Just for the Holidays Read online

  Michele, too, knew Bailey as Jordan’s footie coach. Leah remembered how Michele had seemed a reluctant joiner of Peak Fitness a year ago but soon developed unexpected gym-bunny tendencies. Leah had put it down to her realising that, at forty-three, she had to make more effort. Now, when viewed along with a growing predilection for having her hair and nails done professionally, Michele’s gym visits made a different, disappointing kind of sense.

  In a fog of misery, Leah sought comfort in the familiarity of the kitchen but couldn’t even settle to baking. Her eyes burned every time she thought of Natasha’s uncertain little smile when confronted with uncomfortable situations and Jordan’s scowl when his feelings were hurt. They were young to be asked to cope with one heartache after another. They’d been so brave. But Leah would have had to be blind not to notice Natasha sometimes on the edge of tears or Jordan being especially grouchy and Alister quietly gathering them into comforting hugs.

  Michele was an adult and there was nothing Leah could do about the way she chose to live her life. Yet … nothing was exactly what she couldn’t do. She took out her phone.

  Leah: Can you come back to the gîte now, please? Important.

  The reply pinged back after a few minutes.

  Michele: ??? Aren’t you at this zipline thing? :-/

  Leah: No. But Alister and the kids are.

  A much longer pause, long enough for Leah to make and drink a cup of coffee, then:

  Michele: On my way.

  Leah passed the time wiping kitchen surfaces that didn’t need wiping, feeling uncomfortably like an angry parent waiting up for a misbehaving adolescent. The sensation was unreal and unfamiliar.

  Finally, Michele stepped tentatively through the back door like a cat sensing trouble, gaze wary. ‘What’s up?’

  Leah had to swallow unexpected tears. This isn’t about you. It’s about them. ‘You didn’t mention that you had a boyfriend.’

  A pause. Michele fiddled with the buckle on her bag strap. ‘No.’

  Leah refused to allow the single clipped word to wall her out. ‘I’m going to ask you again: is Baby Three Alister’s?’

  Michele heaved a great sigh. ‘No.’

  A fresh heart-sink. ‘Certain?’

  Michele nodded.

  ‘Poor Alister. Does he know?’

  ‘He knows he’s not the father. Obviously.’ Michele gave a mirthless laugh, drifting drearily into the room as if realising there was no longer any hiding place. ‘Not difficult to deduce when we haven’t had sex in a year.’ She threw down her bag and dragged out a chair. ‘He says I have to tell the kids; he won’t do it. He’s given me a deadline of the end of the holiday, before I begin to show and they guess. It’s part of why he’s muscled his way into the holiday, to support them when I do.’

  Stricken, Leah plumped down to face her. ‘Michele! No wonder he’s so broken. It must be agony for him, not just knowing you’re carrying another man’s child but worrying about how the kids are going to take it too. Why did you lie to me about it?’

  Gaze shifting, Michele shrugged. ‘I didn’t. I just acted outraged and you took it as a denial.’

  ‘Deliberately making someone think something when it’s actually untrue is a lie. Did you think it might change whether I’d support you?’ Leah moved on to the next issue. ‘And it’s Bailey Johns. He’s all but a generation younger than Alister. And how do you think Jordan’s going to react when he finds out? He considers Bailey supercool.’

  ‘I keep telling you it’s a mess.’ Michele wiped a tear from beneath her eye. She didn’t look surprised that Leah knew Bailey’s identity. She’d probably worked out that letting him pick her up from the gîte had been a complacent step too far.

  ‘I don’t know whether to be indignant, envious or reluctantly impressed,’ Leah went on. ‘Bailey’s in his twenties!’

  ‘He’ll soon be thirty.’

  Leah’s mind was buzzing as she tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle. ‘How on earth does Bailey come to be in France, anyway?’

  ‘He wanted to be near me. It’s not as if I invited him or planned it. But once he was here …’

  ‘Is he staying nearby?’

  Michele nodded. ‘A hotel in Muntsheim.’

  The sisters stared at one another. Anger began to prickle beneath Leah’s skin. Her voice dropped. ‘What the hell are you thinking? This midlife crisis is equal parts selfishness and insanity! You’re the Unstepford Wife, leaving your marriage, bringing your twinkie on holiday when you’re supposed to be with your family–’

  ‘My what?’ Michele looked confused.

