by Clare Boyd
The charged space between them was broken up by Jason, who bobbed about mopping up the tea.
‘What are you doing here?’ Heather asked.
Jason stopped cleaning and glanced up at Elizabeth, as though looking at her with fresh eyes.
‘Jason, this is Elizabeth Huxley,’ Heather said.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, wiping his hand on his shorts and thrusting it into Elizabeth’s, not letting go.
‘Okay Jason, could you give us a moment?’ Heather said, saving Elizabeth from his grip.
‘I’ll get your tea,’ he said.
They sat down opposite each other. The table was narrow. They were too close.
‘You’re better,’ Elizabeth remarked.
‘Today I feel much better.’
‘Might you have caught a chill from your swim the other night? Lucas wasn’t himself at all.’
Heather’s face reddened to her hair roots.
Jason arrived with two teas and two plastic-wrapped packets of Bourbons. ‘On the house.’
‘Thank you,’ Elizabeth said.
Jason hesitated. ‘You all right, Heather?’
‘Fine, thanks, Jase,’ Heather replied croakily, fiddling with her packet of biscuits.
They both waited for him to leave them alone again.
‘It didn’t mean anything,’ Heather whispered.
‘I don’t care what it meant,’ Elizabeth said, reaching into her bag and placing Mr Freeman’s green plastic wallet on the table between them.
‘What’s that?’
‘See for yourself.’
Heather opened the flap. A fifty-pound note fluttered out on a gust of wind. Elizabeth clamped the note to the concrete underfoot and put it back in the wallet with the rest.
‘That’s a lot of money,’ Heather said.
‘It’s for you.’
Elizabeth couldn’t tell her that it was guilt money. She couldn’t admit that she should never have allowed Heather to return to the grounds of Copper Lodge when all along she had known about her swimming lessons with Lucas.
‘Why would I take your money?’
‘I want you to leave Copper Lodge.’
Heather squeezed water out of her ponytail. ‘Why not just fire me?’
‘Lucas wouldn’t allow it.’
Heather placed both elbows on the table and covered her face. ‘I feel really weird about you being here.’ When she looked up, her high colour had drained away. She was pale, almost blue, and little hairs were raised across her cheeks. ‘Lucas and I …’ She stopped and began again. ‘There is nothing between me and Lucas any more. Nothing.’
‘Good,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We have children together.’
Heather’s grey eyes filled with tears. ‘I would never want to hurt anyone,’ she said, plucking at the rubber sleeve of her wetsuit.
‘Take it, Heather,’ Elizabeth insisted, pushing the wallet towards her.
‘No. I can’t take money from you.’
Outraged, Elizabeth landed her fist on the tabletop, losing her patience. ‘It’s one and a half thousand pounds!’ she yelled, unable to believe Heather’s naïvety, unable to give up on her yet. ‘It’ll buy you enough time to find another job or pay someone else to help your parents!’
Heather reeled back and Jason arrived at her side.
‘Everything okay here?’ he asked.
Elizabeth curled her fingers into her palms, let her hands fall into her lap, retreating, withering inside. ‘Get out while you can, Heather,’ she implored.
She recognised the look of distrust and alarm in Heather’s eyes. She’d seen this look on other women’s faces before: Heather thought she was mad. And maybe she was. For thinking that she could do some good.
‘Don’t worry, I’m leaving,’ she said, stuffing the wallet back in her bag, knowing it would be useless to go on, knowing she would only make it worse. Heather’s refusal to take the money was a blow. It meant she was not in it for what she could get. It meant she was in love with Lucas. It meant that Elizabeth had stepped in too late to save her from what awaited her, from Agata’s fate and that of many others before her.
‘I’m not going to cause any trouble,’ Heather said. ‘I’ll work through the summer and be gone. You have my word.’
‘Your word?’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘That’s irrelevant to me.’
Relevant to her had been Lucas’s word, and he had broken it again and again.
Twenty-Five
With my engagement ring like a foreign body on my finger, I opened the door to the flat. Rob was right up against me, nudging me gently in through the door as he kissed my neck, still talking about Elizabeth.
‘But she seemed sooooo weird, she definitely, definitely had important things to tell you,’ he slurred, hitting the side of his nose with his finger. He was so drunk he could barely walk.
‘She’s always weird like that.’
Take it, Heather, she had said.
‘Nah. She must have chickened out of whatever she was going to tell you. There’s no way she came all this way to give you a get-well card.’
‘I keep telling you, she’s mad.’
We have children together, she had said.
Rob whistled. ‘You said it.’
He tripped up on the mat.
‘Easy now, Rob,’ I said, propping him up, unable to conceal the irritation in my voice. He wouldn’t have noticed either way.
‘Come ’ere, Mrs Hensher,’ he said, wiping a bit of slobber from his chin. His eyes were half closed. He stank. Every day I had been home had begun with a swim in the fresh, wild air, and ended with Rob’s stale breath.
‘I’m not Mrs Hensher yet.’
‘You will be when I’m done with you, baby.’
