a year – Mia had been targeted by a mini thugette who, despite being called Peace Matthews, had a fondness for hitting, kicking and pushing other children off their chairs. And when Kerry had marched into school to discuss the issue, the teachers – known as ‘Lucy’ and ‘Jane’ and seemingly incapable of raising their voices above a timid whisper – had suggested ‘all getting together and having a little chat’. Which had never materialised because, apparently, Peace was ‘a little stressed at the moment’. So she bloody should be, Kerry thought furiously, when she’d picked up Mia with a ripped sweater and a graze on her cheek. (By then, she had added ‘great schools’ to her mental list of Reasons to Say Yes to Aunt Maisie’s Unmissable Offer).

Their old terraced house is in sight now, pretty enough with its wooden external shutters and glossy black door, freshly painted by Rob to create a good first impression. The living room light is on, as it usually is, even during the day – without it, it’s cave-like in there. This is her first visit back since the move, and Kerry is relieved to notice an absence of longing. Remembering Peace Matthews has made her absolutely certain they’ve done the right thing.

As luck would have it, there’s a parking space outside the house. Kerry unloads her bags and stands at the front door. Would bounding straight in be more dramatic (the ta-daaaa! moment she’s hoped for)? Or would it be better to knock instead, so Rob thinks it’s just a delivery or one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses who patrol this street from time to time? Unable to suppress the smile twitching at her lips, she gives the polished brass knocker a firm rap.

At first, there’s nothing. Maybe Rob’s upstairs, Kerry muses, showing people the bedrooms. Or perhaps he’s on the loo.

‘Come on, Rob,’ she mutters under her breath, rapping the knocker again.

This time, she hears a voice inside. It’s a girl – an undeniably young and rather posh-sounding girl whose voice Kerry doesn’t recognise.

‘Someone at the door!’ the voice trills. ‘Shall I get it?’

Something tightens in Kerry’s chest, and she frowns at a lump of gloss paint on the door. No, she must have misheard. Perhaps it had come from next door …

‘Robbie, want me to get that, babe?’

Robbie? Babe? Kerry has barely processed these words as the door opens. And she’s no longer aware of her pinchy shoes or the carrier bag handles digging into her fingers because a girl is there – a girl with short dark hair and red lips, tipping her head to one side.

‘Can I help you?’ she says in a breathy voice as a wild thought courses through Kerry’s brain: I’ve come to the wrong bloody house. Jesus. Writing those Cuckoo Clock songs has sent me mad …

The girl is still looking expectantly at her when Rob appears – sorry, Robbie, babe – babbling, ‘Kerry, hi! This is, um, Nadine …’ His eyebrows shoot up, and he and Nadine step back into the house as Kerry follows them wordlessly in. ‘A friend from work …’ Rob is explaining, raking his hair with his fingers. ‘Came over to help me spruce the place up …’ Kerry sees him glance down at her flesh-pinching shoes.

‘Really?’ She frowns and places her bags carefully on the floor. This girl, this Nadine, is wearing a figure-hugging vest top and the tiniest denim cut-offs Kerry has ever seen – they’d barely fit one of Mia’s Barbies – and looks about nineteen. ‘What’s going on, Rob?’ she asks coolly, trying to cut out the girl from her vision.

‘Nothing, I told you, she’s just helping.’ Rob clamps his mouth shut, and Nadine shoots him an alarmed look, as if expecting instructions on what to do now.

‘You make it sound as if you’ve been living in squalor,’ Kerry remarks. He’s lying, she knows it; Rob cleans the cooker hob daily and replaces his toothbrush if so much as one bristle flares out.

‘The place was looking a bit unloved,’ he mutters. ‘People are coming round, I’ve already missed the first lot—’

‘Why?’

‘Uh?’

‘How come you missed them?’

‘Er, I was just out … just popped out for a few minutes …’

‘Really? Where did you pop out to?’

His dark eyes meet hers imploringly. ‘Okay,’ he says, exhaling forcefully. ‘It was a big night last night. The guys at work had put on a bit of a party for me and I had too much to drink. Crashed out at Nadine’s place because it was handy …’ His bottom lip twitches as he tails off.

Kerry glances at Nadine, then back at Rob. ‘So why didn’t you just say that?’

‘I knew what you’d think,’ he mutters.

‘We were just chatting, Kerry,’ Nadine offers, her voice rising to even breathier heights. ‘There was a whole gang of us from the office. It was just an impromptu get-together, a bit of a laugh, you should have been there …’ She smiles nervously, then glances at the living room window as if considering launching herself through it.