  ‘Twinkie,’ Leah snapped. ‘Younger lover. Toy boy. You’re depriving your kids of their father for a fling with a twinkie.’

  Michele dropped her chin on her palm and met Leah’s gaze. Now the horrible moment of discovery was over she was beginning to look relieved, almost relaxed. There was even a hint of defiance. ‘You’re trying to diminish what we have with scornful words but I’m in love. I’m in love in a way I’ve never been in love with Alister – unless it was so long ago I’ve forgotten. I got to know Bailey properly and suddenly all that was important was the next time I’d see him and the expression in his eyes when he looked at me. He knew I was married with children. He tried to keep away from me but I never tried to keep away from him because nothing else seemed to matter.’ Her eyes shimmered with tears. ‘I fell in love and the world changed.’

  ‘Love? Or infatuation?’

  ‘Call it what you want. I know what I feel.’ Michele looked defensive and rose to clatter around restlessly with the icemaker, dropping cubes into glasses, pouring iced tea from the fridge. ‘My contraception failed and I found myself pregnant like some clueless teenager. It plunged me into a nightmare of telling Alister we were over, and Natasha and Jordan we wouldn’t be living with their father any more. I hated myself for what I was doing to my children but there was no way back.’ Her laugh was like a sob. ‘Then I had to tell Bailey he was going to be a parent. But he wasn’t scared off, because he loves me.’

  She brought over a glass of tea, mint and lemon floating on the top, and placed it before Leah like a peace offering. ‘Forgive me for not telling you the truth, Leah. I did need you on my side, here, supporting the family. Selfish and insane I may be but I know when I’ve got too much on my plate – and you have so little on yours. Your life’s just about you.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Leah jerked upright, stung by this offhand dismissal of her life choices.

  But Michele was already onto the next point on her agenda, grabbing Leah’s hands across the table for emphasis. ‘I understand that Natasha and Jordan need their father … but Baby Three’s entitled to a father, too.’

  Leah’s stomach felt lined with lead. She hadn’t been thinking through the Baby Three situation. But he or she was on the way, not just a little pudding mound under Michele’s dresses, not just a life-changing shock, but a tiny person-to-be. Inconvenient, unexpected, but as much Michele’s child as Jordan and Natasha. ‘Shit,’ she groaned. ‘What the hell are you going to do?’

  Michele’s gaze grew beseeching. ‘I know you’re going to be even angrier with me – but I’m going away with Bailey. I need time to talk about the future and make the right decision for my kids. All three of them. And for me.’

  ‘No, Michele–!’

  Michele steamrollered on. ‘It would be wrong to pretend my marriage can be saved. I’m done with pretending, with lying. I’m even going to admit to Bailey that I’m not thirty-nine.’

  Leah felt pressure weighing heavily on her shoulders. ‘And while you go off and explore your options with your twinkie, I suppose you’re going to ask me to stay and help Alister look after your kids?’

  ‘Short term,’ Michele protested, a fresh tear forming beneath her eye. ‘Please. The children like and trust you. And it’s such a brief period out of your carefree life.’

  Leah snatched back her hands. ‘Don’t make me sound like the irresponsibl
e one!’

  Michele hunched a defensive shoulder. ‘I just mean the way you’ve avoided having a partner or kids so you never have to put anybody else first. Even your job’s easy.’

  Holding a deep breath for an instant before letting it hiss out slowly, Leah took stock. No matter how exasperated she was – for ‘exasperated’ read ‘wanting to shriek with rage’ – Michele’s family was in chaos and Leah couldn’t indulge in a hissy fit. ‘I’ll take issue with you about whether my job’s “easy” some other time,’ she managed, fairly calmly. ‘But it’s true that I’ve chosen the single life. You made different choices. You married Alister and you conceived Jordan and Natasha. You had an affair with Bailey and you conceived Baby Three. You don’t get to say now that it’s somebody else’s turn to live that life while you flirt with a new one.’

  Michele’s gaze faltered. ‘But don’t say you won’t do it.’ The lonely tear suddenly had company, rolling down her face. ‘Please, Leah! I know I’ve messed up, and it impacts my family. I know I fell in love with the wrong man, gave way to my feelings and got pregnant but I’m buckling under the strain here. Please!’

