Searching for Steven (Whitsborough Bay Trilogy Book 1)

by Jessica Redland

  ‘That’s pretty obvious from reading this.’ Clare rolled the scroll up again, put the ribbon round it, and gently placed it back in the box. ‘I know you won’t want to hear this, but you need to get over this ridiculous obsession with getting married; it’s not the answer to life, the universe and everything you know.’

  ‘And you’d know that because you’ve been married how many times?’

  Clare closed the flaps on the box and pushed it aside. ‘None,’ she said, ‘as you well know. But that’s not the point. I know plenty of married people and, believe me, it’s not the happily ever after you seem to have built it up to be.’

  ‘It is for some.’

  ‘Like your parents? I think you’ll find they’re pretty unique, Sarah. I know you see them as your role models and you want the same, but surely even you must realise that the odds are on you never finding that with someone. Surely you know that what they have is not the norm.’

  ‘Maybe not. But it shows that true love and true compatibility exists.’

  ‘For a very small minority of people. For most people, marriage ends in divorce.’

  ‘Cynic.’

  ‘Realist. And if they don’t divorce, they just trundle on with neither party making the other happy but also not quite being miserable enough to call it quits. Don’t look at me like that! It’s a fact. And the very notion of having a written plan that says you must be married at a certain age… Really? Seriously, Sarah, if it happens it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Get used to it.’

  I sighed. ‘The thing is, Clare, I know I don’t need a man to fulfil some missing gap in my life but I want to meet someone special. I want the happily ever after.’

  ‘Need. Want. What’s the difference?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Remember our last shopping trip. You didn’t need those expensive beige shoes but you wanted them, didn’t you?’

  ‘Beige shoes? I take it you’re referring to that stunning pair of nude Manolo Blahniks?’

  ‘Whatever. Shoes are shoes.’

  ‘Wash your mouth out!’

  ‘Do you see my point?’

  ‘I guess so. Although I still maintain I both wanted and needed those shoes.’

  ‘Of course you did. Because you only own two hundred pairs already.’ I twiddled with my ponytail. ‘There’s one other reason why I want to meet The One, though, as it says on the Plan. I don’t want to end up like my Uncle Alan.’

  ‘Your Uncle…?’

  ‘My Uncle Alan. My dad’s brother. The one who…’ What killed me about his death was that the autopsy had revealed a massive hypo three days before I found him. Three days! Poor man. I tried not to think about how long he may have lay there knowing he was dying before taking his final breath. All alone. What a tragic way to go.

  ‘I remember,’ Clare said when I faltered.

  She held my gaze then nodded slowly. Silently, she put the lid back on the box and reached for another one. She started to rip the tape off it then stopped. ‘It’s tragic about your Uncle. And I genuinely do get why that would—’

  Ding dong.

  Clare and I looked at each other.

  ‘You expecting someone?’ she said.

  I shook my head and scrambled to my feet.

  ‘If it’s Mr Right, tell him his timing’s impeccable.’

  I opened the door expecting to see the postie or someone from the gas company wanting to read the meter. I didn’t expect to see Elise on the doorstep a day ahead of schedule.

  Chapter 5

  ‘I hope that’s a surprised face and not a disappointed one,’ Elise said.

  ‘Of course it is. Sorry. I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.’ I reached out to give her a hug. ‘I thought you had some family thing.’

  ‘I did, but Gary didn’t like the idea of me driving both ways in one day so he insisted I give it a miss. I thought I’d surprise you and help you pack. I hope that’s okay.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ I bit my lip. ‘But I’d better warn you that—’

  ‘Hello Elise. How are you?’

  —that Clare is here. Oh crap.

  ‘Clare? What a delight. I’m good, thanks. You?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ Clare said. ‘No hubby today? I thought you two were welded together.’

  ‘We have our own lives too, you know. That’s what makes a relationship successful. Oh, but you wouldn’t know, would you?’

  ‘Elise!’ That was so unlike her. Somehow Clare always managed to bring out a nasty streak in Elise that I’d never seen surface with me or anyone else.

