by Daisy Tate
As if Flo had been privy to her entire internal monologue, she gave Raven’s knee a bright pat. ‘Alright, duck. That’s settled then. It’s get your bags out time. Just give me a minute and I’ll grab one, too. I’ve got to make a quick call home.’
Raven got out of the car and scanned the street for Sue’s house. There it was. A couple of doors down. Number eleven Harworth Lane.
From the outside, it looked perfectly pleasant. As pleasant as a mid-terraced two-up, two-down without a garden on the outskirts of Bicester could in the late February gloaming. Not that Raven had been looking for fancy. Or lush. Or anything at all like the comfortable family home she’d left without so much as a backwards glance because she knew if she’d looked back and seen her mother’s tear-streaked face she would’ve run straight into her arms and begged to be forgiven for having wanted anything other than what they did.
So, yeah. It was fine. It didn’t look like somewhere that someone would kill themselves which was, she had to admit, a total relief. (#Don’tTellTheGoths)
What struck Raven the most was how compact everything was. Sue-sized. A small wrought iron gate led to a teensy tiny brick path which ran alongside a tidy (small) container for rubbish and an area that could, at best, contain a bicycle (a small one). Four petite squares of glass formed the front window which sported a titchy flower box with a few wax-like cyclamen, some dainty ivy sprigs and two tiny topiary. Even the front door, painted a lovely shade of pastel blue (lovely if you were into pastels, obvs), seemed Sue-sized. Her sister would’ve called it bijoux. A term she used regularly because her sister actually was bijoux. Delicately boned, petite features, she was like a little porcelain doll.
At five foot nine, and big boned without the extra weight, Raven was suddenly feeling distinctly super-sized. She should have asked Sue if she could’ve seen the room before handing over a wad of money that set her back thirty-nine hours in her call centre/Newcastle target. A sudden image of her arms and legs sticking out the windows burst into her head. Oh, Lordy. Would she even fit?
She rehoinked her bag onto her shoulder as it threatened to slide off and tried to knock some positivity into her brain. Her cousin Kalinda, a newly qualified psychiatrist, said fear coloured all first impressions, so … given the fact Raven’s life was teetering on the precipice of just such a change … little wonder everything seemed so little. All of her teenaged hopes and dreams would have to fit into Sue’s little house.
Sure. Raven might look as though she was into dark and morbid from the outside, but inside? She was a nineteen-year-old girl moving out of her parents’ to pursue a dream that didn’t exactly have a well-defined rainbow, let alone a pot of gold at the end of it and to be honest? She was pretty bloody freaked out about it.
‘Go on, love. I’ll grab this bag and you knock on the door. Oof!’ Flo grunted as she tried to stop Raven’s second duffel from hitting the wet pavement. ‘What’ve you got in here. A body?’
Books actually. It was a bag full of books. Books from her childhood right up to the huge wrist-benders she poured herself into on a nightly basis, all to escape the ever-encroaching reality that she was going to have to pick what she wanted to do for the rest of her entire life fairly sharpish.
Crumpets and bums. What was she doing? Why hadn’t she looked for a local law firm to scuttle around for? (Duh … Bicester. Law firm. Parents.) Was spending money to save money the wisest of things? She’d always been a good saver. It was built into her so she actually had most of the money for the first year. She’d just wanted a buffer to see her into the next. Maybe she should’ve become a live-in nanny somewhere. An au pair to a family in France who didn’t mind a teenager who favoured black lipstick, refused to follow the beaten path and couldn’t, for the life of her, understand how everyone else in her family had managed to do it apart from her. They seemed so at ease with themselves. Their bodies. Their lives. Their pre-planned futures. As if everything had, in actual fact, been tailor made for them. How was it she constantly felt so uncomfortable?
Flo clocked the swell of nerves and gave her one of those incredibly practical, but strangely helpful it’ll all be fine smiles then knocked on an imaginary door. ‘It’ll be your home too soon enough, duck. Off you pop.’
For what felt like the first time in a long time, Raven did exactly as she was told.
