The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  She still hadn’t replied to his text, but she hadn’t deleted it either. She knew she shouldn’t have opened it up as many times as she had done to try to second-guess what he wanted from her. She wouldn’t respond, but still, she wondered.

  She didn’t see Vicky or Elena. She recognised someone who worked in accounts but not well enough to say hello to, even in passing. Then she heard her name being called from across the street and froze. When she turned to the source, it was to find Roisean bounding towards her, grinning like a maniac.

  ‘Marnie!’ She threw herself at her old boss. ‘It’s so good to see you. Are you coming back?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ smiled Marnie, touched by Roisean’s affection.

  ‘Have you time for a quick coffee?’ asked Roisean. ‘Please. I’ve missed you.’

  How could she refuse.

  ‘I’m due back in ten minutes, but sod them,’ said Roisean. ‘I’ve got loads to tell you. Let me see if I can squash it all in in the time it takes us to drink a flat white.’

  There was a small café along from the Dirty Dog: the Aloha. It had the tackiest décor in the world: plastic palm trees everywhere and a massive mural of a beach on the back wall. It wasn’t a place likely to be frequented by any of Marnie’s trendy nemeses.

  ‘It’s a bit shit but the coffee’s good. And cheap,’ said Roisean, queueing up at the counter. She insisted on paying. She’d explain why in a moment, she said and winked, sending Marnie off to grab a table.

  ‘You look thinner,’ said Roisean, when she brought the drinks over. She lifted the lid off a plastic pineapple on the table and spooned out some sugar into her coffee. ‘I hope that’s not from any stress.’

  Marnie didn’t want to bring the mood down by saying that she’d been to two funerals in the same week. ‘I’ve cut out bread and potatoes,’ she fibbed.

  ‘I’d sooner die,’ Roisean declared. ‘Where are you living? I sort of tricked HR into giving me your address and I swung past but the house was empty. I emailed you too but I’m presuming you haven’t logged onto the Caramba mainframe.’

  ‘No. To be honest, I thought there would only be horrible emails.’

  ‘Well maybe you should have,’ Roisean scolded her gently. ‘Everyone was really worried about you. I think quite a few people emailed you with nice messages.’

  Marnie doubted that and gave a little huff of disbelief.

  ‘I mean it. Obviously not Vicky and Elena, as you can imagine. But Arthur and Bette. Even Dennis the security bloke came up to see if we’d heard anything from you.’

  ‘That was sweet of him,’ said Marnie.

  ‘I’m not going to wait for you to ask me what happened after you’d gone, you must be dying to know,’ said Roisean.

  ‘I am and I’m not,’ replied Marnie. ‘The whole thing gave me nightmares.’ She looked Roisean square in the face then because she wanted her to hear this and believe her. ‘Justin told me he and his wife were divorcing. I would never have gone into a relationship with him if I’d known he was lying about that. In fact, I’m not even sure anything he told me was the truth.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Roisean. ‘I think your reaction when his wife came storming in made that obvious. Either that or you should have left the job to go into acting. I felt gutted for you. Really sad. You looked heartbroken.’

  Roisean believed her. Without any doubt. Boy it felt good that someone did.

  Marnie had to ask. ‘Is he . . . Justin still working there?’

  Roisean huffed. ‘Not only is he still working there but he’s become bosom buddies with Laurence. He’s so far up his backside, you can only see his feet these days.’

  Marnie chuckled.

  ‘He brazened it out, like Shagger Sharon did. He didn’t come back into the office that afternoon, but the next day he turned up acting perfectly normally, as if nothing had happened.’

  Marnie wasn’t surprised. Justin had clearly been a master at compartmentalising.

  Roisean went on with glee sparkling in her voice: ‘Elena was given the job of acting head of department but, not to put too fine a point on things, she made a total balls of it. She has no people skills at all, as you know, and got everyone’s backs up, she hadn’t a clue what she was doing. Arthur had a blazing row with her one day. He called her quite a few choice names – we all sat there gobsmacked. We didn’t know he had it in him.’

