Chapter 14
Mark came round at four thirty on Friday afternoon to see Archie before he went away on his weekend to Spain and before Grace and Archie headed off to Wales. He was suspiciously nice for a change and gave Grace a hug as he came in. She was thrown by that and offered him a cup of coffee, immediately kicking herself because she didn’t normally give him any reason to stay. He spent some time playing with Archie on the floor, something she hadn’t seen him do for a long time. A tickling competition ensued, and soon both were properly belly-laughing. Grace felt a pang of regret for all the good times they’d had.
Looking at Mark and their son smiling together made her heart flutter. It was times like this that all the bad things about her ex were flung out of the window and all the good things that they had shared came flooding back from her memory bank. Grace got up to walk out of the room, as the feeling was quite overwhelming.
‘I love it when our family is together. Come on, guys, let’s have a family hug.’ Archie didn’t give either Mark or Grace the chance not to be involved as he grabbed a hand from each and pulled them in for a hug. Mark gave her a wink over the top of Archie’s head, making Grace blush. She felt a real pang and wondered whether she should have tried harder. If she began a relationship with Vinnie, would that mean she was turning her back on the possibility of them ever being a family again?
She hadn’t mentioned anything about the incident at Archie’s school. She didn’t want to betray Archie’s confidence, and Mark didn’t mention her evening out. Archie seemed happy so she thought she’d leave things till the next time she saw Mark. She didn’t want to upset the apple cart while he was in a good mood. Perhaps she’d speak with him about it when Archie wasn’t around, if she still felt it necessary. The last thing she wanted now was to get into another slanging match with her ex. She knew that she had to pick her battles, and right now she couldn’t cope with this one.
* * *
Grace was so delighted she’d decided to look up Saffy on Facebook. They had agreed to get together and Grace had been thrilled to accept Saffy’s invitation to stay at Bendigeddig House, her home in Wales.
After a two-and-a-half-hour journey to the North Wales coast, Grace and Archie arrived at the imposing double-fronted house. It was located in a pretty little coastal village which boasted views of glorious mountains from one side of the house and a stunning sea view from the other. Saffy greeted them with open arms. She and Grace hugged deeply and when they parted, there were tears in both of their eyes for their lost years. Grace couldn’t wait to catch up with her friend and find out every detail about her life since they’d last been in contact.
‘I’m so glad you got in touch, Grace. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for so long, but when you’re busy, life just passes you by and you don’t always get round to doing it at the time, and then another year comes and goes. It makes me so happy to see you.’
‘I was on a date – that’s a story for another time – but I was thinking of you, and the memories were so lovely and precious that I knew I had to try to find you. And being with you now, even for just a short time, feels exactly the same as it did all those years ago. I’m so glad we’re back in touch. I didn’t realise just how much I’d missed you and all that blooming great advice you used to give me.’
After a cuppa and a piece of home-made cake, Grace and Archie chose a pair of wellies each from the boot room, which contained wellies of every possible size and colour, and headed for the beach. As Archie and Becks ran ahead, splashing in the waves, Grace and Saffy caught up on some of what had been happening in their lives, and Grace felt so happy to have this fabulous friend back.
‘So when you talk about Vinnie, you light up, Grace, but when you talk about Mark, you frown. That says such a lot. So why are you even doubting a relationship between you and Vinnie?’
‘I suppose I’d forgotten just how charming Mark can be. And when I see him and Archie together having fun, it feels so wrong to keep them apart from each other. Plus, the fact that I’ve been on a date with Vinnie and really like him has already made Archie wobble. Do I really risk what I have with Archie over someone I don’t even know very well?’
‘I learnt when my parents split up when I was Archie’s age that it’s better to have two parents who are happy apart than two parents who are constantly trying so hard to be nice to each other around their children, then sniping at each other when the kids are out of the way. My mum was so much happier when my dad left. It was like a physical weight had lifted from her shoulders. It taught me that everyone has a right to be happy. And that’s what you deserve too, Grace.’
Grace nodded, but she still felt selfish, thinking of her own happiness instead of her son’s.
Lots of long leisurely walks on the beach collecting shells, tons of fresh air and time spent chatting with a good friend over a glass of wine really felt good for Grace’s soul. Both she and Archie felt sad to say goodbye to Saffy on Sunday, but they promised to get together again when they both had the chance. The break had really recharged Grace’s and Archie’s batteries, and they both felt great when they returned to school and work on Monday morning.
* * *
Mark knocked on the door at four thirty on the Monday evening, with two gift bags in his hand. He was having Archie that night, to make up for not having him over the weekend.
‘Hello, you two,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’ve brought you both presents.’
He gave Archie a huge bag of sweets and Archie ran off to the kitchen to put them in his sweety drawer.
