THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS. Erin Kaye

incredibly handsome – dark-haired, brown eyes framed by long black lashes, a strong square jaw and tanned muscular frame under his golfing polo shirt and pale pink sleeveless sweater. Usually his physical presence was enough to mollify her, but today Joanne barely registered these physical details. She forgave him so often because her physical attraction to him was still, at times, overwhelming.

      But today, something had changed. She felt sudden, cold clammy fear. She recognised something underneath his looks and what she saw, she did not like. She shivered suddenly and rubbed her upper arms roughly. Phil brought his cold gaze to bear on her, his eyes red-rimmed with drink, his stare arrogant.

      ‘Do you?’ shrieked Joanne.

      ‘Shush,’ said Louise, putting a finger to her lips. ‘People will hear. Can’t you … discuss this another time?’

      ‘I don’t care who hears,’ said Joanne, defiantly, not really meaning it. She covered up for Phil all the time. It was what she did.

      Heidi, confined once more to the utility room, started scratching at the door and whimpering.

      Sian said, ‘Mum and Dad’ll hear you if you don’t stop shouting. You don’t want to upset them, do you? You know how Mum’s been looking forward to this afternoon.’

      Joanne let out a long slow breath. ‘No, of course not,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘But will you look at the state of him!’ she hissed pointing at her husband, the corners of her mouth turned down in disgust. She grabbed a used napkin and threw it at him – with no weight behind it, it fell pathetic ally short. Phil did not even notice.

      ‘Bla … de … bla … de … bla,’ he said, his face raised to the ceiling. He brought his head down suddenly and glared at Joanne. ‘It’s your frigging family, Joanne. Not mine. I told you I was playing golf today weeks ago and you still persisted in having people over. And then you go about like a martyr accusing me of being in the wrong.’

      ‘You didn’t have to stay for a meal at the clubhouse. You could’ve come home after the game.’ And then – because there was a grain of truth in what Phil said which frustrated her even more – Joanne burst into tears. Immediately her sisters ran over and stood on either side. Each placed a hand on her shoulder.

      ‘Phil,’ pleaded Sian, ‘can’t you just leave it?’

      ‘I can. She won’t,’ he growled.

      ‘Please, Phil,’ said Louise. ‘She’s upset.’

      Joanne wiped away the tears, black with mascara, with the back of her hand. ‘I’m okay,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m used to this.’

      ‘Pah,’ spat out Phil. ‘Look at you. The three bloody degrees. Telling me what to do in my own home.’

      ‘But Phil—’ began Louise’s reasonable voice.

      Joanne cut across her. ‘Don’t you talk to my sisters like that,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you dare.’

      ‘I pay for this house, slave all hours to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I’ll do whatever I bloody well like in my own home.’

      ‘That,’ said Joanne with a dramatic pause, ‘is exactly your problem.’

      The back door burst open all of a sudden and Andy came in, his T-shirt spotted with dark splats of rain.

      ‘Not now, Andy,’ snapped Sian but he was pushed further into the room by a horde of giggling children, trailing muddy slicks across the clean kitchen floor.

      ‘Sorry,’ said Andy with a quick glance at the glum faces in the room and a shrug of his shoulders. ‘The rain’s really chucking it down, man. Hi, Phil.’

      Phil nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Andy.’

      ‘Dad,’ cried Holly, running over to her father and throwing her arms around his neck. Maddy gave him a wary look and shot a searching glance at her mother. Abbey ran over to the table, grabbed a chocolate muffin and stuffed as much of it as she could into her mouth, moist crumbs falling to the floor. Oli followed suit. Nobody chided them.

      Heidi, on hearing the commotion, started howling and Abbey cried, ‘Heidi’s locked in the utility room!’ She paused momentarily to put her hands on her hips. ‘Mum,’ she scolded, ‘did you lock Heidi in the utility room, again? She doesn’t like it, Mum. She gets scared.’

      When Joanne did not reply Abbey ran over to the utility room door, opened it and the dog bounded into the room. She made straight for the table, put her front paws up on it and wolfed down a muffin, paper case and all. Then, before anyone could stop her, she grabbed another one in her long snout. ‘No, Heidi. Bad girl!’ cried the children in unison and the dog, duly chastised, shot out the back door like a black bullet with her tail between her legs and the muffin lodged firmly in her mouth.

      ‘Wow!’ said Oli and the children and Andy laughed.

      ‘That, Abbey,’ said Louise wryly, ‘is why I think your mum keeps Heidi in the utility room when there’s food about.’

      Abbey shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly and said, ‘Heidi likes chocolate muffins.’

      ‘But they’re not very good for her, are they?’ said Louise.

      ‘Well, looks to me like this party’s well and truly over,’ said Phil, disentangling himself from Holly. He stood up, his tall, athletic frame wavering slightly as if in a breeze, and left the room.

      Joanne turned her back to everyone and cleaned up her face as best she could by wiping under her eyes with a napkin. Then she busied herself at the cooker, scraping the remains of the chilli into a bowl. She did not want the girls to see she had been crying – she did not want them to know she and Phil had been fighting yet again. But who was she kidding? In a house with walls as thin as paper, of course the girls overheard every argument, every bitter word between them. What was all this fighting doing to them, her precious daughters? How could she get it to stop?

      ‘Right you lot,’ said Sian with spirit. ‘Out of the kitchen now. Or you’ll get a job to do. Who wants to help with the washing up?’

      She held out a tea towel, eliciting a shriek of horror from the children and they ran, en masse, out of the room.

      ‘Okay,’ said Sian when the children were gone, their peals of laughter echoing down the hall, ‘I’ll stack the dishwasher.’

      ‘I’ll clear the table,’ said Louise quietly.

      Andy got himself a beer from the fridge and, sensing the strained atmosphere, quietly disappeared.

      When the door shut behind him, Joanne said, ‘I’m sorry about that. For what he said about you.’

      ‘It was nothing,’ said Sian. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it,’ said Louise.

      Their readiness to dismiss Phil’s rudeness touched Joanne deeply. They did it, of course, not for him but for her.

      The women worked without talking then, the silence broken only by the clank of dishes, the scraping of plates and the rattle of cutlery, while Joanne gradually pulled herself together.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said when she was composed once more. ‘I just wanted today to be perfect for you, Louise.’

      ‘You don’t need to apologise,’ said Louise, as she stretched a piece of cling film over the remains of the cake. ‘It was Phil’s fault. Getting pissed and talking to you like that.’

      ‘Maybe I provoked him,’ she said quietly.

      ‘What?’ cried Sian. She paused by the door of the dishwasher with a clutch of dirty cutlery in her fist. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Joanne. And stop apologising for him. You’re always doing that.’

      Louise glanced sharply at Sian. How long had things between Joanne and Phil been this bad? What