Over You Read online

  Josie nodded, feeling choked. She’d been thinking about the births herself last night, as she’d ironed their new school shirts and set their book bags out ready. Because, whatever else had happened since, she and Pete had shared that amazing day when the boys came into the world. They’d been there in the delivery room together, holding hands through it all, meeting their sons for the first magical time. Nobody could take that away. She wiped her eyes again, thinking about it. ‘Don’t!’ she said to Pete. ‘You’re going to set me off in a minute.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. There was a pause. ‘Fancy a coffee?’

  ‘Haven’t you got to get to work?’ Josie asked in surprise.

  He shook his head. ‘I took the morning off,’ he told her. ‘What? Why are you looking like that?’ he asked, seeing her eyebrows shooting up. ‘There was no way I was going to miss seeing them off today, not for anything!’

  Josie managed a smile. ‘That’s … that’s nice,’ she said lamely. ‘I’m glad you did that.’

  ‘And I’ve been meaning to say, any time you want me to pick them up from school, just ask. I can be flexible about it if need be.’

  She looked hard at him. Part of her was scoffing and saying, Well, that’s all great, but I’ve sorted it out, thanks. How come you re only just offering this now, when I had to think about it weeks ago, and make arrangements then?

  The other part of her was glad that he cared enough to make the effort. Cared about the boys, of course. And she knew without thinking twice that they’d love him to be waiting for them after school every now and then, to take them to the park, or out to tea.

  ‘That’s … great,’ she got out after a moment. ‘Thanks. They’d really like that.’

  ‘So …’ He was smiling at her. Properly smiling, in that soft-eyed friendly way she hadn’t seen for months. ‘How about that coffee then?’

  It was only a five-minute walk home from school, but Josie suddenly felt lost for words as she strolled along, Pete by her side. She couldn’t think of the last time they’d walked down the street, just the two of them, without the boys there too.

  ‘Seems quiet, just you and me,’ she said, for want of anything better to say.

  He smiled at her. ‘I know, it’s weird, isn’t it? I keep wondering how they are.’

  ‘Me too,’ Josie said, with a pang of missing them.

  She jumped as Pete slipped a companionable arm through hers and felt goosepimply, despite the warm, muggy morning. ‘I can’t quite believe they’ve gone,’ he said.

  Josie glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Peter David Winter, ex-husband. He was wearing a shirt she hadn’t seen before, she realized, and wondered if Sabine had bought it for him. It seemed a bit louder than his usual style. A bit younger, somehow. And then she had another pang, but this time because it was Sabine who got to walk along with Pete like this now, not her. Hand in hand, arm in arm …

  She felt as if she were borrowing Pete, going back for coffee with him. In fact, it almost seemed for a moment as if she were the one Pete was having a fling with, when of course that was miles away from the truth …

  She sniffed. ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. I’m all over the place.’

  His fingers groped for hers and gave them a squeeze. ‘Course you are,’ he said affectionately. ‘Like you were ever going to be any other way today!’

  She laughed. Like she was ever going to be any other way today. Exactly. He knew her inside-out still.

  The thought made her feel trembly, and she was glad to be approaching the house; it gave her an excuse to slip her hand out of his and rummage in her handbag for her keys. For some reason, her heart was thumping harder than usual. Or was it all the starting-school emotion that made everything seem magnified?

  ‘So, here’s to our boys,’ he said, raising his coffee cup in Josie’s direction. ‘And their first day at school.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Josie said, lifting her mug of tea. She and Pete were sitting at right-angles to each other at the kitchen table, the room quiet save for the kitchen clock marking time. As on the walk home, it was odd to be here with Pete, and without the children. She kept expecting one of them to burst in – Can I have a biscuit? Mum, he hit me! – but the house was still.

  Josie put her cup down, untouched. ‘I wonder how they’re getting on?’ she said again. ‘I wonder how long it’ll take Mrs Archer to tell them apart.’

  Pete smiled. ‘It took us long enough, didn’t it, when they were born? Remember how we used to get them muddled up all the time as babies?’

