‘I just feel bad for her.’ Ruby’s voice was dull and unaffected. ‘That’s all.’
Chelsea was not convinced, but said nothing.
‘I need you to do this, Chels. It’s the right thing to do.’
‘What happened to me was nothing compared to what happened to her, not much worse than getting groped at the pub or –’
‘You know that’s not true,’ Ruby said shortly. ‘Don’t bullshit.’
‘I can’t do it. I just can’t. It’s done now. I want it to be done,’ Chelsea shook her head and walked through to the front door, holding it open. ‘Go home, Ruby.’
Chapter Eight
Chelsea had stumbled through the rest of the evening tight-lipped and tired, feeling the pointlessness of it all. These rich people sitting around with their expensive wine and expensive clothes, talking about bonuses and holidays in the south of France, and how the political climate was not prioritising them enough. Chelsea wanted to be sick about it all, really. The more they spoke, the more she felt a spike of hatred, sitting like a shard in her stomach, getting bigger with every mention of caviar and sports cars.
It was too much, and Chelsea couldn’t help but think of all the times they’d had tinned ravioli for dinner, and even for that, she’d had to scrape around for change down the back of the sofa to get enough. The times her mum hadn’t paid the meter and they’d had to curl up under the blankets together, her and Ty, shivering whilst she tried to make it into an adventure, pretending that they were camping in the forest on the way to some magical land. One where there was enough food and warm beds, always.
Jemima’s laugh had grated on her all evening too, loud and hysterical, usually in response to something snarky and obnoxious that Eric had said, claiming it was a joke, and usually in her direction.
‘Oh, looks like Miss Chelsea’s too eager to wait for her wine to be topped up! You know they do that for you, darling?’
‘Oh, right, Chelsea, do you want to weigh in on this, I’ve never been in a Primark, I assume you have?’
‘Chelsea, what do you think, Bugatti or Aston Martin? You have heard of those, right? They’re expensive cars.’
The man was vile and she had to stop herself from snarling whenever he spoke. Even the way he said her name, Chal-seh, was making her clench her fists until her nails made little crescent moons in her palms.
Kit hadn’t even noticed, laughing along, stroking her shoulder and chatting about the history of one car versus another, that spot in Nice where they’d had those excellent margaritas and met that gorgeous waitress who spoke no English. His voice had changed, it became sharper, the vowels were longer. A voice she didn’t recognise. Only his laugh stayed the same, but this time, it always seemed to be at her expense.
Only one thought kept circling in her mind, how can you marry someone when you’ve never met their family? And she was sure, if Kit was meeting her family for the first time, he’d probably think exactly the same thing she was right now: who are these awful people, and how can I get away?
Eventually, she yawned gently and snuggled into Kit’s shoulder, playing the part of the loyal and ever-supportive partner. ‘Baby? I’m worn out, I’ll get a cab back to the house, but you should stay, enjoy your time with your family.’
‘Oh come on, Chels, don’t let the team down! I thought you working girls were meant to be big drinkers!’ Eric raised an eyebrow, holding up a whisky in her honour.
‘I’m not even going to ask what you meant by working girl there, Eric,’ she smiled, teeth clenched, ‘I’m sure you meant to say “those terribly important women who have bigger offices than I do”. And normally yes, but I’m on holiday, I’m not here to drink someone under the table over a merger or an acquisition. So, it’s been lovely, but arrivederci,’ she smiled, saluting him.
Kit looked at her, concern edged with just the slightest hint of irritation, something in his eyes was saying, we’re having a nice time here, why aren’t you trying hard enough?
‘You sure you want to leave Kit on his own, Chelsea darling?’ Eric snorted, ‘there’s a very pretty waitress hanging around, you know what he’s like.’
‘Apparently, I don’t,’ Chelsea said simply, staring Eric down. ‘Why don’t you enlighten me?’
Eric threw his head back and laughed, loud and obnoxious. ‘Oh, darling do learn to take a joke! Why so serious?’
‘Chels, he’s just being silly.’ Kit squeezed her hand, shaking his head. ‘I won’t be too late.’
