The Silent Wife(51)

Proof that he still loved me, right there. I needed to stop doubting him. Whatever his faults, Massimo had always fancied me. Even in our worst times, we’d never stopped having sex.

He wouldn’t have allowed me to.





24





MAGGIE




Before I could get a chance to okay the party with Lara, she came round, full of ideas for ‘finger food’. I think she meant ‘ham and cheese sandwiches’. I was only slightly tempted to tease her by suggesting the fish paste and sandwich spread sarnies Mum swore by.

‘Massimo’s got all sorts lined up – water football – so it might get a bit messy and muddy, dodge football with a couple of kids on the trampoline, and some assault courses. He’s bought some basketball nets as well and some hula hoops… not quite sure what he’s going to do with those but no doubt he’ll have a plan.’

I bit my lip. ‘Are you sure you’re all right with this? It’s so generous of you both.’

‘It’s fine. Honestly, Massimo is brilliant with kids, he’s like the Pied Piper. We can just worry about the food.’

I scrabbled about for a pen and paper to make a list. ‘Obviously I’ll go and buy it all.’

‘Not necessary. Massimo’s already ordered everything from the Cash and Carry.’ Lara was glowing, triumphant her husband was such a pillar of efficiency.

It was a mark of my mingy mean spirit that I felt a little dart of disappointment. Sam had never had a proper party before – we’d never had room – and I’d looked forward to choosing the food with him, standing there while he made the excruciating decision between Monster Munch and Pringles, margherita or pepperoni pizza.

Lara’s face fell. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Yes, yes, of course, thank you. I’m just a bit embarrassed about how much trouble you’re both going to and how little I’m doing.’ I fidgeted self-consciously, wondering whether to start pressing tenners into her hand, or whether talking about something as vulgar as money would contravene some other family rule that I hadn’t yet grasped. I decided to let Nico deal with that one.



On the day of the party, Sam was up at the crack of dawn begging to go next door. Although Francesca was still showing me all the warmth of a barely flickering candle, she did at least have moments when she couldn’t resist Sam’s enthusiasm. Thankfully he managed to coerce her into playing a complicated ball game on the bit of patio Nico had kept plant-free for that specific purpose. Despite their banter being utterly un-PC, it kept him out from under my feet. ‘I could do better than you with one leg tied behind my back.’ ‘You’re a girl, you’re only good for a bit of splashing about in the pool.’

By two o’clock I couldn’t keep him at home any longer and we went round to help Lara get the food ready. Mum couldn’t have echoed my thoughts more accurately. ‘Cor! Didn’t realise we were having a tea party for the queen!’

Sam started gesticulating and mouthing ‘Where are the crisps?’ at me while Lara was looking in the fridge. I shooed him out into the garden to throw the ball for Lupo before the whispering became any louder.

I shut Mum up with, ‘This looks fantastic, Lara’, thinking that all the fiddly little vol-au-vents and little crispbreads with dobs of – what the hell was that? – Olive tapenade? Anchovy paste? – wouldn’t keep a bunch of marauding ten-year-olds going for long. I wasn’t sure the sundried tomatoes and goat’s cheese tartlets were going to be all the rage either. In my experience, the more doorsteppy the sandwiches, the better.

Unfortunately, Mum wasn’t reading my signals. ‘I reckon we get some cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks and a few proper buns going too – they’re bound to build up a bit of an appetite running around.’

Massimo came in on the tail end of the conversation, looking all sporty and tanned, like a youthful football manager. He glanced at the spread and said, ‘I’m with you, Beryl, this will be a wonderful starting point, but ten-year-olds are like locusts.’

Lara’s colour rose. She stuttered, ‘I thought you said not to do the rolls, burgers and sausages?’

Massimo took a theatrical step back. ‘No, I said we should do them. All these fancy bits will be great for the grown-ups though.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘Honestly, my darling wife, I think you get more and more absent-minded every day. It’s a good job I love you.’

Lara scuttled off to the freezer and started defrosting sausages in the microwave. She was smoothing her hands on her jeans, looking so hassled I wanted to cancel the whole thing and just take them down the park for a kickabout as I’d done in other years.

Massimo seemed oblivious to Lara’s stress, immediately raising mine by asking where Nico was.

‘He’s taken Francesca to another swimming competition. He should be back just after the party starts.’

Massimo frowned. ‘On a Sunday? Wasn’t he out with her yesterday as well? It wouldn’t have killed him to let one of the other parents give her a lift today.’

I wanted to say, ‘Hear, bloody hear!’ and tell Massimo that we’d had words that morning because, yet again, even though I now had a husband, I was still relying on my mum to help me. But I was obviously more 1950s housewife than I gave myself credit for, perhaps without the apron, but certainly with the loyalty that must not let a single word be said against the man of the house. ‘I know, but Francesca is still very unsettled and he has to put her first.’ I did feel that a huge cavernous cauldron of bubbling oil might open up beneath my bum to boil the hypocrisy out of me.