The job and the flat had been sorted for a while, and finally the story of her past was in place. She had rehearsed it all in her head until it had felt real.
The waiting had been hellish but she knew it was essential that any loose ends were eradicated. That had been completely necessary to ensure the success of this, the final, glorious stage.
The last three years had been tortuous and long. She’d felt so impotent and hopeless, but that was all behind her now. The jagged pieces would start to slide together, slowly and smoothly, like an exquisite jigsaw.
For a time, Amber had considered engineering a situation where she might bump into Ben Jukes as if by accident, but in the end, there had been no need for that. She happened to call in at the newsagent’s around the corner from work one morning and there he was. Standing on his own, browsing the newspaper shelf.
Slipping behind him in the queue, she’d self-consciously clutched her own tabloid newspaper and a breakfast bar. He’d smelled of soap and sandalwood, pleasant scents to most people but she’d felt her stomach twist slightly.
Oblivious to her presence, he had continued to stare out of the window as the queue shuffled forward, his jawline stark and pale in the unforgiving morning light. She took a small step to the side so she could see more of his face, watched how his unfocused eyes betrayed that he was lost in his thoughts. Possibly thoughts about his cold, dead wife. She smiled to herself.
The beeping of the card machine and murmur of customer voices had buzzed around her like irritating insects, yet on another level she began to feel like it was just her and Ben standing there.
‘Next, please,’ the sales assistant barked.
Ben had suddenly snapped out of his trancelike state and stepped forward. She realised he wasn’t going to glance her way after all and felt the spark of anticipation fizzle out in her chest like a spent match, but she quickly caught herself.
It was just a blip, that was all. They would be together, of that she was certain. It was fate, after all.
Nothing could stop it happening. She simply wouldn’t allow anything to stand in her way.
The day after their initial near-meeting, Amber had set the alarm for six, styled her hair and even taken the time to put on make-up before leaving her poky studio flat.
At her low point, she’d had no interest in grooming or her appearance. So, titivating herself before work had made a change from her usual rushing out of the house in a morning with minutes to spare, complete with bare face and damp hair.
She’d been surprised how much difference a little effort made to her appearance. With a mere corner curl of liquid eyeliner and a brief lick of mascara, her unremarkable dull grey eyes were transformed into a sleek almond shape, almost feline.
Once she’d applied a slick of hair gel and a good dousing of inexpensive hairspray, her greasy blonde mop quickly morphed into the chic feathered crop the hairdresser had intended it to be.
Food was now an inconvenience to Amber. Her appetite had long been poor, marred by the troubled thoughts that seemed to seep into everything she did. She’d learned to deal with it by simply eating something when her stomach growled in protest.
Likewise, over the years she’d gleaned no pleasure from clothes shopping; it all seemed so futile and shallow. Still, when she opened the wardrobe doors, she saw there were still a couple of outfits there that didn’t look too tatty, so she selected one of those.
It had taken her a long time to get this close to speaking to Ben Jukes, and now that there was a strong chance she would see him again, she knew that planning was key.
The years spent grappling with a fire inside that all but threatened to consume her, the relentless planning and then the seemingly endless wait for her opportunity … she certainly had no intention of messing things up now.
After that first fortuitous sighting of Ben, Amber made certain to arrive at the newsagent’s ten minutes earlier than usual each subsequent morning. People tended to develop a habit of dropping into small shops like that, so she knew it was highly unlikely he’d used it just the once and would never return. Besides, she knew it was the closest shop to his workplace.
So she resolved to stick religiously to her new routine. Sure enough, three mornings later, there he was again. And this time, she vowed silently, she would make it count.
She hovered near the biscuits and crisps, and at the last moment picked up a carton of milk from the small refrigerated section near the door. She moved effortlessly to the counter the exact same time as he did. But just before he joined the short queue, she stumbled slightly in front of him, dropping her car keys near his foot.
‘Sorry! I’m so sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I’m such a clumsy clot.’
She bent forward at just the right angle, knowing full well he couldn’t avoid catching a glimpse of her smooth, lightly tanned cleavage.
Up she stood again, fumbling with the carton of milk, her purse and keys. She smiled without quite meeting his eyes. Finally, just as she feared he might turn away without acknowledging her, he spoke.
‘Always busy in here, isn’t it?’ He smiled, and she noticed that his teeth were clean and even. ‘I keep threatening to call in at the Tesco on Palmer Street instead, but that’s probably even worse.’
‘I work just around the corner,’ Amber explained, pulling herself up to her full height. ‘So it suits me to come here.’
She stood only a couple of inches short of his own six foot one. Close up, she could see his eyes were a hazel shade. She could smell the sandalwood scent again and she tried to keep her breathing shallow.
‘Where is it you work, then?’ Ben’s forehead creased as he made the connection. There wasn’t much else around here, aside from the newsagent’s and the housing estate. ‘The school?’
