‘Course she wants us there! We are her family. She can’t get married without us being there!’ Ellen tutted.
Vivienne closed her eyes; it was a little easier to talk with her eyes shut and with her friend at a distance. ‘I just want to check she’s not making a mistake, rushing into something she might regret. This isn’t like dyeing her hair or ditching her job, this is getting married, it’s serious and not something she should be taking lightly.’
‘The invites are out, Viv. This is happening. And just because you got hurt, doesn’t mean that she will.’
‘Different when we got hitched though, wasn’t it? It was so exciting, the planning, the buzz – we got right caught up in it, didn’t we?’ She remembered the excited bubble in her stomach that made sleep impossible.
‘We did, love. But we didn’t know what Ray was like, did we? Didn’t know he was a player, and a liar.’
‘I sometimes wonder…’ She paused.
‘What?’
‘I sometimes wonder what I’d have done if my mum had voiced her fears, told me that she didn’t like the look of him, like she did after he’d left.’
‘You wouldn’t have believed her, Viv. You were smitten. For her to wade in with any opinion, either way, would have caused problems between you and your mum and she was wise enough to know that. I miss your mum.’
‘Me too.’ She smiled, looking at the picture on the wall of her parents in their finery on their wedding day. ‘And I suppose you are right. But God knows who this Michael McKinley is, probably another musician waiting for his big break, or a writer halfway through the next great novel.’
‘She has a type, that’s for sure.’ Ellen laughed.
‘Yeah, but not a type that will give her stability or all the things I want her to have. That’s my fear.’
‘You old snob! Are you saying you want her to marry money?’
‘No! Of course not. You know me better than that.’ Vivienne sighed at the very suggestion and looked around the narrow hallway of their family home. It was hardly a palace. ‘I would just like her to marry a man with a direction, a profession, something reliable, like a mechanic, so that her life can be steady. Is that too much to ask?’
‘Oh, love, if only it was that easy. And what do you mean like a mechanic, we’re not back on Shaun Lewis are we?’
‘No!’ she fired, ‘I just want her to put down roots and have a more settled life and I think there’s no better place to put down roots than where you come from.’
‘I know love, but look at Robbie, he had a good job up at Babcock’s, cosy home, and a lovely kid and jacked it all in for a newer, shinier life with a Sharon lookalike! I told him the grass isn’t always greener, sometimes you climb over the wall and land in a massive cowpat, but he wouldn’t listen. Now, I can’t say he’s regretful exactly, and I only want things to work out for him of course, but I can tell the gloss has already lifted. A screaming new baby in a rented house gives you the same feeling at three in the morning no matter how much fun you had getting there. What’ll he do? Move on again? I sincerely hope not. It worries the life out of me. But the point is we can’t choose for our kids, we can only steer them out of harm’s way, set them back on course if and when we need to.’
Both women were quiet, mulling over the truth of this. Then Ellen spoke calmly, ‘Emma is carving her own path and all you can do is be there for her when she needs you. That’s our job, remember? God knows, I wish Robbie had listened to me, but he didn’t. Just like you wouldn’t have listened to your mum, God rest her soul.’
‘I don’t know.’ This was Vivienne’s stock response when she needed to clarify her thoughts.
‘See you in a bit,’ Ellen sang.
‘Yep.’
They never said goodbye. There was simply no point in being so final and formal, not when they knew they would chat or see each other again very soon.
Vivienne ran her hands over Bob’s shiny flank, admiring his tawny, black and white markings. She smiled at him as her thoughts wandered to the enigmatic Michael McKinley and then inevitably to her own ill-fated marriage. Ellen was right really, she had no say when it came to Emma, but that didn’t stop her worrying.
She didn’t often think of Ray, not nowadays. The devastating hurt that followed the ending of their short union had all but healed over, or was at least buried under memories from the many intervening years. Today, however, with the topic now forced back to the surface, like a stubborn, spiky weed that grew through the cracks, she considered the way he had treated her, spoken to her and how she’d responded.
