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‘So? I had great rumpy-pumpy when I worked for that marketing executive. There’s something about an office desk …’
‘This is different,’ said Toni, trying not to laugh.
‘OK, we’ll talk adult and grown-up. You kissed. No more, no less. Not exactly mind-blowing in the twenty-first century, Toni. And you let him know you enjoyed it. So what? That’s a compliment to him, surely? Far better than gagging.’
Toni giggled; she couldn’t help it. A few minutes with Poppy and she always felt better.
‘He knew all about Richard and he’d met the girls, he realised you weren’t in the running for a quick affair and so he did the decent thing and stepped back a mile or two. Respected you as a wife and mother. Well, ex-wife, but very much a mother. And now you can earn a shedload while working for a gorgeous piece of eye candy who won’t try anything on and respects your saintly position. You’ve got everything you want. Stop feeling awkward, relax, and enjoy the job. You do enjoy it, don’t you?’
‘Love it.’ Toni smiled and silently blessed Rose, who chose that moment to wake up from her morning nap. Time for a change of subject. She appreciated her friend’s take on the situation and Poppy was probably right, but then she didn’t have to work with Steel every day. Try as she might, and she knew it was completely unreasonable, it rankled that from Tuesday morning, when she had arrived at the office not knowing if she was on foot or horseback, Steel had been his smooth, unruffled, urbane self. Monday night could have been a dream, a fantasy, and there were a couple of times during that day when she’d had to reassure herself it had actually happened.
But it had. Oh, it had. And to her chagrin Steel had awakened something in her that evening that made it impossible for her to revert to the woman she had been before he’d kissed her. He’d inadvertently opened Pandora’s box, which was monumentally unfair, leaving her—as it did—in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t want Steel, or any other man, intruding into the safe, orderly world she had now, a world where she and the girls were impregnable.
In the last couple of years of her marriage she had never known how Richard would be when he walked through the door. Sometimes he was merely withdrawn, ignoring the twins and pushing her away when she tried to talk to him. Other times he’d been downright hostile and then she’d had to try and keep the girls out of his way completely. He had never gone so far as to be physically violent with Amelia and Daisy, but once or twice when he’d lost his temper over something they’d done or said she had felt he might be. The stress had been unbelievable. She would never put the girls in that position again. Never introduce a fourth person into their precious circle, someone with the potential to let them down. They were secure and in safe hands with her. That was all that mattered. They hadn’t asked to be born and her wants and needs didn’t count now.
The rest of the morning was spent running round after the children and talking of inconsequentials, but as Toni was leaving she was surprised when Poppy put her arms round her in a hug that was more than just a polite farewell. ‘I know how awful it’s been, really, I do, and you’ve still got all that debt and so on, but you’re only thirty years old, Toni. There’s someone out there for you, I know it. Someone who would be good to the girls too. Don’t close your mind to that in the future.’
Toni hugged her back even as she thought, I don’t want to hear this, Poppy. You know me but you don’t know me, not over this. But then Poppy was blissfully happy with Graham and he worshipped the ground she walked on. Poppy had never experienced nights of lying awake wondering how she could face the next year, the next ten years, the next few decades with a man she had nothing in common with, and then finding out she’d only had a travesty of a marriage after all. And she was glad Poppy hadn’t had to go through that, of course she was, but unless you had you didn’t know how it was. Her marriage had been a tissue of lies from beginning to end; the only real thing in it all had been her beautiful girls. Men weren’t to be trusted; she knew that now.
Amelia was uncharacteristically quiet on the way home. Toni felt her head but it wasn’t hot and she didn’t seem to be sickening for anything. All was revealed that evening as she tucked the girls up in bed, prior to reading their night-time story. Out of the blue, Amelia stated, ‘Nathan said if you lose one daddy you can get another one. His friend Archy has had two already.’
Toni warned herself not to react. Very calmly, she said, ‘We’re all right as we are, aren’t we? You like living with Grandma and Grandad and we all have lots of fun together.’
Amelia considered this. ‘But it’s not the same as having a daddy, is it? Nathan has got a daddy and two lots of grandmas and grandads.’ This was said in the tone of ‘it’s not fair'.
‘But I’ve explained to you that your daddy’s mummy and daddy died before you were born.’
‘They were very old,’ Daisy put in importantly.
‘Yes, that’s right, sweetpea.’ Toni hoped that would be the end of the conversation but, knowing her daughter, she doubted it.
Sure enough, Amelia wriggled a little before saying, ‘Why couldn’t we get another daddy, like the steel man? Me an’ Daisy liked him. He was nice.’
‘He’s too busy to be a daddy.’
It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it even before Amelia piped up, ‘Daddy was busy all the time but he was still Daddy. You can be a daddy and be busy, and we like the steel man, don’t we, Daisy?’
Helplessly, Toni murmured, ‘But you wouldn’t want another daddy to be busy all the time, surely? If you ever have another daddy it would be nice to find one who can play with you and come on holiday with us, things like that, wouldn’t it?’ Richard had
always insisted he was too tied up at work to holiday with them and she and the girls had gone away with her parents for a week in Cornwall each year.
Amelia wriggled some more. ‘Suppose so,’ she muttered reluctantly. ‘But the steel man was nice.’
Toni smiled at the tiny power house who was her daughter and then turned to Daisy, who was watching her with huge brown eyes. ‘It’ll all work out, honeybee, don’t worry,’ she said softly. ‘We’ve got each other and that’s all that matters.’
Daisy beamed back and snuggled up against her, but Amelia slid under the covers without touching her mother. ‘I’d still like a daddy,’ she whispered, cuddling her teddy bear. ‘A proper one, like Nathan’s.’
Hiding her pain, Toni said briskly, ‘Well, who knows what the future might bring, darling? But for now you’ve got to make do with just me and Daisy and Grandma and Grandad. How about we go on a picnic tomorrow and maybe in the afternoon we could visit that swimming pool you like, the one with the big slides and wave machine? We could see if Nathan and David want to come with us.’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Both girls bounced up and threw their arms round her neck.
Once the twins were asleep Toni sat watching them for a long time, her heart breaking. She had expected the sort of questions Amelia had put to her one day; just not so soon.
She rubbed tense neck muscles and walked over to gaze out of the window. In some of the other little gardens families were having barbecues or sitting enjoying the last of the sunshine together, and directly below the window her parents were reading over a cup of coffee at the patio table. As she watched them her father leant across and touched her mother’s cheek. A simple gesture but one filled with love.
Jerking back into the room, Toni found she was fighting the tears, a poignant sadness gripping her. She had never felt so alone and lost and for a moment it seemed she was shrinking, disappearing into a little speck of nothing as she contemplated endless evenings like this one in the future.
And then one of the girls stirred in her sleep, muttering, ‘Mummy,’ before settling down again.
