A lot of families in Bath chose Victorian homes over Georgian – the Victorians tended to have more rooms on each floor, not so many flights of stairs to run up chasing kids or pets. They were easier to heat and easier to make alterations to because most of them weren’t listed. The house Sally had lived in with Julian was a detached Victorian villa, with an extension and a conservatory at the rear, set well back from the road in large gardens that Millie used to enjoy running around. Now, though, there were paths where there never had been, a whole complex system of low lavender bushes cut severely into squares. Millie’s tree-house had been repainted with purple crocodiles and elephants for little Adelayde, the new Cassidy.
Millie hated Melissa. She only came here once a week on sufferance to see her dad. Now when Sally pulled up outside, she refused to go in, or even have her presence acknowledged. She sat in the car with her nose pressed to the window and stared out as Sally walked up the path, lit by the solar-powered garden lights that were stuck in the ground every few feet.
She hadn’t phoned in advance – Julian would find a way of not answering the call – she went straight to the front door and knocked loudly. From inside came a voice, Melissa, calling, ‘Julian. The door.’ A moment or two later he appeared, wine glass in hand.
‘Oh.’ His face fell when he saw her. ‘Sally.’
‘Can I come in?’
He glanced uneasily over his shoulder. She could see an expensively engineered pram sitting there, a row of rattles suspended above it. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Millie.’
‘Julian?’ Melissa called from inside. ‘Who is it, baby?’
‘It’s … Sally.’
There was a silence. Then the living-room door opened and Melissa appeared. She was a landscape gardener by trade, and when Sally had first met her she seemed to be dressed for a rodeo, with a suede cowboy hat, walking boots with thick socks folded over the tops and tweed shorts that never changed colour from day to day. She laughed like a pony and the cord of the hat would bounce around under her chin. Sometimes in the cold weather a clear drip would form at the end of Melissa’s nose and tremble there unnoticed for long minutes while she talked. She was the last person Sally would have expected Julian to go for. Today she was dressed in her customary shorts, but over them she wore an enormous oatmeal cardigan with Adelayde strapped to her chest in a scarlet cloth papoose. She automatically jiggled up and down to keep the baby asleep while she eyed her husband’s ex-wife.
‘Sally!’ she said after a moment or two, ‘You look lovely. Come in.’ She stepped back to let her into the living room, smiling expansively. ‘Lovely to see you.’
Sally went in and stood for a while in silence. The room was unrecognizable – redecorated in deep primary colours, with sharp, uncomfortable furniture. A black and white silk curtain was pulled across half of the bay windows, the baby’s playpen placed in front of them.
Melissa switched off the television, which was playing quietly in the corner, and settled on the edge of the large sofa, shifting the baby’s legs in the sling so they lay on either side of her stomach. Sally glanced around for her comfy old armchair where she had fed Millie as a baby. Instead she saw a leather love seat decorated in purple and white hexagons. She sat on it awkwardly.
‘How’s Millie?’ said Melissa, with a smile. ‘Lively as ever?’
‘No. She’s terrible.’
Melissa’s smile faded. ‘Really? Is it because of that girl? Lorne Wood?’
‘That’s not helping.’
‘One of the boys who did work experience with me knew her. He had a crush on her. I was surprised. She didn’t seem his type. Terrible – cheap-looking, you know.’
‘What’s troubling Millie?’ asked Julian. ‘She seemed all right the other day.’
‘It’s been a long time, but I think she’s still finding the divorce very difficult.’
‘Sally,’ Julian murmured, ‘maybe if you want to talk about the divorce it’d be better if—’
‘She’s having a hard time.’ Her voice came out more firmly than she’d expected it to. ‘She’s just a little girl and she’s finding it difficult.’
Julian frowned. He’d never seen this from Sally. Looking a little nervous, he closed the door and crossed the room. He sat down next to Melissa, pulling his trousers up his thin legs so that he didn’t stretch the knees. Looking at him now, Sally wondered what on earth she’d ever seen in him, except that he’d always been there somehow, paying for things and answering questions for her like a father. Until the day he wasn’t, and he was doing it all for Melissa instead. ‘OK. I hear you. You want a discussion. And what do you want out of that discussion? From us – me and Melissa?’
She blinked. ‘Uh – money.’
Melissa took a deep breath. She sat back on the sofa and crossed one long tanned leg over the other, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. Julian closed his eyes as if he’d had a momentary sharp pain in his head. He opened them, put his elbows on his knees and placed his palms together. ‘Can I just say that this is something we did talk about before? And, if you remember, I said—’
‘Four thousand pounds.’
‘Jesus!’ Melissa hissed. She bounced Adelayde even more vigorously, her eyes still locked on the ceiling. ‘Jesus Christ.’
Julian sat back in the chair, folded his arms and regarded Sally carefully. It was the sort of look she’d seen him use in business, sizing up a deal, trying to decide if a client was to be trusted. He was scrutinizing her as if, for the first time, he saw her as someone the same age as he was, and not his inferior – his little child bride. ‘You’re not joking, I take it.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What’s the money for?’
‘The trip to Malta. You said you were going to pay for it.’
‘OK. If there’s going to be aggression introduced at this point this might be the time to call a halt and say let’s chat to the solicitors first and then—’
‘You told her you were going to pay for her to go to Malta. You made her that promise – I was there when you did it. It would have been something quite different if you’d said no, but that’s not what happened. You made the promise and broke it. She thought you were going to pay for her. She ended up having to borrow the money.’
‘I suppose,’ Melissa said, in a level tone, ‘she could have cancelled it when she knew Julian and I really couldn’t afford it.’
‘All her friends were going.’
‘No one mentioned four thousand to me,’ Julian said. ‘Four thousand! What sort of trip to Malta costs four thousand pounds? They’re teenagers, for heaven’s sake. They’re supposed to sleep on the floor of the train, not take suites in the new Airbus A380.’
‘This is genuine. Millie needs the money. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘Millie needs it or you need it?’ Melissa said. Then she closed her eyes. ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean that. Ignore me.’
‘Who did she borrow the money from? Not Nial’s parents, please, God. They’ve already got me on their shit list with whatever you’ve told them over the divorce.’
‘Julian, look – I can’t make you, I can’t force you to do anything. I signed my rights away with the divorce, and even if I could afford legal advice I know what they’d say. All I can do is ask you, politely, to help her. She’s in trouble, Julian, really in trouble. She’s only fifteen and there’s nothing I can do in this situation.’
He licked his lips, glanced at his wife. ‘Melissa?’
She shrugged. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the ceiling and was still jiggling the baby up and down. She had the look of someone humming loudly in their head to block out what was happening around them. ‘You do whatever you think is the right thing.’ She placed her hand protectively over Adelayde’s small head, as if suddenly it was her and the baby against Sally and Julian. ‘Whatever your conscience tells you is right is what you should do.’
Julian gave a hard cough. He looked from Sally to Melissa and back again. Sally had never seen him so uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Sally. All the maintenance I was going to give Millie went into Peppercorn. I’ll give you a hundred but that’ll have to be all.’