Chapter 4
The whole upsetting incident, coupled with Brigid’s remark about her being a scientist, disturbed Nancy for the rest of the day, taking her back to a life which she had tried so hard to bury in her mind in order to concentrate on this one.
Yet, as she attempted to persuade Danny to have an afternoon nap after his exhausting morning, she found herself remembering.
When she’d met Sam, she’d just started working as a researcher in the Physics department at Harvard, partly thanks to a teacher at school who had noticed her natural abilities as a scientist, and encouraged her to take a degree. For her part, Nancy loved the clean pristine qualities of numbers. There was only a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ with maths and science; none of these woolly interpretations practised by her friends in the Arts faculty.
She loved her work, really loved it, but then along had come Sam, who’d been a friend of a fellow researcher, and that was that. For her, anyway. She had been totally smitten and he … well, he had liked her. But she couldn’t help thinking that if Danny hadn’t happened, before they’d even had a chance to celebrate their first-meeting anniversary, they might not have got this far.
Now as Nancy snuggled up in front of CBeebies with Danny on her knee, nuzzling his head, she wondered if this was why Sam had been so cold and distant in the last year. Was he regretting his decision to stand by the rather plain American girl whom he’d got pregnant with slightly indecent haste? Parenthood had taken both of them by surprise, and not just because of its speed. It was all so much more difficult than anyone told you.
Why, thought Nancy as she switched off the set after the buzz of the twenty-five-minute timer to prevent Danny getting hooked, couldn’t kids behave like numbers?
‘That’s right, Danny. Play with your counting bricks!’ She piled them up in their correct order. ‘See? One, two, three …’
If only you could do the same with children! How she wished she could add up their columns or quirky characteristics and pack them neatly into their rightful places. Maybe she simply wasn’t cut out for motherhood. Her own mother certainly had had her doubts and not just about her parenting abilities. ‘Marriages often fall apart when children come along unless you know what you’re doing. Remember, dear, that if it doesn’t work out you can always come back here.’
The words had made Nancy stiffen. She wasn’t going to end up bringing up Danny alone, as her own mother had done when her father walked out all those years ago.
Maybe that was why Annie’s words about the classes had rankled. Perhaps she did need to do something else while Danny was at playgroup. But what?
Ideally, she’d have liked another baby, but unless a peck on the cheek could be considered as sex, that would be impossible!
Besides, Danny always insisted on coming into bed with them at night and his small restless body, flailing between them, made intimate relations both physically and emotionally impossible.
Yet, if she could give him something to make him sleep for just one night, she might persuade Sam to … Then she could have another baby. At least she would have something to do when Danny was at school all day.
That was when the idea came to her. A seduction plan! The boldness made her flush. Later tonight she’d cook a really nice chilli con carne, which was one of Sam’s favourite dishes. She’d try, really try, not to run upstairs every half-hour to check that Danny was still breathing in the red fire-engine bed they’d had imported from Bloomingdales, and then they might actually have some time to themselves.
Meanwhile, she still couldn’t get rid of that niggling fear about the new playgroup fill-in. It had been haunting her ever since the girls had mentioned it.
If Gemma Merryfield was only ‘acting leader’ for the older, clearly experienced Miriam whom she’d met when first looking round, did that mean she hadn’t had her CRB check? Nancy was an expert on the Criminal Records Bureau, thanks to Google, as well as everything else on playgroups and pre-schools.
There had been a terrible case recently in the papers where one playgroup hadn’t checked an employee’s record and a child had been abused. The idea made her want to vomit and the more she thought about it, the more it seemed possible that this could happen again. Surely it was only sensible to make a phone call just to check out the situation?
An answerphone! How irresponsible of them not to have someone at the playgroup, manning it twenty-four seven.
‘This is Mrs Carter Wright. My son Danny has just started with you and I have an urgent question about security checks on staff. Please could you ring me. DANNY, DON’T DO THAT!’
Dropping the handset, Nancy raced towards her son, who had gone puce. Just in time, she managed to hook her index finger down his throat and extract a horseshoe-shaped electric-blue brick. Instantly, his colour returned to normal.
‘That’s it!’ Tears of relief shuddered through her as she pulled Danny towards her, rocking him back and forth and breathing in his special smell. ‘That brick is going in the bin. It could have killed you. We’ll write to the manufacturers just like we did with the felt shapes that you nearly swallowed, and tell them their lines simply aren’t suitable for under-fives.’
Only then did she see the phone lying on the ground. As she went to put it back, she heard with dismay the click that meant that the Puddleducks Playgroup answerphone had recorded everything. Absolutely everything.
It was an hour later, after Danny had zonked out on her lap – if only he’d had that nap earlier – and she’d gently lowered him on to his bed and draped a pale blue cover over him, when there was the sound of the key in the lock.
Sam? But he wasn’t usually back for hours! Nancy put down the wooden spoon and groaned. She’d taken advantage of Danny’s exhaustion to get tonight’s big seduction meal prepared well in advance, so she could put it in the oven ready for when he was home. Now Sam would see the surprise and it would all be ruined.
