Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist

‘What is your understanding of parenting? Do you have the emotional resilience to deal with stress, conflict and rejection? Do you have in mind a fantasy child that no reality can ever meet? Are you truly capable of love?’ The eyes of her audience flit away to settle on walls and thumbs. ‘If you see adoption as a way to get over the loss of a child, a parent, a job or a relationship, think again. This is not about what you want. It’s about what the child needs.’

Tom’s chair creaks as he leans back. He catches Gracie’s eye, seeking reassurance, which she cannot give. She turns her attention back to Thelma who is talking about babies given up voluntarily, describing them as ‘relinquished’, a word that whispers softly in Gracie’s ears, hinting at snapped threads and an endless ache of loss.

‘Even voluntarily relinquished newborns nearly always go into foster care to give the birth mother the opportunity to reclaim her baby,’ Thelma is saying. ‘So it’s very unlikely that you will be offered a child under two. But whatever the age of the child, where possible we encourage a meeting with the birth mother, and feel it’s important for that child to maintain contact with its birth siblings. Could you cope with that?’

Gracie twists at her rings.

‘Ask yourselves. Are you truly willing to devote yourself to the needs of a child who comes with a genetic endowment and a history separate from your own?’

Gracie and Tom walk out of the meeting with their fists full of forms and their heads full of words that have grown heavy with new meaning.

17 (#ulink_7fef9059-533b-5276-8754-e38f951d47c7)

Juliet delivers Freya to the dance studio and heads to the kitchen. She stands by the window watching the reflection of the door in the grimy glass, swinging round with a ready smile when it opens.

It’s Dawn, tatty hair, Chinese tattoo stretched across her blotchy arm, dumping her bag onto one of the plastic chairs. She grunts at Juliet, ‘Not like you to be early.’

Juliet shrugs, rips open a strip of nicotine gum and folds it into her mouth. Stay calm. If it’s anything like last week Elsie will turn up with that snotty nanny who buggers off straightaway. She looks around her at the smeared sink, the dusty strip light, the desiccated mop sloped against the wall. She’s stupid to think that Gracie Dwyer would come back. Her nails press into her palms. Stupid to stand here waiting.

Juliet moves to the door. A flick of dark glossy hair, and there she is, pulling Elsie onto a bench, helping her into her ballet shoes. Juliet steps back, taking a moment to compose herself before she flips on the kettle. The music starts up, thumping out the passing minutes. Dawn settles down with a biro and a word search magazine and Leslie turns up complaining about the traffic. Juliet takes out her phone, pretends to dial a number and wanders out into the changing area. It’s empty. Gracie must have popped out to the shops.

She hurries down to the street. She’ll wait by the door, catch her as she comes back and they’ll hurry upstairs together, chatting and laughing the way the other mothers do.

Juliet smokes and paces as she scans the pavement. Gracie doesn’t come. Ten minutes before the lesson is due to finish Juliet climbs back up the stairs. At the top she hears Gracie’s laugh – the careless confident laugh of success. And then she sees her, in the kitchen, chatting to that moron Leslie. Damn! She hadn’t left at all. She must have been in the loo. Juliet squeezes past her. The women barely acknowledge her arrival although Gracie mutters ‘Help yourself’and gestures at a Tupperware box that’s empty except for a couple of broken brownies.

There’s a tremor in Juliet’s hand as she takes one and bites through the dusting of sugar into nuts and chocolate. OK, here’s my chance. She lowers her eyelids and makes a warm throaty sound as if swept away by ecstasy. ‘You going to be selling these at the new bakery?’

Gracie glances up. ‘Of course. They’re one of our bestsellers.’

‘Don’t know why you’re bothering with that dump.’ Dawn takes the last brownie, scooping up the crumbs in the box with a licked finger.

Gracie smiles. ‘It was all my husband’s idea. He’s an architect. It’s the kind of project he loves.’

‘When’s the work starting?’ Juliet says.

Gracie sighs. ‘As soon as we get planning permission. It was all going through fine but suddenly there’s been a whole load of objections.’

Juliet inspects the tooth marks in her brownie. ‘Let me know if you need any help with that. It’s what I do. PR.’

The music snaps off, replaced by the usual whoops and applause. Gracie disappears into the changing area, Leslie and Dawn behind her. Juliet stays back, squeezing what’s left of her brownie into a pulp. She timed it wrong. Messed up.

The studio doors swing open. Elsie scampers out arm in arm with that kid Amber. Freya is behind her, talking to her friend Liane. Gracie approaches Amber’s mum, all smiles. Juliet cranes up a little and sees her reach into her bag. She’s pulling out a batch of brightly coloured envelopes, pressing one into Laura’s hand, trying to make herself heard over Elsie’s showy squeals of excitement.

