I Invited Her In Read online

  I glance at Liam now. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at his hands. Large hands, angular, long, tapering fingers. They are nothing like the chubby hand that reached across the table to squeeze mine, all those years ago, in the café. A lot like his father’s hands, if my memory serves me correctly. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Who he is.’

  ‘I’m sorry Liam, I don’t know, not exactly,’ I stutter, uncomfortably.

  Liam stares at me now. I recognise the look; it’s just I’ve never seen him throw it, and certainly never my way. It cuts. The look says he thinks I’m a slut. I rush on, trying to correct his perception. ‘I mean, I know who he is but just not his name. Least not his full name.’

  ‘Explain. What do you know about him?’

  ‘His name was Ian. We met one night at a club when I was at uni. We hit it off.’ I stop. I wonder how much detail Liam can possibly want. Not too much, surely. No one wants to think about their mother in that way. No one can really imagine their mother young and irresponsible. Wild and impetuous. Wrong. ‘We only ever ... It was just ... It was a one-night stand,’ I admit.

  Liam looks disgusted with me. I’m surprised – he’s not normally the judgemental type. I’ve left this conversation too late. How could I have fooled myself into believing he wasn’t giving this any thought? Over the years, Liam and I have had an open relationship and we talk about most things freely: alcohol, drugs, sex. I suppose we’ve just never talked about sex in conjunction with me. Normally I’m the one lecturing him to be careful, considerate. We’ve had awkward convos – ones about porn and specific consent. Now I feel dirty and inexperienced. Wrong.

  ‘You have to bear in mind, Liam, I was only a year older than you are now. I wasn’t thinking clearly. He was gorgeous.’ I smile half-heartedly, trying to win him over by telling him something favourable and true about his father.

  ‘Did the condom split or something?’

  ‘Erm.’ There is no good answer to this question.

  ‘I know it happens. You read it on the packet. Ninety-eight per cent safe. Was I the two per cent? Am I the product of a reckless liaison and a Durex failing?’

  Oh wow, I feel sick. I’ve just told my son that he’s the result of a one-night stand? Can I also tell him that I did not practise what I preach? I didn’t use a condom. If I do, I have the small comfort of knowing it’s the truth, but I’ll probably lose his respect for ever and I’ll certainly lose my right to offer any moral orienteering tips in the future. I wish Ben was here. He’d help me out. He’d find a way of making this crap origin story seem bearable. Liam doesn’t wait for me to respond but pushes on. ‘What’s his surname?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Liam sits forward in his chair and glares at me. ‘How can you not know? When you found out you were pregnant, didn’t you track him down? Tell him? How did he respond?’

  ‘I never saw him again. Not after that night. He wasn’t a student at my uni. He was visiting.’ It sounds brutal. It doesn’t get any easier to say. Not even all those years on.

  My son stares at me, weighing up what he’s been told, then he flings himself back in his seat and spits, ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Liam!’ I’ve had several responses to my story over the years. At first people were shocked, angry, frustrated and judgemental. Some people were sympathetic, embarrassed for me. Others thought they could solve the problem, suggesting that I go on Facebook and try to track him down that way. I’d explain it was a needle in a haystack. A common name. No surname. Not even sure of where he lived.

  No one has ever doubted my story.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ repeats Liam. ‘You would never have given up that easily. It’s not your style. I’ve seen you put weeks of effort into tracking down a lost swimming towel, Mum. You’d have found a way of tracking him down.’

  ‘No, Liam, how could I? How could I possibly have done that?’

  ‘You’re hiding something. I know you better than anyone and I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Liam, honey, you just don’t want to believe me. It’s a different thing.’ I don’t manage to finish my sentence because he stands up and roughly pushes past me.

