Mistakes We Make (10 page)

‘Nice lad you’ve got yourself.’ She could remember his words, spoken in this very room. ‘Sensible. Straightforward. Steady.’

She’d thought that too, hadn’t she? Until he’d become more and more tied up at work, and mounting stress had made him ill tempered.

Her father said, ‘I wish you and Adam would ... I thought maybe—’

‘I know.’ She tried to make it as gentle as she could. ‘But it’s not going to happen, Dad. He’s got someone else. I met her last weekend. She’s absolutely gorgeous, another lawyer, I think, so she’ll be perfect for him.’

They can talk divorces together, she thought bitterly.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’ll have to talk to him.’

‘You said there were two things.’

‘What?’ Molly’s mind was full of what talking to Adam might entail. They’d agreed he would live in the house until they decided what to do. He’d been good about it, but the arrangement suited both of them. Now she was going to change that, how would he react?

‘The other thing?’ She cleared her throat. ‘The company’s based in London.’

She watched him carefully. His reaction would tell her everything she needed to know, however much he might try to hide it.

‘Yes, well, it was bound to be, wasn’t it? I mean, that’s where all the money is.’

His eyes flickered, the movement magnified by the lenses. So he did mind.

‘If you hate the idea, I won’t go.’

She didn’t want him to know how much it cost her to utter those words.

‘You don’t need to worry about me.’

‘But I do, Dad. Of course I do.’

‘I’m not useless, my darling. I can take care of myself.’

Molly looked at the huge eyes, then down at his hands. They were getting arthritic, but he never complained.

‘Barnaby says I can take care of any work we get in Scotland. I can be here quite a lot. Maybe I could even park myself back in my old room a couple of nights a week.’

‘Stop, love.’ He held up one of his hands. ‘You don’t need to justify your decision. Go. Follow your dream. I’m proud of you. And I’ll be fine.’

Molly slipped off the high stool and moved round the breakfast bar to hug him.

‘Thanks, Dad. I’ll let you know how it all goes. Come on.’ She held out one hand and helped him off his stool. ‘We’d better get going. It’s all very well to make a grand entrance, but we don’t want to keep people waiting too long for your own party, do we?’

When Molly and Adam had bought their house together, they had chosen to live in Edinburgh’s north suburbs near the Forth estuary. The house had needed gutting to strip out old wiring, antiquated plumbing and damp plaster And it had been even more work than they’d anticipated, but they’d done it. They had drawn up a plan of action together, made lists (Molly), gathered competitive tenders (Adam) and managed the transformation from rundown, dilapidated dump into smart contemporary-but-classic home.

Our forever home
Adam had said. But then things had started to change.

The rows had begun gradually. They hadn’t even argued; a lot of the time, there had just been silences. Awful, mean little silences, born of a determination not to snap at each other perhaps, but somehow the lack of words had been worse.

Could she blame Adam for it all?

Molly, only half listening to her father as she negotiated her car through the busy Edinburgh streets, wondered why in heaven’s name she was thinking about all this now. Today of all days.

‘I can’t even remember the last time I saw your Aunt Mima,’ her father was saying.

‘It must have been my thirtieth,’ Molly answered, her brain on automatic.

Of course – that was what had brought Adam into her head. The last family party had been her big three-o. A pig roast and a ceilidh at that school with the gorgeous garden. All their friends had been there, laughing and dancing – and Adam, being Adam, had presented her with a smart new backpack with slots for walking poles, zipped pockets for a phone and maps, hooks for keys or crampons or a whistle. And a voucher, she remembered, for a weekend at the Loch Melfort Hotel.

Had they ever used that voucher? She could not remember going. Perhaps it was still sitting in its envelope somewhere, tucked behind the sculpture on the mantelpiece in the living room, overlooked by both of them when she’d moved out.

An awful thought struck her – he hadn’t used it last weekend, had he? Spent the voucher – 
her
voucher – on that Sunita woman?

‘The lights have changed.’

‘What? Oh, sorry.’ She indicated left and moved forward.

‘Where are we going? Are you going to reveal it yet?’

‘Patience, Dad,’ she said, teasing. ‘It’s a surprise, remember.’

