Guilt

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I can’t help but snort. “She finally admits it.”

  She narrows her eyes as the kettle boils. After pouring water over our teabags, she warns, “I can easily decide to dislike you, you know. Besides, I need to be impossibly brilliant and untouchable while someone who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty does the actual work. I need to appear to be a higher priestess of fashion… or something.”

  I’ve missed her a lot and I can tell she’s missed me too. Rather than admit that, I change the subject.

  “John’s not my dad,” I blurt, and then she just stands there, gawping.

  “Say what now?”

  “You haven’t spoken to them?”

  Failing to wipe the guilty look off her face, she shakes her head. “We just spend so much time round at Jules and Warrick’s, you know?”

  I shrug. My mum and dad were just her foster parents, after all. Not even one biological parent. They were decent to her, sure, but Hetty stayed with my family for my sake, not theirs or hers. I admit I was selfish in that respect. However, being fostered by the glums certainly hasn’t shaken the wild child out of her, not one ounce.

  “I went round one day and Dad was gone. She told me that she’d said something along the lines of, ‘we’re not man and wife, just business partners’, and when he asked if he should go, she said yes and he just went.”

  Hetty covers her mouth. “You’re joking.”

  “No, she finally said it to him, out loud and everything. And then she blurted it out that she’d had an affair with an English teacher, who’s my dad.”

  “Shit, Liza. Fuck. What the actual fuck?” She comes towards me, barrelling into me, all legs and arms and pink hair engulfing me. At this very same moment, Sam arrives home.

  “It’s just me!” He says that every night, as soon as he enters the house.

  I try to get out of Hetty’s embrace but she insists, “Nope. Not letting you go. Missed these hugs.”

  “Oh, hello Hetty,” he says, like he’s not sure whether he’s happy about that or not.

  “Sam. How do?”

  “Not bad. Not bad. She told you, then?”

  Hetty still hasn’t let go of me.

  “She has. Why the fuck didn’t you fucking call me as soon as she told you? Why the fuck wasn’t I told?” Her words are aimed at Sam and I bet she’s giving him evils as she says this.

  Sam gently steps in, taking my shoulder and Hetty’s, prising us apart.

  “Hetty, she’s fine. I’ve been looking after her. She’s even been writing.”

  Hetty pulls that trumpet face of hers. “Writing?”

  “I’ve been writing… a bit.” Well, not recently. Just that one play. I’ve been concocting other stories in my head, but as Anita warned, “You’re overestimating your own abilities.”

  I haven’t told anyone about that gutting letter yet. God almighty, imagine if I told Hetty about it! She’d take a canon and shove it up Anita’s frozen arse.

  Hetty sees to the tea while I give Sam a kiss and hug hello. “How was your day?”

  “It was fine,” he replies, “and yours?”

  “Blissful until Miss Tornado showed up.”

  She turns to me, resting her butt against the kitchen counter while she chews on that invisible wasp. “You could have called me, let me know. I don’t know. That’s what we used to do?”

  She places mine and Sam’s cups on the kitchen table but Sam continues to stand behind me, holding me around my midriff.

  “I’ve got Sam now, you’ve got Joe. We’re all grown up. Besides, it was upsetting at first, but then it sort of galvanised me. It just showed me that what I’ve been feeling all these years was true – that I originate from a different world to John and my mum. It validated my own feelings if anything.”

  Her face contorts with all sorts of emotions because I’m calling him John and not Dad anymore. Then she wipes her eye. “I’m sorry, Liz. It’s pretty shit.”

  “No, not really, Het. You think I had the perfect family growing up, I didn’t. None of us do, do we? We all just try our best.” I think she’s always sort of romanticised my upbringing in comparison to hers, and while I was never abused, I don’t think she’s able to appreciate the things that I missed out on. Like fellowship. I never really had that. Me and Mum had our times, but she was always so wrapped up in trying to keep Dad happy.

  “Well, I’m still sorry,” she says, trying to curb her emotions.

