Was that a traffic jam ahead? She must not be late. Her friends were giving up their time to do this for her. There was nothing in it for them. Pure altruism. She looked at the stopped traffic, and once again she was in Tiffany's car, trapped in a sea of red brakelights, the seatbelt like a restraint pulled tight against her neck.
The traffic kept moving. It was fine. She heard herself exhale, although she hadn't been aware she was holding her breath.
She would ask Sam tonight when they were out for dinner if his mind kept getting stuck in the same pointless 'what if' groove as hers. Maybe it would open up a conversation. A 'healing conversation'. That was the sort of phrase her mother would use.
They were going out tonight on a 'date night'. Another modern term her mother had picked up. 'What you kids need is a date night!' She and Sam both abhorred the term 'date night' but they were going on one, to a restaurant suggested by Clementine's mother. Her mother was babysitting and had even made the booking.
'Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. I think it was Gandhi who said that,' her mother told her. Her mother's refrigerator door was covered with inspirational quotes scrawled on little pieces of paper held up by fridge magnets. The fridge magnets had quotes on them too.
Maybe tonight would be okay. Maybe it would even be fun. She was trying to be positive. One of them had to be. Her car drifted close to the gutter and a gigantic wave of water whooshed up the side of her car. She swore, far more viciously than was warranted.
It felt like it had been raining ever since the day of the barbeque, although she knew this wasn't true. When she thought of her life before the barbeque it was suffused with golden sunlight. Blue skies. Soft breezes. As if it had never rained before.
'Turn left ahead,' said the GPS.
'What? Here?' said Clementine. 'Are you sure? Or do you mean the next one? I think you mean the next one.'
She kept driving.
'Turn around when possible,' said the GPS with the hint of a sigh.
'Sorry,' said Clementine humbly.
chapter five
The day of the barbeque
Sunlight flooded the kitchen where Clementine ran on the spot in her pyjamas while her husband Sam yelled sergeant-major style, 'Run, soldier, run!'
Her two-year-old daughter, Ruby, also in her pyjamas, her hair a tangled blonde bird's nest, ran alongside Clementine, bobbing about like a puppet on a string and giggling. She had a soft, soggy piece of croissant clamped in one pudgy hand and a metal whisk with a wooden handle in the other, although nobody thought of Whisk as merely a kitchen utensil anymore; Whisk was fed, bathed and put tenderly to bed each night by Ruby in his/her (Whisk's gender was fluid) tissue paper-lined shoebox.
'Why am I running?' panted Clementine. 'I don't like running!'
This morning Sam had announced, with an evangelical look in his eye, that he'd developed a foolproof plan to help her 'nail this audition, baby'. He'd been up late last night getting his plan ready.
First she needed to run on the spot for five minutes as fast as she could.
'Don't ask questions, just follow orders!' said Sam. 'Lift those k
nees! You've got to be puffing.'
Clementine tried to lift her knees.
He must have Googled tips for your orchestral audition and tip number one was something delightfully trite like: Exercise! Make sure you're in peak physical condition.
This was the problem with being married to a non-musician. A musician would have known that the way to help her prepare for her audition was by taking the girls out this morning so she had time to practise before they had to go over to Erika's place. It's not rocket science, soldier.
'Two minutes more!' Sam studied her. He was unshaven, in his T-shirt and boxers. 'Actually, you might only need one minute more, you're not very fit.'
'I'm stopping,' said Clementine, slowing to a jog.
'No! You mustn't stop. It's to simulate your audition nerves by making your heart rate go up. Once it's up you have to launch straight into playing your excerpts.'
'What? No, I'm not going to play now.' She needed to spend time meticulously preparing her excerpts. 'I want another coffee.'
'Run, soldier, run!' shouted Sam.
'Oh, for God's sake.' She kept running. It wouldn't hurt her to do some exercise, although actually it was already hurting quite a lot.