by Heidi Swain
‘Actually I was in my dad’s bar,’ he frowned, ‘crammed in the only spot where you can get a fairly decent internet signal, and the sarong-wearer was my prospective step-mother. I told you she was young.’
Before I had a chance to say anything, Jemma marched back in and began clattering plates and bowls.
We merely picked at the dinner she had gone to the trouble of making and our glasses still stood half-full, even after the meal had ended. To be honest, having jumped to the wrong conclusion about Ben and his Spanish senorita, I was grateful for a few minutes’ silence in which to recover, no matter how awkward. I forced myself to look only at my plate and the wall opposite.
‘Shall we move?’ Tom finally suggested in an overly cheery tone. ‘Go and have our coffee in the sitting room?’
‘No,’ said Jemma, ‘I want to stay in here.’
I didn’t know what was wrong, but she was hardly the hospitable hostess who had asked me to dinner earlier in the day. I wondered if she was annoyed that I still hadn’t made a decision about the crafting sessions at the Café and thought what a relief it would be all round when I told her and Tom I was finally good to go. I wasn’t going to let the fact that Ben was back change anything as far as the Cherry Tree was concerned.
‘I saw Jay earlier,’ she said before I had a chance to make my announcement. ‘He popped into the Café. He said he was sorry about the potential change of plan and asked if he could use the crafting space to display his frames. He offered me a healthy commission, said it might help bring in some extra revenue if the space became empty. I got the impression that he seemed to think you might not be with us for much longer, Lizzie.’
I looked from her to Tom and back again.
‘What?’
‘He didn’t say anything specific but I’d already guessed something was going on after the visit from your city friends and it didn’t take long for me to join the dots. The City Crafting Café, it’s called, isn’t it? According to the agent I spoke to this afternoon it’s already attracted a fair few enquiries, but the current owner is holding off and we all know why that is, don’t we?’
Jemma looked straight at me. I didn’t know what to say.
‘You’ll need to give us a bit of warning about when you want your money back,’ Tom joined in, but not able to meet my gaze. ‘It’ll take us a while to raise it but don’t worry; you’ll get back every penny.’
I was too stunned to speak. It suddenly dawned on me that Jay after our – what I thought was confidential – conversation, had seen a prospective business opportunity and jumped at the chance. He’d gone straight round to Jemma just to spite me because I refused to offer him the money he wanted. The petty bastard! Suddenly those glasses didn’t make him look so appealing any more.
‘And you believe this, do you?’ I said to Jemma, ignoring Tom’s comment about the money. ‘You never thought to ask me if what Jay was suggesting was true? You just took his word for it?’
‘I know your friend is selling her business, Lizzie, and you must have talked to her about it when she came to see you the other week.’
‘So that means I’m buying the place, does it?’ I said unsteadily. ‘I haven’t been to view it, I haven’t even got the agent’s details let alone the funds, but apparently I’m off!’
For a split-second a flicker of doubt crossed Jemma’s face but I didn’t stick around long enough to see if the penny dropped.
I went to bed as soon as I got back to the flat but I didn’t sleep. I tossed and turned until the duvet was wrapped so tightly around my body I could have been mistaken for an Egyptian mummy. I was devastated that Jemma and Tom had taken the word of Jay, a former football teammate, over mine – their lifelong friend and confidante.
I understood now why Ella was always so rude to him. Kids, I realised, were far shrewder when judging character than adults. They could see through all the layers of bullshit we shielded ourselves with. I couldn’t believe it was only hours ago that I had decided I was staying here for good and now I was teetering on the brink again.
‘Hello?’
I’d rung Jay’s mobile, but hadn’t really been expecting him to answer.
‘Hi, Jay. It’s Lizzie. Don’t hang up;’ I instructed, sounding braver than I felt; ‘I think you owe me an explanation.’
I heard him sigh and I crossed my fingers in the hope that he would at least have the guts to offer some kind of justification for his despicable behaviour.
