A Winter Bride (22 page)

‘Not in touch with reality,’ Alistair had said, ‘but you have to love her for it.’

Carol had agreed. ‘She drifts off. You can see it happening – a faraway look in her eyes.’

‘Yes, she looks glazed. It can be annoying sometimes, though.’

‘Yes. Sometimes, I think she doesn’t really take in what’s actually happening. She lets the dream take over. Still, you have to love her.’

It hadn’t been long before Carol was preparing a meal she and Alistair could enjoy together as he put Katy to bed. They’d linger at the table chatting. Their conversation had become intimate enough for Carol to tell Alistair that she hadn’t been able to believe how much she now liked him. ‘I used to think you were boring.’

‘Thanks for that.’

‘Actually, it’s Johnny who’s boring. He doesn’t talk much. That’s good, really. He’s got nothing interesting to say. He spends hours looking at himself – can’t walk past a mirror. When we went out, he was the one who took ages to get ready. I was the one waiting by the door with my coat on.’

‘I used to think you were a bit of an airhead,’ Alistair had admitted.

‘Me? I have done some stupid things, I suppose.’

‘What stupid things have you done?’ he’d asked.

‘Got pregnant too young. Married your brother. That was stupid. Then going out at night looking for fun when I should have accepted that part of my life was over. I wasn’t ready to settle down.’

He’d nodded.

‘Everyone needs a little slice of their life when they can be a little bit wild. Mine didn’t last long, so I went out to bars to recapture the abandon I’d felt when I went to the Locarno. I wasn’t looking for men. I just wanted to know I still had what it takes to attract them. I wanted to flirt. I’m ashamed of it.’

‘I never really understood flirting. I’m no good at it.’

‘Doesn’t matter. You’re good at lots of other things. I suppose I got forced into marriage, my mum and your mum arranged it. And one day I looked at Johnny, thought he was gorgeous but not my type. I didn’t love him. Do you love Nell?’

‘Love,’ he’d said. ‘Never thought about it much. One day my mother came into the living room where me and Nell were watching television and said she’d set the date. We were getting married. We giggled about it. I thought it was a good idea at the time. But love … love’s tricky. It comes at you out of nowhere.’ He’d looked at his watch. ‘So, what’s on telly tonight?’

‘Dunno. Are you trying to change the subject?’

‘Definitely.’

By now they’d come to watch evening television together, sitting side by side on the sofa, laughing at the same comedy programmes, being bothered by the same documentaries. But, come bedtime, they’d always go their separate ways. Alistair would lie in the dark, thoughts of Carol lying in her own bed keeping him from sleep.

On Saturdays, when Alistair wasn’t working, he’d hang about the flat waiting for Carol to come back from taking Katy on her afternoon walk. He’d sigh, and wait by the window watching for her, unable to do anything about the surge of joy that ran through him when he saw her walking towards the front door. Eventually, he’d started going with her. They’d gone to the park or the zoo when the weather allowed. If it rained, they’d gone to the museum. He’d carry Katy on his shoulders, laughing when she bounced up and down, not minding at all that she gripped his hair. Both he and Carol had known that people around them thought they were a young family – man, wife and child. This had delighted them both, though they’d never admitted it to each other.

The night of the fish and chips and champagne had been a celebration. He’d won a victory in court. His client, a serial shoplifter with a previous conviction, had been given a year’s probation rather than the custodial sentence he’d been fearing. He was jubilant, although he was sure he’d soon be seeing the woman again; she just couldn’t resist helping herself to things on shop shelves that took her fancy. Still, feeling his career had taken a step forward, he’d phoned Carol and told her not to make supper tonight. He’d bring in a treat. He’d be home after he’d visited Johnny in hospital.

It was the first time Alistair had visited Johnny without May being there. They’d been alone. They’d been able to talk. Alistair had asked what the hell Johnny had been doing, steaming top speed around the countryside. ‘Were you drunk?’

Johnny looked a little ashamed. ‘Probably. I’d been drinking our mother’s cocktails. I was thinking about everything, and I was mad. My life selling Dad’s dodgy cars, and then the plan to give away watered down cocktails at the restaurant. I don’t want this. The more I thought about it, the harder I put my foot down. I took a corner without braking and it was a bigger corner than I thought it was. I lost control and here I am in hospital.’

