Jacaranda Wife Read online

  JACARANDA WIFE

  KENDRA SMITH

  ©Kendra Smith 2015

  Kendra Smith has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This edition published 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Katie’s eyes roamed round the pantry as her mind processed its own inventory. Beans? Yes. Adulterer? That’s a bit harsh, your honour. Filter coffee? Half a packet. Unfaithful? You could call it that. French stick? Might have that for supper. Marriage vows? Need to review. Feeling sick about what you did? Definitely. Great sexual thrill. You bet.

  ‘Sweetie?’ Katie jumped. Her husband Tom was standing by the pantry door, peering at her.

  ‘You’re home early!’

  ‘We need to talk.’ He stared right at her. Oh God, not a ‘need to talk’ moment. Does he suspect? I didn’t actually do very much … She forced a cheery smile. But it soon slipped right off her face.

  ‘What’s wrong, Tom?’

  ‘Been repositioned.’ He looked about five years old. He was adorable. ‘Like I said might happen.’

  ‘Repositioned?’ The voice didn’t sound like hers. ‘Where?’

  ‘Australia,’ he said, as if in a dream. ‘Sydney.’ She stared at him, felt shivery, then walked past him and went upstairs and threw up in their brand new Villeroy and Bosh toilet. She’d never liked heat and spiders.

  ‘Why Australia?’ she had asked quietly, downstairs again, staring into his intense grey eyes. Sitting white-faced in their farmhouse kitchen, clutching her paper napkin and looking round at their beautifully painted duck-egg blue walls, the black and white photos, the blown glass ornaments on the shelf from Italy, shining with a multi-coloured halo from the spotlight below, noticing the dust, the mundane things while the rest of her head was in a spin. Like when my father died, she thought, all I could do was keep loading the dishwasher and watch baked beans slide off the plates – as if I could keep the stabbing pain away by worrying about how to clean the filter. Tom paced up and down the wooden floors, his suede brogues making loud clipping noises.

  ‘Do you mean the E word …’ her world was crashing around her. ‘Emigrate …’ Katie whispered, slightly hysterical by then, the napkin pink paper shreds. ‘We’ve just had all this done,’ her voice trailed off, her hand gesturing to the granite work surfaces, the wooden floor, the gleaming glass extension which had robbed the garden of at least six metres. But in fact who cared what they’d had done to the kitchen? She wasn’t really terrified about leaving granite work surfaces, what she was terrified about was leaving her house, her home, England, Britain …

  ‘K-A-T-I-E.’ Tom said her name in a very slow, deliberate way. ‘Martin has just offered me a job as head of New Asian Markets for Trent Financial - he says it’s exactly up my street, says my CV is perfect. He told me, Katie, that at 47, I don’t have many options,’ he closed his eyes, leant his head back, clutched the grey granite work surface. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open again. He stared at her. ‘It’s a great salary and they’ll pay all our moving costs. It’s not emigration, it’s,’ he hesitated, ‘for a few years, a contract. An opportunity, that’s what it is,’ he smiled shakily at her. He’s trying to be his usual self, his Alpha male, mused Katie. An opportunity for him maybe, but we might as well have been a job offer to Pluto; she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  ‘But shouldn’t we -’

  ‘What? Wait for me to get another job? The country’s in a total recession,’ he folded his arms. ‘Bankers are getting fired everywhere Katie, don’t you see?’ he sighed. ‘We are mortgaged up to the neck – especially with the bloody extra borrowing on the extension -’ She scraped her chair back, guiltily, remembering the cost.

  ‘You wanted it as much as me. Wanted to show off to all your clients …’ she whispered.

  ‘Katie, sweetheart - I’ve had a hell of a day,’ he said sweeping his fringe from his forehead and looking across at her. The look said don’t challenge me; don’t knock me when I’ve been kicked in the balls today and have managed to come up for air already. It said don’t try me when we are up to our necks in debt and I feel like I’m drowning.

  She supposed that was the beauty of working for such a massive financial big wig as Trent Financial, and that was the beauty of having an ego the size of Tom’s – you could get redeployed anywhere. She remembered when she’d first met him, he was the financial director of the publishing house she was working for and several years older than her. She’d noticed him straight away. Tom with his long lashes, with his blondish hair and schoolboy fringe, his oddly dark eyebrows, freckled nose and square jaw. He was rather like an older Prince Harry.

  She’d been working there for two years, slowly inching her way up from sales assistant (Can you photocopy this whole book before lunch, there’s a love) to Senior Staff Writer. It hadn’t been easy, but she loved the work and loved the industry. Born with printer ink running through her veins, she used to say.

  Tom tested her one day. ‘Katie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Get that proof from the colour printer will you?’ She ventured into the room where the huge colour printers hummed away. Coming out of the machine before her proof (‘How to Meet Justin Timberlake this weekend!’) was a pink and flesh coloured ensemble of places where the sun don’t shine in the female anatomy. Her face took on a similar hue of magenta.

