The House on Willow Street

‘But, Mum, it’s shepherd’s pie. I hate shepherd’s pie,’ moaned Kitty.

‘Last night you said you hated roast chicken and you promised you’d be really good and eat your dinner tonight,’ Tess pointed out. ‘Come on now, you made a pinkie promise.’

If you hooked baby fingers and said ‘pinkie promise’, there was no going back on your word. A pinkie promise could not be broken.

‘OK,’ moaned Kitty, with all the misery of someone being forced into a ten-mile trek in the dark.

Zach wolfed down his dinner and came back for seconds, while Kitty pushed hers around the plate. Tess was too tired to argue with her.

‘Eat one bit of broccoli and you’re done.’

‘Do I have to?’ moaned Kitty.

Tess gave up.

She was washing the dishes when the doorbell rang.

‘That’s your dad,’ she said. ‘Will you get it, Zach?’

Zach hurried out to open the door. A few seconds later Kevin appeared on the threshold of the kitchen looking awkwardly around him as if he needed to be invited into the room.

‘Come on in, Kevin, sit down. Do you want a cup of tea? Did you bring any biscuits?’ she asked.

‘Erm, yes. Here, they are.’ He handed a package to Tess formally.

What was wrong, she wondered. He looked uncomfortable and unhappy. It had to be money. One of his big jobs had been cancelled, that must be it. How were they going to cope? Paying the mortgage was hard enough already. Now, with her business down on last year and Kevin’s income taking a dive, it was hard to see how they could manage. Maybe she really would have to give up the shop and try to find other work.

Kevin sat at the table and chatted to Zach and Kitty. He was like his old self with them, and that made Tess feel better. Children needed a father and she needed … Well, she liked having him around. She wasn’t in love with him, but she did care about him, and perhaps that was enough. All this talk about pure true love that would survive anything and still be as fiercely strong twenty years later – that was just fairy-story rubbish, or maybe movie-story rubbish. In movies, people adored each other for ever. Of course, in real Hollywood life, staying together for even seven years was considered a record-breaking marriage.

But in Tess’s life, normal life in Avalon, perhaps loving and respecting the man you were married to was enough. Everyone got irritated by their husband or wife. Everyone sometimes wondered if there wasn’t more to life. For a brief second, she thought of that wild passion she’d had with Cashel, then she reminded herself: look where that had got her. Wild passion didn’t last. Wild passion ended badly. No, security and love and raising a family together were the things that counted. She resolved to say it all when they were alone. As she made the tea, she rehearsed in her mind how she’d explain it:

Kevin, I’m sorry, I was wrong about the whole separation thing. It was a stupid idea, but it’s shown me that we should be together after all, that what we have is wonderful. Please come back and we’ll start again.

By the time the tea was ready, Zach was gathering up his gigantic bag ready to trundle off and do his homework.

‘Kitty, upstairs and get into your jammies,’ said Tess. ‘And don’t forget to brush your teeth. Then you can come down and watch twenty minutes of Disney Channel before it’s time for bed, OK?’

‘OK, Mum,’ said Kitty, running across to give her father a huge hug on her way out.

Instead of launching into whatever was worrying him as soon as Kitty was gone, Kevin stared deep into his cup, as if the secrets to life were contained therein.

‘I know what you’ve come to talk about,’ Tess said. ‘I understand. I mean, it’s difficult, obviously it’s going to be difficult, but other people have been through worse. We’ll manage somehow.’

Kevin looked up at her, incomprehension in his eyes. ‘You know?’ he said.

‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I guessed: the finances. We have to do something, don’t we? I really think I’m going to have to close the shop and get a job somewhere else.’

‘Oh Lord.’ He went quite pale, which was no mean feat because Kevin’s face was always weathered from being outdoors. ‘That wasn’t what I came here to say,’ he said.

‘Go on, then.’ Tess took another biscuit. He’d got them from the deli. A local lady named Madeleine made them and she really was the most marvellous person at baking. Her Christmas cakes were much in demand; the last couple of years she’d baked one for Kevin and Tess, wonderfully decorated with sugarcraft Santas, reindeers and penguins – all manner of Christmas things that Kitty and even Zach adored.

‘It’s not about money,’ Kevin said. He took a huge breath. ‘I’ve met someone else.’

‘What?’ Tess stared at him in utter bewilderment.

‘I didn’t mean it to happen this way,’ he said, ‘it just did. I don’t want to hurt you, Tess, or the children, but the fact that we separated and the fact that I met someone means that separating was the right thing to do.’

Her language skills finally came back to Tess. ‘What do you mean, “the right thing to do”?’ she said. ‘We separated to see if we wanted to be together …’ she could barely get the words out, ‘… not to go looking for other people.’

‘I wasn’t looking,’ he said. ‘It just happened.’

‘Nothing just happens,’ hissed Tess.

‘Well, this did.’ He ran his hands through his hair. It was always spiky. No hair product would ever make it flatten down and it grew like crazy. Once a month he went to the barber and got a short back and sides: three weeks later, it was wild as a bush again.

‘Who is she, this someone you met?’ Tess said. She pushed her tea and biscuits away from her. She didn’t want any form of comfort as she took in this horrendous turn of events.

‘Her name is Claire. Her parents moved to Avalon about a year ago. She’s lovely. She’s an illustrator – you’d really like her.’

‘Oh God, I can’t believe you said that!’ Tess said. ‘I’d really like her? Why? Is she like me? Does she have kids? Is she married? Divorced? What? Tell me.’

‘She’s a bit younger, actually,’ Kevin said. ‘And no, she doesn’t have children – although she’d love to. One day.’

And that’s when Tess thought she was really going to lose it. ‘A bit younger?’ she asked, enunciating every word carefully. ‘Exactly how much younger?’

Kevin moistened his lips. ‘She’s twenty-nine,’ he said.

‘Oh my God, twenty-nine!’ Tess got up and began to pace. ‘She’s twenty-nine. She’s Claire. She’s an illustrator. Don’t tell me: she’s got long blonde hair and wears cool skinny jeans and goes to rock festivals?’

‘Well …’ began Kevin.

‘She is, isn’t she? Why? Why did this happen?’ Tess said.

‘I did some work in her mother’s house and I met her. And as to why it happened …’ He held his hands out in supplication. ‘I don’t know why. All I know is that I met her, we had an instant connection and we went out. We’ve been out three times now – not here though. We’ve never been out together in Avalon. I didn’t want people to talk,’ he added, his tone pleading. ‘You know what this town is like. We went into Arklow, but people are going to see us together soon and I wanted you to know.’

‘And it’s serious?’

Kevin couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘it’s serious.’

‘Do you know, I thought you were coming up here to tell me that you were having even more financial problems than we had been already and … oh …’ Tess shook her head. ‘I didn’t know what you were going to say, but not that. That wasn’t on the list.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The thing is, how do we tell the children?’

‘What do you mean, we tell the children?’ she demanded.

‘Well, we have to.’

‘We don’t have to,’ said Tess grimly, ‘you have to. And do you know what, Kevin, right now I think you’d better go. Just go. Get out of here.’