Before her knuckles connected with the door, it swung open. Standing in a small pool of light in the entryway was Sue, anxiety etched into her every feature. ‘I’m sorry.’ A smile fell from her lips before it had completely begun. ‘I’m not sure I can do this.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sue was in what her mother would call a right old pickle.
The kind that rattled you to the very core and made you wish you’d never done the thing you did, namely put up a notice to rent out the room she hadn’t yet had the courage to enter.
Instead of doing the English thing – offer an abundance of apologies and leave – Flo pulled Sue into a big old hug, ushered Raven in out of the rain with a, ‘Course you can, love. You can do anything you want to. It’s just nerves, is all.’
She was right, of course.
It was nerves. Nerves and fear and lack of preparation. Having Raven here, duffel bags weighing down her shoulders, had suddenly made everything irreversibly real. As if life had suddenly punched up its colour scheme to Dynamic or Vivid when she’d lived every moment up until now in muted shades of That’ll Do. Proof, as if she needed more, that her life had changed forever and would never go back to the steady, reliable, routine-centric existence she’d had just a few short weeks ago. It was change. So much change and not any of it wanted. But … necessity and all that. She had no money. She’d already taken Raven’s. She owed her a roof and a bed and some hospitality.
After an abundance of apologies on her end, a bit of fuss lumping the bags inside, they stood there, the three of them, all crowded into the minuscule entryway, their feet various stages of on and off the shaggy unicorn rug Katie had given her this past Christmas.
It was all quite awkward.
Very awkward in fact. Sue hadn’t done a solitary thing to Gary’s office. It was difficult to tidy a room when you hadn’t yet got the courage to open the door.
She threw Flo a panicked look.
What on earth was she meant to do?
She was perfectly happy to give Raven her own room, but then what would she do? Sleep on the sofa? In the bath? Raven would think her very, very strange. Then again, she was a widow now. Perhaps there was a bit of license for peculiarity now that Gary had thrown his proverbial spanner into the works. His real spanners were, of course, in his office.
She and Raven shot each other shy looks. The type of looks children who’d been the last two picked for a netball team would share after having been told, actually, the teams were full now so would they mind serving water to the rest of the team and that even though they weren’t playing, they were being very, very useful. Maybe they would suit each other. Two wallflowers decorating the same interior to very different effect.
Sue looked back to Flo, muted by indecision as to how to proceed. Flo would know what to do. She seemed so capable. So sure of herself. A bit bossy, but not in the dismissive way her mother was, more … nurturing. As if she could see the emotional anguish twisting away in Sue’s heart and instinctively knew how to make a decision that would help Sue rather than override her as her mother’s decisions so often did.
Flo clapped her hands together. ‘Let’s get Raven’s bags up into the room and then I’ll make us all a nice cuppa, shall I?’ Her practical smile suddenly brightened. ‘What am I talking about?’ She hoisted up a clinking plastic shopping bag. ‘I’ve got fizz! C’mon girls. The sooner we get things sorted – the sooner we can get a few bubbles in us. There’s something I’d like to put to you, Sue. But not until we’re all sorted with Raven, here.’
Much to her astonishment, Sue turned, led the two women up the stairs, past the step where Gary’s fe
et had brushed her shoulder as she ran to close the doors against the scene and found herself turning the handle to her own bedroom door.
‘Ummm …’ Raven said after scanning the room. ‘This is an en suite.’
‘Yes, it’s …’ Sue lunged towards the bed where she’d left a jumper and clutched it to her chest with one hand as she held her other out in an awkward presentation style. ‘It’s my room actually, I thought you might prefer it to the other room.’ She felt Raven and Flo’s eyes train on her as if they were actual heat lamps. ‘I don’t mind going in the other room.’
Gary’s.
She wondered if it still smelt of him. All of the things in it had last been touched by him, if you didn’t count the gloved forensics team who’d come and gone within a couple of hours. Would she be able to tell? Sense the man who he’d really been instead of the one she thought she’d known?
‘You mean my room?’ Raven asked. ‘The one I was supposed to go into?’
‘Yes, umm, but I’m quite happy taking it.’ Her arm went into an air-traffic control position towards Gary’s door.
