Page 56 of A Good Mother
On hearing this Babs turned away from him, leant her head back and closed her eyes as she spoke. ‘Irony really is lost on you, isn’t it, Pete?’
When he didn’t answer, Babs resisted the urge to laugh and instead, enlightened him some more on the secret world of his wife.
‘You know what the weird thing is, that lockdown, as hideous as it was, probably did me a favour because for the first time in I don’t know how long I had something very precious. I had time. Time to focus on me. Sleep when I was exhausted, at any time of day. And not worry myself daft if I woke up at 3am because I was due to get up at six thirty.
‘I put on face packs, painted my toes, joined groups and exercise classes. I walked and sucked in fresh air and slowly I found a bit of me again. I started to feel better about myself, but no matter how far I walked or what colour nail varnish I chose it didn’t stop the hormones leaking out of my body and I swear I could feel them leaving.’
Pete just stared. Babs just carried on.
‘With every symptom came a reminder that my body was changing inside and out. The old me waved a hanky and said au revoir. That’s when it hit me, that I needed help. I booked an online consultation with a doctor who looks not much older than Isaac… I’ll spare you the gory details about what bits of me are drying up, aching, falling out or springing up in the most unwelcome of places, but in the end he wrote me a prescription for HRT. And it’s actually starting to work because I do feel so much better.’
When she turned her head, she was slightly perplexed by the wide mouthed, annoyed expression on Pete’s face.
‘So for all this time you’ve been taking pills and not even told your own husband. I had no idea it was as bad as that, or you’d spoken to a doctor so I’m sorry, Babs, you can’t blame me if I didn’t know. How can I help if you won’t explain.’
Why was it always about him?
Barbara sucked in her annoyance and soldiered on. ‘I’m not taking pills. I have gel that I rub into my skin at night, and I didn’t tell you because I was struggling coming to terms with such a huge change and feeling dreadful on top of it all. So please forgive me if I didn’t feel like sharing or risking you not understanding because to be honest, Pete, that would have been the last straw.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’ Pete’s tone was narky, which narked Babs.
‘I mean that when you’re walking a mental and physical tightrope day in, day out the last thing you need is to hear an insensitive comment. It’s the tiniest things that can tip me over the edge, like a flippant remark or a smirk, especially shoulder shrugs. They make me want to scream.’
In fact, Babs realised that she was getting to that point now and that this heart-to-heart was going nowhere fast and she really needed a bloody drink.
‘Look, Pete. I’ve explained as best I can. So shall we focus on what we do next because as much as I appreciate the effort you made hunting me down we’re not much further on, are we? So, instead of niggling, let’s think of a way we can rescue our marriage.’
The thing was, even though she was giving him a chance Babs had a dreadful feeling this was a battle neither of them were going to win. She’d been over and over the rules of engagement many times, as she lay by his side listening to the sound of obliviousness.
And as for Pete, he was confused, she could tell by the look on his face, and she also wished she’d put a fiver both ways on his next words being a flippant retort. It would have been five pounds well spent.
‘Well at least you didn’t suggest counselling because all that shrink malarkey isn’t my thing, holding a tennis ball while the other one yaks on. Having some stranger listen to personal stuff. Nah, not on your nelly. But I think there is a way we could take the pressure off, let our hair down and get away from the family for a bit.’
Babs heart dropped because in that second, when he mentioned getting away, she realised there was something more to his sudden desire to chat. A hidden Pete agenda.
I should’ve known.
Babs sighed deeply. ‘Go on, then, enlighten me.’ And as she listened, preparing for the worst, she unclipped her rucksack, flipped open the top and began to peel the foil from one of the bottles of Prosecco.
‘Are you going to drink that now! In the car?’ Pete sounded like she was about to snort a line of cocaine.
Babs ignored him and as she twisted the wire undone, wished she could do the same with the tension that was winding its way around every nerve and sinew in her body.
Then a thought, so she asked. ‘Since when did you know so much about therapy and tennis balls? Or did you see it on telly?’
She was genuinely curious about this, as she irreverently chucked the wire casing over her shoulder and into the footwell behind. Pete gave a little gasp. He liked a tidy car did Pete, and a berry crush air freshener.
‘From Calvin. Him and Penny went a while back. They were having a few marriage problems, you know, in the bedroom department, so they got help. He was telling me all about it yesterday.’
As she twisted the cork, her fingers squeezing, her grip firm, Babs imagined it was Pete’s neck, or his nether regions. ‘So, you were talking to Calvin about what exactly… to end up talking about his sex life?’
‘Well, we weren’t actually talking about that to start off with. We were discussing holidays and going away for New Year. He’s found a brilliant place in Lanzarote and wanted to know if we’d be up for it so I said you weren’t keen on group holidays, and we’d been having a few difficulties… that’s when he told me about him and Penny.’
And after the blissful release of the cork that made Pete jump, relishing the pop and fizz of pressure escaping in a whoosh of bubbles, Babs yanked the bottle from the sack and glugged down the cool liquid, eyes closed.
Then she asked, ‘What about him and Penny?’
Pete must have thought she cared, when in fact she was actually storing up evidence for her defence when she committed murder and seriously, who would blame her? The only sound after that was Pete, unburdening himself while his wife swigged from the bottle.