  ‘Arthur?’ Quiet, calm Arthur?

  ‘Yep. She sent Laurence some wrong figures and then blamed Arthur for it. He didn’t take it lying down, I can tell you. And he was obviously storing a lot of things that he thought he’d get out at the same time. Including what an absolute bitch she was to you and that maybe she realised now what a good boss you were. He gave her a right mouthful. And then he walked out.’

  ‘Oh no . . .’

  ‘He actually turned into Spiderman at one point, he said – and I kid you not – with great power comes great responsibility. You could have heard a pin drop.’

  ‘But he’s so close to retiring.’ Marnie was very concerned.

  ‘Ah, don’t worry yourself. There’d have been a coup if he’d really gone. HR persuaded him to stay because Bette went down to tell them he was being bullied and she’d stand up in court and testify to it if it came to it. And so would I, for that matter. Even Vicky ditched Elena and transferred to Communications.’

  ‘Really?’ Marnie hadn’t expected any of this fallout. She’d imagined that she wouldn’t be missed at all and the department would function better than ever.

  ‘Yup. Then after Laurence made Elena cry in a meeting, she handed in her notice. She took her holiday entitlement and left straightaway. They talked Linda into coming back early to run the department and she starts on Monday. And guess who is the deputy?’ She didn’t give Marnie a single second to answer. ‘Me. I’ve got a lovely pay rise and Linda rang me and told me on the quiet that she’s not planning on staying long because she’s pregnant again, so she’s going to make sure that I’m ready to take over when she leaves. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I can,’ said Marnie. ‘You were always far too competent to have a junior role.’

  ‘I’ve only got this chance because they were desperate to keep some consistency.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how you got it, the fact is you have and now you show them what you can do.’ Marnie was delighted for her.

  ‘What about you then, Marnie?’

  Oh, where to start, laughed Marnie to herself. Keep it simple.

  ‘I’m living in a small village in the Dales and I’m managing an estate.’

  ‘Oh wow. That sounds grand.’ Roisean looked genuinely impressed.

  ‘It’s certainly a challenge.’ That was one way of putting it.

  ‘I gather you and Justin are finished?’ Roisean asked, giving her watch a quick glance.

  ‘I never saw him again after that day. He just ran off and hid like the rat he was. Not even a text from him.’ She didn’t mention the recent one that she’d ignored.

  ‘Bastard,’ said Roisean and sounded exactly like Lilian for that split second, which made Marnie smile.

  ‘I tell you, Marnie, no man has given me a bigger thrill than when HR asked me if I would consider taking on that deputy’s job.’

  ‘One will, one day. But make sure that he’s worth your affections. Don’t sell yourself short.’

  ‘I have an inbuilt detector for that sort of stuff,’ said Roisean. ‘I always thought Justin Fox was a slimy git. Can I have your mobile number?’

  Roisean would end up as CEO of Café Caramba one day, Marnie was sure of it.

  When Marnie got back to Little Raspberries, she found a printed A4 sheet on the doormat. An invitation to join the locals at an informal home-made wine tasting battle that night at seven. David Parselow had hand-written a note on the bottom.

  Please come. We need someone who isn’t biased and can’t be corrupted and if I win, I’ll give you three bottles ;)

  She was
tempted. Not because of the wine but because she wanted to meet any awkwardness head on. She didn’t want people to be wary of her and worried that she was going to turn into some power-crazed bitch. She even made it as far as across the road at ten past seven, then turned back. However kind the invite, she knew that tongues would start wagging when she walked in and she couldn’t smile and be merry amongst them knowing what she was going to have to tell them in the next few days. She needed to be focused and detached because she was wielding a lot of power. And as Arthur so brilliantly put it, with great power comes great responsibility. She had to get it right, both for Lilian and Wychwell. Plus, she needed a clear head – and David and Lionel’s wines were not conducive to having one of those.

