‘Jase…’ I climb out of bed, but he grabs his dressing gown from the door and heads out onto the landing. I don’t want us to argue again – more than anything, I don’t want that – but nor do I want to lie here worrying about him being upset, which he obviously is.
‘Don’t go down.’ Reaching the landing as he gets to the top of the stairs, I implore him. ‘Can’t we just cuddle?’
Smiling wryly, Jason glances at me – and then quickly past me, towards Josh’s room, as his bedroom door squeaks open.
‘I heard a noise.’ Josh emerges, blinking nervously, and my heart sinks. He looks more like a startled owl with his glasses off than he does with them on. My ten-year-old boy. He doesn’t take after Jason, with his broad shoulders and toned chest. Josh is slightly pigeon-chested, if anything. Small for his age, he’s an easy target for the bullies at school, and picked on by his more robust sister, who, though just a year older, is growing like a beansprout. He’s vulnerable. Perhaps he is more like his father than I imagine. I don’t want to upset his little world.
‘It was just Daddy and me talking,’ I reassure him – a small lie. ‘Come on, let’s tuck you back up and then I’ll go and fetch you a drink.’
‘I’ll see to him,’ Jason says. ‘You’re tired.’ His eyes flick briefly in my direction, pointedly. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s go and make some hot chocolate. I’m not sleeping so well lately either.’
‘Sucks, doesn’t it?’ Josh says, with a world-weary sigh, as he trudges towards him.
‘And some.’ Jason smiles, wrapping an arm chummily around his shoulders.
I watch them go down, my heart beating a worried pitter-patter in my chest. Why can’t I oust the feeling that something is looming over us? Something that will blow our little family apart?
‘Were you arguing?’ I hear Josh ask his dad as they reach the hall, his voice small and uncertain. And my stomach clenches inside me as I realise my sensitive boy senses it too.
Four
JASON
‘All good?’ Jason asked, as Josh scrambled back into bed.
‘Yup.’ Josh nodded quickly, looking happier for the man talk they’d had while they’d made hot chocolate together. Jason hadn’t lied to him. He told him that yes, he and Karla had been arguing when they should have been sleeping – about his working hours, he’d said, rather than their sex life, or lack of. He’d assured Josh that they would make up. He wasn’t sure they would, however, unless he caved in and did what Karla wanted and went grovelling to her father. Josh had seemed placated. The kid was a worrier. Intuitive, too. The last thing Jason wanted was his son lying awake thinking he was going to be part of a single-parent family.
Jason reached to help as Josh managed to get his feet tied up in his duvet, then waited for him to wriggle down under it and tucked it up to his chin. ‘Might be an idea to put the glasses away safely, mate.’ He nodded towards where they were perched on the edge of his bedside locker. ‘Don’t want to end up knocking them off and breaking them, do you?’
‘Oops.’ Josh smiled and plucked them up. He’d hated the things up until a couple of years back. He’d previously had to wear an eye patch to correct his lazy eye, and he hadn’t understood why the doctors couldn’t correct his short-sightedness, so Jason could hardly blame him for being fed up. He was stuck with the glasses, but at least now he didn’t feel so much like a ‘goggle-eyed freak’ – as some of his shitty little classmates at school had referred to him.
Thank God for Harry Potter, Jason thought, watching as his son inspected the glasses for smears before picking up his box, placing them carefully inside and returning them to his locker. ‘Night, tiger,’ he said, ruffling his hair as he snuggled back down again. ‘Sleep tight.’
‘Night, Dad.’ His eyes growing heavy already – unsurprisingly, since it was now past one in the morning – Josh yawned widely. ‘Kiss Mum for me,’ he mumbled.
‘I will,’ Jason promised, glad that Josh wasn’t shying away from showing affection. He doubted Karla would be very receptive to him kissing her though, since she’d turned him down flat when he’d tried to reach out to her. Maybe he should hone up his skills on the dance floor, he mused cynically.
