The Girl in the Corner

by Amanda Prowse

  Rae let her head drop to her chest and closed her eyes. ‘Does she make you happy?’ she whispered, clutching the phone to her face.

  ‘Happier than I ever thought was possible. In fact, just happy for the first time ever, properly happy. I love her and I hope you like her, Mum.’

  Rae nodded and her heart swelled at the sound of her daughter’s voice, edged with that slightly dazed, delirious quality that was present in the first throes of love. She remembered it well. ‘My darling girl, if she truly loves you then I will truly love her. It really is that simple.’

  She and Hannah sat in silence on the phone. No words were needed as their love flowed across the ocean, straight down the telephone and into the heart of the other.

  Howard came out of the bathroom after she’d hung up, towel-drying his hair. He stopped in front of her as she sat very still on the sofa, staring into space.

  ‘Were you on the phone?’ he asked casually, reaching into his open suitcase on the floor.

  ‘Yes.’ Rae nodded.

  ‘Who was it?’ he asked. He stepped into clean pants and sprayed aftershave over his chest.

  ‘It was Hannah, actually.’

  He smiled. ‘Oh! Is she okay?’

  ‘Yes, more than okay. She is at home. And she’s gay. She’s in love with Niamh and they burned the kitchen down.’

  Howard’s mouth dropped open. Then his lips moved, but no words came out.

  ‘I know, Howard. I know. Take your time. We’ll talk about it later.’

  With that, Rae headed into the shower.

  By the time she and Howard arrived at the table in the restaurant, Dolly and Vinnie had devoured the bread rolls.

  ‘Thank the Lord! We are starving! I am actually dying here!’ Dolly reached for her wine.

  ‘Sorry, bit of a crisis at home.’ Howard grimaced and sat down.

  ‘Glass of wine, Rae?’ Vinnie offered.

  ‘Not for me, thanks. Think I’ll stick to the water tonight.’

  ‘So . . .’ Dolly coughed. ‘Is the crisis about the fact that your daughter has burned your house to the ground or is it something else?’

  ‘You spoke to Sadie?’ Rae asked.

  ‘Of course I spoke to Sadie!’ Dolly banged the table. ‘Everyone has spoken to Sadie! Jesus, that woman is more efficient than The Times at spreading news – and a hell of a lot cheaper.’

  Rae knew her other sister-in-law would have been keen to fill everyone in on the details and probably add a few of her own observations for good measure. An image of Karina flashed into her mind and she wondered how many people Sadie had filled in with those details and which of her own observations she might have added for good measure. She swallowed, still surprised by the feeling of vulnerability that coated her skin. Things felt different now she was not entirely sure of Dolly’s unwavering support in all matters; it was as if she had lost one of the pillars that kept her upright. It was all she could do not to hold the table and cling on for dear life.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Rae took a sip of water and asked Dolly, knowing this was the best way to move forward: with everything laid out in plain sight.

  ‘About the kitchen? I think go to Ikea; they have some great units and if you don’t spend a fortune you won’t feel bad about replacing it in a few years’ time if you get fed up with it.’

  ‘And the lesbian thing?’

  Dolly took a slug of wine. ‘I don’t know if they have those in Ikea.’

  Howard laughed.

  Dolly placed her glass on the table and sat forward. ‘I think . . .’ she began, ‘that I love Hannah and I think I always have and I know I always will.’ She spoke sincerely. ‘And if she is happy, we are happy. That’s it, isn’t it? I mean, for the love of God, it’s the twenty-first century – love is love!’

  Rae smiled at her best friend, warmed by her words, so lovingly spoken. ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  Howard reached for her hand across the tabletop to give it a squeeze and she let him. She saw the way Dolly dug Vinnie in the ribs with her elbow and she looked around for the waiter, feeling cornered. Actually, now would be a very good time for a glass of wine.

  The four ate dinner in good humour, once they had established that Hannah wasn’t hurt and the damage had been limited to the kitchen. Rae decided to suppress any concern over how her favourite room in the house might now look; Hannah’s revelation was the big news, not a scorched countertop. There was, however, a flicker of sadness at the thought that the square room at the heart of her home, where she indulged in her favourite activity, might be changed. The kitchen might have been ‘dated’, to coin Mitzy’s phrase, but it was Rae’s place of escape; where, with her hands in pastry, kneading dough or stirring a sauce, she felt her heart soar with gladness and a sense of wellbeing as she prepared food for her loved ones.

