For Better For Worse

Although the house possessed a garage it was only large enough for Marcus’s car, and irritatingly someone else was already parked outside their house, so that she had to drive halfway down the street before she could find anywhere to stop.

Her hand trembled as she unlocked the door. She hurried in, calling out to Marcus in a low voice.

‘In here,’ he told her, emerging from his study,

‘Tom—–?’ she demanded quickly, glancing towards the stairs.

‘He’s in the kitchen,’ Marcus told her.

‘The kitchen!’ Eleanor stared at him, tension and guilt exploding into a sudden surge of anger. Would he be taking this casual, laid-back attitude if it were his child who was sick?

Instantly she suppressed the thought, knowing it to be unfair and shaken that she could even have given birth to it.

Dropping her briefcase in the hall, she hurried into the kitchen. Tom was curled up in a chair in the living area, his attention focused on the flickering images on the television set.

‘Tom?’

When he made no response, Eleanor called his name a little louder.

Reluctantly he turned to look at her.

He did look pale, she acknowledged, her heart thumping sickeningly. Why hadn’t she noticed that this morning? She was his mother, after all.

‘How are you feeling, darling?’ she asked him as she hurried over to him and placed her hand against his forehead. He didn’t feel particularly hot.

‘Sick. I feel sick,’ he told her plaintively. ‘I told you that this morning…’

Eleanor winced as she heard the accusation in his voice. He had said something about not wanting to go to school but she had put that down to the fact that it was Monday morning and that he was grumpy because he had overslept.

‘I was sick after assembly,’ he told her. ‘In Mr Pringle’s class.’

Her heart sank even further.

‘I feel funny, Mum. My head hurts and my neck.’

Her stomach muscles tensed. The papers had recently been carrying details of several cases of meningitis.

‘What about your eyes?’ she asked him anxiously. ‘Do they hurt?’

‘Yes… a bit…’

Half an hour later, after she had got him into bed and telephoned the doctor, she asked Marcus anxiously, ‘Do you think it could be meningitis?’

‘I doubt it,’ Marcus told her wryly. ‘I suspect it’s much more likely to be Mondayitis, plus the illicit carton of ice-cream he had for supper last night.’

Eleanor stared at him. ‘What illicit carton of ice-cream?’

‘The one I found this morning.’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He says his eyes are hurting him.’

‘He says, or you suggested?’ Marcus asked her.

‘I’m your wife, Marcus,’ she snapped at him. ‘Not an opposition witness.’ She saw him frowning, but before she could apologise the doorbell rang.

‘That will be the doctor. I’d better go and let her in.’

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ the doctor soothed her fifteen minutes later. ‘I’m a mother myself and I know what it’s like. Besides, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Luckily this time it’s nothing more serious than an upset tummy and a bit of attention-seeking.’

She smiled at Eleanor reassuringly.

So Marcus had been right, Eleanor reflected bleakly as she saw her to the door, and she had panicked unnecessarily. A panic increased by guilt because she had not been there… because Marcus had had to disrupt his working day to go and collect Tom, because she had been too busy this morning to notice that Tom was feeling off colour and because she had been too busy last night to notice that he had eaten the ice-cream.

What was happening to her? Where was the pleasure in a life that left her with so little time for her children, for her husband… for herself?

‘You were right,’ she told Marcus wryly later. ‘It is just an upset tummy.’ He looked up from his desk and smiled at her.

‘I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.’

‘That’s OK,’ Marcus told her easily, adding, ‘I should have remembered that mothers don’t like having their judgement questioned.’

For some reason his comment jarred. What did he mean? Was he referring to mothers in general or one mother in particular, the mother of his own child, perhaps?

Eleanor had been pleased when Marcus had once commented on how different she was from his first wife; she didn’t want to be a second Julia, a copy of another woman who had once been important in her husband’s life. She had been fiercely glad that he loved her as an individual… as herself. Unlike Allan, who, after the initial enthusiasm of being married, had ceased to see her as a woman—a person—and had seen her only as a mother. Sexually he had found it hard to relate to her once she had had the children, and besides, he had accused her, they meant more to her than he did.

‘By the way, the Lassiters want us there for eight. What time is the babysitter due?’ Marcus asked her.

Eleanor froze.

The Lassiters’ dinner party. She had forgotten all about it… forgotten to make any arrangements for someone to sit with the boys. How could she have forgotten? Harold Lassiter was the most senior barrister in Marcus’s chambers. There was a strong rumour that he was about to be called to the bench as a senior judge.

Marcus might not have the sharklike instinct and drive, the personal and professional ambition that her first husband had possessed, but as a product of the British public school system, reinforced by the discipline of an army father, he was meticulous about observing a code of good manners which to many people was now hopelessly old-fashioned.

In fact, that had been one of the first things about him which had appealed to her.

Typically, Jade had laughed in disbelief when she had told her this, rolling her eyes and demanding, ‘What? My God, trust you! You manage to find one of the most charismatic and sexy men I have ever set eyes on, and all you notice about him is that he held open the door for you. You realise that he probably only did that so that he could check out the view,’ Jade had teased her, explaining when she had frowned, ‘Your rear view, idiot. Men like a nice, well-shaped female behind, didn’t you know?’

Now, Eleanor’s expression gave her away.

‘You’d forgotten?’ Marcus exclaimed sharply.

‘Marcus, I’m so sorry. I meant to organise a babysitter last weekend and then Julia telephoned and asked if we could have Vanessa and somehow or other…’

‘Damn!’

‘I could ring Jade,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘She might be free.’

She had just picked up the receiver and started to dial Jade’s number when she heard Tom calling, ‘Mum… Mum… I don’t feel well.’