‘You’re early,’ she said, wishing too late that her words had come out in a friendly fashion rather than in that accusatory tone.
Her husband put his head round the kitchen door. ‘It’s because I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.’
Not again! She was tired of these early breakfast meetings in the City which meant that she felt obliged to get up to see him off, even though she’d only had a few hours’ sleep herself, thanks to Danny’s nocturnal habits. Even so, Nancy couldn’t help feeling slightly sorry for her husband. He looked tired and his tie was slightly dishevelled. Too late, she wished she’d changed out of her sloppy beige sweatshirt that still had egg and soldier stains down the front from Danny’s tea yesterday.
She made towards him to give him a kiss, but he was already frowning at the pan on the range. ‘What’s that?’
‘Chilli,’ she said reluctantly, knowing that the surprise was well and truly spoiled now. ‘Thought I’d make something different tonight.’
His face took on an irritated look. ‘But I told you. I had a lunch today with clients so I didn’t want dinner.’
‘No.’ She felt her hand shaking on the frying pan. ‘You never said that.’
‘I did.’
They glowered at each other. ‘It’s half done now, so someone’s got to eat it.’ Nancy was trying not to cry. ‘I’ve got your son to bed early and …’
‘He’s your son too.’
‘Maybe, but he’s got your awkward bits.’ Oh dear. She hadn’t meant to say that. ‘And he’s got yours.’
Stop, she wanted to say. We’re behaving like a pair of children ourselves.
‘Listen.’ He gestured that they should move through to the sitting room and sit on the cream sofa they’d bought from Harrods when she was pregnant, before realising that this might not be the perfect colour for a small body prone to releasing smelly substances from both ends.
‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you.’
His words carved a knife through her chest. This was almost exactly what her own father had said to her all those years ago, when he’d explained why he was going.
‘I’ve got another trip coming up.’
Not another! Sam was always being sent out to Singapore, sometimes for as long as three or four days, which meant she had to cope with Danny all on her own.
‘I’ve been asked to sort something out in the Ho Chi Minh office. You know, Vietnam.’
She cut in. ‘I know where it is. I’m not stupid.’
‘Did I say you were?’ He got up from the sofa and looked out of the window at the garden swing they’d installed for Danny. ‘It’s until Christmas.’
‘That’s nearly four months away!’
‘I know it’s a long time to leave you.’ He had turned round now, and was looking at her as though she was someone else other than his wife. ‘But I think it might do us some good. Don’t you?’
She began to shake. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Nancy.’ He sat down again and took both her hands. His grasp felt cool and calculated. ‘We both know things haven’t been right for a long time. This will give us a chance to think.’
Part of her wanted to pull away her hands, and the other part to hang on to him to stop him going. ‘Are you having an affair?’
Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t possible. Sam just wasn’t that kind of person.
‘No. But I think you are.’
She stared at him, stunned. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
He was looking at her with that same strange cool look that, together with his blond hair, made him seem more Scandinavian than English. ‘With our son. You love him more than you ever cared for me.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘You spend,’ said Sam, getting up again and walking away from her into the kitchen as though to put space between them, ‘every waking moment talking about him. You worry that he isn’t eating; that his cold might be potential pneumonia; that he isn’t talking as much as he should be; that he might choke in his sleep, which is why you allow him to come into our bed at night; that he might come to harm at this new playgroup, which is why you haven’t sent him until now. In fact, all you ever do is put him first.’
Nancy was so stunned she could hardly speak as she ran after him. ‘But he’s a child. He needs looking after. You’re a grown man.’
Sam nodded. ‘Exactly. And you know what? I love Danny as much as you do, but you haven’t been the same since he was born.’
‘Nor have you! You expect life to go on as normal, but that doesn’t happen when you have a three-year-old.’
‘Nearly four, Nancy. Nearly four. Most couples are on their second by now, but how could we ever manage with two when we can’t cope with one?’
He didn’t even want another child! Nancy felt hot tears trickling down her cheeks. Sam put out a hand to wipe them away, but she turned from him. As she did so, she moved against the cooker and somehow knocked the saucepan handle flying.
‘I’m sorry.’ She began dabbing the sauce off her husband’s suit with a piece of kitchen roll but it stuck in white paper bits all over his jacket. At the same time, they could hear the tiny telltale sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs.
‘Mum! Mum!’
Without even looking at Sam, Danny went straight to her, trailing his blue cover and burying his head in her stomach so she could feel his warm sleepiness.
‘See what I mean?’ said Sam quietly. ‘He ignores me completely.’
‘It’s only because he doesn’t see enough of you,’ hissed Nancy. ‘Four months in Vietnam is going to make it even worse.’
Sam shrugged. ‘Nothing I can do about it.’ He rubbed his hand on Danny’s head, but their son clung to her even more fiercely.
‘Think I’ll sleep in the spare room tonight,’ said Sam softly. ‘I won’t disturb you then.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t I say? My flight is first thing tomorrow morning.’