Any Way You Want Me Read online

  ‘Any plans to move back?’ I asked. ‘Are your family still down there?’

  He looked slightly uncomfortable at my question. ‘Ahh. Well, I would like to move back sometime. Now, in fact. I’d go like a shot. But . . .’

  His voice had trailed away. ‘But Julia wouldn’t?’ I prompted. Aha. Interesting.

  He smiled. ‘I think I’ve got this stupid romantic idea of us going back and having a family, dogs, Range Rover, huge garden . . . you know.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ I told him. ‘What does Julia think?’

  ‘Well, she likes the bit about the Range Rover,’ he said, then laughed. ‘And she likes the idea of the huge garden and the weekend parties we could have.’

  ‘Just not the dogs and kids bit, then.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause. I gulped down my chocolate, suddenly feeling awkward. This was all getting rather personal, really, seeing as we barely knew each other. ‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to . . .’ I was about to say ‘put the kids to bed,’ but it seemed insensitive after what he’d just told me. ‘I’ve got to get back,’ I said instead.

  He drained his cappuccino and we both stood up. ‘Really nice to see you, Sadie,’ he told me, blue eyes holding mine steadily. ‘Maybe we could do it again?’

  ‘I’m not sure my heart is up to it,’ I said lightly. ‘The running, I mean. Not the . . .’ Oh, shit. What was I saying? ‘Yes, that would be nice. Yes. I need to get fit again.’

  ‘You look all right to me,’ he said, eyebrows raised. There was a smile at the corners of his mouth. Was he eyeing me up? He was. I swear his eyes flicked up and down my legs. He was looking at me! What was he doing that for? What was he trying to say?

  ‘Right. Thanks. Lovely to see you. Love to Julia. Bye,’ I gabbled. We’d reached the cafe door and I just wanted to get away now. I felt as if I was on dangerous ground all of a sudden. ‘Right. I’m going this way. So . . . So I’ll see you around. Bye, Mark!’

  I turned and ran. I wondered if he was watching my arse the way I’d watched his. I was glad it was dark. I was glad I was going home.

  I went flat-out all the way back to our street. Blood rushed in my ears. I had run away like a lovestruck schoolgirl. No, not lovestruck. Obviously, I wasn’t lovestruck. I was just . . .

  What was I?

  Something odd was happening to me. Jack. Danny. Mark. These men that I was flirting with, lying to, playing games with. I kept stepping out of my real life into this pretend one, where I could do that whole flirting thing again. Only, in my real life, I couldn’t. Wasn’t supposed to.

  Nothing has happened. Nothing has happened, I told myself as I walked the last few steps to our house, breath groaning out of me. Our house. My and Alex’s house. The house where our two babies had been born.

  It was more the fact that something could happen, if I let it. If I wanted it. Which, of course, I didn’t. It was ridiculous to even think that, yet . . .

  I shivered. Now that I’d stopped running, I could feel how freezing the air was. A few stars were already poking through the smoggy sky. Frost again later, no doubt.

  I had to stop all this . . . messing about, I chastised myself. I had to knuckle down to my own, proper life instead of trying to rewrite it as a different story all the time. I had Alex and the kids, after all, and even if it was hard work and a bit . . . well, boring at times, and even if I was hankering after my old life of freedom right now, and even if this new life of motherhood and responsibility sometimes didn’t feel quite enough, I just had to make it enough.

  OK. Lecture over.

  I panted my way up our front steps, legs heavy. Key in the lock and in. The house was warm and light and I could hear Molly giggling. Home.

  It was patronizing of me, I knew, but I was always faintly surprised to come home and find that nothing horrendous had happened in my absence. No one was crying or bleeding. The house hadn’t fallen down, wasn’t on fire. In fact, not only was everyone all right, they looked positively radiant with model-family-type cosiness.

  I walked into the front room to see Nathan and Molly in their pyjamas, both snuggled on Alex’s knee as he read them Five Minutes’ Peace, Molly’s current favourite story. For a split-second I was looking at them as an outsider. Curtains drawn, lamps glowing, fire belting out heat. My beautiful children with their fair hair and apple cheeks. And Alex, reading about Mrs Large the elephant struggling to get her longed-for five minutes’ peace, making Molly chortle with his silly voices for the elephant children.