  The envelope that Mr Wemyss had given her contained details of her wage for causing carnage, which was actually more like pocket money. A pittance. It wouldn’t buy her weekly requirement of butter for the cheesecake bases. Whoever the new owner was, he was taking the Michael and relying on her undertaking her duties primarily through a sense of loyalty to Lilian’s memory rather than for the cash.

  As she lay in bed that night, she replayed the conversation she’d had with Roisean. She’d been really touched that not everyone automatically presumed she’d been a heartless home-wrecker. And Arthur’s opinion meant more to her than Laurence’s if she was honest. She made up her mind to send a hamper of biscuits and chocolates to arrive on Monday to christen the new regime in the department, and to say thanks for their loyalty. She also made a mental note to look through the red box of things that she’d brought from her mother’s garage. If she hadn’t been so shattered she would have sated her curiosity and got up and done it there and then, but she was degrees away from sleep and her head was beautifully nestled on her pillows. She wasn’t going anywhere now; it could wait.

  She heard some drunken revellers coming out of the Wych Arms as her eyes shuttered down and she hoped that they’d still be as merry this time next week. Some definitely wouldn’t feel like singing.

  Chapter 28

  Marnie woke up one minute before her alarm went off at nine a.m. She’d slept for ten solid hours. She used to survive on six when she worked at Café Caramba. She had a shower and some toast and then, with the brown envelope of doom in her bag, she set off up to the manor. She pushed open the heavy oak door and walked into the hallway. Lilian’s essence was so obviously absent, the air trapped within the walls felt sad – and she knew it sounded ridiculous and she would never say it to anyone, but it was as if the house was grieving for her.

  ‘Hello, house,’ she said. ‘Marnie here. Remember me.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ replied the house.

  Then Herv appeared from behind the staircase.

  ‘You . . . silly bugger! You scared me stupid,’ said Marnie, patting her chest.

  ‘Lilian used to talk to the house too. And sometimes it would creak and she’d say, “Herv, listen, it’s talking back to me” ’. His eyes were smiling as much as his lips were at the memory. The thought came into Marnie’s head, His wife must have been a proper pillock. She pushed it away and slid into work mode.

  ‘I’m expecting a delivery.’

  ‘It’s already here,’ he replied. ‘I saw the delivery van pass my house so I came up early. I have put all the boxes in the dining room. I thought you might like to spread out over the table.’

  ‘Great idea,’ she said, ignoring the innuendo that he wasn’t aware he’d made. And the naughty picture that flashed up in her brain.

  ‘Would you like a coffee? Cilla and Zoe aren’t in today. I told them that you might need some space and quiet to work. I know Cilla is very worried that she is going to lose her job and her house so if that’s in the plans then maybe it would be better to tell the family sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Why would that be in the plans?’ said Marnie. It certainly wasn’t in the new owner’s initial plans and if it were, she would have fought it. Lilian thought very highly of the Oldroyd family. She wouldn’t have wanted them to feel insecure.

  ‘No one knows what is in the plans, that’s the problem,’ said Herv. ‘Me too. What’s the saying? Last in, first out.’

  ‘That would be me then, not you,’ Marnie pointed out.

  ‘I’ll make you a coffee,’ said Herv.

  ‘You don’t have to. I’m not your boss, Herv,’ said Marnie.

  ‘I’m making you a coffee because I want to, not because I have to. I’m having one, I presume you’d like one too?’ He phrased it as a question and stood waiting for an answer.

  ‘Then yes, thank you.’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned in the direction of the kitchen and she cringed because she had somehow turned into the sort of screw-up who read three volumes of subtext in a simple line about putting on the kettle.

  *

  Marnie opened up the first file her hand touched on to get a flavour of what she was tackling. It would all have made more sense if it had been written in hieroglyphics because at least then the pictures might have given her a clue as to what was going on. She had a feeling that Gladwyn Sutton’s writing was deliberately cryptic and, when she picked up a later ledger, found that he’d taught his son well.

