There was a gentle knock on the bedroom door.
‘Mum? Are you okay?’
‘Oh, Hannah.’ Rae felt a flush of anger at the fact that her husband’s web of lies was about to become part of the fabric of her daughter’s special night. She felt awash with the feeling that she had let Hannah down, going back to the man who had betrayed her. A liar! It was no example. No example at all.
‘Oh God, Mum, you look awful! I am really worried about you. Can I get you anything?’
Rae placed her hands on her hips. ‘No, thank you. And don’t worry about me, darling. I am fine. More concerned about spoiling your night.’
‘You couldn’t spoil my night, Mum – I’m getting married!’
‘I know, I know, sweet girl, and I am so, so happy for you.’
‘She’s the best thing to ever happen to me and it feels right.’
Rae placed her hands around either side of her daughter’s face. ‘You are a wonderful person, Hannah. Fearless and kind. I feel blessed to be your mum. Truly.’ She kissed her gently on the forehead.
‘Shall I tell everyone you are going to go straight to bed? Don’t worry about coming down. You look like death.’
‘No, that’s okay, darling. I am not going to bed.’ She walked past her daughter and opened the wardrobe door. Bending low, she pulled out a brand new, bright red knapsack and ripped the labels from it with her teeth before shoving her belongings into it.
‘Why are you packing that bag? What are you doing, Mum?’
Rae flashed her daughter a smile, a genuine smile. ‘I am going island-hopping. I’m going to Greece, to start with. I might have told you about it once: something I read about when I was at school. In my head I saw this girl with a red knapsack, taking great big strides like a giant from one island to the other; she was tanned and she looked like she could take on the world. It was me, Hannah. It was me I saw. I just didn’t know it until now.’
‘Greece? How long will you be gone for?’
‘I don’t know!’ she answered with something close to excitement.
‘You will keep in touch?’ Hannah asked, her voice rising in concern.
‘Of course I will! I’m your mum.’
‘How are you doing, Rae? Do you need anything?’
Rae hadn’t heard her husband come up the stairs. His question was asked with saccharine sweetness that made her tremble; as she fought to contain the ball of rage in her gut, she bit down on her bottom lip to stop herself from yelling out, Yes! I need you to fuck off! Fuck off and leave me alone!
‘Hannah, darling, could you give us a mo?’ Rae spoke calmly and her daughter left, closing the door quietly behind her.
She stared at him and he at her. The air crackled around them, as if the very building waited in anticipation for what might come next.
‘I was worried about you.’ He licked his dry lips nervously. ‘Wasn’t sure where you had got to.’
‘Here I am,’ she answered steadily.
‘Are you . . . are you feeling any better?’ He swallowed.
‘Much.’
‘It’s wonderful news about Hannah.’ He drummed his fingers lightly on his thighs.
‘It is,’ she agreed, holding his gaze.
He exhaled deeply, as if he had been holding his breath. ‘I . . .’ He swallowed. ‘I get the feeling you want to say something to me.’
‘You do?’ she asked with relative calm.
He nodded.
She felt her limbs begin to shake and so folded her arms, tucking her hands inside her armpits. ‘I know, Howard.’
‘You know what?’ His voice was barely more than a whisper. He rubbed his finger over his top lip.
There was a beat or two of silence before she spoke.
‘I know it wasn’t just Karina.’ She saw his pupils dilate and she took her time. ‘Not that it matters, not really. She might have been the name that broke the story for me, but the end result is just the same. It’s time I listened to that little voice of instinct, Howard, the one that sits on my shoulder and shouts in my ear.’
She remembered how all those months ago he had sobbed, begged, but this was different. He had played that card and at least knew her well enough to understand that it would cut no ice now. The little colour left in his cheeks faded and he looked a little green. The idiot returns . . .
He gripped the bedpost and when he spoke his voice was thin, weak and actually distasteful to her. ‘You are talking about Lou-Lou.’
She tried to keep the shock from her face and her stance neutral, knowing that he would only further incriminate himself, preferring to fill the silence than succumb to the sound of his own thoughts. She held his gaze and let him speak.
‘I knew when you spoke to her earlier on the pavement that she had told you. I fucking knew it! I could tell.’ He balled a fist – his anger, she knew, not about his actions but the assumed discovery of them.
Rae’s heart beat loudly in her ears. Lou-Lou! Fifi’s mum! Surely not! Surely not here, on the street where she lived. Lou-Lou – the woman she had been trying to befriend . . .
Howard continued to babble. ‘I can’t tell you what it has been like for me every time you spoke to her over the last year or so, telling me how sweet Fifi was and how you felt sorry for her because she was so shy! God, Rae, I half-expected to come home one day and find you had invited her in for a bloody coffee.’ He snorted a kind of laugh that was wholly inappropriate. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he began.
‘You couldn’t help it?’ It was her turn to snort.
‘I know I should have told you. I knew that with her being our neighbour you would find out someday. But I prayed that either she would move or that by the time you did find out, we’d be so solid, so bound, that we could find a way around it. And we can, Rae; we can find a way around this. It wasn’t my fault, not really. She came on to me and I felt sorry for her and it just happened. I need help, I know I do, but I need you too. I love you. I love you so much!’
For some reason she thought of Antonio, the sweet, good-looking bartender in Antigua. I see things, Rae-Valentine. And for the first time she wondered just what he might have seen.