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  24

  Melanie

  Sunday 25th March

  The alarm clock goes off and I know I won’t get a chance to talk to Ben about Liam’s outburst because I must get to work, nor do I get a chance to speak any more with Liam himself because, naturally, he’s still in bed when I set off; not that I’m sure what I might say. I’m glad when Abi turns up at the shop and suggests we have lunch together. She says she wants to tell me all about her meetings in London and she wants to know how my parents are. However, when we sit down together at an outside table at Pret, I find myself blurting out the details of the scene with Liam. It’s all I can think about. I’ve been anxious and stressed all morning. Years ago, I discovered that my children’s moods colour my own, dictate them, actually. If they’re happy then I’m happy. If they’re not, well . . . She’s not as sympathetic as I’d hoped she would be. I think she’s trying to help but it comes out wrong.

  ‘I guess he’d rather believe his mum is a liar than a slut,’ she says bluntly.

  ‘Oh, thanks very much Abi. That’s comforting.’

  She takes a drag on her cigarette. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise I had to sugar coat it.’ She smiles.

  She’s right, she’s entitled to be brutal. Real friends tell it as it is. She’s helping. Or at least trying to. She doesn’t know how awful rowing with Liam makes me feel. It’s always been that way. When there was just the two of us I hated it if – on the rare occasions that he had a tantrum or I had to bring him into line over something – we fell out with each other. If we did, then who did we have? He’d run into his bedroom, turn and face the wall, refuse to look at me. His little body, clad in dungarees and Bob the Builder T-shirt quivering with anger, hurt, or temper – the particular brand of outrage that only pre-schoolers can feel. I learnt that there was no use in pursuing him. Our flat was so tiny that my trying to coax him back into a good humour just made him feel trapped and cornered. Instead, I’d stay in the kitchen, waiting for him to reappear when he was ready. It’s been different with the girls. If they ever feel stroppy with me, then Ben or Liam can play the good cop and cajole them around. There are more options. Liam and I had very few options. It’s another luxury denied to single parents. So, fall-outs felt massive and they still do, even though we now have Ben and the girls to cushion the blow. Liam’s anger at me is rare and so painful, it’s almost debilitating.

  ‘What are you going to tell him?’ Abi asks.

  ‘There’s nothing I can tell him,’ I say, keeping my eyes trained on my tuna and cucumber baguette. I push it to the side. I don’t have an appetite. ‘I wonder what brought it into his head?’ I ponder.

  ‘Me,’ says Abi.

  ‘You?’ I ask, startled.

  ‘I guess, you know, having me, someone from your past, in your home. It’s a first, right? My presence must have made him start thinking about all this stuff.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I see.’ I’m relieved. ‘I thought you meant you’d talked to him about it.’

  ‘Why would I?’

  I don’t answer. I just drop my head into my hands. ‘I feel so dreadful.’

  ‘He’ll get over it. He’ll get used to his pretty desultory paternity story soon. Luke Skywalker heard worse.’ I appreciate she’s trying to make me laugh but she can’t. Suddenly I have a need to explain it to Abi.

  ‘The issue is, I’m always playing catch-up with him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I created Lily and Imogen with a perfect man – or as near as damn it. I gave them a doting, reliable father from the off. I picked well for their creations. I can’t claim the same for Liam, so I guess I always feel I need to make things up to him. That I owe him.�
� I glance around the busy street, full of harried, care-worn shoppers; momentarily I can’t see anyone looking bright and optimistic. Life can be tough. ‘I feel I put him into this race but tied his legs together, gave him a handicap.’

  Abi is staring at me. It must be the dazzling spring sunlight, unexpected and bouncing from the aluminium table between us into her eyes, because the way she’s squinting causes her face to curl up into a hideous expression. For a split second, she looks disgusted. But then her expression changes and I know I imagined it. She pats my hand and says, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll think of something to say to him. You’ve always been good at explaining things away.’ She’s beaming at me, but it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

  It doesn’t sound like an admirable skill. Just a convenient one.

  Abi stretches her hands into the air and then lets her head fall first to the right and then to the left, unfurling like a cat in the sunshine. It’s an expansive, inflated gesture. It demonstrates an entitlement to space, energy and attention. I notice two or three bypassers glance in her direction. I guess I’m tired, and stressed over this business with Liam, because an incredibly uncharitable thought comes to mind. I remember a passage in one of my favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice; Miss Bingley persuades Elizabeth Bennet to walk around the room and Darcy scathingly dismisses her actions as a clear attempt to draw attention to her figure. I can’t help but think Abi’s stretch shows the curve of her boobs, the length of her neck, the narrowness of her waist to their greatest advantage. Calculated to draw admiration.

