It didn’t take a degree in arithmetic for me to work out that the business was very profitable. Scarlet and Andrew were making money hand over fist. Most of the storage areas were full. There was even a waiting list for some of the larger spaces. I got to know one or two of the regulars and the general pattern of comings and goings. There was usually a flurry on Saturdays at around five p.m., just as we were about to close. Half an hour later I’d swing the gates to, with their metallic scream, wishing with all my heart that I was about to head off somewhere exciting, preferably with an adoring and adorable boyfriend instead of me and the TV in that small, square room. I seemed to be one of the unlucky ones, sitting on the bank of the river while everyone else swam downstream, the girl who sits watching the dance floor while all her friends waltz and dance around her with their beaux. I was twenty-two. If I didn’t do something about it, my life would slip away into nothing.
The CCTV screens reflected the sheer emptiness of my existence. I was detaching from reality and growing desperate for change. My breaks were bolting down sandwiches or scooting to the loo. And even that had to be done in a hurry, listening out for the doorbell.
The rule was that if I wasn’t actually at the front desk I had to lock the front door. Scarlet, and in particular Andrew, were almost paranoid that we would be broken into, though I couldn’t see the fuss myself. All the stores were padlocked and there was rarely any cash on the premises. Ninety per cent of the transactions were done by card or direct debit. And there wasn’t much worth nicking in my office – nothing but flimsy padlocks, cardboard boxes galore, rolls of ‘Fragile’ tape. And what were they going to nick from the stores anyway if they forced the padlock? Serena, the hairdresser’s, curlers? Old people’s furniture? ‘It was Gran’s. There when I was growing up. I couldn’t sell it. She’d turn over in her grave.’ Tommy Farraday’s guitar, which I suspected wasn’t quite as valuable as he claimed? Tatty house contents people couldn’t bear to part with? Stuff they couldn’t even sell on a market stall or through eBay, Gumtree or Amazon? Outgrown kids’ stuff: prams, pushchairs, cots, Moses baskets and toys, retained just in case they had ‘another one’. The list was endless. In the dull weather even the antiques, which I’d thought looked immensely valuable, were starting to look a bit tatty and seedy when they were being carried in and out of the store week on week for yet another antiques fair, protected from the weather by the ubiquitous grey blankets I was beginning to hate.
But when I got my pay packet I forgot about the rules, the boredom, the sheer emptiness of the job, the loneliness of being in solitary confinement on an industrial island, stranded from the bustling, lively, noisy town full of people, the hours spent staring into those grey screens where nothing moved except the ghosts inside my head. Perhaps understanding the downside of the job, Scarlet and Andrew had raised my pay by almost a hundred pounds a month. For the first time in my life I had disposable income. Just a little.
‘Well,’ I said, grinning at the pair of them. ‘Thanks. Thanks very much.’
I lectured myself, trying to fend off the loneliness. What did I have to grumble about? I could read all day. The job was hardly arduous. I had a life. I had a job. I might even manage a foreign holiday. Maybe there I would finally meet the man who existed inside my head. My Prince Charming. It didn’t look as though I was going to find him in the wine bars and night clubs of The Potteries, or here either. I’d tried the internet and that had turned out to be a disaster.
All that had dragged in initially had been Scary I.
SIX
The thing that finally nailed it with Tyrone was that he had the worst case of road rage I’ve ever witnessed. He drove a souped-up Subaru, decked out in silver metallic paint and with twin exhausts so it looked and sounded like a rocket. I’d actually seen people startle when he came up behind them, lights flashing, horn sounding, exhausts blasting, two fingers stuck out the window. It usually did the trick; they scurried back into the slow lane, particularly when they looked in their rear-view mirror and saw his face – square, determined – and his biceps as big as a baby’s head, always exposed in a sleeveless vest with IRON PUMPER on it in big black letters. He wore that vest – or its twin – right the way through the year, summer, winter, spring and autumn. Heatwaves, snow. It was Tyrone’s uniform.
