“Wait. I’m moving in with you?”
“Aren’t you?”
Rebecca stood up and took her mushy cereal into the kitchen. “And then what?”
Arthur shrugged. “Um, you like cooking.” Why the fuck did he say that?
“Uh-huh. So, you decided without asking that I’m going to live here and be your housekeeper?”
“What? No, no. I mean I assumed…” He sputtered. “If you want a job, I can give you a job, I’m sure there’s something in admin.”
“I do not want to work for you. I do not want to take a wage from you for services rendered. I make the decisions in my life, Arthur. I love you, I do, but you’ve not asked what I want so I’ll tell you. I knew your mother wouldn’t live forever, no one does. I didn’t think it’d be so soon. I miss her, and I don’t even feel like she’s gone yet.” Rebecca’s voice went high pitched as she tried not to cry. She clenched her fists and cleared her throat. “I need to find somewhere to live. I need to find a job. These are the things I’ve always had and are my independence. My things.” She levelled a look at him. “They’re not big things, but they are mine. I want to be with you, but it’s too much too soon, and you’re only asking me because of your mum.”
Arthur stepped back.
“Ask yourself, would I be moving in at this moment if not for Alice?”
“No. But death changes things. I need you.”
“You need me.” She licked the tears from her lips. “And me? What do I need?”
“Me, I’d hope.”
“I do. I also need to feel safe.”
“You don’t with me?”
“I’d feel beholden to another for my wellbeing, and I’m not ready to give you that.”
Arthur nodded, confused. “I thought you wanted us.”
She stepped closer, light catching her face, sweet and sad. He thought about when she ran, all the reactions of her and knew he didn’t really understand who she was as much as he cared for her.
“I love you, and I’m here for you, always, but I can’t move in with you yet, and I can’t depend on you for everything. You need to respect that. We have a lot to do. Let’s get through this. It’s too raw, and at the same time, I don’t feel anything.”
He didn’t know what to say. After a shower and some food, he took her home.
Her face and things she said played over and over, and he tried to work it out. She’d rejected him. After everything.
She glanced occasionally but didn’t say anything, and the tension wasn’t sexual but uncomfortable. Another thought popped into his head, one that had been in his mind for a while, and it became clear.
After dropping her off without a word, he drove to Berkley House. Ignoring everyone, he went into his office, called family, the funeral service, the solicitor, and anyone else he could think of, and stared at a particular business card in the pile he had on his desk.
He turned it over and thought about the offer put to him earlier in the summer. Perhaps he should have taken it then. Arthur wasn’t an impulsive man, but at that moment, he did an impulsive thing. There was less and less drive in him to push the company, and really, he wanted to stop.
Time for a change. He rang his contact in London and made arrangements for a meeting.
Rebecca spent the night alone at Alice’s. Regretting every word that came out of her mouth.
It’d be so easy. But she saw it, and it wasn’t right. She’d cook and clean and be there for him utterly without taking anything for herself. She’d become dependent, needy, alone and isolated. She’d hide her grief and watch him through his. Yet she yearned for him.
The house was cold and silent and empty. The soft warmth of Alice was gone, but her knitting lay on her chair. Magnifying glass nearby. The book they were reading. The smell of Rose perfume. Rebecca’s heart hurt. She wanted to call Arthur, but as she thought, she knew she might have said the wrong thing.
She sat on the settee, staring at the space Alice always took up. The click-clack of her knitting needles and gentle voice. Wise and understanding. Rebecca had never known that kindness. A softness of heart.
She took a deep breath, pushing on the pain, and coiled it inside. Curling up, she thought about her father. Everything she didn’t have and found with Alice and Arthur.
Her family and home. She shook at the idea, and she’d pushed him away. The day cooled, and she dozed on the settee.
The following morning, she filled application forms for jobs and flats. With that done, she was still antsy. She sorted clothes to give to charity from what needed throwing away. She worked in silence, tired and quiet.
By lunch, she was done and started cleaning, organised and tidied. Rigid and determined, she even washed the windows and steam cleaned the carpets. Removing Alice from her home. When she was done, and it was dark, she stood under a hot shower, stiff and sore.
In her dressing gown, she wandered through the house and leant against the living room doorway. She couldn’t take her eyes off the knitting, unable to touch it.
Arthur popped in over with boxes the next day. He looked tired and angry.
Rebecca watched him, trying to figure out what to say. When it came to it, she didn’t know how to talk to him. Not with his rigid demeanour.
The urge to take back what she said sat in her belly, but she was right. A fact brought home as he went through the books.
He knelt surrounded by piles of them, sorting in silence.
Rebecca hated the quiet. She put down a mug of tea and hovered. “Can I help?”
“No.” He looked at the back of a book and set in the keep box, along with ‘Persuasion’. They were only three quarters through.
Her eyes lingered on the book. “How are things?”
He tensed and put a few in the charity box before turning to her. “I have a meeting in London tomorrow, and I’ll be gone for a few days.”
“Okay.”
“I need to finish this.”
