Cathy Kelly - What She Wants

‘I need you to understand, Hope,’ Matt said quietly.

Hope thought she understood all right: Matt had made another unilateral decision about their lives. There had been the time a mere month after their marriage when he said he’d accepted a job with the ad agency in Bath even though they’d both decided to travel round the world for a year. (Well, the trip around the world had been his idea initially, but she’d agreed to it, had bought the rucksack and got the typhoid injection.)

Or the time he’d agreed to rent a holiday cottage in France with Dan and Betsey, without even discussing it with Hope. And what had she said on each occasion? Had she roared: ‘It’s my life too, Matt. I don’t agree with your plans so you’ll have to unmake them?’ No. Anger and neediness had fought and neediness had won. Too scared at starting a battle with the one she loved, Hope had smothered her upset and said: ‘Of course, that’s a good idea. Let’s do it.’

Sam had been furious with her: ‘How dare he bloody give up your year travelling for some crappy job without talking it over with you first!’ she’d raged.

‘Marriage is about give and take,’ Hope had countered.

‘What percentage applies to each person?’ Sam had demanded. ‘You give ninety-five per cent and he takes ninety-five per cent? Is that the way it breaks down?’

‘You don’t know anything about marriage,’ Hope had replied, stung by the unfairness of her sister’s comments into saying something sharper than she’d ever normally say to Sam.

Her sister was quiet for a moment. ‘Neither do you, sis,’ Sam remarked sadly.

Unspoken between them was the knowledge that happy families was a game they hadn’t grown up with. Brought up by their strict, middle-aged maiden aunt who thought that children should be seen and not heard, their vision of happy families came from watching Little House On The Prairie .

‘Penny for them?’ Matt put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against it. He was so demonstrative with her, a fact which had thrilled her when they’d first met. Matt linked his arm through hers from the first date, squeezed her fingers affectionately just for the hell of it. Hope, brought up in austerity where hugs were for Christmas, had loved his touchy-feely-ness. After six years of marriage, he had been as affectionate as ever. They had slept spooned together and on the odd occasions Matt was away working, Hope found it impossible to get any sleep without the sensation of his body next to hers. Until the past painful few months.

Hope remembered the sheer fear of thinking their marriage was over. She adored Matt, she couldn’t live without him. Now, relief that he still loved her too was flooding through her limbs, filling her with the sweet sense of release that all her worst nightmares weren’t coming true.

‘I wish you wouldn’t make decisions without consulting me,’ she said, head still resting against his arm.

As if sensing that the worst was over, Matt stroked her hair with his other hand. ‘I am consulting you,’ he said.

‘Only after you’ve talked about it with other people, including Jasmine.’ She was still hurt that he’d talked about something so personal to a woman he barely knew. Jasmine had learned all the facts while Hope, whose life it involved, was still ignorant of them. Despite her relief, that still rankled. ‘We can’t have a very good marriage if you never discuss the big issues with me, Matt. Why couldn’t you tell me what you were thinking in the beginning? I couldn’t begin to tell you how awful it’s been for me, knowing there was something wrong but not what.’ She didn’t want to mention her affair fears again. It sounded so stupid now she knew the truth.

‘It was only an idea then…’

‘That was when you should have talked it over with me, then. What am I? Your wife or your landlady?’

Matt moved his arm away. ‘I thought you’d jump at the idea. You’re forever going on about how you never get to spend time with Toby and Millie, how they’ll grow up thinking Your Little Treasures is their real home and we’re the night-time babysitters. And you hate your job.’

‘Sometimes I do but that doesn’t mean I want to stop doing it,’ Hope protested. ‘And I doubt very much if I could get a sabbatical; I’m hardly a top flight executive they can’t do without. So you’re asking me to dump a good job. And all our friends are here,’ she added, ‘not to mention the children’s friends. Toby’s only just settled properly into the nursery and I have to drag him out again.’

‘It’s only for a year, not forever. Unless of course, I get a good publishing deal…’ Matt’s face lit up at his daydream but Hope was even more horrified. Perhaps the move would be forever…

‘What if I don’t agree to it?’ she asked.

Feeling a bit guilty about blackmailing her, Matt launched his final, lethal weapon. ‘Don’t be angry, love. Think of what it could mean to us. We could bring the children up as a real family, in a real community environment. Not with both of us working so hard that we’re too tired to get involved with the outside world. Wouldn’t you love to live in the country and be a part of the children’s lives?’

Hope wavered. Family: that was her Achilles’ heel. Aunt Ruth had been the most unmaternal person on the planet and Hope had longed for a family atmosphere like something out of a Disney movie. Picnics with homemade sandwiches, walks along the sea shore, great excitement hanging up stockings over the fireplace at Christmas. She and Sam hadn’t experienced any of that, which made her all the more keen to give it to her children.

‘We could look after the kids ourselves, not work each other into the ground,’ Matt said fervently, warming to his theme. ‘Think of it, fresh air, no pollution, good food…’

‘Bath is hardly covered with industrial smog,’ she pointed out.

‘I know, but this would be different.’

‘What about our families? We’d be so far away from everyone.’

‘I never see my lot anyway – you know we’re not close – and Sam can fly over and see us in Ireland. They all can, it’s not a million miles away. Besides, my parents haven’t been to Bath since the Christmas before last, they’ll hardly miss us.’

Hope knew what he meant. Matt’s parents were chilly and reserved, and not too interested in spending time with their only son and his family. Since his father had retired, his parents had spent much of their time travelling, saying that they had neither the time nor the money to travel when they were younger.

‘Sam jets off all over the world for work,’ Matt added, ‘it’ll be easy for her to hop on a plane and visit us. The trip would be an hour and a half, max.’

Hope thought about it. Imagine being able to take care of the children, giving them quality time, learning tapestry, sitting in a rural garden with butterflies dipping in and out of the flowers, birds singing and not a sound of cars roaring up and down the motorways.

Hope thought of the floral skirt she’d admired in Jolly’s and her plans to become the queen of her kitchen.

And she and Matt would become closer than ever. After nearly a week of fear when she’d thought her marriage was over, she desperately wanted to work on it, to make sure they stayed together. She took a deep breath.

‘OK, let’s investigate it. But stop making plans without asking me, will you?’

‘I promise.’ Matt buried his face in her neck, the same way Toby did. And in a rush of warmth she felt her objections melt away.

That same Thursday, Sam Smith sat in her office and put her head on her desk for one wonderful minute. Not on the desk, exactly: the bleached maple was hidden by layers of paper, mostly marketing reports, spreadsheets of expenses and letters she had yet to read. She had to clear it all before seven o’clock that evening, an impossibility since her assistant, Lydia, was off with flu. Sam’s own throat ached and a dull throbbing behind her eyes convinced her that she was next in line to get it. Only she simply couldn’t afford to take any time off. She had a gig tonight, one that would go on until the wee small hours, and an eight-thirty meeting the following morning, followed by a three-hour budget meeting. Illness, like tiredness, was not an option. Not when you were barely two weeks into the job, a job people would kill their grannies for.