After the One by Cass Lester (novels for students .txt) 📗

the chaotic jumble of toys and games strewn over the floor where her two youngest were crawling around engaged in a high-speed police chase involving two plastic cars with flashing blue lights and a good deal of noisy sound effects, Angie exclaimed, ‘When?!’

Then, patting her rounded belly, she rolled her eyes and added, ‘And there’ll be even less time when this one arrives.’ She turned away, but not before Charley had seen a look of mild dismay flick across her face.

‘Nee-naw, nee-naw!’ yelled Finn.

‘Stop! Police!’ bellowed Eliot.

‘Boys! Pipe down!’ snapped Angie suddenly, much to her sons’ surprise and Charley’s too, since she’d rarely ever heard Angie raise her voice to her kids. Angie suddenly busied herself digging into the laundry basket in search of missing socks. Moments later, having recovered her usual cheerful tone, she turned back to Charley, and smiled. ‘Anyway, this is absolutely the last one!’ Then glancing at the clock, and noticing it was almost school pick-up time, she added, ‘I have to get Beth, coming? Or do you think it’s safe to venture back to your place yet?’

To Charley’s intense relief, Pam’s friends had gone by the time she got back. They were probably lovely women, she told herself, but she hadn’t wanted to get home to find her flat invaded by a bunch of people she’d never even met. It wasn’t a feeling she was proud of, but then, although she was ashamed to admit it, she wasn’t finding living with Pam altogether easy. It wasn’t Pam that was the problem, it was the intrusion of someone else’s possessions in her space, strangers in her house coming for lunch, or coffee. But at least it was Pam’s things, and Pam’s friends, she reminded herself; it would be a hell of a lot worse if she was living with a lodger she didn’t know at all.

‘I’m not sure any of them really understand,’ Pam said to Charley later that afternoon, as the two of them sat on the sofa in the living room, the French doors flung wide open, with mugs of tea and slabs of Pam’s mango cheesecake.

‘They’re all married,’ she went on. ‘Not necessarily happily, but… well, for better or for worse, I suppose. We didn’t divorce so quickly, so easily in my day. “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it,” as we used to say.’ Catching the mildly horrified look on Charley’s face, she went on hurriedly, ‘Oh, none of them are unhappy or anything.’ Then she thought of Zee and corrected herself. ‘Not desperately unhappy. It’s more that they’re just all… muddling along. You know, like slouching about in a baggy old bra because it’s comfortable, rather than buying a new one.’

When Charley pulled a mock-grimace, Pam hurriedly back-pedalled and said, ‘Not that I’m expecting you to understand about the comfort of baggy old bras! I’m sure your underwear more than passes muster!’

Charley laughed. ‘Actually, I don’t think it would, but fortunately there’s no danger of it having to.’

Something about Charley’s cheerful, frank assertion rang a small alarm bell in Pam’s head, but before she could pause to consider it, Charley had continued.

‘What did they say?’ she asked.

Pam sighed heavily and marshalled her thoughts into a bite-sized upsum. ‘Toni says I should fight to get Geoff back. Mona says I shouldn’t give up on a forty-year marriage. Rachel thinks I should move back home and stake a claim on the house, and Zee says I should make Geoff move out!’

‘Oh,’ said Charley and sat thoughtfully for a while.

Pam misinterpreted Charley’s silence. Just because Charley needed a lodger, didn’t mean she wanted that lodger to be her mother-in-law, she told herself. Let’s face it, who would want their mother-in-law cluttering up their home, invading their life and… cramping their style? She remembered how Charley had left the room to take a phone call on the day she’d arrived. A young woman like Charley would be… well, having a love life… a sex life, for goodness’ sake. How could she do that with her mother-in-law in the next bedroom? Even just thinking about it sent a hot fluster of embarrassment through Pam, and it suddenly, belatedly, occurred to her how selfish she was being, imposing herself on Charley.

‘Perhaps it would be best, for everyone, if I went back home,’ she said slowly.

‘No! What’s best is that you do what you want to do,’ said Charley earnestly. ‘I’m sure your friends are trying to help, but like you said, none of them have been divorced, so they don’t know what’s the best thing for you to do, do they? Why don’t you stay here, get some proper advice, and then make an informed decision about what you want to do.’

‘But what about you? What about your life? I must be… in the way,’ Pam suggested, with evident discomfort.

‘I was going to get a lodger anyway,’ said Charley. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes, but you’d have got someone more your age.’

‘What’s age got to do with anything?’ Charley seemed genuinely baffled.

‘Well, you know, living more your sort of lifestyle. A young person’s lifestyle.’

‘Blimey Pam, what sort of things do you think I get up to?’

‘Well you must have… friends to stay… occasionally,’ Pam finished weakly.

It took a while but then suddenly it clicked for Charley. ‘You mean men!’

‘No!’ lied Pam. Then, feeling sharply skewered by the candid, challenging look in Charley’s eye, she admitted, ‘Well, yes.’

Charley’s face softened, but still holding Pam’s gaze, she said, ‘I’m not seeing anyone, and I’m not interested in seeing anyone, either. And if I’m going to have to live with someone I’d much rather it was you than a stranger… or anyone. Believe me.’

Clearly, Charley meant Pam to find this statement reassuring, but in all honesty, she didn’t.

Chapter Fourteen

Towards the end of the week, Tara called Charley from the Avalon to let her know the pamper bags had proved an enormous hit, so much so, they wanted to order another hundred. She then invited herself round on the Sunday,