Rodney McGraw, Great British Garden TV presenter and Celebrity Bake-Off semi- finalist, descended the last two stairs to his basement kitchen with the firm intention of ending his marriage of thirty two years.

The object of his impending bombshell, his wife Lorraine, sat at the kitchen table and did not turn around at his arrival.

“What are you doing?” Rodney asked, coming to a halt beside her, adrenalin pumping through him - or maybe just the double whiskey he’d knocked back at The Bricklayers Arms on his way home.

“I’m matching the bidders from the school Promises Auction to the bids,” Lorraine said, consulting a clipboard to her left. She wrote a name on a yellow Post-It note then stuck it on a gold envelope with A Rainbow Cake from Cafe Juno typed on the label. Another envelope labeled An Evening with Rodney McGraw caught his eye.

“Who bid for me?”

Lorraine finally turned to look at him, dropping her steel rimmed glasses to the end of her beaky nose. “Rose Spencer. You know, the one who owns the children’s shop by the deli, the overpriced one.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been inside it.”
“Why would you?”

Rodney was aware that Lorraine and her cronies, Antoinette and Pip, had no time for the likes of Rose Spencer who was part of the new influx of trendsetters who had started arriving in their corner of East London, Isabella Park, about five years earlier. He, on the other hand, had long nurtured the hope that one day one of them would bid for one of his evenings. Too bad it had to be now. For a moment his resolve weakened but then the memory of Juliet, softly smiling at him from the back of the crowd at the Port Eliot festival as the rain pit-pattered on the canvas roof of the marquee, hardened it again. The sudden downpour had sent them seeking shelter in his complimentary yurt and the rest, as they say, was history. That had been the previous July. Now it was February and Juliet had issued an ultimatum.

But how to put it to Lorraine. Rodney quickly ran through his options.

I think you should know, Lorraine, that I’ve been seeing someone else.

No. That wasn’t final enough. It left far too much room for her to manoeuvre, for tears, for negotiation.

Lorraine, you know you’ll always be my best friend.

No. That would invite scorn.

Lorraine, I’m sure you feel the same way...

Unlikely.

Lorraine, we need to talk.

But that could be about almost anything.

Don’t worry Lorraine, you can keep the house.

Really? He’d paid the mortgage for the last twenty years.

Lorraine, you know I’ll always take good care of you and the children ...

Yes, that was a good way to start. He’d been a good husband generally. Give or take a few flings when his career started to take off. Lorraine had taken him back both times but the second time she had made it clear there would be no more chances. Jade had been ten then and Lauren a toddler. Hannah had come along a couple of years later and Louis five years after that so there’d been no time for any more infidelities. Until now.

“What’s the matter with you, you look hot,” Lorraine said, narrowing her eyes. “I’m fine.” Rodney moved to the sink and poured himself a glass of water from the absurdly expensive Hansgrohe tap they’d had installed when they did the kitchen make-over and opened his mouth to speak.

“Do you want a cup a of tea?”
“I’m on the wine,” Lorraine nodded at a half empty glass of red.
“I’ll join you,” Rodney said, relieved. Wine would lubricate the conversation. He poured a large glass for himself and topped up Lorraine’s. That was one thing he’d miss about Lorraine. She didn’t have a problem with his drinking like Juliet did. Juliet was surprisingly puritanical about alcohol, for her age.

“Cheers,” Lorraine said. Her cheeks were already flushed and she had a piratical air about her, exaggerated by the dark shade she continued to dye her hair, the same colour as when they’d first met at the youth club in Billericay when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. He’d fetched up there having hitch-hiked from Forres the day before with no other plan than to seek his fortune south of the border. Lorraine was pregnant with Jade at sixteen and they’d married the following year.

“Cheers,” he raised his glass, pulled out a chair and sat down, taking a large gulp of Malbec.

“By the way, Jade called. She’s bringing Bobby-Joe round later,” Lorraine said, back to consulting her clipboard again.

Bobby-Joe was Rodney and Lorraine’s first grandchild, the product of a fling in Ibiza two summer’s before.

“Oh that’s nice. Though ... I might have other plans.”

“You do? What plans? I wish people would take care to write their names more legibly. Can you read what that says?”