  ‘Who’s in the mood for a nightcap?’ Vinnie suggested.

  ‘Not for me.’ Howard sat back in the chair. ‘I was going to ask you if you fancied a walk, Rae?’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ She looked over at Dolly. ‘Are you guys coming?’

  ‘No, love. Think we’ll have a quick snifter on the terrace and call it a night.’

  ‘Well, night night. Sweet dreams. See you in the morning.’ Rae blew a kiss to Dolly and followed Howard out of the restaurant towards the beach.

  As they trod the path through the garden, Howard called ahead, ‘Ah, good evening, Nick and Nora!’

  He was too loud and too quick for Rae to intervene, and she felt her heart race with embarrassment. Nick – or rather Douglas – held his wife’s hand and stared at them.

  ‘Are you talking to us?’ Nick asked, defensively.

  ‘Yes, of course!’

  ‘Why are you calling us Nick and Nora?’ he asked, with a look of utter confusion.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Howard looked at Rae, who felt her face turn puce. ‘Dolly said those were your names.’

  ‘No!’ Nick shook his head. ‘My name is Douglas and my wife is Mary.’

  Not for the first time that evening, Howard looked at a loss for words. ‘Well, h . . . have a lovely evening, Douglas and Mary.’ Rae watched her husband as he affected a kind of bow, and her face flamed with the kind of high-level awkwardness usually reserved for his sister. ‘And sorry about the mix-up!’

  He walked on briskly and she followed him. It wasn’t until they reached the beach that she bent forward and closed her eyes, laughing with relief. ‘Oh my God, Howard! She calls them Nick and Nora Knowitall – but that’s not their real names! And not to their face!’

  ‘Well, obviously I know that now!’ Howard laughed. ‘That bloody Dolly!’

  ‘I can’t believe you just did that. I am so embarrassed!’ Rae covered her mouth with her hand.

  ‘Good news is you are not likely to see them again once we leave here.’ Howard reached up and took her wrist and pulled her hand into his. ‘That thing you do, when you cover your mouth. You used to do it all the time when I first met you.’

  ‘I did?’

  He nodded. ‘It was like you were hiding, covering up what you might want to say or your smile, and it used to make me sad because I know you better than anyone and you only have good things to say and funny comments and your smile is beautiful. It is so beautiful and you had stopped doing it, a long time ago. This is the first time I’ve seen it in years.’

  Rae nodded. Her heart still fluttered a little when he called her beautiful. ‘I guess my confidence has taken a bit of a beating.’

  ‘I know.’ He looked down at the sand. ‘I know. And I know it’s my fault.’

  She didn’t correct him.

  Howard started to walk towards the shoreline and she fell in beside him. ‘You said Hannah sounded happy?’

  Rae felt gladness swell inside as she looked out towards the horizon, where the moonlight danced on the calm sea and the flip and twist of fins and tails broke the surface, sending ripples along the water. ‘She did. Happier than I have ever heard her. That angry bas
e note was gone, you know? She was always wound up; and as much as I loved talking to her, seeing her, I was always wary because she could be on the verge of losing her temper. But tonight, despite the drama, she sounded calm – nervous, but calm.’

  ‘It took a lot of guts to tell you so plainly.’

  ‘It did, Howard. I’m not so happy about the potential state of the kitchen . . .’ She grimaced. ‘But I’m trying not to think about it until I get home.’

  Home . . . She glanced briefly at her husband and wondered if he, like her, was thinking that it hadn’t felt like home for a while.

  ‘We can get another kitchen and no one was hurt.’ He kicked at the sand.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘There is something I want to say to you.’ He stopped walking, and faced her. ‘Firstly, I want to give you this.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out the flat black velvet box.

  ‘Oh, Howard.’ She ran her fingertips over her forehead. She felt conflicted: conscious of this gesture of apology but still hating the beautiful bauble, which for her would always carry the connotation of being a consolation prize, a sweetener her husband hoped might help her forgive his horrible misdemeanour. ‘I don’t really know what to say.’