A surprise? The real surprise had been her thirty-first birthday. No pig roast that year, no ceilidh band, no dance, just the promise of a dinner for two somewhere special.

A promise betrayed.

Molly would never forget that morning – the frisson of excitement, waiting for the birthday gift, the one that never appeared. The disappointment when there was no birthday greeting, not even a card. He’ll make up for it later, she told herself all day. But he hadn’t. She’d gone to work, gone home, waited. Nothing. Just a brief muttered call – ‘I’ll be late, Moll. Sorry. See you later. Don’t wait up’ – terminated abruptly. He’d been in a meeting, that much was clear. And he’d forgotten her birthday, that was even clearer.

Then Lexie had rung, cheerful and full of congratulations.

‘Is Adam taking you out? Where are you going?’

‘No. He’s at work.’ Trying to sound nonchalant.

‘He’s not! What a rat! Are you going tomorrow instead?’

Molly, determined to be cool, not to betray anything of the deep hurt and disappointment she was feeling – 
it’s only a birthday
 – had burst into tears.

Lexie had been filled with protective indignation. ‘Listen, I’m about to head into town with Jamie. He’s at a loose end tonight and I’m doing nothing special, so we thought we’d treat ourselves to a nice meal. Now we can treat you too. Even better!’

Molly had known Jamie Gordon since primary school. She’d sat across the supper table from him at Lexie’s house more times than she could count, but she couldn’t remember the last time they’d met.

‘Sure you don’t mind me gatecrashing?’

‘He’s my
brother
,’ Lexie had said, laughing.

It had been a memorable evening. Molly’s mood had edged from self-pity to gratitude, and from there to genuine enjoyment. She’d forgotten how uncomplicated Jamie Gordon was. He was cheerful, funny and very physically attractive. He turned heads. She’d watched, amused, as first one girl found an excuse to brush past him at the bar and stop to apologise breathlessly, then another. Jamie was oblivious to their attentions. He appeared to be without vanity, which had made him all the sexier.

‘Lights, Molly. Stop!’

She braked and they were both thrown forward.

‘Sorry!’

‘What on earth are you thinking about, lass? I’d quite like to get to my party in one piece.’

‘Sorry,’ she said again. She really must concentrate; she’d almost shot the lights and it was a busy junction, but the past had slid into her head and she couldn’t shift it.

That was how it had begun. As she had become slowly estranged from Adam, she had found herself turning more and more to Jamie for companionship.

That’s all it is, she’d excused herself. Surely Adam could not begrudge her some fun when he was working? These days, he seemed to spend every weekend that he wasn’t in the office out on the hills and she’d increasingly found excuses not to join him. The dry humour she’d once liked so much had turned acerbic. Jamie, by contrast, was straightforward. He laughed a lot, took her to the ten-pin bowling alley, insisted she make up a team for the quiz night at the pub in town, or invited her to keep him company at some movie or other.

I’ll tell Adam soon, Molly had promised herself again and again. When he’s got time to listen.

One night, mildly drunk, Jamie had leapfrogged over a cast-iron bollard, misjudged it and fallen, clutching his groin and roaring with laughter, onto the cobbled street. She’d gripped his hand and pulled him up, anticipating that she’d have to support him all the way to the station and manhandle him somehow on to the train back to Hailesbank. But she had underestimated Jamie’s fitness and, before she realised what was happening, he was on his feet and his arms were around her.

The sudden closeness took them both by surprise, and then his mouth was on hers, his kiss hungry, and she was kissing him back, as if desperate to slake a thirst she had not known even existed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice hoarse, when at last he pulled back an inch and looked into her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

‘Shut up.’ She hooked her hands around the back of his head and pulled him towards her again.

I’ll tell Adam, she said in her head. Soon.

But she hadn’t told him, and in the end he had found out in the worst possible way.

‘Here we are,’ she said to Billy, spotting a parking space in Heriot Row and pulling the car smartly into it. ‘It’s not far now.’

The beginning of something new always promises joy. Endings are more complicated.

The mistakes we make, she thought, can sometimes destroy us
.

––––––––

N
ow that she had negotiated the streets of Edinburgh successfully, if a little raggedly, Molly was looking forward to the party she had arranged.

They were late, but only by a few minutes, and that was the birthday guest’s prerogative.

