Truth Hurts

by Rebecca Reid

  Jim crossed the kitchen and, to Caroline’s surprise, wrapped his arms around her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I know I don’t always get these things. I know you wish I did.’

  Caroline relaxed her body, letting her head rest on his chest. He was so comfortingly, wonderfully solid. Over six feet, with a sturdy trunk. Muscle, covered with fat but still muscle. He would swing the kids around, one on each arm, while they screamed with laughter. Sleeping next to his heavy warmth every night, knowing he was always there, silent and still, was one of the great joys of her life. She shouldn’t be so impatient with him.

  ‘I know it’s hard for you. Thanks for trying,’ Caroline said.

  It had been months since he’d had a proper bad patch. Their counsellor had told Caroline that she had to learn to relax into this new status quo, that things wouldn’t go back to the way that they used to be. To believe that things were going to be OK.

  ‘We don’t have to ask her,’ she said into his chest. ‘I just thought it might be friendly.’ She felt Jim drop a kiss on top of her head.

  ‘Of course we should ask her,’ he said, as if it had been his idea from the very beginning.

  CHAPTER 12

  On Sunday morning Poppy woke to find the other side of the bed empty. Drew was already dressed, sitting on a velvet chair in the corner of the room with an espresso cup in his hand.

  ‘Good morning,’ she sighed, twisting her body into a delicious stretch.

  ‘Good morning.’ Drew smiled, folding the paper down. ‘What shall we do today? Last day before I have to abandon you for work, worst luck.’

  ‘Let’s go into the village.’

  ‘What village?’ he asked.

  ‘Linfield, duh.’

  ‘Why would we go into Linfield?’

  ‘Because it’s where we live?’ said Poppy, getting out of bed and pulling on a dressing gown. ‘And I want to see it.’

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ said Drew. ‘I’ve been down there before. Post office, bloody great war memorial and the kind of village shop that’s only open six hours a week.’

  Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘Well, if there’s nothing there then it won’t take us very long to see, will it?’

  ‘We could go into Bath. Or …’ he said, running his hands over the silky fabric of her dressing gown, ‘we could just spend the day in bed. Seems like a good use of my last day of freedom.’

  ‘Nice try,’ she said, pulling away. ‘We can go back to bed after we go to the village. Stop being a snob.’

  ‘I’m not a snob,’ he called to Poppy’s turned back.

  If Drew was annoyed about Poppy winning the argument, about coming to the village, he hid it well. They parked on a slab of tarmac at the top of Linfield Hill. It overlooked a couple of broken swings and a dirty slide.

  ‘Enjoying the beautiful view?’ asked Drew.

  ‘See? Snob,’ she replied, searching the vista for something that might disprove Drew’s view that Linfield was shit. ‘Come on, there’s bound to be a pub on the High Street.’

  Drew bristled. Poppy was starting to realize that he didn’t do the word ‘no’. At least not when it came to her. It was like she was supposed to know what he wanted, or didn’t want. And she could feel from the way his forearms had tensed, from the lines between his eyebrows, that he didn’t want to go out in search of the local pub.

  ‘One drink,’ she said consolingly. ‘And then we can go home, or we can go somewhere else.’

  ‘There’s supposed to be a great place over in Beechbrook,’ he said. ‘Ralph was raving about it.’

  ‘We don’t want awards,’ said Poppy. ‘We want a local.’

  She pushed the door open and drank in the heavy scent of beer, bleach and fried food. A middle-aged woman in the far corner was wrapping metal cutlery in paper napkins. She glanced up and then went back to her work.

  It was impossible to tell what colour the carpet had been originally. Blue? Red? Decades of ash and booze had clearly settled into it, leaving a colour which had no name and the faintest trace of a diamond pattern. The pub was empty but for a couple of blokes at a table in the back, looking down into their pints.

  ‘I feel like I’m fourteen again,’ said Poppy. Drew raised his eyebrows disapprovingly. ‘Oh, you weren’t in the pub at fourteen?’ She was pushing her luck now, she knew that.

