“Mr Cock… erh… Cockbeen-held.”
Hah.
Stupid man.
The hysterical hilarity of the situation couldn’t be trumped by the mispronunciation of my husband’s name. Hah, was most definitely reserved for the situation.
It’s my birthday and instead of showering me with expensive frivolous status-reassuring gifts, my husband is doing quite the opposite. Taking one away from me, or trying to, anyway.
“We’ve got an order from Mr…” He clears his throat. “The owner, to pick it up this morning.”
The owner? Now there’s a statement. A true one at that but I’m going to fight it all the same.
“I’m sorry there’s been a mistake. The car is mine and you cannot take it away.”
“I’m sorry missus, but we were warned there might be trouble and we’ve been instructed to ring the owner if there is a problem.”
“Well, you had better ring him then because there is a problem.” I say rather irritably, letting go of the intercom button.
My mind is whirring too fast for the fog that it has become clogged with recently
He is the owner. I know that for sure and I’m not convinced I have any rights when it comes to stopping him, but I am going to try. He isn’t getting away with anything easily.
A few moments later the buzzer shrills again.
“I’m sorry missus, but the owner says if you don’t let us take the car away he’s gonna call the old bill.”
“Fine, let him.” I release the button, aware that my heart is fluttering erratically in my chest. The first sign that I am alive since this whole episode started.
Busying myself while the inevitable plays out, I go to the fridge to look for something edible. Nothing but sour milk, out of date cooked ham, a cheese board pre-packaged in a festive wrap.
I throw the mouldy bread from the container into the trash and take out a jar of peanut butter from the pantry. A couple of spoonful’s and the viscous paste refuses to swallow down my out of practice gullet. I help it down with a swig from an already open bottle of red wine.
A robin sits on the windowsill. Its cheeky head cocking to one side and giving me a full on judgmental stare. ‘What you doing?’ It seems to ask.
Hah.
If only I knew?
The buzzer sounds again.
“Mrs Cockburn-Holt?”
“Yes,” I croak. The peanut butter still caked onto the inside of my throat.
“This is PC Denton from the local constabulary. Can you open the gate please?”
I can see on the small video screen his uniform and the little strip that confirms his identity. The hi-visibility yellow is blinding to someone who hasn’t seen much natural daylight for a while.
“Why?”
“Because we need to clear up the matter at hand.”
The matter at hand.
It all sounds so reasonable and straightforward.
“And what if I don’t want to clear up the matter at hand?” I ask in as reasonable tone as I can muster.
“Then we will come back with a warrant.”
“Oh.” My shaky finger hovers over the button.
“Mrs Cockburn-Holt?”
“Yes, sorry, you’ll have to bear with me a moment, I need to replace the fuse.” I scrabble in the drawer of the mahogany hall table to locate the fuse for the gate.
“I’m sorry I don’t understand? Mrs Cockburn-Holt you really need to open this gate. Now.”
“I am. I just need to…”
I grasp hold of it and open the various locks on the front door before registering I have no shoes on. Actually, I have no shoes and no socks and am wearing a dressing gown over my sweatpants and sweater. I pause and then go out anyway. I don’t care what they make of me. I’m well beyond caring. If only they can see what he has reduced me to they might not take away my car. They might side with me and do something about the wrongs he has inflicted, instead of carrying through with this ridiculous theft.
The gravel is cold and painful on the sensitive arches of my feet. When I reach the box and replace the fuse, a spark berates me for my daring stupidity. I jab at the button on the pillar in defiance.
The constable enters through the gates before they are fully open and ignoring my appearance proceeds to explain to me that the car does in fact belong to my husband and he can remove it as he wishes. He goes on to point out that if I impede the removal they will take action against me.
Hah.
I so desperately want to put up a fight.
But I don’t.
I just step aside.
“It might be best if you hand over all of the keys, Mrs Cockburn-Holt. Just so there is no reason for us to come back.”
I retreat and do as I’m told.
~~~~~
I don’t reveal any of what happened this morning to Poppy. She wants me to be happy today. Today is my birthday and she has proclaimed it to be the first day of my new life. A new chapter she has enthused, post Cxxx.
Chapter Four
Rosa
This morning, I actually bother to open the curtains. It is a crisp bright morning with the remnants of the pale orange clouded dawn low on the horizon.
I’ve already showered and washed my hair. I am aware that the festive holidays are well over and I have clients that are expecting an update from me on various projects. Also, I’m down to my last fish-finger in the freezer and the tins of tomato soup have long gone.
Today, I need a list. A list of things that must be achieved and symbolically ticked off.
I scrawl three items on a piece of paper.
1. Open the mail.
2. Read my emails and update clients.
3. Walk to the shop.
I am not sure which I least want to do. Each will be a challenge, that’s for sure.
The list needs to be much longer, I know that, and it should include things of much greater importance than the three I have written. But I can’t bring myself to add anything more meaningful to the list just yet. The list had been Poppy’s idea and as she is my surrogate brain right now I agreed to it.