Sighing, he went to check on Holly. After finding her sleeping like an angel, despite his fears that she wouldn’t after viewing totally unsuitable horror crap, Jason paused on the landing, wondering how it was that things seemed to be falling so badly apart. Not just his business, but them, their marriage. Did Karla feel the same way? She’d given up her acting degree to be with him. He’d wanted to be with her, more than anything, but… what had happened to the friendship they’d shared? Their determination not to become like their parents: his constantly arguing, hers barely speaking? They’d promised themselves they would never fall into the same traps as other people, that they would stay invested in each other, never become indifferent or contemptuous of each other. They had planned to scale mountains together, literally, both preferring activity holidays to lying around on the beach. Granted, they couldn’t have done that when the kids were younger, but they’d intended to once Holly and Josh were older. They’d both wanted the same things, to do the same things. He’d been training as a skydiving instructor when he’d first met her. Karla had wanted to skydive. She never had. She’d wanted to learn how to scuba dive, sail, windsurf and abseil. Yet, they’d made no plans, which was largely down to him, he reminded himself guiltily, because they couldn’t afford to.
She’d planned to pick up her acting career, once Holly was born, and then Josh. She’d never done that either. Her father would have forked out her fees; her mother would have had the kids. Yet Karla had turned down both offers. She rarely left the kids with her mother, in fact, which Jason didn’t quite get. Diana loved them, and Josh and Holly both adored her.
Jason loved the children. With his bones, he loved them. He hadn’t done what he’d wanted to with his life either, but he would never have missed out on fatherhood in exchange for indulging his extreme sports hobbies and business dreams. As long as Josh and Holly were healthy and happy, he told himself it didn’t matter, but suddenly, with the company looking more and more likely to fold, it did. Mostly because it was becoming glaringly obvious that Karla wasn’t any happier with the way things were between them than he was. She was an incredible mother, always putting the kids’ welfare above everything else. Her job was okay, she’d said. She was obviously good at it, getting promoted to office manager and personal assistant to the chief executive, which had brought in some much-needed extra income.
Fundamentally, though, she wasn’t fulfilled. She was frustrated, mostly with him. And Jason had no idea what to do about it, other than what Karla had suggested: talk to her father about a business loan. He would probably choke before he got the words out.
Heading downstairs, Jason swallowed back the bitter taste in his mouth. What irked him most about Fenton was that the man held himself up as some paragon of perfection: successful businessman, captain of the golf club, still married to the same woman after thirty-five years. It was bollocks. Fenton was a womaniser and a bully. Someone who would suggest to his daughter that she abort the child he knew she wanted wasn’t fit to be a father, as far as Jason was concerned. He’d never understood why he’d been so insistent she shouldn’t go through with the pregnancy. Even if Fenton hated his guts, which he obviously did, why would he try so hard to pressurise Karla, a grown woman capable of making her own decisions?
Suppressing his thoughts around that, because it wrenched his gut every time he considered the fact that his own daughter might never have been born, he poured away the hot chocolate he’d promised Josh he would finish and headed to the lounge for something stronger. He shouldn’t, but he needed it. He poured a large measure of whisky, knocked it back and poured another. He should have told Fenton what he thought of him when he’d cornered him at the party, and sod the consequences. He’d rather be seen as a failure than a ‘self-made man’ who thought his millions entitled him to treat people like shit.
Cautioning himself to make it his last, Jason topped up his glass and went back to the kitchen to turn off the lights. He picked up his phone and was heading back to the hall, supposing he should sleep in the spare room, rather than wake Karla, when he was reminded of an earlier text. From Mark, letting him know he’d made some headway on the software glitch they’d been struggling with.
Not there yet, the message read,but think I might have identified the problem. Working on it over the w/end. Meanwhile, Tinder calls. What do you reckon?
Jason opened the photo he’d attached, and very nearly choked as a woman who would definitely qualify as a blonde bombshell popped up – or rather, out. Wearing two wisps of lace, she was as underdressed as it was possible to get without being actually naked.
Jesus. Quashing down an undeniable stab of lust, Jason composed himself and texted back:Ten. Definitely.
Might be a bit late in tomorrow,Mark replied, including a thumbs-up emoji.