Lorraine pushed the clipboard across the table to Rodney.

“Sheila?”
“I thought Sharia.”
“Hard to tell.”
“Anyway. I was hoping you’d be around tonight because apart from Jade and Bobby-Joe, I think Louis needs a bit of attention.”
Louis, their youngest child and only son, was in his last year of primary school and had recently become something of a recluse. “What’s happened now?”

“Nothing. But he wouldn’t come to the auction with me. And he doesn’t seem to be interested in meeting up with his friends anymore. Don’t you remember the girls at that age? Their friends were constantly in and out.”

“Girls are different.”
“Louis’ different.”
Rodney sighed and poured himself another glass of wine. It was a horrible truth that you were only as happy as your least happy child.
“Isabella Park’s gone downhill recently.”
“It’s not the school that’s the problem, Rodney,” Lorraine said, giving him a hard look. “Are you coming down with something? You’re behaving oddly. Are you hungry? Why don’t you open that packet of cheese puffs on top of the drier in the utility room.”

That was another thing about Juliet, Rodney reflected as he decanted the cheese puffs into a bowl. Her idea of a snack was a bowl of beetroot and quinoa.

He was just sitting down again when the front door slammed and a pair of Tippex white trainers with fluorescent green laces appeared at the top of the stairs. The owner of the trainers, Rodney and Lorraine’s youngest daughter Hannah, side-slid down the bannisters, landing beside Rodney.

“Hi Pops,” Hannah planted a kiss on Rodney’s cheek and leant over to help herself to a handful of cheese puffs, dropping orange flecks down the front of her now not-so- pristine track top.

“Careful,” Rodney warned, leaning out of the way. “Where’ve you been?”
“The gym. I’m starving. What’s for supper?”
“I haven’t got much in,” Lorraine said. “I was thinking we could get a takeaway from that new Keralan place on the Broadway. Jade and Bobby-Joe will be here any minute. We’re babysitting.”

“Ah, sweet,” Hannah said.
“Wait a sec,” Rodney interrupted. “We’re babysitting now? Where’s Jade going?” “On a date.”
“With who?”
“Someone from work. Callum I think his name is.”
“He’s not exactly from her work,” Hannah said. (Jade worked as a receptionist for a post-production company in Wardour Street, Rodney had got her the job). “He’s a motor cycle courier.”

“Oh, brilliant!” Rodney said.
“Rodney. Pot. Kettle,” Lorraine observed drily.
“Yes, I suppose it could have been me,” Rodney said huffily. “If I hadn’t got lucky.” Up until the age of twenty eight he’d worked as a carpenter for a landscape gardening firm until a chance encounter on a job in Shepherds Bush for a BBC producer looking for a new TV show propelled him into the televisual stratosphere. Now he was to herbaceous borders what Jamie Oliver was to pasta.

“Success is just a social construct you know,” Hannah said, reaching over for another handful of cheese puffs.

“A what?”
“A social construct. Plus. No one’s ever heard of you in Japan.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
Rodney had the feeling that Hannah was bullshitting but all the same he was a little bit offended. His autobiography Borderline, the one that he’d been promoting at the Port Eliot festival where he’d met Juliet, had been translated into eight different languages. So what if the Japanese didn’t like it.

“Stella McCartney Handbag,” Hannah said, picking up another of Lorraine’s gold envelopes. “How much did that go for?”

“Not as much as you might think,” Lorraine said. “The bidding stopped at £80.” “Someone lucked out.”
“It’s not so much a matter of luck at a promises auction,” Lorraine said darkly and Rodney, who had already realised that now was not the time for him to broach his subject with Lorraine, poured himself another glass of wine and went upstairs to find Louis who was, as usual, on his computer in his bedroom.

“Alright mate, what’s up?”

Louis swivelled ever so slowly round on his desk chair and eyed his father coldly. His bare toes were curled round the chair’s stem like a creeper. He had unusually bulbous big toes, like the fruits of a passion flower.

“Nothing.”

“Ah, nothing,” Rodney nodded sagely, sitting down on the end of the bed which still had a Spurs duvet cover despite the fact that Louis hated football.