  Alex looked up and winked. ‘Good run?’ he asked in his elephant girl voice. Molly practically fell off his knee with laughter.

  I sat down next to them and Nathan immediately started to make hungry little mews. I pulled him over to me for a feed. ‘Yeah,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice light and casual. I bent over Nathan so Alex couldn’t see my face. ‘Yeah, I think I’ll go more often. I really enjoyed it.’

  I paused. Now was the time to tell him about Mark. Oh, and guess who I saw while I was out there?

  Go on, then. Tell him.

  I shut my mouth instead. Fussed over Nathan.

  ‘Nice one,’ Alex said, completely unaware of the uneasy feeling that was spreading through me. ‘I told you it was a good idea, didn’t I?’

  I laughed at his cheek. ‘No, you bloody didn’t.’

  He was grinning his most infuriating grin. ‘I did, you know I did. Don’t forget, Sade, it’s me, Alex. The one who’s always right about everything.’

  I shook my head. ‘You’ve got me there. Don’t think I know him.’

  ‘Denial is a terrible thing, Sadie,’ he said sorrowfully, then picked up the remote, his fifth limb. ‘Right, Molls. Let’s have a gander at the news. See if Leeds have signed up Ronaldo.’

  Tell him. Tell him you saw Mark. Why don’t you just tell him? It’s not like anything happened. Just say it!

  ‘I not want news, Daddy, I want elephants again.’ She pronounced it ‘effalunts’.

  ‘All right. One more time, then it’s upstairs to clean those teeth.’

  I shut my eyes while Nathan sucked and Alex read and Molly giggled. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t say a word.

  Six

  Next morning, I woke up full of noble intentions. I was going to have a perfect mum day, devoted to my little angels. None of this . . . this parallel life stuff. Just me and the children. Happy families. We were going over to Lizzie’s for the morning and I was determined to put on a good show. No tantrums, no fighting, no crying – and that went for the kids, too.

  Lizzie hadn’t mentioned Jack or Relate or counselling of any description on the phone, so I was pretty sure that Cat hadn’t told her anything awful about me. Mind you, I tried to avoid long phone conversations with Lizzie if possible as they were usually about Boring Steve – or her ‘hubby’ as she called him – and how brilliantly Boring Steve was doing at work and what a massive pay rise Boring Steve had just got, and how Boring Steve was going to take her and Little Felix to Disneyworld next month and . . .

  It made me wonder if Steve was in the background listening to all these conversations, sometimes, they were so effusive. Or if he bugged the phone. Surely she didn’t really think I was that interested in her dull, balding, businessman hubby, did she?

  It was only when I saw Lizzie in person, just us two, that she sometimes cracked and confessed that she was actually quite looking forward to Boring Steve going off for a golfing weekend with his work mates so she and Little Felix could have the house to themselves. Or I’d comment on their new flashily large TV, sleek, silver and gleaming with a remote that could boil the kettle and do the ironing, if you knew what buttons to press – and she’d kind of grit her teeth, and then tell me that, actually, their old TV was perfectly good and she wished Boring Steve wasn’t so desperate to have the new model five seconds after it hit the shops every time.

  Lizzie lived about twenty minutes’ drive away in a terribly nice, terribly middle-cla
ss part of Balham with lots of other terribly nice, terribly middle-class families who liked nothing more than to talk about which private school their children would be going to (before they were even born, half the time) and which French classes their three-year-olds attended (Bonjour, Maman! was excellent, according to Liz) and how little Matilda and Henry had simply adored being down in Whitstable at the weekend, you know, in their little holiday cottage down there. Such a sweet place, only three bedrooms (yes, it was tiny!) but you know, it was fun roughing it for the weekend, wasn’t it? And lovely neighbours there, too!

  Lizzie hadn’t quite bought into all that bollocks but she was heading that way. Boring Steve earned a fortune, and consequently Lizzie had an eye-poppingly fat allowance every month and seemed to feel obliged to spend the whole lot each time it walloped into her bank account with a hefty thud. Whenever I went round, I had to go through the admiring stage before I could even take the kids’ coats off. I would admire the newly plumbed-in bathroom suite or Felix’s freshly painted playhouse in the garden or Lizzie’s new outfit, shoes, coat, expensive haircut . . . Once, I had poked my nose round their bedroom door after taking Molly to the loo and had seen about ten Selfridges carrier bags piled up by the wardrobe, stuffed with new clothes and shoes that she hadn’t even unpacked yet.

