‘Yes. Won’t be long. I’m just touching up my make-up,’ Emily called, and headed for the en suite to wipe the telltale smudges of mascara from under her eyes. Finding there wasn’t a great deal else she could do to improve things, other than scrubbing her face and starting over, she went to the dressing table to reapply her lipstick. Surveying herself critically, she reached to untie her hair, which she’d worn up in the hope of looking less of a bedraggled mess. Fran had complimented her, saying she looked nice, but Emily doubted she did. Jake certainly hadn’t noticed that she’d made an effort. She felt like a fool for trying. Sighing, she raked her fingers through it, heaved out another despairing sigh, and then tied it haphazardly up again. Millie’s hair was just like hers, but she always managed to arrange it artistically. She’d ask her for some tips, Emily decided. They had been close once, sharing girly things. They’d lost their way somewhere along the line. Was that her fault too? In pushing Millie to be all that she could be, had she driven her away?
Emerging from her room and gathering from the sound of the TV downstairs that Millie was in the lounge, she headed for Ben’s room to hurry him up. Realising he was on the phone, she hesitated short of the door. ‘We’ll be downstairs when you’re ready, Ben,’ she called.
‘Right. One sec,’ he answered.
Emily sighed as she reached the hall only to realise she’d left her handbag upstairs. Turning around, she went back up again, and stopped dead on the landing.
‘Yeah, right, she’s gone back to her husband, hasn’t she, despite the fact that he’s an aggressive git?’ she heard Ben say. ‘Probably because he’s loaded. She’s not likely to look at me, is she?’
Natasha?It had to be. Rumour had it that Natasha had married Michael for his money. She’d gone back to him despite what had happened between them. Emily had wondered why. But then, though Michael might have to work for every penny he had, his assets in terms of the land and the farmhouse weren’t to be sneered at, were they? She’d imagined her husband would be attracted to Natasha – other men in the village certainly were – but her eighteen-year-old son?She felt the floor shift beneath her.
Twenty-Three
‘So, what’s the occasion?’ Millie asked, once they’d ordered.
‘No occasion,’ Emily answered, smiling her thanks to the waitress had who delivered their drinks. ‘There doesn’t have to be a reason for us all to have a nice meal out together, does there?’
‘Right.’ Millie pulled her Coke towards her, a pensive frown on her face as she twirled the glass around. ‘So we’re having this nice meal together, without Dad, because …?’
Emily felt the heat rush to her cheeks. She felt wrong-footed, defensive already. She was sure that if her marriage really was irreparable, Millie and Ben would blame her. She would rather that, though, than for their relationship with their father to be irretrievably damaged. Whatever he’d done, was doing, or might not even be doing – she didn’t know any more – she wouldn’t run him down in their eyes. She couldn’t. He’d been the best father a man could be to both of them.
‘We know that you and Dad have been having problems,’ Millie went on, looking guardedly at her. ‘We’re not stupid.’
‘Or deaf,’ Ben muttered pointedly.
‘You might as well level with us, Mum,’ Millie said. ‘Just …’ she faltered, her eyes flicking down and back, ‘spare us thewe love you, but …chat, yes?’
Emily’s heart grew impossibly heavy. She’d been about to say something exactly along those lines, and had no idea where to start now they’d made it obvious they weren’t going to accept anything less than honesty. Bracing herself, she took a breath. ‘We have been having problems, yes. I know you overheard some of it, and I’m sorry you had to. I was upset. I—’
‘Are you splitting up?’ Ben asked bluntly. The look in his cool blue eyes was so dark and intense that Emily’s heart faltered, her instinct to shield him rushing to the fore, as it had so many years ago. She would die to protect him, protect them both. But she couldn’t protect them from this.
‘I’m not sure,’ she answered quietly. She wished now that she’d had this conversation at home. Had she really expected that she could deliver the news to her children that their parents’ marriage was falling apart and they would just say ‘okay’ and then tuck into their meals? She should have been focusing on them through all of this, their feelings. She should never have tackled Jake with Ben and Millie in danger of overhearing. She was already worried about Millie, who so often lately needed treating with kid gloves. She was no less worried about Ben, though, who seemed to be a riot of conflicted emotion. She was sure she sensed an anger under the surface that truly frightened her.
‘Has he cheated on you?’ Millie got succinctly to the point.
Emily had no idea how to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘I thought he had. There was an email sent to him. I—’
‘Like the letters being sent out?’ Millie interrupted, her eyes growing wide.
Emily looked at her, surprised.
‘I called into the newsagent’s on the way home,’ Millie explained. ‘Fran was in there.’
Emily sighed inwardly. So the drums had started beating. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘but not as destructive as those.’
‘Sounds pretty fucking destructive to me,’ Ben growled, shocking her. ‘So has he cheated on you or hasn’t he?’ he asked, levelling his gaze unnervingly on hers.
‘I honestly don’t know, Ben.’ Emily reached for his hand. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘I can’t see what’s so complicated.’ He drew his hand away. ‘You asked him, right?’
‘You know she did.’ Millie sighed. ‘We heard.’
‘And he denied it?’ Ben pushed.
‘Of course he did.’ There was a bitter edge to Millie’s voice. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
She was judging her father, Emily realised, angry with him because of accusationsshe’dmade, which might be groundless. Oh, how she wished now that she had buried her head in the sand. But could she really have sat back and done nothing but wait for the day her husband might come home to announce he was leaving?