The pattern had been set in the first year of their marriage when she would tiptoe around her giant of a man, trying to please him, grateful for the crumbs of love that he tossed her way. Thinking, hoping, that if she loved him enough, he might one day feel the same. It was hard for her: she had always been treasured, had spent her childhood in a cocoon of care and protection, within the bosom of a close-knit family with her parents and gran at the heart, and it was as if her mind refused to understand that this man was different. He was her husband and yet he was not going to care for her in the way she was used to, was not going to love her unconditionally or treat her with absolute kindness, despite what he had promised. And by the time she did realise this, fully understanding just what she had got herself into, it was too late: Aaron was a baby and Emma was on the way.
She could pin down the moment her life had changed to a single moment – ten o’clock on a Saturday night in winter. It had been one of those evenings with a lot of build-up. She had bought a new top from Eastville Market, a royal-blue off-the-shoulder fitted sweater with three-quarter-length sleeves and a wide elasticated hem to show off her little waist and her pert bust. She spent an age putting on her make-up, applying the heavy black kohl that weighed down her eyelids but gave her a look that was pure Sheena Easton. Her fringe was backcombed and sprayed in an attempt to achieve some height.
When she left her parents’ house in Mendip Road that evening, tottering along the uneven pavement in her red court shoes, she knew she looked as good as she could – not model perfect but good enough to boost her confidence, a rare thing for her.
‘Where you off, Viv?’ her dad called, sitting in the chair that used to be his dad’s, while his wife and mum washed up the tea things.
‘Oh, I’m going up to Clifton, meeting that David Bowie for me tea.’
‘Well have a lovely evening, darlin’, and be careful. Might turn cold later. Get Dave to drop you back to the front door.’ Her dad winked, adjusting his pipe in the side of his mouth and crossing his slippered feet at the ankles.
‘Where do you think I’m going?’ she scoffed. ‘Up the pub!’
‘Might join you in a bit if I can drag your mum away from Bergerac.’
‘Might see you later then.’
Her dad never made it to the Rising Sun on Windmill Hill, so instead she chatted to her cousin Ronnie, who worked behind the bar, his girlfriend Tina and of course Ellen, who was, as ever, on fine form, larking around with beer mats, balancing them on her head and dancing to Haircut One Hundred on the jukebox. The whole evening fell short of fabulous; apart from a wolf whistle from old Ted, who played the piano when he was sloshed, no one had paid her any attention.
Vivienne didn’t know what she expected from these nights at their regular, but it was always more than she actually got. She’d routinely wander back home with Ellen on her arm, stopping for a bag of chips on the way, which she’d eat with her fingers, dipping them in ketchup and scoffing them quickly before reaching her front door. As she lay in the room she had slept in since she was a child, there’d be a new layer of disappointment sitting on top of the others, a tang of dissatisfaction in her mouth and a yearning she couldn’t quite explain swirling in her stomach. Her eyes would wander to the heap of discarded clothes on her bedroom carpet and she would regret spending so much on a night out that had ended in this familiar fashion. She figured that if you cut her down the middle,
she’d be like a trifle, with all her hopes, fears and dreams buffered by a big marshmallowy pillow of disillusionment, layered right there for all to see.
On this particular evening, Ronnie was collecting glasses and Tina and Ellen were mucking about, with Ellen trying to catch a glacé cherry in her mouth, lobbed over the back of Tina’s head. They didn’t manage it, but Ellen screamed and squawked as if they had. Vivienne decided to call it a night. She gathered her bag and slid out of the sticky wooden booth that had been their home for the evening, and when she looked up, there he was.
He stared at her and didn’t speak. Her eyes travelled up the hulk of a man, his stature only emphasised by the diminutive build of his mate, Trev. His oversized cotton jacket, rolled up at the sleeves over his white T-shirt, and his acid-washed jeans, turned up to above the ankle, made him look very Miami Vice. He was cocky, confident and good-looking, with the tan of a man who worked outside, and he was standing in such close proximity. It made her legs shake with a mixture of desire and something close to fear. His eyes were bright blue, piercing, as if they could see inside her, read her thoughts. And there he stayed, hovering inches from her, silent and staring.
