Lou woke up at 3 a.m. after Phil shouted out something in a dream. She could have sworn he said, ‘Sue,’ but her rational mind told her she must have imagined it. Still, it didn’t exactly help getting back to sleep.
Rather than lie there, thinking too much, Lou decided to get up, re-track through a version of her usual pre-bed routine and see if that helped her find a sleepy place. It would be just after ten o’clock at night in Florida, she worked out. She could ring Victorianna and get her little ‘mum-visiting’ plan working. But in the present emotional climate that didn’t necessarily seem like a good idea, because she had too much going on in her head to open up another project at the moment. Instead, she went downstairs for a hot chocolate and read a few pages of the latest novel by her favourite Midnight Moon writer–Bea Pollen, who was a local lass made good. It was such a shame those lovely, kind, thoughtful,
available
men she wrote about didn’t exist in real life. Not in Barnsley anyway.
Upstairs, Phil cocked open an eye and allowed himself a moment of smugness before snuggling his head back down in the pillow.
Saturday was uneventful. Deb was doing an extra shift in the bakery, so Lou took Renee food shopping and then out for lunch where she ate quiche which came with a surprise side order of chips–a choice which her mother didn’t even bother to comment upon. That alone said that Renee wasn’t herself at all. Her friend Vera was in Germany at the moment with her son and, despite their keeping-up-with-the-Joneses relationship, Renee seemed to be missing her very much. Plus it hammered home the fact that she wasn’t afforded the same courtesy by her own so-called nearest and dearest.
Lou wished she had just phoned Victorianna in the night and got it over with, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for that one just yet. Her sister was a dirty fighter and there were a lot of things unsaid between them. When Lou tried to blackmail her with revelations, she was worried that Victorianna might fight back with some revelations of her own.
Phil seemed distracted that evening. He kept disappearing to the loo.
‘You want to get your prostrate checked out. That’s the eighth time you’ve gone in the last hour,’ Lou said with an attempt at a light little laugh.
‘I think you’ll find it’s prostate,’ said Phil coolly on the way out again, ‘but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with mine.’
It was a blatant act of, ‘Look at me, I’m up to something.’ Especially as every time he came back to the sofa, he seemed to be trying to cover up a smile, which funnily enough he was. Sue was pretty prolific on the text front and she was most definitely hot for him. And that
crack about how many times he had left the room told him that Lou was on his case. Perfect.
Lou expected her husband to initiate full sex the next morning. This was the longest period they had ever gone without it. She felt him shift in bed and braced herself, but to her surprise he swung his legs outwards and a few seconds later she heard him rather noisily opening drawers and wardrobe doors, looking for his clothes.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘I’m off to work,’ he said, as if he had just been asked the most stupid question in the world.
‘Today?’ said Lou.
‘I often work on Sundays, as you well know,’ said Phil.
‘Yes, but you usually tell me. You never said you were working today.’ She was aware that that sounded a bit wheedling and reeled herself in.
‘Well, I’m saying it now,’ he said with a very chilly smile. ‘It’s not an issue, is it?’
‘No, of course not. Will you be back for lunch or shall I cook a later dinner instead?’ Lou said, more steadily now.
Phil jiggled into his jockey shorts, aware she was scrutinizing his every move, analyzing each thread he was wearing.
‘Late dinner, I think,’ he said. He put on a good shirt and his expensive going-out after-shave again.
‘Any particular reason why you’re working today?’ asked Lou, watching him knot his tie very precisely.
‘I’ve got a couple of big sales hopefully and I don’t want Bradley to cock them up. Don’t get up, I’ll send out for a bacon butty.’
He was as horny as hell. It was hard work, all this self-denial, but he knew without any doubt that, in life as well as business, one often had to speculate to accumulate.
Lou lay in bed, thoughts tumbling around in her head like jigsaw pieces that wouldn’t fit together, whichever combination she tried them in. Phil was not playing his normal sulking game; it had gone beyond that. Her mind asked the dreaded question,
What if there actually is someone else? Another Susan?
Sue Peach had been a rough-looking tart with a Halloween perm, but all Lou could focus on was how cocktail-stick thin she’d been. It had to be the absence of flesh on her bones that had attracted her husband because she certainly wasn’t beautiful, or classy, or Brain of Britain. But Lou had never once asked him for a definitive answer. She had been so grateful to find him there on the welcome mat, days before what was looking to be the worst Christmas of her life, that she had just dragged him over the threshold, made him dinner and then taken him to bed. She’d been pretty thin herself by that stage–most likely why he stayed. He’d had it pretty easy, now she thought about it. The gaping wound to her own heart, though, had never been looked at properly, nor stitched up and treated gently with after-care. She had just stuck a quick plaster on it and hoped for the best. So was it any wonder it had never healed and continued to bleed?
