Jennifer Joyce - The Single Mums’ Picnic Club - A perfectly uplifting beach-read for 2018!

No pen. She usually had at least three in her bag. She checked again. Pushed her fingers deep into the corners and ran them along the lining at the bottom. Nothing. She moved through to the living room, rifling through drawers, checking under the junk accumulated on the coffee table and even risked a rummage down the back of the sofa, where she located several sweet wrappers, eight pence, and a pink paper hat from the Christmas crackers, but not one single pen.

She was about to move back to the kitchen, but her plan was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was a bit too early for the kids (who had a key each but often left them lying around the house), but she shoved the acknowledgement of service under a Boots’ Christmas Gift Guide anyway (she really must shove that in the recycling bin), just in case, and plonked the novel she’d been trying to read since the school summer holidays but was still languishing on Chapter Seven on top for good measure.

‘Oh, you’re in.’ Jack looked taken aback when she opened the door, his eyebrows lifting as he turned back towards the door. He’d already started to walk towards the gate, but he came back now. ‘I was about to give up.’ Bending, he pulled a small brown box from the basket under the buggy and held it towards Katie. ‘This came while you were out.’

Frowning, Katie took the parcel. She vaguely recalled picking something up from the mat when she’d arrived home, but she’d been so preoccupied with her Chocolate Orange subterfuge, she’d simply dumped it on the little table in the hall. Glancing back, she saw the ‘sorry you were out’ card.

‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked when she turned back to the parcel. ‘You look a bit… windswept.’

Katie reached up to touch her hair, which was loose around her shoulders. Her fingers tangled in the rat’s nest the windy beach and rain had produced. Could this day get any more embarrassing?

‘I went for a walk. On the beach.’ And spilled my secrets and fears to a couple of strangers.

It had felt strangely cathartic.

‘Thanks for this.’ She turned the parcel over, her stomach seeming to scrunch in on itself when she spotted the label. Mrs Katie May. How much longer would she be able to call herself that? Would it change as soon as she signed the papers hiding under the Boots Christmas Gift Guide? ‘Would you like to come in for a coffee?’ This was not a delaying tactic; this was being polite to a kind neighbour. She opened the door wider, but Jack scrunched up his nose and thrust a thumb over his shoulder.

‘I was just on my way to pick up Leo and Ellie. Just knocked on the off chance I’d catch you. Sorry.’

‘No worries.’ She looked down at her watch, surprised by the time. Where had the afternoon gone? ‘You’d better hurry.’

Jack gave a wry smile. ‘I’ve spent my life hurrying since having kids.’ He raised a hand in farewell before turning the buggy around and heading for the gate. Katie waited until he’d disappeared from view before she returned to the kitchen with the parcel. She’d take care of that and then get right onto signing the papers.

The parcel was nothing to get excited about and contained nothing but a cheap-looking keyring from one of the job search sites she’d signed up for and far too much packing material. Still, she attached it to her set of keys, which wasn’t a delaying tactic – it was where keyrings belonged, after all. But once the keyring was in its rightful place and she’d squashed the box and packing materials into the overflowing recycling bin, there wasn’t anything left to do but sign the acknowledgement of service. She could do this. She would do this.

Finally locating a pen from the junk drawer, she picked up the slip of paper that would start the change of not only her marital status but her life. Deep breaths. Three of them, long and calming.

Right. Let’s do this thing.

Her phone ringing jolted Katie, but she couldn’t help feeling relieved by the legitimate delay. She threw the pen and paper down on the sofa and leapt at her phone, crouching so she could answer while it was still plugged into the charger. She frowned when she spotted her husband’s name on the screen. Had he sensed she was about to sign the papers? Had he changed his mind? Was he about to beg her not to return it? To shred it. To burn it.

‘Hello?’ She cringed at the wobble in her voice.

‘Katie? Is everything okay?’

She cleared her throat and gave a pretty unconvincing laugh. ‘Everything’s fine. Why do you ask?’

‘I’ve been trying to phone you for the past hour.’

He had? Interesting. Rob rarely phoned her, unless it was to arrange access with the kids, but they’d established a routine that suited them both as much as possible by now.

‘My phone ran out of battery while I was out. Is everything okay?’

A million scenarios crossed her mind, the most pressing being the possibility that Rob had finally come to his senses. He’d realised what an absolutely selfish arse he’d been and wanted the opportunity to grovel on his knees for her forgiveness.

She wouldn’t grant him anything close to absolution, obviously.

Not straight away.

‘Anya phoned me. Told me you’d run out of the supermarket this afternoon.’ Katie flinched at the mention of The Other Woman. ‘She was worried she’d upset you.’

Katie wanted to hoot.

Worried she’d upset her? Anya had turned her world upside down, given it a vigorous shake until everything fell down into oblivion and tossed it aside. Of course she’d upset Katie. When had her husband morphed into this moron who made such understatements and expected to be taken seriously? Probably around the time he’d slept with another woman.

‘Anya said you looked distressed.’

Katie laughed, but it sounded more like a snarl. ‘Well, isn’t Anya observant?’

Rob sighed. ‘Come on, Katie. There’s no need to be like this. Anya was just trying to be nice. Looking out for you. She was worried when you ran out of the shop without paying.’

‘I left my shopping behind. I didn’t steal anything if that’s what she told you.’ Like that made her actions normal.

There was another sigh from the other end. ‘There’s no need to be like this, Katie. I’m just looking out for you.’

‘Is that so?’ There was another snarly laugh. ‘Well, I’d have been much better off if you hadn’t had an affair.’

‘Katie…’ Rob sighed again.

‘What? Am I making you uncomfortable? Guilty? Or do you really not care about what you did to us?’

‘Of course I feel incredibly guilty about the way I behaved, but I can’t go back in time and change the way I went about it all. It was wrong of me to have an affair, I know, and I shouldn’t have left it until Anya was pregnant to tell you.’

Katie sucked in her breath. ‘You’d have left me, wouldn’t you? You’d have left me anyway? For her.’

‘I love Anya.’ Rob’s voice was small, contrite. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t change the way I feel.’

Katie ended the call without another word. How was she supposed to react to that without bursting into noisy, snotty tears? He’d have left her anyway, even if he hadn’t impregnated his bit on the side. He’d have left Katie and married her instead.

Well, screw them. They could get married and live happily ever after, but Katie wouldn’t make it easy for them. Why should she enable them to skip off into the sunset?

Placing the phone down on the side, she returned to the acknowledgement of service, picked it up and folded it into a neat square before sliding it between the sofa cushions to be forgotten about for a little bit longer.

Chapter Eight

George

George was singing along to Barry Manilow’s ‘Copacabana’ while spraying the tiles of her client’s en suite bathroom’s shower cubicle, squirting the cleaning solution in time to the beat. The secret, she’d found over the past few years, was to find some enjoyment to the job you were doing. This hadn’t been difficult back when she was utilising her baking talents in her jobs but cleaning toilets and scrubbing floors wasn’t quite so pleasant. Music, it seemed, was the answer. George had created a massive playlist of fun, upbeat songs to clean to, songs she loved to sing along to, songs that motivated her during the grubbiest of tasks.