by Lucy Diamond
‘Well, to be honest, I’m a little bit concerned,’ Margaret said without so much as a ‘hello’. ‘It sounds as if there was something of a to-do at your talk last week. I hope you’re all right.’
Ah. So word had got back to head office. This put a different spin on things. Bunny swallowed, wondering if she could speak honestly to Margaret. She’d only met her once before – a commanding sort of person in her fifties – but she’d liked the other woman’s crisp, practical manner. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied after a moment. ‘Absolutely fine.’
‘It did sound rather unpleasant,’ Margaret went on. ‘Is there anything you need to tell me?’
‘Um . . .’ Bunny hesitated. Sometimes when you kept a secret to yourself – a bad secret – it swelled up bigger and nastier, the longer you remained silent. Obviously she hadn’t been able to tell Dave what had happened at the Cotswold village hall the other week, because that would have meant unrolling the full awful story for him. But maybe Margaret, another woman, would understand, if Bunny explained. ‘The thing is . . .’ she began, and then out it came. ‘I was in an abusive relationship,’ she said in a tiny voice, edging around the side of the shop into an alley so that nobody would hear her. ‘And one day he was beating me. Quite badly. I thought I might die. And so I . . . I defended myself.’
‘You stabbed him, is that right?’ Margaret had always been very businesslike, but the brisk, matter-of-fact manner in which she asked the question quite took Bunny’s breath away.
‘Well . . . yes,’ she replied after a moment. ‘In self-defence. And I—’
‘I see,’ Margaret said. Clearly, for her to have asked the question in the first place, she’d already known that this was the answer, but she sounded horribly disapproving, as if her worst fears about Bunny had just been confirmed. ‘And this man in the audience last week recognized you, and brought it to the attention of the entire gathering, I hear. One hundred and fifty-two people, might I add, according to Sally, the organizer.’
‘Yes,’ Bunny said humbly, wrapping her arms around herself. She was leaning against the brick wall of the building and could smell the ripe pong of a nearby dumpster. The air was muggy and fetid, but she was shivering all of a sudden.
‘Right. Well, forgive me for stating the obvious, but this is not the sort of negative publicity we want associated with our brand, frankly,’ said Margaret. She sounded positively cold now. Angry with Bunny. ‘You should have told us these . . . these circumstances at the time of winning, because of this very eventuality. As it is, I’m afraid SlimmerYou no longer wants you to represent the company in further talks, or promotions of any kind. Our contract with you is hereby terminated, with immediate effect.’
Bunny let out a gulp. ‘But, Margaret, I—’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is,’ came the reply. ‘It’s a shame we have to part on these terms, but my job is to protect our brand. Let me know if you have any outstanding expenses to put through, otherwise . . . Well, otherwise this is goodbye.’
Bunny wanted to shout, to punch the wall behind her as the call ended. This was so unfair! It wasn’t so much the fact that Margaret had stopped her from doing any more talks – she didn’t want to do any more stupid talks; she was done with the wretched talks! – it was that the other woman had taken her ex-boyfriend’s side, just like the Gloucestershire press had, and – let’s face it – even her own family, who’d made very little effort to see Bunny while she’d been in York. Margaret might be from an older generation and not exactly touchy-feely, but she’d left Bunny feeling as if she was the one to blame for what had happened.
Tears burned in her eyes at the injustice of it all. What, so she should have let Mark beat her to death on the kitchen floor, should she? She wasn’t supposed to fight back and protect herself? Because some people definitely seemed to think that way. Her purse-lipped sister-in-law, who had banned her from seeing Chloe, her own niece, for one. And now Margaret, punishing Bunny by turfing her out of their slimming promotions, terrified of her diet programme becoming tainted by association. So much for understanding. So much for sisterhood!
Swallowing back a sob, Bunny tried to control her emotions, remembering that she needed to be back at work in half an hour, and that her customers did not want to see a blotchy face and red eyes when being served. But the strength had gone out of her, the willpower too, and so it was that she found herself trudging back towards the bakery, as if it was drawing her magnetically closer and she was powerless to resist. And yes, then she was buying a warm sausage roll and an oozy square of millionaire’s shortbread for her lunch, just like Rachel used to do after a bad day, when she too had felt low and weakened. Who cared about calories? What was the point of trying to stay in shape when your past was tapping on your shoulder, catching you up?
