‘You need to give it more time.’ Dom perched on the edge of the bed, irritation seeping through his words. ‘You’ve already made friends, haven’t you? And the boys are happy. You’ve got to pull yourself together, Charlotte. Don’t transfer your misery to them.’
Charlotte slid further under the duvet, hissing ‘twat’ under her breath. Juvenile, but Dom’s failure to accept her struggle wasn’t a recent phenomenon. The heady days of romance a decade ago were a distant memory. Yes, having two children in rapid succession wasn’t the wisest move. Particularly when Charlotte had no family close by to help, and Dom’s parents — a two-hour drive away — viewed babysitting as something that should be paid for. Their adored only son was always welcomed with open arms, although Dom found their devotion suffocating. They merely tolerated Charlotte and the boys; not that she ever relished visiting them. She still shuddered at memories of Robson vomiting all over her mother-in-law Jean’s new cream linen sofa, and Alastair leaving a trail of soggy biscuit crumbs through the immaculately carpeted hallway. Jean took to following the boys around with a dustpan and brush and a can of stain remover.
‘Why don’t we throw a party?’ Dom’s eyes glittered at the prospect. Charlotte rolled hers so hard she felt dizzy. Parties — at least, hosting them — were up there with smear tests and ironing bedlinen on her list of things to avoid. Not that she was a terrible cook, or anti-social, but she just found the whole business of shopping/prepping/attempting to keep up with the conversation while listening out for the boys and the oven timer exhausting. Dom would work the room like a presidential hopeful, oozing bonhomie and topping up drinks after a mere sip or two. The only thing Charlotte oozed was sweat, as she fretted whether the soufflés would rise or the beef turn out tougher than a cowboy’s crotch.
‘And who do we invite, exactly?’ she asked.
‘That woman you keep talking about, Sophie or something.’ Dom was as crap at names as she was. And Charlotte didn’t keep talking about her. She’d briefly mentioned the get-together at Le Petit Train, attended by two other school mums.
Alicia, a former ballet dancer, kept her feet permanently in first position, and quickly established that Charlotte didn’t fit into the mega-rich bracket. ‘A three-bed rental, hmm?’ she’d drawled when discussing homes.
‘Alicia lives in a lakeside mansion with an infinity pool and hot-and-cold running staff,’ whispered Sadie. ‘She likes to mingle with the poor people from time to time, to maintain her superiority complex. Oh, and her actual name is Agnes Blenkinsop. I caught a glimpse of her passport one day. Well, I sneaked it out of her Hermes bag when she wasn’t looking.’
The other mum at the gathering barely said a word. She stirred her milky coffee in endless circles, occasionally taking a sip. Sadie introduced her as Pamela, mother of ten-year-old twins Rebecca and Elspeth. They were in the year above Alastair, both pin-thin with milky-white complexions and hair in matching pigtails. Extracting information from Pamela was like squeezing the last dregs out of the toothpaste tube. She restricted her answers to: ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Not sure, really’, the latter in response to Charlotte asking if she liked it here. It was down to Sadie again to fill in the details.
‘She’s been here since the twins were babies,’ she revealed, when Pamela disappeared to the ladies. ‘Hired a nanny after a few weeks: a pretty Croatian girl who took her job very seriously. So much so that she decided to tend to Pamela’s husband’s needs too. And I don’t mean ironing his business shirts.’
Deciding that a glass of wine might be a good idea, Charlotte propelled herself out of bed, shrugged on her dressing gown and headed downstairs. All was quiet in the boys’ bedroom, and she resisted the urge to have a peek.
‘So, shall we throw a party?’ Dom followed Charlotte into the kitchen. She unscrewed the cap of a bottle of red and reached for two glasses. The satisfying glug of the liquid soothed her edginess, and she took a swig. Dom tutted — failing to say ‘cheers’ was a sin in his book — and pulled a face when he took a toothpaste-flavoured mouthful.
‘Let me think about it.’ Charlotte needed time to get her head around the idea. At some point she’d chat to Sadie and see if one or two of the other mums she was on nodding terms with at school might be interested in coming. Pamela too, and her cheating husband. They were still together, the Croatian nanny sent packing when the affair came to light.
Charlotte wandered over to the large lounge window and watched as the sun set, a kaleidoscope of colours decorating the sky. Dom came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She welcomed his embrace and snuggled into his familiar, strong arms. And yet… There’d been a time, not long before the move to Switzerland, when she’d suspected something was amiss in their marriage. Or rather, someone else. As day gave way to night, Charlotte’s thoughts drifted back to their life in England, and how they ended up being here…
Chapter 3
Six Months Earlier
‘Charlotte! We’ve run out of butter!’
On her hands and knees in the boys’ bedroom, trying to locate a vital piece of Lego under the bed, Charlotte blew out an exasperated breath. That dislodged an unhealthy wodge of tumbleweed, also known as a dust ball. No matter how often she dragged the vacuum cleaner around the house, the dust multiplied and accumulated in corners and under furniture.
Dom had been on at her to get a cleaner since the boys were little, but Charlotte wasn’t keen. She’d quit her job as a medical receptionist when Robson turned one, Dom insistent that they didn’t need her ‘meagre’ salary. His words, not hers. Charlotte had enjoyed the daily interaction with the patients: even the miserable ones, and the hypochondriacs convinced that every minor twinge signalled their eminent demise. Plus, most of her friends who had cleaners spent a good hour cleaning their homes beforehand, lest the hired help thought they were lazy bitches.
Harrumphing down the stairs, picking fluff off her black jeans, Charlotte mentally ran through her to-do list for the day. Gym at eleven, lunch with best friend Ruth immediately after, then errands to run, including dropping off a pile of Dom’s suits at the dry cleaners. She’d done a large grocery shop the day before, and could have sworn she’d picked up a tub of spreadable butter. Mind you, the so-called ‘mummy brain’ experienced in the months after the boys’ births seemed to have lingered throughout her thirties.
‘You know I can’t stand toast without butter,’ grumbled Dom, fiddling with the coffee machine, which was playing up. Instead of a steady stream of fragrant liquid, it dribbled pathetically. He ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, still damp from the shower.
Charlotte flipped the kettle switch — instant was her drink of choice — and pulled open the fridge door. ‘Ta-dah!’ Moving aside a four-pack of yoghurt and a carton of eggs, she produced the butter with a magician’s flourish.
‘Well, how am I supposed to find it if it’s hidden?’ Dom flicked off the lid and peeled back the foil, before popping two slices of bread in the toaster.