The Adults Read online

  The Adults is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Caroline Hulse

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in the United Kingdom by Orion Publishing Group, an imprint of Hachette UK Group, London.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Hulse, Caroline, author.

  Title: The adults : a novel / Caroline Hulse.

  Description: Random House : Random House, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018002722| ISBN 9780525511748 | ISBN 9780525511755 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Couples—Fiction. | Adulthood—Fiction. | Responsibility—Fiction. | Psychological fiction. | Domestic fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6108.U49 A33 2018 | DDC 823/.92—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2018002722

  Ebook ISBN 9780525511755

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Anna Kochman

  Cover images: Image Source/Getty Images (ornament), Zamurovic Photography/Shutterstock (fuse)

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Extract from the Happy Forest Brochure

  Transcript of 999 Call

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Thursday 21 December: Day 1

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Friday 22 December: Day 2

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Saturday 23 December: Day 3

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Sunday 24 December, Christmas Eve: Day 4

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Monday 25 December, Christmas Day: Day 5

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Extract from the Happy Forest brochure:

  The Happy Forest is the ideal place to unwind. Open the patio doors of your fully equipped lodge and breathe in the fresh air, away from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

  The perfect trip for your loved ones is just a click away. Here, at the Happy Forest, you’ll make the memories that last a lifetime.

  Transcript of 999 call

  Christmas Eve, 14:06 hours

  Operator: Emergency, which service?

  Woman: We need an ambulance at the Happy Forest holiday park.

  Operator: Are you in danger?

  Woman: Please hurry. We’re in the archery field near Santa’s grotto, opposite the elves’ smoking shelter.

  Operator: It’s important I understand whether you’re in danger now.

  Woman: I’m not in danger but we need an ambulance. He’s been shot. It was an accident.

  Operator: I’ve got help on the way. I need to go through some questions with you but it’s not delaying us, OK?

  Woman: Get them to hurry. There’s so much blood.

  Operator: OK, when you say he’s been shot, what has he been shot by? What can you see?

  Woman: An arrow. An archery arrow.

  Operator: What’s your name?

  Woman: Alex.

  Operator: OK, Alex. Is he conscious?

  Woman: Yes. And no.

  Operator: Is he breathing?

  Woman: Yes, for now. Please come quickly.

  Operator: Like I say, the whole time you’re talking to me, they’re coming with lights and sirens, OK?

  (Wind sounds and background noise cut out suddenly.)

  Operator: When did this happen?

  Hello?

  Does he appear to be completely awake and alert, Alex?

  Hello?

  Hello?

  Are you still there? Alex, are you still there?

  1

  Matt had known about the trip for months before he dropped it into conversation.

  Matt didn’t deliberately keep things from Alex; he just dealt with complicated thoughts like he dealt with his post.

  When letters landed in the hallway, Matt stepped over them or, when they could no longer be ignored, crammed them into any nook he could find. Next to the cooker, on the bookshelf; the letters went anywhere that was easy-reach and tucked away and—most important—had no established retrieval system.

  Hence, Matt absolved himself from any sense of urgency and, if the sender tried to contact him again, Matt seemed (and, Alex came to realize, actually was) genuinely surprised the issue hadn’t just gone away.

  Within weeks of Matt moving in, Alex had piles of envelopes in places in her house where there had never been piles before.

  After the first few times she spent pulling envelopes out of what had once been—unappreciated at the time—empty nooks, Alex gathered the letters all together one afternoon. She laid them out in a Hansel-and-Gretel trail from the front door to the kitchen table.

  Matt came to find her in the bedroom, cradling the letters in his arms. “All this post is mine, Al? Really?”

  “I thought I’d put the letters in one place. Make it easy for you.”

  Matt shrugged, the letters lifting with him. “I don’t get the point of post. Who do they ex
pect to read post nowadays?”

  Weeks later, the nooks had filled up again.

  The night Matt told her about the trip, Alex had made a pie—everything from scratch. Except the pastry: Alex wasn’t made of time. At the age of thirty-seven, she still felt like whenever she cooked an actual meal, it was a notable event: that she deserved some kind of award for not just pouring milk onto cereal.