  “Me too,” I admit.

  Sam moves around me and hands me my cup of tea. He goes in the fridge and finds a plate of dinner all ready and waiting for him. I ate earlier. He bangs it into the microwave and then pores over some of the bits and pieces on the table.

  “What’s this, then?” he asks.

  “Oh, nothing,” says Hetty, trying to move around him and shuffle everything away. He moves right in front of her and not even Hetty can shift Sam or make him dance to her tune.

  He even picks up the bits of paper and looks at them close up. “Is this a thing, then? Do people really come and take part?”

  “Yeah, I know. But they do,” she says, appreciating the humour, but also folding her arms in defence.

  “Is it all old women?”

  “Surprisingly not. I had all ages pop in. Crafting is all the rage and this is one arm of that.”

  Buried beneath the promo materials are other bits and pieces of paper, which I dig out of the folder. Sitting down at the table, I drink my tea while considering a bunch of designs Hetty must have recently drawn.

  “What about these?” I ask.

  “What about them?” she says, and when I look at her, I can tell she feels like we’ve put her under the spotlight.

  “Do you want me to work them up?” I turn some of them around, trying to imagine how I would sew in all the various seams she’s got going on. “I wish you would design from the perspective of a seamstress, you know?”

  “Yeah, but then you’d have no fun telling me off.”

  “Or trying to work up your bloody impossible designs.” I examine them more closely, deciding, “These are good. What do you think?” I hand them to Sam and he smiles.

  “I mean, I don’t know much about fashion, but you’ve got an eye for design. And you can draw.”

  “Thanks,” she accepts, burning bright red.

  So, the big scary pink-haired beauty can actually be embarrassed, even now she’s a mother and designer. Bless her.

  “I don’t get it, though,” he says. “Speaking from a purely marketing perspective, you should absolutely go with what will make you more money.”

  “Yeah, really?” she asks, laughing at him.

  Sam looks at me and I look at him.

  “Don’t toy with the man, Hetty,” I demand, warning her off being a bitch.

  She dramatically walks to the doorway and then swivels on her heel, walking back into the room as if she only just arrived.

  Leaning over me, she pretends she’s a customer and I’m me. “Oh, what are you doing there? Wow. I want to learn that stitch. Oh, and wow, look at the dress that woman is wearing over there, how do I get one? Oh, it’s for sale? And you have it in my size? I’ll just get my purse and then you can bag it and I’ll take it away. Marvellous. I now have a new dress and a pimped-out formerly shit dress. I’m going away with two for the price of one and I only paid a few quid for the entry, I got free tea and biscuits, a bit of social time, and learnt something new in the process. Sounds like a chomping good cop to me, and that Hetty woman is a bit of a mad host. I’m coming back next week.”

  Hetty ceases her routine and stands tall, arms folded, looking all smarmy.

  “I did warn you she was a basket case,” I giggle, grinning at Sam as he removes his dinner from the microwave and sits down to eat.

  “Who may have invented a new craze,” he muses, stroking his chin comically.

  “You may bow at my feet, I know I’m good,” she says, because lord knows she has to really kick herself up the arse som
e days to believe she can do this.

  “Bloody crapping hell, I’ll do it, then,” I agree. “I’ll help you out. But if I suddenly get an offer to become a rich and famous writer, I’m just saying, I may drop you like a stone.”

  “I’d expect nothing less,” Hetty says, laughing loudly.

  She leans over the table and hugs me quickly, before sitting down to enjoy her cup of tea finally.

  Sam’s eating his beef casserole with one hand, still staring at her materials. “Why don’t you leave these with me? I’ll have my designers look at them for you. A couple of tweaks and every person on the street will be stopping to look.”

  “These could be the new beauty parties,” I suggest, “which by the way, are just women’s way of getting to passively aggressively bitch about one another.”

  “Amen, sister.” She high-fives me.

  Sam finishes his meal and clears his plate away, then kisses my cheek on his way out of the room. “Thanks for dinner, baby. I’m just going up to shower. The queue at the gym was a nightmare.”