Anyway, on that day, when I was witness to his excesses in the road-rage department, we were driving, as the police say, in a northerly direction along the A34 towards Talke Pits, once a mining village but now a collection of retail outlets. There was a favourite shop of his there that sold weights. Tyrone must have had an extra dose of his stuff that morning because he was flying on a broomstick. Mad as a hatter and aggressive as a randy bull. The guy in front was driving a navy Skoda Yeti and, either he wasn’t looking in his rear-view mirror, or else he was one of those stupid stubborn guys who think they can stand up to Tyrone, and not give way.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
So Skoda man, smile on his face, doing the legal forty mph, oblivious to what was steaming up behind him, sits in the outside lane. And on the inside there’s a coach full of schoolkids on a trip, maybe. So Tyrone couldn’t do his usual undertaking, middle finger poking the air, with all the sound effects his Subaru could muster, fortissimo. But instead of pulling ahead or slotting behind the coach, Skoda man sits there, still smiling as though he was listening to Classic FM.
Big mistake. And that irritating smile into his rear-view mirror just made things worse. Besides, some of the schoolkids, as we drew level, were sticking their tongues out and machined rude gestures back which fired Tyrone up even more.
Tyrone does his usual, flashes his lights, sounds his horn, revs up the engine, pretends to ram the Skoda, gets within an inch of the Yeti’s back bumper.
Skoda man does … nothing. I can still see his stupid face in the mirror, unaware of the homicidal maniac revving up behind him. Maybe he did have Classic FM on, or whale music or something from the rainforest. He seemed so relaxed, the smile so fixed and abstracted, hardly noticing anything around him. Skoda man was in a happy little world of his own: meadow flowers, exotic birdsong, buttercups, violins, waves, while Tyrone is thinking of only one thing. And it involves a hefty punch in the rear bumper. I want to warn Skoda man. Pull over. Let him pass and it’ll all be over in a minute. No harm done.
Otherwise …
But Skoda man wasn’t in a noticing mood.
Tyrone starts effing and b-ing while I sit rigid in my seat, Skoda man still blissfully unaware. Tyrone starts to hyperventilate and I’m getting a nasty feeling. School bus having pulled away, Tyrone buzzes up behind Skoda man, flashes, sounds his horn and, with a bang, shunts him into the verge.
Which forces Skoda man to pull over and get out of the car to take Tyrone’s insurance details. I watch with dread as both men get out of their cars, Skoda man little and skinny, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in a collar too big for his scrawny neck, and Tyrone stepping towards him like a bloody great earthquake: thump thump thump. And still Skoda man doesn’t realize what’s coming. Tyrone greets him by headbutting him on his nose (I heard the crunch from inside the car) before knocking him out flat. Then he rolls back towards me, gets in as though nothing has happened and off we drive, leaving Skoda man bleeding in the layby, his car with a dirty great dent in the back, still slewed in the position Tyrone had shunted it. I’m not sure whether Skoda man is dead or alive and I’m hardly going to ask Tyrone. I could guess what the answer will be. If he is alive Skoda man is the loser. He’s got no insurance details and I very much doubt, after that greeting, that he’s copped Tyrone’s car number plate. Even if he had he’ll have forgotten it in the excitement of what had followed.
When we reached the fitness and weights shop at Talke Pits, Tyrone was still snorting down his nostrils, puffing and panting from anger and the exertion of knocking down a guy half his size with about a thousandth of his testosterone level. Violence always overexcited him, and that day it was taking him a whi
le to simmer down. I left him to his weights selection and started walking down the A34 back towards Newcastle-under-Lyme. I was not getting back in Tyrone’s noisy Subaru. Not ever. I’d managed to filch his keys from his back pocket and dropped them down a drain hole. I swear I heard his bellow of rage all the way into Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Looking back, you could say I was ripe for the plucking – a solitary apple waiting to fall off the tree into someone’s arms. You could accuse me of being gullible, naive, lonely, desperate. Yes. I was all of those things. But, luckily for me, I was also an optimist. I always had the conviction that romance was just around the corner, that something momentous was about to happen to me. Until it did, I was treading water.