  Alex was washing up after tea when Matt came to find her. He loitered in the doorway, like it had occurred to him to come downstairs on a whim and he hadn’t yet decided whether he was staying.

  “So. You know what I said about Claire’s idea for Christmas?”

  Alex glanced round. “No.”

  He widened his eyes. “I definitely haven’t mentioned it?”

  “You definitely haven’t.”

  Matt blew his dark fringe out of his eyes, as he did twenty times each day. His hairline was impressively youthful for thirty-eight and Alex suspected he might have cultivated the habit to accentuate it. He might have, he might not. Alex meant to ask someone who’d known him longer. Not that it mattered—but Alex was a scientist. Once she’d developed a hypothesis, she wanted to test it. Alex liked her facts clean, boxed.

  “God, I’m useless, Al.”

  Alex peered at the glass in her hand, checking for soapsuds so she didn’t have to reply.

  Matt stayed in the doorway behind her, but reached out to stroke her arm. “I suppose I didn’t know how to bring it up. I thought you might get mad.”

  Noting the seamless change of approach from “I thought I’d mentioned it” to “I didn’t know how to bring it up,” Alex unpeeled her washing-up gloves and flopped them over the drainer. She turned to face Matt. “Am I about to get mad?”

  Matt gestured for her to step toward him. He put his arms around her waist. “Understandably mad, of course.” He kissed her forehead. “Completely justifiably mad. Not crazy psycho mad.”

  This did not bode well. “Go on.”

  “So you know I haven’t spent Christmas with Scarlett since Claire and I split up.”

  Alex nodded. “Have we got Scarlett this year? I’d like that.”

  “No, it’s…Claire wants us to go on a weekend away together.”

  Alex took a beat to process this. “Us?”

  “Us. All of us. You and me. Her and Patrick. With Scarlett as the guest of honor.”

  Alex stared at Matt. She gestured toward the kitchen table. This was not the kind of conversation Alex wanted to be having with someone who was standing in a doorway. She didn’t want to be having this conversation at all, but if she was going to have to do so, it would be with someone who was actually in the same room as her.

  “At the Happy Forest holiday park in North Yorkshire.” Matt leaned on the back of a chair, palms down, like he was too excited to sit. “They pull out all the stops at Christmas, festive magic everywhere. Light-up reindeers and fake snow. Santa’s elves wander round the forest singing carols.”

  Alex glanced at the wine rack but made herself look away. She refused to get annoyed. Annoyance led to irrationality, and irrationality was a personal—and professional—failure.

  She lowered herself into a kitchen chair; it creaked. “This Christmas? You mean one month’s time Christmas?”

  Matt sank into the chair next to Alex. He leaned forward and picked up one of her spotty-socked feet and placed it on his knee. “We’ve talked about it before, haven’t we?” He stroked her foot. “How magical it would be for Scarlett to spend Christmas with both me and Claire.”

  “But we didn’t discuss it in that way. Not like we were really going to do it.”

  Matt looked down at her foot. “But what other way is there?”

  “We were just being smug about how grown-up and classy we are. It wasn’t a serious conversation.”

  “It was to me.”

  Alex felt a softening in her chest. Lovely Matt, who thought this kind of thing was a good idea. Who had accepted he would never be a superstar DJ, two years off his fortieth birthday. Who had recently bought a skateboard again, and who was planning to build a half-pipe in the garden—a prospect Alex hadn’t even objected to, knowing there was no chance he would ever get round to it.

  Who thought stroking Alex’s socked foot would make this conversation easier.

  Alex looked down at her lap. “Or maybe we meant go for a meal sometime. I’m sure no one meant a holiday.” She flicked one fingernail against another. “Claire can’t possibly think it’s a good idea. She’s a sensible woman.”

  “She says we all get on fine. She likes you.”

  “I like her too,” Alex said in a rush. She tried to get those words in first, when possible. “Did you tell her I’d agreed?”

