Page 52 of The Happy Family

Reid glances away from the road to look at me and I can see that I have piqued his interest.

‘That does sound nice,’ he says over the sound of the windscreen wipers that are now having to work even faster as the rainfall grows harder.

‘Doesn’t it? You, me, the kids, sitting by a pool, sipping cocktails, soaking up the sun,’ I say, really letting myself fantasise now, but then Reid laughs.

‘You’ve clearly never been on a holiday with kids before,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘I should warn you that there won’t be much sitting by a pool with these three.’

I might have just shown a little of my inexperience when it comes to parenting, but it’s no big deal.

‘Whatever it’s like, be it complete chaos or chilled cocktails, I’m ready for it. So what do you say? Shall we take a look online tonight when the children are in bed and see what deals are on the holiday websites?’

‘Just one small problem. School,’ Reid reminds me, referring to Arthur and Ruby’s education, because it’s a while yet until little Jude has to worry about strict teachers and horrible homework.

‘Can’t we take them out for a week or two?’ I ask, and again, Reid laughs.

‘I’ll have to tell you about school fines and how parents in England are treated like criminals if they so much as dare attempt to take their own offspring out for the day,’ he tells me.

I have shown my inexperience again when it comes to kids, but it’s okay because I’m happy to learn, although by the sounds of it, it won’t be fun to learn about school fines and all things like that.

‘We could do it during the Christmas holidays?’ I suggest. ‘They get two weeks, right? How about we go then?’

Reid looks at me like he has another secret to shock me with. But unlike the other times, I feel I have some idea of this one.

‘Sure, I know it will be a lot more expensive taking the children abroad during school holidays than it would be during term-time,’ I say, which is true. I recall seeing various things in the news over the years about how airlines and hotels steeply raise their prices to take advantage of desperate families looking for a break at the same time as everybody else, and it does sound terribly unfair. But overall, life has been more than fair to me this year, all things considered, so if the worst that happens is that I have to pay a little extra money to have a holiday, so be it.

Then Reid comes up with another problem.

‘Then there’s the fact that we’d have to run it by Sadie,’ he tells me.

‘Sadie. Why?’

‘Because she’s their mother,’ he reminds me, not that he needs to say something so plainly obvious.

‘I am aware of that,’ I reply, growing irritated. ‘But what I mean is, why do we have to ask her? The children live with us. We have custody. Therefore, we should be able to take them away when we want to without the need to get Sadie’s consent.’

‘Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,’ Reid tells me. ‘When we go away, Sadie will be missing out on her agreed days with the kids. So we need to discuss that and make sure she is happy with rescheduling a few things.’

I know Reid is right, but I can’t help letting out a deep sigh then. Even though I have everything I wanted and even though I have stripped Sadie of so much, that woman will always be hanging over our lives. There’s just no other way around it when she has two children with the man I love.

‘It’s also Christmas,’ Reid goes on. ‘And Sadie will most likely want to see Arthur and Ruby on Christmas Day to give them their presents.’

From being excited about the prospect of some sun-filled pool days with my family, I’m now wishing I hadn’t suggested anything. Not when Reid keeps putting a downer on it all.

‘Forget it then,’ I say, frustrated and fed up.

‘Hey, don’t be like that,’ Reid says, and now he’s the one trying to take hold of my hand. ‘I’m just pointing out a few of the obstacles in our way. It’s not that we can’t make it work. We just have to manage all the various elements, that’s all.’

‘Sure,’ I say with a sigh, not wishing to continue this conversation any longer because it feels too draining and the last thing I need is anything else to sap away at my energy. Sadie does that well enough without her ex-husband doing it too.

I stay silent then, staring out the window as the rain falls and hating Sadie even though she’s never been so weak, vulnerable and unthreatening to me. All I wanted was a holiday, but she might end up ruining that for us. But if not and we do manage to make it abroad, maybe I should add something extra to the agenda other than simply sunbathing, swimming and sipping cocktails. Maybe I should pay a visit to one of the local estate agencies near to wherever our hotel is and maybe I should enquire as to any properties they might have.

I know we only recently bought a house and I wanted it because of its greater distance from Sadie, but I realise now that it is not far enough.

Perhaps the next step for my family is to get even further away from that woman.

Could I take them all abroad and never come back?

I guess I could if I convince Reid that a life in the sun is better than the life we have here.