  ‘No,’ he replied, a little smile on his lips.

  ‘Did you prefer private wine tastings?’ It was becoming a little game. Every time Drew let her get away with a question she would take as much as she could and stash it away, building up a private little gallery of details about him in her head. It was impossible to predict what he would allow her to push and what would turn him silent. But maybe one day she would be able to predict it.

  To Poppy’s relief, Drew returned her grin. ‘Yes, as a teenager I mostly went on vineyard crawls.’ Poppy giggled.

  ‘What can I get you?’ asked the woman, putting her stack of cutlery on a table with a few bottles of ketchup and brown sauce. Poppy leant forward, putting her hands on the sticky counter.

  ‘Peroni, please,’ she said.

  ‘Two,’ said Drew. Their voices seemed to go dead in the padded quietness of the room, dulled by the overstuffed armchairs and ocean of sticky carpet.

  ‘Visiting for the day?’ asked the woman, pulling the glasses down from the shelf. She moved quickly, as if the bar was packed with customers braying for booze rather than one couple.

  ‘No,’ said Poppy. ‘We just moved here.’ The barmaid’s cleavage was hoisted by two white straps, visible under a black vest top. The straps made indents in her plump shoulders. Her red-black hair was scraped aggressively back from her face. She reminded Poppy of home.

  The woman behind the bar beamed. ‘Oh, you should have said! Welcome to the village. When did you move in?’ The beer crept up the long glass, a foamy white head forming at the top.

  ‘About a week ago,’ said Drew. Was she imagining it, or did he flinch? ‘How much do I owe you?’ He pulled his wallet from his jeans.

  ‘Drew!’ said Poppy, gently poking him in the side. ‘Sorry, my husband doesn’t do small talk, apparently. We moved in on the eighth.’

  ‘Settling in all right?’ asked the barmaid.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ said Poppy. ‘I love it. I’d been living in London for years.’

  ‘Bit of a change of pace.’ She chuckled. ‘I’ve been here twenty years, and by local standards that still makes me a newcomer. Whereabouts are you living?’

  ‘Thursday House,’ said Poppy, enjoying the words on her tongue, revelling in the newness of it. ‘Over on Croft Lane.’

  The woman’s face lost its brightness and she put both beers down unceremoniously on the counter. ‘Six pounds,’ she said.

  Poppy, confused, reached into her bag to find her purse, but Drew was quicker, handing over a ten-pound note. ‘Keep the change,’ he said, his voice flat. Before Poppy could offer to help, Drew had taken the drinks and was through the door. Looking back over her shoulder at the barmaid’s grim face, she followed him. Outside Drew found a bench, facing into the sun.

  Poppy sat down. ‘That was weird.’

  Drew squinted into the sun, patting his pockets for his sunglasses. ‘Mm,’ he replied. ‘That’s small towners for you.’

  ‘Are you still annoyed we didn’t go into Bath?’ she asked. Drew blinked, apparently surprised by the directness of her question.

  ‘Not at all.’ He took a long drink from the pint glass. A bead of condensation slipped down it like a tear. ‘Though,’ he added, ‘I’m not sure this place is going to be getting a Michelin star any time soon.’

  ‘It’s still so nice,’ she said, putting her feet up on the bench and leaning her weight on her hands. ‘I can’t believe summer’s nearly over.’

  ‘Indian summer, long may it last,’ Drew replied, tipping his face up to the sun. ‘Though I’m not sure if we’re still allowed to call it t
hat.’

  ‘Native American summer?’

  They sat in companionable silence, eyes closed under their sunglasses, enjoying the sun on their skin.

  The pub door swung open and out walked a man with a ruddy face. He was wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt and had the kind of pregnant stomach which only came from several decades of hard drinking.

  ‘All right?’ He smiled, dragging a match over the little box in his hand and lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Good, thanks,’ said Poppy. She felt his eyes on her bare legs and dropped them under the table, smoothing her skirt over her thighs.