He glanced over Louis’ shoulder to try and see what was on the screen behind him but Louis had obviously already tapped out of whatever he’d been doing because the screen had reverted to its screen saver, an anime cartoon mouse with crazy staring eyes. “Mum and I were wondering if you’d like to invite some friends round for a movie night sometime?”
“Dad, nobody does movie nights anymore.”
“We just don’t think it’s healthy for you to be spending all this time on your computer on your own ...”
“I’m not on my own, I’m talking to my friends.”
“Son ...”
“Dad!”
Louis stopped swivelling abruptly and got up and walked to the door. He yanked it open and gestured out into the corridor. “Could you just leave me alone please? I’m fine.” Rodney considered Louis. He was sallow like Jade and Lorraine (or at least Lorraine in the old days) whereas Lauren and Hannah were freckled and sandy haired like him. Or how he used to be; his hair was shot through with grey now.

Rodney drained his wine and stood up. Perhaps there might be time to talk to Lorraine after all.

“Ok. But let me know if there’s anything bothering you, alright? That’s what I’m here for.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Louis sighed, closing the door firmly behind him.

******

Back in the kitchen, Rodney found Lorraine on the phone to Lauren.

“Have you tried that Manuka honey extract I sent you? Uh-huh. You sound run down. Bunged up then. Why don’t you come home for your reading week? Let me take care of you.”
“What’s up?” Rodney refilled their glasses once she’d hung up. Lauren was his favourite child. You weren’t supposed to have favourites but that’s how it was. “It couldn’t be that Chinese virus, could it?”

Recently the news had reported a case in Brighton but Lauren was miles away, in Nottingham.

“Unlikely. She’s had it for over two weeks now,” Lorraine said. “I’ve told her to come home and get some rest. She’s been working too hard on that MA.”

Of their four children, only Lauren was properly academic. Rodney had a sudden sharp stab of panic over how his favourite would react to his news. After all, Juliet was only five years older than she was. But it couldn’t be helped. It was now or never. Rodney cleared his throat.

“Rainy,” he began, instantly regretting the use of Lorraine’s old nickname which fully deserved the quizzical look she shot him. He nearly never called her Rainy anymore. It had been her mother’s pet name for her. But the truth was, she was reminding him of her mother more and more.

“I’ve been meaning to say,” Rodney began, but was immediately cut short by a sudden burst of church bells chiming through the house followed by the front door slamming and the tinkle of car keys being tossed into the metal bowl on the hall table.

“Hellooooo! Anyone home?”
“Why does she always have to let him ring the bell?” Rodney said sulkily. Lorraine leant back in her chair and called up the stairs. “Down here! Meaning to say what?” she turned back to Rodney.
“Oh forget it, it doesn’t matter now,” Rodney said. One thing he wasn’t going to miss was that doorbell.

******

“What’ve you done?” Rodney stared at the rows of tightly beaded braids that covered Jade’s scalp and cascaded down her back.

“Tunde did them for me,” Jade said, doing a little twirl, Bobby-Joe balanced on her hip. “What do you think?”

“Very nice,” Lorraine said loyally whilst Rodney declined to comment. From the age of fourteen to twenty six Jade had been a Goth. Now she seemed to be some sort of Rastafarian. She was wearing tight white jeans and a long stripy cardigan over a sloppy t- shirt. The braids accentuated her hooked nose and high shiny forehead.

“Just strap him into the papoose facing out if he gets cranky,” Jade said, handing Bobby-Joe and a bundle of cotton fabric over to Lorraine.

“Come to Nana, darling,” Lorraine cooed, taking Bobby-Joe onto her lap. His round woolly head bobbed on its slender stem and his skin glowed luminous as toffee in the soft pendant light. He really was a very pretty child, Rodney thought. The father was Jamaican.

“Are you walking yet darling?” Lorraine asked him.
Bobby-Joe tilted back his head and stared at Lorraine as if she was simple.
“He’s walking round chairs,” Jade supplied the information on his behalf. “He’s only eleven months old,” she added, a little touchily.
“Of course he is. He’s a very clever boy!” Lorraine cooed. “Are you staying for tea?” “I can’t Mum, I’ve got to run,” Jade said, kissing the top of Bobby-Joe’s head. “Be a good boy for Nana and Grampa.”

