Lou went to bed, and slept the sleep of the victorious, not waking once to hear Phil’s nocturnal mumblings.
Lou let in the builders as the clock in the hallway struck eight. She made them tea, showed them upstairs and then went to work in the small office downstairs. She had an idea she wanted to mull over about breakfasts in the café. At nine-thirty she called the bank to make an appointment to see the business manager the following week and sent Deb a text message to say she had done so.
Deb replied with:
FANTASTIC. RU OK
?
Lou affirmed that she was OK and very busy. She didn’t want to meet or talk to her best friend for a few days because she was scared Deb was going to tell her that she’d just had fantastic sex with Tom. Of course Lou was OK. Never better.
In the afternoon, Lou called in at her mother’s on the pretext of ‘just passing’. Renee had the grin of a Cheshire cat with a coathanger stuck in its mouth.
‘You’ll never guess who I had on the phone this morning,’ she said, putting the kettle on. ‘Victorianna. And do you know why she rang?’
‘Mum, I can’t guess, just tell me,’ said Lou with wide-eyed innocence.
‘She has invited me and Vera over for the whole of September!’ Her smile was fixed on with Superglue. It remained there while she brewed the tea and got out the cups.
‘What, to America? You
and
Vera? What’s come over her?’
Renee tutted. ‘Don’t start, Lou. She was only waiting until her house was finished, she said. She wanted me to see it complete. She’s sending me two return tickets. I’ve just come off the phone to Vera and she can’t wait either. We’re going into Leeds next week to start clothes shopping.’
‘Well, I’m stunned,’ said Lou–and she was. Boy, Victorianna must have been really shaken up to act that fast.
‘I knew she would invite me in her own time,’ beamed Renee.
‘I’ve got some good news too,’ said Lou, thinking there was no more ideal moment than this to introduce her forthcoming business venture. ‘I’m opening up a coffee shop with my friend Deb.’
The glue on Renee’s smile gave out. ‘Deb? Not
that
Deb, surely? When did she come back on the scene?’
‘A few weeks now,’ said Lou, with a sigh. Why didn’t she ever learn?
Renee shuddered. ‘And what’s Phil said about all this?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Lou, wishing she had never brought it up.
‘Well,’ said Renee, not even trying to hide her disapproval, ‘she almost wrecked your marriage. Not exactly the sort of person I’d want in my life once, never mind again.’
Lou shook her head in disbelief. She should have
known her mother was duty-bound to criticize and spoil anything she personally didn’t approve of.
‘Why on earth does everyone think Deb “wrecked my marriage”? Didn’t the fact that Phil was having an affair have anything to do with it at all?’
‘You’ve just said yourself that everyone thought she’d wrecked your marriage. We can’t all be wrong, can we?’ said Renee with a sniff.
Lou huffed in frustration at her mother’s logic.
‘Well, anyway, we’ve got premises and we’re going ahead with it,’ said Lou, finishing off her story, even though her enthusiasm to tell it had totally withered.
‘And what about your job?’ said Renee.
‘I shall leave it, of course.’
‘But it’s a good steady job! You pulled out of these plans once before, remember. You must have realized then that it was a stupid idea. Honestly, Elouise–have some sense.’
Lou felt like a punctured balloon, but Renee hadn’t noticed. She had turned and gone into the kitchen, her words hanging behind her in the air, like a trail of fumes from the aeroplane that would take her and Vera to her younger daughter’s wonderfully fancy house and approved-of life in America.
‘Don’t suppose you know any good butchers, country girl?’ Lou asked Karen in the office the next day.
‘Are you kidding?’ said Karen.
‘I never joke about sausages,’ said Lou with a straight face.
‘My dad’s got a farm shop and my brother’s the butcher there,’ said Karen. ‘Why?’
‘Come for a coffee to the canteen,’ said Lou. Nicola was out doing something mysterious in the Manchester office. She would be in an even fouler mood when she got back because everyone hated going to ‘Operations Manchester’–or ‘The Black Pudding Hole of Calcutta’ as it was universally known.
