It must be easier, Sarah thought, if your husband was a straightforward bastard. If he stayed out every night, if he beat you up…
Even Gaynor didn’t know the full extent of the problem
– she knew they’d had financial difficulties at the end but she thought Paul’s business had gone down. She’d assumed that the final straw for Sarah was finding out Paul was sleeping with a blonde cashier from the amusement arcade. Funny, thought Sarah ironically, that somehow that was less shaming than the fact that he’d poured the housekeeping for a week into a fruit machine first.
She thought about Richard. He would never do anything like that, she was sure, though what he would do was anyone’s guess. She couldn’t figure him out. Each time he’d taken her out he’d been lovely – attentive, kind, interested in all she had to say – but between times it was like he’d had a huge burst of regret, realised he’d made the most terrible mistake and just wanted to run for cover.
She wouldn’t see him for days and when he did appear he would be behind a newspaper, looking like a rabbit caught in headlights when she went to speak to him. I don’t need that, she said to herself in the mirror as she tried to comb her red wiry hair into some sort of shape with which to hit the school run. I don’t need it at all.
She looked hard at her face. It wasn’t only her hair – rising joyfully to weeks of neglect – that was totally out of control. Her eyebrows needed plucking, there were all sorts of extra lines around her eyes, her skin, always pale, looked white and washed out. She had none of Gaynor’s casual glamour or Claire’s look of cool efficiency. What did he see in her? And if he saw anything, why didn’t he see it all the time?
She yawned. Bel had climbed into her bed at five this morning after a bad dream and she’d only dozed after that. It would be one a.m. before she’d be able to crawl back beneath the duvet. Whatever had possessed her to get involved with this bar?
Because there hadn’t been much choice. This way she had a job and a home for the kids. And it was a job she’d enjoy, normally. If she didn’t have the children to worry about. If she wasn’t so tired…
She rubbed at her temples, flipping open the bottle of painkillers on the bathroom shelf and checking the contents. Her period was starting, she felt bloated and heavy. Oh, for a day in bed!
Bel appeared, Scarface in her arms. Sarah made herself smile. “Teeth?” she asked. “Time to go in a minute.” Luke had already slouched off to school, Charlie had disappeared to some corner to mull over the unfairness of life. Sarah had a wine delivery at nine and the butcher arriving shortly after. Then Claire would want to discuss the Specials for the week and no doubt feel the need to run through the accounts in a way that, for all Sarah understood, might as well have been delivered in Swahili.
She wondered whether Claire was regretting going into business with her. She was always friendly and kind but Sarah sensed a contained impatience about her, a disappointment, as if she was slightly bewildered that the Sarah she had got was not the Sarah she remembered from hotel kitchens of the past. This Sarah was more tired and anxious, more inclined to bad temper and forgetting to reorder the tortilla chips when they ran out.
This Sarah, she thought, as she shepherded Bel and Charlie down the stairs and across the empty wine bar, was not the same person at all. This Sarah – who had once run catering operations for the great and good, who had stepped into Claire’s family hotel kitchen and organised a whole wedding breakfast for a hundred and fifty guests when the chef threw a tantrum and walked out – was now just a single mother of three, barely keeping her head above water.
“It will get easier,” Claire had said, sounding reassuring, the only time Sarah had voiced doubts. Claire had her eye on the future. She saw a chain of wine bars, an empire of stripped floorboards and beautiful people and the money rolling in. Gaynor encouraged her in this fantasy, and why wouldn’t she? For Gaynor it was a game – an entertaining diversion, something to take her mind off the fact Victor no longer seemed to give a damn. She hardly needed it to pay the electric bill.
Out of the corner of her eye, the answer-phone was flashing behind the bar. Early, thought Sarah. Was that Gaynor now, in a state over the latest Victor instalment? Claire in overdrive making more adjustments to the week’s rotas?
She almost stopped to listen but in the end kept Bel and Charlie moving. If it was Paul, euphoric from a night at the roulette wheel, she’d never get them to school.
“When are we seeing Dad?” Charlie asked at the traffic lights.
