Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘But I thought you loved me,’ she repeated blindly.

‘I do love you, I just wanted to fuck somebody else,’ Felix explained. ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to do that?’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘I haven’t. You are enough for me.’

‘Jesus, you women and your obsession with what’s enough! It’s like red wine,’ he said, holding up his glass. ‘Just because I like it, doesn’t mean I want to drink it all the time. Sometimes I like whiskey or champagne.’

‘What am I, then? The dregs? Cheap wine of the screw-top bottle variety?’ she said, starting to cry.

Felix downed his wine in one gulp and headed for the door. ‘If you’re going to carry on like that, I’m leaving. I’ll stay with Bill for a few days, let you cool down.’

She wanted to beg him not to go but, miserable as she was, she knew she couldn’t completely degrade herself. She could hear him upstairs, throwing stuff into a bag. Within ten minutes, he was gone and Hannah allowed herself to cry properly. Claudia joined in.

When they’d both stopped, Hannah felt as worn out as if she’d swum fifty lengths. She made herself a cup of tea and considered her options.

She longed to phone Leonie, to hear her friend’s kind, comforting and sensible advice. Leonie would know what to do. She always did. But Hannah couldn’t phone her. She was too raw and hurt. It would be painful and humiliating to admit what had happened. Instead, she cleaned the house, tidying up the worst excesses of the partygoers. She scrubbed and polished, working until her arms ached with cleaning. Claudia watched and dozed. Eventually, Hannah stopped and sat down on the couch to watch Blind Date. The opening music had just ended when the phone rang and Hannah leapt to it, hoping it was Felix, phoning to declare his undying love and to apologize, both of which were highly unlikely. It was her mother. Anna Campbell always phoned on a Saturday night before she went to bingo with her friends. It was a comforting ritual they’d got into, discussing their week and sorting out the world’s problems.

‘Hello, Hannah,’ said her mother, who was not the sort of person given to saying ‘Hello, darling.’

Hannah burst into tears.

‘It’s Felix, isn’t it?’ Anna said matter-of-factly.

Hannah sobbed more loudly. It was a few minutes before she could control her sobs enough to tell the whole sorry tale. She left nothing out. Her instinct to keep the most humiliating bits to herself had left her, like Felix.

‘Come home, Hannah,’ said Anna Campbell when she’d heard everything. ‘You’re banging your head against a brick wall. Do it. I should have done it years ago, but I never had the courage. You’re young, you’ve got the child to think of, leave him.’

Hannah leaned her head against the cool of the wall. ‘I can’t just leave,’ she said weakly.

‘Why not? Because he’s everything you ever wanted?’ Anna sounded sour. ‘What will you do the next time? Because there will be a next time, you know.’

‘What would I do?’ Hannah said in desperation.

‘Your boss would give you back your job, wouldn’t he?’ Anna said. ‘You’ve always said he was one man you could trust in any situation.’

‘David James, you mean?’ Hannah fell silent. She could hardly ask David, of all people. She’d spurned his advances in every sense of the word. He’d obviously been crazy about her and she’d rubbed his face in it. He’d even given her a career when she had nothing else and she’d turned her back on that too. He’d done his best to protect her by warning Felix not to hurt her, dear David. He’d be the last person she could ring, even if she wanted to. And she wanted to.

‘Why don’t you phone him, Hannah? You can stay with me for a week or so to get you back on your feet and then go back to work. Leonie would have you, or that nice Donna you talked about. You could get a place for yourself and Claudia in no time, and a creèhe. I don’t know why you think you can’t.’

‘I can’t explain,’ Hannah said in exasperation. She felt too shattered to think straight, never mind make such a cataclysmic decision. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said tiredly. The Blind Date music played in the background. They’d been talking for an hour.

‘Your phone bill will be horrendous, Mum, and you’ll miss bingo,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’

‘To hell with bingo,’ her mother said.

‘I’ll phone tomorrow,’ Hannah repeated. She didn’t want to be told what to do any more. She wanted to lick her wounds in peace. She wanted to have a bath and rinse away all the horrible things that had been happening.

The wrapper said it was a butterball, scented with vanilla, ylang ylang and with a helping of cocoa butter to soften your skin.

Hannah carefully unwrapped the bath bomb from its plastic covering and dropped it into the bath. It immediately began to fizz in the water, releasing a glorious scent of vanilla into the air, like freshly baked cakes mixed with the soft scent of a baby’s skin. She breathed it in and sighed. Her body ached for a hot bath. She never had time for them any more. Claudia was so demanding that a two-minute shower snatched between naps was the extent of Hannah’s beauty routine. She hadn’t conditioned her hair in weeks purely because it took too long to rinse the conditioner out of it. And as for face masks, forget it. Having a bath with a butterball bomb in it was the ultimate in sensual excitement these days. The hairdresser had tut-tutted about the state of her hair yesterday. Yesterday, before the party, it seemed a hundred years ago.

Opening the bathroom door, she gingerly crept into her bedroom and peered into the cot. Claudia was lying on her back, covers bunched up around her feet and one fat little hand crammed against her mouth. In sleep, she was like a cherub from a medieval painting: her dark hair curled around her head, her cheeks rosy and her expression angelic. Awake, she was very keen on having her own way, with the most beguiling smile in the world when she was happy. The rush of love hit Hannah again like an express train. She would never have believed you could love somebody so much. She simply couldn’t bear to be away from Claudia. They spent hours playing together, Hannah patiently showing her toys and objects, Claudia delightedly crowing when she got to bite something. She bit everything, from towels to fingers, and had a remarkably strong grip for a small baby. In fact, Hannah was worried that the kitten would find her tail in Claudia’s strong little hand and that neither would enjoy the experience. She loved the kitten but wished Felix had thought about it when he bought it. Kittens and babies were not necessarily the best housemates. But Felix didn’t care about the effect of his actions: he just did things and let other people pick up the pieces.