The German coffee machine for once delivered something quite impressive with a heavy layer of cream on the top, although Lou wouldn’t be purchasing a machine like it. She had already sourced a fantastic all-singing, all-dancing Italian one.
And so, over a very nice
delicissimo
each, Lou told Karen all about the coffee shop that was presently a transport café and how they needed to find a supplier of good bacon, fresh eggs and fab sausages for some nice big breakfasts until that side of the business died out gracefully, to be replaced by coffees and puddings.
‘God, Lou, I’ll miss you like hell,’ said Karen with her jaw hanging open.
‘I shall miss you too,’ said Lou with genuine feeling.
‘I suppose if my dad and my brother come up to scratch, we’ll be able to keep in touch,’ Karen said hopefully.
‘Of course. Is it good stuff in your shop?’ asked Lou with a smile.
‘Well, I didn’t exactly grow up to be an undernourished midget from eating it, did I? No offence for the midget comment, by the way.’
Lou laughed.
‘I tell you what, I’ll ring Dad and get him to drop off some sausages and bacon for you to test. Then he can give me a lift home. Ha!’ said Karen, reaching for her
mobile and thinking that was a very good double-whammy plan indeed.
That night, Lou and Phil sat down to a dinner of breakfast, which threw him slightly, although it was lovely stuff and he commented favourably on the sausages especially, before earmarking the rest of the bacon for his breakfast the next morning. It was a perfect consumer test, although Lou thought it wise not to tell her husband that he had just been chief guinea pig for the café fare. Oh, and apparently they were going to Torremolinos for a fortnight at the end of June, Phil announced over his Devil’s Food Cake dessert. Lou couldn’t muster up so much as a, ‘Wow.’
Lou had booked the next day off work because she needed to see Deb with café plans. She could tell her the news that she had found a good farm shop. She only hoped Deb had no news of her own to announce about her and Tom.
Lou let in the builders again, made them tea, reiterated the invitation to help themselves to more and left them a key, hoping they wouldn’t go upstairs and start snooping through her knicker drawer, as Karen laughingly said they were bound to. Then she set off for
Ma’s Café
.
Deb was already there, her car parked cosily next to Tom’s, which seemed pretty symbolic. Lou sighed.
Best get this over with
. She just wanted to hear it from Deb’s lips that she and Tom had become an item and then everything would be out in the open and she would have to get on and deal with it.
Deb was coming out of the café as Lou was about to go in. She was looking a bit shifty, Lou thought.
‘Oh hi,’ said Deb, going back inside with her and closing the door. ‘You’re early.’
‘Hi,’ said Lou. ‘Well, the house is full of builders. I didn’t fancy hanging around.’
‘Lou…’
Here it comes, thought Lou.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ said Deb hesitantly. ‘I really hope you don’t mind. Tom and I—’
Then the door behind Lou opened and Tom himself walked in. As stiffly as a Woodentop, he said, ‘Hi there, Lou, I’ve just seen your car. Thought I’d come over.’ But he didn’t bend to kiss her hello. He seemed as out of place with her as Deb did. Were they so scared to tell her they were together? If so–why? Had he somehow guessed she had kissing fantasies about him?
‘Er…have you told her?’ said Tom to Deb, clearing his throat.
‘Lou, come upstairs a minute will you, please,’ Deb sighed.
Lou followed them silently up the stairs. It was like being led to a place of slaughter. Still, it would all be over in five minutes, and then she could say things like, ‘Fantastic!’ and, ‘Brilliant!’ and, ‘Good for you two!’
Tom opened the door and the light hit Lou immediately. The flat was totally white-washed.
‘Lou–Tom and I…we painted the flat. I just went ahead and made the decision. I know you’d have said yes, but I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I paid for the paint. It’s only cheap and cheerful stuff…’
‘That’s all?’ said Lou incredulously. ‘You painted the flat? Why on earth would I mind? It looks fab!’
