Chapter 5
5
MARCH 2018, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND
‘Kids! Breakfast! It’s getting cold!’ bellows an angry voice, meekly, up a flight of stairs. The intention was there but her execution was wobbly, as often is the way with Kate. Her voice lets her down. ‘Honestly, George,’ she flounders across an octave, ‘they’re not listening. You need to tell them…’ she says, trying to get them to be a team again, but her plea is lost among the clatter of breakfast bowls, pans and spoons. A paper-thin film forms over three bowls of porridge, and she waits to see which is first to be devoured without gratitude or appreciation.
‘I don’t know why I bother talking,’ Kate puffs as she clutches a damp tea towel tightly and puts a fist on each hip. ‘Or cooking their breakfast. Or packing their bags. The girls are old enough to do it themselves for that matter…’
‘Well, what else would you do?’ A caustic voice cuts Kate down in her tracks.
‘George!’ she gasps with round, hurt eyes.
George shrugs as he finishes his coffee and clumsily places his mug on the thick wood surface of the island in the middle of the kitchen. Kate knows those bumbling hands will have caused a coffee mark on the worktop, but there are so many piles of paperwork, letters from school, forms to action, that Kate doesn’t know where to begin in tidying it up, so she lets the coffee mug go while that comment stings her. She’ll clean it up later when everyone has gone to work and school. When they’ve forgotten about her and what she might be doing.
Kate looks back up at George, searching for support, for kindness. Her husband clearly feels guilty enough to give an explanation.
‘Well, I imagine this happens every morning. Just let them experience the displeasure of cold porridge, or going to school hungry. They’ll soon learn. Don’t let it wind you up so much. If it does, get a job and we’ll get a nanny.’
George’s flippant tone shocks Kate.
‘Why are you still here anyway?’ she bites back daringly, punctuating her question mark with a light, wobbly laugh to lift the tension.
‘You said I had a bloody dentist appointment at eight thirty. I thought you were taking me before you took the kids to school?’
Kate gasps again and puts the damp tea towel to her mouth. The fact that it doesn’t smell of fabric softener any more reminds her that it needs a wash. ‘Oh bother. Your check-up.’
‘You’re taking me in the S-Max, yes?’
Kate flattens her heavy brown fringe and rejigs her mind. ‘Yes. There’s no point you driving, it’ll take you so long to park and walk to the surgery and back to the car. You’ll miss the train.’
‘Yes. I thought that’s what we discussed,’ George says matter-of-factly, as if Kate is his PA.
‘OK, so I’ll drop you and take the kids, then you’ll get a taxi from the surgery to the station, yes?’ she says, now smoothing the hair in her ponytail.
‘Yes, that’s what we discussed,’ repeats George flatly .
‘I’ve got a WI planning meeting straight after drop-off, otherwise I’d race back to the surgery and take you to the station myself. KIDS!’
A slight boy with a swishy blond fringe pads down the stairs and skulks through the glass double doors to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. ‘Mum, can I scoot to school today?’
‘No, we’re dropping Dad in the village first, so we’re all going by car. Anyway, you haven’t been wearing your helmet. You’re not scooting to school without a helmet.’
Kate turns her back on the conversation, puts on her pale green marigolds and fills the sink with water and washing-up liquid, the sound drowning out the protest she knows is about to come.
‘But that was the garden, Mum! Do I really have to wear a helmet even in the garden?’
George laughs to himself while he ties his tie, and their son, Jack, tries to negotiate.
‘You’re so cautious, Kate,’ George says, undermining her.
Kate turns around sharply, her cow-like brown eyes looking at George again, hurt and confused. She changes the subject.
‘Where are your sisters?’
‘Dunno,’ Jack says with a shrug.
‘Well, you eat your porridge before it goes cold. GIRLS!’
‘I’m going to clean my teeth,’ announces George.
‘Send the girls down, will you?’
George scratches his cropped silver hair and jumps up the stairs two at a time. Kate starts to wash up the porridge pan. While she circles the inside of it with the brush, she goes over her revised plan for the day ahead. Drop George outside the dental surgery; take Chloe, Izzy and Jack to school; head to the village hall to meet Christine Leach, Antonia Barrie and Sheila Eldret from the WI to discuss the spring fair …
Who’s got the keys to the village hall?
Bake for the PTA coffee morning on Friday…
I’m sure Sheila took the spare key after the last meeting. Pick up the kids from school. Take Izzy to Brownies. Take Chloe to drama. Bring Jack home to do his homework.
Collect the girls. Do tea.
Sausage and cannellini bean one-pot.
Take Chloe to look around the new school she’ll be going to in September.
Check the babysitter can still make it.
Kate sighs and pushes her fringe to one side, leaving soap suds on top of it.
Did I book Susannah or Philippa?
Jack laughs but decides not to tell his mum about the bubbles on top of her head, sitting like a wonky tiara on a deflated prom queen. It’s worth a laugh from his sisters when they do eventually make it downstairs for breakfast.
Kate rinses the pan and ponders her baking options. She can’t do a Victoria sponge again; she did a three-tiered one at the NCT Easter party last week, and half of her NCT friends are also on the PTA.
What about a Sachertorte ?
Antonia Barrie made the most beautiful one for last month’s WI meeting, as glossy and as polished as Antonia herself.
I’ll bake one of those. No one at school will know I copied Antonia Barrie. That’s if she even made it herself; one of her staff probably did it. That mirror glaze…
Kate laughs to herself for being so petty, removes her marigolds and places them over the brushed-steel tap. She squeezes her engagement and wedding rings back into alignment and washes her hands. A little diamond solitaire she knows she would never pick out in a line-up clings onto a gold band beneath it, and Kate notices how her rings have never felt so tight. She smooths down her apron over her hips and feels a pang of guilt when she remembers the big bar of Fruit this conversation is boring. Izzy returns to her porridge, feeling uncomfortable about her dad’s ill ease, and Jack studies his father’s face.
‘You put a kiss on it. A big one.’ Kate’s mouth is upturned, her face quizzical.
The ends of George’s crow’s feet become pink and he brings his hands to his face again.
‘Did I?’
‘Awkward…’ says Izzy, nine going on nineteen, as she stares down at her bowl.
‘How embarrassing!’ bumbles George. ‘Thank God I didn’t send it to him! Oh well, Baz is OK, he would have laughed it off if I actually had sent him a kiss. But… well… dodged a bullet there…’ he mumbles.
Kate studies George’s face and he keeps talking.
‘We’re going to Hutong up The Shard; the octopus is amazing, Kate.’
‘You know I hate seafood, George. The risk of tummy bugs from marine toxins is so high.’
‘Well, this is worth the risk. I’ll have to take you there.’ Kate’s brown eyes flicker as she searches for reassurance.
‘Me too?’ asks Izzy, a daddy’s girl.
‘You too, sweetheart.’
‘It’s just you sound very chummy with Baz,’ Kate says. She can’t escape the ill feeling in her hollow stomach.
‘Hahahaha, funny,’ says Jack. ‘I called Mrs Francis “Mum” the other day. I suppose it’s a bit like that.’
‘Well, I’m just relieved I didn’t send it. It would be embarrassing, as cool as Baz is…’ George smiles at Jack. His ratty morning demeanour has disappeared.
‘OK, kids, clean your teeth, we need to get moving,’ George says, looking at his watch.
Kate tries to shake the disquiet she feels by focusing on the shine of a Sachertorte.
Do you heat the cream and add the chocolate or is it the other way around?