  ‘Doesn’t bother me,’ Clare said. ‘I’d rather have a hundred one-night-stands than get hitched at eighteen to the only man I’ve ever kissed.’

  ‘Well, it bothers me.’ I held a hand up at each of them. ‘You’ve had your childish fun and now you can play nicely. Or you can leave.’

  ‘But—’ started Clare.

  ‘But nothing. You can either apologise and be civil to each other in which case you can both stay. Or you can both leave now. Which is it to be?’

  ‘Sorry, Sarah,’ Elise said. ‘I got lost and I’m a bit stressed.’

  ‘Apology welcome, but it’s Clare you need to say sorry to.’

  Elise stiffened as she turned towards Clare. ‘I’m sorry, Clare. What I said about your lack of relationships was unnecessary.’

  Clare ran a hand through her expensively styled bob; her signature move when in the presence of other females. I knew her apology would be insincere, but at least it was forthcoming.

  ‘Thank you, Elise,’ she said. ‘Although you do speak the truth and I’m not in the least offended as that’s how I choose to live my life. I don’t need a man as a permanent fixture. Unlike some people.’

  Elise casually removed the bobble from her hair. Her long auburn curls tumbled out. What was it with those two and their hair? If they were cats, they’d be peeing up the walls to mark their territory.

  ‘I applaud you, Clare,’ Elise said. ‘You didn’t apologise. In fact, you managed to add another insult in there.’

  ‘I wasn’t finished, Little Miss Pernickety,’ said Clare with a toss of her hair. ‘I’m genuinely sorry… that I made Sarah uncomfortable. I do think you’re sad for marrying so young and I’m not going to retract that. You married young. It’s a fact. What you said about me is true too. I don’t think either of us needs to be sorry except to Sarah. That said, I don’t want to go home on Sarah’s last day in London so I’m prepared to call a truce if you are.’

  Elise nodded. ‘Fine by me.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘That was delightful as always. Repeat it and you both leave. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, mum,’ Clare said.

  ‘Understood,’ Elise said.

  ‘Glass of wine or cup of tea?’ I asked Elise.

  Elise looked at her watch and frowned. ‘Tea please.’

  ‘Wine please,’ Clare said then disappeared back into the bedroom as Elise and I headed for the kitchen.

  Drinks made, we found Clare on the floor, ripping the tape off another cardboard box. ‘It’s like Christmas,’ she said. ‘Will this be a good gift or a rubbish one?’ She peered in and moved a few things. ‘Books. Rubbish one. What’s in that bag?’ She crawled across the floor.

  What bag? I only got boxes out. My eyes flicked in the direction she was heading. A large M&S carrier lay on the floor. No! Not that!

  But Clare had already pulled the pink box out of the bag. I cringed at the purple glitter lettering sparkling on the lid. ‘“Sarah’s Treasures”,’ she read. ‘Now this looks interesting. What’s in here?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I tried to grab the box off her but she was having none of it.

  She prised the lid off. ‘Ooh. Hot, hot, hot!’

  Ground, swallow me up.

  ‘Are
those firefighters?’ Elise asked. ‘From the calendars?’

  ‘Might be.’ In honour of my firemen obsession, Elise had bought me the firefighters calendar for Christmas four or five years in a row when we were in our teens. At the end of each year, I’d rip out my favourites and keep them to gaze upon during low moments.

  While I lounged on the bed, mortified, Clare and Elise spend the next ten minutes or so debating over whom was the hottest. Boredom finally set in. ‘What else is in here?’ asked Clare.

  ‘To be honest, I can’t remember.’ I put my wine down and joined them on the floor. ‘I haven’t looked in it for years.’ They both looked at me with raised eyebrows. ‘Okay, I may have had the odd peek at the gorgeous young firemen, but I haven’t looked at anything else.’ I leaned over Clare and rummaged in the box. ‘Concert ticket stubs, cinema tickets, valentine cards.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Elise bent forwards and picked up a cassette tape. ‘Mix tape of lurve songs from an ex?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘No-one’s ever made me one. Does it say anything on it?’