  ‘Alright? smiled Tom, taking the proof from her hand and looking her straight in the eye. (This was his little test she later found out to see who’d sink, who’d swim in this particular publishing house that also churned out a number of distasteful top shelf titles as well as her teen magazine.)

  ‘Fine. Want a cappuccino?’ she asked.

  He gave her a quick look and said with a faint smile, ‘Thanks. Latt
e. No froth.’ That was the first time she saw that look on his face, one that was a mixture of mirth and mischief.

  She learnt her trade there. An editor who would not give up until everything was perfect; a ‘small team’ (that’s three full time and three and a half days’ worth of Claire, the anorexic office assistant) so you were forced to learn each other’s roles. She learnt how to cheat so it didn’t show.

  ‘Katie,’ Tom was looking at her. He put his huge hand over hers. ‘Are you alright?’

  God, where did all those days go, she wondered and then shook herself, tried to smile at him and squeezed his fingers. They should eat. Yes, remember the beans. Eat in a crisis. She watched Tom pour himself his second single malt. She walked past him towards the fridge, then suddenly had to grip the side of the counter as hot blood flooded over her chest and rose, like crawling spiders legs up her neck and face: Australia?

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Excited, Katie?’

  Heavens, how, at this precise moment, can Tom look so pleased? She stared into his eager, saucer-wide eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was the plane’s turbulence or because she was travelling to a country 10,000 miles away that was constantly making her feel like throwing up. She screwed up her eyes and forced a smile.

  Tom’s hand slipped into hers. ‘Two years will be ok, to get the banks off our back, clear some repayments, make headway?’

  She nodded mutely, brushed invisible crumbs from her skirt. Then she turned away, looked out the window and watched as the lights of Singapore airport disappeared below. The runway looked like a giant had thrown a luminous necklace onto the tarmac; bright, jewel-coloured beads were scattered everywhere amongst the inky darkness.

  As the plane juddered higher into the sky, she remembered the cab drive yesterday. She’d nearly screamed ‘Stop the taxi!’ but instead took a deep breath and stared out the window. Her dewy gaze had fallen over the verdant South Downs dotted with tiny lambs. English Tourism had pulled out all the stops. The only thing missing had been a band playing Jerusalem.

  She was jolted out of her thoughts by Tom handing her a menu. ‘Shall we eat?’

  Tom leaned over the seat’s armrest and squeezed her hand. ‘Darling?’

  Let’s see. I am flying to the other side of the world with two small children. We are hugely in debt, this is the only job Tom thinks he can take and I really, really can’t cope with heat. No, can’t eat a thing.

  ‘Starving,’ she lied. ‘But you choose,’ her mouth ached from forcing herself to smile.

  Tom frowned and looked at her. ‘How you feeling?’ He traced the outline of her cheek with his fingers. There are no words. She stared at her husband of eight years, gazing at his long legs encased in toffee coloured chinos sticking out into the aisle. She considered what they’d built together as a couple: their two gorgeous boys; their beautiful ‘Homes and Garden’ featured house, their circle of close friends.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet,’ the captain cut through her thoughts. ‘The outside air temperature is currently minus 50 degrees celsius. Please fasten your seatbelts as there is going to be a bit of turbulence ahead.’

  ‘Daddy, where’s turbulence?’ Andy was yanking at the blind, peering out of the window. ‘Is it a bird? I can’t see it. WANT to see turbulence!’

  As Tom released the catch for their impatient four year old, she flicked through the radio channels to distract herself. No good. A Joss Stone song took her skidding right back to last month … to the party, to how it all happened.

  It was somewhere around the boys’ bath time and just before she had started making canapés that her world had spun on its axis - in more ways than one. They had been hosting a summer garden party, she’d spent several hundred on food and wine and some lovely champagne – had even hired a few girls to help serve.

  Tom had come in that evening, clearly agitated, the first sign things weren’t well at work. He had glanced at the receipt on the kitchen table for the food and slammed down his fist.

  ‘Katie! How much have you spent?’

  She had looked at him, then carried on placing delicate quails eggs onto blinis and sprinkling them with paprika, trying not to let her hands shake too much.

  ‘Katie?’

  Some of it had come out then.

  ‘Restructuring … abroad is a possibility, we might have to go … Best for us, arrears on the house, share price crash at Mason Financial, lousy bonus …’ he’d said. Something about an American guy taking over.

  She’d stood frozen to the spot and told him that she couldn’t discuss it now, that the nanny was bathing Andy and James and that there were 30 people about to arrive. She’d said that the show needed to go on. She had spent ages planning the perfect party, she wanted to do something properly. She had felt slightly uneasy about some of the snooty mums at James’ new school; she was, if she was honest, trying to impress them. She remembered him holding onto her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye: ‘This job in Australia might be our answer Katie, they’re throwing me a life line.’

  She’d been so shell-shocked they had held each other tightly.

  ‘But it’s not definite?’ she’d looked up at him.

  Something in his eyes had her worried when he’d said no.