‘And then,’ Rob cuts in, clearly getting into his stride now, ‘Nadine said she’d come over and help me do some, uh, scrubbing … didn’t you?’ He turns to her and she nods over-enthusiastically.

‘Yeah! Er, anyway, I think I’d better go. Really nice to meet you, Kerry.’ Nadine flashes a wide, fake smile and hurriedly lets herself out.

‘Um … bye,’ Rob mutters to the floor.

‘So,’ Kerry says flatly when she’s gone. ‘What the fuck was all that about?’

Rob reddens. ‘Nothing. I told you, she was just helping.’

Feeling ridiculous now in her dress and shoes, with her make-up carefully applied and that black lacy bra and French knickers underneath, Kerry wills herself not to cry.

‘Don’t insult me,’ she gulps. ‘It’s absolutely obvious what’s going on …’

‘Oh, so I can’t have female friends, is that it?’ Rob barks. ‘D’you know how hard it’s been for me at work since Eddy and the new lot arrived, how stressed I’ve been about the move and the possibility of losing my job and—’

‘Poor darling,’ she snaps.

‘Stop being like this!’

‘Being like what, Rob? Do you know what I was, just ten minutes ago when I was buying champagne? Excited, that’s what …’ She gives the carrier bag containing the bottle a fierce kick. ‘And I was excited putting on my red dress and heels—’

‘You look lovely,’ he blurts out. ‘Very, er … done up.’

‘Done up? What does that mean?’

‘No, no … I mean nice. You look, er … sexy.’

‘Really?’ she barks. ‘You know what you look? Post-bloody-coital …’

He shakes his head and rubs his hands across his face. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’ she rages. ‘Just tell me, Rob. Did you sleep with her?’

‘Of course not!’ he cries. ‘God, Kerry, I can’t believe you’d think—’

‘Oh,’ she cuts in, ‘and I made you this …’ She bends down to snatch the cake tin from its bag and whips off the lid.

‘Er, that’s … lovely. You’re great at, um, icing …’ He winces involuntarily.

‘Don’t bloody patronise me, Rob, after you’ve spent the entire night with a girl who must be half your age. Don’t think you can make it all right by telling me what a great icer I am …’

‘Kerry, please—’

‘Happy birthday,’ she snaps, accompanied by a gulping sob, the words ROBERTO TAMBINI THIS IS YOUR CAKE! mocking her now as she finds herself lifting the sponge from its tin. The tin falls to the wooden floor with a clang, and now Kerry is gripping the huge, squishy confection with both hands, registering her neatly-applied red nail polish for a second before the cake starts to fly, almost gracefully, in a strange sort of slow motion, hitting Rob squarely in the chest.

‘For God’s sake!’ He looks down in horror.

She eyes him coldly. ‘Oh, is that your Paul Smith T-shirt?’

‘I don’t care about the sodding T-shirt.’ He stares at her, open-mouthed. The collapsed mound of sponge lies at his feet like a scene from a child’s birthday party gone horribly wrong.

‘Bye, Rob,’ Kerry says, feeling eerily calm now. ‘Enjoy the rest of your birthday.’

‘You’re not going, are you? This is mad, you’ve gone insane …’ Kerry is aware of Rob saying her name over and over as she marches out to the street and climbs into her car.

‘Kerry,’ he mouths through the window as she turns on the ignition. Fixing her gaze determinedly ahead, she indicates and pulls away, revving violently and ignoring the angry toot from a black cab behind her. Glancing back just once, she sees her husband – deputy editor of the Thinking Man’s Monthly – distraught on the pavement with chocolate ganache icing splattered across his chest.

‘Stick that on your Style Tip of the Month page,’ she yells as she drives away.

Chapter Nine

One week later

‘Why can’t we have a dog?’ Freddie is standing, hands on hips, in nothing but a rather shrunken looking banana-yellow T-shirt.

‘There are lots of reasons,’ Kerry replies, assembling the picnic for when Anita arrives to whisk them all off to the beach. Thank God for her life-saving friend, offering to take all six children to the sandcastle competition, and allowing Kerry a precious couple of hours for a Private Talk with Rob.

‘What reasons?’ Freddie asks.

‘Freddie, please put some pants on. We don’t have much time …’ She frowns at the food laid out on the table. Although Kerry won’t be there, she feels it’s important to raise her game in the picnic stakes; hence the big tub of strawberries, the sliced peaches and nectarines and the home-made brownies dusted with icing sugar. There are egg mayonnaise sandwiches too, made from rough-hewn brown bread instead of the usual white sliced which her children prefer. Could she get away with sneaking in a bunch of those peelable processed cheeses which the kids love?

