‘Dad lets us—’
‘I’m not interested in what your father does,’ Beatrice broke in. Shewas,but she wasn’t going to sweat the small stuff. Arguing with him about little things like this, simply wasn’t worth the aggro.
Taya said, ‘He always asks me aboutyou.’
The look on her eldest child’s face squeezed her heart. ‘Taya, sweetie, I know you’d love nothing more than for me and your dad to get back together, but it’s not going to happen.’
‘He’s only got a girlfriend because he’s lonely.’
Yeah, right, Beatrice scoffed silently. He must have been very sodding lonely when they were married, because he’d had two affairs that she knew of. How many more that she didn’t?
One day her girls might discover the truth about their arse of a father, but they wouldn’t hear it from her.
Taya continued. ‘You’ve got us. He hasn’t got anyone.’
Maybe Eric should have thought about that before he cheated on me, Beatrice thought. She’d forgiven him the first time, but not the second.
Telling him she wanted a divorce had been the second hardest thing she’d ever had to do. The hardest had been telling the children that their dad wouldn’t be living with them anymore. Taya had been devastated. At not-quite-two years old, Sadie hadn’t understood what was going on.
Now and again, Beatrice wondered whether she’d done the right thing, that maybe she should have turned a blind eye to his philandering for the sake of her girls. And although she’d done nothing wrong and nothing to be ashamed of, in the dark quiet hours guilt gnawed at her with sharp black teeth.
‘Bugger, damn and blast!’ The sodding car wouldn’t start. Beatrice turned the key in the ignition again, hoping and praying the engine would turn over, but all she heard was a defiant click. Why did it have to break down when it was raining? Sod’s bloody law, that’s what it was. It hadn’t been raining when she’d takenthe girls to school, but as she’d trotted back to the house to pick up the car and drive to work, the heavens had opened.
Thankfully she’d had an umbrella in her bag so she hadn’t got too soaked. It had been buried underneath the spare hair bobbles, the Calpol sachets, the plasters and everything else she carried around with herjust in case, because, let’s face it, if she didn’t have it, she would wish she did (Mary Bloody Poppins, that’s who she was). However, umbrella or not, she would soon be drenched if she had to walk all the way from the village to the farm at the top of Muddypuddle Lane.
She tried the key again. Nothing.
Initially, when she’d got in the car, the hem of her jeans wet, the umbrella dripping, the engine had kind of turned over, making a chugging sound as it tried to fire – or whatever it was that engines were supposed to do – but that quickly became an asthmatic wheeze, and now it was refusing to do anything other than click. She had a feeling it was giving her the finger.
Cross, she began phoning people in the hope that one of them would be able to give her a lift. First her mum, then her dad, then Lisa…. As she worked her way down her contact list, becoming more despondent with every unanswered call or ‘sorry, I would but—’ she finally realised that the only way she was going to get to work was if she walked.
Whilst she’d been cursing the car (although she had a feeling that the car not starting was all her own fault, because she’d left the headlights on yesterday), the rain had eased and the clouds were beginning to clear. Hopefully it would stay fine for the next half an hour. She’d have to get a move on though, if she didn’t want to be late, and she knew she was cutting it fine.
As she walked along the high street, she tried Dulcie’s number, wanting to make her aware that she might be a few minutes late, but the call went straight to answerphone. As did her next call, which was to the garage.
‘Fiddlesticks! Isn’tanyonegoing to answer the phone this morning?’ she grumbled.
‘Everything okay?’
Beatrice froze and her heart sank. Great, that was all she needed. ‘Mark, hi.’
He was outside the odds-and-sods shop, about to go in. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. ‘You look flustered.’
Gee, thanks for the compliment. ‘I’m fine. I haven’t got time to chat, I’ll be late for work.’
‘Oh, okay. See you tomorrow.’
Her phone rang. It was her dad. ‘Sorry, I need to take this,’ she said to Mark as she walked away. ‘Hi, Dad.’
‘What’s up?’ Her father’s voice was full of concern.
‘Nothing’s wrong, but I need a lift to work. My car won’t start.’
‘Sorry, Bea, but your mum and I are in Thornbury.’
Beatrice sighed. ‘Never mind. I’ll speak to you later. Thanks anyway, Dad.’
‘I can give you a lift, if you like?’ Mark said.