  She shook her head as he stepped behind her and placed the necklace around her neck. The weight of the teardrop against her chest was heavy, heavier than was comfortable for her.

  Still standing there, Howard pulled her close to him, breathing against the nape of her neck. ‘What I want to say, Rae-Valentine, is this: I want us to renew our vows.’

  She spun around to face him and couldn’t stop her sharp burst of laughter. ‘What?’

  ‘I want to renew our marriage vows, retake the promises that I made to you twenty-five years ago.’ His eyes were misty. ‘It’s what Vinnie and I were sorting out in town today. This was always the purpose of coming here. It was always my plan: to stand together, just you and me, and for me to recommit myself to you.’

  Rae tried to sort the jumble of phrases that jostled on her tongue – of which Are you fucking crazy? was the loudest. She toned it down. ‘Are you kidding me? There’s absolutely no way we can do that, Howard!’

  She stepped away from him, embarrassed and irritated by his lack of awareness. The fact that he even thought this was possible showed how mentally wide of the mark he was. She considered that maybe he, like Dolly, thought it was possible to pretend . . .

  ‘Of course there is!’ he enthused, undeterred. ‘And it’s nothing to do with frocks or cakes or even guests. It’s just something between you and me – the two of us, making promises.’

  ‘Promises you found hard to keep.’ This as much a reminder to herself as to her husband.

  ‘Promises that I want to say out loud again. Promises that will be the new glue, spoken from the heart to reconnect us and make us feel how we did on the path of that lake; I had never felt so connected to anyone or anything before in my whole life and I haven’t since: soul to soul, body to body. Please, Rae.’

  ‘But don’t you see? Don’t you get it?’ She spoke softly, hiding the anguish that blossomed in her chest. ‘It would be fake, trying to fast-track something that can’t be rushed – a sticking plaster! Another way to mask the hurt. But I am not ready and I am not sure. I’m sorry, Howard.’ She reached around to the back of her neck and unclipped the necklace, then placed it in his palm.

  ‘Can you at least think about it?’

  She looked at him and felt the stirring of sympathy for her husband, who was trying and failing. She recognised that it was now not only about his infidelity, but the direction in which she wanted to head, wondering not for the first time if paving her own way might actually be possible. She pictured a red knapsack.

  ‘I don’t need to think about it, Howard. It’s not something I feel comfortable doing. And I won’t do it. I can’t.’

  ‘Maybe in the future?’ He looked at her wide-eyed with hope.

  She reached out and took his hand into her own, where it sat, warm and familiar. ‘Maybe. Or maybe we will always be like china that got smashed and no matter how meticulously we glue ourselves back together things will never be quite the same again; there will always be small fragments of us missing, hairline cracks, if you look hard enough. It means we would always be fragile. Do you want to live like that?’

  ‘If it means I have you, then yes.’

  ‘Oh, Howard.’ She sighed and rubbed her eyes. ‘Don’t look so dejected.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I feel dejected.’ He sniffed.

  ‘You were right, you know.’ She took a deep breath.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This holiday. Being in a new place without the distraction of work and the kids, away from our routine – it’s been good to help get our heads straight, to figure things out.’

  ‘But we are not there yet, are we?’

  ‘No, Howard, we are not there yet.’

  ‘I told you I would do whatever it takes and that I would wait for as long as it takes – and I will, Rae. I will.’

  ‘Well, that’s got to be a good start.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘Do you fancy going to Max’s for an Idiot Returns?’

  Rae looked skyward and remembered her chat with Antonio: I see things . . .

  ‘I would like nothing less. How about we go and find Dolly and Vinnie on the terrace and join them for that nightcap?’ She let go of his hand and started to walk up the beach.

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’ He followed her. ‘So, Niamh, eh?’

  ‘Yep, Niamh.’ She glanced at him over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s ironic really.’

  ‘What is, Howard?’

  ‘We own a restaurant business. Cooking simple food is our livelihood; and between the two of them they couldn’t manage to heat up a bloody pizza without burning down the house!’

  ‘I know, right? As Dolly would say, kill me now!’