Making no move to acquaint himself with pants, Freddie stuffs a strawberry into his mouth. ‘What reasons, Mummy?’ he asks again.

‘Time, for one thing,’ she says briskly, packing the picnic into the hamper. ‘Dogs take a huge amount of time and effort. We’d have to walk him at least twice a day, and train him, and I don’t know anything about how to do that …’

‘I do! You say “Good boy” and give him a biscuit.’ He grins and reaches for a brownie.

‘Leave the food alone, Freddie. It’s for later. Anyway, there are loads of other reasons, like the vet’s bills and all the medicines dogs need …’ He frowns and prods at his genitals.

‘Please stop playing with your willy.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re poking about with the food, it’s not very nice …’ She glances up at the kitchen clock, a sense of dread pooling in her stomach as she realises that Rob is probably half-way to Shorling by now. Kerry has been so intent on maintaining a cheery demeanour in front of the children all week, she’s barely had a chance to figure out how she feels about last Saturday’s incident, and whether she’s still furious with him for spending the night with a teenager. Actually, she’s tried not to think about it too much – been in denial, probably. Which she suspects is terribly unhealthy and has probably triggered the start of an ulcer. Yet, even if he and Nadine didn’t do it, as he has vehemently claimed during their terse phone conversations, she has to admit that it’s still Not Right. In fact, the thought of being alone with her husband makes her feel quite nauseous.

Reluctantly, Freddie snatches a pair of pants from the radiator and pulls them on. ‘Everyone else has a dog,’ he mutters, reaching for his beloved black and orange tracksuit that’s strewn over the back of a chair.

‘You can’t wear that tracksuit,’ Kerry barks.

‘Why not?’

‘Because … because it’s too hot out there. You’ll be all sweaty and uncomfortable, and it needs a wash …’

‘It’s fine, Mum.’ He rolls his eyes, already pulling the wretched thing on. As Mia appears, brandishing her carefully drawn design for a potentially prize-winning sand sculpture – ‘That’s fantastic, darling,’ Kerry says distractedly – she realises she doesn’t have the energy to cajole him out of it. Anyway, at least he’s dressed.

‘You didn’t look at it, Mummy,’ Mia huffs.

‘I did! It’s amazing. You’ve put so much thought and work into it …’

Mia scowls and slams her drawing onto the table. The jeans she’s wearing finish at her ankles, Kerry notices, and her once purple T-shirt has faded to a chalky mauve. Is it worth trying to persuade her to change? Probably not. With the picnic packed, and a bag of towels, plus numerous buckets and spades in readiness by the door, Kerry checks the time again. Anita is due any minute now. As soon as she and the kids are all safely installed in the competition area of the beach, Kerry will hurry off to meet Rob in Hattie’s, a chintzy tearoom at the far end of the seafront.

‘Auntie Anita’s got Bess,’ Freddie reminds her as she grabs a big plastic bottle to fill with diluted orange. She realises that the other children will probably have little cartons of organic apple juice, but it’s too late to worry about that now.

‘Yes, well, that doesn’t mean we have to have one, does it?’

‘But I want one! You said if I was a good boy and I am a good boy …’ He gives the elasticated waist of his tracksuit bottoms a fierce twang.

‘We’d never be bored if we had a dog, Mummy,’ Mia chips in. ‘We’d always have someone to talk to and be our friend.’

Something twists in Kerry’s stomach, and she busies herself by swilling out the bowl she’d used to make the egg mayonnaise.

‘But you do have people to talk to, sweetheart,’ she murmurs. ‘You have me and Daddy and all your old friends in London, and you’ll soon make new ones here …’

‘I won’t,’ Freddie says.

‘Why not?’ Kerry asks. ‘What about those nice boys we were chatting to on the beach yesterday?’

‘They had a dog …’

‘Yes, Freddie, but not everyone—’

‘I don’t want new friends,’ he barks at her. ‘I ONLY WANT A DOG.’ At which the doorbell pings, and Kerry almost weeps with relief as she rushes to greet Anita and her children at the door.

As she hugs her friend, amidst hugs and excitable chatter about multi-turreted sandcastles, she clearly hears Freddie muttering away in the kitchen.

‘I hate egg,’ he announces. ‘It stinks and Mummy does too.’

Chapter Ten

Here she comes, Rob notes with a surge of relief, as Kerry crosses the road towards the tearoom where he’s spent the last twenty minutes waiting for her. It’s a breezy, early September afternoon, and she looks … normal, he’s pleased to see, in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt – not that he didn’t like her in that red dress and heels. Actually, no, he hated the red dress and heels because the image of her all done up is intermingled with the horror of her throwing that cake at him.

