Lauren.
‘Well, now you have another one,’ says Simon snidely. ‘Maybe you’ll get along a bit better with her.’
Lauren’s stomach turns over as she thinks back to the events of the past hour. When Jess had walked into the dining room of her parents’ house, she’d known instantly who she was. She’d been rooted to the spot as she looked into eyes that were so like her own. She’d felt the air being sucked out of her as she watched the way Jess, startled like a rabbit in headlights, had overused her hands to combat her nervousness; a mannerism so like her own.
She’d wanted to go to her, to tell her the truth; instead of sending her on a wild goose chase, looking for a man who doesn’t exist, but Kate had stepped in. As Kate always does, looking to take control.
For the first time, it occurs to Lauren how Jess’s appearance will have affected her mother. She’d seemed shocked, as if it was so far removed from reality that it couldn’t possibly be true, but surely she can’t be that naive? You can’t live with someone for all those years and not know them. She chooses to ignore the voice in her head that says, Isn’t that exactly what you’re guilty of?
When they pull up outside their terraced house, Lauren lifts Emmy out and deftly unclips baby Jude’s car seat, whilst Simon goes ahead carrying a sleeping Noah. She watches as he disappears up the narrow staircase, his shoulder knocking off a chip of peeling paint. She instinctively climbs the four steps to retrieve it from the threadbare carpet. Maybe, when he’s in a better mood, she’ll ask him again when he might be able to redecorate. The last four times she’s asked, his stock answer has been ‘when I get round to it’, but the paint chips are sharp and she worries about one of the children hurting themselves, especially Noah, who’s taken to sliding down the stairs on his stomach.
‘Right, I’m going to the pub,’ says Simon, as he comes back down the stairs a little while later.
‘What, now?’ asks Lauren from the sofa, where she’s giving Jude his bedtime feed.
He looks at her. ‘I assume you haven’t got a problem with that.’
It’s a statement rather than a question. There used to be a time, before the children, when they’d run something like that by each other first, not to ask permission exactly, but as a common courtesy. Now, on the rare occasion that she wants to go out, she has to clear it with him weeks in advance. When it gets to the event itself, the children’s food, bath and bedtime are planned with precision so that Simon doesn’t have to do anything. He then proceeds to call her at least three times, to ask questions that fully grown men should really know the answer to, resulting in Lauren coming back home sober, and earlier than intended. She’d end up thinking that it really wasn’t worth her while going out in the first place, and then she’d wonder if that was actually Simon’s intention.
She watches as he walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge and drinks the milk from the carton. God, how she hates him doing that. Why can’t he get a glass, like everyone else? He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Right, I’m off,’ he says, coming back into the living room with his car keys in his hand.
‘Why don’t you leave the car?’ braves Lauren. ‘Get a taxi. You’ve already had a couple of drinks.’
‘I didn’t know you were counting.’
‘I’m just saying . . .’
He leans over her, with one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other behind her head. She instinctively holds Jude tighter to her as she feels his hot breath on her face.
‘Why don’t you worry about women’s stuff and leave me to deal with the men’s?’ he whispers.
She could take the comment as an attempt by her husband to divvy up their responsibilities, albeit chauvinistically. Certainly a few years ago, that was all it would have meant. But things have changed, and Lauren knows that Simon’s words are loaded; specifically chosen to intimidate her.
‘I’m the man!’ she remembers him shouting eighteen months ago as he pinned her up against a wall, smashing his fist into the door beside her head. Her legs had threatened to give way as wood splintered around her. ‘I’m the provider,’ he’d gone on. ‘That’s my job – not your