“Soon, I expect.” Sarah gave him the bright smile she knew didn’t fool him any longer.
Charlie looked out of the window. “Where is he, anyway?” he asked in his best offhand tone, that didn’t fool her, either.
“Away working, I think,” she lied valiantly. “We’ll give his mobile a call at the weekend, shall we?”
Charlie didn’t reply.
“Mummy,” said Bel from the back seat, “can we get another cat so Scarface has a friend?”
The large tom was on the bar when she got back. “Get upstairs or out, you,” she said, shooing him off. “If you must live with us, you’ve got to be civilised about it!” He sauntered over to the fireplace and began to wash himself. Sarah moved behind the pumps to the phone and answer-machine and pressed Play.
One new message, the robotic voice intoned, received at six-fifty-two a.m. Wednesday, September fourteenth…
She idly straightened an ashtray on the bar, frowning as a set of crackles and indistinct mumbling came over the speaker.
What? She hit Replay, bending over the machine to listen to the message more intently.
Her heart began to thump as the words became clearer.
“You won’t have that winebar much longer you fucking bitch. I am going to get you…”
“Keep calm,” Gaynor said. “It could be directed at any of us.” Her mind raced through possible candidates. She could see from Claire’s worried frown she was doing the same.
“But I’m the one who lives here,” said Sarah, agitated. “On my own with three children. I don’t like it.”
“Let me listen to it again.” Gaynor replayed the message. They all leaned towards the machine straining to hear the words. It was a male voice, sounding slurred, maybe drunk. Gaynor half thought she recognised something in the raspy tones but they’d listened to it so many times that maybe it had simply grown familiar.
“Could it be anything to do with Paul?” Gaynor asked gently. Sarah was still white.
Sarah shook her head. “I’ve thought about that. I don’t think so – it’s not his voice and really it’s just not his style. I mean he’s not that hostile to me. I know it was pretty acrimonious at the end but even so…”
“It could be anyone,” Claire said, calmly. “Someone we’ve thrown out or upset.” She turned to Sarah. “Remember that drunk bloke you refused to serve the other night?” Gaynor could see she was trying to be reassuring. “Could be someone like that. Still drunk.”
“What about the father of that girl who burned herself?” offered Gaynor.
Claire shook her head. “No, he had a much more cultured voice. And he was just upset at the time – he’s never been back to us, has he?”
Gaynor thought about it. “Anyway,” she remembered, “the first call had come in that morning, hadn’t it?”
“First one?” Sarah looked at them both in turn. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t want to worry you,” said Claire. “It just said ‘you old dog’ or something. “I didn’t take it too seriously. We were busy with the breakfasts.”
“I wish I’d known! And why so early in the morning all the time?” Sarah frowned. “Those calls with the breathing. They were left at four or five a.m.”
“Night worker?” Gaynor mused. “Or unemployed – sits up drinking? Claire’s right – he sounds pissed to me.”
“Well whoever it is, I’m frightened,” said Sarah.
“We’ll deal with it,�
� said Claire, firmly. “I’ll phone BT. They must be able to do something.”
“He’d withheld the number again,” Sarah looked doubtful. “Like before.”
“They must still be able to trace it if they want to.” Claire was already dialling. She nodded meaningfully at Gaynor. “Get the coffee on.”
* * *
“Try not to think about it,” Gaynor said ineffectually as she handed Sarah a cappuccino. “We’ve done all we can now – we’ll have to leave it to the phone lot and the police.”
Sarah tore the top from a sachet of sugar and poured the contents on to the milky froth in her cup. “You really think they’ll do anything?”
Claire frowned. “They’d better! BT know the number. They won’t give it to us but they said if the police ask for it, then they’ll pass it over. The policewoman I spoke to said they’d look into it. I expect they’ll track him down and warn him off.”
Sarah stirred her coffee. “I want to know who it is.”
Claire paused at the top of the stairs. “And we’re going to find out.”
“Tell me about Richard anyway,” said Gaynor when Claire had gone down to the kitchen. “Has he got his act together yet?”
