The Great Escape (8 page)

‘That’s nice.’ Hannah swallows hard.

‘And that’s Grandma Esther standing next to Mum,’ Daisy adds, turning the page.

Hannah feels ridiculous, perching gingerly on Daisy’s bed, and sneakily checks out roughly how many pages the album might have. A dozen or so and she’ll probably be able to hold it together, but this is a chunky album that could conceivably go on forever. ‘Maybe you’d better get your PJs on now,’ she says gently. ‘It’s gone half-eight …’

‘Yeah, in a minute. Anyway, look – that’s Daddy in his wedding suit. Is he gonna wear the same one at
your
wedding?’

‘No, he’s having a new one altered, remember?’ Hannah says, willing Ryan to come upstairs, witness the cosy tableau and chivvy Daisy into bed.

‘Oh yeah. Look! That’s the dress I was telling you about.’

Hannah tries to focus on the stunning woman before her. But her head is swimming and she can no longer make proper words come out of her mouth. How can Ryan not still be in love with this woman? Hannah has met Petra numerous times, when she’s picked up or dropped off the children, and has always thought, yes, she’s striking, but somehow her chilliness cancels out her beauty. But she’s never seen Petra look like this – like a woman in love, who’d go on to bear Ryan two children whom they’d raise together until her shock announcement three years ago that she must ‘put myself first’. Heartbroken and stunned, Ryan simply hadn’t seen it coming. As far as he was concerned, Petra’s career as a concert cellist
had
come before everything else.

Maybe that’s it, Hannah thinks, a sense of dread washing over her. Ryan asked her to marry him simply in an attempt to get over Petra. He is trying to
force
himself not to love her anymore.

Daisy is still going on about her mother’s billowing veil. Hannah tries to show appreciation, but her tongue feels like a dry thing flapping around in her mouth.
They’re only wedding photos,
she tells herself sternly.
She’s just showing them off because she likes to look at them. It’s nothing more sinister than that.

‘Don’t you like it?’ Daisy swivels round to face her.

‘Oh, yes,’ Hannah croaks. ‘It’s beautiful. A really amazing veil.’
Turn the page
, she thinks desperately,
so we can look at pictures of the bridesmaids or cake.
Daisy turns the page. There’s a group picture with everyone neatly arranged in two rows in front of the church, squinting in the sunshine. So many people. Hannah wonders who they all are. There’s also a close-up of Ryan standing next to his new bride, two beautiful people setting out on a life together. ‘So you’re up for this shopping trip at the weekend?’ she says faintly as Daisy flicks through the final pages.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Daisy mutters.

They sit side by side for a moment, with Daisy now resting the closed album on her knees as if reluctant to put it away. Hannah isn’t sure if she’s imagined it, but Daisy might possibly have shuffled a millimetre closer to her on the bed. ‘Thanks for showing me the album,’ Hannah says gently. ‘It obviously means a lot to you.’

Daisy nods mutely and bites her lip.

‘I’m looking forward to our day out, are you?’

She nods again.

‘I, er … I hope you’re looking forward to our wedding too,’ Hannah ventures, wondering if it would be okay to put an arm around Daisy’s shoulders, or if she’d flinch, or leap up and run out of the room. No, better not.

‘Yeah,’ Daisy replies, her gaze fixed firmly on the album. ‘But I still can’t understand why it’s not in a church.’

‘I can’t believe she did that,’ Ryan whispers in bed that night. After half a year of living here, Hannah still finds the nocturnal whispering bizarre. It’s not even as if they’re up to anything. Ryan is wearing pyjamas, for God’s sake. With Josh’s bedroom next door, and Daisy’s the one after that, the only time it feels remotely okay to have sex is if the kids aren’t home, or if she or Ryan happen to wake up at some ungodly hour, like 4.30 am, when they’ll grab the opportunity. It gives their sex life during the week an urgent quality, and makes the three out of four weekends when Daisy and Josh are at their mother’s feel like a bit of a treat.

Lately, Hannah has started to hanker for a baby of her own; yet, as she’s never had the faintest yearning before, she worries that this might be some desperate attempt to redress the balance. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she tells Ryan, snuggling closer. ‘Daisy wasn’t doing it to be mean or anything. And I bet every girl’s entranced by her mum on her wedding day.’

