by Jan Ruth
She sipped her wine, chilled by the look in his eyes. ‘So why do you let him share a roof with you?’
‘Much as I dislike the fact, he does actually own half the property. And much as I dislike the fact, my wife and my daughter think the world of him.’
‘I get the feeling there’s more to this than you are telling me.’
‘There is, but you’ll just have to accept it.’ He pushed the pudding menu over. ‘The pear compote is awfully good.’ Once her eyes were drawn to the laminated sheet, he said, ‘After Christmas I have a few, difficult decisions to make, all of which will affect my family, my future. Al, much as I dislike the fact, is part of the general picture. I’ll make my announcement in January.’
It sounded like a board meeting at the bank.
Afterwards, she wandered aimlessly around the town, disinterested in the tourist shops and unable to blank George’s words from her mind. There was nothing like someone else’s troubles to water down one’s own, and she realised that Greg and the funeral had taken a back seat. Was that a good sign or something else to feel guilty about?
Should she sell the house? She could give up her soul-destroying job. Greg had left her well enough provided for in that respect, but nothing would form in her mind. She stood on the stone bridge and watched the foaming river below, bouncing over the rocks. She had a lot of time to stand and stare, and in a way she needed to, but then she sighed with boredom.
All this freedom, and she had no idea what to do with it.
*
The first day of November dragged itself slowly over the horizon. Peering through the curtains, Kate could see the dark shapes of the mountains groaning under a depressed sky. Closer to home, the farrier was busy in the yard, with four horses lined up along the stable block, including a restless Stilton. Becca was trying to soothe him, white hair all over her navy school uniform. The little mare they’d rescued from the auction sported medical-looking leg bandages and was watching with interest, both ears pricked. The acrid smell of burning hoof filtered through the small top window. It reminded her of the time a drunken Annemarie caught her long hair on the gas hob, singing a good two inches off the length.
From the confines of her room, wrapped in an old dressing gown modelled along the style of an exploded duvet, she stuck her head out on to the landing, gauging the distance to the bathroom and wondering if she could get to it without being seen by Al. After everything she’d told herself about sex, here she was worrying about her sex appeal around a man she’d been warned off. A man with too many secrets, and a pregnant girlfriend.
As she crept past his room, she saw him standing on a chair by the window and having a hushed, heated conversation with someone on his mobile. The girlfriend, no doubt. Bathroom door firmly locked, she ran a deep, hot bath. There were parts of her body which had suffered quite severely from trying to stay in tune with Stilton, and the hot water was sublime.
The backs of her shoulders and the lower regions of her back felt like she’d been on a torture rack, and then there was always that curious, intimate place at the top of the inner thigh which always hurt like hell. Lying back under the suds she could hear another, muted argument in the kitchen below, between George and Fran, something about the cost of the farrier.
‘I’m not a cruel man, Fran,’ George was saying in a loud voice. ‘I am a desperately exasperated man! And all of this… this hoof trimming and corrective shoes or whatever, all for a bloody nag destined to be shot no doubt. Oh, don’t give me the doe eyes!’
‘We’d never have got Stilton loaded if it wasn’t for Olive. We need her to get Stilton to all the shows and competitions next summer, so he’s settled in the lorry.’
‘What shows? That’s more cash! Entry fees, special gear, fuel!’
‘Stop shouting! Don’t you want Becca to do well and enjoy herself?’
‘Yes, of course, but not at the risk of going bloody bankrupt!’
There was a heavy thud, like a door slamming, followed by the usual volley of profanities from the parrot. Presently, George’s car purred down the drive and there was a welcome silence, broken just seconds later by a heart-stopping crash as something heavy, possibly made of metal, hit the tiled floor in the hall. Butter must have leapt the wobbly stair gate again.
As she reached for a towel, she heard the dog galloping up the stairs, sniffing violently under all the doors, searching for Al.
Chapter Eight
Kate.