And she was dismissed. He kept clenching his jaw as she slowly backed away from him. Arthur needed time, and she had to give it. She’d waited this long and could wait a little longer.
Arthur came to the house when he got back from as she was leaving for an appointment with a temp agency. Two days of interviews and estate agencies.
They looked at each other in the hallway.
“Good luck,” he said, jaw set.
It must have looked cold for her to be doing this so soon. “I can’t sit around waiting. I’ve never been unemployed. It’s so quiet in the house, and I can’t do much else here.”
“I offered you a job if you really need one.”
“I do really need one. I don’t want to work for you, don’t you realise that?” She stepped closer. The shadows under his eyes and drawn face hurt her heart.
“I thought it might be easier.”
“In the short term, but long term it would make this harder. Have you changed your mind about us because I won’t live you yet?”
Arthur stepped away and frowned.
“I’m here for you, after everything we’ve been through, your mum wouldn’t want us to be distant. Not when we’ve waited so long.”
He seared her with a sharp glare. “Like waiting for her to be gone?” His eyes flickered and filled with tears. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”
Rebecca felt the blow in her gut. “I understand. It’s okay. I’m going to be late.” She floated out on jellied legs.
The day of the funeral, Arthur was at the house early. Rebecca had cleaned, removed and packed all the little personal things that Arthur wanted out of the way. They were polite and a little strained. His face drawn and tense, there was a new unease between them. He was merely angry yet the angrier he was, the further away he became.
She straightened her hair and wore a simple slim black dress. They hugged briefly, Arthur didn’t hold her like he’d done in the past and pulled away. She went back to set
ting out cups.
Maddie arrived, a sleek, tall woman in her mid-thirties who oozed money and entitlement. The man with her was thin, painfully so, balding, and had a slow, deliberate way of moving. Rebecca wondered if his parents were cousins.
They were obviously rich, not flashy, but with ingrained entitlement. Maddie was condescending in an extreme version of Victoria’s behaviour. Speaking of the very devil, she arrived shortly after.
The two women were close. Victoria ignored Rebecca, and that was fine.
Arthur hovered in the kitchen, fiddling with his tie. Older cousins arrived, a few others, all very definitely upper middle class with nice cars, well spoken, they dressed and looked the same.
“Arthur, stop hiding in here,” Rebecca said.
He puffed his breath and leant on the wall. “I love this room.” Sadness replaced his anger.
She stopped and turned to him. “So do I. We’ve shared some good times at that table. You need to speak with your family. You merely have to nod and smile politely, answer questions with civility, and no more.” She stood in front of him and put his tie right. “Don’t hate me, Arthur.”
“I don’t. I might be difficult, but I’d never hate you.” He squeezed her arm and went into the front room. Maybe it would be okay. It would pass.
Victoria came in with empty cups. “Do you need help?”
Rebecca blinked at her. “Why?”
“You’re swamped.”
“Am I?”
Victoria sighed and started filling the dishwasher.
“Thank you.”
Vicky looked as though she wanted to say something else but didn’t.
It was going to be a long day.
The cars came on time, and the flowers were lovely as she focused on them and not the coffin in the hearse. Quiet shuffling surrounded her in muted conversation. Alice was in that box, and her heart squeezed, blinking her blurring vision back onto white lilies and carnations.
The family piled into the two cars, Arthur looked around for Rebecca, causing a fuss in the collection of elderly cousins that Rebecca never heard of.
Arthur took her hand and made her get in the car with him, and she went, passive and uneasy. Maddie threw her disdain as Rebecca sat behind them, her eyes fixed on Arthur holding her hand with an iron grip. His fingers were clammy, and as they drove, it was all she felt.
The church was cold, and Rebecca shuddered, her hand still gripped in Arthur’s through the service. He didn’t sing the hymns and barely blinked. The sombre and kind service passed in a blur, and she held onto the programme until it creased and bent.
When they left, Arthur looked drained but dry-eyed. She wiped her eyes, shuffling in those awkward moments after a funeral with the pent-up emotion spent. The swapping of little stories. Reading the cards on the bouquets of flowers. Rebecca watched everyone, muted and relieved, as Arthur nodded and scowled, shaking hands with people. She glanced up at him, and the weariness in his eyes caught her breath.
She remembered the little moments the three of them had shared. The feeling of warmth and safety. Of love. That had been missing all her life, and Alice had it in spades. Rebecca knew she was lucky to have known her, but it was a wrench for it to be lost so soon. The emptiness Alice left curled with fear, what if she never experienced it again?
And the delicate relationship with Arthur hung in the balance in his mother’s absence. She’d held them together.
The Dog and Hound pub on the main road near the church was posh, and the function room was newly finished and plush. The food was nice, but standard. People milled about with coffee cups, nibbling on sandwiches and mini quiches.
Arthur went to the bar and ordered whisky. Rebecca went out for some air. She looked back to the busy room with people reminiscing and laughing about good old days as Arthur leant on the bar talking with Victoria and Maddie.