Once back in the small staffroom above the café, she tucked into her diet-busting lunch, doing her best to savour each mouthful rather than shovel it down, like she wanted to. Bloody hell, it all tasted amazing. Bakery treats made her feel a million times better than a box of quinoa and grated carrot – just like the family-sized slabs of Dairy Milk and the huge cheesy pizzas always had done in the past. The very realization of this was enough to stop her short, though, and then her eyes jerked wide open again.
Was this another sign that her new life was slipping away from her? The dwindling willpower. The longing for something tasty, just to help her through the day. It was all horribly familiar. She mustn’t let herself get drawn into that downward spiral again, she thought, brushing pastry flakes from her skirt and scrunching up the empty paper bag. She mustn’t. Because she was stronger than that now, wasn’t she?
‘Bunny? Are you there? We’re getting busy again downstairs,’ came the voice of Jasmine just then.
‘Coming,’ called Bunny, throwing the crumpled bag into the bin. No more bakery binges, she told herself sternly. No more weeping in public. Rachel was gone – and good riddance to her. Bunny was absolutely not about to let her back.
Chapter Eighteen
Meanwhile, in Madeira, Jeanie was keeping a low profile. It was Monday evening now, almost forty-eight hours since the incident with Luis and she had barely left her bed in all that time. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to face the world again, in fact. Because boy, oh boy, had she made a fool of herself. A right royal fool.
In hindsight, she shouldn’t have had that last cocktail on Saturday night. Or all that fizzy wine with dinner, or the round of Madeiran liqueurs afterwards. She’d been so jubilant at the prospect of staying on holiday for another week, though – maybe even longer! – that she just hadn’t been able to say no. After dinner they’d ended up in the Hollywood bar, where the pianist played jazzy versions of show tunes, and she’d polished off another cocktail, urged on by Patsy and Kate. It was something sickly and lurid, with bobbing segments of orange and a glacé cherry, and it had tipped her from being drunk to . . . well, to being completely blotto, unfortunately. Uninhibited. Out of control.
She had a dim recollection of plonking herself down at the piano, when the resident pianist took a break, and calling ‘Any requests?’, before playing a stumbling rendition of ‘Copacabana’. Possibly even some Neil Diamond as well. It was all rather hazy now, but she had the distinct feeling she might have been singing along, just to put the icing on the cake.
Oh, Jeanie, she had been saying to herself ever since, in the manner of a very disappointed great-aunt. What were you thinking?
She was thinking that she was young – that was what. She was thinking that she was young and free and naughty, that she was having the time of her life. There she was, far from Harry (the liar! the cheater! the betrayer!), far from her children and her neighbours and her friends. Miles and miles, in fact, from anyone who might judge her or give her a look, or put the brakes on her behaviour in any way.
Having slid from the piano stool at the pianist’s return, she was laughing and bowing to nobody in particular just as Luis appeared, and any
last shred of caution had been well and truly left behind. ‘Here he is! Here’s my handsome darling,’ she called, hurrying back to her friends’ table and patting the seat next to her coquettishly. ‘Get that gorgeous little bottom over here immediately.’ (It went without saying that remembering this made her want to curl up in a foetal position under the bedcovers and not emerge for several hundred years, if ever.)
Luis, of course, had been his usual charming self. ‘But how can I refuse?’ he had replied, sitting down. ‘I am the lucky one today, yes?’
‘Oh yes,’ Jeanie said, sliding one hand daringly onto his thigh. (Cringe.) ‘Your luck is well and truly in tonight, sweetheart.’ (Double cringe.) She plucked the glacé cherry from her glass and held it teasingly in mid-air. ‘Would you like to pop my cherry?’ she’d giggled, before taking it in her teeth and offering her mouth to his. (Death by cringing.)
‘Jeanie, you’re such a legend!’ Patsy whooped as Luis moved in towards her, his teeth carefully biting half of the cherry, his lips brushing against Jeanie’s. My God, he smelled amazing. It took every ounce of Jeanie’s restraint not to clamp her hands around his face so that he had to stay there, mouth pressed to hers even longer.
