Beneath the Skin Read online

  She watches him absorb her reply and then laughs at the look of mild shock on his face when he realises her answer is serious. ‘For a leftie, you’re very conservative at times. I don’t know why you’re surprised, Mike. You of all people know I’ve tried them all, big, small, black, white. I even married a couple and they all ended in disaster. So I figured there’s me and my mum and that’s all the baby needs.’

  She stops for a moment, her head cocked. She can almost see the slow chug of Mike’s mind trying to keep up, to understand. ‘Ask yourself this, Mike: what’s better, to have a dad who buggers off after two minutes, to have one who gives the odd slap, or not to have one at all? Well, I know which one I’d prefer, the one with the least heartache.’

  It’s dusk outside, the office empty save, perhaps, for one or two other surveyors who are still at their work stations clocking up chargeable hours before the end of the month. Mike sits at his desk for a long time without moving. It’s the first time in twelve years of marriage that he doesn’t want to rush home at the end of the day. He has no idea what awaits him. Olivia busied herself with the girls and their school bags when he left this morning, avoiding all eye contact with him.

  It has been a day of maybes, his mind fit to burst with the awful uncertainty of it all. Maybe Olivia will forgive him for the things that he said. Maybe life will go on as before. He wants it to, of course, but there’s an iota of a maybe that still hangs around, suggesting there’s no smoke without fire. Maybe he was right.

  Last night everything was fine. After the frisson of the shower he took Olivia to bed, dried her body with kisses and eventually she smiled and said, ‘Yes, just there. That’s so nice. Oh, Mike, where have you been?’ It was love at its best, hearing her come, the sweetest of sounds and one he can never get enough of, before releasing himself.

  ‘You didn’t explain why,’ she said later as they lay entwined in the dark. ‘Why you went away in here,’ she said, kissing his temple.

  Mike sighed. His fears now felt foolish and childish. He’d hoped she wouldn’t ask. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said, drawing her close.

  ‘It matters to me,’ Olivia said, pulling away from him. She turned on the bedside lamp and looked intently at his face. ‘What was it, Mike? Was it the miscarriage? I thought we grieved together and put it behind us.’

  He sat up, staring ahead at nothing in particular. He suddenly felt angry, really angry. He could feel the heat rise in his body, the colour flood his face. ‘You put it behind us, Olivia. You wiped the slate clean and said “never mind”.’

  He could feel her flinch, heard her intake of breath, but he knew he wouldn’t stop. ‘But you didn’t pause for one moment to consider how I felt. Everyone was there with their condolences and their sympathy. We’re so sorry, Olivia, how are you, Olivia, can I do anything, Olivia. He was my child too, my loss. It was me who wanted him, not you.’

  ‘That isn’t fair, Mike. You have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant, let alone give bloody birth. I was as sick as a dog, in and out of hospital with the vomiting. It was bloody awful but I did it for you. Because you had some stupid hang-up about wanting a son. How do you think the girls would feel if they knew that they weren’t good enough for you, just because of their gender? We live in the twenty-first century for God’s sake, women are equal and our girls are wonderful.’

  He turned his head and stared at Olivia. He could feel a throb in his temple. ‘That’s crap and you know it. I wanted another child, Olivia. Another child. It might have been a girl, and that would have been great.’

  ‘But it was a boy, Mike, and you couldn’t conceal your delight, could you? It was written all over your face when they told us, your son and heir, just what you always wanted. Until that moment I didn’t realise how much I’d disappointed you with mere daughters.’

  Part of Mike wanted to shout. Part of him wanted to take Olivia by the throat and shake the unfairness of her words out of her. But instead he dropped his head, the cold despair he’d felt for months seeping through his body, dispersing the heat. ‘Don’t you dare say that. You’re not being fair. I adore my girls, you know I do.’

  They sat for a moment and listened to the gentle thrum of the traffic from the far-off motorway.

  ‘Then why the total withdrawal and the silent treatment for so long?’ Olivia asked quietly.

