Chapter 16
SJ and Alison had been born and brought up on the outskirts of Bournemouth. It was SJ’s fault that the entire family had ended up living in or around London. Or at least that’s how it felt when she looked back over her life.
She had studied English Literature at Kingston University, moving into a flat share nearby with Tanya, who she’d struck up a friendship with on her first day.
Alison had quickly decided that London was the place to be and had escaped to visit her sister at every possible opportunity.
This had been both flattering – not that SJ had been under any great illusion that she was the main attraction – and worrying, because it was the party scene that Alison loved.
‘London is so fab,’ she’d tell SJ whenever she turned up – usually without any warning. ‘You are so lucky to live here. You’ve got everything on your doorstep. You don’t even need a car!’
By everything, she meant clubs, bars and restaurants. SJ did her best to keep an eye on her, but Alison was way too adept at giving her the slip and sneaking off to ‘enjoy herself’. SJ, immersed in studying, found the responsibility of looking after her sister weighed heavy on her shoulders.
‘Just let her get on with it,’ Tanya had said. ‘The more you try to rein her in, the more she’ll kick back against you. She’ll soon get bored with clubbing – she hasn’t got the money for a start.’
SJ didn’t have the money either. She worked in Pizza Express in her spare time, but she was still mostly broke.
‘Waitressing’s a mug’s game,’ Alison told her when she suggested she might do the same. ‘You’d be much better off getting a rich man.’
‘I’m in love with Jacob,’ SJ pointed out, slightly irritated.
‘And as soon as we can afford it we’re getting married.
’ Jacob, who was also studying English, wanted to be an actor, but was doing English as back-up.
Both he and SJ were convinced he’d make it big on stage one day, he did loads of auditions, but his main income was bar work.
‘Well, you won’t catch me scrimping and saving to get married,’ Alison said. ‘I’m going to have a big white wedding, all the trimmings.’ She spread her hands wide. ‘Marquee, brass band, honeymoon in Barbados – the lot.’
‘Well, I hope you fall for someone who can afford all that,’ SJ said, knowing their parents certainly couldn’t.
Alison sighed theatrically. ‘Durr. It’s just as easy to fall for a rich man as it is to fall for a poor man. Easier, in fact – as they’re likely to give you a better time.’
‘What they’re like as a person is more important than how much they earn,’ SJ said, wishing she didn’t sound so pompous.
‘Well, yes, I know. I’m not saying it isn’t.
But I want a decent life, SJ. I don’t want to end up like Mum and Dad, living on some poxy little housing estate.
I want my own beauty salon for a start. I’m not going to get that by hooking up with some loser.
Not that Jacob’s a loser,’ she added hastily.
SJ gave up. It was pointless arguing with her sister.
She always did what she wanted in the end anyway.
She was quite surprised when Alison brought Clive back to the house one night.
He wasn’t what she’d expected. Although Clive Palmer was seven years older than Alison, and clearly not short of money – he owned a house in Romford – he wasn’t flash.
On the contrary, he seemed quite shy and serious.
And although the age gap bothered SJ a bit – Alison might give the impression of being twenty-five, but was only actually seventeen – Clive did seem to really care about her.
‘I think he might actually be good for her,’ she told Tanya. ‘He might settle her down a bit.’
‘Or she’ll get bored of him,’ Tanya said with a wry smile. ‘But I think you’re right. He’s not heartbreaker material, is he?’
SJ was as shocked as Alison was when Alison got pregnant two months after meeting Clive.
‘For heaven’s sake, I thought you were on the pill.’
‘I must have forgotten one,’ Alison murmured. ‘I didn’t think it would make that much difference.’
And so it had been Alison who got married first. SJ and Jacob had put their wedding on hold for a couple of years because SJ knew her parents wanted to help out and – despite the fact that Clive was able to pay for his own wedding, which had been as big and expensive as Alison had planned – they’d insisted on contributing too. And not just financially.
They’d sold their house in Bournemouth and bought a place in Romford near Alison and Clive so they could help out with the baby while Alison went to do her City & Guilds diploma in beauty therapy.
‘I’m not having my grandchild looked after by strangers,’ their mother had declared. ‘Don’t you worry, pet. And I’m not having you throwing your life away on a little ’un – and being cheated out of a decent career, just because you got caught out.’