  Herv brought a coffee in for her, registering the expression of bafflement on her face.

  ‘I can’t make head nor tail of any of it,’ she said.

  ‘Can I look?’ he asked.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  He bent over her shoulder and she caught the scent of him: something foresty and fresh and Nordic, something that his natural scents combined beautifully with, something that her senses approved of.

  ‘What language is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Gobbledygook,’ replied Marnie. ‘This is going to be a nightmare.’

  ‘You need to find the key to break the code.’

  ‘I don’t think Alan Turing could break this,’ sighed Marnie.

  ‘Can I help?’ said Herv. ‘I used to be a teacher.’

  ‘What did you teach, Herv, espionage?’

  Herv chuckled. ‘Maths, History and Classics so I have a good head for these things. It likes to contemplate problems and solve them.’ His arm whispered past her left ear as his finger touched the paper. ‘See, this is an s though it looks like an f. And this is an e, though it appears to be an i, but the i is taller, like a lower case l.’

  Marnie was half-listening, half-marvelling how large his hand was, how neat and square his nails were, how dark blond hairs started at the wrist and travelled up his arm.

  ‘It’s like one of those magic eye pictures. Once your brain is trained to recognise the patterns, it begins to see them more easily,’ Herv went on.

  ‘Well, if Titus can read this, I’m damned sure I can work it all out eventually.’

  ‘Of course you can. Or you could ask him to give you the key to his coding.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘I would be glad to help you.’ The sentence faded before he reached the end of it because he supposed she’d refuse, but she surprised him. He didn’t know it was a test on herself to see if she could accept a kindness from a man without presuming he had a hidden agenda. Herv, she thought, didn’t deserve that insult again.

  ‘Do you have time?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She pulled a chair out from under the table. ‘Take a seat, my friend. Two heads are definitely going to be better than one on this.’

  There was nothing in the rule book to say she had to do it all by herself.

  Marnie stretched and her back gave a series of satisfying cracks. She’d been stuck in the same position for ages. It was past lunchtime and her stomach gave a rumble as if to remind her of that.

  They’d managed to decipher the enigmatic handwriting to the extent that they were almost both bilingual – or quintilingual in the case of Herv because he was fluent in English, Swedish, Norwegian, German and Sutton now. Marnie could cover the basics in French, but she wouldn’t have claimed to be proficient in it.
It had been a sore point in her family that she achieved an A* in her GCSE when Gabrielle, despite the extra private lessons, only got a B. Marnie was sent up to her room for gloating. She gave an involuntary chuckle when the memory came to her and Herv asked what she’d found so funny.

  ‘I was thinking about something that happened half my life ago,’ she said. And told him.

  ‘You were sent up to your room for that?’ he said, his tone disbelieving.

  ‘I was too old for the naughty step by then,’ smiled Marnie. ‘I sat on it so much, my bum-print was ingrained in the wood.’

  ‘You were a bad girl?’ He looked at her through narrowed eyes.

  ‘I tried not to be,’ said Marnie. ‘Trouble found me rather than the other way round.’

  ‘I don’t believe it of you,’ Herv replied.

  If he only knew, thought Marnie. ‘Do you have naughty steps in Norway? Then again, I bet you were always a good boy, weren’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Herv grinned. ‘Plus we lived in a one-storey house – no steps.’

  Marnie laughed. She couldn’t imagine Herv giving his family the same sort of hassle she’d given hers.

  ‘Do you only have the one sister?’ Herv asked.

  ‘Yep. And you? Any siblings?’

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Marnie, a thought said aloud.

  ‘You don’t get on with each other?’ he asked.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Marnie. ‘I doubt we will ever see or hear from each other again.’

  Herv took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That must be difficult for your parents.’

  ‘Mum died, Dad was never on the scene. I say “dad” but I’m adopted.’

  ‘I was adopted too,’ said Herv.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Yes, I was adopted when I was two.’