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Gathering my bag from the barstool, I fish out a twenty from my wallet and put it on the bar. ‘I’m sosorry, Angie. I’m going to have to go. Louise is on the warpath, and I’d totally forgotten Bella has this play on Saturday. I’m going to have to work tonight instead, or I’ll never get everything done by Monday.’
‘Hey, not a problem.’ Angie shrugs. ‘I get it. Let’s pick up next week, yeah?’
I kiss her cheek. ‘You are a total star.’
‘I know.’ She grins. ‘That cute girl by the window in green? She’s been giving me the eye since I got here. You’re doing me a favour.’
She blows me a kiss, and I squeeze my way through the throng of people and out onto the pavement. My phone rings again before I’ve even gone ten paces.
‘Andy, I’m sorry,’ I sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have hung up on Louise. It’s just, it was so noisy in the pub, and I thought it’d be easier if—’
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Heading towards the tube station. I should be home in half an hour—’
‘You were supposed to pick up Kit at five,’ Andy says tersely.
I stop still in the street. ‘You saidyouwere getting him.’
‘I said I’dtry,’ he snaps. ‘We agreed you’d collect him unless you heard otherwise, remember? And I left you a voicemail telling you I couldn’t make it. Don’t you check your messages?’
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry—’
‘I just had a call from his child-minder when I was in the middle of taping an interview, and we’re goingto have to redo the whole thing. Greta says she reminded you this morning? He needed to be collected on time so she could get away to her evening class.’
‘Is he still with her?’
‘I’ve asked Lily to go round and pick him up. She’ll keep him next door with the twins until you get home.’
I feel like the worst mother in the world as I flag down a cab. ‘I really am sorry, Andy. I should’ve checked my phone. I honestly thought you were—’
‘It’s not me you need to apologise to. Greta says she can’t have him back if we’re not going to pick him up on time.’ I hear someone in the background calling his name. ‘Look, I’ve got to go and redo my interview. You’ll have to sort it out with Greta. And if she won’t take him anymore, you’ll just have to find someone else.’
Climbing into the back of the cab, I give the driver our address, staring out of the window as we head back down the King’s Road. Andy didn’t say this would never have happened on Louise’s watch, no matter how chaotic her week, but he didn’t need to. We both know that’s what he was thinking.
Chapter 4
Louise
‘You reminded Dad about tomorrow, right?’ Bella asks.
I set Tolly’s plate of spaghetti hoops in front of him, and whip Bella’s cheese on toast out from under the grill. Until I get paid at the end of the month, it’s this or baked beans. ‘I told you, darling. Dad’s out on a story all day, his phone went straight to voicemail, but I texted himandleft a message with his secretary.’
Bella flops into a kitchen chair, the long black sleeves of her sweater trailing across her plate as she pokes suspiciously at her dinner. I don’t blame her for being wary: no cheese is meant to be this yellow. ‘Have we got any Worcestershire?’
I pass her the bottle. ‘You need to call Caz and tell her to remind him,’ she adds, smothering her food with sauce. ‘He’ll forget otherwise.’
‘I spoke to her yesterday, and reminded her. Dad’s not going to forget, darling.’
‘And she definitely said they were coming?’
‘She promised they’d be there.’
Bella shoots me a look. ‘Youwerenice to her, weren’t you, Mum?’
I hesitate. I’m civil to Andrew’s second wife when I have to be, but Andrew and I always make arrangements for the children’s weekend visits ourselves. Voluntarily picking up the phone, asking Caz to make sure my daughter’s father didn’t forget her school play, stirred dark feelings I thought I’d put behind me. I may not have beenquiteas civil to her as I should have been.
‘Of course,’ I say.
