by K. L. Slater
Maura shrugs and drinks her coffee. ‘Does she get on with the boys?’
Taken aback, I think for a moment. ‘You know, she didn’t seem to really notice them.’
‘She’s probably just playing it cool,’ Maura suggests. ‘Not wanting to be too overbearing at your first meeting. I’d say that’s a good thing.’
‘Hmm, maybe.’
It hadn’t struck me before now, but I can only remember Amber speaking to Noah once, about my disastrous school jobs comment, which I didn’t intend sharing with Maura. I don’t think she actually spoke to Josh at all the whole time they were there.
‘And how do Amber and Ben seem to get on?’
‘Oh, he seems totally smitten.’ I smile. ‘He’s kept his gentleman’s manners quite well hidden up until now, but they were on full glorious display yesterday.’
When they left ours, around four o’clock, I clocked that Ben helped Amber on with her coat and opened the car door for her again.
‘Not being picky, but she didn’t thank us either. I remember when I first met Henry’s parents, I so desperately wanted them to like me. I tried to say all the right things and offered to help clear up and thanked his mother profusely for the lovely meal she’d prepared. But Amber just said “Nice to meet you” when she left, and that was it.’
‘I wouldn’t take it to heart,’ Maura says, standing up and smoothing out the creases in her skirt. ‘Young people are so different nowadays. Far more confident than we ever were, and they expect the good things in life. It’s maybe not such a bad thing.’
I nod in agreement and she touches my arm lightly.
‘Ben doesn’t need protecting any more, you know, Judi. He’ll be fine. Maybe you should give this girl a chance.’
I feel a faint prickle behind my eyes. Maura was a good friend to me after David died. She knows what I went through and how it still affects me … will always affect me.
‘I know,’ I whisper, and squeeze her hand. ‘You look lovely, by the way.’
She’s taken to wearing a little make-up to work. Nothing overbearing, just a lick of mascara and a pretty lipstick. She’s got this sort of glow about her.
‘Amazing what a bit of lippy can do.’ She grins and pats me on the hand before walking through the reception area to unlock the doors early for the first patients, already waiting outside in the drizzle.
Maura’s right. Young women seem far more sure of themselves now. Ben is a good judge of character and he seems sold on Amber. I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice girl.
I silently resolve that I’m not going to let old insecurities get in the way of getting to know her.
13
Judi
We’re an hour into the morning appointments when I hear Maura’s sharp intake of breath.
‘Uh oh, Fiona Bonser’s here. That’s all we need,’ she murmurs and begins to leaf busily through the patient prescriptions. ‘Your turn this time, I’m afraid, Judi.’
I watch as an impoverished-looking woman in her early twenties struggles through the automatic doors with a baby in a pushchair and her two older children trailing behind. A couple of Aldi bags dangle from the buggy handlebars and the wire tray underneath the seat is packed with bottles of fizzy pop.
Fiona’s over-bleached yellow hair hangs in ropey strands, matted like candy floss and damp from the inclement weather. She has small, delicate features under slug-like blackened brows and heavy, dark eyeshadow that frames otherwise very pretty green eyes.
Despite her application of a thick make-up base and garish lipstick, old acne scars are still visible, chiselled deep into her pale complexion.
No matter what the weather, she always wears the same short skirt, exposing bare mottled legs in high-heeled court shoes that for some bizarre reason always make me think of Minnie Mouse. Although her three children often look scruffy and unkempt, I’ve never seen them without coats and trousers whenever the weather is colder.
‘Do that again and I’ll brain you,’ she snarls as they pile into the reception area. The eldest boy – Harrison, if I recall – steps warily away from his mother’s raised hand.
She looks up suddenly and sees me watching. And she hesitates. For a moment, I think she’s going to turn around and walk back out. But it’s just wishful thinking on my part, because of course, she doesn’t. She keeps on coming.
‘Morning, Fiona,’ I say brightly as she approaches the curved reception desk. ‘How are you today?’
‘I need to see the doctor,’ she mutters, avoiding my eyes.
‘Have you got an appointment?’
She stares at me then and I brace myself for the inevitable explosion. We’ve seen them many times before, here at the surgery.
‘No. I haven’t got an appointment. Can I sit and wait?’ Her reasonable tone gets a surprised glance from Maura.
I survey the collection of patients we have in that morning. Most of them are alone and quite old, or else very young with their own small children. There are lots of the same faces we see week on week.
Of course, they are all taking an interest in this interaction. Fiona’s reputation precedes her in this small and often unforgiving community.
I’ll need to choose my words carefully. If we’re seen to give preferential treatment, the place will be in uproar. The injustice will spread like wildfire on the surrounding housing estates.
‘I can make you an appointment for early next week,’ I say, scrolling down the computer screen. My heart sinks when I see the already oversubscribed schedules for our three GPs. ‘That is, unless it’s an emergency.’
Fiona nods to her brood. ‘Do you think I’d drag this lot out and traipse all the way down here unless it was an emergency?’ she snaps.
I watch as Harrison slyly snatches a mangled fruit chew out of the hand of his baby brother in the pushchair. A wail rises and fills the surgery. People shake their heads and roll their eyes at each other.