  I must talk to her about running around partially clothed in the house and I owe it to Ben to mention the smoking, the swearing, the hogging of the bathroom and all the other little things that were bothering him, but I just can’t face them right now. They’re not important. Now, I just want to sip my coffee, close my eyes, feel the heat of the spring sunshine on my eyelids. I don’t really want to think about all the niggles of home. I turn the focus on Abi so that I don’t have to.

  ‘You look well after your break in London,’ I comment.

  ‘Yes, it’s where everything happens.’

  I avoid Abigail’s eyes. It is not where my everything happens. My everything happens here, in Wolvney; mostly inside the four walls where my family dwell. I thought she’d got that. I thought she liked that. I think my studious avoiding of her eyes gives her pause to think.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean ... I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s just that’s where my new agent is and the meetings. My contacts.’ She trails off. Stops digging her own grave.

  ‘Of course it is, no offence taken,’ I say, waving her comment away. ‘Now, tell me about the meetings with the producers. How did they go?’ I pick up my paper cup of coffee and beam at her. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Oh, no, well there’s nothing much to report.’

  ‘Do you think they went well?’ I’m disappointed by her lack of excitement.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The meetings.’

  She pauses, reaches for the sachets of sugar and stirs a spoonful into her espresso. I’ve never noticed her take sugar before. ‘Actually, they were cancelled. I did meet with my new agent, though.’

  ‘Cancelled? All of them?’

  ‘Both of them. There were only ever two,’ she says a bit snappily. ‘Well, postponed, actually. You know these things happen. I’m dealing with very busy people. Much in demand. Their diaries are constantly in flux.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ I imagine her disappointment and embarrassment. Trailing all the way to London only to be told at the last minute that the meetings were cancelled. Postponed. I’m just thinking about whether I should offer for us to get a takeaway tonight, a sort of cheer-up treat when she glances up to me and beams. ‘But you had a good time, right? You’re smiling,’ I say, relieved. ‘It was worth it to secure the UK-based agent, I take it?’

  ‘No, not that,’ she giggles.

  ‘Then what?’

  She instantly covers her face, much the way Lily does if there’s too much adult kissing on the TV, embarrassed but a bit thrilled. ‘I went on a date.’

  ‘No!’ I squeal excitedly. Abi laughs at my reaction. ‘Tell me all,’ I demand.

  ‘There’s not much to tell, really.’ She shrugs. I’m unconvinced. I mean, she’s grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Who is he? Where did you meet him? Was it Tinder?’ She shakes her head. ‘One of the other dating sites then? Give me details,’ I demand. There is obviously loads to tell. This is great news, just the diversion I need to avoid having to think about what I’m going to say to Liam. Abi laughs again and then relents.

  ‘Yes, one of the sites.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Funny, clever, tall, blonde. A lot like Rob, as it happens. I think I do have a type.’ I want to get her off the subject of Rob. She should be moving forward, not looking back. It’s much better that she concentrates on the here and now.

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘Something in education,’ she says vaguely. Again, this sounds like Rob when she met him; maybe she has a professor thing. I try another angle.

  ‘So, what did you do together?’

  ‘Nothing much, we just wandered about London, mostly walked around the Southbank area, talking. Non-stop talking.’ She’s staring at her hands.

  ‘And?’ I demand. There is so definitely an and.

  ‘There was this amazing chemistry between us.’ Her voice is low and lush, the bitterness that sometimes means she clips her words has completely vanished.

  ‘Did you kiss him? Are you planning on seeing him again? Come on, details!’ She looks up now but at a spot above my ear. She is struggling to meet my eye.

  ‘The kiss, it was—’ She breaks off, shakes her head as though confused. ‘Just wonderful. He kept his eyes open and looked at me like he’d never experienced such bliss.’

  ‘Oh my gosh. You had sex.’

  She bursts out laughing. ‘Well, yes, actually we went back to my hotel.’

