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‘You’re right, I don’t have children,’ she continued. ‘Apart from Graham. And there’s nothing you can say that will make me take him back.’
‘He’s just like his father,’ said Ruth. ‘Richard doesn’t lift a finger either, but that’s hardly reason to give up on your marriage.’ She looked at Hannah beseechingly, then turned to Elena as if to invite her to pitch in.
Elena shrugged. ‘You both earn good money. Get a cleaner, and keep your husband.’
‘I said there were two things,’ said Hannah, furious with Graham that he’d been too much of a coward to tell his mother about Lucy. She paused, taking mental bets on what the reaction would be. Her own mother would be horrified, obviously, but Ruth could go either way. A grandchild was a grandchild, after all.
‘What’s the other thing?’ asked Ruth, a note of trepidation in her voice.
‘Graham mentioned there’d been a woman at work,’ Hannah said. ‘I think you called it “some nonsense”.’
‘Yes, he told me,’ said Ruth. ‘He told me her name, but I’ve forgotten.’
‘Her name is Lucy. Did he tell you she’s pregnant?’
Both women gasped. ‘What?’ shrieked Ruth, as Elena clamped her hands over her mouth.
‘She’s pregnant. With Graham’s baby.’
‘Is she keeping it?’ squealed Ruth, prompting a whiplash head swivel from Elena. Having arrived very much on the same page, they were about to part company in the most dramatic fashion.
‘I believe so,’ said Hannah. ‘I think she’s four months along already.’
‘Graham’s going to be a father,’ Ruth whispered to the light on the kitchen ceiling.And there it is, thought Hannah.
‘You’re happy about this?’ spat Elena, taking a step away from Ruth and towards Hannah.
‘No, of course not,’ said Ruth, blushing to the roots of her salt-and-pepper hair. ‘These are grave sins, and not how things should be. But none of this is the child’s fault.’ Her eyes darted from side to side as she frantically weighed up whether adultery ranked higher on the sin scale than abortion. Lucy’s willingness to avoid the latter would almost certainly cancel out the former, particularly if Graham secured a quickie divorce from Hannah and married her. Ruth’s eyes misted over, and Hannah could see her mentally knitting booties.
‘I think that’s enough breaking news for one day, don’t you?’ Hannah said. Elena nodded and patted her daughter’s arm in solidarity, throwing Ruth a furious glare as she gathered up her handbag.
‘I’m sorry things between you and Graham have ended this way,’ said Ruth piously. ‘But I can see there’s no way back now, and I’m afraid you must take some of the blame.’
Hannah gave a hollow laugh. ‘Thank you for your sympathies, Ruth, but I regret to inform you that I’m taking absolutely none of the blame.’ She held open the front door as the two women left, Elena turning to give her daughter a watery smile and blowing a kiss. Hannah watched them walk up the street, neither of them speaking and spaced as far apart as the pavement would allow without one of them falling into the path of a Waitrose delivery van. Their long friendship had weathered many storms, but this one might just finish it off.
She went back to the kitchen and looked at the box by the back door, then thought about the pile of old books and clothes she’d found in the loft. All of that could go to the charity shop; Graham wouldn’t miss any of it. She was fed up with putting him first, and right now all she wanted to do was play tennis.
Hannah smacked the ball over the net, then re-set her stance: legs wide apart, feet planted, knees soft. There was a pleasing, pulsating rhythm to the game, and when Hannah was playing tennis, it was as though she developed a tunnel vision that blocked out everything beyond the boundaries of the court. It was just her, the white lines and the fuzzy yellow ball.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Noah, ambling over with a furrowed brow as Hannah took a break to swig out of her sports bottle, breathing heavily. He was the club’s newest coach; only twenty-six and wearing a hoodie with ‘Ask Noah to knock you up’ emblazoned on the back. As monogrammed tennis gear went, it wasn’t exactly giving Roger Federer a run for his money in the style stakes.
‘I’m fine,’ said Hannah, realising she was gripping the net post so hard her knuckles had gone white. ‘Why do you ask?’
Noah shrugged. ‘I don’t know, you just seem a bit . . . tense.’
Hannah gave him a weak smile. ‘I’m always tense. Ask anyone.’
Noah laughed. ‘You had enough?’
‘No,’ she replied a little too quickly. ‘I’m fine, just a lot going on right now. This is helping, so let’s keep going.’
‘OK,’ said Noah, spinning his racquet in his hand as he loped back to the baseline. ‘Let’s step it up another gear.’
‘Hannah, have you got a minute?’ shouted a female voice. Hannah looked up, surprised to see three of the Bitches of Westwick ambling towards her. She wouldn’t call them that to their faces, obviously.
‘If you’re quick,’ she said, aware that she sounded a bit snippy. This week’s events aside, these women never brought out the best in her. They weren’t mean or snobby; they just reminded her of the girls at school who smirked at her unfashionable clothes and weird family. In fact, all of themhadgone to her school, but they were a few years older and would never have noticed someone like her. They also always travelled in a pack, like those prowling hyenas inThe Lion King. Usually four of them, but Carla was missing this evening.
‘It will only take a sec,’ said Jess, the tallest and most athletic of the three. She was wearing a white vest and a matching neon-pink Lululemon tennis skirt that showcased a thigh gap you could drive a BMW through. Gaynor and Trish were less perfectly co-ordinated, but still unfeasibly gorgeous and well put-together. In comparison, Hannah’s tennis skirt had seen better days, and her dark, curly hair was pushed back from her make-up-free face with a stretchy bandana, bought for three pounds from a church fete a decade ago.