It created an unbelievable, intoxicating tension. Vivienne felt her heart race and was about to walk out, make her way home, when he placed his hand around the top of her arm. His large fingers encircled her narrow bicep with ease, holding her fast. His face broke into a huge grin; his teeth were straight and very white. ‘Film-star gnashers,’ her nan would have said.
He had a Bristol accent like hers. ‘Hello.’ He smiled. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked.
‘No, some monster’s got me arm though.’ She held his eye with more confidence than she felt inside as her stomach jumped with nerves.
‘Gobby for a little bird, aren’t you?’
‘You all right, Viv?’ Ellen hollered, looking out for her friend, as ever. ‘Want me to come over there?’
He ignored her, one of the only people Vivienne had ever met that did so.
She lifted her chin, trying to look taller than she was and braver than she felt.
He bent his head towards her and whispered in her ear, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve been waiting for me?’ She screwed her face up as her heart pounded.
He smiled and studied her. ‘I mean, I’ve been waiting for someone like you. And here you are.’
Her cheeks flushed red and her legs swayed. She felt as if she was drunk, and it certainly wasn’t down to the two warm, flat Coca-Colas she’d sipped that evening. She didn’t know exactly what was happening, but she knew it was something big.
Over the next two days, excitement bubbled in her blood, making sleeping or eating impossible. She planned every aspect of her clothes, make-up and accessories, in case their paths should cross, and by that time she knew, without a doubt, that it was love.
And when, a week later, after double-dating with Ellen and Trev, he lifted her clean off the pavement, held her up in the cold night air and told her he would love her until the day he died and that no one – no one – would ever lay a finger on her because he was her knight, her king, her lover, she believed him. It felt like a fairy tale. It was a bloody fairy tale, if by fairy tale you mean a load of made-up rubbish. She smiled to herself.
Bob barked, pulling her from her memories. ‘What’s up, mate? Fancy a drink of water?’ She stood and patted his muzzle as they made their way into the kitchen. The ghosts of her past were strangely present today.
Hesitating in the doorway, she remembered the horrible morning when it had all come crashing to an end. She pictured trying to keep it together for the kids’ sake, as she walked into this kitchen, which was then still very much her mum’s domain. She had an icy feeling of rejection sitting in the pit of her stomach. The truth was, she had never felt truly warm since. Aaron had run into the front room and was playing with his toy car on the rug and Emma stood close to her mum with her small hand sitting trustingly in hers. The single suitcase, all Vivienne had been able to carry, was in the hallway, sitting forlornly on the cold tiles. It held the kids’ clothes, a couple of toys, and the brush-and-comb set with the mother-of-pearl backs that had been her great-grandma’s. He could have the rest, if and when he came back.
‘He said he was going for Chinese food about sevenish, but he didn’t come home.’
‘Maybe there was a queue?’ her mum had joked.
‘No, Mum. He’s left. He was never at the Chinese. I’ve asked all over. He’s run off with a woman he knows from Eastville Market. Don’t know much about her, apart from her name – Suzanne – and that’s it, they’ve gone.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘What?’ She looked up at her mum.
‘Just wondered if you were hungry, love, being as he never came back with your tea and everything?’
Her mum’s attempt at cheering her up had only made her cry even harder, until the tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I’m not hungry, Mum, but we could do with a place to stay. I can’t pay the rent on the flat without Ray.’ She sobbed; saying the words out loud had made it more real. ‘And I don’t want to be there when he comes to collect his stuff, don’t want the row or the chat, none of it. It’s been on the cards for a while.’
Her mum had swept her up into a warm embrace.
‘You never have to ask – this is your home! Always has been, always will be.’ She kissed her. ‘How do you know he’s run off with this Suzanne?’
Vivienne shrugged free of her grip. ‘It was common knowledge, apparently. Everyone knew apart from me and Elle.’
‘Did Trev not tell her?’ her mum asked, knowing that he and Ray were thick as thieves.