  ‘No! Yes!’ I mini-punch the air. ‘I want to know everything.’

  Abi glances at her watch. ‘Yup, obviously, I can’t wait to fill you in but, right now, no can do. You were supposed to be back at work five minutes ago.’

  ‘Bugger!’ I jump up from my chair, causing a clattering and nearly upsetting my barely touched coffee. ‘We’ll have to continue this conversation later,’ I say regretfully as I’m already dashing up the street. I turn and call over my shoulder, ‘What’s his name?’ I’m desperate to show that I am interested and pleased for her.

  ‘Stud,’ she trills back.

  ‘For real?’ I ask.

  ‘No, of course not.’ Giggling. When we were at university we used to distinguish between different potential boyfriends by calling them things like ‘Kilt’ or ‘Mr Shakespeare’. She called Rob ‘Prof’. It was because we knew a lot of men called Matt or Mark, Rob or Bob. Her giving this man a nickname brings to mind those heady days. The anonymity is somehow invigorating.

  ‘Well I want the full low-down later.’ I speed off, almost knocking over an old dear with a pull-along shopping basket because I’m not really looking where I’m going.

  My manager glances purposefully towards the clock on the wall when I dash through the door. I ignore her, I don’t care. I’m full of excitement and happiness for my friend. She’s really cheered me up.

  25

  Abigail

  He had no body consciousness. He moved with such carelessness. He just pulled up his T-shirt and scratched his belly in front of her. She saw it, the narrow provocative line of hair that pointed down. His jutting pelvic bone and the thin, almost delicate skin that stretched across the cavity, like a tablecloth strung out. She stared at him. She was wild about him. His body was beautiful. Compelling, available. He was generous with it. Invited her to enjoy it.

  She gripped the smooth hotel pillow in her fists and felt his breath behind her, the burning air on her sh
oulders, her back. He straddled her, confidently. Entered her with a neat, self-assured efficiency that surprised her. Then backwards, forwards. A rhythm. Their pace. She started to sweat, slip between his thighs. She was glad he couldn’t see her face, normally so calm, cool and composed. Now red, wild, puffed up with passion.

  It was boldly back to front. Main act and then post-play, that became foreplay, as he started again. First one way, then another. He flipped her over. He didn’t seem to care that her face was ablaze; his was steady, concentrating. That surprised her. He seemed more concerned with her pleasure than she might have imagined, than she remembered Rob ever being. He held her nipple in his mouth, cradled her other breast in his palm, his other hand seeking out the heat of her. She couldn’t get enough of him. She slid up and down, discovering him, introducing herself. His neck. Her nipples. His stomach. Her thighs. She licked him, salty, on her tongue. She felt her wetness slipping on his skin.

  She was exhausted and aching but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to waste time by sleeping. She was owed so much. And she was collecting. Every moment counted. She wanted him to exhaust her, numb her, change her. She wanted his weight on top of her.

  ‘Like this?’ he murmured. A question. As though he was inventing something. And he was. She nodded.

  There was no end to it, no end to the new things. When he finally collapsed on top of her, they stayed like that, slick, exhausted, spent, splendid until the weight of him eventually became too much and she crawled out from underneath.

  She felt the scales swing, adjust, find a new point of balance. This much she was owed.

  26

  Ben

  Ben was in the kitchen with Abi and the girls when Mel got back from work. They were making a Lego city; it stretched across the table and covered most surfaces. The project had taken all afternoon; no one wanted to stop and pack away. Ben caught his wife’s mood, flighty like a spring breeze carrying cherry blossom. She dashed around the kitchen, pulling crockery out of cupboards, opening the fridge and breadbin, grabbing anything that came to hand, then slamming them closed again. He sensed that she wanted him and the children out of the way, that she wanted to talk to Abigail alone. He resented it and rather than accommodate her obvious need for a gossipy chat, he contrived to interrupt it. He sometimes went for a run at teatimes but he chose not to today, instead he offered to help make tea, taking a strange delight in ostensibly being the helpful husband but in fact being a bit of a pain in the backside. His wife should want rid of Abi, she should want to spend time with him, he thought.