  ‘“Beth’s Party Tape”,’ Elise read. ‘Beth from college?’

  ‘Must be. I don’t know any other Beths. I don’t remember her making me a tape, though.’

  Clare looked up from the calendars. ‘Only one way to find out. Do you have a tape player?’

  ‘There’s one in that box of games by the window.’

  Elise was closest so she crawled over to the box and pulled out a small pink radio cassette player covered in stickers. I plugged it in by the bed, popped the tape in and pressed play. ‘I bet it’s something hideously cheesy,’ I said. ‘Beth loved novelty tunes so we may need to do some selective listening.’

  Only it wasn’t music. It was a recording I swear I’d lost twelve years previously. One that Elise and I had trashed my bedroom looking for on several occasions. And it was about to completely change my already turbulent life.

  Chapter 6

  The tape crackled for a few moments before a gentle Cornish female voice kicked in.

  ‘Hello Sarah, my name’s Madame Louisa. It’s the twenty-­second of April. Your friend Beth has asked me to do a reading for all her friends as a memento for her eighteenth birthday. It will be a general reading covering the next ten to fifteen years.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I pressed the stop button. ‘It’s the clairvoyant tape. How the hell…?’

  Elise looked as shocked as I felt. ‘You lost it that night.’

  ‘I know. How did it get in there?’

  ‘What is it?’ Clare asked. ‘Did you say clairvoyant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From when you were eighteen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Clare rubbed her hands together. ‘This should be interesting.’

  ‘The interesting thing is how it got into my Treasures box. I’ve been looking for it for twelve years.’

  ‘Well, you obviously didn’t look hard enough.’

  ‘We did,’ Elise said. ‘We trashed her room. Beth trashed her house and we even phoned the taxi company.’

  ‘Who’s this Beth?’ Clare asked. ‘I’ve never heard you mention her.’

  ‘She was a good friend at college but we lost touch. Beth had this clairvoyant party. Her mum was into stuff like that. There’d been cocktails and homemade wine on tap all evening. By the time I went in, the room was spinning. I had my reading, came out, fell over, threw up and had to be sent home in a taxi. The next day I couldn’t remember a thing about my reading. Major alcohol black-out. I figured it was no problem, though, because I had a tape. Only the tape had gone missing.’

  ‘Well, clearly it hadn’t,’ Clare said.

  ‘It had,’ Elise insisted. ‘We searched everywhere.’

  Clare sighed. ‘Things don’t just disappear then re-appear. You obviously didn’t look hard enough and—’

  ‘But we did,’ I protested.

  ‘Obviously not,’ Clare said. ‘I don’t know why you’re both getting in such a tizzy about this.’ She fiddled with the hem on her skirt in a clear act of boredom. ‘I suppose you both think its magic or something.’ She looked at me, then Elise, then back to me. ‘I don’t believe it. You do, don’t you? What do you think happened? Do you think the wee leprechauns stole it for twelve years and have quite randomly decided to put it back for you to listen to today?’

  Maybe not leprechauns… but something strange… ‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I just know it definitely wasn’t in there.’

  Clare shook her head at me. ‘Whatever. Will you be pressing play or not?’

  ‘Er… I’m not sure.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Clare said.

  ‘She said the reading would cover ten to fifteen years. It’s twelve years on now. What if she predicts bad things are about to happen?’

  Clare shuffled her bum round so she could lean against the wardrobe and face Elise and me. ‘Or, what if she just comes out with an absolute pile of crap? I know what I’ll be betting on.’

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Elise.

  ‘You never know till you try,’ Elise said. ‘Look, you know I’m a great believer in fate, destiny, serendipity and all that.’ She paused and looked over to Clare as if waiting for a challenge on what Clare referred to as her ‘mad hippie ways’ but, amazingly, no challenge came so Elise continued. ‘I was gutted that I was ill and missed out on a reading myself so, if it was my tape that I’d just found after twelve years, I’d be dying to listen to it. I’m dying to listen to yours. But this is about you and your life and you know I’ll never push my beliefs on you…’

  ‘But…’ I said, sensing there was more.

