Chapter 1
It was Monday morning, seven a.m., and Gordon had left for Glasgow on business on the last flight out Sunday night. It annoyed Lotte that he couldn’t go first thing Monday, of course it did, she’d had to drive him to Heathrow at six that evening, having prepared an early lunch of roast beef and apple crumble and got the children bathed and ready for bed by five so that the baby-sitter – a fifteen-year-old from up the road who she didn’t really trust but who could stand in at short notice on a Sunday night – didn’t have much to do except put them to bed. But she hadn’t said anything, she never did. Lotte had gone past saying things, she had been beaten down so often by Gordon’s clever, aggressive mind, and outwitted so easily, that she couldn’t be bothered any more. She was tired, worn out by two young children who rarely slept and often whined, and worn down by one husband who rarely thanked and often criticised. She was, as her friends said, the proverbial doormat. They all joked about it and often Lotte joined in, but the truth was that it was far from a joke. She was too bullied and too depressed to see anything even remotely funny in the situation.
So, after an exhausting Sunday – Gordon was out at tennis in the morning while she prepared the lunch; he watched sport on Sky while she packed for him and snoozed in the car while she drove him to the airport – this morning, Monday, seven a.m., Lotte was having a lie-in. She could hear Milly playing in her bedroom as she lay in the dark, luxuriating under the warm, solitary duvet; she could hear Freddie moaning gently for his milk, but she didn’t get up, she stayed where she was and lulled herself into a false sense of security. The next thing she knew there was an almighty scream, a stomach-churning series of thumps, then silence. She jumped out of bed, ran to the stairs and saw Milly lying on the floor at the bottom of them, her arm bent back under her, her long blonde hair fanned out around her still, pale face. The child-gate was open.
‘Milly!’ she screamed, running down the stairs. She knelt at the bottom by her daughter and put her fingers to Milly’s neck. The pulse was there. She gently patted her cheeks. ‘Milly? Oh God, Milly, please, please speak to me.’ Panicked, not having the first clue what to do, she jumped up and ran to the phone. Upstairs, Freddie had started to wail. She dialled 999, spoke to the operator and asked for an ambulance. She was told there would be an immediate response. Then she called Gordon’s mobile, waited the forty seconds or so for it to connect, then heard his voice and said: ‘Oh God, Gordon, Milly’s fallen down the stairs, she’s ... oh God, I can’t get her to open her eyes, I ...’
‘Call an ambulance, Lotte, do it now!’
‘I’ve done it, they’re on their way.’
‘Right. Don’t move her, don’t do anything until the ambulance arrives, OK? I’ll get the next plane home. Ring me as soon as you know what’s going on.’
Lotte hung up and ran back to Milly. She knelt down again and tried to get some response. Nothing. Freddie’s wail became a howl. She put her face close to Milly’s: ‘Oh Milly, oh God, please be all right, Milly, please speak to me, please.’ Freddie was howling and screaming upstairs and Milly was sickeningly silent downstairs. A minute passed. Lotte struggled to breathe properly, not to hyperventilate. She stroked her daughter’s brow with the tip of a finger and with her entire being willed her child to be all right. A moment later, Milly opened her eyes. She blinked several times and started to cry.
By the time the immediate-response ambulance arrived, twenty minutes later, Milly was sitting up, whimpering in pain, her arm swollen and distended. Lotte was still in her nightdress and Freddie had whipped himself into a hysterical frenzy in his cot. Lotte opened the door with Milly in her arms; two paramedics came in and she handed her daughter over. Then she ran upstairs, heaved Freddie out of his cot and tried to calm him down. She carried him into the bedroom, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater over her nightie, slipped her feet into shoes and hurried back downstairs. She was so upset that she could hardly think straight.
‘She’s broken her arm,’ one of the paramedics said. ‘Looks quite nasty. We’d better take her in.’ He had wrapped Milly in a blanket and was directing the other paramedic, who had just come back in with a stretcher.
‘Yes, yes, of course. I’d better come with you, I’d, erm ...’ Lotte looked up as her neighbour put her head round the door.