‘And this is for you!’ he said, and he leant forward and kissed Grace on the cheek as he handed her a silver gift bag. She peered inside to see a bottle of Daisy by Marc Jacobs. Only last week when he’d been picking up Archie, there was an ad on the TV for it, and Archie had commented to his mum that it was the one that she’d tried on recently when they’d been shopping. Mark had obviously taken note, and Grace was shocked at his thoughtfulness.
‘It’s to say thank you for dropping everything at the last minute again so that I could go off and do what I needed to do. I do appreciate you being so amenable; I know I don’t often show it. And I certainly haven’t shown it in the past. You really are an angel, Grace. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.’
Ha,she thought. If only he had paid me half this attention when we’d been together, we might actually have made it work, despite our differences. But he’d torn them apart when he went off with Lorraine, the floozy of a school secretary. What a cliché! Grace had walked in on them on a Wednesday evening in June two years ago when she had gone to surprise him and take him out for their anniversary dinner after work. Only Grace was the one that had got the surprise when she’d found him embracing Lorraine behind his desk. They’d jumped apart instantly, and he’d tried to bluster through it and brush it off as nothing important. But it was quite obvious that there was a lot more to it than he’d admitted, especially when she saw how upset Lorraine looked when Mark told Grace she meant nothing to him. Grace even felt a little sorry for her, looking at her crestfallen face; she’d obviously fallen for Mark’s charming demeanour and lies, and of all people, Grace understood how that felt.
Agreeing to put the incident behind them, Mark had tried hard to win Grace and Archie back with days out, home-cooked meals and a willingness to really throw himself into family life. For the first time in a long time, Grace had felt that she had the happy family life she’d always craved. Then all of sudden Lorraine had started appearing everywhere they went – in the supermarket, in the coffee shop, in the bank; Grace became accustomed to spotting her when they were out and about. It eventually came to a head when Lorraine rang her up and gleefully told her that she and Mark had been having an affair for six months.
Grace had struggled with what she should do, wondering whether it was something that they could get through, or whether this was the end of their family as they knew it forever. She’d felt lower than she’d ever felt before. While she’d been busy trying to build a family, he’d been tearing it down. He had betrayed everything they had; the vows they’d taken to be faithful to each other had been destroyed. Her self-esteem had hit rock bottom. What could Lorraine offer him that she couldn’t? He was enough for her, she loved him, even with his moods, and she wouldn’t ever dream of looking outside of their marriage for someone else.
She’d talked it through with Hannah, and through tears and anger and sadness, after arranging for Archie to have a sleepover at Hannah’s house, she had gone back to their home, where they’d lived since before they were married, and packed the majority of Mark’s clothes into black bin liners. She rang him and told him to come and collect his things and said that she was changing the locks. When he’d turned up at the house, he was in a rage that she’d never seen before. He’d told her she was being completely unreasonable and that she’d be hearing from his solicitor and that he’d take her to court for custody of Archie. This threat had done exactly what he intended it to do and terrified her more than anything else he could have said, but for once in her life Grace knew she had to stick by her morals and stand up for herself. He had totally disrespected her and their family unit. He was the one in the wrong, not her, and she knew she had to remember that, no matter how tough it got.
To hear Mark talk now, it was as though none of it was his fault and he clearly thought that he could just be nice to her and everything would be OK. He was still with Lorraine now, even though every couple of months he’d make a comment that he didn’t love her after all and was just with her because Grace wouldn’t have him back and being with Lorraine was better than being on his own.
Grace jolted back to the present as Mark reached out and gently brushed her cheek with his fingers.
‘I think we should try again, Gracie. I know how much you hate being away from Archie. Just think. You could be with Arch all of the time. Just imagine how that would make you feel. Don’t you think you owe it to Archie to have our beautiful family back together again? What do you think?’
‘What about Lorraine?’ she asked, pulling away from him.
‘What about Lorraine?’ he asked.
‘You live with her!’ she said.
‘She’s never meant to me what you have, babe, you know that. I’d break up with her tomorrow if I thought you and I had a chance. You and Archie were the best thing to ever happen to me, you know that. I was an idiot to throw it all away. A total idiot.’
‘You are quite unbelievable, you know,’ she said, not intending it as a compliment.
‘Just think about it. You know I’m right. Just say the word and you know I’m yours – and we could be a happy family again, for Archie’s sake.’ He turned and walked towards the front door.
Archie came bounding down the stairs and flung himself into her arms. ‘I love you, Mummy. See you after school tomorrow.’
‘Bye, darling. Mummy loves you to the moon and back.’ She kissed his head.
It wouldn’t be that much longer that he’d let her do this. He was growing up fast. And she was noticing things every day, like when she tried to hold his hand, he’d hold hers for a second and drop it; and when she told him she loved him on their walk to school, he just ran in without looking back. She wondered if she’d ever get over the feeling of missing him so much every time he went to his dad’s.
As she waved them off, Grace wondered, not for the first time, whether she should say yes to Mark and mend their broken family.