Here, however, everyone seemed intent on making her feel welcome. During the band, Matt came over and rested an arm on her shoulder. Not in a lecherous way, just as if they’d been mates for ages. She turned to smile at him and he grinned back.
‘Great band.’
Mimi nodded.
‘How long are you staying?’
Mimi didn’t answer straightaway.
‘Who knows?’ she answered. ‘Maybe for ever?’
From the other side of the bar, Justin watched Mimi mingle with a sinking heart. That was the last thing he needed, Mimi getting her feet under the table in Mariscombe and deciding she wanted to stay. For in some ways, she was more of a threat than her mother. Justin knew George had a soft spot for the girl, and if he was handling Victoria with kid gloves it was because he was concerned for Mimi. And even Justin had to admit she was a nice kid. Whoever her father was, he must have been a decent bloke, because Mimi certainly didn’t get her equable nature from her mother.
Justin was determined not to let Victoria mess things up for George and Lisa. He didn’t care about himself, but he knew The Rocks was vital for the two of them. And Lisa was good for George. He was his old self again around her, not the superficial twat he’d become when he’d got married. He looked around the bar – Mariscombe definitely wasn’t the sort of place you could pick up a contract killer, he thought gloomily.
Justin sighed, took his change from the barman and picked up the bottle of wine and two glasses he’d ordered. He made his way back over to the window seat and looked down into a pair of laughing eyes.
‘Hi,’ he smiled, and immediately felt better. Maybe he’d do better minding his own business.
When George crawled into bed beside her later that night, Lisa pretended to be asleep. She didn’t want to discuss the day’s events, because she still wasn’t sure how she felt. She knew if they made love, which they would normally do, that it would somehow cement her forgiveness, and she didn’t quite feel ready for that. It wasn’t that she wanted to punish him by depriving him of her body. But sex often made her feel vulnerable and she didn’t trust herself not to have some sort of post-coital breakdown, which would show George exactly how hurt she felt.
Next to her, George listened to Lisa’s breathing and wondered if she really was asleep. He still wasn’t quite sure where he stood. Lisa might have forgiven him verbally, she might have accepted Victoria’s presence under their roof, but there had been a steely look in her eye all evening that he hadn’t seen before. He knew Lisa was a tough cookie and he was still wary of reprisals. And he knew enough about women to know that forgiveness wasn’t cut and dried, that there might be recriminations and barbed remarks for some time to come. He needn’t think he’d got away with it.
To take his mind off his predicament, he started running through the lists of things he needed to achieve in the coming week, the people he needed to phone: building control, the printers, ordering yet another skip, the girl who was doing the curtains. But sleep wouldn’t come. And pervading his thoughts was a persistent image that he desperately tried to shake out of his head. The image of Victoria lying in bed only a few rooms away. She would be naked, because she always was, even in the depths of winter. George gritted his teeth, trying to think of anything but the slender limbs he remembered so well, but it was impossible. Even as he lay there, he thought he could smell her scent. She was invading him, his mind and his senses. She was in his thoughts, in the very pores of his skin. He’d forgotten the power she had over him. Two years of total abstinence might never have happened.
He should have sent her packing. It wasn’t the fear of what she might do that had made him succumb to her pleas, no matter what he had told Lisa and Justin. It was because once he had seen her, he couldn’t resist. He was crazy. He was torturing himself. It was like an alcoholic pouring a drink and leaving it on the table all day.
Perhaps making love to Lisa would help get Victoria out of his system. He debated sliding an exploratory hand over her curves. Usually he wouldn’t hesitate: Lisa was always happy to be roused from her slumber. She wasn’t the type to bat away nocturnal advances. He stroked the curve of her belly and kissed her shoulder, breathing in the tang of her shower gel, inhaling it deeply. In her semi-conscious state she pressed herself against him in a gesture of encouragement.
‘I love you,’ said George later, burying his face in Lisa’s curls, but she didn’t reply. Her breathing told him she was asleep again. He wasn’t even sure she’d woken properly. He lay back on the pillows as his beating heart subsided to its normal rate.
Lisa was gorgeous and he did love her. It was just his mind playing tricks. By the time he got up tomorrow he would be in total control.
