I lean against the door of Greg’s office, which I’ve just closed behind me.
‘I’ve just had a major run-in with Hilary.’
He looks up from his computer, removing the pen that he had gripped between his teeth.
‘She thinks I want to get rid of her,’ I say, walking towards him.
He frowns. ‘Why?’
I sit on the desk, facing him. ‘You told her it was my idea she might like to live out. Now she thinks I don’t want her here at all. What did you say to her?’
He pushes back his swivel chair. ‘I didn’t say it was anyone’s idea. But obviously I didn’t make myself clear . . .’
‘Can you remember what you said?’
He frowns. ‘Not exactly. Something along the lines of time moving on, her priorities changing and that I was sorry for not realising sooner. I told her if she wanted to move out when we got back to Ireland, that’d be fine.’
‘But you didn’t explain that it was just a suggestion; that she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to?’
‘I thought she’d assume that.’
‘She thinks I asked you to have her move out.’
He pumps the top of the pen with his thumb. ‘OK. No worries. It’s a simple misunderstanding. Let me have a word with her. See if I can clear it up. After all, we were thinking about her; we were trying to make her life easier.’
‘I know, but she doesn’t see it that way. And she seems to have made up her mind. You should have seen her; she was fuming.’
‘She’s a good person, Lucy. Honestly. Let me talk to her. We’ll probably all be laughing about this in a few days.’
‘Yeah,’ I say without conviction. I stand up. ‘Let’s go out for lunch, Greg. I need to get away from here for a while.’
He smiles. ‘You’re not the only one.’
That night, I phone Grace. Tell her everything.
‘God, she sounds uptight. What’s her problem?’
‘She thinks I’m trying to get rid of her.’
‘I know, but why? All you were doing was giving her the option of more freedom.’
‘I know. I know. But what if she’s right? What if, subconsciously, I suggested it because I want her gone? She makes me feel so inadequate. And I can never get near the kids with her always around. I can’t even have sex without worrying that she’ll hear. How weird is that?’
‘What’s weird is the way she’s reacting. At her age, she should be delighted at the prospect of having a social life, not attacking you for suggesting it. I’d watch out there, Lucy. She seems over-attached.’
‘She and Greg had sex once.’
‘What?’
‘Way back. Only once. When he was upset. He told me about it. It meant nothing to him . . .’
‘But what if it meant something to her? I’d get her out of the house.’
‘Grace, I can’t do that. I can’t ask him to fire her; she’s been with them so long. She’s part of the family. The children love her.’
‘All the more reason to get rid of her. She’s too close. I mean, come on, Lucy, she fucked him.’
‘Once. Five years ago. I can’t ask Greg to get rid of her. I can’t. This is a very difficult time for the children. They need routine, stability now’ – I’ve been reading my step-parenting books – ‘not to have one of the people they love most in the world sent away.’
‘You’re taking a gamble.’
‘Grace, even if I asked him to, he’d talk me out of it. I know he would. He thinks the world of her. He’s going to talk to her. It’ll be all right.’
‘OK. But you know what I think.’
‘How’s Kevin?’
‘Kevin? Do I know a Kevin? Because the name rings a faint bell.’
I smile. ‘Still working hard as ever?’
‘I’m jealous of his office chair. It sees more of his arse than I do.’
I laugh, scratching a mosquito bite near my ankle.
‘How’s work going?’ she asks.
‘Fine. I think I’ll pop over soon. I miss it.’
‘Good. I’m glad. I was worried you might quit.’
‘Why?’
‘A lot of stepmums do . . . To compensate, you know, for the “step” bit.’
‘But lots of biological mums work.’
‘It’s a guilt thing. Don’t fall for it. Whatever else happens, don’t give up work. Biggest mistake I ever made.’
‘But you wanted to . . .’
‘Yeah, I wanted to be the perfect mother.’
‘But you are.’
‘Lucy, there’s no such thing.’
‘You could go back to work.’
‘Are you kidding me? The kids would never see either of us. Everything would come crumbling down.’
‘You could get a nanny.’
‘After what you’ve told me? Forget it.’
Greg has spoken to Hilary. He says everything’s fine. It was just a misunderstanding. Still, I’m cautious, unable to forget her rage. I’m putting my swimsuit and towel into the washing machine at the villa when she appears. I risk extending an olive branch.
‘Hilary, I’m doing a coloured wash. Would you like to put anything in?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘The machine’s practically empty. Why don’t I save you a job?’
She sighs loudly, walks from the kitchen, returns with the laundry basket and drops it on the floor beside me.
Okaay. I sort the clothes and fill the machine. Then I’m stuck. I don’t know which cycle to select. I don’t want to ask Hilary, but squatting in front of the unfamiliar, French machine, I don’t have a choice.
‘What cycle do coloureds go in on, Hilary?’
She doesn’t answer. I turn around to see if she’s heard. She’s slicing tomatoes at great speed. I’m about to ask again when she looks up.
‘B,’ she says.
One cycle later, I’m pulling clothes from the machine, my face burning. Disaster. Rachel’s pale pink top: blue-grey. Greg’s yellow polo shirt: pea-soup green. Toby’s Bart Simpson T-shirt: blue-grey with patches of green. I’ve ruined at least one item belonging to everyone.
‘What did you do?’ Hilary asks, coming up behind me.
‘Nothing. I put them in on B, like you said . . .’
‘Not B. D. I said D.’