Sarah shook her head. “Not exactly.”
Gaynor grinned encouragingly. “You mean you still haven’t…”
Sarah pulled a pile of glass cloths towards her and began folding them. “It’s not that simple. He’s very, well he’s sort of…”
“What?”
Sarah ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know really. Ah – customer!” She nodded her head towards the end of the bar.
Gaynor turned and felt a jolt in her solar plexus. Sam was settling himself on a stool and unfolding his newspaper. She hadn’t seen him since the night of the torchlight procession three weeks before. Every time she thought about how they’d parted, her toes curled. She’d been careful to walk around the roads behind Sam’s cottage instead of past it, missing their conversations but too embarrassed to go through yet another apology for her behaviour.
“One of your fans, is he?” murmured Sarah. “Only ever seems to come in when you’re here…”
“He didn’t know I was,” Gaynor said, too quickly.
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “I was only joking. I expect he spotted your loveliness when he walked past.”
“Can you serve him?” said Gaynor in a low voice, trying to huddle round the corner by the optics.
“No, I can’t – I’ve got half a ton of mushrooms down there waiting to be soup. You’re the barmaid.”
“Please.” What must he think of her? Women weren’t supposed to get half-pissed and go round propositioning men. What was it about alcohol that sent all her inhibitions flying out the window?
“See you later.” Sarah picked up her pile of folded laundry and headed towards the stairs. “Good morning,” she said to Sam brightly as she passed.
He looked up for a moment as Gaynor approached. “A coffee please,” he said, smiling briefly and turning over a page of his paper. “A white one.”
Gaynor filled the steel filter head with ground coffee, wondering what to say as she slotted it into the machine and waited for the coffee to drip through. Breathing in the aromas she frothed up some milk, slowly arranging sachets of sugar and an individually wrapped biscuit, taking her time selecting a teaspoon, delaying the moment when she would have to face him.
But he hardly looked up as she put the cup and saucer in front of him. His eyes flicked only briefly in her direction. He said, ‘Thank you,’ in a pleasant voice and pushed a five pound note towards her.
Now what? she thought as she got change from the till, caught between relief and disappointment. She’d have to make the first move. She wanted to. Suddenly she wanted him back, wanted his attention, his caring. She wanted to talk to him, wanted him to be her friend.
She put the coins down next to his tobacco. “How are you?” she asked, self-consciously. He put down his newspaper, picked up the pouch next to him and began to roll one of his tiny cigarettes. The sleeves of his brushed cotton shirt were rolled back. She found her eyes drawn to the tightly curled hairs on his brown forearms. “I’m OK,” he said easily. “How about you?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Again.”
He finished rolling, dabbed the paper with his tongue, spent some seconds coaxing his old Zippo lighter into life then looked at her with a slow smile. “No harm done,” he replied eventually, “as long as you’re all right.”
She picked up a clean ashtray and wiped it unnecessarily. “Oh I’m all right. Bit mad round the edges, you know.”
He gave a grunt of amusement. “Aren’t we all.”
“How’s Brutus?” She put the ashtray back and began to wipe the equally-clean bar.
“A brute. He brought half a herring gull for my dawn offering.”
“Ugh.” She took a deep breath. “Can I come by and see him sometime?”
Sam smiled. “Sure. You can come and see me, too, if you like.”
But in the end she stayed at Greens all day. She felt she needed to be with Sarah, who was clearly still worried by the abusive call. So after they closed at lunchtime, she broke with tradition, donned an apron, and sat on a stool in the kitchen shredding cabbage and grating carrots for coleslaw. Sarah threw her a grateful smile.
“This is what takes the time,” she said, chopping onions further down the huge steel table. “People don’t realise how much there is to do even when you’re closed.”
“Perhaps we should make more of it,” said Gaynor. “You know, that you prepare everything yourself.”
Sarah laughed. “Blakes Frozen Foods was parked right outside the other day, delivering to the chip shop. Claire was outside on the pavement telling him to move on in case anyone thought it was us!”