Chelsea held herself back from answering, just shaking her head and pressing her lips together in frustration as she turned to leave, finding herself wobbling a bit as she navigated the stone flooring of the patio in her heels.
‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ Celia said from behind her, unfurling from the chair and stretching. Chelsea watched as Celia’s hand rested on Kit’s shoulder briefly, as if letting him know she was looking after Chelsea. Something about that was strangely comforting and irritating at the same time.
Celia smiled at her, those wide grey eyes gentle with sleep as she slipped her hand through the crook of Chelsea’s arm. ‘Come on, Marco will find us a taxi.’
The goodbyes echoed as they walked through the restaurant, and it was only when they stood out in the cobbled street in the darkness, a few tourists walking hand in hand in the distance, did Chelsea feel like she could breathe. She took deep, luxurious breaths, filling her lungs with the darkness that surrounded them, tuning in to the sounds of far-off laughter, the clink of glasses, the soft breeze that rattled pebbles on the streets. It was still warm, but the sticky heaviness of the evening had subsided, and she pulled her pashmina around her shoulders.
‘So, we wait here for a taxi?’ she asked Celia who was sat on a stone bench a little way down from the restaurant. She walked over and sat next to her.
‘Probably safer,’ Celia said, pointing at her shoes. ‘Normally I’d say walk to one of the ranks in town, but you’ll get your heel stuck in the road somewhere. Heels stop you escaping.’
Chelsea nodded at the intense teenager, who was looking through her bag carefully, producing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She offered the packet to Chelsea, who shook her head.
‘Your brother says it’s uncouth.’
‘He can talk, he used to smoke.’ Celia shook her head, lighting up and taking a deep breath, sighing out smoke.
‘He did?’
‘Yeah, all the way through uni. And he gives you shit about it? What a hypocrite.’ The young girl shook her head.
‘How did I not know that?’ Chelsea said, skimming through her memories to see if there was anything there. Was it something he’d mentioned when they first dated, and then never brought up again? But surely, not knowing some tiny part of someone’s life years ago, that didn’t matter, really? Not knowing your partner smoked years ago, or that they shagged anything that moved, or that they’d gambled away more than your monthly salary in half an hour, none of these things stopped you marrying this person, did they?
‘You’ve got a weird look on your face.’ Celia frowned, holding out the cigarette packet again. ‘You’re sure?’
Chelsea broke, hating herself, holding out her hand for the pack and the lighter. ‘Don’t tell Kit.’
‘Well, duh.’
‘It’s a gross, dirty habit,’ Chelsea said simply, lighting up and sighing a little as she exhaled. ‘Oh god.’
‘I’m pretty sure a month with my family would have you on prescription medication, so I’d say a little nicotine is hardly cause for concern.’ Celia rolled her eyes and pulled up her legs so that her chin rested on her knees, her long blonde hair falling around her like a cloak.
‘You’re strange for a seventeen-year-old.’ Chelsea shook her head. ‘You seem so innocent and then you have these depths that suggest otherwise.’
‘What were you like at seventeen then? Straight As and never doing anything wrong?’
Chelsea snorted, laughing to herself. ‘Hardly. I was a
bad girl, through and through. I didn’t care about grades or school, or what anybody thought.’
‘So what did you care about? Boys?’ Celia’s voice was laced with judgement.
‘No, I cared about getting out of the shitty little town I was from,’ Chelsea said, ‘and my friends. I cared about my friends.’
They sat in silence for a few moments.
‘Kit says you knew Ruby Tuesday.’
The unsaid question hung in the air, and there was a sense of pride there, just for a moment, yes I did, I did know this amazing person. Chelsea rolled her eyes at herself, her own need to be important, to be a harbinger of Ruby’s stories.
‘What did you want to know?’
Celia bit her lip. ‘Do you think you’d still be friends now? If she was alive? Mum says no one stays friends with the people they grow up with. That I’ll go off to uni and make new friends, the friends that will be the kind of people I’ll grow up with.’
Chelsea leaned back against the bench and looked up at the sky, a scattering of lights against a dark velvet.