‘I want to know why you went to Jemma behind my back. I thought I could trust you.’
‘I’m sorry, Lizzie, I really am.’
‘So why did you do it? You’ve put me in a really difficult position! I told you that I didn’t know what I was going to do and I also told you that if I decided to stay then I wouldn’t say anything to Jemma and Tom. What right did you think you had to stir all this up?’
‘To tell you the truth, Lizzie, I can’t believe I did it either. I don’t know what came over me. Can I come round? Can I see you?’
Half an hour later, Jay sat at the kitchen table looking as guilty as it was possible for a man to look. If I wasn’t so angry I would have felt sorry for him, but I was still fuming.
‘The other night,’ he explained, ‘when you told me you’d lend me some money to get my business started, I thought all my Christmases had come at once. You’d already told me you’d invested in the Café so I thought it would be fine. I’ve wanted this for so long, Lizzie, but I’ve never been able to quite make it work, you know?’
‘Go on.’ I still couldn’t believe I’d made the offer in the first place but cider did funny things to my system; my student photos were proof enough of that.
‘So when you then said it wasn’t possible I could see it all slipping away from me again and I saw red.’
‘You mean you wanted to get back at me?’
‘I just wanted to make things uncomfortable for you, I guess,’ he admitted awkwardly. ‘I began to tell Jemma in a roundabout way what you’d told me but I realised what an idiot I was being and I stopped. That was when I thought I might be able to use the crafting space myself. I was just trying to make the best of what had turned into a huge disappointment.’
‘But Jemma’s not stupid!’ I shouted. ‘She was straight on the internet, then the phone. She knows exactly what’s going on. She and Tom think it’s a done deal. They think I’m already packing to go!’
‘Oh, Lizzie, I’m so sorry. Let me go round and straighten it out. I made the problem, let me solve it.’
‘No,’ I said quietly, ‘just leave it.’
‘But they’ve got it all wrong. I should have kept my mouth shut.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you should, but you didn’t and for some reason they’ve decided to take your word over mine, and if they can jump to conclusions over something as important as my commitment to the Cherry Tree then perhaps they aren’t the friends I thought they were after all.’
I didn’t think the morning could get much worse, but after Jay left, Ben arrived.
‘Have you got time to talk?’ he asked. ‘It’s important.’
‘If you’ve come to tell me that Jemma and Tom have finally worked out the truth,’ I sniped, ‘then forget it. I’m in no mood to hear it.’
‘This has nothing to do with them,’ he insisted. ‘This is about us.’
Reluctantly I opened the door and let him in.
‘Do you want a drink?’ I called from the kitchen, having deposited him on the sofa.
‘Please,’ he answered, ‘coffee would be great.’
‘OK,’ I passed Ben a mug and sat in the chair opposite, ‘what is it you want to talk to me about? I think we’re beyond gossiping about high-school crushes, don’t you?’
Ben didn’t say anything but there was a definite rosy glow to his face that hadn’t been there when he arrived. It was a low blow considering my own feelings, but I was still feeling raw and bruised and he was a sitting duck.
‘No,’ he said, �
��I’m not interested in what could or should have happened when we were kids.’
‘Well, whatever you’ve come to tell me, I’m not really interested.’
‘Look, Lizzie, I want to tell you about why I went, rather than keep apologising for the way I went,’ he said quietly, ‘and I’m sorry, but I do think you need to know why Mum said what she did.’
‘You went because you were upset about what you told me,’ I said bluntly, ‘about your girlfriend and the terrible thing she did.’
‘That was partly the reason,’ he agreed, ‘but you only know half the story, Lizzie.’
‘OK,’ I took a deep breath and put my mug on the hearth, ‘but you don’t owe me an explanation, Ben. This really has nothing to do with me, does it? It’s ancient history.’
‘It has everything to do with you and if you’ll give me half a chance and not interrupt or fly off the handle then you’ll see why.’