Raven shook her head. ‘I don’t feel right taking your room.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine!’ Sue squeaked. Against her better judgement she pitched back into the master bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe to grab an outfit for tomorrow, inadvertently showing Flo and Raven everything she hadn’t done. She hadn’t cleared out Gary’s clothes. She hadn’t moved any of her own, few remaining clothes (the clear out had been rather thorough). She hadn’t done anything at all, because in truth she hadn’t been able to face up to the fact that the minute Raven walked into her house she would have to accept the truth that her husband was never, ever coming home again.
Flo flew into action. ‘If that’s what you feel comfortable with, duck? Let’s make it happen. Here love,’ Flo pointed to Raven’s bags. ‘Why don’t we put these on the bed and help shift Sue’s clothes over to the other room?’
Before Sue could protest, throw herself in front of the door and scream No! I’m not ready! Flo had swept into the wardrobe, weighted herself with an armful of clothes, strode across the landing and opened the door. Just like that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kath looked up from her quinoa, broccoli and salmon salad, trying to catch Kevin’s eye. It happened less and less frequently these days. Meeting one another’s eyes over a meal. Astonishing, considering how she used to long to gaze into them. Seek out her fortune in the myriad of blues that kaleidoscoped through his dark-lashed peepers. He’d been the answer to every one of her teenaged hopes and dreams. A performer determined to make it to the top. Now that they’d come true? Most days she couldn’t bear to meet her own reflection in them. ‘I was having a think,’ she finally said.
Kev swallowed noisily and said, ‘Were you now?’
She fought the instinct to bristle. She’d set some wheels in motion that she couldn’t stop anymore, so it was best to plumb the depths of her diplomacy. Even if her husband chose to speak to her as if it were a rare thing for his wife to come up with a thought on her own. He never used to be like that. Derisive. Then again, she never used to want to be married to someone else, so, she supposed that made them even.
Kev slurped down some rather pricey Chablis she knew for a fact his trainer had told him to avoid.
‘Yes.’ She forced her voice to stay on-air bright. ‘I was thinking about the nip tuck tourism piece you were interested in me doing down in South Africa.’
His eyes flicked to hers, interested. ‘Oh, aye?’
She could almost see the self-satisfaction pour in.
‘Yes,’ she tugged her fork through a lawn of superfood micro greens, then met his gaze again. This was going to take some balls. ‘I was wondering how you might feel about doing it? You know, bust the myth that women are always the ones who need to change themselves to feel pretty. Like Mickey Rourke.’ Kev’s eyebrows shot up. Mickey Rourke might not have been the best of examples. She dove in and corrected herself. ‘Or Patrick Swayze. You know he looked ever so nice after he …’ she pulled her own cheeks back a bit and smiled.
Kev’s chest puffed up in indignation. ‘Patrick Swayze never.’
‘Course he did. Loads of them did.’ She began to rattle off a bunch of names of celebrities she knew had definitely been under the knife. According to her make-up artist, anyway. A font of wisdom, make-up artists.
Kev eventually burst out laughing. ‘Come off it, Kath. Out with it. Admit you were wrong. That your …’ He air scrubbed the area along his own, slightly drooping jawline and grinned. ‘You know … that you need a bit of refreshing.’
For the first time in her life his smile made her blood run cold. Kevin had just drawn a line between them.
He’d never put it that bluntly before. Not even bothered to be the tiniest bit sympathetic or gentle. As if it were her fault ageing didn’t factor well in the ratings.
A shot of courage swept through her. This had gone too far. The competitiveness. The fight for his and hers ratings when, for so many years, it had been their ratings and their popularity and their successes. She didn’t feel like his wife any longer. She felt like his employee. An unworthy sidekick about to be sloughed off before he finally bit the bullet and went solo. Robbie before he was just Robbie.
She fought the urge to scrape the rest of her salad into the bin, book herself into a hotel for the night and order room service for twenty. But no. This was supposed to be a chance to communicate with her husband. A chance to try and show him what he was doing to her by turning the tables.