‘But I just did it, without even thinking to ask you! I never even thought. It’s the principle…’
‘Is that it? That’s what you have to tell me?’ Lou felt
like laughing hysterically and was really having to stop herself doing so.
‘Yes,’ said Deb cautiously. ‘Why–what did you think I was going to say?’ She hoped Lou hadn’t found out about her knowing about Phil. But then again, how could she? Unless Phil had told her, and he was hardly likely to do that, now was he? Or was he? Maybe he had some sick, twisted plan. This subterfuge was doing Deb’s head in.
‘It looks great, Deb, and course I don’t mind, you daft bat. You always used to paint when you needed to think in the olden days. Remember painting your room at college, just before Finals, because that flaming horrible grey made it look like the inside of a submarine and you couldn’t concentrate?’
Deb smiled a, ‘Yes, you’re right,’ smile. She still painted when she needed to think.
They’d had such fun at college–dreaming of the day when they would open up their own coffee-house. The day that was just around the corner for them now. Or was it? Would Phil wreck their plans a second time? And there was Lou standing with a grin as wide as a slice of watermelon, looking forward to so much and not having a clue what was going on behind her back. It broke Deb’s heart.
Even while painting the whole flat, with all that time to think and talk out loud, Deb still hadn’t worked out what to do for the best. Except that this time, she was going to hold them up and be strong for the pair of them if she had to. She had been as guilty as Phil last time in forcing Lou into a corner, bullying her nearly as much as he did to take action against him–
something she had come to realize over these past three years.
‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go on official skip business,’ said Tom.
‘Yes, OK, Tom,’ said Deb.
‘Bye, Lou,’ said Tom. ‘I’m so glad I’m not in your bad books for aiding and abetting Debra.’
‘Don’t be silly, it looks great,’ said Lou.
‘Bye,’ he said to her again, and appeared to look at Lou for far longer than the simple word demanded.
‘He’s looking at me funny,’ said Lou, when his heavy tread had reached the bottom of the staircase.
‘You’re imagining things,’ said Deb, deciding to mention to Tom later to stop staring at Lou in such an over-concerned way. Did he want her to smell a rat? She put the kettle on and made them both an instant coffee and they went to sit at the solid old dining-table.
‘So, he helped you do all this then?’ said Lou, determined to get to the bottom of all that cuddly stuff between them and bring it into the open. Deb still hadn’t said anything, and Tom hadn’t given her friend more than a friendly wave on his way out. They couldn’t have looked less like a couple now. It was all very odd.
‘Yes, when he had some spare time in the evenings,’ said Deb. ‘By the way, the builder’s quote came in. I’ll get it out in a mo. How’s Thingy doing with your bathroom?’
‘Very well,’ said Lou. ‘Shame, really–he’s a good worker, just unreliable. But I won’t tell him that until he’s finished and refunded me some money. I don’t want to tell him he hasn’t won the multi-billion-pound contract just yet.’
‘Good girl,’ said Deb.
Oh sod it, thought Lou. It was time to stop pussy-footing. ‘So, tell me about you and Tom,’ she said. ‘Are you together?’
Deb whirled around. ‘Together in what way?’
‘“Together” together.’
‘Good God, Lou, whatever gave you that idea?’
‘I saw you cosying up in his ironmongery,’ said Lou.
Deb hooted with laughter and shook her head. ‘When?’
‘The day Keith Featherstone came around here. I’d forgotten something and came back for it, and I saw you together.’
‘Lou, you’ve got that so totally wrong. I was…’…
crying on his shoulder over what to do about you and that cheating-louse husband of yours
…Deb had to think fast on her feet now. ‘…panicking, I suppose, Lou. It hit me that we were actually going to do this at last, and I came over a little emotional, which as you know is not like me at all.’
No, it wasn’t like Deb at all, which is why Lou didn’t quite believe her. ‘Oh, well I thought you and Tom had got it together,’ she said, ‘and if that was the case, I wondered why you weren’t telling me.’