She picked up the phone and rang Michelle.
‘Oh hi, Lou. God, I’m so sorry, I meant to ring you
but I’m not even going to tell you how busy I’ve been,’ said Michelle immediately.
Lou forgave her everything instantly just for being there and sounding pleased to hear from her.
‘How’s things?’ asked Michelle, but then before Lou could answer she jumped in with, ‘You just can’t believe how great Craig is–
at everything
. He is simply the best. I was telling Ali about him and she thinks he sounds great too.’
‘Ali?’ asked Lou, aware that the name had been dropped into the conversation like a little pebble to see how far the ripples went. She shouldn’t have been surprised, though, because it wasn’t the first time this had happened.
‘Oh, haven’t I told you about Ali? She’s fab. She’s new at work. I’ve been given the job of “baby sitting” her. She’s been round here to the house a few times–you know how it is–if you’ve got to work closely with someone it’s good to socialize and get to know them better.’
Lou didn’t really know about that. She had got on quite well with work colleagues without ever feeling the need to get plastered with them on tequila slammers in her own living room and bond with them over a bargain bucket of takeaway chicken, although Michelle wasn’t known for doing things by halves.
Ali
must be another of her temporary friends. Each ‘friend’ took an intense but brief starring role in Michelle’s life, only for a period of obsessive bitching to ensue and eventually a consignment to oblivion. Michelle never tended to hang onto these ‘friends’ for very long. They were about as transient as a snowflake in a tumble drier.
‘Ali and I have had a great laugh since the first moment we sat together. You know, the other night she came around and I said, “Ali, I feel like I’ve known you for ages,” and Ali said the same to me. Anyway, Craig won’t be here this weekend, it’s his mum’s sixtieth birthday and she’s having a do so Ali and I are going around town on Friday. I’d ask you to come with us but I know you don’t do nights,’ and with that she sniffed, making the point.
Despite all the activity going on in Lou’s head she suddenly wanted to giggle. An old picture flared up in her head of Shirley Hamster at school parading ‘prize friend’ Julie Ogden past her one day in a misguided effort to make her jealous. It had been laughable then when they were thirteen; now it was bordering on pathetic.
‘Well, I hope you have a good time,’ said Lou, trying to sound serious.
‘We will, don’t you worry,’ said Michelle with petty conviction. ‘I have to celebrate my promotion.’
‘What promotion?’ said Lou.
‘I’ve gone up a grade. I’m deputy supervisor now. That’s why I’ve been given Ali to train up.’
‘Oh well, congratulations then,’ said Lou, feeling a sharp stab of disappointment that she hadn’t been allowed to share some good news with Michelle for a change. She was being punished for some reason or other, that was clear.
‘Anyway, I’ll have to go soon because Ali said she might pop round so we can go shopping for something to wear next week. Ali’s the same size as me so next week we’re going to get a bottle of wine in before we go out and have a girly trying-on session.’
Lou and Deb used to get a bottle of wine in before going out when they were at college. Although swapping clothes was hardly an option.
‘I’ve got a scarf that will probably fit you if we hem it up!’ Deb had once said, looking her up and down after flinging open her wardrobe doors, and they’d laughed until they’d nearly wet themselves. She had never questioned whether what she shared with Deb was friendship, as she did so often these days with Michelle. She wasn’t sure if she understood what relationships meant any more.
Phil pulled into the pub car park in the vacant space next to the natty green Roadster. As he got out of his car, Sue got out of hers and they gave each other a peck on the cheek that lingered a little longer than an ordinary kiss of greeting should.
‘Busy morning?’ asked Sue, daring to link his arm as they walked into the part of the pub signposted
Maltstone Arms Bistro
.
‘Yes, very productive. I sold a beautiful Mercedes sports. And you?’
‘I’ve been to church, of course,’ Sue replied, raising her eyebrows innocently.
‘I believe you, sister,’ laughed Phil, holding the door open for her.
They walked past a long table laid for thirteen with
Goodbye, we’ll miss you
balloons, and Phil made a joke about the Last Supper happening which made Sue giggle. Her eyes had that misted, happy look that told him she was wriggling on his line like a doomed worm. He felt a minute prick of guilt, but then told himself
that, after all, she was safe. He had no intention of having an affair with her, and if she misread the signs, he wasn’t to blame. In time, she would consider it all a mere learning curve.