She looked at the clock and ran a hand through her hair. “Oh God! I’ve got to get the kids in twenty minutes and I haven’t even started the soup yet.”
Gaynor swept the last of the raw vegetables into a large bowl and pushed it towards Sarah. Then she picked up a wooden spoon and brandished it. “Tell me what to do…”
Cooking was quite soothing, she thought, as she stirred the creamy concoction of mushrooms, adding a dash of sherry as instructed, resisting the temptation to have a snort herself. What with Victor always in London, she’d got out of the habit at home. She wondered idly what Sam ate. Was he the sort of man to produce meat and two veg every day, just for himself? Or did he survive on cheese and crackers the way she did when left to her own devices? Turning the heat down low on the large hob, she heard Sarah and the children come in overhead. She felt better for seeing Sam. The thought of going to visit him again gave her a warm feeling inside. She could talk to him...
“Come up and have a cup of tea!” Sarah’s voice called from upstairs. Gaynor went up to the flat where the two younger children were already sprawled in front of the television. Bel jumped up when she saw her. “Do you want to play shops?”
“Mummy’s a bit stressed,” the little girl confided as Gaynor paid 2p for four tins of baked beans and got a handful of change. She smiled angelically as she packed the shopping into a crumpled Tesco bag. “It’s that bloody winebar.”
Gaynor stifled a laugh. “You shouldn’t say that,” she said. “Bloody is a very, very rude word. If they hear you say it at school you’ll be in big trouble.”
Bel handed her the plastic carrier. “Luke is very naughty,” she explained. “He says it ALL the time.”
He wasn’t saying much today. Gaynor engaged Luke in a series of grunts when he slouched in from the bus-stop.
“Will you answer properly!” Sarah said sharply. In reply, Luke grabbed the remote control, causing his brother to kick and bellow, while Bel shrieked encouragement.
“I am so sorry.” Sarah shook her head as she drained a steaming saucepan of spaghetti in the small kitchen. “It’s absolute bedlam at this time of day.”
Gaynor smiled. “It’s
OK. It makes a nice change.”
It was true – she found herself enjoying the family noise, the sounds of the TV, the kids scrapping, Bel singing to herself as she rearranged her imaginary window display. She watched as Sarah gradually calmed the chaos and began to relax. Gaynor’s own house would be in perfect order, but silent and empty. Eating with Sarah and the kids, reading to Bel, lounging on the sofa watching Neighbours with Charlie felt good.
“Hey, we’ll domesticate you yet,” Sarah said, smiling, as Gaynor carried the supper dishes to the sink. She had Bel on her lap. The child was snuggled into her mother’s shoulder and Sarah had her arm around her. Stretching out the other one, she leant up and squeezed Gaynor’s hand. “Thank you.”
“I’ll call the police again tomorrow from home,” said Claire quietly to Gaynor as they got ready to open that evening, while Sarah was still upstairs with the kids. “Try and make sure they do something. Are you OK?”
Gaynor nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Claire had seemed warmer since Gaynor had come in shame-faced to apologise for her outburst at the end of Folk Week. She’d nodded at Gaynor’s embarrassed explanations of why the girl burning her hands had affected her so much. “Families are difficult, aren’t they?” was all she’d said, but since then Gaynor had noticed a new concern in her voice. Yet, they didn’t talk like she and Sarah did. There was still something private about Claire – something that stopped Gaynor asking too much. “How’s Jamie?” she tried now.
“Oh, he’s fine.” Claire moved around the front of the bar, lighting the candle on each table. “I hardly ever see him! And Victor?”
Gaynor switched the lights on over the wine racks.
“Hardly see him, either.”
Claire gave a short laugh. “What are we like! Here – I’m putting that new Shiraz on the Specials board tonight. See if you can shift some?” She came back behind the bar and rummaged in a box next to the fridge. “Oh, and if those two buffs come in droning on about letting wine breathe again, I’ve got this.” She held up a small funnel-shaped object. “As recommended by Michael Winner in the Sunday Times! Michael Caine’s supposed to have one too.”
One Glass Is Never Enough Page 13