  ‘Here for the weekend?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Poppy. ‘We just moved here.’

  He looked surprised. ‘Moved to Linfield?’

  ‘Just outside,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’ asked the man. ‘I’ve lived here my whole life; I know it like the back of my hand.’ He held up the front of his hand and Poppy dropped her gaze, wishing she hadn’t allowed this conversation to happen.

  ‘Croft Lane,’ said Drew. Poppy noticed that his glass was nearly empty, not much more than a cloud of white foam at the bottom. Hers was still almost full. She took a long drink from it.

  ‘Which house?’ asked the man. Was it Poppy’s imagination or had his tone changed?

  ‘Thursday House,’ she replied. Too late she saw Drew’s expression and realized he was willing her silently not to say the house’s name. The man with the red face picked up his glass from their table. He was close enough that Poppy could smell him: fresh and stale beer mixed together. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. He turned on his heel, walked back up the stone steps and slammed the door behind him, rattling the glass in the window and shaking the whole frame of the pub.

  ‘What was that about?’ she murmured. She looked down at their legs, parallel to each other. Drew’s tanned and hard, spread with blond hairs. Hers shorter and freckled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh come on.’ She turned to face him, holding her beer between two hands. ‘What do you mean “what”?’

  ‘That bloke?’

  ‘Yes, that bloke! Why didn’t you want me to tell him where we live? How did you know he was going to lose his shit?’

  Drew snorted. ‘Such an elegant turn of phrase.’

  ‘Seriously. What was that? Why does he hate us? And the barmaid.’

  Drew sighed and wound his arm around her. Not for the first time she revelled at the warmth that came from his body. ‘I thought this might happen.’

  ‘What might happen?’ Poppy was frustrated now.

  ‘Look.’ Drew sighed again. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. But when you’ve got certain things, when you live somewhere like we do, when you’re …’ He trailed off.

  ‘Rich,’ said Poppy.

  ‘For want of a better word, yes. People don’t always warm to you.’

  Poppy traced her finger down the outside of her glass. ‘You think he doesn’t like us because we live at Thursday House?’

  ‘These villages,’ said Drew, ‘they’ve got a way about them. If you live in the village you belong here. If you live in one of the big houses, you don’t. It’s a sort of “us and them” thing.’

  ‘“Us and them”,’ repeated Poppy slowly. ‘I’ve never been an “us” before.’

  Drew squeezed her a little. ‘That’s why I didn’t want us to come. I didn’t want you to be upset, to feel as if we’re not liked here.’

  ‘They really don’t like us because you’ve got money?’

  ‘We,’ he corrected her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t apologize. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just want you – need you – to realize that it’s our house. Our money. That’s what being married means.’

  Poppy nodded. ‘I know. At least, I know that’s how it is for normal people. But this isn’t exactly normal, is it?’

  ‘Who would want to be normal?’

  They laughed, and then Poppy’s phone started to buzz on the table, angrily loud against the wood. She looked down at the display and recognized the number instantly.

  ‘You’re not going to answer?’ asked Drew.

  Poppy shook her head. ‘It’s my mother.’ The screen went dark. ‘You must think I’m a complete bitch,’ she said, pulling at a strand of wood that had splintered off the table.

  ‘Why would I think that?’

  ‘Not wanting to speak to her.’

  ‘I’m sure you have your reasons.’

  ‘But with everything that happened to you – losing your family in the accident, growing up alone. It must seem so selfish not to want to talk to her.’

  Drew looked away. ‘Does she know that we’re married?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking down at a bead of blood on her finger. ‘I called her from Ibiza. Told her what we’d done.’

  ‘What we’d done,’ said Drew. ‘You make it sound like a crime.’

  ‘As far as she’s concerned …’ Poppy trailed off. ‘No family, no church. To her, that’s a crime.’

  Drew drank from his glass. ‘You didn’t tell me that you’d spoken to her.’

  ‘Should I have done?’