‘Don’t be daft. There’s nothing
to
tell on that front.’
‘It’s not daft. You both get on really well.’
‘Lou,’ said Deb softly, ‘the reason I get on with Tom so well is because I don’t fancy him one bit. He’s lovely–a great bloke, in fact–but he’s not for me, and I’m not for him either. He’s fitted into my life very quickly as a friend. That’s all.’
‘Deb, there’s more, isn’t there? I think I know what you’re scared to say.’
‘What?’ said Deb, her heart starting to thump faster.
‘It was at this stage that I backed out last time. It’s bound to be on your mind. But whatever happens, I swear to you, Deb, I won’t back out. I promise. Not this time.’
Phew, thought Deb. She had only to nod an admission that Lou had hit the nail on the head and that would be the end to the matter.
‘I know,’ said Deb, and gave her an extra-tight hug. That stupid idiot Phil–did he know what he had in Lou? She hoped he didn’t and he drove her away to find someone who deserved her. Someone, Deb thought, like Tom Broom.
Lou was in bed by the time Phil came home that night. His curry was cremated and his rice dried to desiccated coconut in the pan on the hob. Not that he was hungry. He stank of the garlic-heavy meal he’d already had and Sue’s smoky perfume.
It was getting harder and harder to stop at the kissing stage with her, but luckily the ‘I’m married and I don’t think it’s right to make this relationship any more physical than it is
blah blah blah
’ line seemed to get her off his back.
He was more than a bit pissed off that Lou wasn’t sitting on the stairs worrying and awaiting his return like a fretting Cocker Spaniel. He checked his mobile. There was a missed call from her over two hours ago, but she hadn’t left a message.
He didn’t shower–just crawled into bed, hoping Lou would sniff out her rival bitch on his skin in the morning.
Lou awoke early the next morning to lots of snoring and an overwhelming aroma of second-hand garlic that hadn’t come from the curry she had made for
him. She wondered if Phil had eaten an extra smelly tea just to make her wonder where he had been the previous night–and with whom. He really was going to monumental efforts this time to get his own way. But further questions on the subject of the mysterious movements of her husband were stemmed by the excitement of a catalogue of flavoured coffees arriving in the post.
She had just settled down to read it when the phone rang.
‘Hiya, Lou,’ said Michelle. She sounded cross and huffy.
‘You’re up early,’ said Lou.
‘Well, I got to bed early, didn’t I?’ said Michelle grumpily.
‘Wasn’t it your big night out with
Ali
?’ Lou gave the name an amused emphasis. She had a good idea from Michelle’s tone that Ali might have toppled off her pedestal already.
‘Huh, don’t talk to me about Ali,’ said Michelle.
‘OK, I won’t,’ said Lou.
‘What a bitch,’ said Michelle. ‘As soon as we were out she hardly spoke to me. She was too busy chasing people around town. “Ooh look, there’s Gary”, “Ooh look, there’s Conrad”, ‘Ooh look, there’s some other ugly boring geek I fancy”,’ said Michelle, doing a bitter impression of her temporary best friend. Or rather
ex
-best friend.
‘Oh dear,’ said Lou, while the words ‘shoe’ and ‘other foot’ gravitated to her brain.
‘I tell you, I’d had enough by nine. I might as well not have been there. I think she spoke to me twice and she
was on pints whilst I was on halves, cheeky cow. I was ready for off, but she wanted to go clubbing. By half-past ten she was so pissed I had to half-carry her to the taxi place and you know what the queues are like at that time with all the bingo crowd coming out as well. It was freezing, my feet were killing me and she was crying about Christ-knows-what. I stuck her in a taxi and then the driver said, “Oy, you’re not leaving me with her”, and so I had to go home with her and pay for the taxi because she was like a big, stupid, floppy doll. I stuck her in bed in the recovery position and then I had to wait there for another hour until I could get another taxi. I was so angry I couldn’t sleep. I tell you, never again.’
Lou bit down hard on her lip. She tried to make sympathetic noises but, as usual, Michelle wasn’t really listening to her, only using her as a sounding board.
