Honeycote (7 page)

This crisis had not been helped by the speed at which Georgina had homed in on a moss-coloured dress with fishnet sleeves and a hood. As soon as her sister had made this choice, Sophie became agonizingly convinced that the green dress was the one item in the entire shop that might have remotely suited her. Now she felt tears of desperation well up in her eyes as she searched frantically through the racks. Her hand was hovering over the hanger of a long, crinkly black skirt and top with beading round the neck. It would certainly hide a multitude of sins. She was just holding it up to herself to check the length when a very definite voice sounded in her ear.

‘Not unless you want people to think you’re telling fortunes. You’ll look like a pregnant gypsy. Besides, ethnic is so out.’

It was Mandy, holding a carrier bag that indicated she’d also made her choice. Sophie burst into tears.

‘I’m too fat for anything else!’

‘Rubbish. You’ve got a fantastic figure.’

Sophie stopped in mid howl, astonished. She’d always felt so self-conscious next to Mandy, who was as streamlined as a greyhound.

‘Me? What about you – you can wear anything you want.’

Mandy shook her head. ‘I’m as flat as a pancake, I’ve got knobbly knees and arms like coat-hangers. Whereas you – ’

‘I’m a big fat lump.’

‘You’ve got curves! You go in and out in all the right places. You should make the most of it, instead of trying to hide behind those baggy clothes all the time.’

This was true. Sophie felt envious of all her friends, who strutted round in the dinkiest, tightest outfits possible, while she hid behind capacious sweatshirts. She just wasn’t a crop top sort of a person. But here was Mandy, who could get away with something cunningly fashioned out of a man’s handkerchief, telling her otherwise.

‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it. OK, so maybe hot pants and a halter neck aren’t quite the thing, but if you got a really glamorous outfit, a Hollywood starlet dress… Think Kate Winslet. Everyone knows she’s a total goddess. No one goes for the half-starved look any more.’ Mandy darted off and started ransacking the rails. Sophie followed, unsure, as the feverish search ensued. Floor-length, thigh-length, knee-length, mid calf, silk, Lycra, sequins, chiffon, sleeveless, backless, strapless: all were rejected before Mandy finally came to rest in front of a red velvet creation with a boned bodice. Sophie looked horrified. It would cling to all her lumps and bumps.

‘Not with the right undies,’ Mandy assured her. She held the dress up against Sophie and nodded in satisfaction. ‘Pull-you-in knickers and a push-you-up bra. And we’ll get some fake tan.’ Sophie gulped, and felt a surge of excitement. Mandy grinned.

‘Let me make you over. It’ll be cool. You won’t recognize yourself.’

Sophie looked at the dress again, wanting to feel as sure as Mandy. Just as she felt nearly convinced, she flipped over the price tag and her heart sank. It was more than double what her father had given her.

‘I can’t afford it,’ she said flatly.

Mandy tossed the dress over her arm and marched to the nearest cash desk. ‘I’ll pay for it. As a thank you for having me. You’ll need your dad’s money for accessories. And make-up.’ She peered at Sophie. ‘Have you got any make-up?’

‘I’ve got some mascara. And some spot cover.’

Mandy passed her credit card over to the sales assistant and turned decisively back to Sophie.

‘Make-up first. Then accessories. Then lingerie.’

Mickey had remembered that this particular shop didn’t bother to check on your credit card limit if you spent under a certain amount, and so came out of lingerie with a pair of cream satin pyjamas for Lucy. To have bought anything more suggestive would have been crass and, moreover, suspicious. Besides, Lucy wasn’t an expensive underwear sort of person. She looked utterly sexy in whatever she wore, whether it was her own Marks & Sparks briefs, Sophie’s old gym knickers or, when she was behind with the washing, Patrick’s beloved Calvin Klein boxer shorts. It wasn’t that she didn’t like clothes, but she reasoned that if it didn’t show it didn’t matter, and would rather spend the money on vet bills or shoeing the horses.