  Watching her sister begin to cry in earnest Leah tried and failed to resist being manipulated. Jordan. Natasha. Baby Three. All were her flesh and blood. The only aspect of this turmoil Leah could control was the support she could offer them. ‘Do you have any further bombshells to drop? Lies to confess? Omissions to correct?’

  Michele’s head shook wildly. She wiped and blew, blew and wiped in an apparently inexhaustible flow of grief. Her skin waxed to the pallor that seemed a feature of this pregnancy and she clapped a piece of kitchen roll to her lips, shoving the remains of the iced tea aside.

  ‘OK,’ snapped Leah. ‘Just as long as you explain to your kids and husband before you go and you realise that this is only temporary.’ She tapped Michele’s hand to make certain of her attention. ‘On September the fourth I begin my new job. On September the ninth I’ve booked a track day with Scott. On the tenth I expect to be on my sofa watching the Italian Grand Prix in peace and silence. I chose those things and they’re my life. You need to be clear that I’ll be returning to it.’

  Michele nodded wildly. ‘I understand. It won’t be for ever.’

  ‘It can’t be.’ Leah scraped back her chair. ‘Your life is yours.’

  Chapter Five

  When Curtis knocked on the gîte’s kitchen door it was Leah who answered, wearing denim shorts and a thin strappy top. Her eyes were red.

  He thought of the MILF remark he’d made to try to impress Jordan and felt a bit cringy. Leah was, like, nearly as old as his dad. ‘Hello,’ he began politely. ‘Got hay fever?’

  She gave him a wobbly smile. ‘Just sore eyes.’

  ‘Oh. Only I’ve got some stuff for hay fever.’

  Her smile warmed. ‘That’s sweet of you but I have everything I need, thanks. Have you come to see Jordan and Natasha?’

  At the thought of Natasha he felt his blood hit his face in an embarrassed rush, which was an improvement on where it might otherwise have rushed to. Feeling stupid and about four years old – although he suspected that four-year-olds didn’t worry about what was happening in the boxers department when they thought about girls – he managed to mumble, ‘Only they said they were coming to ours to hang out. Dad said they could, if they didn’t mind the decorating mess. Then they didn’t turn up.’

  Leah glanced behind her. ‘Um … come in and I’ll see what their dad says.’

  She slipped from the kitchen to the hall, closing the door behind her, leaving Curtis hovering and uncertain whether to sit or stand or stay or go. This afternoon, when they’d been balancing on bridges and rope ladders, Alister had seemed fine with the idea of Jordan and Natasha hanging with Curtis but now he began to wonder what was up. The skin around Leah’s eyes had been all blotchy, which never happened with him with hay fever.

  Before he could decide whether to wait, Leah reappeared. ‘Alister says would you mind if it was here, rather than at your place? The kids are in the games room.’ She was smiling but her eyes still looked funny.

  ‘Where the pool table is? Cool beans.’

  ‘Had you better text your dad and check it’s OK?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He passed her in the doorway and set his long legs to the sweeping staircase. He liked these big stairs; it was cool the way you could look over the banisters and through the middle of the house.

  At the very top, the second landing opened out into the games room. Jordan was there, chalking a pool cue and not looking at Curtis. ‘Stripes or spots?’

  Curtis said, ‘Spots, fanks,’ confidently, although he’d only been introduced to the game of pool the day before and knew nothing would prevent the more practised Jordan from beating the crap out of him. Yesterday, even Natasha had whupped him.

  Keeping his gaze averted, Jordan racked the balls noisily while Curtis chose a cue to chalk and stole a surreptitious glance at the older boy. Maybe hay fever ran in the family because Jordan had red eyes, too. ‘All right?’ he enquired gruffly.

  ‘Yep. Break.’ Jordan gazed fixedly at the balls he’d racked.

  Curtis couldn’t think of a better plan than to lean over the table and hope the triangle of balls was as easy to hit as it looked.

  He’d just slammed his cue into the white ball to send it hard into the pack, balls spinning angrily in all directions except the pockets, when Natasha blundered up the stairs, cheeks tear-streaked. ‘Did Jordan tell you?’ Her voice wavered thinly.

  Jordan heaved an exaggerated sigh, lining up the white on the blue-stripe ball, one eyebrow curling angrily.

  Curtis looked from sister to brother. ‘What?’

