‘But ...’ She could see the crease of confusion at the top of his nose. It made her laugh. He was right: he did a lot and was loved a lot, and without doubt his honesty was the one thing she loved about him most. This itself a small needle, reminding her of her own duplicity. ‘It’s okay. I love you. You’re going to get lucky anyway.’
The landline rang, and they looked at each other, he, like her, wondering who would phone the house when it was dark, and they were off to bed.
‘I’ll go.’ Grabbing her dressing gown from the end of the bed, she hared down the stairs, trying to get to the phone before it woke the kids, if it hadn’t already.
The sound of crying came down the line and her stomach dropped, before she realised that Sophie was asleep upstairs, Bertie and Harper too. She’d only just spoken to her mum, and so that left ...
‘Ash?’
‘Just ... just give me a minute.’
‘Okay, my love, take your time.’ She sat on the bottom stair and let her sister sob, as she fought for breath.
‘I need you, dove. I need you right now.’
‘It’s okay, my love, don’t cry. Ash, take deep breaths, I’m right here.’
Ashleigh Brett and Remy Hughes
2012
Aged 50
Ashleigh
It was rare, almost unheard of, for Ashleigh to have enjoyed an afternoon nap, yet here she was in her sister’s cottage, waking to the sound of the door creaking. It took her a second to remember where she was. Remy jokingly called thisAshleigh’s bedroom, as it was where she slept at Christmas, and on the three or four times a year she made the trip. The light in the room was certainly not that of the bedroom of her ground-floor flat in a red-brick villa in Queen’s Park, North-west London. The place she called home, bought with the proceeds of her divorce.
This room was bathed in sunshine, unfiltered by the roman blinds that kept her privacy, and it was quiet, eerily so. Missing was the honk of horns, wheeze of brakes, whir of skateboard wheels, shouts of kids, music from passing vans, all of it providing a background noise that meant even though she predominantlylived alone, she hardly ever felt lonely. How could she when she was surrounded by so much life?
What she didn’t want to admit to herself, today of all days, was that on the rare occasion when lonelinessdidstrike, it did so with a vengeance. Usually in the early hours when the streets quietened, her bed felt too big, and the sheets too cold. Reaching across to touch the neighbouring pillow, remembering what it had felt like to find the warm skin of her husband beneath her touch, believing it would ever be so. She would then howl her tears and desolation until dawn broke, mourning a life that was so nearly hers. Her heartache all the worse for having glimpsed it.
But never in public, never. The fact that divorce had been foisted upon her was her own private sadness. Something that had shaped her, scarred her, and meant she would never marry again, unwilling to take the risk and unsure she could survive that level of rejection again.
Besides, who would she marry? Despite his dire treatment of her, his lack of love, his infidelity, she still couldn’t see how anyone was going to measure up to Archie Oxton Fitch, the boy who had held her hand as they’d walked into the wine bar in their finery, and she had felt like ... like someone.
In the immediate aftermath of their separation, and after much deliberation back and forth, it was agreed that Evie would spend her weekdays at Archie’s but come to the flat at weekends. Evie herself had been involved in the conversations, and Ashleigh knew she’d never forget the crumple of her daughter’s face and the flow of tears at the mere suggestion of a life away from her school, away from Marguerite, and the house on Clarendon Road. It had been a hard pill for Ashleigh to swallow, the hardest, just as it felt she and Evie were making headway and she was doing her darndest to be a better mum. She was, however, far more concerned with what was best for her daughter than her own feelings.
‘I do love you, you know that, right?’ she’d whispered on the night she left with her car packed and her heart feeling like it might fall out of her ribcage. She had knelt down on the driveway to say goodbye, able in the dying light of dusk to hold her baby without reservation, inhaling the scent of her and wondering why she hadn’t done so more often, feeling the pull of something in her gut. Desperately afraid that she might just lose her baby, as well as her house and husband.
‘I know that, Mummy.’ Her little girl’s words were the sweetest balm in her ear.
‘We’ll have quite the adventure, you and me. I’ll make sure of it!’ Finding a voice of optimism had taken all of her strength.
On a Friday night she could barely contain her excitement, quite transformed from the harried woman who had been so busy keeping all the plates spinning. As if, away from that pressure, and not so concerned with her role as Archie’s wife and all that came with it, she was free to concentrate on Evie. Free to make mistakes, to figure out motherhood away from the glare of the Fitch family. In the little flat, alone with her daughter, she finally felt worthy of being this little girl’s mother and understood the attraction of it. It was just her and Evie, the two of them against the world! Watching TV under a blanket, eating snacks on the sofa, and living in such close proximity it fostered a new kind of closeness. It reminded her very much of what it had felt like when she and Remy had formed a similar duo. Before she’d gone to St. Jude’s. That warmth in her stomach and the feeling that she was safe, that she was home.
How she longed for the sound of her ex’s car pulling up and the ring on the doorbell! Having waved her little girl off on a Sunday evening, her sense of loss was acute. After sitting on the sofa, the warmth her child had created lessening with every minute, Ashleigh would then almost crawl to bed, feeling the loss of her family and her old life acutely. Torturing herself with images of Evie’s return tothe fold, the celebration, the party-like atmosphere in the palatial kitchen. Did they maybe laugh at her efforts? Did the German sip wine and ask, ‘She made what? Macaroni cheese? Urgh!’
Ashleigh was not proud that these imaginings had the power to haunt her for days after, almost until the next Friday, when she would again clean the flat, find a smile and wait patiently for the sound of the idling engine and the doorbell ringing.
Now aged sixteen, there was often a reason Evie couldn’t make it to the flat for the weekend: a party, a meet-up, a coffee date, a school assignment, a library trip, even having to babysit for her two younger brothers, Jakob, aged seven and Otto, nine. And while she tried to understand, make light of it, these absences punched a hole in her routine that left Ashleigh feeling flat, bereft, and strangely exhausted.
Ashleigh’s contact with Archie was minimal, busy as he was with two kids and life married to Leni, the German, whostill, in her humble opinion, wore too much foundation and eyeliner. But when for the third weekend running she received a text from Evie explaining that she’d been asked to babysitagain, and would therefore be staying in Clarendon Road, Ashleigh called him.
‘Ash, hi.’ He sounded irritated, hurried, as he always did when she rang. It upset and irritated her in equal measure.
‘Yep, erm, just a quick call.’ She didn’t want to waste a second of time on pleasantries, didn’t want to chit-chat to the man who had stopped loving her and who had married another woman who now lived in the house Ashleigh had spent years renovating. Another woman who had popped out two handsome boys who no doubt rough-housed in the den while Leni cooked at the hob that Ashleigh had deliberated over choosing.A proper family.She had coughed to clear the thought and the bitter taste of envy. ‘I really don’t think it’s fair, Archie, asking Evie to babysit! Not when it’s a weekend—’
‘I would agree!’