Satin pyjamas were indulgent but sufficiently utilitarian to please her. On Sundays, the one day that she didn’t get up at dawn to exercise one or another horse (a couple of girls from the village were more than happy to do it), Lucy loved pottering about for hours without getting dressed, especially after one of their infamous parties. They always had chilli con carne and lemon meringue pie followed by dancing on the flagstones in the huge entrance hall, where it didn’t matter if the gallons of red wine being drunk got spilled. Lucy had an admirable quality that eluded many women: she was able to leave the clearing-up for a time when she felt equipped to cope with it. No two a.m. skirmishes with the Marigolds, no manic dawn raid with half a gallon of Fairy Liquid and a J-cloth. She was quite happy leaving the detritus festering in the kitchen while she sat curled up in the window seat rehydrating with orange juice and watching snowdrops or daffodils or honeysuckle, depending on the season, nod in the breeze. And Mickey thought cream satin pyjamas would be just the thing to do that in.

Not for the first time, and not for the last, he asked himself why it was he was treating Lucy so appallingly. Not that she knew. Or, if she did, she hid it beautifully, adding yet another qualification to her status as the perfect wife. Why the hell was he jeopardizing their marriage? Any man would jump at the chance of a lifetime with Lucy. She was pretty, sexy, funny, good-natured, self-motivated, a brilliant mother, could whip up a feast for fourteen at short notice without complaining and didn’t whine if something needed fixing – she either fixed it herself, got someone in to do it or put up with it. Even the aspects of her personality that could, at a stretch, be considered faults were the quirks and eccentricities that made her human. She was untidy, but never sluttish, and her untidiness merely added to the chaotic charm she left in her wake. She was scatty, forgetful and often late, working on a different set of priorities to most people, but she never forgot anything really important. And she was hopeless with money. Not extravagant, but just completely unaware of how much things cost and how much she’d spent. Mickey was grateful for this particular failing. Whilst he was only too aware of the state of their bank balance, he could be sure Lucy would be in blissful ignorance. And just to make sure, their statements always went to the brewery. Shit – he’d better make sure they were well hidden. Patrick was definitely suspicious. What of, he couldn’t be sure, but he’d better not leave any evidence lying around.

Mickey sighed. He was guilty of too much. And he was tired: tired of trying to hide all the time and tired of trying to justify his actions to himself.

His favourite platitude – used by men to excuse themselves and by women to console themselves – was that what he was doing with his dick had nothing to do with what he felt in his heart or in his head. He loved Lucy, undividedly and unashamedly. And he certainly didn’t love Kay – sometimes he thought he didn’t even like her. But when she lay there, the insides of her thighs milky white, parted like her crimson lips, desperate in her need for him –

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps that was why he felt driven to behave this way: he needed to be needed. For Lucy, adored, respected and protected by everyone around her, didn’t really need him…

At once, Mickey felt cheered that he might have found himself an excuse. He cemented it by remembering the two previous times he’d been unfaithful to Lucy. When she’d fallen pregnant with Sophie, she’d been so dreadfully ill, not just for the first three months but all the way through, violently retching if she’d taken so much as a sip of water or eaten so much as a crumb. Eventually she’d been hospitalized and put on a drip. Mickey had been frantic, had hardly left her side, convinced that this skeletal figure with its obscenely swollen belly could not survive. The doctor, misjudging his concern, constantly reassured him that the baby was not suffering, that it was living off Lucy’s reserves, but Mickey didn’t care about the baby. He spent hours at her bedside, holding her hand: her bones showed through as white and brittle as spillikins. Horrified by what he had done to her, and charged by her need for his constant reassurance, all thoughts of sexual activity had left him.

When Sophie had finally been born he had been amazed that such a bonny creature could emerge from Lucy’s etiolated remains. He’d been staggered, too, that Lucy could take so lovingly and warmly to the parasite that had caused her such suffering. She’d even insisted on feeding the baby herself. Mickey had tried to put his foot down, but as Lucy pointed out, now she was no longer pregnant she could keep food down, was putting on weight already, and she wanted to give her baby the best start in life. So intense was the bond between mother and baby that Mickey had suddenly felt an outsider. They didn’t need him; he’d done his bit.

A few weeks later, he’d bumped into a nurse from the hospital – he remembered her bringing him cups of coffee and packets of biscuits throughout his bedside vigil. Now he was no longer preoccupied, he realized how pretty she was. The consequences were sadly predictable.

When Lucy fell pregnant with Georgina less than a year later, they’d had one of their very few rows. Mickey had been aghast at the thought of Lucy being pregnant again – there was no real need; they had Patrick and Sophie. But Lucy had insisted that no two pregnancies were the same, it wouldn’t be like before and anyway it was too late – and she certainly wasn’t having an abortion.