I dither, looking over the three tasks, trying to work out which one to tackle first. I had numbered them as I wrote them out but now I find I don’t want to tackle them in number order. I don’t want to open the mail first because there is likely to be personal stuff in there. Stuff relating to my life. Stuff that my business persona didn’t need to be worried by when responding to clients, who wouldn’t be interested in my woes. I also can’t go to the shop first, for the simple fact it isn’t open yet.
So, I go upstairs to my office. I’d not ventured in to that space since that fateful day. The view is still beautiful and the professionalism of the space is still something to be proud of, despite it being off our bedroom, which is also a space I haven’t occupied since that day. My nights have been spent on the sofa in the living room.
I wiggle the mouse and the screen comes to life. I’m now glad that it’s not the photo I originally wanted as my screensaver. The generic view of a lake and forest are benign and not taunting. I punch in my password and brace myself in the event the messages from Charles or his bimbo are lying in wait for me. Fortunately, not.
The emails take forever to refresh. Most of them are spam and some from suppliers wishing me a Happy New Year. Hah. I scroll through all of those and open any from my clients.
The first is from Claudia, a mutual friend. She extends her condolences (really, condolences?) and goes on to explain that it is unfortunate that her and Kristoff are no longer able to use my services due to the ‘situation’. She wishes me well in the future and if I ever need anything to just ask. Hah.
The second is from the wife of one of Charles’ company directors. Similar excuse. A compromise that she is unable to work with.
The third, a more understandable let down. A missed deadline on my part – a need for the client to ‘get back on track’ with the project in a timeframe that I myself had laid out and
failed to deliver upon.
None of them need me to update them on progress or require me to feign an excuse about not getting back to them before now.
My business is barely six months old and has needed the support of friends and acquaintances to make it viable. Charles and I had agreed that setting up my own business and working from home was a dream that could become a reality, once he was made Director and we had finished the work on our home. Actually there wasn’t much choice, seeing as I was the one that had to make the sacrifice once he became Director. It wasn’t acceptable to have a wife in the practice who might be told about the highly confidential clap-trap that was the corporate world.
I shut down the computer and tick number two off the list. A huge sigh parts my lips, the escaping breath quivering on dry skin. I reach for the lip balm in the drawer of the desk, my hand hovering over the Montblanc pen Charles had given me when I registered the business. How did it come to this? Why had he been so supportive then and reduce me to this state now?
I take out the balm and shut the drawer, gazing out of the window while I rub it in to my lips. Snowdrops are poking their way through the soil underneath the oak tree. A sign of spring I was always led to believe, but in recent years I know it is more likely to be an indication that winter isn’t done. False hope. A show of life before dark days hang on for what always seems like forever. I am normally braced for this. Uplifted by Christmas and then my birthday, usually followed by a little mid-winter week in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean. A middle finger firmly held up to the dismal days of February and March. But not this year. My starting point is so low I can’t imagine being able to get through it this year.
So on to the second item on the list, or in the order it was written, number one.
The letters have built up steadily over the last few weeks. Initially, I hadn’t bothered even taking them out of the box mounted onto the pillar of the gates; not until the postman buzzed through to say it was full and that if I wanted to leave the gates unlocked as I used to during the day, he could put my mail through my front door instead. I didn’t comply, but it did mean I needed to make regular trips to empty the box.
In the first load, there had been some letters addressed to Charles, but they soon dried up. He must have changed his address with the Post Office and I wondered where he might be living now. With her? He wouldn’t have gone to his parents, as large as their house is, he would never have reduced himself to that or passed over the opportunity to have sex each night with his bimbo. No, he would be with her somewhere, I’m sure.
I put Charles’ post to one side and proceed to open mine. There are birthday cards, which go back into their envelopes, all except the one from Dad, or rather the one that the care home sent me on his behalf. I hadn’t been to see him in weeks. I did text the care home manager to feign illness after the first missed visit but have not been in touch at all since. I feel so selfish. Dad rarely acknowledges me when I visit but, nonetheless, I am the only living relative he has in this country and it is my duty and desire to see him at least once a week. And I have failed him.
The next letter is a copy of the email that I had read earlier from Charles' colleague’s wife. Then an invoice from the newsagent for the regular interior design magazines they delivered each month to the house, which I noted hadn’t arrived in January. I put the invoice to one side, with the intention of stopping by the newsagents when I venture to the shop later.
The final letter is a fat one, an envelope bearing the stamp of a local solicitor’s firm. I sit on the bottom step steeling myself before opening it. I just know it isn’t going to be good news.
I let out a harsh breath and pull on the wad of paper, the large metal paperclip pinging off onto the floor.
The first line is almost comical, the solicitor ‘hopes that this letter finds me well’. I’m sure there is a better turn of phrase because that one isn’t appropriate in any sense. It goes on to reveal that they are acting on behalf of Cxxx, although they don’t refer to him as that, obviously, and how they have been instructed to file for divorce and agree on a financial settlement without delay. He is citing unreasonable behaviour on my part for the divorce. Hah. However, and this is truly hysterical, he would be agreeable to alternative grounds if they allow for the divorce proceedings to commence immediately and come to a conclusion within a timely fashion.