  They laughed together. Rae looked to her right and spied Antonio gathering glasses at the back of Max’s bar. She slipped her hand through Howard’s arm and leaned in close. Yes, Antonio, all you get is a snapshot, a glimpse; and we, as a couple, as a family, are so much more than this . . .

  ELEVEN

  ‘Don’t make me stay here! Please take me back to the sunshine! I promise I’ll be good!’ Dolly banged on the inside window of the taxi that had just dropped Rae and Howard in front of the house in Lawns Crescent. Rae laughed, mainly at the bewildered look on the taxi driver’s face.

  ‘Don’t forget: if you can’t cope without a kitchen, come and stay with us!’ Dolly called out.

  ‘Dolly, I have been with you for the last ten days, Rae even longer – we want to be far away from you for a while. At the very least to let our hearing recover.’ Howard laughed.

  Rae placed her single suitcase on the pavement and looked at her sister-in-law with her shock of red hair. As the cab drove past, Dolly was looking straight ahead, but flipping the bird at them in an almost regal manner.

  She laughed. ‘That sister of yours.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Howard dug around in his travel bag for the house keys.

  Rae stood at the bend in the street and felt the autumnal chill against her skin. Looking up and down the crescent, she wondered what she had missed while she had been away, besides the near burning down of their house by Hannah and her new girlfriend. She pictured the twitch of net curtains as the fire brigade rolled up.

  Mrs Williams’s light was on and Mr Jeffries had put his plastic recycling out in good time for tomorrow, which was good: all was as it was meant to be in the world of Lawns Crescent. Rae found some small sense of peace in the ordinariness of being home with life slowly ticking by, but noticed for the first time the chipped paint on the windowsills, the weeds growing between the cracks on the uneven pavement and the broken shade on the street lamp opposite. She wondered how she had not acknowledged these imperfections before. She recognised that she felt a little different, less adrift tha
n she had before she left for Antigua. And strangely it was no longer the thought of Howard and Karina that filled her mind, but Dolly’s words: What did you give up on exactly? – spoken with a slight edge of disbelief to her tone. It was as if the verbal bomb from Howard had blown up the path ahead, and with some of Dolly’s patina stripped away Rae was now forced to reconsider her route, her motivation and her destination, almost as if the event had put something in motion, woken her from a stupor. And one thing Rae-Valentine knew for sure: she didn’t feel like going back into hibernation anytime soon.

  Howard opened the front door and the acrid smell of smoke was strong, surprising and quite overpowering.

  ‘Oh my God! It smells terrible!’ Rae placed her fingers over her nostrils and breathed through her mouth. ‘That’s not good!’

  It was an odd thing; with the familiar scent of her home gone, the place didn’t really feel like home at all. The bitter stench was vaguely reminiscent of melted plastic, and she could tell by the way her lungs reacted that it was also probably noxious.

  She coughed and followed Howard along the narrow hallway, where the tell-tale marks from dirty, sooty firefighter jackets now sat in skids along the pale cream paintwork, incongruous with the gilt-framed pictures of hayricks and the idyllic country scenes that neatly lined the wall above, undisturbed. There were one or two rubber scuffmarks on the parquet flooring, probably from heavy-soled fireproof boots.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ Howard walked into the kitchen first.

  They both stood and silently surveyed the damage. Rae hadn’t known what to expect. Mentally she had tried to strike a balance between Hannah telling her everything was ‘fine’ with the fact that the situation had warranted calling the fire brigade. The level of destruction was beyond what she had imagined; the smell and the way the room felt – in fact, the way the whole house felt – was worse, much worse. Her heart sank at the loss of her refuge, the one room where her skills came alive and she could practise her love of cookery.

  A large black smudge now licked up the cupboards on either side of the oven. It looked like a grim carbon portal to another world. The doors were misshapen, melted at the edges, and the countertop surrounding the area was blackened, bubbled and peeling. It was odd – at the back of the counter sat her ceramic lidded jars of coffee, tea and sugar, lined up and facing the right way, like a prop that had been added. She felt a flex in her heart at the memory of the thousands of cosy warm drinks she had prepared for a thousand visitors in this very room, with her hands on the surface, now ruined. The oven itself was missing a door and the linoleum floor was scuffed and dirty. Howard opened the window and the breeze that whipped around the room gave almost instant relief.