  Josie was shocked. ‘You did, but not me. I always knew them apart.’

  He lowered an eyebrow at her in a yeah-right way. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I distinctly remember you calling them Tam and Soby one evening because—’

  ‘Because I was frazzled, that’s all,’ Josie laughed. She sipped her tea. ‘I always knew who was who.’

  ‘Just me, then,’ Pete joked. ‘Crap dad, forgetting his own children’s names.’

  ‘You’re not a crap dad,’ Josie said. She found her eyes were drawn to his lips as he drank his coffee. Both of the boys had inherited that mouth, with their wide, easy smiles and …

  She shook herself suddenly, pulled her gaze away. It wasn’t her mouth to look at like that any more, was it? Sabine held the rights over that mouth.

  ‘So, what have you been up to?’ she asked, to fill the silence.

  Pete didn’t seem to have heard. He was leaning on his elbow, chin resting on his palm. ‘Do you remember coming home from hospital with them? Both of them crying in their car seats, and both of us almost crying too, by the time we finally made it home?’ His eyes were soft. ‘It seems so long ago that they were so tiny and helpless and freaked out by the world, yet I can remember it like it was yesterday.’

  Josie nodded. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I’m sitting in the bath and just for a second I think I feel a twitch inside me, like I’m still pregnant and—’

  She broke off Pregnancy had become such a touchy subject with Pete before he walked out. She didn’t want to put him on the defensive again.

  He was smiling though. It was so weird, wasn’t it, the way you could see an elbow or foot sticking out of your bump?’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have felt like.’

  ‘Nice,’ Josie said, without thinking. ‘So nice.’ Her thoughts slid to Rose. Both of the Roses, the real and the imagined.

  There was a silence. A mournful feeling stole over Josie. One of these days, Pete might tell Toby and Sam they were going to have a brother or sister, only she, Josie, wouldn’t be involved. Wouldn’t that be a killer? Wouldn’t that be simply—?

  ‘I suppose I’d better make a move,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts.

  She got to her feet. ‘OK,’ she replied.

  ‘Nice to see you, Jose,’ he said. ‘Like this, I mean, us two sitting here again. Maybe—’

  She grabbed his cup and took it to the sink, not sure if she was ready to hear a ‘maybe’ from Pete. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thanks for dropping in.’

  By mid-week the boys looked done-in, Josie thought sympathetically as she reversed into a parking space in the college car park on Wednesday morning. Sam had grizzled all the way to school earlier on, saying that he didn’t want to go, and that he’d learned enough already. Toby was complaining that he wanted to go back to playgroup, and missed Maddie. And then – it had been so awful! – Sam had actually wept at the classroom door, clinging to her, both arms wrapped around her legs. She’d had to unpeel him from her, dry his tears and take him into the classroom. When she’d looked back for a last wave through the window, he had turned away from her as if betrayed, eyes still pink.

  She sighed as she pulled on the handbrake. They were still so young to be at school, she couldn’t help feeling. Sam struggled to do his shoes up on his own. Neither of them could do up the zip on his coat. They still sometimes needed reminding to go to the loo …

  Josie switched off the car
engine and gathered up her new folder and pens, forgetting about the boys temporarily as her hand touched the lovely smooth writing pad she’d bought. And now here she was, about to re-enter the education system herself. She’d barely thought about it, being so caught up with the boys starting school. Now that she was here, actually in the college car park, ready to go in for her first lesson at 9.30, she found herself having the same jittery feelings as she’d had about the boys. She hoped she liked her teacher. She hoped the rest of the class were nice. What if nobody liked her?

  She rolled her eyes at herself in the driver’s mirror. Honestly! She was a grown woman, not a four-year-old! Pull yourself together, Josie! she told her reflection.

  All the same, she rolled on a red slash of lipstick and tossed her hair so that it fell around her shoulders. She was wearing a confidence-boosting new top and a jangly bracelet with her cropped jeans and flip-flops. She looked good, actually. Still had the vestiges of her Gower tan, and she’d blow-dried her hair rather than scrape it into its usual ponytail. Other students in the classroom wouldn’t know that she’d been a housewife for the last four years, would they? The thought gave her a frisson of excitement.

