bit different. If Noah went down okay she had calls to make about the surprise party she and Bea were arranging for Karen’s birthday in six weeks, and she wanted to make a list of decorations they would need for the VIP suite in the restaurant she’d booked – she still hadn’t decided if they should have a theme. She and Bea had spent a whole afternoon window-shopping for ideas when they’d first started planning it months ago, and all they’d managed to decide was no pink. Then tomorrow Toby had football at 10 a.m., so she and Noah would go to that with him while Adam worked, then they’d all have lunch together before a birthday party with the other mums from the school, followed by a takeaway and a film in the evening. Such a glamorous life.
She often tried to remind herself that this was what she’d wanted – that this stage of the boys’ lives wouldn’t last forever and she’d miss it when they were teenagers and she could do what she liked. By then, though, she was pretty sure she’d be too knackered from the last ten years to get her glad rags on and go to a nightclub. Did nightclubs even let you in over forty? Maybe there was a special room for people who’d spent their thirties covered in baby sick. And by the time Noah was old enough, Toby would be eighteen, and the thought of him bumping into his mum in C21 sent her into a cold sweat.
Her phone rang, Adam’s name flashing on the caller ID.
‘Hey, love.’ She put him on hands-free and shouted into the receiver.
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Good, thanks, what’s up?’ It wasn’t that Adam never called her in the day any more; it was just that there was always a reason, which usually involved adding to her to-do list. Can you just pick me up …? Can you just post that …? ‘Just’ had become a dirty word in their household.
‘Okay. Work’s hectic, though. Just calling to say I’ll be a bit late. Overran today, and I’ve got to fit another call in before I can break for tonight.’
Her heart sank a little at the words. She envied Adam his ability to let his life ‘run over a bit’ safe in the knowledge that she’d be there to sort everything out. The tea, the house, the kids. Was this how she’d imagined her life when she’d met him? Was domestic drudgery to be her only reward for taking on him and his eighteen-month-old son?
That wasn’t how she really felt, of course. Toby was every bit her son. She’d raised him for seven years, he called her Mum and he was none the wiser that it wasn’t true. She knew the girls thought she and Adam should tell him about his real mother, but the truth was that she couldn’t bear the thought of their perfect family becoming a little less perfect. Having him shout, ‘You’re not my real mum’ during an argument, or going off to look for the egg donor who dared to call herself his natural mother. There was nothing natural about choosing drink and drugs over your kids. That woman hadn’t earned the right to be the shadow that hung over their lives. And yet she was, because deep down Eleanor knew she was being an awful person for keeping Toby from knowing where he came from. She knew it was selfish and mean, and she justified it by telling herself – and anyone who would listen – that it was for his own good. What kid wanted to know his mother had abandoned him before he could even tell her how much he loved her and needed her? Toby didn’t need that; they didn’t need to be a problem family.
‘Okay, baby, I’ll take care of things.’ Eleanor tried not to sigh, but didn’t quite manage it. If he noticed, though, he didn’t say anything.
‘Thanks, love.’ There was relief in his voice; there wouldn’t be a fight right now. And even if she was furious later, he could give her a hug and a kiss and say he was sorry and it would all be done with. She couldn’t bear to drag out fights and Adam knew it. ‘You’re a star.’ That was her, Eleanor the star, Eleanor the super-mum. Eleanor the selfish, lying actress.
‘Hello, baba!’ As she walked into her mum’s house, Noah started to kick his legs in delight. ‘How’s he been?’