  Drew shrugged. ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d want me to tell you about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘All that stuff about the past not mattering, about just starting again together, and ignoring everything that came before …’

  ‘It’s supposed to free us up, allow us to not get bogged down in every bad relationship or terrible university haircut. Not cut you off from your family.’

  ‘You sound pissed off.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then why are you having a go at me?’

  ‘I didn’t think I was.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Poppy dropped her gaze. ‘I feel bad about avoiding my mum and I’m taking it out on you.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk to her. Just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you’re obliged to keep them in your life. I think sometimes you have to give up on the idea that someone is going to change.’

  Poppy nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying.

  The first time Poppy had been to Gina’s house she had felt like she was being punched in the stomach. Watching Gina’s siblings, nieces and cousins pile on top of her, hugging her. Seeing the adults ply her with food and tell her she was too thin. It was everything Poppy had read about in books, watched on TV and silently ached for. The love, the warmth, the noise. The solid safety of belonging to a unit. It was what she had searched for as a nanny, trying to insert herself into other people’s families.

  ‘You had a terrible university haircut?’ She smiled up at him, composing herself.

  ‘There are no surviving pictures.’

  ‘You’re so lucky you went to university before the internet was invented.’

  ‘It was invented, thank you very much.’

  She and Drew would have children soon. No more standing on the outside of other people’s families, trying to become a part of them. A proper family, the kind that no one could take away.

  CHAPTER 13

  Wednesday morning was bright, but cold.

  ‘Do you want pancakes?’ Poppy asked, hitching up the strap top of her pyjamas and opening the fridge to find the milk. Drew appeared from the hall, dressed in a shirt and trousers. He shook his head. ‘I have to be in London in a couple of hours.’ He looked tired.

  Poppy dropped her spatula. ‘Do you really have to go?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Drew. ‘I’m sorry. Have you seen my black shoes?’

  ‘You said you might be able to work from home some of the time? I was on my own yesterday, and Monday, and there’s still so much to do to get us properly moved in. And you’re going away all of the week after next.’ She couldn’t find the words to tell him the truth. That she hated
being alone here.

  Drew had found his shoes and was lacing them up. ‘Poppy, I’ve got to go to the station. I’ll be back later. I’m sorry. But I’ve told you, you need extra hands – hire someone.’

  ‘And I’ve told you,’ she replied, wishing she were wearing something more impressive than shorts and a vest top while trying to assert herself to her husband, ‘that I will. But I just haven’t yet. And I can’t get it all ready by myself. You did say you’d help. I don’t want to be—’ On my own here, she was going to say. She stopped herself, realizing it would sound mad.

  Drew picked up his bag. ‘Darling, I’d much rather stay here with you, but I have got to go.’ He kissed her forehead and disappeared through the kitchen door. Poppy stared at the space where he had stood.

  The silence of the house seemed to swallow her. Trying to pull herself together, she put the kitchen radio on, fiddling for a station she recognized. It hummed with static and crackle. Drew had had it on Radio 4 earlier without any problem. She played with the dial on the side of it, but the crackling didn’t stop. It was an old brown thing, left behind by the previous owners like so much of the stuff that filled her home. It must be twenty, thirty years old. Was that why it wasn’t working? She felt for an aerial at the back and yanked it up. The radio emitted a scream of static, punishingly, painfully loud. She threw her hands up to her ears by instinct, and then pulled at the plug which connected it to the wall. Childish anger welled up inside her and she smacked her hand against the front of the radio. It hurt. The radio was, unsurprisingly, unaffected. The house rang with silence once again. Why was it that everything she tried, no matter how totally simple, seemed to go wrong?

  Poppy picked up her phone and a bottle of water and went back upstairs to bed. She pulled the curtains closed, lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. If she could fall asleep for two hours then she could get up and shower. Shave. Moisturize. That would take her up to lunchtime. Then she could make lunch – that would take an hour. After that she’d clean up – she could stretch that to an hour if she did it slowly – and then it would only be a few hours until Drew came home. Maybe she’d go into town and do some food shopping. The fridge and the cupboards were full, but there must be something they needed?