The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

Bridget braced herself for the boy being pulled away from Jesse and an angry look directed her way. She felt her hackles rising in readiness.

But the woman didn’t pull her son away. Instead, she crouched down between the boys and spoke to them encouragingly. Both children stopped tugging at the toy and looked at her, nodding. She took the truck and placed it on the floor between them. Jesse grabbed some brightly coloured blocks from behind him, and the other boy helped him load the bed of the truck with them.

Bridget left her bag on the chair and walked over.

‘Hi.’ She smiled as the woman stood up. ‘Sorry about that. Jesse can be possessive about toys, he doesn’t see many other children.’

‘No worries, Tom is just as bad. People here like to bicker about which kid is right, but it’s part of playing, isn’t it? Sorting out their problems with a bit of help.’ The woman grinned. ‘I’m Jill, by the way. Jill Billinghurst. I think I saw you here last week too.’

‘It’s my third week coming here. Jesse loves it, so I trek across town. I’m Bridget Wilson.’

‘Across town? Where is it you live?’

Bridget’s smile faltered and a vague reply danced on her tongue. But what was the use in trying to be something she wasn’t? Jill and the rest of the parents here would tell a mile off that she and Jesse weren’t from Berry Hill.

‘Just off Sherwood Hall Road,’ she said simply, a vision of the damp, shabby accommodation they called home spoiling her optimism for a moment. The area’s biggest achievement in recent years was its ranking in the country’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

With a heavy heart, she prepared herself for Jill to remember she had something pressing to take care of and to haul Jesse’s new playmate away to find a more suitable friend.

Jill hesitated. ‘I was going to get myself a coffee. If you don’t mind watching the children, I could get you one too.’

‘That would be lovely, thanks,’ Bridget said, trying to cover up her surprise.

She sat back down as Jill made her way over to the refreshment hatch, acknowledging other mums as she walked. Bridget felt brighter, somehow validated. Jill was obviously very much part of the in-crowd here, and had taken the time to be kind to her and Jesse. It was a nice feeling. Bridget wasn’t the sort of woman to feel intimidated. She’d brazened it out here for three weeks with no one offering so much as a friendly smile until today. But it still felt good to have a chat with another human being. She did a low-paid job from home, collating and folding assembly instructions into envelopes, and some days she and Jesse didn’t see another soul.

She watched as Jesse and his little friend worked together to load the truck with coloured bricks. They took turns to push it round in a big circle and then worked as a team to offload the bricks before the process started again.

Jill returned with their coffees, plus juice and biscuits for the boys on a small tray. The woman on the seat to Bridget’s right had moved away, so Jill sat down on the vacant chair.

As the boys devoured their juice and biscuits, the two women chatted. Bridget learned that she and Jill were nearly the same age, and that Jill’s husband, Robert, worked as an architect in Mansfield.

‘You know, Tom hasn’t played this nicely with anyone for a long time. He’s an only child, so it’s lovely to see him sharing,’ Jill said as they watched the boys move away from the truck to a colourful cloth Wendy house. ‘Would you like to come over to our house one afternoon next week? We can have a coffee while the boys play. We’ve got lots of space for them to run around.’

‘Thank you, Jill,’ Bridget said, hardly believing her ears. ‘That would be really lovely.’

Nine Jill

October 2019

We drove out of the prison gates and suddenly the car seemed too small to contain the three of us. All the things I’d been so desperate to say to Tom bounced silently round my head because I didn’t want to expose myself to Robert’s scathing criticism.

‘I’ve got crisps, and Fanta or water if you want them,’ I said brightly. ‘I even got a bag of Haribo, your favourite.’ Tom was sitting behind his father and I turned to face him.

‘I try to watch my sugar and saturated fat intake these days, Mum,’ Tom said, looking out of the window at the buildings, the people. ‘I’m fine, please don’t worry.’

His head twisted this way and that, tracking something or someone outside the window as the car moved past. He seemed fascinated, as if it surprised him that the world outside had continued to prosper while he’d been serving his time.

He looked clean and handsome wearing the new clothes I’d taken in for him on my last visit. I’d selected a navy bomber jacket with black denim jeans and a simple white T-shirt. He wore no jewellery, not even a watch, but when I kissed his cheek he was clean-shaven and smelled pleasingly of shampoo and soap.

I twisted around in my seat. ‘Did they give you lunch before you left?’

‘It’s a prison, not a hotel, Jill.’ Robert’s fingertips tapped a disjointed beat on the steering wheel.

‘I’m not hungry, Mum,’ Tom said, and I saw him meet his father’s cold eyes in the rear-view mirror. I looked away as the air in the car seemed to thicken. The old animosities were still alive and kicking.

Driving as a family like this felt like going back in time twenty years. One weekend a month, Robert would load up the car with roughly double the amount of stuff we needed and we’d set off to our static caravan on a small rural site in Northumberland. Me and Robert in the front, Tom and Jesse in