Home. Her mobile sprang to life with two missed calls and a text. They were both from Annemarie. Disappointed it wasn’t Al, Kate snapped her phone shut. She retrieved her bags and boxes from the car and set them down in the hall then slowly sank onto the sofa to test her feelings. It was the same spot where she’d sat with Al just a few days previous, but this time she was faced with all the empty spaces and the last traces of Greg were virtually gone. It was too cold to sit for long though and she was forced to flick the heating on and get the burner going in the snug.
The boxes of manuscripts went on the desk, next to her computer and the new scanner. She’d been making digital albums out of old family photographs and discovered she enjoyed the process, and although she had much to learn about compiling a book, having read some of Al’s work the whole idea had caught her imagination. Al had been more than happy for her to take the novels, no doubt out of harm’s way. Despite the challenge it represented, she couldn’t help feeling gratified that he’d trusted her with them. The fact that it served as an on-going link between them was something she wasn’t quite prepared to admit. She lifted the lid of the first one and smiled as she read the title page; The chronicles of Jim Silver, by Alastair Black.
She was slightly peeved that he hadn’t said goodbye to her. In fact he’d laid low for the remainder of her week at Chathill, deep in thought with whatever problem the girlfriend had presented. On the occasions he did surface, it was with a rather tense solitude, which didn’t suit him, and the argumentative battles over money from George with both his wife and his brother, left Kate feeling frazzled. Fran had been her usual distracted self, as if nothing was wrong and mostly intent on getting Al’s daughter, Maisie, to treat some of the animals.
‘She’s a vet,’ Fran had explained, presumably for Kate’s benefit. ‘Such a lovely girl.’
Al had half-smiled patiently, ‘Yeah, but you can’t expect her to do treatments for free. She has to account for the drugs, you know?’
‘Oh, I know, but she could just come over and give me the heads-up about Olive and some of the goats, couldn’t she? And she could help me with the worming, yes?’
‘Christmas, maybe. She’s got time off.’
‘Oh goody, tell her to come over for a few days, will you, please?’
‘I can ask, but it’s a bit like a busman’s holiday for her, isn’t it?’
Kate switched on the PC and checked her e-mail. Nothing from Tia. Her Facebook page though, was full of the usual party chaos and attention- seeking posts. ‘I’m soooo pissed off right now.’ A dozen or so friends wanted to know why, but she never enlightened them. Could mean anything, from a broken nail to a broken heart.
A message popped up from Annemarie.
‘Back then? Next time you want to come into my house please have the bloody decency to knock or phone instead of creeping up the bloody stairs.’
‘I did, but you were in bed with the bank manager.’
No response to that. She typed Maisie Black into the search box and there were three to choose from. Easy to see which one was Al’s daughter, even with the veterinary information - her profile picture screamed ‘I’m Alastair Black’s daughter.’ Same dark-blonde colouring, although hers was shimmery bright, and those long, denim-blue eyes. The main picture was a panoramic shot; an African-looking landscape with gazelles in the background, hunky boyfriend leaning on a Land Rover. In the ‘About’ section there was a long list of qualifications.
Her relationship list was clearly visible, all with pro
files. Bursting with curiosity, she clicked onto brother Tom, Oxford graduate, sister-in-law Bernice, something to do with higher education; two children in full-time nursery. Boyfriend Simon was practising partner at The Well Pet veterinary practice. Goodness, she’d be there all evening but it was too fascinating not to have a nosy. Even though she was not privy to all the information, there was one over-riding, glaring fact; they didn’t strike her as the profiles of people with a waste of space for a father.
Jo was something altogether different. Almost a thousand friends and everything on her page was public and incredibly busy, but sadly not very interesting or personal - other than a couple of arty, romantic photographs of her with Al in Delamere Forest. She slid one of them off onto her computer desk-top, then felt embarrassed and deleted it.
Annemarie messaged back, ‘How did you know who it was?’
‘I didn’t, it was a joke!’
‘Just stay out of it!’
‘I want to talk to you. I’ll come by on Monday, shall I?’