Kerry pushes open the teashop’s glass door and marches straight for his table.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says briskly, dropping her bag onto the floor and plonking herself on the spindly wooden chair opposite him. Her face is slightly flushed and make-up free, her long dark hair tied back in a ponytail with a few stray strands poking out.

‘That’s okay,’ he says, resisting the urge to reach straight for her hand. He can already detect a chilly vibe, which he’d expected, and is determined to do whatever it takes to put things right. This past week has been terrible. While he’s managed to scrape through five interminable days at the office – relieved that Nadine has been perfectly friendly, but not overly-friendly – he’s missed the children dreadfully, and been unable to quell the persistent sense of dread that he’s utterly screwed up his marriage. He’s been unable to sleep, and trying to write his first sex column for Mr Jones caused him untold grief. He sat up for hours in bed with his laptop, trying to dredge up something to write about foreplay ‘with a punchy edge’, when all he could think about was his wife yelling and him ending up splattered in chocolate frosting. In desperation, he’d rattled out a column about using food during sex. (It was sprinkled with phrases like ‘tasty treats’ and ‘finger-licking good’; the days of lengthy essays about classic Hitchcock movies were clearly long gone).

‘Just an Americano please,’ Kerry tells the waitress. ‘You having another, Rob?’ She eyes him coolly.

‘Um, no thanks.’ He glances at his cup of lukewarm coffee, knowing that a refill will make his nerves jangle even more alarmingly than they are now. The waitress glides away and a tense silence descends. ‘So, er … are the kids okay?’ Rob asks tentatively.

‘Yes, Anita’s with them on the beach.’

He nods. ‘That’s good of her. Um, but I actually meant, how have they been these past few days?’

Kerry smiles her thanks as the waitress places her coffee on the table. ‘They’re fine. They don’t realise anything’s happened, of course. Anyway, you’ve still spoken to them every evening.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’ve just been …’ He looks around, wishing she’d agreed to meet at the house, as he’d suggested, rather than in a cafe in the kind of town where you can’t paint your front door without it being trumpeted on the front page of the Shorling Advertiser. ‘I’ve been worried about them,’ he adds, taken aback by the intensity of Kerry’s green eyes. ‘Anyway, thanks for agreeing to see me.’

‘Of course I’d see you,’ she says tersely. ‘And the kids’ll be pleased to have some time with you later, especially with you being ill last weekend …’

This is what Kerry had told them: that a dreadful cold had caused him to stay in London last weekend, instead of seeing them on his birthday as planned. ‘Don’t make me feel worse than I do already,’ he murmurs.

‘Well, they were a bit put out that they couldn’t give you the cards they’d made, and now you’ve got get well cards waiting for you too. Your correspondence is starting to stack up.’

Get well cards. God. The thought of Freddie and Mia busying away with their felt tips crushes something inside him.

‘What else could I do?’ she asks. ‘I couldn’t tell them what happened, could I?’

‘Kerry,’ he hisses, relieved that the other customers seem too engrossed in their own conversations to be listening in, ‘I told you, it was nothing.’

Her eyes narrow. ‘I still think it’s weird. Why didn’t you say straight away that you’d spent the night at her place?’

‘Because I knew you’d blow it up out of all pro-portion …’ A tall, statuesque blonde has wafted into the tearoom, and Rob’s heart slumps as she smiles in recognition. Her blondeness is a little brassier than the usual refined Shorling look, her jeans a tad on the tight side and her patterned top daringly low-cut. She is clutching the hand of a small child with a tangle of light brown hair that would really benefit from a little involvement with a hairbrush.

‘Hi,’ the woman says with a big, bold smile, right up at their table now. ‘I think I’ve seen you at Maisie Cartwright’s house, haven’t I?’ She turns to her child. ‘Remember you chatted to those nice children over the wall, darling?’

‘Yes, that’s us,’ Kerry says warmly when the child fails to respond. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you too …’

‘That’s our favourite part of the beach,’ the woman explains, ‘right across from your house. I’m Brigid, by the way …’

‘I’m Kerry, this is Rob …’ Her chilly demeanour has evaporated. How do women do this, he marvels, switching on a smile so easily as the occasion demands?

‘Not joining in with the sandcastle competition today?’ Kerry asks the child pleasantly.

‘Nah.’

‘We decided to boycott it,’ Brigid laughs. ‘It’s not really for the children anymore. It’s just an opportunity for parents to show off.’