Who Loves You Best Page 9

  Meanwhile I clear up her kids’ shit, chop her onions, and do what I’m told. You could fit everything I own into a couple of suitcases. My boyfriend’s a total loser, and I can hardly even afford our rent. In three years, I’ll be thirty, and I’ve got nothing to show for it.

  The only thing I’ve got that she hasn’t is freedom. I’m bloody well going to make the most of it while I still can.

  I swing around. “Actually, Clare, I’m going out tonight, so I will finish early and take some time off, if that’s OK.” I don’t give her a chance to change her mind. “About five? It’ll give me time to get ready and do my hair.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, that’s fine. Are you going anywhere nice?”

  “There’s a new club opened in Stockwell, thought I’d give it a go.”

  “Sounds … fun.”

  “I’ll be back to start at seven tomorrow, usual time,” I add, rubbing it in. “Don’t worry if I don’t come home before then, though.”

  She’s gone by the time I come back downstairs. I call Kirsty, and then raid the larder for something edible. This is easier said than done, since Clare is the sort of person who keeps wheat-grass smoothies and tofu in her fridge, whereas I’m more your Red Bull and frozen pizza kind of girl. But eventually I locate some doughnuts she pity-bought last week from the hospital fund-raiser, and settle down with a cup of tea in front of Jeremy Kyle’s daytime talk show. My sister stole my lover—and now she wants a threesome! Perfect.

  The doorbell rings just as two bleach-blond slappers lay claim to a bald lard-ass with hair coming out of his ears.

  “I like the cinnamon frosting,” Xan says, thumbing sugar from my top lip. “Adds a nice touch.”

  A bolt of lust shoots straight to my groin.

  Xan saunters past me and sits down on the sofa. “Hope you didn’t overdo the doughnuts, though. I thought we’d do lunch.”

  I blink. “Don’t be stupid. I’ve got the twins—”

  “Bring them.”

  “No. I’ve got a thousand things to do, and anyway, I don’t think Clare would like it.” I go back into the hall, and pointedly open the front door. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Come on. You know you want to.”

  “I told you, I can’t.”

  “I promise, I won’t tell.”

  “As if I’d believe you.”

  Xan laughs and pushes the chocolate lava cake towards me. “You’d have a lot more fun if you just did what I told you.”

  “Yeah, and I’d end up getting arrested.”

  I give in and reach for the cake fork, but before I can take a bite, Xan catches my hand and turns my forearm over. Carefully, he fits his fingertips to the livid pattern of bruises circling my wrist. “He’s got a firm grip,” he comments, “your boyfriend.”

  I pull my arm away. “He just doesn’t know his own strength.”

  “Oh, I think he does.”

  I open my mouth to deny it. The cupboard door swung back and hit me. The phone distracted me when I was ironing. I caught my hand in the car door. I’ve got so used to making excuses for Jamie, the lies automatically trip off my tongue. Last weekend, Mum remarked on a half-moon scar on my knee, and instantly, I rushed to explain it away: I was carrying some wine bottles out to the recycling bin, I slipped on some wet leaves, must have fallen awkwardly—

  “You did that when you were seven,” Mum said, looking at me strangely. “You fell over the campfire at Brownies, don’t you remember?”

  I busy myself with the twins now, wiping noses and cleaning hands. It’s not Jamie’s fault. I know every sad bitch who’s ever had her eye blacked by her boyfriend says that, but in my case it’s really true. Jamie’s got PTSD; the counselor said so. Like those soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing when he gets into these blind rages. I don’t think he even sees me: I just happen to be there.

  That doesn’t make it OK, of course—but actually, it kind of does. What am I going to do, kick him when he’s down?

  Xan tips his chair back on two legs. “He’ll break something next,” he says laconically. “Your wrist, your ribs. Your neck.”

  “You’ll break something if you don’t stop tilting your chair.”

  He smiles mockingly. “Sorry, Nanny.”

  Who the fuck does he think he is? Just because Mummy lives in a bloody castle and he went to a posh school. If I’m so beneath him, what’s he doing here? He’s the one who came to me. If he’s that bothered, he can go back to guzzling champagne with the Hon. La-di-dah Horse-Face, instead of slumming it at Pizza Express with the staff. Arrogant fucking arsehole.