Divorce.
I never married to get divorced.
I like being married. I often smile at myself in the mirror and congratulate myself on being married. I like the security of it. I like its status. I like that I’m not alone and have a partner for life.
Or rather did have.
Number three on my list seems insurmountable now. I should have ordered a food shop online.
I pad through to the kitchen just to check that there isn’t a random pot noodle, or some such thing, lurking in the back of a cupboard that would see me through to tomorrow. But I know there isn’t. I never buy pot noodles or the like; we pretty much ate out or ordered takeaway most nights and the local deli provided anything else.
I decide to make myself an espresso to perk me up for the task in hand.
It is surprisingly bright outside and I don my Gucci glasses and wrap my new scarf around my neck and chin before trudging through the front door.
The street seems so long, having rarely walked the length of it before now. My exercise is usually canned, in the form of a membership at the golf and health club on the outskirts of town. The same club that Charles is a member of.
As the Volvos and Range Rovers creep by, it strikes me that every driver and occupant are craning their necks to look at me. Everyone in this town knows who I am, especially coming out of my driveway like this. I wonder how many are already aware of my predicament?
Eventually, I reach the local shop, which actually is a very nice continental style deli. There is an extravagant display of artisan breads, carefully selected perishables and a cheese and cooked meat counter. I would often shop in here and occasionally request a particular product be stocked and as a regular they would always heed my request. So, it isn’t unexpected when the shopkeeper makes her opening line.
“Hello Mrs Cockburn-Holt, we’ve not seen you for a while. We took you up on your suggestion of stocking the Japanese range you enquired about and we’ve made a display over in the ethnic foods section.”
“Oh, thank you.”
I wasn’t in the mood for perusing and had no intention to make the sushi that I had a whim to try out when I was last in the shop, but I felt very guilty that they had gone to the trouble. So, I put a handful from the selection into my wicker basket before moving on to my initial objective of bread, cheese and pâté. A couple of bottles of French red wine and a bar of organic dark chocolate. It is about all I can haul home and will have to do for now.
They pack the produce into my jute shopping bag while I fish in my wallet for my credit card. As usual it takes an age for the payment to process and an uncomfortable silence descends upon us. Only finally being broken when she tells me, “I’m sorry, there seems to be a problem. It has been declined by the bank.”
My jaw drops open. Declined? I’d never had that happen to me before. Then it dawns on me. I am an additional card user on Charles’ account. Another thing he controlled. I scramble through the rest of my wallet and retrieve my debit card.
“Never mind, I could do with some cash back anyway.” I try feebly to rescue myself from embarrassment. “Can you give me fifty please?”
“Yes, of course, no problem, Mrs Cockburn-Holt.”
I can feel myself flush up, hoping that there is indeed enough in the account to cover my request. I don’t check that account very often as I usually have no need to. The only income that ever goes into it, is the small monthly salary I pay myself from my start up business. I need to look at my finances if he is starving me of any income.
The shop keeper produces five ten-pound notes from the till and hands them over to m
e to me, along with a receipt.
“Hope to see you again soon.”
I doubt I will. Seems like my shopping needs to be in a more standard type of establishment, at least until I’ve sorted this nonsense out with Charles anyway.
I then hesitate outside the newsagent, wondering if I should indeed pay the magazine bill or wait until I have a better handle on my finances.
No, I can’t do that, I owe this newsagent and can’t expect them to suffer because of my circumstances. I push on the door and the bell clangs above my head. I can see the shopkeeper’s face light up as I walk towards the counter, probably for no other reason than she hopes I am here to pay my bill. It’s not as if we are friends or even pass the time of day in any shape or form. In fact, I rarely come into the shop, Charles would be the one that would pay when he collected the Sunday newspapers on his way back from his early round of golf.
She stands up from the stool she was perched on and sets aside her steaming hot, milky looking, tea. “Good morning, Mrs Cockburn-Holt, I’ve got your bill prepared. Mr Cockburn-Holt said that you would be paying it from now on.”
“Thank you, yes and could you possibly cancel all future deliveries, I… I don’t have time to read them at the moment.” My palms are sweating a little from the lie.
“Yes, Mr Cockburn-Holt said that might be the case.”
“Did he now?” I snap, more at the thought of him telling her what I would and wouldn’t be doing, rather than her recounting it back to me.
She takes a step backwards, obviously offended by my reaction, which I am sorry for, but before I can attempt an apology she makes the most inappropriate of remarks.
“Never mind dear, at least you can always find another one.”
“Excuse me?” I latch onto her eyes.
“Another husband - a woman like you won’t have difficulty with that.”
I pull out two of the ten-pound notes I had just procured from the delicatessen and place them on the counter, before turning on my heel and walking out of the newsagent without saying a further word.
My pace is as fast as I can force it down the high street towards home. The effort on my lungs and heart preventing my body from breaking down in tears.
Into the Light Page 3
