Page 23

Pete

Finally letting himself out of the cloakroom, Pete heads back towards the garden, a knot of anxiety in his stomach as he searches the grounds for Vanessa.

Emily glares as he approaches, moving as if to turn her back on him, but he reaches out and lays a hand on her shoulder.

‘What?’ she asks belligerently, causing Sam, her best friend from school, to titter nervously.

‘Have you seen Mum?’ Pete lets her attitude slide, noticing the almost empty glass in her hand, and the way her eyes have the slightly glazed look of someone who has consumed more alcohol than they are used to.

‘No,’ Emily snaps, ‘and I don’t want to either.

I’m not talking to her.

’

Pete sighs. ‘What’s happened now?

’

‘I would tell you,’ Emily shrugs, casting a sly glance in Sam’s direction, ‘but I’m not talking to you either.

’

Pete doesn’t have time for Emily’s childish games right now and, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he makes a mental note to have a word with her in the morning about her attitude.

He was so proud of her earlier, of the way she’s stepped up to the plate to help with Erin, but it’s times like this that remind him that no matter how much of an adult she thinks she is, Emily is still a child.

Shaking his head, he moves past her, combing the crowd of guests on the lawn for Natalie’s blonde hair.

He keeps telling himself he just wants to check in with her, make sure she’s OK – especially if she’s now had a row with Emily – but he knows it’s really that he wants to make sure Vanessa hasn’t got to her.

Speaking of Vanessa, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of her, either in the house as he marched through from the cloakroom, or outside in the garden.

No flash of dark hair, no lilting laugh in the rapidly cooling evening breeze.

Pete is just allowing himself the luxury of fully exhaling and going in search of a pint when Eve lurches towards him, stumbling on her wedged heels over the wet, churned-up grass.

‘Pete!’

Pete’s eyes dart behind Eve, hoping for an escape route, but she’s gaining on him and it seems there is no way of avoiding her.

He’s going to have to make small talk.

As Eve trips towards him, Pete groans inwardly.

Her eyes are red-rimmed and the tip of her nose is pink and shiny, a dead giveaway that she’s been crying.

Great party, Pete , he thinks to himself.

Can it really be considered a celebration when half of the guests are either crying or arguing?

‘Eve.’ Pete throws on a smile as she reaches him, fumbling in her pocket before drawing out a tissue.

‘Is everything OK?’ He feels the first flicker of alarm as her mouth draws down.

Has she spoken to Vanessa?

Does she know what he’s done?

And then he bats it away, sure that if Eve knew what had gone on between him and Vanessa she wouldn’t be crying – she would be screaming blue murder at him.

‘Have you seen Natalie?’

‘No, not since my speech.’

Eve gives a shuddering sigh.

‘So you didn’t hear what she said to me.

’

‘No, Eve, I didn’t hear what she said to you.

’ Impatience makes Pete’s tone short, and he glances over Eve’s shoulder again, still looking for Natalie’s messy bun, for the hot pink of her dress.

‘She shouted at me in front of everyone – in front of all your guests,’ Eve says, her eyes filling again.

‘She humiliated me, Pete. All I did was offer to take Erin up for a nap and she just flipped on me, telling me Erin is her baby, not mine, and I’m smothering and interfering …

’ She gasps out a sob.

‘And that I should just back off .’

‘Well, she does have a point,’ Pete says, distracted by movement at the edge of the patio doors.

The light is beginning to fade, and for one heart-stopping moment he thinks it’s Vanessa stepping out into the garden, but then he blinks, and he sees it’s just Mari, making her way across the garden towards Emily.

‘What the fuck , Pete?’ Eve’s voice is sharp, her brows knitting together as she turns her face to him.

Her fists clench and her mouth tightens in fury.

‘No, I didn’t mean …

Look, all I’m saying is, you do spend a lot of time at our house, Eve.

I have to agree with Nat on that score.

I know you think you’re helping, but in all honesty, you’re kind of making things worse.

’

Eve stares at him, saying nothing, leaving him to fill the silence.

‘It’s great, you know, that you’ve been such a good friend to Natalie, but she needs to be able to bond with Erin on her own.

You coming in and taking the baby out and getting her off to sleep, or cooking for Zadie and then throwing it in Nat’s face that Zadie will eat for you and not for her—’

‘I beg your pardon? That’s not what’s been happening at all!

’

‘All I’m saying is, just chill out a bit.

Give Natalie some space.

You are smothering her, and by doing that you’re damaging her ability to bond with Erin properly.

At the end of the day, Eve, you’re not a Maxwell, and you never will be.

’ It feels good to tell Eve what he really thinks.