As soon as she’d gone a wild look appeared in Bobby-Joe’s eyes, reminding Rodney of his father in the first stages of dementia. Then he opened his pretty mouth and hollered, showing the pinkest salmon throat and tonsils that Rodney had ever seen, only calming down when Lorraine got out her phone and found an animation on You Tube for him to watch, propping it up against the pepper grinder and settling him more comfortably on her lap.

In despair, Rodney opened another bottle of wine.
“Did you have a word with Louis?” Lorraine asked as he filled her glass. “Not really. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me.”

******

At seven thirty Rodney was despatched to collect the take away from the restaurant on the Broadway. An icy February wind whipped down the High Road swirling litter and rolling the metal bin that had contained it. The cold made his chest constrict, or perhaps it was just panic at the impending hatchet job he was about to inflict on his family. Had he imagined it or had Louis whispered tit under his breath as he closed his bedroom door behind him earlier? He passed the old electrical repair shop which had recently been turned into a trendy cafe/bakery, Munch. It was a shame, Rodney thought, that all the useful shops were disappearing. The last time the vacuum cleaner had broken down he’d had to throw it away and buy a new one. Earlier, in Isabella Park, he had passed Rose Spencer’s children’s shop which had replaced the old grocer, its windows now decorated with star spangled baby gros and brightly coloured woollen hats in the shape of zoo animals. He was sorry he wouldn’t be around to spend the evening with her now, especially since he’d refined his auction promise from last year when he’d ended up actually having to install a Zen garden for Helen Bentley, with more pebbles than Chesil Beach. This newly revised evening consisted of a short tour of the successful bidder’s garden followed by a bottle of fizz and nibbles (provided by Rodney) and some guidance on planting and seating sketched out on the back of an envelope (or whatever came to hand, people liked the impromptu touch) along with a signed copy of Borderline, which described his childhood outside Aberdeen, subsequent career and occasional bouts of depression. The flyleaf at the back showed a photograph of him and Lorraine and the kids taken in the walled garden of their house in the Scottish Borders about eighteen months earlier. Of course there had been no Juliet back then and he felt another wave of guilt and panic because, much like the vacuum cleaner, wasn’t he throwing away one perfectly good woman for another?

******

At the restaurant Rodney found his order had got mixed up with someone else’s so he accepted the large Cobra beer the staff provided him with and chatted to the waiters whilst he waited about life in their home villages, which were displayed in blurry black and white photographs over the walls. It was nearly eight thirty by the time he got home and they finally sat down to eat, way past Bobby-Joe’s bedtime. Halfway through the meal Lorraine got a panicked call from their neighbour Antoinette saying that Barry, her Staffie, had gone missing and could Lorraine come over and help her look for him.

After the departure of Lorraine, Bobby-Joe became inconsolable - less from the departure of Lorraine herself than the absence of her phone. Rodney tried standing him up against a kitchen chair which Jade had said he liked but Bobby-Joe didn’t seem to like it at all. His legs kept buckling underneath him and he sagged against Rodney’s leg. Clearly this was not going to work. Rodney took him upstairs to the living room to watch television instead.

“Let’s see if Grampa’s on the telly,” Rodney said, finding an old Chelsea Flower Show episode on a lifestyle channel but the sight of his grandfather on the television only upset Bobby-Joe further and he flung himself face forward into the sofa cushions where Rodney thought he might suffocate if he left him sobbing for much longer.

Picking him up, Rodney attempted to toss him into the air as he had done with his own children at that age but Bobby-Joe was heavier than he looked and Rodney caught him funny, his cheek grazing his belt buckle. This elicited even more wails and in despair Rodney carried him over to the window where as luck would have it Lorraine and Antoinette and now Pip as well were conferring at the end of the road under a street lamp.

“Look, there’s Nana and the banshees,” Rodney told Bobby-Joe, jiggling him up and down and pointing out window. Antoinette was staggering around half cut as usual in an orthopedic boot and it looked like they’d co-opted Pip’s two boys to aid with the search for Barry as well because they suddenly appeared round a corner. Leo, the one with ADHD, was tossing a pebble or bottle top in the air and after a couple of tosses he kicked it in the direction of the three women. There was no sign of the missing dog but the sight of Lorraine made Bobby-Joe wail all the more loudly. He lunged for the window, thwacking his head against the sash frame.