Rae took a deep breath and stared at the man standing opposite her. ‘You know, it might be too late for you, but it’s not for me. I want to be the best example to my kids that I can be. And when they find out how you have lived your life they will need that role model more than ever. Because, like me, they will be shocked that you are not the man they believed you to be. I thought you were a rock star, Howard, the real deal, but you weren’t. You aren’t. You are a fraud and I am mad at myself for wasting all these years – but not as mad as I am at myself for giving you a second chance.’
‘I need you to help me, Rae, please!’
She worked quickly, now, gathering her toothbrush, passport and underwear, stuffing everything into the red knapsack.
‘We need to talk, Rae; we need to sit down and figure out a plan, work out how we go forward.’
She turned to him and waved her hands to dispel his request, as if it was no more than smoke. ‘Do you know the difference between the expressions of someone who is shy and someone who is guilty, Howard?’
‘No.’ He looked at her, his expression one of bewilderment.
‘No, neither did I, but I do now . . . Bloody Lou-Lou! You must have both found the whole charade most amusing.’ She shook her head.
‘No! It wasn’t like that!’
‘It doesn’t matter, none of it. Not now. I will keep in touch with the kids, of course.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about! Where are you going? You can’t just leave! It’s getting dark! Hannah is getting married and I need you, we all do! I love you, Rae! Please!’
‘I will talk to the kids, Howard, don’t you worry. I know they just want me to be happy. And I will tell them that I am going in search of foods to eat that will take me to a certain place and time whenever I taste them again in the future. I am going out into th
e world so that in my twilight years I can sit on a sofa and recount all my wonderful adventures. So that my grandchildren can pore over the yellowed pages of the photograph albums that contain snapshots of my life and they will see that I was remarkable. That I travelled, that I did something! Nana Rae the explorer – that’ll do for starters.’
‘I am asking you not to go, Rae. Please, please!’ Howard gripped his joined hands at his chest as if in prayer and she saw the image of her dad, sitting by the side of her mum’s body. Her dad: a man who lived in a small house with a small life. A man who had loved and who was loyal, a man of truth and goodness who had, she now realised, lived a life of riches.
‘I have already gone. And while I am away I will learn to cook; I will follow my passion and, when the time is ready, I will follow a trail of breadcrumbs all the way home, wherever that might be, and I will continue to learn. I will be a chef. Rae-Valentine the chef! Now that’d be a nice label.’
She took in the man she was married to: the man she had once considered her husband, his breath coming fast as his tears pooled.
‘These girls, Howard, these women you have slept with and whose names I bet you can’t even remember – Diane, Lou-Lou, Karina and the others of which I am sure there are many – they are not memorable to you, are they? They are background girls; they won’t shine brightly to you. And rightly or wrongly I do take a small amount of pleasure from the fact that you will, I hope, always remember me.’
‘Remember you? What are you talking about – you are my wife! And I need you here! I need you, Rae!’
She picked up the knapsack and tied her hair into a ponytail before walking down the stairs one last time.
Howard followed her.
‘Can you at least go and say goodbye to Dolly?’ He pointed towards the dining room. ‘She is going to go nuts! What should I say to her, to the family?’
Rae carefully pulled her wedding ring from her finger and placed it along with her phone on the hall table next to her house keys. She smiled at the man who had broken her heart and stolen her years and to whom she knew she would not give one more day.
‘Tell her goodbye.’ Her voice was thick with emotion. ‘Tell her it’s time for me to step out from her shadow and that I will be in touch eventually. And tell her – fun fact – that I am funding my travels with the proceeds from selling that disgusting diamond you tried to bribe me with. And tell her – second fun fact – that I have found my voice and I have found my feet and there will be no stopping me!’
Rae stepped outside into Lawns Crescent as darkness bit. With her knapsack on her back, she lifted her hand in a wave to Mrs Williams, who stood in the kitchen window, watching the world pass her by.
‘Good morning.’ The man smiled at her.
‘Good morning.’ She smiled back.
Rae handed him her passport and answered the security questions as he stood officiously behind his counter at the Eurostar station.
‘Can I get an upgrade? I want to have sex with your brother.’
‘Excuse me?’ He stared at her, open-mouthed in surprise.
‘Never mind.’ She grabbed her passport and boarding card and popped them into her red knapsack. ‘It was worth a try.’
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
Which character did you most closely identify with and why?
What advice would you have given Rae-Valentine at the beginning, middle and end of her marriage?
How did you feel about Dolly, her nature and the part she played in Rae-Valentine’s life?
Did you recognise any aspects of your own family in The Girl in the Corner?
What do you think the overriding message of the book is for women?
Is there anything you think Rae-Valentine should have done differently?
Which bits made you laugh or made you cry?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2012 Paul Smith of Paul Smith Photography at www.paulsmithphotography.info
Amanda Prowse likens her own life story to those she writes about in her books. After self-publishing her debut novel, Poppy Day, in 2011, she has gone on to author twenty novels and six novellas. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages and she regularly tops bestseller charts all over the world. Remaining true to her ethos, Amanda writes stories of ordinary women and their families who find their strength, courage and love tested in ways they never imagined. The most prolific female contemporary fiction writer in the UK, with a legion of loyal readers, she goes from strength to strength. Being crowned ‘queen of domestic drama’ by the Daily Mail was one of her finest moments. Amanda is a regular contributor on TV and radio but her first love is, and will always be, writing.
You can find her online at www.amandaprowse.com, on Twitter @MrsAmandaProwse, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/amandaprowsenogreaterlove.
The Girl in the Corner Page 31