And then I met Steven.
SEVEN
It was a fine day in mid-March, a bright spring day when everyone’s step was quick and energetic and happy. The daffodils and other spring flowers were everywhere. Even in Tunstall, in planters and pots, outside shops and in the park flower beds. I’d been working at The Green Banana for almost four months when he walked in.
Watching the grey screens, I’d seen a white Ford Focus pull on to the forecourt and park neatly in the bay, reversing and pulling forward twice to get it exactly between the parking lines. He got out, looked around and headed for the office. The door swung open and he walked in.
He was slim, about forty, attractive, height medium, hair brown streaked with grey and rather pretty eyes, hazel with tiny gold flecks and long lashes. He walked right up to the desk and waited shyly for me to speak first. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he said doubtfully, looking around, at the stacks of boxes, rolls of tape, CCTV monitors and finally back at me. I studied him further. He was wearing a navy jacket zipped up to the chin over beige trousers with a crease in them. Tramlines, actually. Careless ironing in a middle-aged man’s uniform. And I noticed quite quickly that he was wearing a gold wedding ring. I met his eyes and his mouth tightened. I was only too familiar with Mr Married Man masquerading as Mr Bachelor. As though I wouldn’t notice the dent or the tan line on their third finger left hand. But at least he wasn’t hiding behind that fiasco.
I asked him again, changing the words slightly. ‘How can I help you?’
His turn.
His eyes flickered. He still looked doubtful, as though coming here had been a whim he was now regretting. He looked around, doubt in the dropping of his shoulders, his gaze focusing on the floor. He licked his lips. ‘I don’t really know.’
My instinct was to tell him to come back when he did, or some other dismissive, rude remark, but his voice was soft and quiet and polite, his manner hesitant. I waited, thinking perhaps I should change the name I’d given him, Mr Middle-Aged Average Married Man, to Mr Doubtful.
He cleared his throat in an awkward little cough and I tried to help him by speaking in a voice gentler than usual.
‘Do you have some items you wish to store?’
He spent enough time thinking about this for me to try to prompt him. ‘Did you want to rent a container?’
He gave his head a vague, dismissive shake and looked at me helplessly.
I hadn’t quite lost my patience but I was getting near. Still, I did try. ‘We have lots of different sizes of storage facilities.’
He still looked uncertain, but he was thinking about it.
‘From not much bigger than a shoebox to a full-sized shipping container,’ I finished. We had a few that were empty that we needed to fill. Besides, I got a bonus when I found a new customer who signed on for a minimum of six months. I tried an encouraging smile.
He flapped his hands. ‘I don’t know how big a space I might need. Not much.’
Well, I don’t fucking well know. I was losing it.
He hardly looked at me but seemed to find the floor more interesting – or else his shoes, which were brown leather. Quite good-quality brogues. I waited and searched his face for a clue, something. His eyes sidled away from a direct gaze. He looked pale, as though he spent all his life indoors and never saw the sun. There was a tiny bead of sweat on his upper lip and he was breathing quickly. I hoped he wasn’t about to have a heart attack. I glanced at the poster on the wall, The Green Banana’s nod to first-aid precautions. I’d never tried CPR but I reckoned I could have a go. Someone had told me you just thump the chest in time to the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ (very appropriate) and blow into their mouth every now and then.
He seemed to be recovering without all that.
Again, I tried to be helpful with a ‘professional’ smile. ‘Well, what is it you want to store?’
‘My wife’s …’ He stumbled over the word which already had me wondering about her. Divorce? Death? Estrangement? A shopaholic? He still wore his wedding ring, which in my personal experience is one of the first casualties of marital disharmony. Chucked at the about-to-be-ex-spouse.