‘The children’s centre,’ Amber replied. ‘We’re tucked away just behind the school.’
‘You’re a teacher?’
She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I’m a family support worker.’
‘Small world.’ He grinned and offered her his hand. ‘Ben Jukes. I teach at the school.’
‘No way!’ She widened her eyes in pleasant surprise as she grasped his fingers. She wanted to laugh. ‘Small world. I’m Amber Carr.’
She’d known for months exactly where Ben worked.
She knew the name of the road he lived on and at which local supermarket he did his weekly food shop.
She knew that his mother came over to do his cleaning on Wednesdays and Fridays.
And most importantly, she knew the names of both his sons.
Everything is ready.
The pork is in the oven with the foil off now, and a quick satisfying peek confirms that the crackling will be done to perfection. Just how Ben likes it.
The apple crumble, with my own special oaty topping, sits on the side, and I have a big carton of Marks and Spencer’s vanilla custard stowed away in the fridge. I find nobody notices a little cheat, so long as it’s just here and there. The trick is not to overdo it.
I’ve always enjoyed cooking; it’s one of the few things I genuinely feel good at. In recent years, I’ve become engrossed in programmes like Masterchef and The Great British Bake Off and my enthusiasm has grown in direct relation to my family’s love of eating my food. My Sunday lunches have become quite the family tradition.
I glance at the clock. Half an hour and my boys will all be here.
The back door opens and Henry’s grinning face appears.
‘Something smells good.’
He shuffles into the kitchen, his old leather boots shedding ridges of freshly mowed grass on to the newly swept kitchen tiles.
‘They’ll be here in about thirty minutes.’ I turn away, plunging my hands into a sink full of scalding-hot soapy water. ‘You were going to show the boys some photographs after lunch, remember?’
‘Ah yes, so I was,’ he says. I hear him kicking off his boots in the utility room. ‘I’ll scoot up to the attic right now. Any chance of a cuppa?’
When I pull my fingers out of the water, I see they are chapped and red. The once tight, smooth skin on the backs of my hands is on the turn; a little crêpey and slower to snap back when pinched. I used to be a stickler for wearing rubber gloves and using hand cream. I can’t recall when I stopped doing it.
I close my eyes briefly and endure the steaming water, which continues to sting hard. I suck in air and hold it in for a moment or two.
My heart is racing and my knees feel weak for no apparent reason. It keeps happening at the most inconvenient of times. It’s OK, I tell myself. It will soon pass.
It’s the thought of everything I’ve still got to do. Lunch. That’s all it is, but the slightest thing just lately feels like there’s a mountain to scale.
I always long for everything to be just perfect, but it hardly ever is.
Soon the boys will be here and the house will be transformed into a home once more. Noisy, glorious chaos again, just like when Ben and David were young. Long before the bad decisions and the terrible consequences.
Over a period of ten years, when we were first married, Henry worked his way up to the position of branch manager at the big National Westminster Bank in the centre of Nottingham. Some might say we had a staid, predictable life back then, but I’d never longed for the glitz and glamour of London that some of his colleagues had chased, or even, for that matter, a career of my own.
I’d been happiest home-making: baking bread and spending school holidays with the boys, growing vegetables down at the allotment or during the summer at our little holiday cottage in Staithes, where Henry would join us at the weekends. We didn’t rent it out; it was for our own use only. Our wonderful little bolthole against the world.
Now, I find it difficult to even think about those times.
Henry appears at my side.
‘Penny for them?’ He presses a little closer to me, as if he can read my thoughts. I push the image of the cottage from my mind.
Snatching my hands out of the water, I flick off the bubbles.
‘Just running through what’s left to do for lunch.’ I grab a tea towel and dab at my scarlet hands. Henry takes a step back.
‘I just asked if you wanted me to lay the table before I hunt out those old photos.’
‘No, that’s fine, thanks. I’ll do it.’ I reach for my glass of water and take a sip in a bid to relieve my dry mouth. ‘I’ve bought the boys some Thomas the Tank Engine napkins.’
Henry begins to shuffle out of the kitchen, then hesitates, turns back. ‘I thought they were into all that superhero business now, Marvel characters and the like?’
‘That stuff is too violent. I don’t want to encourage it. Pass me a clean tea towel, will you?’
I strain the potatoes, add butter and full-cream milk and begin to mash.
After a few minutes, I hear Henry scrabbling around in the attic above my head, searching for the photographs.
I heard him telling Noah and Josh, earlier in the week, about the things their dad and Uncle David got up to at the cottage. Silly stories the boys loved, about hunting dinosaurs and finding rare fossils beneath the cliffs.
Stories that made my heart squeeze in on itself until it felt like a shrivelled prune hanging there.
