LITMIR.BIZ

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Didn’t we do it when we were his age?’

      ‘I suppose so.’

      ‘Well, then,’ said Joanne, unwilling to let anything get in the way of her good mood. ‘Let’s go. If everyone takes a bag each, we should manage it all.’ She paused, aware that, despite congenial conversation in the car on the way up, things weren’t quite right between her and Louise. She lowered her voice so that Maddy, hovering only a few feet away, would not hear. ‘But before we do that, I wanted to say that I’m sorry about not speaking up about you and Oli. For not telling everyone the truth. I’m so glad you returned my call and agreed to come today.’

      Louise shrugged. ‘It’s okay. Though I’m still cross with Mum and Dad.’

      Joanne smiled gently. ‘Try not to be, Louise. Annoying though it is, they did do it out of love, for all the right reasons.’

      Louise nodded and said tightly, ‘I know. They’ll never approve of what I did but I guess I just have to accept that.’

      Joanne nodded thoughtfully and then she cocked her head to one side and gave Louise a broad smile. ‘Are we friends again?’

      Louise’s face broke into a grin. ‘Of course we are, you daft brush,’ she said and gave Joanne a brief hug. She let her go and hauled the picnic hamper out of the boot. ‘We’d better get a move on before I die of hunger and one of these kids,’ she said, with a nod over her shoulder in the direction of Oli, Abbey and Holly, who were playing tig, ‘gets run over by a car!’

      They made camp in a sheltered spot close to the dunes, the fine gold sand dotted with black sheep droppings. Largely untouched for thousands of years, and now protected by the National Trust, the bay teemed with wildlife. A blue butterfly skittered briefly around Joanne’s head and disappeared. The cry of Fulmars and other birds Joanne didn’t recognise filled the sky as they swooped and glided overhead. Small Ringed Plovers, with their distinctive black-and-white head markings, and the larger Oystercatchers with their bright orange-red bills, patrolled the shoreline. Oli shrieked with delight, clapped his hands at the birds and sent them skywards like a cloud of dust.

      After their picnic, the children in wetsuits (Maddy excepted) played in the surf with Heidi, the birds scattering like confetti. Joanne hovered by the water’s edge warning them not to go in below waist level – the waters here could be treacherous. Oli wore an old wetsuit Abbey had outgrown, itself a hand-me-down from her older sisters, flashes of bright pink neoprene on the arms and legs. Later they built a dam to divert the course of one of the many trickling streams that traversed the dunes and journeyed to the sea and finally, with the afternoon sun casting long shadows on the beach and everyone happily tired, they climbed back up to the car park, Oli clinging to Louise’s back like a monkey.

      On the way home they took the scenic road that cut across Ballypatrick Forest, dropped dramatically into Cushendall and hugged the coast all the way down to Ballyfergus. Oli and Heidi, both done in, fell asleep as soon as the car pulled out of the car park. Oli woke in time for fish and chips in Carnlough and they ate them and traditional dulse – dried, salty seaweed – on the limestone harbour wall. By the time they got back to Ballyfergus it was seven-thirty and everyone’s cheeks were flushed with the happy afterglow of a day spent in the sun.

      Joanne dropped Louise and Oli off first and then drove the short distance home to Walnut Grove. She had disliked the street name from the start – why were new developments given such daft names? What had walnuts got to do with Ballyfergus? It sounded like a street from a soap on the telly. As soon as the car pulled into the driveway, Holly and Abbey ran off to play with the other girls in the street. Abbey really ought to be getting ready for bed but how could the child be expected to sleep when it was broad daylight outside? Heidi hopped out of the back of the car and sniffed happily in the borders, squatting by the pampas grass to relieve herself, before trotting round to the back of the house. Maddy got out of the car, earphones still plugged in, and stretched. In her right hand she clutched her mobile like a talisman.

      ‘Mum, can I go round to Charlotte’s just now? She texted to say she’s been shopping in Belfast and has some really fab new clothes to show me.’

      ‘Sure you can,’ said Joanne indulgently. ‘Just don’t be any later than ten-thirty, okay?’

      The back door was locked and there was no sign of Phil. She resolved to put the past behind her and make an effort tonight – she would get tidied up quickly and perhaps they could open a bottle of wine and sit down and chat properly like they used to. Tired but happy, she staggered into the kitchen laden with bags, in the process almost tripping over Heidi who, despite a small fortune spent on dog-training classes, had never learnt to wait at a door until called in. Joanne dumped the bags in the kitchen and, in the hall, found the wooden floor littered with mail.

      Joanne sighed, picked it up and was just about to throw the bundle on the hall table when something caught her eye. ‘LAST REMINDER’ screamed the block capitals in red on the front of a white, windowed business envelope. Her heart began to pound. She picked up the envelope, turned it over and examined the address on the back – it was from Phil’s credit card company, or rather one of them.

      All the energy drained out of her at once, the warm, happy glow of the day put out like a fire in a downpour. She sank down on the bottom stair, feeling like a puppet whose master has just let go of the strings. She set the envelope on her knees and wiped the sweaty palms of her hands on her thighs.

      The envelope was addressed to Phil. She had no right to open it. But hell, who was she kidding? She had been opening his mail for years. And she did so for very good reason. She saw this not as an invasion of his privacy but as a means of protection for herself, the kids and, ultimately, Phil himself. This was not the first such letter she had seen over the years – nor, she supposed, would it be the last. Overdue bills, parking tickets, even a court summons once for dangerous driving – she had seen them all.

      But she knew that when a last reminder was issued, things were very far down the line indeed. Many warnings would’ve preceded this one. Phil had managed, somehow, to hide them from her. No wait, that wasn’t true. There had been a similar envelope a month or so back with something written on it in red, along the lines of ‘Urgent! This requires your immediate attention. This is not a circular!’

      That day, Phil had been at home and snatched it out of her hand at the breakfast table. ‘That’s for me,’ he’d said, without glancing at the envelope, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

      ‘Phil, that’d better not be a red bill.’

      Silence.

      ‘Is that a red bill?’

      ‘Just leave it, Joanne,’ he’d warned.

      ‘It’s not a parking ticket, is it? Not again.’

      ‘I said, will you leave it alone?’ And with that he grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and left the room.

      She’d got up from the table and followed him up the hall. ‘Whatever that is, Phil, you’d better sort it out. Do you hear me?’

      He shrugged his jacket on and opened the front door. ‘For the last time, Joanne.’ He paused, exasperated. ‘It’s my business. Not yours. I’ll take care of it.’

      And really, she could say no more for it was true – it was his business. They had always kept separate credit cards and bank accounts. During the short period in her marriage when she was working full-time and before Maddy came along, the idea of keeping their money separate had appealed to her fledgling feminist instincts. Everything was paid for on a fifty-fifty split – furniture, the mortgage, insurance, holidays, food bills. At the time, it had given her a sense of independence. She had liked the idea that she contributed exactly the same as Phil and what was left over at the end of the month was hers. It had worked well enough while they were both earning roughly the same salary.

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