She stared at Mr Nicholls. His face was sympathetic. But his voice was oddly firm. ‘Why are you on his side?’ she whispered.
‘I’m not on his side.’ His fingers closed around hers. ‘Look, we’ll all go find somewhere to eat. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. We stay close by and we can come back for her any time if she needs us.’
‘No. I’ll stay,’ said a voice from behind. ‘I’ll stay with her. So that she’s not by herself.’
Jess turned. Nicky was gazing out of the window. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ His face was a blank. ‘Anyway. I sort of want to hear what he says.’
Mr Nicholls saw Nicky to the front door. She watched her stepson, his long, lanky legs in his skinny black jeans, his diffident, awkward way of standing as the door opened to let him in. The blonde woman tried to smile at him. She peered surreptitiously past him at the car. It was possible, Jess observed distantly, that she was actually frightened of her. The door closed behind them. Jess shut her eyes, not wanting to see them there, in that house. Not wanting to imagine what was going on behind that door.
And then Mr Nicholls was in the car, bringing with him a blast of cold air. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s okay. We’ll be back before you know it.’
They sat in a roadside café. She couldn’t eat. She drank coffee, no longer caring if it would leave her awake. Mr Nicholls bought a sandwich and just sat there, opposite her. She wasn’t sure he knew what to say. Two hours, she kept telling herself. Two hours and then I can have them back. She just wanted to be home then. She wanted to be back in the car with her children, away from here. Away from Marty and his lies and his new girlfriend and pretend family. She didn’t care about anything else. She watched the clock hands edge round and let her coffee cool. Every minute felt like infinity.
And then, ten minutes before they were due to leave, the phone rang. Jess snatched it up. A number she didn’t recognize. Marty’s voice. ‘Can you leave them with me tonight?’
It knocked the breath clean out of her.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, when she could find her voice. ‘You don’t get to keep them, just like that.’
‘I’m just … trying to explain it all to them.’
‘Well, good luck with that. Because I’m damned if I understand it.’ Her voice lifted in the little café. She saw the people at the nearby tables turn their heads.
‘I couldn’t tell you, Jess, okay? Because I knew you’d react like you did.’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault. Of course it is!’
‘We were over. You knew it as well as I did.’
She was standing. She wasn’t aware of having got to her feet. Mr Nicholls, for some reason, stood too. ‘I couldn’t give a flying f**k about you and me, okay? But we’ve been living on the breadline since you left, and now I find out you’re living with someone else, with your brand-new sofa and your shiny car, supporting her kids. Even as you said you couldn’t lift a finger for ours. Yes, it’s just possible I’m going to react badly to that one, Marty.’
‘It’s not my money I’m living on. It’s Linzie’s money. I can’t use her money to pay for your kids.’
‘My kids? My kids?’ She was out from behind the table now, walking blindly towards the door. She was dimly aware of Mr Nicholls, summoning the waitress.
‘Look,’ said Marty, ‘Tanzie really wants to stay over. She’s obviously upset about this maths thing. She asked me to ask you. Please.’
Jess couldn’t speak. She just stood in the cold car park, her eyes closed, her knuckles white around the phone.
‘Plus I really want to sort things out with Nicky.’
‘You are … unbelievable.’
‘Just – just let me sort things out with the kids, please? You and I, we can talk afterwards. But just tonight, while they’re here. I’ve missed them, Jess. I know, I know it’s all my fault. I know I’ve been rubbish. But I’m actually glad it’s all out there. I’m glad you know what’s going on. And I just … I want to move forward now.’
She stared ahead of her at the car park. In the distance a police car’s blue lights flashed. Her foot had begun to throb. She stood in the car park and put her hand against her face and finally she said, ‘Put Tanzie on.’
There was a short silence, the sound of a door. Jess took a deep breath.
‘Mum?’
‘Tanze? Sweetheart? Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. They’ve got terrapins. One has a gammy leg. It’s called Mike. Can we get a terrapin?’
‘We’ll talk about it.’ She could hear a saucepan clash in the background, the sound of a tap running. ‘Um, you really want to spend the night? You don’t have to, you know. You just … you do whatever makes you feel happy.’
‘I would quite like to stay. Suzie’s nice. She’s going to lend me her High School Musical pyjamas.’
‘Suzie?’
‘Linzie’s daughter. It’s going to be like a sleepover. And she has those beads where you make a picture and stick it together with an iron.’
‘Right.’
There was a brief silence. Jess could hear muffled talking in the background.
‘So what time are you picking me up tomorrow?’
She swallowed, and tried to keep her voice level. ‘After breakfast. Nine o’clock. And if you change your mind, you just call me, okay? Any time. And I’ll pick you up straight away. Even if it’s the very middle of the night. It doesn’t matter.’