  He looked at her then. The harshness had gone from her face. Her pale eyes were sad, soft, concerned. He was hurting her. He was hurting himself. He understood this and yet he knew he had to push ahead through the numbness, to at least try to focus his mind and put his thoughts into words.

  ‘Because try as I did, I couldn’t put it him to rest, Olivia. I’ve spent months asking myself why. Why did our little boy die? No one had a reason, he wasn’t Down’s or disabled. He was perfect, wasn’t he?’

  Olivia nodded, her head propped on her knees, her fingers playing with the quilt and so he continued, trying to marshal his thoughts and frame them into words. ‘And because we got no answers from the hospital or the consultant, my mind has tormented me with its own.’

  ‘And they are?’ Olivia asked slowly, turning her head to look at him.

  Mike was silent for a while, but he had come so far, he knew it had to be said, to exorcise those ugly pestering thoughts, if nothing else. The frequent picture he had in his mind of Olivia with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other flashed before his eyes. She hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol when pregnant with the girls. Prawns and eggs and all manner of other foods had been off the menu too. ‘That you did something. God, I don’t know. It sounds so stupid now, but I felt that by thought, or by word or by deed you did something. Something to cause the miscarriage.’

  For a moment Olivia didn’t move, her unfathomable gaze fixed on his face. Seconds ticked by as he waited for an answer, a reaction. The moment he had voiced his innermost ugly thoughts, he knew how unworthy and pathetic they were.

  She eventually stood from the bed and walked into the en-suite bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her. He watched and waited, numb, wretched and unbelievably tired. He had wanted to say it for so long that the desire to confess had become overwhelming. But now the words were out, he felt bereft and empty. As though someone had put their hand in his chest and pulled out his heart.

  He’d started to drift off by the time Olivia returned to the bed. ‘You bastard,’ she said, quite clearly, as she turned off the lamp.

  The unmistakable and sickening sound of two cars colliding on the busy main road outside Mike’s office building jolts him back to the present. ‘You bastard’, he still hears, but he knows it’s time to go home.

  ‘When you’re feeling sorry for yourself, remember there’s always someone worse off,’ his grandpa often said when life had gone awry and little Michael sought him out for a hug. Same words as the priest, but delivered so much more kindly. Mike nods in acknowledgement, hoping that no one has been hurt in the collision below. He collects his jacket from the back of his chair. But still he can hear the tip-tap of the dog’s claws on the laminate behind him as he turns off the light and heads for home.

  Olivia smooths the clean sheets on the bed, then stares into space for a few breathless moments before trudging wearily down the stairs. She waits for Mike in the lounge, her head resting on the sofa’s curved arm. She’s exhausted; complete physical and mental exhaustion. Anger has sapped her and she wants to sleep. But at least it’s gone, or even if not completely, it has receded, to be replaced by that old, familiar feeling of self-loathing.

  As a small child her temper was the family joke, her tantrums legendary. ‘Short-fuse Olivia,’ her dad regularly teased with his soft Geordie accent. As much as she tried, she was unable to count to ten, to bite her tongue, breathe deeply or any of the other things she knew she should do to control it. But coming down south to university in Manchester changed her. By writing, debating and using self-styled anger management, she stopped her knee-jerk reactions, s
he put her sharp mind and sharp tongue to good use.

  But ‘short-fuse Olivia’ is still there, she fears, increasingly pestering to break free. She hates being a cow, even when she’s being a ‘justifiable’ cow, she hates it. She despises herself for allowing short-fuse Olivia and her knee-jerk reactions to escape.

  She checks her mobile again. Still no word from Mike. He always sends a text when he’s leaving the office. Perhaps he’s still working; perhaps he’s angry; perhaps he’s buggered off forever. It’s difficult to judge. Last night she was a cow. Last night they were strangers.

  She’s tried to make amends with the girls by buying Hannah a chocolate cake from Morrisons, undoubtedly full of hyperactivity-inducing additives which they’ll pay for tomorrow, and then covering it with sweets to make it look home-baked. She’s given Rachel a ‘don’t tell Dad’ expensive mascara. But with Mike it’s more difficult. Now that she’s calm she knows everything is fine, actually. He said some crazy things last night, but he was honest. Wasn’t that what the couple in the wedding photograph used to do? Be honest and open and talk? Talk for hours. About everything. Sometimes all night. She needs to say sorry, to get things back on track. ‘Sorry, Mike,’ she should say. As simple as that. And as difficult. Olivia struggles with that word. She always has.

