Chapter 23 #2
Then suddenly there came a slight cough, and a voice with a strong local accent had asked, ‘Are you Jenna?’
Startled, she looked up to see a woman standing by the table, a cup of tea in her hand.
‘Annette?’ It couldn’t be. Could it?
This woman wasn’t tall, blonde or willowy.
Around Jenna’s age, she had dark hair cut in a very short bob, and could only be a couple of inches taller than Jenna, if that.
She was wearing jeans and a cream T-shirt with a tan leather jacket, and she looked – well – ordinary.
Nothing remotely glamorous about her at all.
‘Is it okay if I…?’
The woman glanced at the empty chair opposite Jenna and Jenna nodded. ‘Of course.’
There was a scraping of a chair, the clatter of a cup and saucer landing heavily on the table, then the woman was facing her, her eyes full of curiosity.
‘So,’ she said at last, ‘you’re the famous Jenna.’
‘And you’re the infamous Nettie,’ Jenna replied cautiously.
Annette wrinkled her nose. ‘I hate that bloody name,’ she said. ‘No one else has ever called me that.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
‘Ha, that’s ironic if you like. You saying sorry to me, I mean. If anyone should be apologising it’s me, don’t you think?’
‘Well…’ Jenna could hardly deny it. This woman might have shaken her by being nothing like she’d expected, but that didn’t alter the fact that she’d stolen Jenna’s husband from her and taken the twins’ father away. ‘Are you sorry?’ she asked at last.
‘Yes,’ the woman said flatly. ‘More than you can possibly imagine.’
‘I suppose that’s something,’ Jenna said cautiously.
‘Do you still love him?’ Annette asked, lifting her cup of tea to her lips.
Jenna hesitated. ‘He’s my husband. The father of my children.’
‘That’s not what I asked, though, is it?’
‘What does it matter?’ Jenna asked. ‘He’s with you now. I thought, I really believed, that he’d be home by the end of the summer holidays. He’s done this before, you see, and I suppose I had it fixed in my mind that eight weeks was his limit. I don’t know why. Stupid of me.’
‘I know he’s done it before,’ Annette admitted. ‘He told me, during one of our many rows. He wanted me to be absolutely clear that I was nothing special, you see.’
Jenna stared at her. Whatever she’d expected to hear from Annette, it wasn’t that.
Annette smiled and shrugged. ‘The bugger’s not easy to live with, is he?’
‘No,’ Jenna agreed stonily. ‘I suppose he isn’t.’
So this woman had enticed Joel away from his wife and family, and now she was complaining about his behaviour? That was rich!
‘Are you pregnant?’ she blurted out without thinking.
Annette put her cup back on the saucer, her eyes wide with shock. ‘Bloody hell, I hope not! What makes you say that?’
Jenna shrank back in her chair, feeling stupid. ‘You wanted to meet me. Said you had something to tell me. I thought…’
‘That I’d been stupid enough to get pregnant by him? No bloody fear. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Jenna said, through gritted teeth.
‘If you really want to know why I’m here, I’ll tell you. Thing is, I’m done with him. You can have him back.’
Jenna couldn’t think of a single retort to that remark. It was so utterly out of the blue that she could only stare.
‘He wasn’t a bit like I thought he’d be,’ Annette continued blithely. ‘He really knows how to charm the birds off the trees, that one, doesn’t he? I fell for it hook, line and sinker.’
Jenna remembered the song Joel had played repeatedly before he’d left. ‘August’. How he’d smirked as he’d sung the lyrics, which were from the viewpoint of a woman who’d lost someone who never belonged to her in the first place.
‘At least you got him to like a Taylor Swift song,’ she said, watching the woman’s reaction closely. ‘I never managed that.’
Annette had the grace to blush, confirming Jenna’s suspicions. ‘Oh, bloody hell! I can’t believe I ever felt that way about him. Honestly, I thought I’d die if he didn’t leave you and move in with me. I was such an idiot to tell him about the song. I think he got off on it, actually.’
Remembering Joel’s glee as he sang along to the song, Jenna thought Annette was probably correct.
‘And Gillan’s Burger Bar. You got him to like that, too.’
Annette’s eyes widened. ‘You must be joking! I hate that place. It was him! He told me I’d made him feel ten years younger, and he wanted to experience all the things he’d missed out on being shackled to you all those years.
It beggars belief that I fell for it really,’ she mused.
‘I don’t usually fall for that old flannel, but there was something about him.
He has a way of making you feel so special at first.’
Jenna couldn’t deny it and, seeing the wistful look in the woman’s eyes, she suddenly realised that she no longer saw Annette as her enemy. Yes, she’d behaved badly, there was no doubt about it. But she would never have been able to ‘steal’ Joel from Jenna. It had been Joel’s choice. His betrayal.
‘When did it start?’ she asked hesitantly, cursing the part of her that desperately needed to know.
Annette looked sheepish. ‘About six weeks before he moved in with me,’ she admitted.
Six weeks. He’d been seeing her for six weeks! He’d left his home, his wife, his children, put them through all this misery and upheaval for a woman he’d only been seeing for six weeks. That was how little he valued them.
‘Trouble is, once you get to know him properly, once you’re living under the same roof as him, my God it’s a different story.