‘My friends at seventeen were the only people who knew the real me, who knew the things who made me who I was,’ Chelsea shrugged, taking a toke on the cigarette again. ‘And I wanted to forget who that person was, I wanted to start fresh, be a new person at university. So I left them all behind and never looked back.’
A few seconds passed in silence, Celia turning to her in irritation. ‘Is that the end of that story?’
Chelsea snorted. ‘No. I thought it was. I went away, became the new, better version of me, and I thought I had friends. I had people I went to yoga with, and went for after work drinks with, and went shopping with. But suddenly I meet up with those friends I had when I was a kid, and even though I’m not the same, and they’re not the same, we know each other. I have no idea how, but we do. And if Ruby wasn’t dead, if she’d reached out to us when we were alive, maybe she’d be part of it too.’
‘So you’re saying, the friends I have now are my real friends?’ Celia frowned, stubbing out the cigarette on the side of the stone bench, and putting the butt back in the packet. Chelsea smiled at the thoughtfulness of it, trying to imagine her brother doing something like that, and shook her head.
‘I’m saying, you get to decide who your friends are, but it takes work. Like any relationship. You leave something for ten years and it gets covered in cobwebs. Takes a while to get it looking shiny again.’
‘And Ruby at seventeen? Did she always seem like she was going to be famous?’ Celia stood, nodding at the waiter who poked his head out of the door and gestured at the car trundling down the narrow street.
‘She was Ruby. She seemed like she was going to be whatever the hell she set her mind on,’ Chelsea laughed, stepping out to get into the taxi.
***
‘Something’s different with you,’ Mollie said suddenly, pausing as she put on her lipstick in the mirror, their eyes meeting in the reflection. Chelsea frowned.
‘You mean me being patient whilst you take forever to make yourself look naturally pretty? Yeah, that is different.’
Mollie turned, her long blonde curls swinging behind her so that she looked like an aggravated doll. Mollie always looked gentle, there was no way around it. She didn’t really do angry. At least, not up front.
‘I mean, smartarse, that last week you’re talking about getting a job in New Look in Milton Keynes, so you can save some money and figure out what you want to do, and this week, you’ve decided you’re going to the most difficult uni in the country and you’re not taking no for an answer.’
Mollie’s hand was on her hip and she tilted her head to the side. Downstairs, Chelsea could hear her mum blasting the radio, the bass of the reggae music suddenly tinny as her mother squealed and laughed.
‘What, I don’t deserve to go to uni, Molls? I’m just as smart as you and Evie.’
‘No, you’re smarter,’ Mollie said staunchly, ‘but you never even considered it. “People like me don’t go to uni”, that’s what you said.’
Chelsea had said that, she’d said it a hundred times, to the teachers who tried to get her to apply herself, to the guidance counsellors, to her friends. She wasn’t that sort of person.
‘And it’s not just that.’ Mollie sat on the bed and faced her friend. ‘Look at yourself.’
Chelsea looked down. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, nothing surprising or strange.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with it. But you’re Chelsea Donnolly and it’s Saturday night. Until a few weeks ago you’d be in a sparkly, strappy dress, those huge earrings and that dark eyeliner. You’ve stopped dressing like you.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to be like the old me.’
Mollie frowned, not really sure what to say or do to coax Chelsea from her shell. She knew Ruby knew, whatever it was that had changed Chelsea so dramatically. The reason she carefully nursed one beer at a party and didn’t put it down all night. The reason she suddenly covered any traces of skin, anything that might say she was ‘up for it’. Ruby knew that Chelsea wasn’t the same any more, but she wouldn’t say why. She was good like that, loyal. An excellent secret keeper.
‘Whatever’s changed, I’m just trying to be here for you,’ Mollie shrugged, turning back to the mirror and picking at her eyelashes, separating them with a fingertip.
‘I know.’ Chelsea’s voice was gentle, she didn’t look up. ‘But I need you to be here for me without knowing why.’
Mollie smiled. ‘I can do that.’
They sat in silence, side by side on the bed as the sound from downstairs vibrated through the floorboards.