There’s a beat’s silence and she breathes in the scent of Ryan’s skin. There’s something almost
edibly
warm about him: sweet and moreish, like a croissant. Hannah’s paranoia about Petra has ebbed away, and she plants a soft kiss on his chest.

‘I know they don’t make it easy for you,’ he says.

‘Well …’ She hesitates. ‘It’s not easy but, you know, I’m an adult. We’ll get there. It’ll just take some time.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he says, kissing her.
I am
, she reflects.
I just need to keep believing that.
Anyway, what kind of person of Ryan’s age doesn’t come with a little baggage? In fact, she likes the fact that he knows what days gym kits are needed and never forgets to pay the deposit for a school trip. So much information to store, and he manages it so admirably. She doesn’t even think of Ryan’s children as baggage; after all, they
belong
here, while she feels like an awkward guest at a fancy boutique hotel, under the watchful eye of two stern concierges. ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘I’ve got some good news. I’ve been thinking me and Daisy should spend some time together, so I asked her if she’d like to come shopping and she said yes.’

‘But you hate shopping,’ he exclaims. ‘You can’t stand it. You don’t see the point …’

‘I know, but I thought she’d enjoy it.’
Because I don’t know her, you see. I don’t really know anything about your daughter.

‘Well, I think it’s a great idea.’

‘And hopefully,’ Hannah adds, ‘it’ll get her in the wedding mood.’

Ryan pauses, then asks, ‘Are you in the wedding mood, Han?’

Hannah frowns in the darkness. ‘What d’you mean?’

He hesitates, and the hand which has been stroking her back and shoulders comes to a halt. ‘I … just think you seem a bit tense, that’s all.’

‘Um, just wedding nerves, I guess.’

‘Not getting cold feet, are you?’ he asks.

‘No, of course not. It’s just … I don’t know. Right now, it doesn’t seem quite real. I’d never imagined getting married, being a
wife
.’

‘But you’re glad I put the idea in your head?’

‘Yes, of course I am. Actually, no one’s ever asked me before.’

‘But they all wanted to, I bet,’ he says affectionately.

‘Hey, less of the
all
…’

They lie in silence for a few moments, and Hannah hears Josh padding to the bathroom.

‘Maybe you should plan a hen night,’ Ryan adds.

‘It’s funny, but Sadie was saying the same thing.’

‘Well, I’m having one.’

‘What, a hen night? I didn’t think you were the type, darling, for the L-plates and the bunny ears.’

‘No, a stag party. Not a
stag
stag party,’ Ryan adds quickly. ‘Not your gigantic piss-up and being stripped naked and tied to a lamppost …’

‘Come on, I know you’d
love
that …’

‘No,’ he insists, ‘I just mean something to mark the occasion. You should do something too.’

‘Ryan,’ she says firmly, ‘if I was having a hen night, I’d want Sadie and Lou to be there.’

‘But that’s not impossible, is it?’

‘Well, there’s the little matter of Sadie having the twins and Lou being in York, plus they’re coming to the wedding so I can’t really expect them to schlep down to London twice in six weeks …’

‘How about rounding up some of your other friends?’

Hannah shakes her head. ‘I’d only keep wishing those two were there. Anyway,’ she adds, realising they’re forgetting to whisper, ‘I’m really pleased about Saturday. I thought me and Daisy could choose her bridesmaid’s outfit, if you don’t mind not being there …’

‘No,’ he chuckles. ‘You go ahead. I’m happy to leave that to you two.’

You two
, thinks Hannah as sleep starts to close in on her, as if they might possibly become a little gang. And somewhere down the line, perhaps there’ll be another person in the gang. A baby – a little brother or sister for Daisy and Josh.

Hannah wants to mention it – to say, ‘I think I’m ready, Ryan. I can now almost imagine myself being a mother.’ But as she turns to him, Josh makes a rather noisy exit from the bathroom, shutting the door unnecessarily firmly behind him.

It’s as if he’s reminding them that he’s there, awake and prowling around on the landing, ensuring that no future babies are made. And by the time she hears Josh’s bedroom light click off, Ryan has already fallen asleep.

TWELVE

Sadie isn’t used to attending birthday parties at 11 am on a Saturday. In fact she isn’t used to attending babies’ birthday parties at any time of day, and hopes that her present, tucked into the little wire compartment beneath the buggy, will be deemed acceptable. The whole business of toys seems terribly complex these days. Sadie grew up in Liverpool, playing with the ordinary things little girls played with back then – Barbie, Sindy, a severed doll’s head on which you could practise make-up techniques. None of the children she’s encountered on the Little Hissingham coffee-morning circuit seem to own such things. The babies have scrunchy bead-filled bags to encourage fine-motor skills, while their older siblings play with tasteful wooden construction kits and Brio train sets. It’s good to be invited, though, Sadie reminds herself, as this suggests that she’s starting to belong.