They had starters and main course. Sue had a coffee, whilst he had a syrup sponge and custard. She smiled benignly at him, as he lifted the complimentary plate of chocolate mints and urged her to have another.
‘I am really enjoying your company,’ said Sue, with the sort of sigh Snow White did at the wishing well.
‘Me too. It’s lovely to have some good food, nice surroundings and last, but not least, the company of a beautiful woman to share it all with.’
She put her hand on his.
The Last Supper party started to file in. They looked old enough to have been at the original event, he thought, apart from the young good-looking bloke at the back with a fit girlfriend and…he couldn’t believe it! Judas ‘Debra’ Iscariot herself! Even after all this time he would recognize her anywhere, although for one fleeting moment he thought it was Lou’s sister. He shifted his stare to the hand placed on his, momentarily freezing with panic. But it was too late now; he knew he had been seen–
in flagrante delicto
. Hang on, said his brain, this couldn’t have been better if you’d planned it. It was history repeating itself–
another pub, another Sue
–although admittedly his tongue had been down his companion’s throat on that last occasion, and her hand had been busier than a hyperactive ferret down his trousers. And what had the outcome been? Pretty damn satisfactory, actually. Debra had scuttled off to tell Lou, thereby unwittingly saving his marriage and ending
their friendship. And he bet it was all going to happen just exactly the same way again.
Aware that Deb’s eyes were burning holes in his cheek, he lifted Sue’s hand to his lips, making it obvious to his observer that this was no innocent contact. He kissed the top of her hand then gave the space between her fingers a quick suggestive lick, and when Sue pulled her hand away, shrieking with outraged delight, he made a move to gather up his coat and Sue followed. Still not letting Deb know that he had seen her, he guided Sue out, his hand low down on her hip, hovering near her bottom, pushing the point of intimacy home, as if it hadn’t been already.
If looks could kill, he knew he would have been deader than a dead dodo in Deadland. How much more perfect could this be?
Phil was very chirpy when he got home that night. He read the Sunday papers and ate Lou’s pork Sunday dinner with four veg and crisp Yorkshire puddings so light he had to weight them down with a pint of sweet onion gravy, then he had a huge portion of syrup sponge that made the
Maltstone Arms
’ version taste like a panscrubber.
‘Fantastic that, love,’ he said with an approving burp. ‘You have to be the best cook in the world.’
Lou smiled, not realizing he was setting her up for a fall.
‘You’ll never guess what happened today–something really weird. A woman came into the showroom and she was the spitting image of you when you were younger. It was uncanny,’ Phil said, staring forward as if she had just
manifested herself in front of him. ‘I couldn’t believe it. She could have been your twin ten years ago. Lovely, she was. Just like you used to be before you put on all that…well, like you were, shall we say?’
He watched the gulp in her throat and then she disappeared quickly into the kitchen and did something noisy with the dishwasher.
Bullseye!
Phil plunged the spoon into the golden pudding with the pale golden custard sitting in the sunshine-yellow china bowl with the gold rim. Just for a moment, he knew how Midas felt.
Marina Marklew had worked at
Serafinska’s Bakery
for nearly forty years. She was a woman who didn’t like fuss, which is why her idea of a perfect leaving do was a nice quiet Sunday lunch with her husband and the lovely bunch of people she worked with. That is what she wanted and that is what Mrs Serafinska had arranged for her. And because she was such a sweet old thing and would be sorely missed after she retired, Deb didn’t walk straight out of the pub when she saw her best friend’s husband pawing some woman she didn’t recognize, nor did she leap up to confront him. She soldiered on, taking her seat and eating food for which she had no appetite, forcing smiles and a semblance of enjoyment even though her whole afternoon had been ruined as soon as it began. Yet another reason to hate that slimy little toad Phil Winter.
When Deb got home she immediately opened up a bottle of Merlot, poured herself a big glass and sat at her kitchen table, where she dropped her head into her hands and tried to work out what to do for the best. Exactly as she did three years ago? she asked herself, when she saw Phil snogging that cheap tramp scrawny
barmaid with the electrocuted perm over a grotty pub dining-table–not to mention observing the manual activity going on beneath it. Back then, she had decided instantly on the course of action she had to take. Lou needed to be told! What woman wouldn’t want to know that her husband was making a total fool of her? Especially with someone as tacky as that.