‘We’re gonna make it, you know,’ Mollie said suddenly, ‘and I’m going to see you and Eves and Ruby and Jamie, when I’m performing my standing ovation at the Lyceum, and you’re going to be in the front row. And you’re going to be wearing something fabulous, working some big city job. You’ll have this gorgeous man on your arm, and he’ll come meet you after the show –’
‘– why isn’t he there supporting you too?’
‘– well maybe he’s got a late meeting in the city –’ Mollie rolled her eyes.
‘– I wouldn’t date someone who didn’t support my friends.’
‘Urgh! Fine! So your imaginary perfect boyfriend is ALSO at the theatre,’ Mollie huffed, ‘can I continue my story? So after the show we’ll go and eat pizza and talk about what we’re going to do at the arts centre that week, what dance you’ll show the kids or what play we’re going to put on, or what gig Ruby wants to throw and terrify the neighbours. And we’ll drink nice wine and laugh and think to ourselves “we did it”, you know?’
Chelsea felt her bottom lip tremble a little at the dreamy determination in Mollie’s voice.
‘Sounds like it’s going to be a busy life,’ she said dryly.
‘Has to, babe. Making up for lost time. We’ve spent this long living in quicksand.’
***
Kit had stumbled in drunk and cuddly at some ridiculous hour of the morning, and was now snoring like a speeding train: unavoidable and fucking irritating.
Chelsea crept out of bed and down to the kitchens where she saw Alfie and Tegan laughing as he taught her how to fold the pastries for breakfast. Chelsea watched from the door as they worked quietly, their hands near each other’s, their eyes not quite meeting. She retreated from the doorway, hoping that at least someone in this house had an honest relationship.
Taking solace in the fact that no one else was up, Chelsea took a quick dip in the pool, swimming lengths seamlessly. She’d been a great swimmer as a kid. They’d wanted her to take part in the regional competitions, and that was when she’d stopped. She couldn’t even remember why now. Probably just being stubborn. The minute someone wanted her to do something, she probably didn’t want to do it any more.
She dipped her head underwater. The slight chill of the pool before it had been warmed by the sun was refreshing, and s
he felt her lungs burn as she pushed herself for one more lap…two…three. The remnants of that cigarette last night sat on her chest, rattling around and she regretted her lapse. She’d been so good these last few months. But like Celia said, if anyone could drive someone to drugs of any kind, it was this family. And the next time Kit mentioned how gross smoking was, she was going to have some choice words about being a hypocrite…
Chelsea stopped to take a breather at the edge of the pool, staring out at the view in the distance, the ancient mountains arching over a vibrant blue lake, dark green trees dotted across the landscape.
Her family were no better. If anything, if Kieran was involved, things were about to become a lot worse. The ex-con dad, the gangster stepdad and the benefit-hoarding mother. Oh, and the three siblings from three different fathers. Yep, she was a catch.
‘Well, look who’s an early bird,’ Eric’s voice drawled behind her, and Chelsea tried not to clench her fists.
‘Yep, well, I had an earlier night than most of you,’ she trilled lightly, pulling herself from the pool and grabbing her towel from the deckchair. Eric’s eyes assessed her body as she assumed a plastic surgeon would consider his blank canvas; looking for flaws and space for improvements. She wrapped the towel around herself and met his gaze blankly.
The man had a jaw she just wanted to punch. It jutted out in a way that seemed to scream arrogance and his hair was gelled back obnoxiously. He was only missing a silk flowered neckerchief and an Armani suit and she’d see his city boy demeanour more clearly. Annoyingly, in his white short sleeve shirt and board shorts, he was almost incognito. Except the smug grin. The look of the moneyed.
‘Well, I don’t know about that, love, from the sounds you two were making last night, I imagine my brother kept you up a while longer.’
Chelsea raised an eyebrow, not giving Eric the satisfaction of a rise.
‘Wasn’t me, babe, I was out like a light. Must have been your parents. I’ve heard how Jem Jem gets after a few too many Chardonnays…’ Chelsea floated away, waving delicately. ‘I better get dried off, enjoy your swim!’
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