Juliet pushes out into the changing area, moving against the jostling tide of children until she’s near enough to hear Gracie saying ‘… your husband too, if he can face it. There’ll be plenty to keep the kids entertained—’ she laughs her high fluttery laugh, ‘hopefully the food will be all right too.’

Juliet slides her eyes to where Leslie and Dawn slouch against the wall, watching the same scene. Gracie glances up and sees them too. But she’s not looking away. She’s walking over to them, flicking through the envelopes. She picks out two. One purple, one orange. A flash of glittery ink as she hands them over.

Leslie and Dawn exchange looks of triumph as they rip them open. ‘Nice one,’ Leslie says. ‘Hey, Liam,’ she waves the invitation and shouts across the room, ‘come and see this.’

Shit! If Juliet hadn’t had to take that call last time Gracie was here she’d have been in the kitchen with her, getting friendly, and this week there’d have been an invitation for her and Freya in that overpriced designer bag. ‘Quick, Freya, find your shoes!’

Gracie is close. Juliet edges closer, letting her bag slip from her shoulder. As she bends to retrieve it there’s Liam barging between them. In one swift movement she lurches forward, knocking him off balance. He stumbles into Gracie, sending her invitations flying.

‘Liam!’ Leslie shrieks.

‘Not my fault!’ He shoots a venomous look at Juliet. ‘It was her. Stupid cow.’

Juliet, red and flustered, calls out to Leslie, ‘Sorry. It’s such a scrum in here.’

Gracie is on her knees, picking up invitations. Juliet shoves Freya forward. ‘Can you help, darling. Look, there’s a couple right under there.’

Freya scrabbles beneath the bench and shuffles back, grasping two gaudy, dust-smeared envelopes. Juliet points at Gracie, ‘Give them to the lady.’

Freya holds out the invitations.

‘Come on, love, time to go.’ Juliet lays her hand on Freya’s head as if to guide her away, exerting just enough pressure to keep her face to face with Gracie.

Gracie sits back on her heels, flushing a little as she takes the envelopes from Freya’s hand. ‘Thank you.’ With an embarrassed smile she says, ‘Look … um … my daughter’s having a party. Would you like to come?’

Freya glances up at her mother.

‘You’d love to, wouldn’t you, darling?’ Juliet says – a passable imitation of the breathy mum-speak she hears so often and hates.

Freya nods. ‘Yes.’

‘Please,’ Juliet adds, as if manners are her top priority.

‘Great.’ Gracie shuffles a blank invitation to the top of the pile and takes a gold glitter pen from her bag. Her fingers hover. She looks up at Juliet.

‘Freya,’ Juliet says quickly.

Gracie writes Freya in big letters at the top of the invitation, slips it into a sugar-pink envelope and writes it again. She smiles at Juliet, a distracted book-signing smile. ‘Do come too. There’ll be plenty of adults there.’

‘Thanks,’ Juliet says, meeting her gaze then looking away with a chirpy, ‘It’s a while since I’ve been to a party.’

On the way home Juliet takes a detour through Falcon Square. The Whittakers’ tall, double-fronted house looks beautiful in the evening light. Mellow brickwork, arrowhead railings, lead window boxes overflowing with heavy white blooms and trailing ivy, a climber rose twisting over the fanlight. A world away from Tom’s prize-winning house of glass in Greenwich.

18 (#ulink_5550d241-61e2-59fd-b6ba-05829e55a33a)

Gracie always longed for a proper garden. Not a paved courtyard like the one they’d had in Greenwich or the cluttered roof terrace of the flat she’d lived in before she married Tom. What she yearned for was a wide lawn, leafy borders, mature trees and a place to grow her own herbs and vegetables. At Falcon Square she has all those things, plus a mossy cherub spouting water into a shell-shaped trough, a summerhouse and a gardener employed to keep the whole thing looking fashionably unkempt.

A horde of athletic young men in day-glo shirts, baggy trousers, shades and trilbies have spent the morning erecting a striped gazebo next to the summerhouse, laying the dance floor, trailing bunting and fairy lights through the trees and blowing up huge bunches of pink and gold balloons that quiver in the breeze like globs of dividing cells. By two o’clock the band is tuning up and the first wave of guests is pouring through the French windows, gasping at the delights on offer.

‘Have you seen Daphne’s new bloke?’ Tom catches Gracie’s arm as she sweeps past him with a bowl of marinated ribs. She pivots round. This one must be at least ten years Daphne’s junior, surfer blond, tanned biceps straining the rolled-up sleeves of his faded denim shirt. Daphne sees them looking and drags him over, unable to hide a smug smile. ‘Tom, Gracie, this is Dieter.’

‘Great to meet you,’ Dieter says.

‘You too.’