‘I’ll have to go, Lou, someone’s at the door,’ she said mid-sentence and put down the phone. As usual she hadn’t even asked how Lou was.
Phil came downstairs rubbing his eyes. Lou stiffened.
‘Thanks for leaving me out a dried curry last night,’ he said.
‘I can reconstitute it for breakfast, if you wish,’ she said coldly.
‘No, it’s all right, thanks. Anyway I ate out.’ He waited for her reaction. She twitched slightly, but his radar still picked it up. ‘And thanks for waking me, by the way,’ he prodded, just to annoy her even more.
‘You told me you weren’t going in until lunchtime today, didn’t you?’ There was an edge in her voice he didn’t like.
‘Did I?’ said Phil, all too aware that he had. ‘And what if I’d changed my mind?’
‘You’d have set your alarm, as always.’
‘Humph.’
‘Bacon and eggs then?’ said Lou.
‘Yes, that would be wonderful, love,’ said Phil. Switch to being nice now–keep the ground like quicksand under her feet.
As Lou griddled the bacon, she let her mind float away from this house and Phil, to a fantasy house where she was cooking for a nameless figure with black unruly hair who treasured and wanted and loved her to distraction. She delivered Phil’s breakfast to him automaton-style and missed his compliment on the perfect-looking egg, so lost was she in her fantasy.
As Phil chewed on the last of his toast he said, ‘Isn’t that your daft mate coming up my path? She’s got a sore eye, by the look of it.’
He didn’t 100 per cent blame whoever gave that to her. If he had to spend longer than five minutes in her presence he’d probably thump her himself–and he abhorred bullies who hurt women. But no bird over thirty-five should be going around in mini-skirts and cowboy boots, especially with legs like bleached knitting needles. She was barking! Silly cow fell in love with a multiple murderer on Death Row and would have wired her life savings across to his sister, had Lou not stopped her. Then there was that time she made a total arse of herself sending pictures to the
Barnsley Chronicle
of the image of Roy Orbison that she’d found in a pork pie. These were not the actions of a woman who was the full shilling.
‘What did you say?’ said Lou, coming out of the kitchen to see.
The front doorbell rang.
Phil grabbed his jacket, sensing a heavy female session with tears and tissues and ‘all men are bastards’ philosophies. He escaped out of the back door to the car. At that moment, his showroom seemed even more attractive than it usually did.
Lou opened the front door to see Michelle sobbing and looking as if she’d done ten rounds with a pre-menstrual Mike Tyson.
‘What the heck happened to you?’ said Lou, marshalling Michelle gently inside away from the fat summer raindrops and into the dry warmth of her kitchen.
‘Craig…’ she managed in between big snorty tears.
‘Craig did this to you?’ Lou was horrified, although not really surprised. He had looked a total thug when she passed him in the street.
‘Nooo, Craig’s…’ more snot, more tears ‘…wife!’
Lou was even less surprised.
‘Remember when we were talking this morning and I had to go because there was someone at the door?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Lou, guiding Michelle’s hand towards a box of tissues.
‘Well, I opened it and there was this woman–really hard-faced, ugly, fat, horrible thing.’
Well, she would be, thought Lou. Michelle would hardly admit to Craig’s wife being a Claudia Schiffer lookalike.
‘Anyway, she says, “Are you Michelle?” and I say, “Yes”, and she says, “I believe you’re seeing my husband?” and I say, “Craig?” and she says, “Yes” and then she just punches me right in the face. “Keep away from
my husband, you cow, or I’ll fucking kill you next time”. Then she gets back into this old car and drives off. There were kids in the back, Lou. Two little kids strapped in baby seats. He never said he had kids!’
‘It must have crossed your mind, surely, that something wasn’t quite right?’ said Lou.
‘Why should it? I trusted him!’ said Michelle, wanting more sympathy than this.
‘Well, you didn’t have any phone numbers for him, for a start, and he was still living at home with his wife, wasn’t he? Didn’t you think that was a bit odd?’