  I shove back from the table. “It’s time I got the twins home.”

  “Wait. Don’t go.” He thumps his chair back down. “Look, no more bullshit, Jenna, I promise. It just pisses me off, that’s all. I don’t know why anyone would want to rough up a gorgeous girl like you, but it’s your business. Just tell me one thing. Forgive the cliché, but do you love him?”

  Gorgeous girl.

  Oh, get over yourself, Jenna. It’s a line.

  “I can’t leave Jamie,” I say tightly. “You don’t understand.”

  Slightly to my surprise, he doesn’t press the point.

  Instead, he stands up, grabs the twins’ pushchair, and throws four twenties on the table. “Let’s go.”

  As soon as we’re outside, he flags down a taxi, and hefts the stroller into it.

  “What are you doing?” I demand. “We can walk home from here—”

  “You need to chill out,” Xan says. “And I know just the place.”

  Thirty minutes later, London lies spread beneath us. A murky haze blankets the city, the last of the day’s bleached sunshine glinting off the sluggish brown river. Viewed from the sky, far from the traffic and crowds and noise, it all seems so much more peaceful and gracious than at ground level. London suddenly looks like the print Clare has over her fireplace by one of those Impressionist painters: Manet, Monet, something like that. Elegant and timeless.

  “The London Eye.” I sigh as the huge Ferris wheel slowly turns, revealing slices of the horizon by degrees. “You are seriously sad.”

  “Come on. You’re loving it.”

  I try and fail to suppress a smile. He’s right. I am.

  I hold Rowan up against the curved glass so he can get a clear view of the river. He gazes owlishly at me, refusing to look anywhere but at my face.

  “Rowan, look! Look at the pretty boats! No, you dope, not at me, down there!”

  “I know which view I’d rather look at,” Xan says.

  Poppy squirms unhappily in his arms, and he knuckles his forefinger and rubs it gently against her pink gums. “Teething.”

  “What would you know about teething?”

  “You’d be surprised what I know.” He shrugs his left shoulder. “Here. Reach into my back pocket.”

  I slide my palm into his jeans. My pulse quickens at the intimate contact.

  “Don’t worry, I’m just going to rub it on her gums,” he snorts, as I ease the silver hipflask out and hesitate. “I’m not going to get her drunk. She is my niece.”

  Poppy screws up her eyes, splutters, then opens her mouth wide for more. Just like her uncle, in fact.

  The wheel slowly brings us back down to earth. I check my watch as we leave the glass pod, shocked to see it’s already quarter to five. Shit. I made such a big deal about Clare letting me off early today, and now I’m going to be late home myself. She’ll have a fit.

  I jiggle Rowan more comfortably against my hip, and make for the bank of pushchairs and strollers parked near the ticket booth, searching for Clare’s fancy Bugaboo. If we can find a taxi, we might not be that late—

  Xan’s arm is suddenly tight around my waist. “Keep walking,” he hisses.

  “What?”

  “Keep going. Don’t stop, and don’t turn around.”

  “What are you talking about? I need the twins’ pushchair—”

  “Chri
st, Jenna! Pick another one! That one,” he says, pointing to a cheap fold-up double stroller at the end of the row. “Clare’s is worth ten times that, right?”

  “Yes, but you can’t—”

  Xan is already pulling it out of the stroller lineup, and strapping Poppy into one of its seats. Too bemused to argue, I follow suit with Rowan.

  “Stop looking around,” Xan mutters. “Shit, could you be more obvious?”

  A Hispanic man with earrings through his eyebrow and lower lip is staring hard at Xan from a nearby doorway. For a moment, I think he’s the one we’re trying to dodge; and then I spot the cops. Four single men in cheap business suits, heads swiveling, thread their way through the tourists and young families. They stick out like sore thumbs.

  Xan ducks his head into the pushchair, hiding his face, and fusses with the twins’ blankets as I walk the stroller away from the crowded square.

  “Not too fast,” he whispers tersely.