  She feels the vibration of her mobile under the cushion. Holds her breath as she opens the message from Mike.

  On my way home, it reads.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Mum’s driving over on Sunday. I thought we could eat out. Catch a bite in the village,’ Sami shouts from the bathroom.

  Sophie marks the page of the book club choice with a bookmark from Waterstones. She hates it when people fold the corner of the page. It’s just about the only thing she’s fastidious about and she vaguely wonders what that says about her.

  She stretches and yawns, still sleepy from her afternoon nap. ‘You know she’ll think I’m not looking after you if we do that,’ she calls back. ‘She’ll think I’m a bad wife.’

  ‘No she won’t. Mum likes to go out.’

  Sophie reaches for her glasses and regards Sami as he rubs his hair dry with a thick stripy towel. She’s pretty sure he has no inkling of how much his mother dislikes her. Martha made it clear from the start that she didn’t approve of her beloved only son’s choice of wife. Sophie doubts any woman would have been good enough, but a neat, compliant and privately educated posh girl might have done the job. ‘I know what you are,’ she once hissed when Sami’s back was turned. ‘You’re a fraud and you’re not good enough for my son.’ And the hostile relationship has continued unabated in private ever since.

  Sophie has no intention of making Sami aware of his mother’s barbed comments, however bad they get. There’s just the tiniest fear at the tips of her toes that if Sami knows his mother’s real feelings he may be swayed by them and she isn’t going to take that chance.

  She pulls back the duvet and stands up. Her breasts seem huge, but so do her legs and her belly; too much Chablis is making her fat. She needs to rein it in.

  ‘Whatever you want, my handsome husband. But if you’d like me to cook, it’s not a problem. I like to make the effort for Martha.’

  Martha and her comments are better ignored. She finds that fairly easy, but wishes she could do the same with Sami’s occasional dalliances. ‘So, you don’t mind my son sleeping with other women?’ Martha had asked conversationally, having drawn her to one side during their third wedding anniversary celebrations. If anyone was looking, they’d have seen mother and daughter-in-law, happy, smiling, chatty.

  The pain was intense, deep and physical. Sophie extracted herself from the tête-à-tête with her head held high, a smile on her face, but threw up moments later alone in the bathroom. She stared at her blanched face in the mirror, bewildered that she didn’t know. Sassy, streetwise Sophie, who knew everything and everyone, didn’t know that her husband was unfaithful. She could picture schoolgirl faces laughing, taunting and gleeful. It was all she could do not to run to her mother, despite their differences, to howl in her lap, to beg her to make it all go away. But she knew that she had to be strong if she wanted to keep Sami, she had to be willing to fight. ‘As long as he isn’t fucking you, Martha, it’s not a problem,’ she’d replied.

  ‘I’ll rustle up something tasty,’ Sophie now says, wondering which ready meal to buy from the small M&S local in the village. She’ll do the usual, buy soup or a casserole and throw in some fresh mushrooms and herbs to make it look authentic. It never fools Martha, but if Sami’s aware that his wife hasn’t spent hours over a hot stove just for the love of his mum, he isn’t letting on.

  ‘A touch of arsenic on toast for the good lady, I think,’ Sophie jokes with Antonia. But of course she’s never mentioned Sami’s infidelity, not even to her.

  The thoughts of his unfaithfulness are there, always there, like a blade in her heart, but Sophie isn’t going to dwell on them today. She stands next to Sami in the mirror and looks at him with narrowed eyes. I’ll never let you go, never, she thinks, watching carefully as he splashes aftershave liberally on his newly shaved chin.

  ‘It’s only the lads’ Friday night in the pub, Sami. I don’t suppose they give two hoots how delicious you smell.’