‘You OK, Lotte? I saw the ambulance and ...’ Mrs Prior was sixty-eight, not a particularly nice neighbour, always criticizing the kids, always moaning at the noise and the fact that the front garden wasn’t kept as neat as it should be.
‘No, no, I’m not. Madge, could you have Freddie for me? I’ve got to go in the van with Milly to hospital. She’s fallen down the stairs.’
‘Oh, I, oh dear, I’m not sure I ...’
Lotte held out a still wailing Freddie and Mrs Prior simply had to take him.
‘I really appreciate it, thank you so much.’ Milly was being wheeled out of the house and Lotte was about to follow. ‘There’s cereal in the cupboard,’ she called, ‘formula in the fridge, warm it in the microwave. Do anything you like, thanks so much ...’
As she disappeared out of the house, Mrs Prior came to the door. ‘Lotte dear, what time ...?’
The ambulance door was slammed shut and Lotte was out of earshot.
‘Oh well, Freddie, we’d better have some breakfast, hadn’t we?’ And Freddie, who was in a complete state by now, screamed for Lotte then threw up all down Mrs Prior’s front.
It was eleven thirty, and Lotte sat in the A&E reception, with Milly on her lap, waiting for someone to set her daughter’s arm. Milly had been X-rayed and examined: she had mild concussion and a break just above the elbow of her right arm, but of course it was Monday, and after the weekend they were rushed off their feet, so Milly, a non-urgent case, had to wait. Lotte was watching The Morning Show, with the sound turned down; a celebrity chef was doing something terrific with tofu and she let the image on the screen pass before her eyes without it even registering. Then a phone-in came on. Declan and Amy and their resident agony aunt were talking about mistresses and inviting viewers to call in with their experiences. This should be good, Lotte thought, and the woman next to her stood on a chair to turn the volume up. Lotte shifted Milly on her lap to get a better view.
And it was good. It was bloody interesting. Lotte wondered how the women who rang got themselves into such complicated relationships for the sake of sex and someone to watch the telly with. Was it really love? Lotte wasn’t sure she believed in love any more; she thought it was just another name for exploitation.
‘Silly cow,’ she muttered to a caller from Macclesfield who’d spent five years waiting for a married man to leave his wife. The woman beside her gave her a look and she piped down. The next caller was anonymous, calling on a mobile. Lotte shook her head but resisted making another remark.
‘I’ve been having an affair with a married man for three years,’ the caller said. ‘It’s been a very fulfilling and loving relationship and I think I’ve provided him with the love and warmth that he doesn’t get at home. Recently we’ve become very close indeed and he’s talked of his problems at home and how he’s been thinking about leaving ...’ At this point, the caller, who was noticeably upset, stopped, and Declan said: ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ came the reply. ‘I’m just about keeping myself together.’
‘May we ask where you’re calling from?’
‘Glasgow, but I live in London,’ came the reply. ‘Three years we’ve been together, I accompany him on all his business trips, we even manage to spend some time together at weekends, and although I’ve never initiated it, recently he’s been saying that he thinks we might have a future together. He’s led me to believe that one day we might ...’
‘Ouch!’ Lotte was leaning on Milly’s head as she strained to hear the programme.
‘Sorry, darling.’
‘This must be very difficult for you,’ said Amy, ‘but can you tell us what’s happened?’
‘This morning,’ the caller said, ‘this morning, at seven a.m., despite a wonderful night in bed and some very tender moments, he got a call from his wife, who told him that his daughter had had an accident, and he upped and left, just walked out. Within ten minutes he’d gone, without a word of comfort or explanation. All that stuff last night about leaving his wife and about how I mean everything to him was all rubbish, it was just lies. All he said this morning was “I have to go.” Nothing else, not another word; he just packed and walked out.’
‘I see,’ said Amy,
‘Do you?’ asked the caller. ‘I mean nothing to him, I’m just his mistress, to be used whenever it suits him, I ...’
Lotte didn’t hear any more. She snatched Milly off her lap, took a lunge forward to the bin, missed it and was sick all over the floor.
