When Simon was working, the pressure eased off a little, as Lauren didn’t need to worry so much about where the next penny was coming from. But on the occasions he was laid off, which as a labourer on a building site were often, both their purse strings and Simon’s moods, Lauren noticed, were more difficult to manage.
‘I cannot wait to see how this all plays out,’ says Simon, still grinning, although his eyes are fixed firmly on the road. ‘It’s almost a shame that he’s not here to repent his sins. I’d love to see how he’d wriggle his way out of this one.’
Lauren’s chest tightens. She’s not going to respond, but she doesn’t suppose that’s going to stop him saying what he wants to say.
‘Can you imagine your mum?’ he goes on. ‘She’s going to go fucking ballistic if this all turns out to be true.’
‘Don’t use that language in front of the children,’ says Lauren, although what she really wants to say is, Don’t you dare talk about my family as if we’re just some sideshow put on for your own amusement.
‘They’re asleep,’ snaps Simon, without checking.
A car pulls out in front of them. ‘Careful,’ calls out Lauren, dramatically slamming her hand onto the dashboard, hoping that the diversion will dispel the increasingly uneasy atmosphere. Simon honks his horn unnecessarily, but it doesn’t distract him from his train of thought.
‘Either way, I think we should all take some time out,’ he says.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning,’ says Simon, turning to look at her for far longer than feels comfortable, ‘that we should take this opportunity to back off a bit.’
‘Back off what?’ says Lauren, her patience wearing thin.
‘From your family!’ he exclaims. ‘With all this going on, there’s really no need for us to be getting together every Sunday. We should wait for all this to calm down.’
Lauren can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I’m serious. We only go through this farce every week to appease your mother, so that she can fawn over the kids and play the doting grandmother. But it seems that there’s one or two bad apples in your family and until we find out exactly how rotten they are, it’s probably best if we keep the kids out of it.’
‘This has got nothing to do with the kids,’ Lauren snaps, knowing that he’s probably only saying it to rile her and get a reaction. She wishes she were strong enough not to give him one.
‘I don’t want them in a toxic environment,’ he says.
Lauren lets out an involuntary snort of disbelief. Can he hear himself? Does he honestly believe that being with her family for Sunday lunch is more damaging to their children than the ominous black cloud that is hanging over their parents’ marriage?
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she says, as forthrightly as she dares. ‘The children enjoy seeing everyone and it’s important to give them a sense of family.’ She refrains from adding that between his own alcoholic father and his mother’s penchant for corresponding with prisoners, her family is, by far, the least dysfunctional, even in light of Jess’s appearance.
He grunts derisorily. ‘Who are you trying to kid? You can cut the atmosphere between you and Kate with a knife. You honestly think that gives the kids a true semblance of family?’
‘But—’ she starts defensively.
‘I don’t know why you bother,’ Simon says over her. ‘There’s not exactly much love lost between you two, is there?’
As much as it hurts to hear the words out loud, maybe he’s right. Why do she and Kate keep up the pretence that they get on? That they have things in common?
‘She’s my sister,’ says 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.