‘Three weeks?’ Barry twirled his mobile thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure that’s long enough for you to get back on your feet?’
‘Best to hit the ground running.’ Both of us were resorting to clichés, but I had noticed that at pivotal moments, such as the giving and receiving of bad news, or making sure that my career survived in the face of a stealthy takeover by predatory colleagues, they did the job.
Barry looked extra thoughtful. ‘Let’s tease this out, Minty. I assume you still want the full-time position, but I wondered, given your new circumstances, if you shouldn’t be thinking part-time.’
This time my answer was certified cliché-free. ‘I can think all I like about part-time, Barry, but it won’t do any good. It has to be full-time.’
‘If that’s the case…’
‘About my projects.’
Barry leant over and placed a hand on my arm. ‘You’re not to worry about them. Chris will take over. He knows your thinking. You must concentrate on getting yourself through.’ His voice was rough with sympathy, and his genuine concern almost masked the fact that it made no difference to him whether I was in the office or not.
‘I’m afraid there’s gossip,’ said Paige. ‘There always is. But’ – she straightened up from the laundry basket – ‘you have to admit it’s not entirely unjustified. Why was Nathan at Rose’s flat? Gossip-wise, Minty, it’s the equivalent of throwing a juicy Christian to the lions.’
To reward myself for battling with a morning of paperwork and Theo, I had dispatched the twins to the park with Eve and come over to Paige for lunch. We sat in her neat, clean-smelling kitchen with something delicious cooking in the pink Aga. The baby was sleeping upstairs. ‘I think Nathan went to Rose out of a kind of loyalty.’
‘Really?’ Paige’s eyes widened in disbelief.
I pressed my forefingers into the pressure points on my forehead. ‘Nothing more than that.’
Paige looked sceptical. ‘If you say so.’ She folded the sleeves of a shirt across its breast, like a figure in a church brass. ‘Linda should be doing this, but I’ve given her a day off. She doesn’t know yet, but it’s a bribe because I want her to help me out at the weekend. They work most effectively I find, when they are post facto. It’s too late then.’ She picked up a striped yellow and black Babygro and inspected a tiny sleeve. ‘This makes Charlie look like a wasp. How is it at Lakey Street?’
‘Deathly quiet.’
Nathan had been dead for two weeks and the doorbell no longer rang innumerable times every morning. There were no more deliveries of flowers. The boys, Eve and I had worked our way through soups and other offerings in unfamiliar containers that, at one point, had clogged the fridge.
The boys’ understanding of the situation fluctuated. ‘Daddy’s gone to a nice place,’ Lucas announced to Eve. But every so often their grasp modified and slipped. Several times since Nathan’s death, I had woken to discover a pair of unblinking eyes observing me and one or the other of them had burrowed like a velvety mole into the safety of my bed. They seesawed between understanding and bewilderment, and it made them ragged-tempered and uncertain.
‘Where is Daddy?’ Felix had demanded at breakfast.
Paige hefted the basket into the utility room and checked the oven. ‘You could do with a good meal,’ she said. ‘How does fish stew grab you?’
I was half-way through a plateful when the storm hit me out of nowhere. I was chewing prawn when I felt sweat break out on the soles of my feet and the rush of rage. ‘How dare Nathan die?’ I dropped my fork, and pushed the plate to one side. ‘I’m so angry with him for leaving us. What was he thinking of, not getting his heart seen to?’
‘That’s better,’ said Paige. She wiped away a drop of stew by my plate. ‘You have a good hate. I always tell the children it’s best to get it out of their system.’
Paige always favoured that approach. In her book, ‘a good hate’ would evacuate the agony of losing Nathan, and the sorrow of the what will never be.
‘He must have thought about Felix and Lucas, and what it would mean if he wasn’t there. How will they manage without him?’
Yet if Nathan came whirling back out of the darkness, I would say to him, ‘Nathan, I will never again ask for a new bathroom. I promise to work at loving you.’ I would even promise I didn’t mind that I would be damned for ever by his family, and friends like the Frosts and the Lockharts.
I would promise to wipe the slate clean and begin again.
I pulled a shred of prawn shell off my fork. ‘How am I going to cope? The boys – how am I going to help them? Keep them? Maintain a house?’
‘Much as you’re coping now, I imagine. Adapt.’
‘I had a dream, Paige. I’d been transformed into a wise, hands-on mother like you. The sort of mother who says on a rainy afternoon, “Let’s make a dinosaur out of a cardboard box.” Or “Hell, why don’t we write a play about Daddy and I’ll run up the costumes?” But it was only a dream.’
‘Eat.’ Paige dumped another spoonful of stew on my plate.
I stared at it. My anger had burnt out, leaving only sadness. ‘Nathan wanted to humiliate me, Paige, by suggesting Rose became a guardian… if anything happened. How could he have done that? Gisela says he was thinking clearly. Rose is the only one with time, she’s older, and she knows what she’s doing. She would put the boys’ interests first.’
Paige considered. ‘Gisela’s right. But it’s not going to happen. You’re in rude health. Maybe, Minty, he wanted to put things right between you.’
‘Well, he hasn’t.’
Paige ate what was on her plate with a rapidity that any new mother would recognize. ‘Charlie will wake up in a minute.’
On cue, a noise like a small lawnmower struggling into life drifted from the baby alarm. Paige threw down her fork and her face lit up. ‘I’ll fetch him.’
She returned with a now roaring Charlie and sat down to feed him, supporting him with one hand. With the other, deploying an elaborate movement so that her fork did not pass over Charlie’s head, she shovelled food from plate to mouth.
‘How’s Martin?’
‘I barely see him. I booted him into the spare room, which means I have Charlie all to myself.’ Paige smiled down at the baby. ‘Don’t I? And it’s delicious, isn’t it, my tiny tiger? We have a lovely time.’
‘Don’t you miss the bank?’ I gestured at the sterilizer, the timetable pinned to the noticeboard, the copper batterie de cuisine. ‘ Figures used to be your life.’
‘Oh, I miss them,’ she said. ‘I miss their purity, but they were only part of the deal. Most of my time was spent politicking, schmoozing clients and firefighting trouble or bad press. You could never get a run at the purity.’
Whenever Paige mentioned ‘figures’ or ‘statistics’, her face was suffused with longing, as it was now. If she had been a nun, she would have brought the same steely concentration and ferocious will to being the perfect Bride of Christ.
She shifted Charlie to the other breast, and returned to the original subject. ‘You’re going to have to sort yourself out about Rose. You mustn’t let her become an obsession.’ She caressed Charlie’s head, bent over him and cooed, Who’s my pretty boy? Who’s my good boy?’ She straightened up and asked, in a normal voice, You don’t really think anything was going on between them, do you?’
The question nagged away before I fell asleep at night, and it was there when I woke, still fatigued. Its implications swirled in my brain. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t want to have to think about her at the moment. And Nathan, with his ridiculous request, made sure that I have to.’
‘People do strange things, Minty.’
I became aware of the pulse beating in my right wrist. ‘Yes.’