Whilst she was waiting for her sister to confirm, she browsed some more and looked at Alastair Black but his page appeared to be virtually un-used and carried only the briefest of detail; married to Helen, attended a school in Conwy. Even the profile picture was taken some twenty years ago, and then a list of his out of print paperbacks, and that was about it.
Nothing further from Annemarie, clearly sulking. She plugged the scanner into the wall socket, Googled various sites about formatting books, and tentatively created a file.
*
Christmas was beginning to filter into the retail world with its usual blend of mercenary rubbish. Her job was one of those clock-watching affairs and the day passed painfully slow. Bargain Home Stores was a large, cheap department store, run on a shoestring but working false promise to its maximum leverage, on all levels. The elderly customers thought they were getting a bargain, of course, and most of the staff had been seduced by the promise of benefits which never quite materialised, because as soon as you were in sight of the prize, they always changed the rules.
The department managers were young, usually with business and computing degrees, enhanced with natural management skills in arrogance. The demoralising problem was, that the younger staff really had the upper hand, mostly down to the speed of their computer skills on the increasingly complicated tills. It was one of the reasons Kate had elected to do an evening course in basic computing, and discovered that she enjoyed it, but it made little difference to the hierarchy of her job.
Once you became proficient on a section in the store, you would be moved to another one, ‘to broaden your opportunity to develop’. Knowledge was power, and the company didn’t like that. They preferred the staff to be slightly dumbed down and compliant. Kate had long since given up trying to make a difference, or to fight the inevitable. Some of the older women were quite kind and friendly but Kate found she had little in common with them. The bitching and bullying was rife, regardless.
As soon as it was five minutes to home time, she left the shop floor, climbed the stairs to the staff area, swiped her key card and went into the locker room, then gratefully climbed out of the hideous uniform; loose black trousers and a gingham blouse with a name badge over the left breast. Her line manager, a huge wobbly girl of nineteen - known in the stockroom as Wide Load, since no one could possibly get past her if she was standing in one of the aisles - made a show of looking at her watch and then gave her the eye. ‘Thought you was on till three?’
‘That’s right.’
‘By my watch you’re stealing company time, I’ll have to mark it up in the book.’
‘Fine, you do that.’
Her rosebud mouth fell open as Kate closed her locker and hurried out of the confined space, down the stairs again, through the huge glass doors and out into the glorious weak sunlight of a mild winter’s afternoon. It made her think about Stilton and the last couple of days at Chathill, when she’d finally mastered a controlled canter on a circle. The feeling of elation in the cold biting air, and then the shiver when she realised that Al had been watching her…
She turned her car towards her sister’s house, but of course she wasn’t in. A phone call revealed her whereabouts to be at their mother’s flat. Kate cursed Annemarie’s lackadaisical attitude. ‘You could have told me!’
‘She needed shopping doing.’
This was something new. Normally, Kate did the bulk of the doctor’s appointments, the shopping and the visits. On her arrival at Rhos House, Annemarie was in the kitchen with a cigarette, wafting the smoke out of the window. Mother looked pale, and she was nursing one of her Charles and Diana tumblers from the sideboard, the use of which was normally reserved for Christmas and funerals. A bad sign. Kate gave her a peck on the cheek.
‘What’s the brandy about, Mum?’
‘Oh, you might well ask. I’ve had an excitement. I’ve been on a fire engine,’ she said, then flapped her hand in the direction of the kitchen. ‘You tell her, Anne.’
‘A fire engine?’ Kate frowned, looking from one to the other. Annemarie threw herself down on the sofa and checked her mobile. ‘It’s nothing. She didn’t want to come in the shop, said she felt faint and she’d sit outside and wait. So she sat on the kiddie’s ride, you know, that Fireman Sam thing.’
‘Oh, is that all? You had me worried,’ Kate said, but her mother became deeply agitated and flushed at this. ‘Yes, but it set off, and I couldn’t get out. All the bloody bells were going off and it was jigging about, and oh… tell her, Anne!’