B
runo had decided that one of the few members of his staff who had a modicum of conscientiousness was the little chambermaid, Molly, who sometimes doubled up as a waitress. He’d watched her this morning at breakfast service. She kept her eyes open all the time, clearing plates away as soon as they were empty, bringing fresh tea and coffee, replenishing toast. She greeted the guests with a smile. She constantly tidied the table where the fruit juices and cereals were laid out, mopping up spills and topping up the jugs. The other waitresses stood around gossiping or looking at their fingernails.
And as a chambermaid, she was meticulous too. Bruno slipped into the rooms to inspect them after they had been changed. Molly’s rooms were always pristine. Hospital corners to the beds, pillows beautifully plumped, mirrors gleaming. Somehow her rooms smelled sweeter.
He cornered her in an upstairs corridor. She seemed to be on her guard, keeping her trolley between them as if for protection. He knew she was from Tawcombe. Girls from Tawcombe often seemed to be on their back foot, as if someone was likely to discover that they didn’t belong in Mariscombe and send them packing. They were a bit chippy. But then, thought Bruno, he’d be chippy if he’d drawn the short straw – it never ceased to amaze him that two places, one heaven, one hell, could be separated by only a couple of miles.
‘I wondered if you’d like to be considered for the housekeeper’s job?’ Bruno asked her, and she stared back at him. ‘I’ve watched you. You do a good job. Yours are the sort of standards I’m looking for.’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think I can take it on.’ Her voice was soft, slightly husky. ‘I can’t put any extra hours in.’
‘It wouldn’t entail much more.’
But she couldn’t be persuaded. She seemed in a hurry to get away from him. Bruno wondered what it was that was holding her back. Perhaps she had another job elsewhere that she didn’t want him to know about. He knew there were plenty of people around here who held down two or three jobs during the summer. They had to make hay while the sun shone, grafting during the high season to make up for the leaner winter months when they might not be able to earn anything at all.
‘We’d make it worth your while, Molly. You’d have a proper salary. And if you wanted to live in, you could.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think so.’
Bruno frowned.
‘Why don’t you think about it? And if there’s anything I can do to make it possible for you . . .’
‘Sorry. But thanks for asking.’
She practically ran down the corridor. Bruno sighed. It was bloody frustrating, but if she didn’t want to better herself there was nothing he could do about it. Some people were happy with their station in life, he supposed. The last thing he wanted to do was force her into it.
On the bus on the way home that afternoon, Molly’s mind was whirring. She rested her cheek against the cool of the windowpane, thinking about the conversation she’d had with Bruno. There was absolutely no way she could take the housekeeper’s job on, so she might as well stop torturing herself. She chewed her lip. Life just wasn’t fair. It would be amazing to have a proper job. Almost a career. Caragh had started off as housekeeper, and look at her now. But it wasn’t possible, so there was no point in thinking about it. Nevertheless, Molly ran through various possibilities in her mind, trying to find a solution. It was so frustrating . . .
She sat up, feeling slightly sick, as the bus lurched off the roundabout and down the main road into Tawcombe. It was ridiculously narrow, lined with dilapidated Victorian terraces that had once seen better days. Occasionally the bus had to pull up on to the pavement, if it met another large vehicle coming the other way. It swung past the scrap of beach in the centre of town smothered in shingle and empty tin cans and drying seaweed, then rumbled past the small harbour that not even the most euphemistic of tourist guides could describe as picturesque. There was an overriding sense of desolation in Tawcombe. There was no hope of a renaissance like there had been in nearby Ilfracombe, several miles up the coast. Tawcombe kept the dregs, after all, and they had no pride in their surroundings, no incentive to better themselves.
Molly sighed. Once you were amongst the dregs, it seemed there was no way out. Even if someone threw you a lifeline, you couldn’t grab it. The bus bowled into the bus station, the doors opening with a malevolent hiss. Thankful that the journey had come to an end, Molly ran down the steps without bothering to thank the driver – he was a miserable bastard, always picking his nose – and headed out of the station, hurrying along the street.
