Jack looked up. ‘What?’
‘Do you want to help me with an article I’m doing?’
He narrowed his eyes, uncertain. Stella never asked for any involvement in what she was writing. He usually just read about their souped-up life over his Shredded Wheat. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s called Marriage MOT,’ she said.
‘Oh Jesus, Stella. We just said everything was fine.’
‘Well, then it should be easy.’
Jack tipped his head back against the wall. ‘What do we have to do?’
‘You know the type of thing: are you having enough sex? Are you listening enough to each other? Harbouring any grievances … blah blah blah.’ She tried to spin it all casual.
Jack sighed. ‘I’m not harbouring any grievances.’
‘Great,’ she said. ‘We’ll tick that off the list.’
Jack thought about it and frowned. ‘We have enough sex, don’t we?’
‘Well that’s what we test. You think you’re fine but you can never be completely sure until you check. Like when we had the car done and he said the brake pads were worn out.’
‘Would the sex be the brake pads?’
‘Maybe?’ Stella smiled.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my brake pads,’ said Jack, puffing his chest out.
‘I’m not sure that analogy makes sense.’ Stella shook her head.
There was a pause. Jack bit down on his lip. ‘I don’t know, Stel. Seems all a bit forced.’
‘Yeah but maybe it’ll be fun. At the very least it might stop us from becoming like them,’ she said, angling her head towards her parents’ bedroom. ‘I don’t want you to go missing.’
Jack looked at her, his eyes softening. ‘I don’t want you to go missing either.’ Then he shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. ‘All right, fine.’ He slid his phone onto the bedside table. Stella did a little cheer and came round the bed to get in next to him, the beautifully ironed sheet crisp and momentarily cool. ‘So, what’s the first step of this MOT?’ he asked.
‘We have to start having loads of sex,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Jack looked sort of intrigued.
Stella nodded, the pillow soft beneath her head.
Jack nodded.
There was a pause as they lay in the sticky humid heat.
‘But I’m really tired,’ Stella said.
‘Thank God for that.’ Jack exhaled with relief. ‘Me too.’
Moira caused quite a stir in the morning – while everyone else was either clearing up the breakfast things or, in the case of Sonny and Gus, playing on their phones while Rosie was watching TV – by hoiking her bag onto her shoulder and saying as boldly as she could, ‘Righto, I’m off to my book club.’
Glances had been exchanged.
‘What about Dad?’
‘There’s enough of you to cover all the bases,’ Moira said quickly before adding, ‘Sonny, can you look after the dog?’ and leaving the house without really waiting for an answer.
She didn’t know the protocol of going to one’s book club while one’s husband was missing but if she was quite honest, Moira just had to get away. She loved her children but when they were all in the house together sometimes it just got too overwhelming. She felt herself retreat like a snail; every comment about her clothes, her hair colour, her plans of action, her dog’s stupid name – every one left her edging away, till she hurried out to book club without even thinking about the propriety of it.
It was another bright, hazy day. She wove her way through the back lanes to the village, the sun piercing through the overhanging canopy of leaves to banks of lush ferns, the car clipping the odd wayward frond in her haste. In the past Moira would never have dreamed of joining anything like a book club. There was a twinge of shame now when she thought back. She’d always seen herself as rather above it all. She’d happily indulge in a bit of village gossip but always with the aloof air that she was humouring them all, donating a little of her very precious time. Her husband was an Olympic hero.
She had to touch her face now as she coloured at the cringing memories. Every summer Moira was renowned for throwing a party, a lavish summer bash – strings of Venetian lanterns bobbing across the garden, long tables laid with glasses and drinks served by kids from the private school dressed up as waiters, candles lighting the drive, a gazebo with a band. One year she’d made the marquee men pause their work to help her trail an extension lead all the way over the cliff edge to the beach in order to floodlight the sea. It had been magical. Now, it all seemed a bit too showy-off – done for herself rather than the guests. Her moment in the spotlight. She hadn’t thrown a party since Amy’s Bobby had died and she knew she would never reinstate the tradition. In the past she had viewed herself as the aspirational hostess. Now, she wondered if people had perhaps scorned her behind her back, enjoyed but ridiculed the ostentation. Pitied her even. They knew how often Graham was away. She hadn’t consciously done it for the attention but in retrospect it seemed so wincingly obvious.
She knew Stella would say not to worry about what people thought, to just live as you liked, that at the end of the day no one cared. But they did care. Moira knew they cared. She knew because she cared. She judged Joyce Matthews in the village for having a cleaner – how hard was it to clean your own home? She judged the mayor’s wife for having her Waitrose shopping delivered – get out into the community, for goodness sake. She judged the Adamses for having a monstrous new extension that looked like an alien invasion to house a live-in nanny so they could work all hours – those little children needed to see their parents. She knew what Stella would say to that as well. Tell her that the parents had a right to be happy too. And Moira would have to bite her tongue to prevent herself from snapping back, ‘Did I? I gave up everything for your father and you kids.’
It was her new friend Mitch who had called her on it. Walking the dogs one day on the beach, he had told her she was jealous when she had been muttering about the cleaner.
Moira had felt herself bristle. ‘I’m not jealous.’
He’d laughed. Easy and carefree. Not looking her way. ‘Yes, you are. Bitching is jealousy. It always is.’
She’d gone to say something but hesitated. Feeling both astonishment and affront at being called on her behaviour. Graham never called her on anything, just nodded along at her stories.
‘It’s not bitching, it’s an opinion.’
‘It’s a judgement,’ Mitch had said, his smile irritating. His chin raised to enjoy the wind in their faces. ‘And not a very nice one. Why shouldn’t she have a cleaner? She’s busy. She has other focuses for her time.’
‘It doesn’t take very long to run a Hoover about the house.’
‘Moira.’ Mitch had stopped, his bare feet in the sand, his mutt that was humbly just called Dog on a long piece of faded orange rope, yapping at the surf. ‘If you could go back in time and have a cleaner and a live-in nanny, keep your job, and go for a drink on a Friday night guilt-free, would you? Do you think the kids would have turned out any different?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Moira felt herself getting defensive. ‘Yes, I think they probably would.’ Would they? She wondered. Amy might be a bit less dramatic. A bit more self-sufficient. Stella would be much the same. She paused, or perhaps if Moira had had something else to focus on, their