  She giggled, thinking about Educating Rita, one of her favourite films. And there might even be a fanciable teacher into the bargain. What was she waiting for?

  ‘So, how did it go?’

  It was early evening, and Nell had phoned for a catching-up session. Josie had been out in the garden when she’d called, in the middle of raking up the grass clippings where she’d mown the lawn. The scent of cut grass followed her through the house as she ran in to grab the receiver.

  ‘It was great,’ Josie sighed, settling back on the sofa. ‘Really interesting. The teacher’s lovely, too – dead funny and artistic. I feel like my brain is buzzing with ideas already.’ She smiled, thinking back to the morning. They’d been looking collectively at an assortment of websites, discussing the merits and flaws of each design. Then, in the afternoon, the teacher had put them in small groups and they’d spent some time researching different subject areas, and comparing website styles within each subject. Josie’s group had been looking at music sites, and she’d been amazed at the variety there was out there, ranging from the most amateurish to the slick, big-budget sites, packed with different features.

  ‘Cool,’ Nell said. ‘And what are your classmates like? Any friend material in there?’

  Josie laughed. ‘You sound like me, haranguing the boys after school,’ she said. ‘Well, the people in my group were really nice – Jack, he’s an interior designer, mid-twenties, I reckon—’

  ‘Ooh, the younger man, lovely—’

  ‘And gay,’ Josie added firmly, cutting Nell off mid-flow before she got any ideas. ‘Then there was Steph, who was about our age, jobbing actress. Said she’d been in Casualty a few times, but I didn’t recognize her. But she was dead friendly and funny. Yeah, the whole day was great.’ She beamed, thinking about the way they d all gone for lunch in the refectory together and chatted about politics, soap operas, where they’d been on holiday that summer … It’s fab. And hardly anyone there is a parent, so I actually had to talk about things other than children. So refreshing!’

  ‘Good for you,’ Nell said warmly.

  ‘I know,’ Josie giggled. ‘I think it will be.’ She paused, wondering whether or not to tell Nell about her new reconciliation with Pete. Oh, what the hell. She couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. ‘The other thing is that Pete and I have been getting on really well.’

  Nell’s tone turned suspicious. ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah – he came to see the boys off with me on Monday, and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, he came back here for coffee, and …’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t want?’

  ‘You didn’t … do anything stupid, did you?’ Nell sounded horrified rather than pleased at the idea of anything happening.

  Josie felt nettled by her friend’s response. ‘Well … What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I mean, you didn’t …’ Nell hesitated. ‘Sorry. Being judgemental. Presumptuous. Just tell me.’

  ‘Well, it was really nice, that’s all,’ Josie said. ‘Nothing happened, not in the way you’re thinking, we just … talked. In a friendly kind of way. About the boys and stuff.’

  ‘Right.’ There was a pause. ‘So … you’re not about to tell me you’re getting back with him or anything?’

  ‘No, but …’ Josie felt confused. She hadn’t been expecting Nell to react like this. She’d been pleased that Pete had been so nice the other day. Hopeful, too, even if she hardly dared admit it to herself. So why was Nell being so negative all of a sudden?

  Nell changed the subject and launched into a story about some drama concerning getting her visa for Panama, but Josie felt rattled for a while after she’d put down the phone.

  She poured herself a glass of wine and sat down at the table with her notes from that day’s seminar.

  Design flaws in HTML itself (no separation between content, structure and presentation of data) and the Netscape/Microsoft strategy (‘extending HTML to include features which only worked with their browser) combined to create…

  But all she could think about was having sat here just a few days ago with Pete. How good it had felt. How nice it had been to reminisce about the babies with him.

  ‘Get a grip, Josie,’ she told herself, staring at her own scribbled words until the letters jumbled before her eyes. ‘Get a grip!’