Thoughts of how it might alter the plans for their business venture had been way at the bottom of Deb’s list. Lou’s welfare was her only concern. She had not taken the time to envisage the possible fallout from such noble intentions.
Back then, it took Lou less than a minute to change from the smiling woman who answered the door of number 1, The Faringdales into a wounded animal fighting for her life. One minute she was ushering Deb inside, the next she was tearing through Phil’s wardrobe, scavenging for any clue that could help her understand
why.
Deb was still in the house when Phil came in from work–cocky as a dog with two dicks. But he knew the game was up as soon as he saw the scene of devastation that confronted him. Lou asked Deb to leave them to it, but it was obvious to her that the cowardly sod wouldn’t want to listen to the barrage of questions to which his betrayed wife so badly needed the answers. Deb was right, of course. Phil just grabbed a case and ran for the hills.
Deb moved in and stayed with Lou, hearing her crying in the middle of the night, watching her get thinner and more hollow-eyed with every day that passed. When she wasn’t crying she was relentlessly slicing her brain to bits with questions: how old was this barmaid,
what colour was her hair, how thin was she, what was the expression on Phil’s face like when he looked at her, did he look as if he was in love with her–until Deb wasn’t so sure she had done the right thing any more.
Then, just before Christmas, three and a half years ago, Deb turned up at Lou’s house to find her totally revitalized. And the reason for Lou Winter’s rebirth? Phil had suddenly arrived back home, with his suitcase. Full of dirty washing, no doubt.
‘What did he say for you to let him back?’ Deb had asked on the doorstep.
‘I don’t want to even talk about it,’ Lou had replied. ‘I just want to start again as from now.’
‘So you’ve let him off totally? Please tell me at least he’s said he’s sorry?’ asked Deb with hard disbelief. She knew that Phil was listening from upstairs and she wanted him to hear this, so she didn’t hold back. ‘Lou, please think! He’s done this to you once, he will hurt you again, he will cheat again–you’ll never be able to trust him. I never did like the balding, greasy git.’
Balding, she knew, would really piss him off. Phil did hear, and he made Lou choose because of it. The deal was simple: if she stayed friends with Deb then he was off–permanently. Their marriage couldn’t repair itself with Deb hanging around like a malicious pair of scissors, waiting in the background, ever-sharpening and insulting him. So Lou chose him, because Phil Bastard Winter had spent years chipping away at her self-worth with his rasping little comments about her looks and her weight and her abilities until she had only weak scraps of herself left that couldn’t deal with the hurt of him leaving her for someone else.
Yes, Deb had been upset, but when you love someone you have to think about them and what they want–even if you
know
you know better. It was Lou’s life, not hers. Deb loved her friend so much she hated the idea of her being in pain. So what on earth was she going to do this time?
Lou applied a big dollop of Touche Éclat to the black circles under her eyes. If she was awake, she thought too much; if she was asleep, she dreamed too much. It was a lose-lose situation.
‘Are you all right? You look absolutely pants,’ said Karen, when she got into work the next day, which made Lou think that the extra time in front of the mirror had not been worth it.
‘I didn’t sleep very well,’ she explained.
‘I’ll get you a coffee from the super-dooper machine,’ said Karen. ‘With extra phlegm.’
‘Lovely,’ said Lou, sticking on a smile and licking some moisture back into her lips.
Nicola kept a low profile that day and everyone else seemed in a good mood. Karen was telling them all that she had hooked up with a single dad on her accountancy course–Charlie–who was ‘ancient’ (thirty-three), and two inches smaller than her but a great laugh, and ‘awfully kind’. She said it wasn’t serious, but her eyes were too dreamy to carry off that lie. After Chris she was understandably scared, although she would have denied that. But Lou was older and could sniff out the truth. She hoped Karen could have some fun with Charlie. It was well overdue for her.
That weekend, Stan had five numbers up on the lottery and, though he hadn’t won enough to stick two fingers up at Metal Nicky and flounce out of the door a year early, it was enough to finance a nice sunshiney holiday for him and Emily for their Ruby wedding anniversary at Christmas. And Zoe’s man was making her extra twinkly at the moment and not even Nicola’s miserable face could dampen her spirits. Love was like a suit of armour, thought Lou; when clad in it, you could face anything. The trouble was, when it left, it not only took the suit back, but charged you the top layer of your skin too.
