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‘You don’t know yet that you will be made redundant,’ Sally protested, ‘and besides…’
‘Besides what?’
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t meant to tell him like this; she knew how he felt about her working even part-time.
‘Sister wants me to work full-time… It would mean a lot more money, Joel,’ she told him quickly before he could say anything. ‘Not enough to cover your wages, I know, but if we cut back on things…’
‘Cut back? I’ve got a better idea,’ Joel told her, white-faced. ‘Why don’t I just get myself out of here completely, then you could make a real saving? It isn’t as though you need me any more, is it? Not now that Sister wants you to work full-time. Not if I’m not in work.’
Sally felt irritation explode inside her. She hadn’t got time for this, for listening to Joel felling sorry for himself, she had the washing to do, and the ironing from the last load, and she wanted to do the supermarket shopping before she went to work; the last thing she needed was Joel having a tantrum. She hadn’t got time to quarrel with him about it either. Not the time, nor the inclination, and certainly not the energy.
‘You’re going to be late for work,’ she told him grimly instead.
She turned her back on him as he reached for his jacket, tensing as she felt him move towards her. A part of her wanted to turn round and lift her face for his goodbye kiss, but another part of her, the angry, resentful part, wouldn’t let her. She was tired of being the one to compromise, who always gave way for the sake for peace. She knew he was worried about his job—she was worried too—but taking it out on the kids wasn’t fair on them.
As he saw the rigidity of her back, Joel’s own face hardened. It seemed that no matter what he did these days he was always in the wrong, in the way, his presence not wanted or needed in bed or out of it.
Paul came into the kitchen after Joel had gone.
‘Everyone else at school’s got a computer,’ he began to grumble as he followed Sally round the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong with Dad, anyway?’
Sally put down the plates she was carrying to the sink and walked over to him. At thirteen he considered himself too big for hugs and kisses these days but right now he looked so forlorn, so young and vulnerable that she reacted instinctively, hugging him to her and ruffling the top of his hair.
He no longer had that baby, milky smell which had once been so familiar to her, so loved; now he smelled of trainers and school mingled with other strange, alien, youthful male scents which showed how quickly he was growing up and away from her.
She felt him wriggle protestingly in her arms. ‘Aw, Mum…’
‘Don’t worry about your dad,’ she told him. ‘He’s got a lot on his mind at the moment.’
* * *
Joel stopped the car three doors down from his own house and then reversed abruptly. He couldn’t go to work leaving things like that with Sally. Perhaps he had over-reacted, snapping at her like that and then quarrelling with her, but he couldn’t sleep properly for worrying about what would happen if he was made redundant. It was his role, his responsibility, his life function to support and protect his family, and if he couldn’t do that, then…
As he walked past the kitchen window he looked inside and saw Sally hugging Paul. He could see her love for their son in the soft curve of her mouth, its tenderness and warmth. How long was it since she had held him like that… since she had looked at him with love?
As he turned away from the door and headed back to his car he felt the angry pain burning inside him like bile.
Jealous of his own son. Sally had accused him of it often enough in the past. He had denied it, of course—he loved the children—but seeing her holding Paul like that had made him sharply aware of the contrast in the way she treated him and the way she opened to them.
&nbs
p; * * *
Deborah had timed her arrival at the crematorium to coincide with that of the last of the mourners, so that she could slip inside and sit at the back of the room without attracting any attention.
The first thing she noticed was how few people were actually there.
A small, very pretty blonde woman in black who was presumably the widow, an older couple beside her—her parents perhaps. Another couple, the tall man with a rather imposing and self-important manner, the woman at his side signalling by her body language that she considered herself above the proceedings, as she held herself slightly aloof from the others. She was dressed in a way that proclaimed her county origins; the Hermés scarf was plainly not a copy and neither were the immaculately polished loafers she was wearing. She looked the type to have sons at one of the better boarding schools and daughters who rode in gymkhanas and did a season working in Val d’Isére for a friend of a friend at one of the most exclusive chalets before marrying men who were something in the city with the right kind of county connections.
Without knowing why, Deborah instinctively disliked both of them.
There were a handful of other mourners, their numbers barely filling the front two rows of seats, and suddenly she felt not just out of place but guilty almost of the kind of tactless and distasteful rubbernecking she had always despised. Mark had been right. She should not be here. Quickly she turned round and hurried towards the door, slipping silently outside.
Ryan would laugh at her when he knew what she had done, mock her for her squeamishness, but as she looked at Andrew’s pale, fragile blonde widow she hadn’t been able to stop herself imagining how she would have felt in her shoes… the pain and anguish the woman must be experiencing… Had she known what her husband had intended to do? She could not have done, of course. How much greater then must be her pain and despair, her sense not just of loss, but also of having somehow failed him.
She got into her car, switching on the ignition. Suddenly all she wanted was to be at home with Mark. Just the two of them together, safe in their own private world where no one else, nothing else could intrude.
* * *