I’m stunned, sure she said B. I look at her. But her face is blank. Innocent. I don’t know what to think. She wouldn’t have done this on purpose, would she? She wouldn’t deliberately upset everyone just to get at me?
‘Never liked it anyway,’ Greg says about his top.
Toby bursts into tears. ‘Bart Simpson can’t be green. He just can’t. The Hulk is green. Not Bart Simpson.
Oh Jesus. ‘I’m sorry, Toby. Next time I’m in Dublin, I’ll buy you another, OK? I’ll buy you two.’ I’ll look in France, but as he got it in Dublin, I’d better not make promises.
And Rachel? Ah, Rachel.
‘Are you stupid or something?’ she spits when she sees her ruined top.
I’m speechless. My face flashes red.
Greg walks into the kitchen. ‘Rachel, what’s going on? I could hear you from my office. How dare you speak to Lucy like that?’
‘She ruined my good top.’
‘And that gives you the right to be rude? Lucy’s a guest here. Apologise this minute.’
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ he says.
I’m cringing.
‘Sorry, OK?’
‘You’re getting very cheeky, young lady. You’d better change your attitude. D’you hear me?’
‘Yes, Dad.’ More subdued.
‘Go to your room, immediately.’
She does. Not before giving me daggers.
Part of me wishes Greg had let me handle this; another knows I wouldn’t have known how.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ says Greg.
We drive to Cannes. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been. Everything seems lazy and slow. In the hazy distance, pale lilac mountains could be a mirage. Yachts and powerboats cut through the water, creating lines of white through blue. The sea sparkles like diamonds. Nowhere in the world would they be more appropriate. Lamborghinis, Porsches, Ferraris pull up outside five-star hotels. A line of upmarket boutiques – Dior, Chanel, Bvlgari – faces sun and sea, the elegant mannequins bizarrely dressed for winter, many draped in fur.
It’s too hot to walk along the seafront. We sit under an umbrella in the ultra-glam Martinez. I press my ice-filled glass to my face, then scoop out a cube and run it along my arms, legs and the back of my neck until it melts. I take another and slip it between my foot and flip-flop. I look up to find him gazing at me as if I’m a creature of great amusement.
‘Don’t you feel the heat?’ I ask.
‘No. But I’m glad you do.’
Two Japanese tourists sit down at the table next to us.
‘Ohayo gozaimasu,’ Greg says to them with a mini bow. Greg has recently taken up three languages – none of them French.
They nod, smile shyly and reply.
‘Ressun sono ichi,’ he says then.
They look at each other, then at him. They smile.
‘Ah, lesson number one,’ one translates.
We laugh.
Getting out alone with Greg always returns my sense of perspective – our relationship is what’s important; the rest will just take time.
We get back to the apartment that evening and sit on the balcony as the light leaves the sky, watching swallows swoop and dive through the branches of the eucalyptus, like fighter pilots on manoeuvres.
The following morning, there’s an email from Fint. Get Smart is up for a big pitch. Four agencies, three of them international, are in the running for an account to design the corporate identity for a retail giant planning a shopping mall in a busy suburb of Dublin. Fint wants me home next week to meet the managing director and take the brief.
I ring him straight away. He’s as excited as I am. This is an opportunity to move us up a notch, to become one of the big guys.
I go down to the villa to tell Greg. But he’s not there. According to a sour-looking Hilary, he has taken the children off on his own. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me. Still, he must need time alone with them, especially Rachel, so I just text him to have fun.
I return to the apartment to try to finish the projects I’m working on so I can be free next week to tackle that pitch.
At dinnertime, I return to the villa, assuming they’ll be back. They aren’t. I ring Greg. They’re in Cannes – at the kiddies’ bumper cars. He’d forgotten the time, but says they’ll grab a pizza rather than come home yet.
On my way out, I notice that Hilary has started to prepare dinner.
I let her know that they won’t be back.
She slams down a knife. ‘He could have told me.’
‘I think he lost track of time.’
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ She looks at the half-prepared food.
‘I’m sure it’ll keep till tomorrow.’
‘That’s not the point,’ she says, moodily.
I leave her to it.
At ten, Greg calls to say they’re on their way; he’ll meet me at the villa. I arrive before them and keep out of Hilary’s way, reading a book on the terrace. I get up when I hear the car outside. Greg bounds through the front door, an inflatable swimming ring around his neck, roller-blades in one hand, a giant, blow-up toothpaste tube under an arm, keys in his mouth, eyes incredibly bright. I stop laughing when I see the children, sunburnt and laden down with shopping bags and exhaustion. Rachel closes the door with her heel. Toby lets his bags spill onto the floor and slumps down beside them.
‘I’m thirsty,’ he says.
‘Anyone for a swim?’ Greg asks, heading for the pool.
Hilary’s face is thunderous. ‘Can’t he see they’re exhausted?’
I say nothing; just go to get two glasses of water. When I return to the hall, she’s lifting Toby up, muttering about how children need their sleep.
I follow them upstairs. When she settles Toby, I give him his drink and say goodnight.
Rachel refuses hers. I leave it by her bed, anyway.
I go back downstairs and out to the pool. Greg’s churning through the water like a human propeller. I stand and watch. Up, down, up, down. Not stopping, not resting. Where is he getting the energy? Is this what happens when he hits a creative burst? He overworks, then has to blow off steam? Is that what this is, some sort of stress? Looking at him is making me stressed. I call out that I’m going back to the apartment. He doesn’t seem to hear.
Next Part Will come Soon