Satisfied that Claudia was asleep, Hannah stripped off her jeans and sweatshirt and underwear and sank gratefully into the steaming water. Drifting mentally as the hot water soothed the aches in her body, she faced the pain. Felix had betrayed her and would probably do it again. In choosing Mercedes, he’d shown his contempt for Hannah.

It hit her like a flash of lightning, a coup de foudre, as Mercedes would say. If she stayed, she’d be doing what her mother had done. Sticking it out for the sake of the children. Hadn’t Hannah railed against her mother for just that? Railed against the reasoning that insisted on maintaining the status quo, at no matter what personal cost. Ever since she’d been old enough to hear her father knocking over the furniture when he staggered home, drunk out of his mind, Hannah had wondered why her mother hadn’t left – or thrown him out. The answer was that Anna Campbell’s generation didn’t believe in that type of thing. They married for life – a life sentence as Hannah saw it. Her plan had always been to escape that sort of life and control her own destiny. Having a career and being independent was the only way out of marital slavery, and yet she’d followed her mother’s path as faithfully as if they were identical twins: getting involved with two men who’d used and abused her, both of whom had taken away her self-belief and left her like a hollowed-out gourd, empty and useless. First Harry, then Felix. If Harry hadn’t walked away, she’d have still been with him. Hoping they’d get married and settle down, when, in reality, Harry was incapable of settling down.

And now Felix was using her and humiliating her. If she stayed, he’d continue to do it, confident that he’d get away with any number of indiscretions, knowing that Hannah would be waiting for him dutifully, a sweet wifey who’d never walk out. No, she thought with growing horror, no way. The only way to break the pattern was to take control and leave him. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she longed for him. She was crazy about Felix, she longed for him physically, yearned for his smile, hungered to be with him when they were apart. But it was one-sided. She knew that in relationships there was always one who loved more. And that was the one who wasn’t in control. She was that person and Felix would make the most of it. Unless she left him now. Otherwise, both she and Claudia would suffer. She couldn’t let her daughter grow up in a family where the notion of respect was nothing more than a sham. She imagined Claudia at twenty, talking about her childhood memories and recalling Daddy screwing other women when Mummy was out and he thought Claudia was too young to take notice.

She got out of the bath and wrapped herself in her old blue towelling dressing gown. In the bedroom, Claudia gurgled at her mother, waking up and demanding love and attention. Hannah picked her up and marvelled at Felix’s incredible eyes staring out at her from Claudia’s cherubic baby face. He’d always be part of her life because of Claudia. Which was only right. Hannah didn’t believe in separating a parent from their child. But he wouldn’t be a part of her life, not in that way. She’d be destroyed if he was.

‘How would you like to go to Connemara?’ Hannah crooned to Claudia, who smiled her gummy smile.

Leonie was washing her hair when the phone rang. Streams of shampoo bubbles rushed down her neck as she squeezed her hair quickly and wrapped a towel around her head turban-style. She raced to the phone, panting in her eagerness. It might be Doug, after all. He’d been in Dublin all day and she was dying to talk to him. It still amazed her how much she missed him when they weren’t together. They were planning a quiet Saturday night in with the twins, a video and a takeaway. She couldn’t wait.

‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly, feeling the trails of water disappearing down her neck and into her sweater.

‘Hi, Leonie, it’s Emma. Can you talk?’ said Emma in her lovely husky voice.

‘Course, love. How are you?’ Leonie said, using the corner of the towel to dry her neck. She sat down on the small stool beside the phone. Her hair could wait. She hadn’t spoken to Emma for at least a week.

‘I’m fine,’ Emma said. ‘Actually, I’m more than fine, I’m absolutely delirious. You’ll never guess what’s happened.’

‘What?’

‘Are you sitting down?’

‘Yes,’ Leonie said nervously. ‘It’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘The best.’ Even over the phone, Emma’s triumph was apparent. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Leonie squealed. ‘OhmiGod! That’s incredible, Emma. I’m so happy for you.’

She felt the tears swell up in her eyes. Darling Emma had wanted this for so long; she’d gone through hell trying to get pregnant and she’d be such a wonderful mother. ‘I’m so thrilled, that’s wonderful news.’

‘I know.’ On the other end of the line, Emma’s own eyes were brimming too. ‘I never ever thought this would happen, Leonie. I’d wondered would I ever be pregnant. Even when we decided to get on the IVF programme, I didn’t know if it would work.’

As Emma spoke, her fingers idly stroked her still totally flat belly lovingly.

‘How far are you gone?’ Leonie asked anxiously.

‘Six weeks,’ Emma said. ‘Imagine, me six weeks pregnant and not knowing it until a few days ago.’ She laughed joyously. ‘Let me tell you all about it.’

She and Pete had made their appointment with the IVF clinic for the following month and Emma had been immersing herself in the literature she’d been sent. She wanted to know everything before their appointment, so she read and re-read about the strain the treatment put on couples, about how her ovaries would be stimulated with hormone injections and about precisely how her eggs would be collected. It all sounded daunting.

The literature recommended starting the IVF cycle at a time when work wasn’t too busy. Emma couldn’t imagine a busier time in KrisisKids: they were about to move to bigger premises and, because of a horrific child-abuse case which had gripped the nation over the past few weeks, the counsellors and Edward were in great demand to talk about the charity’s work.

The phones had never stopped hopping, the publicity department was in chaos because Finn had been struck down by food poisoning, and Emma had been coping with his work as well as her own. By Thursday morning, she was exhausted and couldn’t summon up the energy to get out of bed when the clock went off at half six.