‘Found them.’ He returns to the kitchen a few minutes later, holding a bulging carrier bag aloft like a trophy.
The ghost of a smile flits over my lips, but it’s the best I can do.
We both start at the sudden growl of a car engine and a skid of gravel on the driveway.
‘They’re here.’ Henry hurries into the hall.
‘They’re early.’ I glance at the clock as my heart rate picks up again.
The front door bursts open and the welcome sounds of my grandsons’ arrival fill the hallway. Walls are clipped by buzzing light sabres and whirring plastic monsters that morph into elaborate vehicles at the touch of a button.
Shoes are left on; I can hear them clomping across the laminate in the hall.
Louise always shepherded the boys into the house in as orderly a manner as she could, but of course, Ben didn’t even notice and I loved him for that. It was just over two years since we’d lost Louise, and he was doing a sterling job of bringing up his sons alone.
I replace the saucepan lid, leaving the potatoes half mashed, and wipe my hands on my apron as I walk to the kitchen door to say hello.
I try to catch Ben’s eye, but he is busy unlacing his boots.
It crosses my mind that perhaps he’s feeling a little unwell. He is usually singing or humming, and sometimes a combination of both. Today he seems unusually quiet.
Right away my breath quickens. I try to remember what The Complete Book of Women’s Health said, the one that’s squirrelled away at the back of the wardrobe.
Reach for better thoughts.
Relax your shoulders.
Breathe.
I try.
‘Dad’s bought us the new Transformers Generation Leader,’ Noah tells me in one long breathless sentence. He pushes an aggressive-looking white and red foot-high plastic robot towards me. ‘Look, he’s got neutron blasters in his arms, Nanny.’
‘Wonderful.’ I prod cautiously at the contraption with a forefinger. ‘I do hope he likes my cooking; he looks as though he could get quite cross.’
Ben finally looks up from unlacing his boots and winks at me.
‘Transformers don’t eat, Nanny.’ Josh hoots with laughter. ‘They’re missile robots.’
‘Of course they are.’ I offer my cheek to Ben. ‘How silly of me.’
I grab Josh when he tries to run past and bury my face in his apple-scented hair. Ben has obviously started using the shampoo I bought for them last week, and although I know it’s silly, I feel inordinately pleased.
Josh struggles, eager to join his brother in the lounge, and reluctantly I let him go.
I return to the kitchen to finish up the lunch, my step a little lighter, my heart full.
My boys are home.
I’m sure that if it could, the big old oak dining table would groan slightly under the weight of the china tureens that brim with roast potatoes, mash, vegetables – including everyone’s favourite honeyed parsnips – and a platter of thickly carved slices of roast pork.
The early March sunlight shines weakly through the window behind Ben, lighting up his hair like a halo. Noah and Josh tuck into the food with gusto. I feel my shoulders drop a little and I take the tiniest sip from the small glass of white wine Henry has poured me.
Seeing this table full and the house buzzing with the people I love the most fills my heart up too.
‘We love Nanny’s dinners, don’t we, boys?’ Ben watches his sons, eyes crinkling with pride as he turns to me. ‘We look forward to your Sunday lunch all week, do you know that, Mum?’
‘The meat’s cooked perfectly again, Jude, well done,’ Henry remarks.
My cheeks flush with pure pleasure as I reach over for the gravy boat, pouring the rich brown oniony goodness over Josh’s meat and potatoes. Feeding my family feels like the purest kind of love.
I beam at my son. ‘Our little family, all together like this, it makes me so happy.’
‘It’s what life is all about,’ Henry adds.
Louise’s death hit us all very badly. Two years ago, when Noah was six and Josh just three, she was diagnosed with leukaemia. Louise and Ben broke the news to me and Henry during our Sunday walk in Wollaton Park as the boys ran ahead and we paused to admire the new life: tight green buds, snowdrops and crocuses, springing up all around us like scattered confetti.
She died in October of the same year. All very quick and heartbreakingly painful.
All we could do was pull closer together, support each other and keep life as normal as we could for Noah and Josh. Ben turned to us, his parents. He let us into their lives, allowed us to help and support him.
I immediately reduced my hours at the doctor’s surgery, and Henry took early retirement and knocked his overnight fishing trips on the head, at least for a while.
Our grandsons became our number one priority. I usually picked them up from school each day and gave them tea at Ben’s house in Colwick, staying with them until he got home from his job as a science teacher at Colwick Park Academy.
Far from draining me of energy, I felt years younger.
The grey, endless mornings and drab, eventless evenings were suddenly filled with things to do. I cleaned Ben’s house a couple of times a week and did their laundry. It was a labour of love, and Henry had learned a long time ago to keep his mild disapproval to himself.
I’ve been trying to convince Ben to move closer to us for some time. Lady Bay, not far from our house in West Bridgford, is a more desirable area and the schools there are preferable for the boys.
