Page 165 of One in Three

He insists on walking Bella into school, and I watchas they stop outside the gates, talking intently. Something else is going on with Andy that I still don’t know about; something apart from his nostalgic fuck with Louise last night. If he wasn’t with her yesterday when he was supposed to be working, then where the hellwashe? I don’t buy his bullshit about Deep Throat anonymous sources for a moment. He’s up to something.

‘Bella says that policeman was waiting for Louise,’ he says abruptly, as soon as he gets back into the car. ‘She seems to think it was a farmer with a grudge who tipped them off, but I’m not so sure. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’

I say nothing as Andy pulls the car back onto the main road. He was drunk when he came home last night, and by his own admission, Louise was even worse for wear. I was just doing my civic duty, reporting a drunk driver. A mother on her way to school, no less; just one of many up and down the country who hits wine o’clock at six p.m. and keeps on going, never even considering she might still be drunk the next morning. But I should have known Louise would find a way to skate out from under it. Somehow, that woman always comes up smelling of roses. She could shoot someone in Oxford Street, and Andy would praise her for her marksmanship.

‘She got away with it this time,’ I say. ‘But you can’t ignore this, Andy. You’re going to have to do something about her.’

He sighs irritably. ‘Come on, Caz. She was under the limit.’

‘Thistime,’ I repeat. ‘The kids were in the car with her. What if she’d crashed? They’re not safe with her anymore.’

He looks sideways at me. ‘You really think you can take Bella and Tolly on full-time?’ he says sceptically. ‘We have trouble managing one child, never mind three. You’re not exactly the maternal type.’

‘You think I couldn’t handle it?’

‘I think you wouldn’t want to,’ he says shortly.

What Iwanthas nothing to do with it. But if I can remove the one legitimate reason Louise has to be constantly in our lives by taking the children from her, it’ll pull the rug out from under her feet. She’ll still have visitation rights, of course, unless we can prove she’s certifiable again, which is entirely possible; but if the kids are living with us, the ball will be very much in our court. She’ll have to play by our rules if she wants access to them. Andy won’t be at her beck and call anymore. We’ll have leverage.

My phone beeps suddenly with a text notification from Louise. It’s some kind of image. I open it up, and an icy chill sweeps through me as I see the photograph of the peeling sign:Starr Farm Senior Care Centre.

She knows.

I drop the phone on the floor of the car, my heart pounding. Louise knows about my mother. She’s been to see her. How the hell did she even find her? The only person who knows Ruth exists is Angie, and she’d never breathe a word to anyone. What has Louise discovered? And what is she going to do about it?

My hands are actually shaking as I scrabble for the phone. My mother is a senile old woman; no one will take her lunatic ravings seriously. But what will Andy say if he finds out she’s not living in a beautiful Victorian building with a concierge in the heart of Chelsea, as I’ve told him, but a care home in Essex? He’d never have willingly exchanged the prestige and class Louise brought him for Carol from Dagenham. As far as he’s concerned, my father is dead, my mother a wealthy recluse from whom I’m estranged. If he finds out I’m no better than he is, it could be precisely the excuse he needs to run straight back into Louise’s well-bred arms.

‘Are you OK?’ Andy asks, as he parks the car in a side street near our house. ‘You seem very quiet.’

I make a quick decision. My battle with Louise over the children can wait. I need to deal with my mother first. ‘I’m going back to London after all,’ I say abruptly. ‘Tell Louise the kids can stay with her for now. I’m sure they’ll be fine.’

He looks visibly relieved. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’

We barely speak on the train back to Victoria. As soon as we reach London, Andy heads off to the taxi rank to go into work, and I take the tube home. I’m not going into Whitefish today; I’m not sure I’ve even got a job to go back to. I let myself into our empty flat, feeling sick and hollowed out. Stepping over the heap of mail on the doormat without bothering to pick it up, I go straight upstairs, peel off my clothes and pad into the bathroom, turning on the shower and steppinginto water as hot as I can bear. As the steam rises around me, I close my eyes and turn my face into the scalding spray. Louise, Andy, AJ, Whitefish, my mother … I just want to wash it all away.

The heat sucks the remaining energy from me. I’ve hardly slept in two days, and I can’t remember the last time I ate properly. I long to crawl into bed and shut out the world, but I have dozens of emails clogging up my inbox, at least four of them from Patrick. More importantly, I have to check up on AJ, make sure he’s all right. And there’s still my mother to deal with. I can’t afford to take my eye off the ball for a second.

I step out of the shower, groping for a towel, stumbling slightly in the steamy bathroom. My shin connects with the small wastepaper bin, and I yelp as it goes flying, scattering scrunched-up tissues and strings of dental floss and used cotton wool pads all over the floor. Cursing beneath my breath, I pick up the rubbish and put it back in the bin.

And then I stop.

I stare at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test stick in my hand. The significance of what this means, what Andy has done, drills into my heart. Our cleaner empties the bin every week, which means that since this pregnancy test isn’t mine, there’s only one other person it can belong to, the only other woman who has been here in the last fortnight.

Bella.

Three days before the party

Chapter 37

Louise

I hear Bella being sick in the bathroom as I’m getting Tolly ready for school. Leaving him half-dressed, I go into the hall and hover outside the bathroom door. ‘Darling, are you OK?’

The lavatory flushes. A moment later, the door opens. Bella looks pale, and beads of sweat dot her upper lip. ‘Sorry. We had fish tacos at school yesterday. I don’t think it was such a good idea.’

‘You don’t think it’s because of your concussion on Monday?’

‘Maybe.’

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