She shook her head. ‘No, he was worried she’d kill him.’ She managed a smile at the idea of her friend defending her to this degree.
Her mum straightened. ‘Reckon he might be right.’ She dusted down her pinny and turned to her child. ‘Go hang your stuff up and wash your face while me and Emma put the kettle on and make Aaron some breakfast.’ She winked.
‘What do you fancy Little Em? Egg on toast?’
The little girl had nodded and slipped her hand from her mum’s, eager to go and help her nan.
And, just like that, Vivienne had returned home. She was back sleeping where she’d spent her whole life until Ray had carried her off with the lure of a two-bed flat and a view over St Mary Redcliffe church to the right and the docks to the left. He’d promised her an adventure and it had certainly felt like one, her heart regularly pounding with fear and expectation, until that last night when she’d realised the adventure was over and it was time to go home.
But even now, nearly thirty years later, Vivienne – who was in her fifties, had buried her parents, raised her children, worked hard and battled on, and hadn’t seen Ray Lane since the night he walked out – still felt married, still sported the thin, worn, gold band on her left hand that she felt gave her status. That little ring had acted as a comfort and a deterrent over the years. Funny how something so small could retain so much power and meaning for her, when for the man who gave it to her it had absolutely none.
It was bed-linen day. She had got behind in her routine, owing to the distraction of the invitation. Vivienne stripped her bed and bundled the sheets and duvet cover into the machine before taking the dog-lead from the coat hook on the hallstand. At the sound of its familiar rattle, Bob duly left his comfy basket by the radiator and plodded into the hallway. There was none of the exuberance, darting about and heavy breathing of his earlier walk; he simply bowed his head ready to receive his harness. He knew the drill by now.
‘Quick walk, eh, Bob? Then home to put the dryer on.’ She smiled at her companion, wondering what she would do if he actually replied one day and what he might sound like.
The cold weather meant that clumps of snow remained around the edges of the pavement and sat in a dark sludge under the wheel arches of less frequently used cars. There was stil
l a nip in the air and an almost invisible mist, as if the memory of the last flurry still lingered. Vivienne pulled Bob towards her calf and picked up the pace, as they made their way down the steep curve of Cotswold Road and took a sharp left into the green space of St John’s Burial Ground. It was a cut-through to the main road, a patch of lush grass and mature trees with the narrow, meandering Malago trickling along its border and a cycle path bisecting it. Roughly a couple of acres in size, it was a little oasis in the middle of the city, a wasteland where drunks lolled, the homeless slept, kids loitered and lovers kissed fervently on the benches until shoved off or scared away by the regulars.
Vivienne unclipped the lead and let Bob explore. He sniffed at the undergrowth and rummaged in the long grass, hoping for a discovery despite knowing every inch of the space. There was never much variety in what he found: discarded cider tins, chip wrappers, the charcoal embers of measly fires and the waste of fellow canines whose humans were too lazy to bend down and scoop on their behalf. He kept her in view. She wasn’t sure who was minding whom. He was a faithful friend.
‘There you are!’
Ellen suddenly appeared behind her.
‘Good Lord, you made me jump.’ Vivienne placed her palm on her chest, trying to still her racing heart.
‘I couldn’t find you. I tried the house and you weren’t there,’ Ellen said accusingly. ‘If you’re going out, text me or leave a note, or at least take your phone – save me the walk. Do you think I want to run all over looking for you?’
‘Sorry, Mum.’ Vivienne shook her head.
Ellen linked her arm through her friend’s and pulled her towards the wooden bench at the side of the path, the one with some slats missing and black felt-tipped love hearts with scrawled initials covering almost every inch of it. Their particular favourite was one that had appeared a couple of months ago. It read: Marlon & Tracy 4 Ever. But only weeks later, Tracy had been scored through and replaced with Emily. It made them laugh.
‘Poor Tracy,’ Vivienne had commented. ‘In fact, poor Emily, if this is the rate he gets through his beloveds.’
I Won't Be Home For Christmas Page 4