  “Okay. You don’t smell bad, by the way.”

  “Tell that to my butt crack.”

  He makes both Hetty and me laugh, leaving the room, then shooting up the stairs. Once we hear the shower switch on in the en suite, Hetty says, “So, what’ve you been writing?”

  I take a deep breath and breathe out through my nostrils with some disdain. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Come on! What have you been writing?” She sits there waiting patiently, aggravating me.

  “I wrote a play.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Should I tell her Sam loved it, but nearly everyone I sent it to hated it? Especially Anita.

  “What was it about?”

  “It was about… a married couple, working in a chip shop.”

  “God, really?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I just never thought you’d go there. Do something so… close to the bone.”

  “I think that’s what people don’t like.”

  She frowns. “Who doesn’t like it?”

  I stretch my arms across the table, working up the courage. “I haven’t told Sam, all right? He read it and loved it, but everyone I’ve sent it to since has rejected it.”

  I shan’t tell her about Anita; I’d be initiating murder.

  “What the fuck? You actually got replies from people?”

  I gulp. “Yeah.”

  “Liz, you got replies? Fuck! Jules told me not to say, but she’s been writing a book, and she’s sent it to everyone, and not had a single reply. If you get a reply at all, it means they looked at it for longer than thirty seconds and decided you were worthy of a response.”

  Some small glimmer of hope sparks to life inside my chest and I can’t help but smile. It shines a different perspective on Anita altogether. Maybe Anita is a fucking bitch, but perhaps she was a bitch because it was only my first play – and perhaps she knows I have more to give. In fact, I think we all know I have tons to give.

  “It’s been a bit disheartening. I have all these ideas whirling around my head and I just don’t know whether to write them down. It’s really hard. Is it worth my time?”

  Hetty slaps her hand against the table. “You should absolutely do whatever makes you happy and if writing is it, then do it. Like the dressmaking is for me, it saved me. Gave me an outlet.”

  I feel emotional suddenly and have to swallow back the lump in my throat. “Oh god, Het. What a year this has been already.”

  “Hey, I know.” She takes my hand and holds it tight. “But whatever doesn’t kill us, makes us stranger, remember?” She gives me that weird Joker smile of hers and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Listen, I’ll pop in on Carol and take her out shopping. She’ll be a new woman. Trust me.”

  “I don’t know, Het…” I twiddle my fingers, not sure about that. “Emily and Rupert are the only things that seem to cheer her up nowadays. I don’t know.”

  “I know! Let’s do a dinner. Round here. You and Sam and the kids, me and Joe and Betty. Cheer her up. I can do the pudding, you can do the starter and main.”

  I can’t help but crack up. “That sounds good.”

  “It’s settled then. This Sunday. We’ll come round about eleven to help with the food, or rather Joe will be helping with the food. And I’ll drop in on her and tell her to be here.”

  “Thanks, Het.”

  “No worries. That’s me. Always saving the day.”

  She gives my head a kiss on the way out, and once she’s gone, I rest my forehead on the table in front of me and breathe out my worries of the past few weeks.

  Het’s back, thank goodness.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  IT’S A WEEK LATER AND we’ve all gathered for Hetty’s official launch night. The Sunday dinner with my mum went so well, Sam and I have decided to sell our respective properties and buy something new in the countryside – with a granny flat for Mum in the grounds, which she will rent from us and run herself. She and Dad have decided between them to sell their cottage and split the proceeds. They aren’t divorcing, but they’re not getting back together either. Unless one of them were to meet someone else and decide to remarry, they don’t see the point of divorcing, and I don’t think either are planning to remarry. Why change the habit of a lifetime (I think that’s how they see it, sort of).