  Later, she had reverted to her usual method of recovery: downing the best part of a bottle of Moet. She’d noticed a couple of her new school mums nudge each other in the ribs. The damage is done, she’d thought, grabbing a nearby vodka jelly shot for good measure. A Lady Gaga song had been next, then there was the incident with Adam ... Oh God, that’s all a bit blurry too, she thought, as the song suddenly stopped and James interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Mum?’ He was reading Amazing Jokes for Kids and had been telling dreadful jokes since they had left Heathrow 12 hours ago.

  ‘Yes darling?’

  ‘Where can you see a really ugly monster?’

  ‘Don’t know sweetie.’ She sounded like she’d swallowed too much Diazepam.

  ‘In the mirror!’ and with this he fell forward snorting into the seat in front of him. Perfect timing. Thank you, James, smiled Katie. It was a reminder of the monster in the mirror the morning after the party ...

  She had staggered, bleary-eyed to the bathroom with unforgiving mirrors. Staring back at her had been an alien who had taken over a woman who was also five foot three, with exactly the same messy brown hair as her showing signs of needing the roots done, blue eyes which were extremely tiny and acutely red, and had put a large red lacy bra over her too-big tits. The alien also had a round, soft belly, mascara smeared on her left cheek and crumpled Snoopy pyjama bottoms. Katie had pulled her shoulders back defiantly, sucked her stomach in. Nothing. The alien had just looked like a startled ‘before’ pic from one of those awful celebrity magazines, but sporting a crimson 36C. Trouble was, not only did she not recognise the woman in the mirror, she barely recognised the woman who had been in the garden with Adam the night before. But could she blame herself? After the shock of it all? Thank God nobody saw what happened that night. She looked over at Tom guiltily.

  ‘Listen,’ he turned to her. (Oh God, can he read my mind?) ‘Let’s take one step at a time,’ Tom said soothingly, fixing his gaze on her.

  ‘I know, I know …’ she said nodding energetically, hoping he hadn’t noticed her cheeks burning.

  ‘You know, maybe it will all be good for us in a strange way,’ he stuck his legs out and twisted his ankle round, ‘for our marriage, what do you think?’

  I think I might faint.

  ‘Anyway,’ he leant in closer, ‘where’s the old Katie, hey? The girl who was up for anything?’ his eyes twinkled.

  How can I tell him after all these years that the only reason I used to be ‘up for anything’ was because I wanted to be with him, thought Katie, watching him twist his silvery cufflinks round and round. I didn’t like cycling, didn’t like jogging, didn’t like the try dive on our honeymoon, in fact I was
scared shitless.

  ‘Well, she’s rather lost her way underneath a pile of duvet covers to iron, if you must know, Tom. There’s not a lot of ‘cracking fun’ to be had with a screaming four and six year old these days …’ she felt the upsurge of tears. What is wrong with me?

  She stared at him, remembered how he’d always seemed to make London seem so vibrant to her, so ethnic, somehow, after her traditional English village upbringing. Tom dreamt of being a top banker even then. Imagine Katie, one day I might help build London’s future. That ego.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Tom put his hand on her knee, and she jumped. ‘You know this is a good opportunity for us.’ He hesitated, squeezed her knee – ‘our only opportunity.’

  She stared at a solitary Twiglet under the seat in front of her. Did I pack Twiglets?

  ‘I know Tom,’ she closed her eyes, pressed her fingers into her eyelids. She saw multi-coloured Twiglets dancing in front of her.

  ‘It’s still boom time in Asia,’ he added, as she flicked open her eyes again. ‘We can pay off our debts,’ he leaned in so close she could smell red wine on his breath. ‘– and don’t forget the Inland Revenue.’ Katie watched as he shook his head from side to side, recalled the panic in his voice on the phone that Monday, when he’d gone to a meeting with their lawyers to check just how bad the problem really was. That had been the nail in the coffin – it had made the decision to take the job definite. He’d left that morning telling her he was sure it had all been legal – lots of his colleagues at work had used the agency too to avoid the hefty stamp duty. He’d given her a very hurried kiss on the cheek that day; she noticed he hadn’t shaved. Tom always shaved. Later that day she could barely make out his voice on the phone - when he’d told her they were unlucky, they did have to pay that stamp duty bill - thirty thousand pounds they just didn’t have.

  ‘At least I still have a job,’ he looked away from her towards an airhostess who was walking purposefully down the aisle.

  ‘Yes, darling, yes,’ she sighed, taking his hand. Yes, thought Katie, we’ve been given a chance, we really must use it. How would Tom or I have coped without a job, an income? With buying a smaller place, with me working? Working? What would I have done! Katie squished up her nose at the thought, then studied the pert air hostess handing out drinks. She was wearing fresh make-up and had a tiny belt round her petite waist. She was smiling. Yes, but you used to look a bit like that, didn’t you, when you sold advertising space to heavy duty clients in London? When Tom first met you, didn’t you? God, there she was again thought Katie - my inner critic, the she-devil who dances on my thoughts. You used to get a thrill phoning clients minutes before the ad went to press, to increase the cost. You used to wear mascara and lipstick on the same day. Used to know the absolute latest you could phone the printer and get ads changed without it costing the earth, but still charge it to the client. What happened, sister?