Chapter 9
NINE
TASHA
A dull throb pulses at the base of my skull, in perfect rhythm with my racing heart.
I can’t even—
That man.
My grip tightens around the pushchair handle.
This hate is like nothing I’ve felt before.
It spreads through my veins like a dark poison – a living thing making my fingers itch, my teeth clench.
Of course, Jonny just stands there, looking smug.
Looking like he doesn’t give a shit about belonging. He’s not one of us.
Does he even realise the damage he’s done? How thanks to him, there’s no way out of the day after day of me putting in and getting nothing back. I would give anything – do anything – for a little more air.
Hot tears sting my eyes. I wish I’d remembered my sunglasses.
The morning sun is too bright, slicing through the trees, leaving me feeling exposed.
My stomach churns – whether from last night’s wine in the pub or the weight of today, I don’t know.
If I’m quick, I can straighten up the house before Lanie wakes, then bundle her into the car to visit my parents.
I mustn’t forget to take the prescriptions with me that I collected yesterday.
I hope my parents are having a good day. And Lanie too. No tantrums – those bunched fists and her face so hot, that screaming fury when I have to coax her out for another errand instead of to a toddler group. Maybe we could visit the swings before school pick-up.
Like always, I wonder how much easier it would be if I had a sibling. Someone to share this burden with. Sometimes I think I had Matilda, Sofia and Lanie to fill a house with the big, noisy family I never knew growing up.
Jonny’s mouth quirks into a smile, dragging my thoughts back.
He’s good-looking, and he knows it. Tall, with that square-jawed, old-school kind of handsomeness that makes people stop and glance again.
And even though I hate myself for it, I wish I’d looked in the mirror this morning before leaving the house, or brushed my thick black hair into something other than a scraped-back ponytail.
But it’s all surface with Jonny. A polished shell. Because Jonny is rotten on the inside.
I will myself to move, but my feet remain rooted. It feels like talking about Jonny last night has summoned him. He isn’t usually moving around this early on a weekday morning.
‘Hello, ladies,’ Jonny calls with a wave. Even his greeting makes anger flare. I know I’m not imagining it either because I’m sure Beth flinches beside me.
‘Ignore him,’ Georgie mutters, turning her back, always so much stronger than me.
And usually I would. Usually, I’d grit my teeth and shove the hate down and picture my happy place – that wide-open space, rolling fields, the sun on my face, fresh air.
But not today. Maybe it’s the hangover. Maybe it’s the weight of everything I’m carrying, pressing down on me. Or maybe it’s last night. Our whispered plans. I don’t know what makes me do it, but suddenly I’m moving, my steps quick, my breath fast.
I grip the pushchair, wheeling it forward around the curved pavement.
The words when I throw them at Jonny are sharp. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’
Slowly, like I haven’t spoken at all, Jonny raises an amused eyebrow.
‘My parents are elderly,’ I hiss, too angry, too tired, too hungover – too everything – to back down now. ‘They’re alone and struggling. All I wanted was a small single-storey extension in my garden so they could live with us, and you had to object. What does it matter to you? Why do you care?’
I hadn’t realised how much I’ve wanted to know the answers to these questions until they’re out and I’m heaving in a breath.
I’ve asked them to myself, to Georgie and Beth, to Marc countless times.
For months, the not-knowing has eaten away at me.
Ever since that letter from the council rejecting our planning application.
I called the planning officer, trying to understand, begging for the application to be reconsidered.
In the end, the exasperated officer let slip: ‘I’m as confused as you are, Mrs Carter, but between you and me, one of your neighbours is a golfing buddy of my boss.
He put in the objection personally. There’s no way on earth you’ll get approval for so much as a shed now. I’m sorry.’
Beth and Georgie were as outraged as I was, but Marc hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Hadn’t wanted to ask Jonny what the hell he was objecting for. ‘What’s done is done,’ Marc said. ‘Let’s just leave it now.’
Jonny looks momentarily surprised by my outburst then shrugs. ‘You’ve got five bedrooms, Tasha, same as the rest of us. Give your parents one of them.’ He cocks his head, gaze flicking to Lanie, asleep in the pushchair, then back to me. ‘It’s not my fault you decided to have so many kids.’
Bastard! Does he think I haven’t thought about doing that?
The nights I’ve lain awake. All the hours I’ve spent churning it over.
Matilda and Sofia would adjust to sharing a room.
My parents could have the room with the second en suite, and Lanie would have the small room next to ours.
Marc would still have his study next to the living room downstairs for when he has to work, although I swear he mostly just uses it as a place to escape.
Yes, we have five bedrooms. I’d give one to my parents in a heartbeat, but my mum struggles so much with the stairs.
She needs to be in a single-storey home.
And our downstairs is small. A kitchen-dining room, a living room.
Marc’s study. No playroom. Just our huge garden – all that wasted space.
Even if we could convert Marc’s downstairs study into a bedroom, we’d be living on top of each other.
And Marc already complains about the noise and the mess of toys and shoes and discarded clothes.
Like I don’t try to keep it tidy. Most days, it’s sweeping leaves in a hurricane.
He even says the house and Magnolia Close make him feel claustrophobic sometimes.
What happened with Lily and Kevin didn’t help.
It left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouths the way they acted at the end – the rudeness.
The theft. But Marc didn’t like how the Magnolia Close community turned on them either. How none of us said goodbye.
I wonder how Lily and Kevin are doing now.
Despite everything that happened, I miss Lily being part of our friendship group.
Her son, Joshua, was two years older than Matilda, Oscar and Henry, but she was there for every coffee and playdate.
Always with a guiding hand as we navigated weaning and potty training, then tantrums and the first day at school.
Then she and Kevin announced one Christmas they were leaving, and it all turned so very ugly.