‘Wooo! Get a room!’ Kate sniggered, applauding as Luis broke free with a grin, having bitten suggestively through the cherry.
‘Delicious,’ he declared, licking his lips to the women’s cheers.
The next slice of time was even more shadowy in Jeanie’s memory. Patsy and Kate must have disappeared off to bed at some point – she couldn’t remember this happening – but then she and Luis were left alone. Jeanie had never seduced a man before, not even Harry. She had always felt too prim and respectable for that sort of thing, and Harry’s striped Marks and Spencer pyjamas were not exactly the signal for sparks of passion.
But that night, she felt different. She felt womanly; attractive and self-confident, with her new hairdo and her bright clothes and all the make-up she’d put on at the start of the evening. This was the new daring Jeanie, who said yes to everything, rather than I probably shouldn’t. And it was this Jeanie who took Luis by the hand and said, ‘Would you like to come up to my room for a nightcap?’
Looking back, she wasn’t sure that Luis’s English was good enough for him to even know what a nightcap was, but he certainly understood the subtext. ‘If you are sure?’ he queried doubtfully, ever the gentleman, before she’d said, ‘Oh, I’m sure’ and rose, swayingly, to her feet.
Oh, Jeanie. Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie. She barely remembered getting up to her room – had she lunged at him in the lift, tried to kiss him? – but somehow or other they had arrived on the seventh floor and she’d fumbled her door open, so that they were in her bedroom. The bed had been made up, as usual, by the chambermaids, and the curtains pulled shut against the night. ‘So here we are,’ Jeanie said, trying to act seductive as she sank down onto the bed. Again she patted the space beside her. ‘Luis?’
He sat down and she took his hand. ‘You are a very handsome man,’ she slurred. ‘Much more handsome than Harry.’ Damn it, she shouldn’t have mentioned Harry. Why was she even thinking about Harry, when this was her big, wild moment?
‘And you are also very beautiful,’ he replied, smiling into her eyes. ‘Although perhaps I should go now. It is late and . . .’
‘Oh, come on,’ she demurred, not wanting him to leave. ‘I’m probably not your usual type of girl, but . . .’ She stopped suddenly, aware of a churning inside her stomach. A bilious feeling, a rising nausea. Oh Lord, she thought. Oh no. ‘I’m sorry, would you excuse me a moment,’ she garbled, lurching from the bed and into the small spotless bathroom. She barely had time to close the door before she was retching and then throwing up over the toilet bowl, as back came all of her dinner and every last one of those cocktails. Even the bitten cherry pieces were there, bobbing in the slurry of sick.
Another wave of vomit erupted, so intense she could feel her eyes bulging in their sockets. Ugh, she thought deliriously, panting and resting her face on the toilet seat. Then came quite a lot of dry-retching until her throat ached. Her head was spinning, but her stomach seemed to have gone quiet at least. Better out than in, she heard her own mother’s voice in her head, and she spat weakly into the bowl, feeling herself on the verge of tears, shivery and weak.
Mopping her mouth with toilet roll, she flushed away the foul-smelling evidence and rose shakily to her feet once more, clutching the side of the washbasin and staring blearily into the mirror. Dismay hit her like a brick in the face. Look at the state of her. Just look at that woman with the smudged glittery eyeshadow, with the silly choppy haircut that, let’s face it, did not really suit her. As for the lurid pink dress, falling off one shoulder so wantonly, exposing her wrinkled old shoulder, why hadn’t she noticed before how tacky it was? Mutton dressed as lamb, that was her.
A tear rolled down her cheek, taking a snaking black line of mascara with it. ‘You stupid old woman,’ she said to herself, and then had to turn her head away because she simply couldn’t bear to look at her own pathetic reflection any more.
There was a gentle knock at the door. ‘Jeanie. Are you all right?’
Had he heard her being sick? Probably. Her breath must stink. She sluiced water around her mouth, trembling with embarrassment. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled eventually. ‘I . . . I’m not feeling very well.’