Why did people think that living by the seaside was so idyllic? Tawcombe was a dump, rife with drugs and no-hopers, thirteen-year-old girls pushing prams and smoking fags, post-natal bellies hanging out over the top of their hipsters. Foulmouthed, shaven-headed youths lolled on the steps by the harbour, watched by fat old men with greasy trousers who fondled themselves indiscreetly, their only hope the three fifteen at Chepstow. The streets were littered with fish and chip wrappers, untaxed cars, empty beer cans. The evening pavements were peppered with chewing gum and splats of sick, pecked at by undiscriminating seagulls and studded with undigested rice from the myriad takeaways that lined the harbour front. There were boarded-up windows, jacked-up motors. The air smelt stale.
Molly turned the corner into Uffculme Row. Three doors along she could see the steps outside the house she lived in. And sitting on the third step up, a figure. As she approached, the woman looked at her. Her skin was dull, her hair straggling, with three-inch grey roots that transformed into faded, washed-out black. Her fingers were crammed with sovereign rings, the nails bitten ragged, the skin chapped. She wore flared tracksuit bottoms, shiny blue acrylic with a white stripe down the side, and a grey sweatshirt. There was a thick gold necklace round her neck, hung with crosses, horse heads, a St Christopher and a shamrock, showing sentimentality for the country of her origin that she’d never actually visited.
‘Hello, Molly.’ Ten years in this county and the Scouse accent was as strong as ever.
‘Where is he?’
‘Fast asleep. I just came down for a fag.’ Her eyes looked accusingly. ‘As I’m not allowed to smoke in the flat.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Molly pounded up the steps without a backward glance and opened the door, recoiling in disgust at the smell – cat pee and stale rubbish, courtesy of a full bin bag dumped at the bottom of the stairs. There was a huge pile of unopened post – junk mail and free newspapers. She could feel the thud of drum and bass from the basement. She ran up the stairs, careful not to trip over the worn carpet, and pushed open the door to her flat.
Alfie was in the playpen. His cheeks were flushed and tear-stained; his hair damp with sweat. He’d obviously sobbed himself to sleep, his little fist clutched round his favourite bear. Molly bent down and picked him up, cradling him in her arms, feeling the warmth of her love suffusing her. It was as sweet and comforting as a shot of morphine as it swept through her veins, easing her anxiety if only for a moment. This precious moment was all that mattered. She gazed down at the little boy.
Already, he looked so like him. As she traced her fingers over Alfie’s eyebrows, so pronounced in his little face, and brushed his silky dark hair, the memories came flooding back. Those cheeks, those lips, the eyes that had smiled at her, burned through her . . .
Molly placed the sleeping baby in his cot and turned away. There was no point in torturing herself. But sometimes she couldn’t help it. Wondering what might have been, if the three of them had been a family. What life would have been like; whether Alfie would have had a brother or a sister. Whether they would have had a wedding. For a second she caught a glimpse of herself at an imaginary altar, lifting her cream lace veil to look at her groom—
Why did she do this to herself? She thought she’d taught herself not to daydream. Joe was dead, and he wasn’t ever coming back.
Five minutes later, reeking of recently smoked cigarettes with a hint of Diamond White underneath, her mother stomped into the room.
‘I don’t suppose it was pay day?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve no spare cash?’
Molly stared at her mother.
‘Of course I haven’t.’
‘I must have saved you a few quid today.’
‘You’re not seriously expecting me to pay you? For looking after your own grandson?’
Teresa Mahoney looked petulant and sulky. Molly felt her throat constrict with disappointment. Why did her mother always have to let her down? For one wild moment on her way home on the bus, she had wondered whether, if today had gone well, her mother might help her out more so she could take on the housekeeper’s job. But she wasn’t going to mention it now, absolutely no way. She wasn’t going to be beholden to her own mother.
Teresa was glaring at her, hands on hips.
‘Fine. If you just want to use me. That’s typical of you.’
She was on the attack, spoiling for a fight. Molly got up to put the kettle on. Her mother persisted.
‘I could have been working down the old people’s home today, earning proper money, instead of running round after you.’
‘Forget it, Mum. I won’t ask you again.’
‘Some thanks would be nice.’