Fiona reaches into her pocket and wordlessly hands another chew to the baby. The noise stops.
‘No, I don’t suppose you would,’ I reply.
‘There is no sit-and-wait at the surgery on a Monday morning, Fiona,’ Maura intervenes from behind me. ‘I know you’re aware of that.’
‘Yeah, but you’re not aware of what’s up with me, are you? Interfering old—’
‘Careful,’ Maura warns. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to ask you to leave. Again.’
Fiona presses her lips together and leans on the counter, wincing slightly as she does so.
I glance at her eldest child, Kylie, a skinny, quiet girl of eight who has her mum’s facial features and seems to stare constantly at her own feet. Five-year-old Harrison stands chewing his stolen sweet, glaring at me with Fiona’s eyes. It occurs to me that both should surely be at school at nine forty-five on a Monday morning.
‘It’s one of those inset days, if you were wondering.’ Fiona shoots me a sarcastic smile as if she’s just read my mind. ‘So am I going to get to see a doctor this morning or what?’
‘Make an appointment like the rest of us have to,’ calls a flabby, rather unpleasant man who seems to be at the surgery all the time.
‘Fuck off, fatso,’ Fiona says smartly over her shoulder, without looking at him.
It isn’t at all appropriate, but something in me wants to laugh.
‘Watch your language, Fiona.’ Maura frowns. She lowers her voice. ‘You can sit and wait this once, but don’t ask for special treatment again.’
Fiona gives a single nod, throws me a hard look and sits down gingerly in the front row of seats, her children clustered around her like hungry chicks.
14
Amber
Amber sat in her tiny flat, cradling a cup of lukewarm coffee and listening to the booming bass beat and heavy footfalls that emanated through the ceiling from the apartment above.
Since the day she’d moved in here – nearly six months ago now – she’d tried everything to get those inconsiderate bastards to quieten dow
n. She’d pushed a note through the door. Then she had politely knocked and asked them to turn down the volume. But the guy had simply stood there looking through her, as if she was speaking in a foreign tongue. His stare had been unfocused as a zombie’s, with the bass beat pulsing through his body like an electric shock.
She wasn’t sure exactly who the registered tenant was upstairs, as there seemed to be a motley collection of ragged males, all of them skeleton-thin and spaced out, constantly coming and going at virtually all hours of the day.
The property was a three-storey detached Victorian villa that at one time must’ve been quite a grand residence, but in recent years it had been converted into six minuscule flats. The conversion had obviously been completed on a shoestring, as, with the original wooden floors and no soundproofing, every creak or boom beat could be heard.
Amber had emailed the property company who were responsible for maintaining the building and, in a moment of frustration a few weeks ago, had even complained to the antisocial-behaviour department at the local council. Needless to say, she hadn’t received a response from either party, and precisely nothing had changed.
It was hardly worth getting het up over, though. If things went to plan – which it seemed, even at this early stage, they would – then she wouldn’t be stuck in this rancid hole much longer, at the mercy of the crackheads upstairs.
The flat was situated on the edge of Forest Fields; certainly not the most desirable place to live in Nottingham. Amber had initially spotted it on Rightmove because the monthly rental amount was one of the lowest she could find close to the city. But it was only an eight-minute tram ride into the Old Market Square and it sat just at the edge of the main park-and-ride bus route. For these benefits, Amber had to pay nearly five hundred pounds a month for what amounted to little more than a soulless shoebox with a cooker and a toilet.
It was hard making ends meet, paying all the bills herself from the crappy salary she got at the children’s centre. She paid the rent from the modest sum of money she’d received from the sale of her mother’s house, and it was fast disappearing.
The solicitor had told her eight months ago that most of the capital from the small stone-fronted terrace had been swallowed up by her mother’s debts – debts Amber had known nothing about and that hadn’t become apparent until it was time for her mother to sell up and move into the care home.
It was yet another reason for her to stick unswervingly to her plan and to get out of here as soon as possible.
She shifted on the cramped two-seater settee decorated with cigarette burns, pulling down her skirt to stop her thighs sticking to the cheap leather-look cushions.
When she’d first moved here, she had worked out early on that if she sat in a certain position in a certain place in the room, she could see just sky out of the window. The dirty brickwork across the road and the broken-down vehicles disappeared and there were no more hooded youths lingering on corners. Just sky and clouds.
It reminded her of when she and her sister were kids. They’d lie on their backs in the fields near home like fine-weather snow angels and identify shapes in the clouds.
Amber had been pretending she was somewhere else ever since.
She laid her hand on top of the A4 envelope full of photographs that was usually kept carefully hidden, clipped inside her old waxed outdoor jacket inside the wardrobe.
The envelope contained precious images that triggered a deluge of emotions. Happiness, sadness, regret and fury. She didn’t feel strong enough to look at them again right now. She would be driving over to Ben’s in just over an hour and she’d have to ensure her mask was firmly in place.
She pushed the envelope away, thinking how she’d spent most of her life dreaming about a future where she might be happy and content, free from the wretched thoughts that plagued her from dawn until dusk.
Perhaps that time was finally drawing near.