‘Well, you’ve told her now.’
‘Oh, I felt sick I did… and palpitations. I’ll not get that song out of my mind for a long time, I can tell you. I thought my time had come.’
Her sister snorted with amusement, ‘Attracted quite a crowd, be on YouTube tonight.’
‘No lasting damage then?’ Kate said.
‘Only disappointment. No real firemen came to rescue her,’ Annemarie cut in. ‘The store manager pulled the plug in the end but he still wanted fifty pence, can you believe that?’
Kate said nothing as she genuinely couldn’t think of anything. She knew there was a funny side to the story, but it just wouldn’t surface.
‘What’s the matter? You’ve a face like a wet week,’ her sister went on, ‘You’ve just had a bloody holiday, it’s me that’s been holding the fort here.’
‘For five days? My God, Annemarie, how did you cope?’
‘Wish I could afford a holiday.’
‘Get a job, then.’
‘She’s got a job, now,’ Mother said, and there was a certain pride and satisfaction in the statement. She drained the last of her brandy. ‘It suits everyone, the arrangement.’
Kate waited until her mother had put the glass down on the mat, noticing out of the corner of her eye, that her sister was eye-rolling up to the ceiling.
‘What arrangement, Mum?’
‘I’m paying Anne to be my personal carer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It was my idea.’
‘Personal carer? You mean simple daughter duties, the kind of things I’ve done for ten years without payment, and around a full-time job?’
‘Well, yes, but don’t you see? This way it’s more fair. Anne has the time and she needs the money more than you, and you’re always so busy.’
‘At work you mean? But I never minded, that’s the point.’
Annemarie sighed and went to the bathroom. Her mother came across and clumsily embraced her and the brandy fumes almost made her eyes water. Kate had to hold her arms to stop her from wobbling over.
‘I love you both the same,’ her mother began in a low voice. ‘But Anne is more needy than you, she’s weak.’
And sleeping with the bank manager.
‘You’re not helping her by letting her take control of you, it’s all for her own selfish means. And how much brandy have you had? You’re not meant to be drinking with all those tabl
ets!’
‘Shush, I know,’ her mother said, and patted her hand as if they were conspiring, or she needed to be placated. ‘Only a drop. And don’t worry, I’ll keep your sister busy, you wait and see. And take that ham home with you, it’ll go off in this heat.’
Kate drove home feeling physically aged, but on the inside, she was a mash of childish tears and building anger although none of it surfaced properly and the containment of it all made her feel ten times worse. She thought about forcing some of it out once inside her own four walls, throw something at the wall maybe?
Her mobile began to trill and the screen began to flash. Al calling.
She took a deep breath and poured a huge glass of wine with her free hand and moderated her inner voice. ‘Hi, how are you?’
‘All right, I think,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘Same, I think.’
‘Guess what? I’ve got myself a secondhand car and a laptop. If all of this hadn’t been the result of my divorce settlement, I’d be feeling like a teenager. I even got an argument about keeping my room tidy from big bro,’ he went on, then sighed. ‘Look, Kate, I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye and I haven’t been in touch-’
‘Oh, well I suppose I was a bit hasty for the off,’ she said, walking into the snug then and looking at the mess of paper. ‘I’ve done the first book by the way. I need you to check it before I upload it to any sales sites. Oh, and I need your email and you’ll need an e-reader app to check the formatting. And I’ll need your bank details, and we need to discuss royalty percentages. Oh, and some possible marketing ideas, not to mention a cover and a decent blurb.’
There was a beat of total silence. ‘Come again?’
‘I suppose it would be easier if we did this face to face. I’ll set up your laptop if you like.’
‘I like.’
The phone died in her hand. Within half an hour, he was pulling onto the drive in what appeared to be a sporty-looking car, impossible to see exactly what it was in the dark, but it was clearly on the low side. He struggled to get out of it, and then struggled to get the boot open. Butter leapt into the vacated driving seat.