‘So glad you could come,’ says Monica, the hostess, beckoning her in beneath a voluptuous swathe of lilac hanging over the cottage door. ‘Isn’t Barney with you?’

Although Monica has never met Barney, all the women around here seem adept at remembering not only everyone’s children’s names, but the names of their partners too. Sadie can’t understand how they can store so much information. ‘He’d loved to have come but he’s working today,’ Sadie fibs.

‘He works on Saturdays?’

‘Sometimes, at home,’ Sadie says, which
is
the truth. ‘Just to catch up, you know.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Monica says, looking genuinely crestfallen. ‘Anyway, come on in. Party’s in full swing already.’

It sounds like it, too, with a blend of chattering toddlers, the odd crying baby and a dozen or so women all talking at once in Monica’s overwhelmingly floral living room. Actually, Sadie didn’t even ask Barney to come. He’d accompanied her to one parent-and-baby get-together in Hissingham church hall a couple of months ago, but it was impossible to even try to mingle when, whichever way Sadie turned, she could still see her husband, pressed to the flaking pale pink wall with terror flashing in his eyes. ‘How long does this go on for?’ he asked, grabbing her arm while she politely took a biscuit from an offered plate.

‘Only about sixteen hours,’ she joked, hoping he’d crack a smile and at least try to relax. But his jaw clenched even harder and she detected a faint lick of sweat on his upper lip.

‘Oh, your babies are so cute!’ a small, neat woman exclaims as Sadie manoeuvres the buggy containing her snoozing children to a far corner of Monica’s living room.

‘Thanks,’ she says with a swell of pride.

‘They’re just like you, aren’t they? Same colouring, face shape and that lovely dark hair …’ Dylan and Milo wake up simultaneously and Sadie smiles, relieved that she’s managed to kit them out to a reasonable standard – not too matchy-matchy, but in a vaguely coordinated selection of blues and greens which, she hopes, gives the impression she’s some kind of alpha-mother. She’s even managed to find all four soft leather shoes.

‘Oh,’ Sadie says, as Monica swoops past with the birthday baby in her arms, ‘this is a present for Eva.’ She snatches the present from beneath the buggy, which Monica accepts with thanks, placing it on an enormous pile on the oak dresser.

Freeing her babies, and lifting them down onto a circular rug littered with various multicoloured wire-and-bead contraptions, Sadie scans the room for somewhere to station herself. She glimpses her reflection in a large gilt-framed mirror. Although her hair is bleating for a cut, at least she’s wearing lipstick. It’s slightly askew, but it’s
on
, and that’s the main thing.

‘So you’re the one with the twins,’ says a blonde-bobbed woman, beckoning Sadie to squish onto the rose-patterned sofa beside her.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She smiles brightly, keeping a close eye to ensure that Milo and Dylan aren’t attacked by the other babies on the rug.

‘I’ve seen you around. You moved here a few months ago, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right, it’s been six months now.’

‘I’m Polly, and this is Justine,’ she says, introducing the redhead next to her, who offers Sadie a dazed smile over the baby clamped to her breast.

‘I’m Sadie …’

‘So you moved with new babies?’ Polly says. ‘That was brave of you.’

‘Well, we didn’t plan it that way,’ Sadie explains. ‘We’d been trying to sell our London flat for ages but it didn’t shift, then it finally did, and after having the babies I probably wasn’t thinking straight, so …’

‘You mean you don’t like it here?’ Justine asks with a small frown.

‘No! No, I love it,’ Sadie declares. ‘It’s so, er … peaceful and pleasant and everything. And it’s safe, much safer than where we lived – in fact we were burgled when I was pregnant and that set us thinking that we should move somewhere small and quiet and er …’ Hell, she’s broken her rule already, babbling on when all these women want is a bit of light chit-chat. Sadie glances at the table laden with chocolate brownies and cupcakes and her stomach rumbles ominously.

‘It’s much better for children out here,’ Justine remarks. ‘There’s such a strong sense of community.’

‘Oh, yes, I can see that …’