Marc says it’s as though the gates of our community are keeping him in rather than others out. Cabin fever. He was the same on the cruise around the Greek islands a few years ago. Sofia got sick, and Marc was stir-crazy. We ended up flying home from a different port a week early.
I couldn’t expect my parents to cope with the chaos of our family when Marc and I barely feel as though we survive it most days. The extension was the perfect solution for everyone.
‘You wouldn’t have even seen the extension from your house,’ I reply, voice cracking with the rage pounding through my blood. ‘You didn’t have to object. You didn’t have to go as far as calling the planning office.’
Jonny sighs like he’s already bored. ‘Look, Tasha. Don’t get emotional on me.
If you want, send Marco over,’ he says. He’s the only one in Magnolia Close to ever call my husband by his full name.
‘He didn’t seem too cut up about the plans not going ahead when we spoke the other day, but I’m happy to explain things to him man to man.
’ His smile widens, and there’s a delight dancing in his eyes.
‘Oh, but he’s not here, is he? Where is he again? ’
‘Brussels,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘He’s visiting a client.’
‘Of course he is,’ Jonny replies. It’s exactly the kind of comment I tell Marc about, the kind he never understands.
I can already see Marc’s face, his slight frown, his bemused expression. ‘What’s the big deal, Tash? Jonny was agreeing with you.’ Then he’d roll his eyes playfully, and we’d shove it into Marc’s box of ‘I guess we’re just different’.
I really hate that box. I was so sure it would shrink over time. But twenty-five years together, it feels sometimes like it’s only getting bigger.
But there’s something else just beneath the surface of Jonny’s comment.
Could he know something about my husband I don’t?
Fear shoots through me so fast, I don’t draw my next breath.
It’s the same fear that keeps me awake at night, niggling at my thoughts whenever Marc gets home later than he promised.
Or when he goes straight upstairs for a shower instead of kissing the girls goodnight or greeting me.
It’s the fear he’s had enough of nappies and bath times and cold dinners I didn’t have time to reheat. A fear he’s had enough of me.
Tears swim in my vision. Suddenly, it feels like a fight to keep upright. I’m already at breaking point. Marc and our marriage – it’s too much to think about on top of everything else.
A hand touches my arm. I jump, jerking away before realising it’s Georgie. Beth appears at my other side – my two friends urging me away. But I’m not done. Jonny has to see. He has to know what this is doing to me. I can’t keep spreading myself this thin.
I open my mouth, ready to say something more, but Jonny jumps in, gaze shifting to Beth.
‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ he says. ‘Alistair told me the good news last night. Another little carrot top to join our wonderful community.’ His grin widens, and his next words sound mocking and insincere. ‘I’ll try to keep my music down when the baby arrives.’
Georgie gasps beside me. ‘You’re pregnant?’ she asks Beth with an expression halfway between happy and confused.
Beth’s face pales, but she gives a slow nod. ‘Yes. I was going to tell you last night, but then Keira…’ She trails off.
‘That’s wonderful,’ I say, feeling a rush of joy for my friend. Beth is pregnant. After all this time, her dreams have come true.
‘Oops.’ Jonny chuckles. ‘Did I spoil the surprise? So sorry, Beth,’ he says, like he’s anything but.
And then he’s gone, jumping into his ridiculous car and starting the engine with a loud rev. He pulls out, and a second later, his window buzzes down. ‘Looking good today, Georgie. I’ll see you later, yeah?’ He winks.
He gives a sharp beep of his horn before speeding towards the gates.
A split second later, Lanie wails, and I scoop her out of the pushchair, rubbing slow circles on her back as she buries her face in my neck.
Her little body is hot and unsettled. Please don’t be coming down with something.
I make a note to check if we’ve got Calpol.
Georgie claps her hands – one, two, three. The moment with Jonny is over for her. She grins at Beth. ‘I can’t believe you’re pregnant! This is wonderful news!’ She throws her arms around our friend. ‘How far along are you?’
Beth hesitates then lets out a breath. ‘Twelve weeks. The first scan was on Monday. Everything’s fine. After all that IVF, we fell pregnant naturally in the end. I still can’t believe it.’
Jealousy nips at the edges of my joy for my friend. Beth gave up her job as a solicitor when Henry was born. Now he’s at school, she spends her days cooking meals from scratch, making her own clothes, doing as she pleases. What I wouldn’t give!
All she’s wanted since I’ve known her is a sibling for Henry.
Completing her family. Everything has finally worked out for her.
I push the jealousy away. It isn’t fair to feel this way, like Beth and Georgie’s lives are perfect and mine is not.
Beth’s fertility struggles are written in the lines of her face.
I reach out, hugging Beth too, and the tears pricking my eyes now are only happy tears. She deserves this.
Georgie is the first to pull back, looking Beth up and down with a playful smile. ‘No judgement here, but last night, the wine—’
Beth shakes her head. ‘I wasn’t drinking it. You just didn’t notice my glass was getting fuller.’
‘God.’ Georgie laughs. ‘No wonder I feel awful. Tasha and I must have polished off the best part of two bottles before Keira arrived with the third.’
Beth sighs, and the shine of her joy dulls.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear it from Jonny,’ she says.
‘After everything we’ve been through to get here, I was looking for the perfect time to tell you.
’ Her voice wobbles, and she takes a breath.
‘I guess Alistair assumed I’d have told you last night and thought it fine to tell Jonny. ’
The smile drops from Beth’s face before she speaks again. ‘The way he said he’ll try and keep his music down and how he was leering at you, Georgie… God, I hate him so much.’
I think of the knowing in his voice when he spoke about Marc. And suddenly there is no space for my joy for Beth and her longed-for second baby. All I feel is razor-sharp hate. The kind that has taken root in my body and won’t ever let go.