It was the same; possibly even worse. Mickey had been all things to all people throughout the nine months: mother, father, husband, cook, nursemaid, nanny and housekeeper. Never before had so many been so dependent on him. But once Georgina was born, it was all over. He felt dismissed. When Patrick had politely refused the offer of a bedtime story from Mickey – Lucy did the voices so much better – he had slunk off to the Honeycote Arms and found solace in whisky and the barmaid.

Eventually, of course, he’d come to his senses, and he and Lucy settled into family life. For the next ten or so years they’d lived in contented happiness, bringing up the three children in Lucy’s special brand of organized chaos. Until Georgina’s formidable talents on the lacrosse pitch and netball court had awarded her a scholarship to Redfields. It seemed only fair that Sophie should go too, and Mickey was relieved to have found them both a place at a decent day school – he shuddered to think of boarding fees.

Nowadays, though, with prep and after-school activities, the girls were rarely home before seven and had to go to school on Saturday mornings, which meant the house was quiet most of the week. And with Patrick hardly a child and seemingly nocturnal, and Lucy totally absorbed in her horses, Mickey felt somewhat superfluous to requirements. It was no wonder he’d found himself at a dangerously loose end.

Chuffed with himself for pinpointing the explanation, Mickey made his way out of the store into the streets of Cheltenham and mulled over the implications. His pleasure was short-lived. By the time he had found the pizza parlour, he was in the depths of despair. It was no good. It wasn’t Lucy’s perfection that made him behave like a total shit and take up with someone like Kay, who was probably the world’s worst wife, would undoubtedly be the world’s worst mother if she ever made the sacrifice to become one and was certainly in the running as world’s worst mistress, with her constant demands for flattery, attention and, very tiringly, sex. Sadly, he had to conclude that much as he might try to twist Lucy’s blameless existence into some Freudian explanation for his shocking behaviour, it was basically down to his own spineless, weak-willed, lily-livered (and he certainly would be lily-livered if he carried on drinking the way he was) and utterly unforgivable selfishness. Excusing himself on the grounds that he had to feel needed was monstrously egotistical: no jury would sympathize with that defence. He was as guilty as sin.

Mickey was tired of all the thoughts whirling round his head and the tarnished images of himself that his mind tauntingly conjured up. There was only one way to stop his conscience pricking. He ordered a carafe of house red. If it was real gut-rot, perhaps he might not drink too much of it.

Wishful thinking. By the time the girls arrived, in a flurry of carrier bags, he’d ordered another half-carafe, making sure the waitress took away the empty one. At least a half looked better. He wasn’t sure how aware teenage girls were of parental drinking habits, but he preferred them to think he’d only just started.

‘Successful shopping?’

‘Brilliant.’

‘What did you get, dad?’

Before he could stop her, Georgina was inside the bag.

‘Wowee, sexy. Satin jimjams.’ She held them up against her. ‘Who for?’

‘Your mother, of course.’ Did he sound defensive? ‘And don’t go poking around in shopping bags just before Christmas.’

Not that he could afford to buy them anything else. The dresses would have to be their main present. He’d run that one past them later. In the meantime, he had a more pressing problem. Kay. She’d be furious he hadn’t gone to meet her. Perhaps he could give her the pyjamas as a peace-offering? No. A gift would only be misconstrued as an admission of guilt and Mickey needed all the weapons he could get at this stage of the game.

Game? Could it really be called that? Games were fun, harmless, inconsequential, forgettable. He supposed that was how it had started…

From an early age, Kay had known that the one thing she wanted out of life was a wealthy husband. She was unashamedly materialistic and saw nothing wrong with wanting nice things. Of course, the message being preached these days was that a girl could get whatever she wanted for herself. And Kay was bright: her careers adviser was pushing her towards university. Yet she had not a shred of personal ambition in her body. She’d read about fifteen-hour working days, seven-day working weeks, office politics, sexual harassment – all the things that successful women seemed to suffer in order to get on. But Kay couldn’t see the point of slogging your guts out to get what you wanted when you could marry and have it on a plate in return for having supper on the table. Surely that was one of the benefits of being a female? Why did the magazines waste ink persuading you otherwise?