  Natasha’s face puckered. ‘Our mum’s got some horrible boyfriend and she’s gone off with him to talk about the future. They’re going to have a baby!’ She began to cry in chest-heaving sobs, lips creasing back from her teeth.

  The hay-fever eyes and Jordan’s scowl slammed into focus. Curtis felt a turning over in his stomach, an echo of the shock of when it had been his family that had been blowing itself apart. ‘That’s crappy.’

  ‘Curtis doesn’t need to hear this, Natasha.’ Jordan stabbed his cue at the white ball and it spat the blue-stripe into the pocket before ricocheting away.

  Curtis leaned his cue against the table and moved a few uncertain steps closer to Natasha. She tugged at his heart, a drooping little figure standing alone and weeping. ‘My parents split up three years ago. It’s bad to start with.’

  Jordan hurled his cue down onto the baize, balls crashing and clattering into each other. ‘Like it doesn’t stay being bad?’ he demanded aggressively, as if Curtis was somehow head of the parental split-ups department.

  Curtis shrugged, though he went all hot at the anger ringing in Jordan’s voice. At least it had been the table Jordan had slammed the cue onto, not Curtis’s head. ‘Well, they stay split up but otherwise it’s OK. I hated it at first but it happens to everyone, doesn’t it?’ He went over to the kitchen alcove and pulled sheets off a roll of blue kitchen paper to hand to Natasha.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, sniffing and scrubbing at her face. ‘But I don’t want them to split up.’

  ‘Too late,’ Jordan bit scornfully. ‘They did that weeks ago.’

  Natasha’s tears began to fall faster. ‘Po-or Dad!’

  Jordan turned his furiously flashing gaze on her. ‘Shut up, Gnasher! You give me shit ache.’

  And all at once Curtis found himself fighting for control of his facial muscles. It totally wasn’t funny. Natasha was bawling and Jordan was obviously the kind of unhappy that made you want to smash things. The back of Curtis’s nose began to hurt as he tried to swallow the words that burned in his throat. But out they came on a gurgle of laughter. ‘How can your shit ache?’

  Jordan switched his glare to Curtis. Then an unwilling smile tugged at its corner. ‘Things have to be really really crap.’

  Natasha gave a huge revolting sniff
and a giggle-sob. ‘You give me shit ache, too, Jordan. And so does Mum.’

  ‘She’s shit-ache central,’ allowed Jordan. His twitchy smile developed into a grin.

  ‘But, mostly, the horrible boyfriend.’

  ‘And the baby.’ Jordan picked up his cue just to slam it down again with a roar. ‘A freaking baby!’

  Natasha wiped her face. ‘But it’s going to be our brother or sister.’

  Natasha’s voice being hoarse with tears, Curtis decided no one would mind if he investigated the contents of the drinks fridge. Discovering a fat lemonade bottle, he reached for glasses from the draining board. ‘Surely all babies give you shit ache? They just scream all the time and go red and smell. Are you going to have to live with it?’

  Jordan glazed over with horror. ‘Live with the baby? That’s proper shit ache. I bet we will. Did your mum have any more kids?’

  Curtis watched the lemonade hiss up the sides of the glasses. ‘Nope. She lives with another bloke though, Darren.’

  ‘Yeurgh!’ Natasha’s face began to crumple anew. ‘What if Mum goes to live with whoever she’s having the baby with? What if we don’t like him? What if Dad gets someone new, too? We could have horrible step-parents and horrible stepbrothers and sisters and–’

  Taking too huge a glug of lemonade Curtis belched loudly, surprising Natasha into a pause. He grinned as if he’d summoned the giant burp just to cheer her. He crossed to the big brown L-shaped sofa by the window and flopped down, looking out over the garden. From where he sat he could see the woods behind the annexe, laced with footpaths to the park. ‘But there are upsides. If either Mum or Dad has shit ache with me–’ he paused for them to snigger ‘– I can make an excuse to go stay with the other one. I get to go on two holidays. Last year it was the Dominican Republic with Mum and Darren, and coming here with Dad.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ Jordan admitted. He plumped down on the sofa, side-on to face Curtis. ‘We just come to France every year.’

  ‘Maybe that’ll change.’ Natasha pulled the sofa’s big end cushion onto the floor and plopped down onto it. ‘Maybe whoever Mum’s going with will take us somewhere else.’