She sipped at her coffee, grimacing as the cool, bitter beverage coated her tongue. She set the mug aside and her mind drifted back to Sunday at the Jukeses’ house. She didn’t know quite how she’d managed to get through what she considered to be a three-hour ordeal, rather than the pleasant family meal Ben had promised.
When they’d first arrived at his parents’ house and she’d met Judi, Ben’s mum, Amber had had to practically pick her jaw up off the floor.
She’d looked just like a bag woman, wearing torn old clothing that clearly should have been binned long ago.
Granted, they’d arrived a little early and it was pretty obvious that Judi had been caught unawares. In fact, it was clear that the woman was mortified. Amber might’ve felt sorry for her if it had been anyone else.
‘Mum and Dad don’t have many visitors,’ Ben whispered behind his hand as his mum stood staring into space, looking a bit vague. ‘You should be flattered.’
The look of failure on Judi’s face spoke volumes, and Amber realised that the woman had probably seen the day as a rare chance to show off her wonderful home, picture-perfect family and cordon-bleu cooking skills.
She sensed that Ben was a bit embarrassed by his mother’s appearance, but he just laughed it off and Amber herself pretended not to notice.
It didn’t take long for Amber’s brief sympathy to evaporate.
From the second she arrived, Judi’s eyes were on her at every moment: judging, evaluating, quite obviously hating that her husband and son were so distracted by her.
When they eventually all sat down, Amber found it nigh on impossible to relax, because the meal was so ruddy formal.
After listening to Ben’s father bore on for far too long about wine, she couldn’t wait to pour the stuff down her neck. She knew drinking was risky, in terms of saying something she shouldn’t, but she promised herself she wouldn’t have more than a glass or two. If she was honest, it felt essential to get her through the ordeal.
It was clear to Amber from the outset that Ben’s mother had planned to the nth degree, including a table setting featuring so much china, silver and glass it resembled a Michelin-starred restaurant. Ben constantly cooed and complimented his mother over the meal, but to Amber’s disappointment, the food was distinctly average, dripping with fat and too many bland and unimaginative flavours.
Noah and Josh had been little demons as usual, so badly behaved. Yet nobody else seemed to notice. They constantly interrupted the adults’ conversations, and gobbled down their food like it might get up and run away at any moment. The older boy, Noah, even belched loudly after his meal without a single challenge from anyone.
Amber witnessed how Ben’s parents overindulged the children, and frankly, Judi treated Ben as if he wasn’t much older than his own sons.
And then Amber had broken the precious jug, of course. That hadn’t gone down too well; the atmosphere had turned decidedly icy for a short time. Judi had looked at her incisively for several minutes, as if she was trying to make her mind up whether Amber had done it on purpose or not.
Still, she didn’t regret going. It had been more than a worthwhile exercise. She’d been able to see how the family dynamics worked, and that would come in very handy in the future.
Amber stood up from the couch and picked up the mug of now-cold coffee to take through to the kitchenette, smiling to herself.
Soon, a less-than-perfect Sunday lunch would be the very least of Judi Jukes’s worries.
15
Judi
I get home early afternoon, and predictably, Henry is out. He often meets other retired colleagues from the bank on Mondays, down at the local snooker hall. At least that’s what he tells me.
There have been, shall we say, some inconsistencies over the years in terms of Henry’s whereabouts. There have been other women in the past; one I knew about – a colleague at the bank – others I suspected. I always sat it out, dropped hints and waited for Henry to come to his senses about how much he’d got to lose. Which he always did, in time.
The woman at the bank, Helena, she
contacted me. Knocked on the door one day, if you can believe it. Told me my husband was in love with her and that I should do the right thing and let him go, let him ‘be happy’.
I remember she was small and pale and blonde, looked as if she needed someone to protect her. That sort. And she had her big blue eyes set on my Henry.
I didn’t let her in; I shut the door in her face before she could say any more. I didn’t want to hear it, you see.
That night, Henry came home from work to find his bags packed and me and the boys ready and waiting in the hallway to wave him off. That certainly brought him to his senses sharply enough. He put paid to his silly little fling and I never heard another thing about it.
Of course, I had my suspicions that there were others in the years that followed: the faintest whiff of a floral scent on his collar, him taking a shower before bed when he arrived home exhausted after a late meeting, a slight hesitation when asked which hotel he’d be staying at, should I need to contact him at yet another overnight conference … But you can’t dwell on such things. Not if you want to keep your sanity.
That was all years ago now, and it’s best forgotten. But you know, old habits die hard, and every time Henry tells me he’s off out somewhere, that old, sick feeling stirs still in the pit of my stomach.
I sit down with a cup of tea and a sandwich and leaf lazily through a magazine but find my mind keeps wandering back to yesterday.
After lunch, when Ben, Amber and the boys left, I raised her landlord story with Henry.
‘If I’m honest, I found it a little inappropriate,’ I said. ‘And don’t look at me like that; I could tell you were taken aback by how candidly she spoke in front of us.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud, Judi.’ He rustled his newspaper in annoyance. ‘I thought she was a lovely girl and she’ll be good for Ben. Get him out of the house a bit on a weekend.’