  As a perfect mum, though, today I simply was not going to envy her for it. After all, I reminded myself, she did have to shag Boring Steve, so she deserved a few treats in her life as compensation.

  Molly and Nathan both cried loudly and ceaselessly for the entire car journey. I tried singing ‘Ten Green Bottles’ to jolly them along but by the time I’d got to seven green bottles hanging on the wall, their cries were louder than ever, so I abandoned it mid-song. Then I tried putting on Molly’s tape of Kipper stories. She usually loved Dawn French’s honeyed tones describing Kipper’s doings but not today. She was wailing so loudly that none of us could hear the story, so I switched it off and just jammed up the radio instead, in the hope that it would drown them out.

  By the time we got to Lizzie’s road, I was feeling flustered. Oh, shit. Nowhere to put the car either, as usual. People in Balham seemed to have about three cars each, judging by how impossible to park it always was.

  ‘Right, you two, let Mummy concentrate,’ I pleaded. ‘How about giving Mummy five minutes’ peace like Mrs Large, just while I’m parking the car. OK?’

  ‘I want effalunts story NOW,’ Molly wailed instantly. ‘I want Mrs Large.’

  Ahh. There was a space. A teeny tiny space between a Merc and a Beamer. Oh, good. No pressure to get it right then.

  I lined the car up parallel with the Merc. Brand new. Black. Polished to within an inch of its expensive life. Good, good. Even better. If I was going to scrape something, might as well go for the top end of the market.

  Clutch. Reverse gear.

  ‘Effalunts, Mummy. EFFALUNTS!’

  I gritted my teeth. Perfect mum, perfect mum. What would perfect mum do in this situation? ‘Hey, I bet Aunty Lizzie has got the elephants story at her house,’ I said in my calm, controlled voice. She’d got just about every other damn kids’ book on the market. I would bet my high-heeled fuck-me boots that she had Five Minutes’ Peace. ‘So if you two are really quiet for a minute, just while I park the car, I’ll ask Aunty Lizzie if we can read it. OK?’

  ‘I want effalunts, Mummy. I want effalunts NOW!’

  ‘I know you want bloody effa . . . I know you want the elephants story but I don’t have it in the car! Now just shush!’

  OK. I gripped the wheel. Revs up, wheel round, back back back we went. The kids were still crying. ‘Look, shut up, both of you, will you?’ I snapped. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  There was a shocked silence. I made the most of it to swing the wheel round and edge right back into the space. Bit more. Bit more. Bit more. Straighten her up. Yes. Result!

  Handbrake on, engine off. We were here. And I hadn’t even crashed the car. Well done, Sadie.

  ‘Mummy, I don’t like it when you shout at me,’ Molly said accusingly.

  Nathan started whimpering again as if he agreed, and I had a horrible vision of them both, twenty years on, slagging me off for having been such a neurotic mum and screwing up their childhoods. Alex would be the one they loved best, I thought miserably. I’d be the one they’d bitch about together whenever they met up. Or maybe they’d save all that for their therapists.

  I sighed heavily. Something else to beat myself up about. ‘Tough shit,’ I muttered under my breath. Then I braced myself with a dazzling smile. ‘Let’s go and see what Felix is up to, shall we?’ I said. ‘Let’s all go and have a fun time at Felix’s house!’

  ‘Hi, Sadie. Hello, darlings, come on in.’

  Lizzie looked as serene as ever. She was fair, like Cat, only she had a bob and a feathery fringe. Pale skin that burned in the sun. Light brown eyes, elegant hands.

  Felix was peeping out from between her legs. He was nine months older than Molly and painfully shy.

  ‘Effalunts, effalunts, effalunts!’ Molly bellowed, charging into the front room and completely ignoring Lizzie and Felix.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Lizzie frowned. ‘Are you all right, Sadie? You look very pink.’