‘Here they are!’

‘They’re here!’

‘All together everybody!’

‘Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Billy—’

Billy sniffed. Laughing tenderly, Molly unhooked her arm from her father’s and pulled out a handkerchief. ‘Here. I knew you’d need it!’

‘Silly!’

Billy waved her away, embarrassed, but he took the hankie, removed his glasses, blew his nose loudly, then set off on a round of greetings.

‘Hello, Mima! Hello, Frank! And Joe! Good to see you, mate.’

Molly stood and watched affectionately. Dear Dad. He’d been so brave since Mum died. He’d never remarried (‘no-one could ever match your mum’) and he’d borne the burden of bringing her up with uncomplaining good cheer. She owed him so much.

‘You’ve done well, Molly.’

She turned at the voice. Adrienne was by her side, her neat brown bob immaculate, her nails a perfect glossy purple, her Armani suit probably straight off the racks in Harvey Nicks.

‘Thank you.’ Molly stooped for the obligatory air kiss.

She had little in common with Adrienne. Logan’s wife had been cabin crew with British Airways, but she’d conceived Alastair soon after the wedding (neatly planned, Molly judged) and had given up working at once. And it was work, not children, that defined Molly.

She said, ‘I’m just so pleased we’re all here. We are all here, aren’t we? I can’t see Logan.’

Adrienne wrinkled her small nose in what Molly took to be a token of apology. ‘He said he might be a bit late – but he is coming. He promised,’ she added hastily as Molly’s eyes darkened.

‘Really! He is impossible!’

‘Tell me about it.’ Adrienne shifted her clutch bag from under one arm to under the other and reached for a glass of champagne offered by a passing waiter. ‘I swear he’s got worse recently. Sorry,’ she said, this time with a moue, ‘not the day to complain.’

Molly was surprised. She’d never heard Adrienne sound anything other than effervescent, confident of her status in life and bolstered by the expensiveness of the possessions with which she surrounded herself.

‘Don’t worry,’ she found herself consoling Adrienne, ‘there’s time enough.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We can enjoy drinks for another ten or fifteen minutes. Have you called him?’

‘His phone’s off.’

‘Ah. Don’t Alastair and Ian look smart!’ Molly changed the subject with practised adroitness. She’d dealt with enough crises in her time to be skilled in smoothing things over.

‘They’re great.’ Adrienne’s face softened as she looked across the room to her children, and maternal pride replaced tension. ‘At least we’re all getting a holiday soon. Logan has promised to take ten days off work and we’re heading off to Botswana for a safari at half term. One of the luxury experiences, of course, glamping in Africa.’

‘Sounds wonderful.’ And another extortionate expense. Logan
was
doing well. But at what cost to family life? Surely no hastily snatched holiday could compensate for the lack of his day-to-day presence? ‘How old’s Alastair now?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Golly, how quickly they grow up,’ Molly said with a flash of guilt. She should get to know her nephews better. She studied Alastair from across the room – tousle-headed, a little overweight, and all his attention firmly on some game he was playing on his mobile phone – and the recollection of Barnaby Fletcher’s offer flooded back again. She still hadn’t given him her reply – but if she accepted, there’d be even less chance of becoming a proper auntie to these two boys.

Near her, she sensed a small commotion, a swirling and moving of people, an opening up of a space, and she saw that Logan had arrived.

‘Happy Birthday, Dad!’

Molly surveyed her brother with the familiar mix of affection and exasperation. He had such easy charm. He’d always found everything so easy. He was naturally gifted, sailed through school and university, and was made a partner at the firm within five years of starting there – but recently, he’d changed. With the growing trappings of wealth had come something else: tension.

Logan hooked an arm round his father and said proudly to the room at large, ‘Isn’t he wonderful? He doesn’t look a day over eighty,’ causing a ripple of laughter and sparking a gleam in Billy’s eyes that brought a lump to Molly’s throat all over again.

Damn! She was emotional today.

Molly was used to stress. She knew it could lodge in your neck, or your spine, or your guts, and send you into a downward spiral. Stress could tear you apart; it could freeze you so that your capacity to make decisions was destroyed. But it could also be a positive and Molly had always thrived on low-level stress. She made more lists, became more efficient, got more done.