SJ had flinched at this – being as she’d been the ‘little ’un’ their mother had presumably ‘thrown her life away on’.
And what was the decent career she’d been cheated out of anyway?
Until that moment SJ hadn’t known their mother had felt cheated.
She’d always seemed perfectly happy being at home with them.
* * *
When SJ and Jacob finally got married, it had been low-key.
Even her hen night, which Tanya had organised, had been pretty low-key.
It had involved SJ and a group of her friends going for a meal in Chinatown.
For entertainment, Tanya had organised a list of tasks which she’d had to perform, or pay a forfeit.
SJ had loved it. At the end of it she’d rolled home gloriously drunk and she’d married Jacob, feeling only slightly hungover, the next day.
She’d never regretted the low-keyness of her wedding until a few years later, when she’d been invited to a hen night in Dublin by Jackie, a tutor she worked with. As the minibus dropped her back home, SJ reflected that if she could have relived her hen night she’d definitely go to Dublin.
It was an amazing place. But now she was back she couldn’t wait to see Jacob.
It was the first weekend they’d spent apart.
It was healthy to spend time apart, she mused, as she waved a last goodbye to the girls and tottered down her path – she never had mastered the art of heels – towards her front door.
Absence made the heart grow fonder, they said.
But actually, it did. She wondered if he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
It hadn’t sounded like it – he’d been out with the boys last night.
They’d had more than a few drinks, judging by his slurred ‘I love you’ when they’d spoken on the phone around midnight. But then what was wrong with that? So had she with Jackie and the crowd. It was good to let your hair down from time to time. And lecturers were experts at partying.
‘Morning, Sarah-Jane,’ their neighbour, Norah, called cheerily as SJ rummaged in her bag for her key. ‘Did you have a good time?’
‘Yes, thank you, we did.’ Norah was the last person she felt like talking to, but luckily she looked like she was off to church, pristine in a navy and white suit, her horn-rimmed glasses perched on her beaky nose.
SJ felt dishevelled in comparison. She hadn’t had time for a shower that morning.
They hadn’t actually rolled into bed until two, and the plane had left at some unearthly hour.
‘Lovely to see Alison again,’ Norah went on breezily. ‘She hasn’t been over in a while, has she?’
SJ blinked. She hadn’t realised Norah kept such a close eye on her guests’ comings and goings. But actually she was right – Alison hadn’t been over lately. She usually only came over when there was a family birthday, or if she wanted SJ to babysit.
‘She’s ever such a pretty girl, isn’t she?’ Norah was practically hanging over the fence in anticipation of a good gossip.
SJ muttered something unintelligible – she was way too hungover for chit-chat – and let herself into the house.
Everything looked very tidy. Jacob had obviously had a splurge, bless him – he hated housework. She paused in the kitchen, breathing in the sweet smell of home. He’d even sprayed air freshener around the place. Maybe she should go away more often.
She found him in the lounge, sprawled on the settee with the papers. When he saw her he blinked sleepily. ‘Hi, hun, I didn’t hear you come in. You’re back early.’
‘It’s gone half eleven,’ SJ pointed out, gazing bleary-eyed at her watch.
‘Have you missed me?’ The sight of his crumpled brown hair and unshaven chin caught at her heart.
She’d never got over the fact that she still loved him so much – after nine years together the honeymoon period should have been well and truly over.
She dropped her overnight bag as he stood up and then they were buried in each other’s arms and she was breathing in his familiar scent and grazing her cheek against his chin. ‘Thank you for tidying up. You haven’t been here all night, have you?’
‘I’ll have you know I’ve been up since the crack of dawn.’ He drew himself up to his full height, which was only an inch or so taller than her in bare feet. ‘I’m a regular Mr Mop, me. I’m thinking of getting a job as a domestic engineer, what do you reckon?’
‘What’s a domestic engineer?’
‘A cleaner, my sweet lamb. Now let me take you on a full guided tour and you can let me know if my work is up to your exacting standards.’
SJ giggled. They both knew her standards were far from exacting. Her A tidy house is a sign of a sick mind fridge magnet had pride of place between the Organised people are just too lazy to look for things and Life’s too short to drink bad wine.
‘And then…’ Jacob went on, biting her neck experimentally and sending shivers of lust down her spine, ‘if my work is to your approval, I shall demand payment in kind in the bedroom.’