The day was warm, but she huddled into her smart jacket even as she sweated. It reminded her of being at court. Quiet tension and anxiety. A man joined her outside and lit a cigarette. He was only about forty, well dressed, but she had no idea who he was.
“So, you looked after Aunt Alice?”
“Yes.”
“I hear you and Arthur…?”
“Is none of your business.”
“Come on.” He offered her a cigarette, and she declined.
“I doubt Arthur would like the matter in public discussion, and neither would I.”
“You seem close.”
“Do we,” she said flatly.
She went to turn back, the wind was getting up, and the man was a little gross.
“Well, you know, you’re unemployed, and I guess you’ll be looking to move on.” He looked her up and down. “I can always help you out.”
“Help me out?”
“Well, you don’t really expect anything from Arthur, do you? I mean, hoping something comes of it,” he sucked his breath in as he inhaled, holding it for a beat, and then exhaled the smoke, “it’s a bit ambitious for someone like you. I’m available.”
“Someone like me?” She scowled at him. Fucker, if he was going to insult her, he’d better come right out and do it.
“Well, you know.”
“No, I don’t. Explain yourself.”
“We all see what you’re doing, worming your way in, now she’s passed away, you can move in for the kill, get your hands on the money, and him. Don’t bank on it, he’ll see through you eventually. We’ve been considering how you got in with them, but seeing you, we can see why Arthur would employ an unqualified attractive young woman.”
She stared at him and shuddered at the leer he gave her. They all thought that she was a gold digger.
There she was, worried about dating her boss, and everyone thought she was a schemer.
She quelled her mortification and decided not to punch him in the dick. “If you knew me at all, you’d know that was bullshit. I can only imagine where you got that drivel from; Maddie or Victoria I guess, and everyone knows what they are, so I take no heed, whoever you are. Funny that in all the time I’ve known Alice and Arthur, not once have any of you been mentioned. That tells me all I need to know about how important you are.” She bypassed him and went in.
Arthur, surrounded by older women at a table, looked like he wanted to crawl away.
“I need to get going.”
He stood and took Rebecca aside. “Why, you can’t leave me here like this.”
“Arthur, something’s come up.”
“Did Maddie say something to you?” His angry eyes bore into her.
“No.”
“Don’t go.”
“Arthur, you know what you are to me, but I have to get out of here.”
“Then let me come with you.”
“We both can’t take off. Think of how it would seem.” She tried to step back from him, and he stepped forward.
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“They think I’m out for you and your money,” she spat in a whisper.
He blinked.
“I’m going.”
The cousins sat at the table muttering, and one made herself heard. “That’s her game, is it?” The wiry mean third cousin, who was about a hundred and fifty, sniffed.
Arthur turned as she walked away and heard what he said. “Before you say a goddamn word about her, let me tell you, she is one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever known. I do not know which of you lot has decided to spread bollocks,” gasps all around, “about her, although I can guess. She’s done more for mum than any of you lot put together in the last ten years. She is honest and selfless, and, someone incredibly important to me, as I am to her, but she is the kind of person that would hate to be thought of as money grabbing. She’s not like you lot that’s for bloody sure.” His voice faded as she hurried out.
Rebecca speed walked down the main road as traffic w
hizzed past her, blustering her hair.
“Hey.” Arthur caught up with her and took her hand, but she pulled away.
“We can’t.” The words he’d said to his family didn’t comfort her, they only made her feel shittier.
He retook her hand refusing to let go and called a taxi.
They went to his, and neither said a word the whole time.
She burst into tears the moment they set foot in the house. She covered her eyes and sobbed, not tears of grief but loud, angry sobs.
He pulled her into his arms and held her while she bawled.
She finally pulled back. Her lashes spiky and wet and face blotchy; she was such an ugly crier. “I miss her.”
“I do too.” He took a deep breath, hand over hers as he led her to the little settee in the kitchen by the table, and voice clogged with emotion. “When I was a kid, we used to go to the cinema every other Saturday, and she’d buy me pear drops from the old sweet shop. Just me and her. We stopped going when dad was ill. He was sick for a few years. I watched him vanish. Always a quiet, solid man but he withered. And mum cared for him every day with patience and love, and I remember thinking how hard it was for her. I did what I could and helped, but I was a teen. I tried to be like him.
“I’ve not been the son I should have, and I don’t think I ever said how grateful I am to her.”
Rebecca’s tears fell down her face again.
“I don’t know what to feel.”
“Anything you feel is valid.” She rubbed his hand, but he got up and went to the wide concertina doors that showed off the bright colours of his garden.
He cleared his throat after a few minutes. “Maddie spread that crap, you know it. Mum couldn’t stand those people. Not all of them, but most. They never saw her, never did anything for her, and they have no right to judge us. We know the truth. We know how we feel.”
“What are your plans?” Her voice was thick.
“Anything you need. I’m not letting you baulk. I can see it, how upset you are, but you don’t need to be.”
“Upset? Arthur, I loved your mum. I’ve never had family, but your mum was mine. And now there’s nothing, and I’m afraid. You’re so angry.”
Getting a Life (New City Series Book 4) Page 14
