The Cinderella Moment. Gemma Fox

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      The only good thing was that the madwoman hadn’t rung her again, although Cass wasn’t convinced she’d heard the last from the hysterical, dog-loving, Mrs James Devlin.

      By contrast, David had been bleakly sane when he showed up, a couple of hours or so after she arrived home from meeting Barney, which was quite a feat for someone red-faced, sweaty, with wet hair slicked slyly over his bald patch, wearing a bright turquoise tracksuit and carrying a squash racquet in a fluorescent green-and-yellow case. Seeing him made her heart lurch miserably.

      ‘The thing is, Cass, I need a little time and space to think about the future – our future,’ David said, sitting on the sofa, wringing his hands. ‘Well, all right, my future.’

      ‘Really,’ Cass said flatly. When they had been together she had never realised just how self-centred and conniving he sounded. Pain and the sense of loss made her see him so differently. Was it clearer and truer, or was it that betrayal coloured her vision?

      ‘There’s no need to be so negative, Cass. You see,’ he said, seizing on the word like a terrier grabbing a trouser leg, ‘to be perfectly honest with you, I think that’s the problem really, isn’t it?’

      ‘Sorry? I’m not with you,’ said Cass in surprise.

      ‘Well, you’re always so negative about everything, and so petty. For example, I’ve been here, what? Nearly ten minutes?’ He pulled back the sleeve of his tracksuit and peered at his watch to emphasise the point. ‘And you know that I’ve just walked up here from the sports centre, but you didn’t ask me to sit down and you haven’t offered me so much as a glass of water, let alone a cup of tea. It’s all a bit petty and vindictive, isn’t it?’

      Cass stared at him; he was incredible. ‘David, the last time we spoke, you said my relentless optimism was the real problem, that my being so cheerful was driving you mad. Always looking on the bright side, no sense of reality, never taking things seriously – that’s what you said.’

      ‘I’ve had time to reconsider, since the…get some sense of perspective.’ He glanced round the room. ‘I’m parched. Harry Fellowes and I had a really cracking game. He sends his regards, by the way. Now, about that cup of tea –’

      Cass looked at David as if seeing him for the first time; he really was a piece of work. How was it she had never noticed that before?

      ‘I thought as you said you didn’t want to see Danny, you weren’t staying for long,’ Cass snapped.

      What on earth had she ever seen in him? And why, if he was so bloody horrible, did it still hurt so much? Cass watched him as he tried hard to hold his pot belly in, and sighed. Being a woman could be such a pain in the arse at times.

      He was still talking. ‘I thought that you’d understand. It seems obvious to me – we really have to look at it from Danny’s point of view, Cass. I think that it’s better if he doesn’t know I’m here. I really don’t want to upset him.’

      Cass nearly choked. ‘Upset him? For Christ’s sake, David, you’ve already upset him. You walked out and left us, remember? There isn’t a day goes by when he doesn’t ask where you are, or when you’re coming home. He misses you like crazy. He wants to see you. I’m running out of excuses as to why you don’t want to see him. He adores you, David. You’re his daddy –’

      ‘You see, there you go again – everything a huge drama. You’re so demanding and difficult, there’s never any room for manoeuvre with you, is there, Cass? You always see the worst in people,’ David growled.

      This was not the way Cass saw herself at all. She struggled to keep the sound of tears and hurt and anger out of her voice. ‘Why can’t you come round and see Danny? Tuck him in and read him a story, take him out for the day. You could go to the zoo or the beach – or just take the dog for a walk.’

      David avoided meeting her eye. ‘Cass, you have to understand that things are a little difficult for me at the moment.’

      Oh, Cass understood, all right. Having a six-year-old around calling you Daddy probably didn’t go hand in glove with David’s new teenage sexgod ethos.

      ‘I am very concerned about the way you’ve interpreted things, the way you look at life,’ David continued.

      ‘You don’t think,’ said Cass conversationally, ‘while we’re on the subject of personality traits, that the main problem here is not my doom-laden, overly pessimistic nature, but the fact that you ran off with Abby, by any chance, do you?’

      David looked shocked, or at least made a good fist of trying to look shocked, and then shook his head. ‘Is that what you’ve told Danny?’

      ‘No, of course that’s not what I’ve told Danny. I told him that Mummy and Daddy loved him very much, but that we couldn’t live with each other any more because Daddy had got a new friend.’

      ‘Oh, Cass, there you go again – you have to be in the right, don’t you? You have to be the good one. And you always jump to the wrong conclusion.’ He managed to make it sound like the summing up in the case for the defence, not to mention everything being entirely her fault. ‘Let’s face it, Cass, this thing with Abby – surely you have to understand it’s a symptom of the problem between us, not the cause?’

      ‘And what do you think the cause is?’ she prompted.

      David looked almost apologetic. ‘Well, we’ve already talked about your attitude –’

      Cass felt his words stoking up the murderous rage that had been growing in her belly for the last fifteen minutes. ‘Have we? And what do you think about my attitude?’

      ‘Well, it’s hard to know where to begin, really. I’m very conscious of not wanting to hurt you – but, let’s face it, you’ve always had a very naïve take on life. I suppose it’s all your creative brainpower –’ He laughed in an unpleasantly patronising way. Thinking about it now, he sounded a lot like the policewoman.

      ‘Unworldly.’ His expression suggested he was being generous in his description. ‘You know, sometimes I felt that being with you was too big a responsibility, Cass.’

      She stared at him, noting the past tense and wondering who the hell he had been living with for the last nine years? ‘And are you saying that Abby isn’t a big responsibility? Please don’t tell me she’s very mature for her age,’ Cass snarled. She saw he was about to speak and held up a hand to silence him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, David? You’re making this up as you go along. It’s complete and utter rubbish. This is my house. When we first got together you couldn’t get a sofa on tick because your credit rating was so bad. I’ve always paid my way and sometimes yours. Even when Danny was a baby, I worked; I’ve sold stuff, I’ve taught…I don’t know how you dare accuse me of being unworldly. We’ve always got by.’

      David nodded and rested his fingertips together as if passing sentence. ‘You see, that’s just it, isn’t it? Scraped through, managed, got by.’ He smiled indulgently, as if these were the worst words in the world. ‘The thing is, Cass, I don’t want to scrape by any more. It’s time to move on, but I don’t want you to feel bitter or unhappy about the past, pet. We’ve had a great time.’

      ‘Pet? A great time?’ she yelled. ‘We’re talking about a marriage here, David, not a day trip to a bloody theme park. Would you like to tell me what СКАЧАТЬ