  ‘But there’s always the eject button if you don’t like what you hear,’ Clare snapped. ‘Will you just get it over with and press the damn button.’

  I looked towards Elise for encouragement.

  ‘I’m actually with Clare on this one,’ she said. ‘You might as well give it a go. I promise not to push you if you decide to switch it off.’

  ‘I won’t promise that,’ Clare said, ‘because I think you’re both making a big deal over nothing. I bet it’s all a pile of vague gibberish that could apply to anyone.’

  ‘Do you really think I should?’ I directed the question to Elise but Clare answered again.

  ‘Go on, go on, go on,’ she urged. ‘You know you want to.’

  What if she said I was going to contract an incurable disease aged thirty-and-a-half? What if she said the biggest mistake I ever made was taking over Flowers and I’d end up homeless and bankrupt? And, worst of all, what if she said I was never going to meet Mr Right or that I’d already met him and let him slip through my fingers? Andy perhaps?

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said eventually.

  Clare sighed. ‘Jesus, Sarah. What’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ A flashback hit me. ‘Uncle Alan,’ I gasped. ‘I spoke to him.’

  ‘You did what?’ Clare asked.

  ‘When I came out of the reading, I told everyone I’d spoken to him.’

  ‘I remember,’ Elise said. ‘But you didn’t tell anyone what he said…’

  ‘And I couldn’t remember the next day.’

  ‘Well now’s your chance to find out,’ Clare said.

  I took a deep breath and leaned forward. With shaking hands, I pressed play again.

  ‘Let me explain what’s going to happen. I’ll be using my crystal ball to help me, as well as a guide from the spirit world. I’m taping our discussion so you can listen to what I say on another day in the quietness of your own home where it will be easier to take in. Although I’ve been asked to give you a general reading, is there anything you’d rather I focus on? Any burning questions?’

  ‘Er no, well, erm… maybe work and men?’
>
  ‘You sound so young,’ Elise squealed, ‘and drunk!’

  I hung my head in embarrassment at the sound of my childish squeaky voice and the slurred words. This was going to be cringe-worthy.

  ‘Work and men?’ [repeated Madame Louisa.] ‘I can certainly make sure I cover those topics. Let’s start. I’m contacting the spirit world. I have a lady with me. An elderly lady. She says she’s on your mum’s side of the family.’

  ‘My grandma?’

  ‘She says yes.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Clare said.

  I pressed stop. ‘What is?’

  ‘You led her. She mentioned an elderly lady and you immediately let her know your grandma is dead so now she can pretend it’s your grandma she’s communicating with.’

  I scowled at her and pressed play again.

  ‘She says you look like your mum and that, if you find the photo taken at the lighthouse, you’ll see that you look just like your grandma too, except you don’t have the heart shaped birthmark on your cheek that she has.’

  Goosebumps pricked my arms. I wasn’t familiar with the lighthouse photo — I’d have to ask Mum about that — but I could clearly remember the birthmark. I stared at Clare, trying to mentally convey that the birthmark couldn’t be a lucky guess but she wouldn’t catch my eye.

  ‘Your grandma says she hopes you enjoyed your drinks, but doesn’t envy you the headache you’ll have tomorrow.

  ‘You’re a very warm and caring person, Sarah. You’re always there for your friends and you’re a great listener, doing your agony aunt bit when they’re in trouble. Your friends always come to you first with their problems and you like feeling you can help. Yet, when you have a problem yourself or are worried about anything, you put on a brave face and try to work through it by yourself or you bury your head in the sand, hoping things will get better on their own. This approach doesn’t work. As you get older, you’ll realise that being more open about your doubts could have prevented you from getting stuck in a rut with your job and your relationship.

  ‘In years to come you’ll find yourself in a relationship that should never have lasted as long as it did. It would never have lasted that long if you’d talked to your friends about your concerns.