******

In the kitchen, Rodney cast around for something to apply to the bruise which was rapidly enlarging on Bobby-Joe’s forehead.
“What have you done to him?” Hannah said, spreading marmite over a piece of toast.
“I didn’t do anything. He hit his head all by himself.”
Louis, who was also making toast, sniggered.
“Was the take away not enough for you?” Rodney asked sourly, picking up a jay cloth.
“Don’t use that Dad, it’s filthy,” Hannah intervened as Rodney pressed the damp cloth to Bobby-Joe’s head. “What should I use then?” “Try a pack of frozen peas.”

“Hannah, wait, d’you think you could you give me a hand?” Rodney asked desperately as she set off upstairs. “Sorry, Dad,” Hannah said. “I’ve got to finish my sociology assignment.” “Yeah, laters Dad,” Louis said, taking his plate and following her.
“Try the papoose,” Hannah shouted back down the stairs.

Getting Bobby-Joe into the papoose was actually quite straightforward once Rodney had stripped off his sweatshirt. The problem was that there didn’t seem to be enough material to secure the straps at his waist, which meant that Bobby-Joe flipped forward at an angle of forty five degrees like a sky diver unless he continually held him upright. In the end Rodney abandoned the contraption and sat Bobby-Joe down on the floor. In his heart of hearts he knew it was because his girth was too large; he’d recently put on a lot of weight. Sometimes he ate two dinners. One with Juliet and another with Lorraine, or vice versa. Rodney poured himself a glass of water and sipped it slowly. For the first time that evening Bobby-Joe was blissfully quiet - until Rodney saw the reason why. He had somehow got hold of Rodney’s brick phone, the one he called Juliet on, which must have fallen out of his sweatshirt pocket when he took it off.

“Hey, give me that!” Rodney lunged for the phone which Bobby-Joe simultaneously dropped in surprise. Wrong-footed, Rodney kicked it under the oven as he bent to pick it up.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Rodney said, which made Bobby-Joe hoot with laughter. Now he could actually hear the phone vibrating - Juliet must be trying to call him, possibly in response to a call from Bobby-Joe.

Rodney broke out in a cold sweat. Heart racing, he grabbed a spatula from the jar by the sink and getting down on his side attempted to coax the phone out from under the oven, finally succeeding along with a ping pong ball, several marbles, a sticky fridge magnet and the packet of parking permits he’d spent a whole Saturday afternoon looking for.

“Look at you two, having a lovely game,” Lorraine said when she returned home five minutes later, watching Bobby-Joe throw the ping pong ball at Rodney and Rodney pretend to be grievously wounded. “By the way, we found Barry,” she added over her shoulder as she bore Bobby-Joe away upstairs to bed. “He was behind Antoinette’s sofa all the time.”

******

Now at a loose end, Rodney finished the remains of the masala dosa and the third bottle of wine. Once he was sure the coast was clear he took out his brick phone and switched it on. Sure enough, there were three missed calls from Juliet and a text.

How’s it going? R u ok?

Yes. Let’s speak later

He added darling to speak later to remind himself of their intimacy then he switched the phone off and hid it deep inside one of his gardening boots by the back door. It had occurred to him that Juliet would want babies, at least a couple of them, and the thought exhausted him. Upstairs in the living room he poured himself a whiskey from the decanter and settled down on the sofa, resuming the gardening program he’d paused earlier. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep for, but the next thing he knew Lorraine was in the room drawing the curtains shut. He sat up abruptly to finally execute his plan, black spots spinning in front of his eyes.

“He’s off in the land of nod,” Lorraine smiled down at him. “I don’t think that bump’s done him any harm.”

Rodney didn’t have a clue who or what she was talking about but he was suddenly aware that his hands were shaking. He felt clammy and light-headed, his mind empty of everything.

“Rodney, are you alright?”

He tried to open his mouth to speak but there seemed to be something wrong with his jaw and he couldn’t get the words out. Also, his chest felt like a cage he was imprisoned in and it was only after a superhuman effort that he finally managed to croak the words

Help me.