  ‘Oh, just . . .’Oh, I just said ‘fuck’ in front of the children, that’s all, and told them to shut up, and I feel horrible about it. ‘Just a parking nightmare, that’s all. And grumpy kids.’ Nothing to do with me whatsoever. Because I am perfect mum today. Well, almost.

  She grimaced sympathetically. ‘It’s a nightmare, I know. Everyone has such big cars around here, don’t they? Let me get you a coffee.’

  ‘Great.’

  Lizzie never had any nice biscuits or cakes in the house (Felix wasn’t allowed sugar) but she always had delicious blow-your-head-off coffee, which was some consolation.

  She showed me her plans for a conservatory at the back. Did I think it would be too much?

  No, I didn’t. I thought it would be fab, especially in summer.

  She told me about Boring Steve’s new car. An Audi.

  Oh, lovely, I said, trying not to think about the way a new car smelled. Trying not to compare it to our old Peugeot with its plastic toys wedged in the seats, and the crumbs and old pages of the A to Z everywhere.

  She told me they were thinking of going to Antigua for a spring break and showed me the brochure. Sometimes it was nice to get away from it all, wasn’t it?

  I looked at the pictures of aquamarine sea and beaming, tanned families and tried to ignore the phrases that were leaping off the page. All-inclusive. Five-star retreat. Kids’ club. Snorkelling. Cocktail hour. Luxury. Sunshine.

  ‘Listen to me going on, anyway,’ Lizzie said brightly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said miserably. ‘Alex is doing really well at work and Nathan’s sleeping much better these days. Molly’s out of nappies. I’m . . . I’ve taken up running.’

  ‘Good for you.’ She cast an eye over her slim, linen-encased flanks and sighed theatrically. ‘I could do with going running again. The running machine at our gym is always so busy, I never get to go on it.’

  We were all in Lizzie’s cream, clean front room by now. Every cushion plumped up just so, every picture artfully arranged. Even our two children sprawling on the carpet, and the assortment of toys between them (all wooden, all with their original boxes) looked like a scene from a happy families TV programme.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Molly and Felix were both holding on to the same car. I recognized the look of intent on my daughter’s face, her don’t-mess-with-me expression. She’d done the happy families thing for at least a minute. Now it was time to resort to type.

  ‘Molly, I’m watching you,’ I warned. I set Nathan on the floor and started wedging cushions behind him to prop him in a sitting position. ‘So, yeah, Liz, we’re all fine. I saw Cat the other night – did you hear that she and Tom are going to get a place together?’

  ‘No! Tha
t’s great. He’s—’

  ‘MY car.’

  ‘I want it!’

  WHACK!

  ‘Molly!’ I cried, jumping up and rushing over. ‘You mustn’t hit people! Say sorry to Felix at once!’

  Felix’s mouth had opened wider than I’d ever seen it and he howled. His shoulders shook. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ Lizzie said, running over and cuddling him. ‘Are you all right? What a bump!’

  ‘I not sorry,’ Molly said loudly. ‘MY car.’

  ‘It is not your car,’ I hissed. What was wrong with her today? She was being a right madam. ‘It’s Felix’s car, isn’t it, so if he wants to play with it, he can. Now say sorry.’

  ‘I not sorry,’ she repeated. God, she was so bloody stubborn. Her mouth was set, and I knew there was no way on earth she was about to cave in and apologize.

  ‘Molly IS sorry,’ I lied to Felix. ‘She’s very sorry and she’s going to play on her own for a bit now and think about how horrible it is to hit people.’

  ‘No-o-o-o!’ she wailed. I picked her up, her legs bicycling in mid-air as she tried to kick me, and I took her out to the hall. I could hear Nathan bursting into tears as I left the room. Separation anxiety seemed to be starting early at the age of five months. Fantastic.

  ‘Listen to me,’ I said as I put my furious daughter down on the carpet. ‘I love you very much, but hitting isn’t a nice thing to do, and Mummy doesn’t like it when you hit people. So you think about that.’

  ‘No-o-o-o-o!’ she bellowed, lying down and kicking the row of shoes that had been lined up neatly in the hall.

  ‘And when you feel like saying sorry, you can come back in and play nicely,’ I said. I was practically having to shout to make myself heard.

  I went back into the front room to see Lizzie trying to cuddle Felix and Nathan, both of whom were still crying.