But the heaviest thunderstorms often follow the brightest sunshine, and so it was, later that same day, the dark cloud that was Nicola started to announce itself. Stan had accidentally deleted something he shouldn’t have onscreen, which wouldn’t have taken all that long to fix but, oh no, ‘The Walking Scrapyard’ had to make him look small and stupid in front of everyone. And where had Zoe put those promotional gift vouchers? Zoe couldn’t remember putting them anywhere at all.
‘If you’ve taken them, you know they’re all traceable, so don’t even think about spending them,’ said Nicola with affected concern.
At the implication of theft, Zoe’s eyes lifted and she looked at Nicola in the same dead black way a Rottweiler did before finally tearing in. It was like a slow-motion action replay, except the action hadn’t happened yet. Lou saw Zoe’s hand start to rise and she moved in like a cheetah, grabbed Zoe’s arm, linked it
and marshalled her out of the office, saying, ‘We’re going for a coffee.’
Let Jaws report her to HR for that if she dared.
Down in the canteen, Zoe’s anger had softened into tearful frustrated rage.
‘She accused me of stealing–you heard her! As if!’ said Zoe, while Lou put something very white and creamy in front of her that, for once, seemed to be behaving itself in the cup. ‘I would have hit her, Lou. And I wouldn’t have cared!’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Lou.
Zoe tore open a sugar sachet and sprinkled it into her crappuccino, or whatever that particular strange coffee was called. Her hands were shaking so much, the table top got most of it.
‘I’m going to tell you something now,’ said Lou. ‘About a friend of mine. It’s private, so I’d rather you didn’t spread it around. But I think…I hope it might help you.’
Zoe doubted anything could take away her regret at not twatting the blotchy-necked cow with the James Bond villain gob, but she had great respect for Lou so she nodded and Lou began.
‘Just over three years ago, my friend’s husband had an affair,’ said Lou. She saw the look of confusion on Zoe’s face and answered it. ‘I know it’s not quite the same, but I think you’ll see the relevance in a minute. He went back to her but my friend’s hatred for the other woman just wouldn’t go away and she was totally convinced that the only way for her to get any sense of relief at all was to find this other woman and smack her right in the
mouth. Anyway, one day, my friend saw this other woman in Boots, buying condoms of all things…’ Lou gave a dry little laugh. ‘She knew it was definitely
her
because she had called into the pub where she worked once to see what she looked like. My friend called out her name, the woman turned round, she went white and my friend said that, had she left at that moment, she would have been satisfied with that look on the woman’s face. But she didn’t leave; she pulled back her hand and slapped the other woman as hard as she could. Suddenly there were people swarming everywhere and all of them giving my friend the filthiest looks, calling for the security man. My friend ran out of the shop in a blind panic then, leaving the woman lying on the floor wailing and crying with a big crowd cooing over this poor innocent soul who had just been attacked by a nutter. In that moment, my friend knew that she had just thrown away her biggest advantage–her dignity. In short, she had given her power away.’
Lou gulped hard. Telling this story was harder than she anticipated. Her emotions were still very much knotted into the memories. ‘My friend couldn’t sleep for days afterwards, wondering whether the police were going to appear at her door, or if she was going to open up a newspaper or a magazine and see her name plastered over the front page as a loopy woman going mad in the centre of town. She said it was torture, one of the worst experiences of her life. She never regretted anything so much as losing control that day. Her life was hell and her self-respect gone. She hasn’t been back in Boots since.’
Lou exhaled slowly, trying to rid herself of the spectre of that time.
‘Did the woman end up having your friend arrested?’ asked Zoe softly.
‘No, although she might as well have done. I don’t think my friend could have suffered more if she had. In a silly sort of way it would have been a relief, and then at least she could have faced it head on rather than be mentally tortured about what might be waiting in the wings for her. Then my friend heard that the woman had moved to Spain with her family, and finally–and that was months and months after–she started to let herself believe that it might just be over.’
Lou squeezed Zoe’s hand. ‘Zoe, sweetheart, get another job, walk away, bash a wall, but take it from me, hang on to your dignity. Nicola would love it if you slapped her. She would have the perfect excuse then to sack you. You wouldn’t feel victorious–all you would feel is shame and anger that in the end she
did
have the power to make you snap, after all. Trust me on this. I know.’
Zoe looked at Lou’s lovely face with her kind green eyes and gave her a big hug. She was young but she wasn’t stupid. She knew perfectly who Lou’s ‘friend’ was.
‘Hang on in there, Zoe, please,’ said Lou as they went back up the stairs to their office. ‘This situation can’t go on for much longer; someone will come along and change things. I’m one hundred per cent sure of it.’