So, divorce unlikely. But he didn’t look quite sad enough for a widower, though the tramlines on his trousers were a hint that he was having to do his own laundry. But neither did he look well off enough to support a kleptomaniac spouse. Having failed to arrive at the right solution, I tried to mix helpfulness with sympathy and produced the list of sizes and prices printed out on A4, laying it gently on the counter, following that with a questioning look. He frowned over it, reading it through slowly before looking across at me, helpless as a kitten and indecisive as a child in a sweet shop and finally repeated, ‘I don’t know how big a space I’ll need.’
I gave him my most confident, most ‘winning’ smile.
‘Tell me what you want to store.’ I tried again.
He flapped his hands again; the simple question had thrown him into another panic.
He still looked worried, so I followed that with a more practical suggestion. ‘Would you like to look at a couple of our storage areas?’
His frown wasn’t at all relieved by my offer. He just looked even more confused. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’ Following that up with, ‘Perhaps I should.’
‘Yeah.’ And then I waited.
Before taking over. ‘As it happens,’ I said, ‘we do have a couple of medium-sized storage areas vacant. Some of the six-by-fours. And one or two of the smaller sizes.’ I knew now how to help new customers, prompt them along the way, help them sign the contract. Andrew and Scarlet had only recently introduced the benefit scheme. I had signed up a new tenant for the minimum six-month period and for that I’d got a thirty-pound bonus.
‘And for the first month they’re on special offer. Just one hundred pounds for the whole month.’ I made my tone deliberately encouraging but he didn’t appear to be wavering. I narrowed my eyes and tried to read him while I waited for his response. In my experience there is nothing like a special offer to reel most people in. But this guy was bypassing my experience. He was also inscrutable. I had no idea what little tussles were going on in his mind.
I tried again recalling Scarlet’s mantra.
Empty spaces earn no money. But I couldn’t work out how to steer him in the right direction – to make a decision. Preferably in my favour. I had my eye on a very sexy dress online and every girl knows a new dress demands new shoes. I could do with that extra money and so I pushed perhaps a little harder than I would normally have done.
I glanced over his shoulder eyeing the white car. A Ford Focus is a good load carrier. ‘How many carloads of stuff will you have?’
‘I really don’t know,’ he said, shrugging, but in a friendly and more relaxed way now. He gave me a tentative smile and twisted his wedding ring around his finger. ‘Probably the contents of three wardrobes?’
Bloody hell, I thought. Three wardrobes. So my kleptomaniac wife theory was the correct one. A clothes-collector. Someone who can’t say no to Marks & Spencer’s by the look of him. ‘In bags? Suitcases?’ I prompted. ‘We have lovely cardboard and plastic disposable wardrobes that you can hang clothes in. Or hanging rails,’ I finished dubiously, losing confidence.
He shuddered. ‘Boxes,’ he said abruptly, ‘a trunk and one or two suitcases.’
I picked something else up. He was uncomfortable about this. His hands, by his sides now, were opening and closing like a jellyfish. His eyes slid away from mine, but not before I’d read something else in them. Shame? Embarrassment? Guilt? He looked a teeny-weeny bit shifty, took a step back, scooped in a lungful of air and, for one weird second, I wondered if he was about to faint he looked so pale and – well – odd. He gulped.
‘A six-by-four should do it,’ I said, suddenly decisive and wanting to close the deal, get him signed up before he changed his mind, which I sensed he was about to do. But I knew the ropes, the way these commitments worked. On impulse.
I still hadn’t converted him. He still looked a bit uncertain, so I pushed him a little further along the way.
‘You can move in right away if you like.’ Big smile. ‘We’re open six days a week. Ten till five.’ While he wavered, I studied him further, trying to place him. He was nearer my dad’s age than mine. His smile was tentative but no showstopper. No big display of huge white horse-teeth. His voice was as quiet and soft as a pair of bedroom slippers. His hair was slightly thinning on top. He’d made a half-hearted attempt at a combover but they don’t work even in the most skilful of hands, though his hands were actually an asset. Long, slim, capable fingers, which looked surprisingly strong, like a pianist’s. I looked at them with fascination. They, along with those lovely eyes, were quite beautiful.
The Subsequent Wife Page 4