  Matt appeared to concentrate hard on Alex’s foot. He tipped his head forward; his fringe followed.

  Curtains, Alex thought. That’s what they used to call that haircut in the early nineties. When it was worn by more age- and era-appropriate people.

  “I thought I’d mentioned it, I’m sorry. But we can still make an excuse. Workload. Family clash.” Matt lifted his head in a question. “Dead grandparent?”

  “I’m trying to understand if you’ve told her I’d agreed.”

  Matt gave an oops smile.

  “What does Patrick think about not getting to spend Christmas in Nottingham? Won’t he want to be near his own kids?”

  “They’re teenagers. Claire said they never want to see him anyway.”

  Alex took a deep breath. “So. Is the trip actually booked?”

  “I’m sure we could get a refund. But you know Claire, she’s just so organized. Once she’s got an idea in her head, that’s it.” Matt shook his head tolerantly. “She’s probably packed her case already.”

  Alex pressed her lips together. “Do other people do this? Go on holiday with their exes and their new partners?”

  Matt shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “If we pull out now, I’ll be the bad guy.”

  “I’m not going to drag you there by the hair, Al.” Matt lifted her foot up and placed it down on the floor with a pat, as if dismissing an eager pet. “If you really don’t want to go, we won’t go.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want to go without you—that would be weird.”

  “Super-weird.”

  “But you always said if you’d met Claire in a different way you might be mates.”

  I did, Alex reflected. I said that. But it wasn’t fair of Matt to quote her out of context. Mixing up real, solid conversations and fluffy-cloud, Vaseline-on-the-lens conversations.

  Matt put his hands on the table. “I just don’t want to miss another Christmas with Scarlett. She’s seven, Al. She was four the last time I watched her open her stocking.”

  “Scarlett comes first, of course. But can’t we just have her here one year?”

  “Claire’s her mum. I can’t take Scarlett away from her at Christmas. It’s not right.”

  Alex closed her eyes. That was Matt all over, in one illogical sentence. So irritatingly respectful and chivalrous.

  She opened her eyes and saw the washing-up in the sink. Perhaps not always that chivalrous. But about this kind of thing, he was chivalrous. About what felt, tonight, like exactly the wrong kind of thing.

  Alex watched Matt carefully. “Are you sure you’ve thought it through?”

  He gave his mouth a side-twist of thought. “What’s to think through?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s nothing complicated? At all? Nothing that might be awkward?”

  “Why would there be?”

  Alex looked out of the window. In her garden, the security light flickered, flashing her garden into focus in strobelike images.

  Flash. Grimy washing line. Flash. Rusty garden chair with the wonky leg. Flash. Tiger-in-a-cape hand puppe
t strewn across the gravel, the cloth sodden and aged with dirt, left over from a friend’s visit with her baby.

  Alex turned back to Matt. She’d always been determined not to infantilize her boyfriend like so many of her friends did, treating their partners like the cack-handed get-nothing-right males who flailed through TV adverts for household products. But he didn’t make it easy for her sometimes. She hated it when he pushed her into this position: making her into the wife from TV adverts, her hands on her aproned hips, lecturing him about brands of paper towels.

  Alex leaned forward in her chair, maintaining eye contact. “How do you feel—really feel—about spending Christmas with your ex?”

  “These things are only complicated if you make them that way, Al. It’s all in the mind.”

  “No lingering emotion or resentment?”

  Matt put his head to one side. “I don’t think so.”

  “Nothing, however small, left unsaid? Your history’s all empty and wipe-clean? The needle’s back on the start of the record and everything’s peachy?”

  Matt sat back in his chair.

  “I’m just thinking of you,” Alex added. “A lot of people would find the situation hard.”

  Me, she thought. I’d find it hard.

  Matt took a while, visibly giving it some thought. “I don’t dislike Claire. I don’t love her and I don’t hate her,” he said eventually. “She’s just…Scarlett’s mum now. And we have to find a way to make it work, because she’ll always be Scarlett’s mum.”