Alistair had nodded.

‘Our parents are rogues. And they don’t see it. They really believe they’re making people happy,’ said Johnny.

‘I know.’

‘I’m not going back to it. When I get out of here, I’m not sticking around. I’m not going back to the back lot. I hate it. I want to see a bit of the world. Tell me, how did you manage to get out of working for Dad?’

‘I just refused. I think the lawyer bit appealed to Dad. He guessed he might need one. He thought I’d work for the firm. But not me. There’s only so much of our mother I can take. There’s too much of her for me. Too much emotion, too much gushing, too much spending money on too many hideous things.’

Johnny had agreed. ‘There’s that. She smothers me. Drives me crazy. She says my beauty will be ruined because I’ll have a scar.’ He’d touched his cheek. ‘I always wanted a scar when I was a kid. Thought it would make me look interesting.’

‘So did I.’

They’d grinned at one another.

‘So,’ Johnny had said, ‘will you lend me some cash?’

‘Why? Don’t you have any?’

‘Nope. Dad stopped paying me weeks ago. He said I should have saved for tough times and tough times were here.’

‘How much?’

‘A hundred?’

‘I’ll give you five.’

‘God, you must really want rid of me.’

‘Nah. I just think you need time away from our ma.’

On the way home, Alistair had stopped to pick up some food. He’d originally planned to buy a Chinese takeaway, but had changed his mind for fish and chips.

‘Fish and chips?’ Is that your idea of a treat?’ Carol had asked.

‘It is, especially when it’s washed down with this.’ He’d produced the champagne.

The wine had its effect. They’d become giggly. They’d flirted.

‘Are you going to be a great lawyer then?’

‘Probably not, but I might have my moments.’

‘Are you going to be rich?’

He’d shaken his head. ‘Comfortable.’

‘Comfortable’s all you want. It would be good not to worry about money.’

They’d poured the last of the champagne into their glasses and taken them through to the living room. They hadn’t switched on the television; instead they’d sat side by side, sipping occasionally and watching the fire.

‘We’re like an old married couple.’ Carol had put her head on his shoulder. Then, thinking she was being overly familiar with her friend’s husband, had removed it.

‘Oh, don’t do that. I like your head there.’

So she’d put it back again. With the closeness, the warmth, the wine, the electricity between them, a kiss had been inevitable. As was what had followed – urgent fumblings, hastily discarded clothes, wilder and wilder kisses, the joy of skin on skin and the passionate relief of doing what they’d both been longing to do for weeks.

They’d woken at nine o’clock. Both of them had been shivering as the fire had died out. Alistair had fetched a blanket from his bed and spread it over them. They’d agreed that what they’d just done was wrong – very wrong – but they hadn’t been able to resist doing it again, more slowly this time, savouring one another. Afterwards, entwined and warm under the blanket, they’d fallen asleep again, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Nell ran the length of the street. She didn’t look back. Carol and Alistair might be coming after her; they might catch up and persuade her to come back to the flat. There would be an argument – two of them against her. She wouldn’t win. Breath heaving, heart pounding, she turned the corner and stopped. She was out of sight.

Now she could walk. She headed for the West End, where she could find a taxi.

Oh, she could imagine all the things Carol and Alistair had said about her. They’d probably laughed at her behind her back. They’d think she had a stupid job, welcoming people into a restaurant, bringing them their bills, pouring their wine. Carol would have said that anyone with half a brain could do that. They’d have joked about how useless she was in bed. Nell stopped, put down her case, sniffed and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. She crossed her arms over her stomach to quell the churnings. Then told herself to walk on, to walk away from it all.

She found a taxi, climbed in and gave her mother and father’s address. Hold on, she told herself. She would be brave. From now on she would have to be a strong, independent woman of the world. She’d be on her own.

She hammered on the door of her mother and father’s home, and when her mother opened it, Nell burst past her, dropped her case in the hall, ran into the kitchen, sat at the small Formica-topped table and broke down.

Nancy stood at kitchen the door, watching her, thinking someone had died. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I needed to come. I’ve nowhere else to go.’ Nell reached for a tea towel and blew her nose.

Nancy folded her arms. It didn’t sound like someone had died. ‘If you’ve had a fight with your husband, you can go right back and sort it out. You’re a married woman. You can’t come running to me when something goes wrong.’