Up to now, he has seemed reluctant, but with the neat new estate just five minutes’ walk away from our house nearing completion, it really is the perfect time for them to up sticks.
A few months ago saw the second anniversary of Louise’s death. We decided to mark it with a visit to our local church and a celebration dinner back at ours, dedicated to Louise’s life. Ben made a touching collage of photographs and we talked to the boys about Louise and how much their mummy had loved them.
It was difficult but apt. Very apt, I thought.
I catch Henry looking expectantly at me and I shake my head surreptitiously. It would be just like him to blab out our surprise before time, and I want to wait until after lunch, so there are no distractions and we can enjoy the full reaction of Ben and the boys.
After the last scrap of home-made apple crumble and vanilla custard has been wolfed down by my ever-hungry grandsons, Henry helps me clear the table while Ben plays with Noah and Josh and their new robot contraptions in the living room.
‘I’ll take the photos through in a moment, shall I?’ Henry whispers as he scrapes the plates.
‘Yes.’ I nod eagerly. ‘I can’t wait to see their faces.’
I carry through a tray of coffee and Henry follows with the photographs. Within minutes, precious images of Ben and his older brother David are scattered all around the floor. I move away and stand near the door.
‘Gosh, I remember this day,’ Ben exclaims, picking up a print of him and his brother. He turns it slightly so the boys can see. ‘Two minutes after Grandad took this photo, your Uncle David wouldn’t let me have a turn with his new cricket bat so I took it off him and cracked him on the shins with it.’ He pulls an exaggerated sad face at his sons. ‘My backside was stinging for hours after your grandad spanked me.’
Noah and Josh collapse in fits of laughter.
‘You can’t say you didn’t deserve it, though,’ Henry chuckles. ‘Shame parents aren’t allowed to discipline their kids any more. The odd slap never did you and your brother any harm.’
‘Why did Uncle David die, Daddy?’ Josh asks, his clear voice cutting through the dense air like a scalpel.
Old enough now to understand the taboo subject, Noah frowns and administers a sharp nudge to his younger brother. Ben clears his throat.
‘He had an accident, Josh.’ He glances at me. ‘But we don’t want to think about such sad things right now.’
The absence of David fills the room like an impenetrable fog for a second or two.
‘We never get smacked, Grandad,’ Noah says solemnly, breaking the spell. ‘Because we’re never naughty.’
Ben pretends to choke on his coffee. ‘What about last week, when you didn’t put newspaper down despite being told to a thousand times, and got paint splatters all over your bedroom carpet?’
‘It was an art accident,’ Noah protests, a wounded expression settling over his face.
The next day, when the boys were at school and Ben was at work, it had taken me three goes with the Vanish stain remover before the marks came out.
‘Oh yes, and when Noah swung on the wardrobe door dressed in his Batman outfit.’ Ben tries to look stern and fails. ‘Busted all the hinges, he did. Was that an accident too?’
The boys see through his attempt to show a strict demeanour and grin at each other.
‘Enough talk of naughtiness, I think.’ I smile meaningfully at Henry. ‘There’s a reason we wanted to remind you of the lovely times we had on holiday when your daddy and uncle were young.’
Ben frowns.
‘I traced the new owners of our old holiday cottage,’ Henry says. ‘Turns out they’re renting it selectively to friends and family. So I asked them if it was available …’
‘Our cottage?’ I say faintly. ‘We’ve discussed renting somewhere but I didn’t know you were thinking of –‘
‘Yes, our cottage, the very same. And I’m going to rent it for two weeks in the summer,’ Henry blurts out, obviously unable to wait a moment longer. ‘We’re all going on holiday together. Our treat!’
Noah and Josh begin jumping up and down on the spot, repeatedly chanting: ‘We’re. Going. On. Holiday!’
Henry laughs and hastily snatches the photographs out from under their trampling feet as they chase each other from the room.
But Ben … Ben doesn’t say a word.
‘You and the boys haven’t had a holiday since … well, for three years,’ I say lightly, pushing thoughts of the cottage away. ‘We thought this would be the ideal break for you all.’
It was neither the time nor the place to take issue with Henry’s unexpected plans. But later, I had every intention of doing so.
‘I … It’s really kind of you, Mum, Dad,’ Ben stammers, a maroon flush blooming on both cheeks. ‘I’m grateful to you both. It’s just that …’
‘It’s just that what?’ Henry interjects, taking in my expression. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got something else on, Ben. You never go anywhere.’
‘That might be changing,’ Ben says, his cheeks on fire now. ‘I was going to tell you when I first got here, but I wanted to wait for the right moment. I mean, it’s nothing massively serious yet, but …’
‘Spit it out then, man.’ Henry rolls his eyes.
‘It happened a couple of months ago. Entirely unexpected, but thes. . .
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