lifting her head and taking in her home’s clean white facade. Bless David. She never asked for a house like this, but as he often says, he’d promised it from their very first date. She can still picture it clearly.
It was a Sunday. He’d arrived ten minutes early in a low sports car. She couldn’t have told you the make, but it was small, shiny and sleek, and rather than soundless as she expected, it was loud, booming with noise, much like the man who drove it.
‘Hope you like poussin,’ he’d said at the traffic lights. Then after a moment, putting his hand on hers, ‘Only chicken. We’re having a picnic. The hamper’s in the boot. Is that OK?’
She’d nodded, feeling foolish. She hadn’t dressed for a picnic. Not knowing what to expect, she’d worn a pale pink shift dress and high heels.
David had driven towards Derbyshire, chatting all the way, then turned off the main road at some gates, parking up, jumping out to open her door and holding out his hand.
‘Welcome to Lyme Hall!’ He’d deliberately said it as though it was his and she’d laughed, pleased he was so easy to be with despite her faux pas with the heels.
Spreading out a blanket on a manicured lawn at the front of the house, David had opened the basket. Not just tiny chickens, but glossy pork pies, Scotch eggs, stuffed peppers and champagne.
‘Please take a seat,’ he’d said, gesturing to the ground. For a moment she’d frozen. The shoes were sharp-heeled, the dress fitted. Then, thinking what Sophie would do, she’d slightly hitched up her dress and slipped off her shoes. ‘This is lovely,’ she’d said.
‘And so are you,’ he’d replied.
Much later, topping up her wine, he’d grinned at her. ‘I’ve done nothing but talk. Now it’s your turn. Tell me about you.’
The mild panic was there as always, but he hadn’t told her anything really. He was a solicitor, he lived somewhere in Cheshire, he played football on a Sunday, but nothing personal, somehow. She found she liked it; she liked that he talked incessantly, but didn’t say anything profound.
‘Well …’ she’d begun, but as though sensing her hesitation, he’d put up his hand.
‘No, don’t tell me anything. You’re perfect just as you are.’
But after all the arguments with her last boyfriend, she hadn’t wanted to appear odd, wanted to get it out of the way. ‘I run a hair salon, share a flat with two friends. My dad died way back, but I still have my mum. She’s a bit fragile so she’s in a care home.’ She’d smiled, embarrassed. ‘No brothers or sisters, so there’s pretty much just me.’
David had gazed at her, but after a few moments the intensity in his eyes was replaced with a smile. ‘Me too. Parents died long ago. See? I knew you were perfect.’ He’d leaned back and stretched out his legs. ‘Told you last night you were the woman I’d marry.’ Turning to the grand facade of Lyme Hall, he’d nodded. ‘Did I mention I’m going to buy you one of these?’
Antonia now smiles and shakes her head at the memory. It had been the first time she’d visited a National Trust property and David had watched her face as she’d gazed wide-eyed and open-mouthed at its magnificence and splendour. Though considerably smaller, it’s what his clients and visitors say of White Gables all the time: ‘The renovation is magnificent. Must have cost a fortune.’ She can see that and she’s proud, but it’s the garden which pleases her. She feels she’s had more of an input. Not planting, necessarily, though she did all the bedding plants herself, but nurturing. She nurtures the plants, the beds and the bushes and they respond in kind.
‘Antonia, darling, you do have green fingers!’ Naomi the neighbour shouts from over the fence, her voice startling Antonia as she stands on the doorstep. She feels suddenly shy.
‘Perhaps I do,’ she replies with a guilty clutch of conceit as she blushes in acknowledgement.
It relaxes her usually; the garden, the fresh air, the birds and the hills reaching up to the steep ridge of The Edge. But today she’s agitated and even gardening hasn’t settled her. She goes inside, takes off her waxed jacket in the hall and strokes her arm. The cut has started to scab and it’s itchy. It always is when the healing process is underway. Like a little reminder.
‘The Chablis has been staring at me again,’ Sophie joked the other day.
‘Then don’t have it in the house,’ Antonia replied sternly.
But she understood completely. A tempting treat at the tip of one’s fingertips. It’s just a question of how long each of them can resist.
‘That’s a nasty cut,’ David had commented, not so long ago. ‘How did you do that?’
They were in bed and a shaft of light slanting through the shutters lit her naked body.
‘Gardening. Those hawthorns can be vicious,’ she’d replied brightly, turning towards him and pulling him into an embrace. But she’d caught his troubled look, that frown of love he has when he doesn’t know she’s looking. She must be more careful.
The answerphone light in the kitchen is flashing. She sighs and stares for a moment, then walks briskly to the telephone, quickly presses play, turns her back and busies herself loudly at the sink as though that will swamp the sound of the inevitable.
‘Hi, it’s Zara Singh again. The journalist? I think we got cut off. I’d really appreciate it if you could call me back?’ The rise in tone makes it sound like a question. And then she hears Candy’s hesitant voice, for the fourth time today. ‘Hello, Chinue, love. It’s Mum. Are you there?’
Olivia pushes the washing-machine door to, programmes a light wash and then leans against it, staring out of the utility room window which, she notes with a sigh, needs cleaning both inside and out. She knows she’s been moody and uncommunicative with the girls again today and feels vaguely guilty, but the truth is she can’t help herself.
She looks at her hands, which still have a slight tremor. Her jaw is aching from clenching her teeth. She’s seething. She seethed silently all night and all day and the churning hasn’t abated, not even a drop.
‘The bastard, the absolute bastard.’ The sheer anger and frustration brings tears to her eyes while his words repeat in a galling loop in her head. She marches into the kitchen and puts on the kettle before collapsing on to a chair. ‘Fuck you, Mike,’ she says out loud.
She considers phoning her sister, regaling her with last night’s conversation word for word. But she knows what her sister will say. ‘Come on, Olivia. He’s only human. Everything’s fine now you know he’s not having an affair with his tarty secretary or anyone else. I told you so.’
Her sister likes Mike. Everybody likes bloody Mike. But not everyone agreed to bear him another child. She really didn’t want a third child but she did it for him. She went through yet another amniocentesis to check for Down’s Syndrome and then experienced the worst of her pregnancies with horrendous sickness and overwhelming tiredness while having to care for two other young demanding children. It was she who gave birth to a dead baby; it was she who felt the pain and the fear, the impotence, the failure.
‘Fuck you, Mike!’ she declares again. And then, ‘God, what a cow’ as she leans down to pick up a piece of ceramic she’s missed from the floor. She looks at Hannah’s empty seat and feels another wave of emotion. Hannah is only five, accidents are bound to happen and it’s only a broken cereal bowl. How she wishes she hadn’t shouted quite so loudly and for quite so long. Hannah cried so much at school that the teacher had to peel her away from Olivia’s arms. Then she walked away swiftly, down the long corridor, past all the happy pictures and paintings and books, fearful that the teacher would call her back and suggest she take Hannah home.
Olivia sighs loudly. An awful mother and murderous to boot. Focusing on Hannah, her anger recedes for a spell. She’ll make it up to her after school, she thinks, her mind racing with ideas. She’ll make her a cake or buy