‘I can’t go back. I’m never going back. Alistair doesn’t want me anymore.’

Nancy put on the kettle. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course he wants you back. You’ve had an argument. All couples argue at first. It’s the way of things.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Nell wailed. ‘I found them naked on the sofa.’

Nancy turned. ‘You found who naked on the sofa?’

‘Alistair and Carol. They were all cuddled up together and she had her hand on his chest and he had his arms round her and they were sleeping.’

Nancy abandoned her tea-making and sat at the table opposite Nell. ‘They were naked? On the sofa? Carol and Alistair?’

‘Yes!’ Nell started to sob uncontrollably, heaving, coughing, and gasping for breath.

Nancy hadn’t seen such anguish in years. Her life had become so calm, so routine, that she’d forgotten what raw emotion looked like. She wasn’t one to put her arms round other people. It had been years since she’d last cuddled Nell, but she reached out and took her daughter’s hand and patted it. ‘I didn’t know Carol was still staying with you.’

Nell blew her nose and nodded. ‘She’s been with us for ages. She just settled in and made herself at home.’

Nancy looked down at Nell’s hand, soft in her own. It was a good hand; a young hand. Not like hers: creased; worn; liver-spotted. She thought of all the things her hands had done: wiping; scrubbing; wrapping up cakes in the shop; baking; rubbing embrocation into her husband’s back. These hands had held the child that this young woman across the table from her used to be. They had dried her crying eyes, dabbed her cut knees with disinfectant, changed her nappies, washed her clothes, and combed her hair. It occurred to Nancy that it had been a long time since she’d used these hands to show love.

Looking at her daughter in floods of tears, Nancy realised she had never wept like that in her life. Nothing this bad had ever happened to her. She’d spent her life getting on with things, noting tragic events in other peoples’ lives, hoping that nothing heart-stopping ever happened to her. Nancy supposed crying helped; better than holding all the pain in.

‘Oh, Nell,’ she whispered. She went back to the kettle, made tea and brought two cups to the table. ‘So Carol and Alistair were alone in the house when you went out to work?’

‘Yes. Well, Katy was there, but she’s little. She goes to bed at seven o’clock.’

‘You never thought anything about them being together every evening?’

Nell shook her head. ‘Not really. Maybe at times I did wonder but really I was just glad Alistair had some company.’

‘But evenings is when a couple sits together, plans their holidays, shares their dreams, chat.’

‘I know,’ said Nell, ‘but I have such a good job. I have prospects. I never had prospects before. I’m going places. One day I’ll be managing my own restaurant. I’ll be making good money.’ She blew her nose heartily into the tea towel.

Nancy couldn’t deny her daughter was a fool. Always dreaming with no notion of what life was about. ‘The books you’ve read, films you’ve seen … why, you’ve even been abroad. I’ve never ever dreamed of going to another country. All the things you know – and you know so much more than I do – but you’re not wise, love, are you?’

Chapter Twenty-three

How Does The Taxman
Know About Me?

May was rummaging down the side of the sofa looking for stray coins. Today she had to fetch Johnny from the hospital and she was short of cash. The letterbox rattled and mail thumped onto the mat. She went to the front door, picked up the pile of letters and put them all, unopened, into the drawer in the kitchen where she kept all the mail she didn’t want to read. Then she returned to her sofa search.

When the doorbell rang, she’d moved on to the armchairs and had a fair pile of coins on the coffee table. She ran upstairs and peered down at the front step, checking who was there. It was Frank Harris, the family accountant.

He was a tall man, slightly balding, with a passion for clothes. Today he wore a grey suit, pale olive shirt and pink tie. He left a thin waft of Old Spice aftershave in his wake as he walked past May into the living room.

‘I won’t stay long,’ he said. ‘Just need a quick word.’

He sat on the sofa. May noticed him noting the pile of coins, told him she was having a bit of a tidy up, and then added that Harry wasn’t there. ‘He’s at work.’

‘I actually came to see you,’ said Frank. He shot her a discouraging look that May dismissed. She didn’t like him. Then again, he didn’t like her. May assumed that was because he didn’t like women. Well, not ones that worked, anyway. His wife stayed home, cooked, cleaned and always had a hot meal waiting for him when he got home. ‘Got her well trained,’ he’d once told Harry. May had hated him the moment she’d overheard that remark.