  ‘It’s all to do with standards, woman. How many times do I have to tell you?’ he replies laughing, catching her around her waist, then kissing the side of her head. ‘Thanks for offering to cook for Mum. I appreciate it. She’s really excited about the IVF.’

  He pauses for a moment before turning back to the mirror, carefully stroking strands of his fringe back into place, then collects his watch and slips it over his long, slim fingers. All without making eye contact with anyone but himself.

  Sophie takes a deep hot breath. ‘Sami? We agreed not to tell your mum about the IVF. What have you—’

  ‘Talk later,’ he interrupts. ‘Can’t be late for the lads.’ And with that he leaves.

  Helen puts down her fork. She knows Charlie hates her to eat with only a fork. ‘So bloody American. Too lazy to use both hands,’ is his usual comment. But it’s only pasta and a bit too al dente, in her view. She has difficulty either scooping or stabbing the shells, she’ll use a spoon next time.

  She looks at Charlie. His face has all the charm of a petulant three-year-old and his accusing stare follows the fork. She almost wants to laugh, but she’s never pandered to Charlie’s silly whims and she isn’t going to start now.

  ‘There’s no point in sulking, Charles. Ted Edwards nominated me out of a whole department of very clever people. I’m not going to change my mind,’ she says, wondering how long he’s going to play his puerile game of silence.

  She’s been patient up to now, but Charlie’s juvenile behaviour is starting to annoy her. After her New York announcement on Wednesday, his face became worryingly tomato-hued and he briefly tried to argue with her. He even said, ‘No, I won’t allow it!’ to which she replied, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Charles!’ Then he stomped out of the dining room and didn’t say another word until he discovered, mid-evacuation, that the toilet roll had run out.

  There was something of a tussle with the duvet when they eventually got to bed that night, but Charlie maintained his silence all the way up to and then throughout breakfast, which Helen thought was absurd when he made so much noise eating his toast. She decided that ignoring him was the best policy. Rupert had occasionally sulked as a child and she found that disregarding it was best. He soon realised that it simply wouldn’t work and wasn’t worth the effort. Helen hopes that’s precisely what Charlie will do, but so far the strategy isn’t working.

  She stares a moment longer at Charlie before rising from the table. She and Charlie hardly disagree on any matter and she doesn’t like it when they do. Of course she’s aware of his stubborn streak, but she’s seldom been subjected to it. It’s Friday now and he’s still sulking but she sees no other way than holding her ground.

  She deftly operates her new
espresso coffee machine. Helen rarely spends money on frivolities and this has set her back three hundred pounds, but she can’t get enough of it. It’s like a shiny new toy at Christmas and has even aroused feelings of empathy in her for Rupert and his hoard of electronic gadgets. She’ll miss her coffee machine, but she supposes that they have such luxuries in New York and, if they don’t, it won’t be the end of the world. She pours an espresso into the tiny cup, the caffeine from the last one already working its magic, and then she frowns at her husband, her patience almost gone.

  ‘For goodness sake, Charles, it’s been days, you’ll have to speak soon. We can’t possibly drive all the way to Staffordshire without saying a word and it’ll look rather odd in front of the headmaster if we don’t agree a riposte. He’ll think that Rupert’s a druggy because of bad parenting.’

  ‘Well, he’d be right, wouldn’t he?’ Charlie blurts.

  Helen’s tempted to crow for having provoked him into speech, but she thinks better of it and silently watches him take a large gulp of air before his inevitable onslaught.

  ‘You are a bad parent if you’re buggering off to America without giving us a second thought. Rupert needs you here. I need you here, as well you know.’ Charlie’s face goes from frenzied to truculent. He puts his hand on his chest and makes a small cough. ‘Besides, I’m not going to see the headmaster or anyone else.’

  ‘Why on earth not? Do you want him to be expelled?’ Helen replies with surprise. It’s a response she hadn’t expected.

  ‘Perhaps I do want him to be expelled if it’ll stop you from waltzing off to God knows where. I have a job, Helen, an important job and I couldn’t possibly be left in charge of a juvenile delinquent on my own. I don’t suppose you’ve given a second’s thought to what we’ll do with Rupert in the holidays.’