It had been Fola’s suggestion. She’d told him how, though she didn’t want to go, and definitely didn’t want a facelift, she was also feeling a strange guilt for refusing a trip many women would’ve given their right eye for, particularly given the fact what she was doing instead was so much better. So much more … real.
But their viewing public didn’t really want real, did they? They wanted fantasy. Aspirational, fluffy fantasy. They only liked real if it made them feel better about themselves. Kath and Kev’s Kar Krash Marriage. Kath and Kev’s Kalamitous Klash.
And what had Kevin done with this chance to add some proper depth to his emotional landscape?
He’d laughed then thrown it right back at her.
She didn’t want this. Having to engage in tactical negotiations with her husband – her lifelong partner – to get him to see the way he was treating her wasn’t right. Wasn’t enough. He was supposed to be the one she could rely on to make her feel better. To comfort her. To make her feel beautiful inside and out … the way Fola did.
A heat flickered deep within her as an image of the pair of them looking at one another’s reflections in the mirror came to her.
Was she having an affair with him?
No.
Was she falling in love with him?
Yes. The idea of him, anyway.
Did she want her husband to see how much she hurt inside? How living this life, pretending what little self-confidence she had left was being devoured by his constant need to undermine her.
Maybe?
‘Fair enough,’ she eventually said, though it quite clearly wasn’t. ‘You know, I think I’ll turn in early tonight. Plenty to think about and—’ she pipped him to the post, ‘—of course I’ll be needing my beauty sleep, won’t I?’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was astonishing what three women could do when they put their minds to something.
‘There we are, pet.’ Flo fluffed up the pillows on the narrow twin bed – Sue’s childhood one apparently – and turned on the small unicorn lamp Sue had insisted on shifting from her original room to her new one. The pair of them stood back and gave the room a final inspection. It was more serviceable than inviting, but the room obviously had never been used as anything other than a hold all for Gary’s tools and his mountains of paperwork. ‘You’ll be fine in here for tonight,’ Flo gave Sue a half hug. ‘The rest’ll sort itself out soon eno
ugh.’
Flo wasn’t sure she believed anything she was saying, but she had to finish what she’d started, didn’t she? Barging in as she had. Rearranging this, moving that, all with Sue making involuntary ‘ohh’ and ‘hmm’ noises as she went. Her gut was telling her she’d done the right thing, but it wasn’t half hard, watching the poor woman confront her future up close and personal.
When Flo had opened the door to the small room they were now in, she’d never seen blood drain from a woman’s face so fast. To the point Flo had almost pulled it shut again. But, that wasn’t how progress was made. The poor girl obviously didn’t have a solitary soul lending her the emotional support she so obviously needed, so Flo had set about doing what Flo did best. Organising the troops.
She’d set Raven to work changing the bedding in the master bedroom. (She’d not brought her own, the poor love. From the few glimpses that Flo had had while she was unpacking, Raven’s entire move looked rather hastily put together. Clothes and books and a couple of sketch pads seemed to be the sum total of her belongs. No favourite pillows, knickknacks, photos by the bedside. Nothing. She’d investigate later, but … Sue.) After checking what Sue did and didn’t want touched (the desk and the wardrobe were off limits, everything else was fair game) she’d set Sue to work ferrying the remains of her clothes from the wardrobe to a rather beleaguered-looking clothes rack hiding in the corner and a two-drawer filing cabinet that was mysteriously empty. Didn’t look touched. Flo couldn’t understand why Sue didn’t want to tidy things away in the perfectly serviceable wardrobe, and put the piles of papers on Gary’s desk in the cabinet, but it wasn’t a time to press, so they’d pushed on, with Florence dangling pizza and fizz as prizes at the end of this particular rainbow.
Now, a good two hours later, having made up the bed with a couple of dark throws and unpacked her clothes, Raven was downstairs (as instructed) heating up the oven for the pizzas (one vegetarian, just in case and one gluten free, just in case). Gary’s clothes had been tenderly relocated to a miniscule box room (closet really) that housed the hoover, a clothes drying rack and a scarecrow that Sue laughed about, patted then said … Oh, Gary.