He’s so boring and self-obsessed! And does he ever put that sodding laptop down?
’ Annette puffed out her cheeks and added another sugar lump to her tea.
‘I couldn’t be doing with him, moaning and complaining every five minutes, and wanting to paint my walls white.
White! I said to him, I like bottle green on my walls, and what’s wrong with that?
We can’t all be the same and at the end of the day it’s my house, not his. ’
Jenna had no words, so she gulped a large mouthful of tea instead.
‘The clincher, though, was Mr Binks. He really didn’t like Joel at all, and no wonder! Joel was so horrible to him. I said to him, if it’s a choice between you and Mr Binks, Mr Binks wins every time.’
‘Mr… Mr Binks?’
‘My cat,’ Annette said warmly. ‘Joel’s not a cat person, is he?’
‘No,’ Jenna admitted. ‘Not a dog person either.’
‘See, he made out like he loved cats,’ Annette said bitterly.
‘Until it came to actually living with one, then it was all, “Oh, there’s cat hair in my tea!” and “Ugh! Does the litter tray have to go in the kitchen?” and “Why does that damn cat pad on you like that? It’s giving me the creeps.
”’ She scowled. ‘What sort of person doesn’t love cats? ’
As much as Jenna had a fondness for Mrs Beddows and cats in general, she couldn’t help thinking that, in this case, it sounded as if Joel had a point.
Especially given the twins’ remarks about the litter tray needing changing.
She wouldn’t fancy cat hair in her tea either.
Now she came to think of it, she couldn’t help noticing that there were black cat hairs all over Annette’s top, too. It would drive Joel insane.
‘Anyway, enough’s enough,’ Annette said. ‘I’ve told him, he’s to be out of the house by Monday because it’s over. I can’t be doing with his strops and sulks and his endless complaining.’
Jenna’s heart thudded. ‘You’re kicking him out?’
‘Too right. So, like I said, you can have him back. I’ve packed his bags and he can go as soon as you give him the nod. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t already back at your place by the time I get home today.’
She smiled. ‘It will be nice for the twins anyway. Having their dad back, I mean. Aw, they’re good girls.
I really liked them. He’s not much of a dad, though, is he?
God, he got on my wick. What an eye opener that was, seeing him with them.
He couldn’t be bothered to go swimming with them, you know.
Just wanted to be on his laptop working.
And sulking because we made him watch Moana instead of what he wanted to watch.
It was supposed to be a treat for the girls, not for him. Pathetic.’
She rolled her eyes in disgust and took another sip of tea before sighing.
‘I am sorry, you know. I believed all the crap he told me about you, but meeting Ada and Hallie, I thought, she can’t be that bad, not if she’s raised kids like these.
They think the world of you, you know. It was all “Mummy this” and “Mummy that”.
Drove Joel bonkers!’ She gave a satisfied grin.
‘I’m bloody glad it’s over, I really am.
I don’t know how you stuck him for so long. ’
‘But what about your job?’ Jenna asked. ‘Where will you go? What will you do?’
‘Do?’ Annette blinked, clearly puzzled. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘If the affair’s over…’
‘That’s got nothing to do with work,’ Annette said fiercely.
‘I got that job fair and square and there’s no way he can get rid of me just cos I’m kicking him out of my house.
I’d like to see him try,’ she added with a determined look in her eyes.
‘Nope, he’ll just have to lump it, won’t he?
Or he can look for another job. Won’t bother me, either way. ’
She drained her tea then surveyed Jenna thoughtfully.
‘You deserve better, you know, and them bairns certainly do. What sort of a dad can just walk out on them without a backward glance, eh? He didn’t even seem bothered about seeing them.
He only had them that day because I nagged and nagged at him.
It was even me who bought them those birthday presents. Bet he never mentioned that, did he?’
Jenna shook her head dumbly.
‘Thought not. Well, I’ve said all I’ve got to say.
I suppose the rest is up to you. If you want him, he’s yours and the best of British luck to you.
You’ve been staying at your mum’s, haven’t you?
If I were you, I’d pop round to your house before you go back there, cos I’ll bet you anything you like, he’s waiting there for you.
Not for me to tell you what to do, obviously, but I’d think twice before welcoming him back, if I were you.
Like I said, you deserve better, and so do them bairns.
Nice to meet you, love. Good luck to you, whatever you decide. ’
She got up and left the cafe, leaving Jenna sitting in stunned silence.
Joel’s affair was over. Just like that. And Annette seemed pretty certain he’d be at home when Jenna got back there. Was that even likely, given how he’d behaved? Would he have the audacity to believe he could just move back in, without even consulting her?
But then she remembered the last time he’d left her.
How he’d turned up on the doorstep with his bags and had just assumed that she’d let him back in.
No discussion. No apology. And she’d gone along with it, hadn’t she?
Because she’d been pregnant with twins, and because she loved him. More than anything. More than anyone.
But now…?
Leaving her cup of tea only half drunk, Jenna pushed back her chair and headed outside, walking quickly towards her car.
Her conversation with Annette had made her see something that she should have seen years ago. She’d been way too good at refusing to acknowledge the things she didn’t want to be true, but that had to change. Now.
As she drove out of the park, Jenna could only hope that Annette was right, and that her errant husband had indeed returned home.
She had plenty to say to him this time around.