  “Did the cops follow you?” I demand, sotto voce. “Fuck, Xan, what have you done?”

  “Mistaken identity. Keep walking.”

  We reach a narrow side street without being spotted. Xan risks a glance over his shoulder. No one shouts or raises the alarm.

  “Jesus,” Xan says, straightening up. I’m still too shocked to speak.

  We round the corner to the main street, just as a taxi with a lit sign crests the hill like the cavalry. Xan jumps recklessly into the middle of the road, his arm raised. The taxi pulls neatly up to the curb and switches off its light. I start to unfasten the twins from the strange pushchair, and realize my hands are trembling.

  “Excuse me, miss,” a voice says behind us.

  ———

  I can’t believe Clare doesn’t fire me on the spot.

  I so would, if I were her. But when she finds us at the police station, she doesn’t say a single word to me. She organizes a cab to take Xan back to his flat in Fulham, and then drives the twins and me home, without even glancing in my direction. I sit huddled in the passenger seat, too ashamed to speak. Technically, it’s not my fault Xan was arrested, but if someone entrusted with my children had just wound up in a police cell for four hours, I’d want to rip them a new arsehole.

  “I am so, so sorry—” I choke out, as we pull in to a parking bay near the house.

  “Jenna. I’m really tired. I’m sure you are, too. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  She reaches into the back of the Range Rover, releases Poppy’s car seat, and carefully carries the sleeping baby up the front steps. Silently, I pick up Rowan.

  The house is in darkness. Marc obviously isn’t home yet, despite the fact that it’s now well after ten.

  Did you know Marc’s cheating?

  I put the twins to bed, unable to get Xan’s drunken parting shot out of my head. God knows what Clare must be going through right now. She must be devastated. Unless … unless she already knew. She didn’t act like someone who’d just found out her husband was screwing around. Maybe they’re one of those couples who have an open marriage. They’re not exactly warm and fuzzy together; I know they have sex, but I never see them holding hands or kissing. Still, I can’t see Clare tolerating him having an affair. It doesn’t seem quite her style.

  “If you wouldn’t mind making sure I don’t oversleep,” Clare says briskly when I come downstairs. “I don’t do well with late nights, and I have an important appointment with my lawyer in the morning. My forensic lawyer,” she adds dryly. “I’ll be spending the next two days at work, going over the accounts.”

  I flush. I swear she can read minds.

  She stands and turns off the light. “And Jenna? If I were you, I’d stay away from Xan,” she says.

  Two weeks later, and I still haven’t worked out what’s going on with Marc and Clare. She leaves for work every day looking immaculate, her blond hair smoothed back neatly, fingers manicured into perfect pale pink ovals, not a stray hair or wrinkle marring her usual work uniform of boring gray or black trousers and pastel cashmere T-shirts. (When Annabel first told me she was sending me for an interview with a woman who ran a flower shop, I’d pictured this hippy, earth-mother type, with mad spirals of dark hair, long flowing skirts, wellies, and broken fingernails. Clare is so not my idea of a green-fingered goddess.)

  Clare’s great at keeping up appearances, but it’s hard to hide everything when you live with someone. I never actually hear them argue, she’s far too discreet for that, but I can’t help noticing that when Marc comes home now, later than ever, she doesn’t smile or get up to greet him like she used to. She won’t bother to cook him dinner if he gets home after we’ve eaten. There are no fresh flowers around the house anymore. I can’t remember the last time I was woken by the sound of bedsprings on the other side of the wall.

  Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place. I’m not sure which is worse: weekends with Jamie, or Monday-to-Friday here. I’d go home to Mum and Dad, but they converted my old room into an art studio for Mum about a minute after I left home.

  I’m feeding the twins breakfast when Marc comes down one morning, his expression tense. Clare follows him, looking tired and distracted, as if she hasn’t slept. I can tell they’ve had another of their “discussions.”

  Marc pours himself a coffee. “Would you like one?” he asks Clare stiffly.

  “Thank you.”

  “Milk?”

  “Black, if you don’t mind.”

  They’re polite to each other, I realize. Like total strangers.

