The First Mistake(63)

‘I’ve been calling and calling you,’ says Beth quietly.

‘There’s nothing to say,’ says Alice, her voice nothing more than a squeak. She clears her throat, determined not to show her true pain.

‘I had no idea my Thomas was your Tom,’ says Beth. ‘How could I have?’

‘You should have made it your business,’ chokes Alice, as tears immediately spring to her eyes. ‘You must have known that the man you were . . . the man you were seeing, was married. How could you not have known that?’

‘Because he was very good at hiding it,’ says Beth. ‘Don’t forget, I’ve been wronged too in all of this. I thought the father of my—’ She stops and looks down at Millie. Alice still refuses to follow her gaze.

‘Why don’t you two go play?’ Beth says to the girls. ‘The bell will go in a minute.’

They both reach up to give their mum a kiss and run off. ‘As naive as I now know myself to be,’ Beth goes on, ‘it didn’t occur to me for a second that he was married.’

‘But you said that you’d seen him with someone,’ says Alice. ‘That must have been me. Unless you’re going to tell me there were others.’

It’s the first time the thought occurs to Alice and she clutches at her chest.

Beth looks down to the ground. ‘I don’t know if the woman I saw was you. It all happened so quickly, I can’t remember. She was blonde and beautiful, but I thought he was cheating on me. That I was the victim. If I’d known there was another woman, another family . . .’

‘I’m not just another woman,’ hisses Alice, all too aware of the other mothers around them. ‘And we’re not just another family. Tom was my husband and father to our much-loved daughter.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Beth. ‘But he was also Millie’s father.’

Alice snorts in derision. ‘He didn’t even see Millie, for Christ’s sake, so don’t go making out he was Father of the Year.’

‘But now I know why he left us so suddenly,’ cries Beth.

‘Did he even know you were pregnant?’ Alice asks, her eyes narrowing as she looks at the nemesis she used to call her best friend. ‘Did he know before he died?’

Beth shakes her head solemnly. ‘I never got the chance to tell him. All this time I thought he’d been living the Life of Riley, with no thought to what he’d done to me, but deep down I knew he wouldn’t have left me like that.’ She looks at Alice before going on. ‘We were too in love for him to just get up and go. Now I know it wasn’t his choice and it makes me feel better.’

Alice feels the exact opposite. She hadn’t thought she could feel any worse about Tom’s death. She was sure she’d reached the bottom and had scratched her way back up again, leaving marks on the wall as she came. They served as a reminder of where she’d been and how she’d do anything to stop herself from ever going back there. But she could feel herself sliding back down into the pit of despair again, the pain just as great as when he died.

‘How long did it go on for?’ asks Alice, her voice cold.

‘We met six months before I got pregnant and then he just disappeared.’

Alice racks her already exhausted brain, trying to work out the logistics. At first, she’d ruled it out as being a complete impossibility – a notion that could only be a million-to-one coincidence. But as the dates and the facts burrowed themselves under her skin, the probability of Beth’s Thomas and her Tom being the same person had become too hard to ignore.

‘I’m not going to do this here,’ says Alice, turning and walking off.

‘You can’t just ignore it,’ says Beth. ‘We need to talk it through.’

Alice stops and turns around, her features hardened, her voice sounding unlike her own. ‘We don’t need to talk through anything. I was his wife. Sophia is his daughter. That will never change and that’s all we need to discuss.’

She rushes off towards her car, leaving Beth standing stock still on the kerb.

‘I’m back,’ Alice calls out, as cheerily as she can manage as she opens the front door.

‘Hey,’ shouts Nathan. ‘I’m upstairs.’

She slowly makes her way up the stairs, taking every step to fix her smile onto her face. She doesn’t know whether she’s doing it for Nathan or Sophia’s benefit.

‘You okay?’ she asks, poking her head around Sophia’s bedroom door.

‘Mmm,’ she answers, without looking up from her mobile phone.

Alice waits, hoping for a more eloquent response from her intelligent, well-educated daughter. But she’s left staring at the top of her head. Again.

‘I really think we need to talk about this whole phone business . . .’ starts Alice, but Sophia is already rolling her eyes. ‘I would also appreciate a little respect.’

‘Yes Mum,’ she says, placing it on her lap and sitting up straighter. Alice is sure she can see her hand itching to pick it up again.

‘I don’t mind you using it for normal communication between your friends, your real friends, but not for the seven hundred you’ve got on Facebook or whatever it is.’

Sophia stifles a smirk. ‘Nobody’s on Facebook anymore. It’s Snapchat.’