He has had to listen to Natalie defending Eve’s presence in their house for so many years – She’s lonely, Pete.

She just wants company, Pete – but recently Natalie has taken to spouting off about how Eve is always trying to take over with Erin, how smug she is when Zadie eats every scrap off her plate – and he’s had to listen to Eve slag his husband-and-parent skills off for sixteen years.

He’s pretty sure that Eve was over the moon when Erin put a spanner in the works for their plans for Australia – and if Erin hadn’t come along, he’s no doubt that Eve would have tried to persuade Natalie it was a bad idea.

There’s no way Eve would give up Natalie and the kids without a fight; it’s almost as though she thinks they belong to her – as though they’re her family, not his.

There is a warm wave of relief that finally Natalie seems to have seen the light as well, and he wishes she was there so he could high-five her.

‘Pete, none of what you’ve just said is true.

’ Eve’s voice takes on a steely tone.

‘Throwing it back in Natalie’s face that Zadie ate my pasta?

That’s just fucking ridiculous.

I don’t just turn up at your house, Pete, day and night – not that you would know because you’re never there.

Nine times out of ten, I come over to your house because Natalie has called me and begged me to come and help her.

’ Eve’s face takes on a triumphant expression as she realises that Natalie has never told Pete she calls Eve for help when Pete isn’t around.

‘That’s right – she calls and begs me to take the baby.

I’ve found her sobbing her heart out while Erin screams in another room more than once.

’

Pete blinks, not sure he’s hearing right.

Natalie has been complaining about Eve coming over to the house so much – why would she do that if she was the one calling Eve?

‘Maybe she has asked you to come over and help once or twice, but, Eve, you’re cancelling your clients just so you can come over here.

Natalie told me she saw your appointment book.

You let yourself into our house, for Christ’s sake.

Where the fuck did you even get a key?

’

‘You bastard,’ Eve hisses, her nostrils flaring as a vein begins to pulse at her temple.

‘You really are a piece of shit, aren’t you?

Answer me this, Pete – if Natalie thinks I’m so mental, and such a stalker, why am I the one she told first about her pregnancy?

Why am I the one who went to the dating scan with her?

’

Pete wants to laugh, can feel the corners of his mouth tugging up into a smile.

The woman really is bonkers.

‘No, Eve, I think you’ll find I was the one who went to the scan with Natalie.

’

Eve crows with laughter, loud enough to make people turn and look in their direction.

‘Come on, Pete, you’ve had two kids before.

Didn’t you wonder why there was only one scan at twenty weeks?

Natalie had a dating scan at twelve weeks – three weeks after she told me she was pregnant.

’

Pete feels all the air go out of him, the way he did when Stu took him down in a particularly fierce rugby tackle back when they played for the university first team.

‘She didn’t even know she was pregnant until she was twelve weeks gone,’ he says.

Eve laughs again, shrill and rusty, the sound making Pete think of screws tightening into brickwork, the screech of metal on stone.

‘No, Pete, that’s just what she told you.

Natalie found out she was pregnant when she was seven weeks.

She told me two weeks later …

it must have been around the end of May last year?

She told me when we had lunch together, and when I asked, she said she hadn’t told you because she didn’t know how you’d react.

’

Pete can’t find the words to express how he feels right now.

He thinks back to the beginning of that summer – of looking at university brochures and discussing degree courses with Emily, and how he had come home to find Natalie asleep, a pair of Emily’s baby bootees clutched in one hand.

He’d thought she was feeling sentimental about Emily flying the nest, when in reality …

He swallows, feeling sick.

Eve isn’t lying.

‘Maybe,’ Eve leans in, hissing the words so he has to fight to hear her over the strains of Post Malone coming from the speakers, ‘you should pay more attention to what’s going on with your wife, instead of spending your evenings in that fancy gastropub in town with someone who isn’t your wife.

’ Pete’s gut clenches, as Eve looks him up and down with disgust. ‘I guess I should leave the party now, Pete. Go back to my sad little lonely life, and leave you to your perfect family. It’s clear you Maxwells don’t want me around, and clearly I made a mistake thinking I meant more to you all than I actually do.

But before I go, I do have one more thing to say.

’

‘What?’ Pete is barely listening; he feels numb, as if he doesn’t belong in this body.

Natalie lied to me. The thought flashes across his mind .

‘I used to feel sorry for the two of you, you know? I thought it was such a shame neither of you could appreciate what you had. I couldn’t understand how you were both so miserable, how neither of you seemed to be able to find happiness in this gift you’ve been given in Erin.

’ Eve shakes her head before she raises her eyes to his, her face solemn.

‘After what I’ve seen lately, I don’t think either of you deserve that happiness. ’