Page 67 of The In-Laws

‘I’m still your best friend,’ he said pleadingly. ‘I still love you. I want us to work this out.’

Amanda smiled sadly. ‘And I want my old life back, but we don’t always get what we want, Ross.’

23. Katie

Katie stood shivering in the cold playground. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Melanie and Frank hadn’t had sex in more than two years. She’d always had a huge soft spot for Frank and she had grown very fond of Melanie – in as much as Melanie would allow you to get close. When she’d first met Melanie, she’d found her a bit intimidating. Melanie was a bookish intellectual and Katie worried she’d suss that Katie was as thick as a plank and couldn’t spell properly. But Melanie had only ever been nice to her – distracted and work-obsessed but nice.

Katie wanted Melanie and Frank to get back on track. What if they broke up? God only knew who Frank would end up with. The agency needed Melanie. Jamie needed Melanie. The whole family needed Melanie – she was the one keeping the agency afloat, these days. Nancy’s writers were getting old and not so successful any more. Jamie said Melanie was the backbone of the agency now. Katie had royally messed up with Nancy, but here was a chance to do some good for everyone by fixing Melanie and Frank.

She was due to go to a gig with Frank that evening. She’d talk to him then. How was she going to bring the conversation around to sex, though? She’d figure something out. She couldn’t imagine not having sex with Jamie. She was still mad about him and the sex was great. She’d noticed that Amanda had fudged her answer to the question: granted she was living with her mother-in-law, but was she having sex with Ross? They were hard to read. They’dalways been so striking – both tall and fit and good-looking. When they entered a room, they did so very confidently, the way good-looking couples do, as if to say, ‘Okay, everybody, we’re here now.’ But that cool self-assuredness had dimmed lately.

‘Muuuuuummy!’ Toby pulled at her skirt.

Who the hell had invented swings? The playground was supposed to be a place where kids could entertain themselves with slides and roundabouts, but then some bright spark had decided to invent something that parents had to get involved in. Katie had been smacked in the face twice by a swing and it was bloody sore.

‘Mum, Toby needs you,’ Lucy said, from behind her book. She was wearing her mother’s coat because she wanted to finish the new book ‘Granny gave me’ and had refused to run around to keep warm. Katie felt she couldn’t deny Lucy anything after the poisonous-bitch fiasco, so she was now coatless, freezingandmind-numbingly bored. They should put bar-carts in playgrounds, she thought grumpily. A little glass of mulled wine would take the edge off this torture.

She pushed Toby on the swing until he told her he felt sick. Katie pulled the swing to a stop and went to help him down. That was when he projectile-vomited the ice cream he had insisted on getting earlier.

For goodness’ sake, it was all over her new trainers.

‘Oh, Toby! Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘He obviously is not. He just vomited all over your shoes.’

Katie took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Lucy, I can see that. Toby, stay here with your sister and do not move. I’ll go and get some water and napkins from the coffee shop.’

Katie cut across the park and as she passed a bicycle shed she heard a familiar voice.

‘About time. I’m freezing my balls off here. Have you got it?’

It was Theo’s unmistakable posh accent. Katie stuck her head into the shed. What the …

Theo was handing money to a kid on an electric scooter and receiving what looked suspiciously like a small bag of cocaine in return. A lot of the young stylists in the salon did coke on the weekends. Katie was used to seeing teenagers on scooters delivering bags to the salon on Friday evenings. She did not approve. Alcohol was fine, but drugs – no way.

‘Theo!’ She marched towards him. Her nephew almost jumped out of his skin. The teenager selling the drugs hopped onto his scooter and fled.

In his shock, Theo dropped the bag. Katie reached down and picked it up. Waving it in front of his face, she asked, ‘Theo, what are you doing?’

He regained his usual don’t-care attitude and shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal, just a bit of fun – helps take the edge off.’

Katie knew all about taking the edge off, but not this. ‘Have a beer to take the edge off. Don’t snort this crap up your nose. Come on, you’re too smart for this. A lovely young man like you doesn’t want to get caught up in it. What if I’d been the police? Imagine what your dad would say. Or Nancy.’

Theo looked up. ‘I don’t give a shit what my dad or Nancy thinks.’

A man after my own heart, Katie thought. ‘Okay, your mum, then. She’d be devastated.’

Theo looked a bit sheepish. ‘Don’t tell Mum, please. I got kicked out of my last school because of coke and I swore I’d stopped. I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. Please.’

What? Katie stared at him in disbelief. He’d been kicked out of school for doing cocaine? So that’s why they’d moved home so suddenly. Now it all began to make sense. No wonder Amanda looked so stressed and Ross was so uptight, although he had always been uptight, to be fair. She suddenly saw their lives, their move and their current living arrangement in a whole new light. It was tough, and Katie felt sorry for all of them. No one wanted their kid messing around with drugs. It was every mother’s bloody nightmare.

Theo was looking at her, his eyes wide at the thought of Amanda finding out. He suddenly looked young again, not so cocksure of himself. Katie wanted to hug him and slap him at the same time – but he definitely needed a bit of tough love.

‘Well, then, what the hell are you doing, Theo? If you promised Amanda you’d stop, then bloody well stop. You’ve got a mum and dad who love you and you’ve let them and yourself down already, mate. It’s time to start behaving.’

Theo snorted. ‘That’s rich coming from someone who called an old woman a poisonous bitch.’

Katie took a deep breath. ‘Okay, fair point, but believe me, I’ve paid for that blow-out. Look, Theo, drugs are a road to nowhere. I’ve seen really talented stylists in the salon lose everything to their habit.’

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