But it didn’t seem to be being like that. She didn’t seem to be being given a chance to affect things for good as she wanted to. There were all kinds of elements she hadn’t taken into account out of sheer ignorance, inexperience, elements that appeared to conspire against her making that headway she had so earnestly planned. Sedgebury was proving not only an unremarkable town, but also rather a sullen one; Rufus missed his father plainly and perpetually, and seemed bewildered into passivity at any suggestion that he should make friends with either Matthew or Matthew’s children; Matthew’s children declined to give an inch in her direction and Matthew seemed helpless in the face of their obduracy; and there was Nadine. Josie gripped the handlebars of her bicycle and took a sharp, self-controlling breath. What had ever, ever possessed her into thinking that Nadine could be kept out of her life, their lives, in fact any life? Because of her, Karen was apprehensive about seeing Josie, and Matthew’s mother simply refused to. Because of her, Matthew’s children were, for the moment, hardly coming to Sedgebury at all, and Matthew minded about this a good deal and was unable to talk about it to Josie. Because of her, a large proportion of the bills that came to the house seemed to require Matthew’s embarrassed and furtive attention, and it had occurred to Josie more than once that when – if – she got a job, she would be paying for their lives so that Matthew could pay for Nadine’s.
She turned her bicycle up the right-hand concrete strip of the drive of 17 Barratt Road and rode it into the garage. She would not think about Nadine. It was becoming a refrain, like the line of a song stuck in her head, ‘Don’t think about Nadine.’ She got off her bicycle and padlocked it to Matthew’s workbench. The night before, Matthew had asked Rufus if he would like to learn how to screw two pieces of wood together, properly.
‘No, thank you,’ Rufus had said.
Josie had opened her mouth to remonstrate with him but Matthew had shaken his head, to silence her.
‘OK,’ he said to Rufus. ‘Go without.’
Rufus had coloured. Josie had bitten her lip.
‘Sorry,’ he said to her, later.
‘There was no need.’
‘I know.’
‘He’s a good little boy.’
‘I know,’ Matthew said. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I said so. I meant it.’
Josie put her key into the back door and turned it. The kitchen was quiet and empty, just as she had left it, with breakfast cleared away and the table bare except for a jug of forced early daffodils Matthew had bought her from the market, and the letter under the peanut butter jar. She must get a cat or a budgerigar, or even a goldfish. There had to be some animate thing to welcome her when she got back to this house which was not a home yet, but just the place they all lived, while they tested each other out, tried to get used to things. A dog would be lovely, a dog would be ideal, a focus, something they could all practise their painful new family feelings on, but who would look after a dog if they were all out all day?
Josie took her coat off and her gloves and scarf, and put them down in a heap on a kitchen chair. Then she ran water into the kettle and plugged it in. The letter was watching her. Even with her back to it, she knew it was. She put her hand on the lid of the kettle. When it boiled, and she had made herself some coffee, she would open it.
Outside Rufus’s school – Wickham Junior – several other mothers waited. A few had prams and baby buggies and one or two wore their babies in slings across their chests and adopted above these expressions of elaborate detachment as if defying mockery, or even comment. Josie knew quite a lot of the mothers by sight now. ‘Hi,’ they said to each other. ‘Bitter cold, isn’t it?’ Their children came roaring out across the playground at three-fifteen, and at the sight of them, a faint despairing collective moan arose, as if they were all being reminded, simultaneously and forcibly, of the reality of their responsibilities.
Rufus was almost always nearly last. For the first term, he had also always been alone, walking very carefully and steadily towards Josie with his head bent. But this term, he seemed to have found a friend, another red head, an awkward-looking boy with spectacles and huge ears. Rufus appeared relieved to have a friend, if not exactly proud of this one, and it was unquestionably better to see him walking with someone, than alone. The friend’s name was Colin and that was all Rufus seemed to know about him and all he thought he needed to know.
‘Good day?’ Josie said. She stooped and kissed him. He hadn’t told her not to, yet, so she thought she would go on until he did. He nodded. He nodded most days, having discovered that it averted questions.
‘Good,’ Josie said, ‘I’m so pleased. I went for an interview. It was a nice school, so was the head teacher. I feel quite hopeful.’
Rufus remembered Josie’s working days in Bath.
‘Will you use the same bag?’
‘I should think so. It hasn’t fallen to bits yet. Are you hungry?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was lunch?’
Rufus thought.
‘Shepherd’s pie and spaghetti.’
‘No vegetables—’
‘Carrots, but I didn’t eat them.’
‘Nothing green?’
Rufus shook his head. That had been a relief. In his view there were peas, which were fine, and then there were vegetables, all of them, which were not fine at all.
‘Would you like it,’ Josie said, ‘if we went and had a burger?’
He looked up. He was beaming.
‘Yes.’
In the burger bar he chose a cheeseburger with chips and a banana milkshake. Josie had a cup of coffee. She watched him carefully extracting the lettuce and tomato from his bun. It was amazing to her that someone who, from babyhood, had had to be bribed and cajoled and bullied into eating anything acceptably healthy could possess such luminous skin, such clear eyes and shining hair.
‘Rufus—’
He looked at her over his bun, his mouth full.
‘I’ve got something to tell you. Maybe – maybe it’s easier to tell you here than at home.’
He stopped chewing.
‘I had a letter from Daddy this morning—’
He was watching her, waiting, only his eyes and nose visible above the burger bun.
‘Darling, I think Daddy is going to get married again.’
It was her turn to wait. He regarded her for a moment and then seemed abruptly to relax. He took another bite.
‘I know,’ he said, through his mouthful.
‘Do you?’
He nodded. He swallowed and reached for his milkshake.
‘Did he tell you?’
‘No,’ Rufus said, sucking through his milkshake straw. ‘But she was in the house.’
‘After Christmas?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you – sort of guessed?’
Rufus took another long suck.
‘They were laughing.’
Josie looked down into her coffee. A pang she could give no name to clutched her briefly, and let go.
‘Did – did you like her?’
Rufus nodded.
‘She didn’t make a fuss.’
‘What do you mean? Of you? Of Daddy?’
Rufus picked up a chip in his fingers.