  Chapter Twenty

  A few weeks of consolidation passed while everyone got used to their different routines. The boys made a new friend each at school and stopped looking quite so tired. Josie was loving her course, and had already had a raucous night out with a bunch of the other students. And she and Pete …

  Well. Things had moved from civil to positively matey, actually. He’d come round one evening, ostensibly so that they could sort out their joint finances, but somehow or other they’d managed to drink a whole bottle of wine between them, and had ended up laughing fit to bust on the sofa about old times.

  For a moment – a single moment – she caught him looking at her and wondered, with a twisting thrill inside, whether he was on the verge of saying something serious. Something important.

  She’d made an excuse to go to the kitchen – ‘Fancy some olives?’ she’d blurted out – and jumped to her feet so quickly that she’d kicked over her wine glass. So that had been that. Moment over.

  She was terrified of him making a move again. Terrified, but at the same time longing for it.

  ‘I just miss him,’ she confessed to Annette over the phone. ‘Even after everything he’s done, I still fancy him and I still miss him. And if he tried it on, I just don’t know what I’d do.’

  ‘Oh, Jose,’ Annette replied. ‘He won’t change, you know. If you got back with him, chances are he’d only cop off with someone else six months down the line.’

  Josie sighed. ‘I know that. That’s why I’m keeping him at arm’s length,’ she said. ‘But he’s still my husband, and the boys’ father, so …’

  ‘And he’s still a cheat,’ Annette reminded her. ‘Sorry, Josie, but I’ve got to say it! And what about the guy in Zambia, anyway? I thought you were hoping—’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t heard from him for ages,’ Josie replied, interrupting quickly. She didn’t want Annette to say any more about what she may or may not have been hoping. She’d told Annette about Rob during a one-glass-too-many night down the pub a few weeks ago, and now regretted opening her big mouth. ‘That was probably all pie in the sky, anyway. Me imagining stuff that wasn’t there. I think I went a bit mad over the summer. He probably just felt sorry for me, did his Good Samaritan thing, etc. Anyway, he’s so lovely, some gorgeous Zambian woman has probably snapped him up by now.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Annette said. ‘When’s he back, this guy? What’s his name again? Rob, was it?’

  �
�Yeah, Rob,’ Josie said. She sighed again. Her and her stupid crushes. Her and her silly pipe-dreams. ‘I think he’s back at Christmas time.’

  ‘Well, I’d forget Pete and hang out for riding off into the sunset with Rob, if I were you,’ Annette said. ‘He sounded great.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s probably not interested,’ Josie argued. ‘Whereas Pete …’

  ‘Whereas Pete let you down big-time,’ Annette finished. ‘Remember?’

  Of course she remembered. How would she ever be able to forget? Yes, he’d let her down. Yes, he’d lied and cheated and stabbed her in the back, but …

  She groaned. Stop it, Josie. Stop it!

  Of course nothing was going to happen with Pete. It was definitely all over. They’d had the money-chat now, sorted everything out fairly, so if he did have any intentions towards her he’d hardly have gone through all the paperwork for nothing, would he? And he was talking about buying a flat, for God’s sake! People didn’t start spending thousands of pounds on surveys and property when they were hoping to move back into the family home, did they?

  She was feeling good about heading towards financial independence for the first time in years, anyway. Pete had agreed to pay for the mortgage and a share of the bills until Easter, after which time she was hoping to manage the bulk of the payments herself Her course ended at Christmas, and she’d already got some design work lined up for the New Year thanks to Lisa throwing a few contacts her way.

  So really, everything was flowing smoothly. She actually felt as if she was starting to come through the whole mess of separation with her sanity intact, just like Annette had predicted.

  Then it happened. She was lying on her bed one evening, reading a book, when she first heard it. A scratching sort of a noise. She sat up, putting the book face-down, and strained her ears to listen. It was windy outside, and for a moment she wondered if it was just a branch from the tree at the front of the house scraping against the window.

  There it went again. No. It wasn’t the window. Wrong sort of sound.

  Feeling edgy, she got off the bed and went to look outside. It was dark now, punctuated only by the yellow pools of light from the streetlamps. The trees were groaning in the wind. The cars seemed to be hunkering down on the road, their aerials lashed by the gale. A bad sort of a night to be out, she thought with a shiver.