A lightweight, that was what her boys had teased each other about being, when they were teenagers and one of them had too much to drink. It had been a running joke: which of them would throw up each Friday and Saturday night; John had even started a Chunder Chart at one point. What would they say now, those lads of hers, if they could see their own mother like this, drunk and dishevelled, desperately trying to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth, a young barman waiting for her on the hotel bed? They would be horrified. Embarrassed of her. God, Mum, she imagined John saying, what are you playing at?
‘Can I help?’ Luis asked tentatively through the door. ‘Or would you like me to go?’
Trying not to sob out loud, Jeanie shut her eyes, but the room was spinning and she had to jerk them open again before the nausea returned. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said faintly. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m really, really sorry.’
She was saying the words to Harry as well, of course, not that he could hear her. Not that he had any idea what his dreadful wife had been getting up to behind his back, either, thank goodness. She sank to the floor and sat there on the cold ceramic tiles, leaning against the bathtub until she heard Luis saying goodbye and that he hoped she felt better in the morning.
Then, when she was quite sure he had gone, she crawled through into the bedroom, clambered up onto the bed and fell asleep.
If she had felt bad the night before, then to wake the next morning, cold, hungover and tortured by fragments of memory replaying how badly she had behaved . . . well, that was a whole new level of awful. That was down there at the bottom of the dustbin, with all the potato peelings and stinking fish packets and bin juice.
Her mouth was dry and foul-tasting. Her head thumped abominably. Both her throat and her stomach hurt from all the retching. Worse than the physical complaints, though, was the feeling of hot and terrible shame that pressed down on her like a rock. She had brought Luis up here to her bedroom, meaning to seduce him, throwing herself at him like a randy old goat. And instead of being sophisticated and cosmopolitan, she had made a complete and utter show of herself. He had probably told all the other bar staff, and they’d no doubt had a good old laugh at her expense. Sad British granny, can’t handle her drink, thinks she’s a cougar – yeah, right!
And if she hadn’t thrown up at that moment . . . if she hadn’t pulled the plug on their prospective night of passion – what then? Would she really have gone through with it, really have slept with a man young enough to be her grandson?
Yes. She was pretty sure that the answer to that last question was Yes. After coming out to Madeira in a fury as we
ll, having discovered that Harry had been similarly unfaithful all those years ago. So who was the better person now? Despite his carrying-on, despite this new daughter of his that Jeanie had been devastated by, she could not imagine Harry getting spectacularly drunk and enticing a twenty-something-year-old barmaid up to a hotel bedroom. A funereal dirge played in her head as she thought about what a hypocrite that made her.
A tear rolled down her cheek. She wanted to be at home right now, apron on, making a fish pie for dinner, Harry’s favourite. She wanted to be deadheading the roses in her garden and ordering bulb catalogues for the autumn. Baking cakes with her grandchildren, listening to their funny stories and letting them lick the spoon when they thought she wasn’t looking. She wanted to be out for a day-trip to Scarborough with Harry, holding hands along the prom. Chatting on the phone to Paula or one of her boys. She missed them all so desperately. Why had she ever thought that staying here on her own for so long was a good idea?
Sunday passed very quietly. She lurked in her room all day, ordering room service and avoiding the rest of the world. She couldn’t bear the thought of the knowing looks she’d get, not just from the hotel staff, but from the other guests who had seen her in the restaurant and bar last night, playing ‘Copacabana’ at the piano – ‘Join in with the chorus, everyone!’
Even now, on Monday, she wasn’t sure she was ready to face life outside her own four walls again. How was she going to live down her Saturday-night antics? But equally, how could she go home and look her family in the eye?
‘Paula? It’s Fliss. Listen, I can’t chat long because Rory’s still potty-training and if I take my eye off him for, like, more than two minutes there could be a terrible poo incident at any moment. But, anyway, I was just ringing to say: I remembered.’
‘You remembered?’ Paula repeated uncertainly. She was in the middle of a house-viewing and held up an apologetic finger to the prospective vendor, before edging tactfully to the side of the spotless designer kitchen. (She loved this house already. She wanted, very much, to be able to sell this house with its generous garden and its gorgeous Victorian quirks, because a) she knew she could do it justice; and b) the commission alone would be enough to pay for a family skiing holiday at Christmas.) ‘What did you remember?’ she asked in a low voice.