  I spoon baby rice into the babies as fast as they can swallow, desperate to escape the atmosphere in the kitchen. The taut silence is deafening. For God’s sake, someone say something.

  “Can you sign a permission slip for the doctor?” I ask Clare. “They’re due for their next lot of shots this morning.”

  She glances quickly at Marc, pretending to be absorbed in his Financial Times. “You won’t need it. I’ll come with you.”

  “I thought you had to go to work early?”

  “Nothing that won’t wait.”

  Marc snaps his paper derisively, but says nothing. Clare looks close to tears.

  Clare doesn’t speak on the way to the health clinic, except to mutter cryptically into her mobile—“I’ll be at the bank by eleven; no, he’s got no idea”—and fret about the heavy traffic. I don’t know why she’s come.

  As usual, the doctor is running late. Clare neurotically paces the waiting room while I try to placate Poppy, who’s uncharacteristically fretful and difficult. I think Xan’s right; she must be teething. If Clare wasn’t here, I’d pull my usual trick and dip her pacifier in a packet of sugar. I’ve never known a baby with such a sweet tooth.

  We’re finally ushered into a chilly exam room, where the twins are stripped to their Pampers, weighed, measured, and prodded. Finally, a skinny, purse-lipped nurse takes off their nappies and sticks a thermometer up their bums. Unsurprisingly, both babies bawl in protest.

  “They’re very fussy,” she sniffs.

  “You try having a pole stuck up your arse,” I mutter. “Oh, I see you already have.”

  Clare stifles a smile.

  Moments later, a fit, clean-shaven doctor of about fifty bounces excitedly into the room.

  “Wonderful lungs!” he shouts over the screams. “Good job, Mum!”

  “Thank you,” Clare says faintly.

  “So, are we weaned? Eating solids?”

  He addresses Clare, but she turns helplessly to me.

  “We started them off a few weeks ago,” I say. “They’re eating most things now, but they still like their milk in the morning and at bedtime.”

  “How many dirty nappies a day?”

  Again, he looks at Clare. Again, she looks at me.

  “About six each, I think.”

  “Sleeping through the night?”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Rowan’s over the colic now.”

  “Good, good. Well, Mum, you
’ve done an excellent job. Love and care, that’s all most babies need. They don’t want Mum in the boardroom or running the country, do they? They want her at home, isn’t that right?”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Do you have children, Doctor?” I ask sweetly.

  “Yes, four.”

  “How lovely. You must be very proud. Tell me,” I add, “you must work such long hours here. Weekends and evenings, too. It must take a lot of commitment.”

  “Always on call,” he says brightly.

  I stop smiling. “So how many bloody Sports Days did you turn up to?” I demand. “Or was Daddy always too busy saving the world? I’m sure your kids must have found that a great consolation.”

  “Jenna,” Clare says quietly.

  “Well, don’t talk to me about love and care,” I say defiantly. “No one could love these babies more than Clare does.”

  She shoots me a grateful look. The doctor coughs, and picks up his syringe.

  Poppy doesn’t put up any resistance, but Rowan’s already arching and squirming when I pick him up. The doctor preps his arm with a Medi-swab, but as he gives him the injection, Rowan moves. The needle jabs deeper than the doctor intended, and Rowan screams in pain.

  In a second, Clare has crossed the room and pulled him from my arms, her eyes dark with distress. She paces up and down, rubbing his tiny back and murmuring gently in his ear.

  As he gradually stops hiccoughing, she turns and looks at me, an expression of surprise and delight on her face so genuine it makes my heart turn over. “I can’t bear him to be hurt,” she whispers.

  “I know,” I murmur back.

  It isn’t that Clare didn’t love Rowan; she just didn’t know it. I’ve watched her pick up Poppy and experience a glorious rush of natural, uncomplicated love; and then seen that smile falter and fade, drowned by her guilt at not feeling the same for Rowan. She was convinced she was going to turn into another Davina. I kept telling her mothers often take time to bond with their babies; people talk a load of shit about it, but the truth is, motherhood’s different for every woman. Clare wouldn’t listen. She’s been beating herself up for months.