Michelle dissolved into a fresh cascade of tears. ‘How could he do this to me?’
‘How could he do that to
her
?’ said Lou fiercely.
‘I don’t give a shit about her!’ spat Michelle. ‘I’m going down to the police station in a minute to report her for assault.’
‘Don’t you think she’s had enough crap?’ snapped Lou. ‘If she has got two small kids and a husband who is playing about, no wonder she’s in a state. He most likely would have blamed you for leading him astray and the wronged woman will nearly always pin it on the other woman rather than her own man.’
‘Whose side are you on, Lou?’ said Michelle.
Lou looked hard at Michelle. ‘Well, if I’m honest, anybody’s but Craig’s,’ she said. She wasn’t in the mood for her usual ‘There, there.’ Besides which, all that tea and sympathy hadn’t done Michelle any good in the long run. All Lou had ever done was patch her up with PG Tips and digestive biscuits and watch her go out and make the same mistakes over and over again. She shouldn’t have to pussyfoot around a true friend.
‘You can’t really be taking
her
side! Look at what she’s done to my face!’ Michelle half-screamed through her staccato sobs.
‘She shouldn’t have hit you, no, but I can understand where she was coming from,’ said Lou.
Maybe one of Susan Peach’s friends had told her the same thing after Lou had decked her in Boots. Maybe that’s why she had never heard any more about it. She hadn’t considered that possibility until now.
‘How can you say that?’
‘She doesn’t deserve to be arrested.’
‘Why not? Because your husband had an affair and you ended up hitting the other woman?’ snarled Michelle, before Lou sternly cut her off.
‘This isn’t about me, Michelle. I’m trying to help you here. Draw a line under Craig now and move on. Learn the lesson!’
‘But I love him!’ More sobs.
‘How can you love someone who treats people so badly? He’s hurt his wife, his children and you, because he can’t see past his own needs. He’s an animal. You’re well out of it, surely you can see that now.’
Michelle pulled a mobile phone out of her pocket. ‘No, I’m ringing the police and I’m ringing them now.’
A vision came to Lou’s mind of a woman in pain lashing out like a wild animal to cling onto her man. She grabbed the phone from Michelle’s hand, snapped it shut and put it firmly down on the table.
‘Oh no, not in my house you’re not!’
Lou’s words hung in the air.
Michelle was trapped in shock for a few seconds, then
she rose to her feet and grabbed the phone back, stuffing it deep in her hip pocket.
‘Well, I see where your priorities are,’ she said, snuffling loudly. ‘Call yourself a friend? Well, fuck you, Lou Winter. Just because your man pissed about doesn’t make you patron saint of married women, although I suppose the fact he had plenty of money and a big house didn’t have anything to do with you taking him back. Anyway, you can stick your friendship, if you can call it that.’ And with that, Michelle flounced to the kitchen door and slammed it behind her.
Lou replayed Michelle’s parting speech to herself–a strangely objective operation for someone as emotional as her. When she had fully processed it, she concluded that these weren’t the words of someone upset by a few home truths, they were the tip of a surprisingly deep resentment and jealousy that had no place in friendship. Her whole relationship with Michelle passed before her eyes: the honeymoon weeks, where they laughed and conversed and bonded, and after that all the self-pity and slammed-down phones, false judgements, recriminations and long, boring conversations in which Michelle starred as the tragic misunderstood heroine. Lou realized then that she had been waiting for the ‘real Michelle’ of the first few weeks to come out to play again–but the ‘real Michelle’ was the one who had just exited her house. The first Michelle had been the illusion, and Lou had merely been one of those temporary ‘friends’ who happened to have a little more patience than the others.
Lou allowed herself to savour these thoughts, standing there leaning on the radiator with her eyes closed.
Whatever she had with Michelle was not friendship in the Deb sense of the word, but it didn’t matter now. When Michelle slammed that door, it had locked behind her. The relief, for Lou, was almost tangible.