I sat back in my chair not unlike Ella waiting for her bedtime story. There was nothing that Ben could tell me that would have an impact. After everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours I was immune to further shock.
‘My girlfriend,’ Ben said, looking straight at me and making my stomach do a loop-the-loop, ‘the one who disappeared and had the termination . . .’
‘I remember,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to spell it all out again.’
‘I probably should’ve mentioned her name.’
I shrugged and reached for my mug.
‘I don’t see why,’ I told him blankly.
Ben leant across the space between us, took my mug and set it back on the hearth. He held my hands tight in his and looked straight at me.
‘It was Natasha.’
‘What?’ I laughed, snatching my hands away as my stomach launched off on the rollercoaster again but for a very different reason this time. I didn’t understand. Surely the name was just a coincidence? It had to be.
‘It was Natasha,’ he said again.
I sat and stared at him, my head and heart struggling for synchronicity.
‘What, you mean Natasha, as in Giles and Natasha?’
Ben nodded.
I thought I was going to be sick.
‘But when, how?’
Why was I asking? Why did I want to know?
‘A few days after Giles first turned up in the Mermaid and swept you off your feet, Natasha came looking for him.
Apparently she’d found out where he’d been staying and was hell-bent on revenge. I mean, she’d practically been left at the altar; she was entitled to some kind of explanation.’
‘So where was I?’
‘You’d gone away with Giles. Didn’t he whisk you off on some mini break or something? Anyway it doesn’t matter. Neither of you were here when she turned up.’
Ah yes, I remembered. Giles had roped Mum in on that one. He’d gone to the house and together they’d packed a suitcase and found my passport and I’d been picked up after my shift at the pub and driven off to the airport. Everyone had thought the gesture was the ultimate in romance; just as well they hadn’t got wind of the fact that Giles was already spoken for. He would have been lynched . . .
‘Lizzie?’
‘Um? Sorry. So how exactly do you fit into all this? How did you meet Natasha?’
‘I was in the pub when she turned up. She never told anyone else who she really was. She was too embarrassed when she heard the locals talking about how their barmaid had been whisked off her feet by a slick city type. It didn’t take a genius to work out who they were talking about. You can imagine the state she was in, can’t you?’
‘What and you swooped in and picked up the pieces?’ I snapped scathingly, trying not to think about Natasha. ‘You were little better than me then, were you?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Ben thundered, moving back to his chair, ‘I didn’t swoop in at all. I was just a shoulder to cry on. I never meant to fall for her, it just happened. I felt sorry for her to start with.’
I snorted derisively, picturing the scene.
‘Our relationship was nothing like yours and Giles’s,’ Ben frowned. ‘We were friends a long time before we were lovers which is more than I can say for you!’
‘So how come our paths never crossed in London?’ I questioned, ignoring his slur on my morals. ‘How come we never ended up at the same parties and events in the city?’
‘Natasha went out of her way to make sure she and Giles were never going to be anywhere together. Work was a nightmare for her, but socially it was just as awkward. You know the kind of circles they moved in.’
‘And now they’re moving in them again,’ I said resignedly, ‘only now they’re together. They really were meant for each other, weren’t they?’
I was struggling to take it all in. It sounded like a Jeremy Kyle episode but with designer labels instead of trainers and tracksuits.
‘What about the baby?’ I asked without thinking. ‘If she loved you, then why did she have an abortion?’
‘She obviously loved Giles more, didn’t she? She was already back with him when she found out she was pregnant. She promised me she hadn’t slept with him, though. That’s how she knew the baby was mine and that was why she had the termination. Giles wouldn’t have taken her back if he knew she was carrying someone else’s child, would he?’
‘Did he even know she was pregnant?’
‘No. She made sure both the baby and me were well out of the way before she began seeing him properly again.’
‘I’m guessing this wasn’t all that long before Christmas, was it?’
‘How did you know?’