  I feel nervous for Hetty. She’s flying about the shop floor, saying hello is that flouncy way of hers. We’ve invited press and local businesses and all sorts of people to build up a buzz. Hetty has me wearing one of her couture designs – one of her high-brow luxury range which are made to order. It’s a red lace dress, boned, which a skirt full of faux feathers. Hetty took some razors to this new-fangled material she found on the internet to make it look like I’m a bloody scarlet peacock. I’ve been asked twice already if I’m the designer – and I’ve had to tell them the designer is the woman with pink hair wearing Doc Martens, a denim skirt and slogan t-shirt.

  I’m glad my mother has the kids tonight because I’m drinking champagne like it’s going out of fashion. I’m nervous for Hetty, but also because wearing something this provocative makes me feel uncomfortable. You can see my bra through the lace top and when Sam first saw me in it, his words were, “Later on, we’re not taking that off.” Speaking of Sam… I scan the room and find him chatting animatedly with a few friends of his he invited along. (Friends from the business world, I mean.) I wish I were as adept at mingling as he is. He seems a natural at it.

  Ruby and Vernon enter the shop. They’re a couple of my old teachers and very good friends of Jules and Warrick. Ruby, who’s much younger than Vernon and not many years older than me and Het, spots me first and waddles towards me, carrying another of Vernon’s babies. This could be the third… I’m not sure! All I know is that they’re determined to create a brood. I admire them. They know exactly what they want.

  “Oh my god, you look absolutely beautiful,” Ruby gushes. She reaches out to touch the feathers, delighted to discover they’re not real – her being vegan and all. “Doesn’t she, Vernon?”

  “All grown up.” He looks, dare I say, even a little misty eyed as he stares around the bedecked shop floor, astonished by Hetty’s achievements. Nobody would’ve imagined the trouble causer she used to be would become someone so inspiring – but the miracle is, she has.

  Ruby spots other people to say hello to, but before she leaves my side, she whispers, “How’s Hetty? Really?”

  “She’s okay. She’s stressed. She’ll be fine. I’ll get her drunk later and it’ll be no problem.”

  “Bless her,” Ruby says, beaming with pride. “We’d better say hello to people, hadn’t we, Vern?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Speak later, my darling,” Ruby says, whooshing off.

  However, Vernon hangs back, as if he’s just realised, or remembered something.

  “Liza, I meant to ask…” He holds one hand under
the opposite armpit and taps the index finger of his free hand against his lips. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he leans down from his great height (even taller than Sam) and murmurs, “I heard on the grapevine one has aspirations to be a playwright.”

  How could he know this? For once, I know Hetty hasn’t been blabbing. She knows better than to do that again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He looks around, his body language giving off the impression we’re discussing secrets of national security.

  “We performed it at amdram,” he admits.

  Everything – all of me – nearly bottoms out.

  I mean, what the fuck is he on about?

  I struggle to formulate words. “H…wh…l…when?”

  “We’re pretty amateur, I have to admit,” he tells me comically. “One of our group is a theatre assistant at a certain local theatre and they saw your play on someone’s desk… and they read a few lines…” Vernon twists his lip, appearing nervous. “…and when that assistant happened to see your play fall foul of the waste paper bin a little later, they whipped it out and rescued it, and we performed it in amdram. I played the single dad from down the road who could have really done with that lottery money…”

  I’m unbelievably embarrassed. By the time he’s admitted the whole thing, I’m wishing for the floor to swallow me whole, or to be transported to a parallel universe where I never even bloody wrote that stinking play and it never, ever existed at all. I must be as red as this dress. I should be enraged that strangers have taken it upon themselves to make entertainment out of my work… without my approval or agreement. However, I’m absolutely astonished this has happened at all. I almost cannot believe it.

  I press my fist to my mouth, mumbling, “What did you think of it, really? Tell me. I can take it.”

  “I really liked it, honestly. Why, haven’t you had much luck?”

  “Obviously…” I fold my arms. “I’ve had some rejections, and some people haven’t even replied.”

  “Kai – that’s who rescued your play – she said the director doesn’t have time for things like that anymore and inevitably, stuff does get chucked. Sad but true. That’s how we entertain ourselves week after week, performing stunning shows that will never reach the main stage.”