then turning to the fridge for bacon, mushrooms, parmesan and cream.
Natasha bounded back into the room, eyes wide. ‘I can’t find Mum!’
Somehow Leah wasn’t shocked to hear it. She just tried to smile reassuringly as the delicious smell of sizzling bacon filtered into the air. ‘She’s probably gone for a walk.’ But she’d had all day. Why would Michele leave it until now, when she’d promised to have dinner waiting?
She glanced at the others to try and read their expressions but Jordan was frowning ferociously at his phone while Alister moved wordlessly to the fridge, took out a tall green bottle of Crémant d’Alsace and lifted down two glasses from the rack. He filled both and passed one to Leah. Unnerved by his silence, and in no way treating the sparkling liquid with the respect it deserved, Leah took a couple of big gulps. ‘How about one of you kids text your mum and see where’s she’s got to? Tell her dinner will be ready in forty minutes.’
Jordan and Natasha began to squabble about who should do the texting. Under cover of their noise, Alister hovered close to Leah. ‘Do you know where she is?’ His wineglass trembled slightly.
Her heart squeezed at his evident misery. All Alister had ever done was be Alister, steady and kind. Even if it wasn’t massively exciting, that had once been what Michele wanted. Leah took another slurp of wine, beginning to wonder if she might need a lot of it before this holiday was over. ‘No idea,’ she whispered.
‘Shit.’ Alister gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I don’t even know why I’m surprised. What’s a forgotten meal when you can shuck off a marriage like an unfashionable coat?’
‘Mum’s on her way!’ cried Natasha, saving Leah from having to think of a response. ‘She says she’ll be ten minutes. I’ll go outside and wait.’
As she banged through the door Jordan observed loftily, ‘Natasha’s such a baby.’
Leah weighed out the rice and made up a jug of stock, remembering thirteen being a pretty confusing age even without the shock of a parental separation. ‘Good job she’s got a brother who’s a whole two years older to be kind to her, then. Eh, Jordan?’
‘Big brothers are meant to be kind?’ But he grinned sheepishly, as if taking Leah’s message on board.
It was nearly twenty minutes later that Michele finally strolled in, Natasha clinging to her arm. Leah looked up from grating parmesan. ‘Are you better? I thought you promised to make dinner.’
Michele looked better – except, perhaps, for a little guilt around the eyes. ‘Sorry! I forgot the time.’ She ruffled Jordan’s hair, as much as his hair would ruffle now he’d taken to lacing it with gel or gum or whatever was that week’s favoured product.
Under cover of topping up his glass Alister muttered to Leah, ‘Promises, eh? Like “Till death us do part”? Turned out to be crap.’
Leah stifled an inappropriate urge to giggle, though nothing about the situation was actually funny.
‘And I see it’s wine o’clock.’ Michele reached for an empty glass.
Alister halted his drink halfway to his mouth. ‘Really?’ He shifted his gaze meaningfully to her mid-section.
For a second Michele looked thrown, as if the existence of Baby Three had slipped her memory. Silently, she turned to the fridge and filled her wineglass with orange juice.
‘I hope Mum comes out with us today.’ Head on hand, Natasha was playing with her croissant instead of eating it, a sheen on her skin from where the morning sunshine streamed in through the kitchen window.
Jordan had already wolfed a cheese doorstep sandwich and two croissants. ‘Yeah.’ His expression was hidden, absorbed as he appeared to be in fraying the bottom of what he termed ‘shorts’, despite their ending halfway down his calves. Calves that seemed too hairy to belong to someone Leah still thought of as a boy.
Anxious that the kids might be beginning to pick up on Michele’s uncharacteristically evasive behaviour, Leah debated whether to suggest a visit to the water park in nearby Muntsheim. Even if Michele was supposedly feeling delicate it surely couldn’t be too taxing to read or snooze while the kids hurled themselves down the chutes?
Alister got in first with a simpler plan. ‘How about we hang out in the garden? Then Mum won’t have far to go when she feels well enough to join us, will she?’
A smile lit Natasha’s face. ‘I’ll tell her.’
‘Cool,’ agreed Jordan.
‘But you’ll do something more active than playing Minecraft, won’t you, Jordan?’ Alister said, employing his mild-but-inflexible voice.
Jordan sighed and climbed to his feet. ‘OK. I’ll get my supersoaker to shoot Nat with while she plays boules.’ He sent Alister a challenging look but Alister, who picked his battles wisely, merely smiled.
The kids gone, Leah began to clear the table, admiring the delicate pale blue and green of the crockery. ‘I’m perfectly happy to play boules or get into water fights but are you and Michele going to be able to do it without … an atmosphere?’ She managed to bite back the urge to call it ‘public displays of animosity’.
Alister watched her load the dishwasher. ‘I’m sorry. This is crappy for you. My suggestion we stay here today is an experiment.’
Leah abandoned her tower of crockery to give him a friendly hug. ‘I’m not going to ask about the nature of the experiment or what data you hope to collect. I’m just sorry it’s all gone wrong between you.’
His body seemed to sink in on itself as he sighed but whatever he opened his mouth to reply was lost in Michele’s entrance as she banged crossly in, throwing back over her shoulder, ‘No, stay up there, please, Natasha. I want to talk to Dad.’
‘I’ll leave.’ Leah turned for the door to the garden.
‘Appreciated,’ murmured Alister.
‘Why should you?’ Michele snapped simultaneously. ‘You’re involved in this Happy Families plan for today.’
Alister met her ire with coolly raised eyebrows. ‘Basing ourselves here will enable you to see something of your children without worrying about feeling queasy in the car or doing anything too active for your delicate condition. Does that cover whatever excuse you were about to trot out?’
Acutely uncomfortable as Michele and Alister glared icicles at each other, Leah resumed her escape. ‘I’ll get more loungers from the summerhouse.’
She closed the door on Alister’s low-voiced ‘Think what’s best for the children, Michele.’
Intent on keeping clear of the battleground, Leah dawdled as she set out the wooden sun loungers. Casting around the capacious summerhouse she located a paddling pool and a hose and dragged them out, too. The gîte and its neighbour were the only residences this far up the lane and there seemed to be nobody next door but the workman and his young assistant so she doubted it mattered if they had a water fight and it got a bit screamy.
She watched the clear water burble into the pool. Think what’s best for the children … If not for the kids, she’d reverse her car out of the garage and make a break for it instead of sticking around to share the death throes of Michele and Alister’s marriage.
But, as she was here, Leah could – probably – prevent spilled blood, and that definitely came under the heading of ‘best for the children’. Mentally polishing her halo she let herself into La Petite Annexe to change into her bikini. It didn’t cover as much as she would have liked, but she hadn’t had much time for holiday shopping and she was amongst family.
After