I shrugged but didn’t answer. Giles himself had told me he’d spotted me looking at engagement rings and panicked. That had been enough to send him scurrying back to the elegant arms of Natasha, but it didn’t matter. None of that mattered any more. They were married now, both of them lost to me and Ben, and good riddance to the pair of them.
I couldn’t believe how calm I felt, how untouched. I looked down at my mug on the hearth. I should have been smashing it against the wall, shouldn’t I? Tearing my hair out in fistfuls and wailing like a banshee, but what would have been the point?
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I asked, wishing I’d known the full story all those weeks ago when he had seen fit to fill me in on the first instalment.
‘I had planned to, but the longer I left it, the harder it got. I found myself starting to like you again, Lizzie, and then, just when you were beginning to move on, you were hurt all over again as a result of those bloody mysterious phone calls. I didn’t want to add to your pain so I kept my mouth shut.’
Was I supposed to feel grateful?
‘And I presume this explains the whole hating me phase and making my first few days back here as awkward as arse, does it?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stop thinking that if you hadn’t fallen for Giles then Natasha would never have come looking for him. I got it all a bit twisted in my head and I saw you as the villain rather than the victim. I’m sorry, Lizzie, but when you arrived back at Jemma and Tom’s it tipped me back over the edge. I thought it would be OK, but it wasn’t. The sight of you and the thought of them brought it all back again.’
At last everything was explained and the jumbled puzzle pieces finally slid smoothly into place. I collected my mug from the hearth, took it to the kitchen and rinsed it out. There had been nothing but conflict and crossed wires associated with every aspect of my relationship with Ben Fletcher and it had always been like that, even at school. It was time to draw a line.
It was up to me to be the bigger person here, forgive Ben for his anger and suggest it was time we both moved on with our lives. After all, I couldn’t deny that it was me who had chosen not to break it off with Giles when I discovered he was engaged. But then another more disturbing thought occurred to me.
‘Did Jemma and Tom know about all of this?’ I stammered, rushing back to the sofa, my
bottom lip threatening to betray me. ‘Did they know that Natasha was the girl who had broken your heart?’
Ben didn’t say anything. He ran his hands through his hair and stared at the carpet. At least now I understood what Jemma had meant by ‘baggage’. I couldn’t believe she and Tom had kept this from me. Not only had Jemma, my oldest friend, believed Jay about the City Crafting Café, she had also kept me in the dark about Ben’s biggest secret, even though she knew how much I liked him. Suddenly it felt as though I didn’t have a friend left in the world.
Chapter 25
‘I won’t be gone long,’ I called to Mum as she saw me off at the train station. ‘Give my love to Dad and promise you’ll look after each other!’
‘You are sure this is what you want, aren’t you?’ Mum shouted. ‘You aren’t just going because you’re cross?’
I shook my head and smiled.
‘No,’ I called back, ‘this is the right thing to do. I just needed a little nudge to help me find my courage,’ I reassured her. ‘I finally know what it is that I want!’
I waved and smiled, forcing myself to watch until Mum’s silhouette on the platform became nothing more than a distant speck. Only then, I told myself, could I cry; only then, with Wynbridge behind me, would I give in to my turbulent emotions, but the funny thing was I didn’t feel like crying any more.
Anger had stamped all over the shock of what had happened during the last few days and now I felt determined to embrace the opportunity that I had finally found the nerve to grab. I may have been leaving the Cherry Tree behind but I knew that had I not lived there, had I not tried out my little business, then I wouldn’t be sitting on a train, poised to supersize my dreams. My time at the Café had been an essential part of my journey but now life’s path had turned another corner and I was pushing on to see what lay ahead.
Deborah had been delighted when I phoned and said I wanted to meet and discuss the sale in more detail. In her enthusiasm to make sure I was the one who took over the reins she had even offered me a gradual buy-out option; half now and the rest in two years’ time. Now I couldn’t even use my fear of funding the project as a reason not to try to secure it.