He launched himself at me and began kissing me with wet, beery lips. I shuddered. Not only because he was drunk, but because everything he did made me think of us doing it together for life. And I compared this to the life I had once wanted with Lucas.
* * *
It hurt. A stretching, burning hardness inside me. The laurel leaves scratched at my head as he pushed, and I thought, this is really happening. I wondered if I should groan, like the women in films, but I knew any sound I made would betray the pain I felt. I couldn’t wait for it to stop. His hair tickled my shoulder, his breath was hot on my skin. When he rolled off me, I pulled my damp swimsuit back in place and noticed my fingernails were black with soil. Blades of torn grass fell onto my thighs. The stinging and the wetness there worried me.
‘Come here, you angel,’ he said, scooping me up and on top of him. ‘Wow, look at you.’
I was straddling him. He was looking up at me and pulling my wet hair around and down each shoulder. He played with the sodden tips at my waist, squeezing out the water. In spite of being clothed in a tatty, chlorine-eaten one-piece, I felt like the Botticelli Venus I had studied in art class – that was how he made me feel.
‘You okay?’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘It’ll get better,’ he grinned, seeing through my lie. ‘Soon we’ll be able to do it again and again in beautiful hotels all around the world. On huge super-king beds. And afterwards I’ll run you bubble baths and we can order room service and watch movies all night.’
I lay on his chest as he spoke into my ear, like the whisper of bedtime stories.
‘And we’ll swim in seas that have so much salt you can float, or seas that are so clear you can see your toes, as blue as gemstones. We can dive into coral reefs and shower in waterfalls. We’ll do everything together.’
He was like a bed underneath me, stirring, beating, breathing, ridged, hard and soft; perfect. I wanted to sleep there all my life.
‘I’m going to get a job and make us lots of money so that I can take you around the world and buy you anything you’ve ever wanted.’
‘I don’t need anything,’ I said. But I was not telling the whole truth. I liked the idea of what he was offering. It sounded better than what I
could have afforded by myself.
* * *
‘Come on, let’s get you into bed,’ I said to Rob.
‘Maybe …’ he shouted, holding his finger in the air, ‘maybe that Huxley woman wanted to tell you she was legging it!’
I sighed. ‘Where would she be going?’
‘Maybe Lucas isn’t such a nice guy. Maybe she’s off to sunnier climes with her young lover and she wanted to say goodbye. Maybe she wanted to give you the heads-up because she likes you,’ Rob went on.
‘Who knows,’ I said.
Get out while you can, Elizabeth had said.
Rob’s fingers squeezed mine tighter and he shot me a daft smile. ‘Sorrrreeeee. Now I know why you always go on about that lot. There was something about her.’
His head dropped and he mumbled something incomprehensible. I led him to bed with his weight heavy on my shoulders. I helped him take off his trousers, covered him with the duvet, and sat on the edge of the bed stroking his hair. He was snoring within five minutes.
When I knew he was sound asleep, I crept out of the room and closed the bedroom door. I looked around the shadows of the flat, unwilling to turn the light on to see the space that no longer felt like mine. My suitcase was by the door. Five days here and I hadn’t unpacked it. Tomorrow I was going back to Connolly Close.
Any permanent traces of my presence in the flat had disappeared completely. Even the smell was different. Before, it had smelt of cooking and scented candles. Now it smelt of sour dishcloths and stale sofas. Rob and Jake – who was staying with his mother for the week – had not been looking after the place. The aura and the charm had completely disappeared. I wondered what it was I had thought I would miss. The happiness of a home was only kept alive by the happiness of those who lived there.
I tried to conjure up the image of moving back in, of putting my pictures and clothes back on the shelves and in the drawers, but I could not. The projection of my future as Mrs Hensher rang false.
I sat on the sofa, staring at the black television screen.
In my handbag, by the door, was my phone. My text exchange with Lucas yesterday morning on the beach had been an error, a worse betrayal than our kiss. Rob didn’t deserve it. Equally, I knew there was no way I could marry him. He didn’t deserve that either.
For how long I sat there in the dark, I didn’t know, but my thoughts were interrupted by a text pinging through on my phone. It was from Amy.
You still awake?
Yup.
Rob was so drunk tonight. Is he okay?
Think so.
How are you feeling?
Confused.
I guessed.
What should I do?
Go with your heart, sweetie.
I’m not sure I can. It will hurt too many people.
Honey, Paul Weller once called himself an emotional coward. He now has a string of exes and seven children. Go figure ;);)
This made me laugh out loud. Amy’s mother had had a crush on Paul Weller when we were teenagers, and it reminded me of growing up, and of feeling young and carefree.
LOL. Okay. Promise not to be PW. Now go to sleep and stop worrying about me. H x
Stop texting me then. Night, night. A x
Her message was followed by a string of hearts and girl-power emojis.
I should have tried to sleep, but I wanted to work out a way of telling Rob, limiting his heartache, making it easier on both of us somehow. I turned on the television and flicked through the channels, stumbling on a rerun of Tootsie. It was about halfway through, but I knew the film well. Dustin Hoffman played the character of Michael – dressed as Dorothy – who gazed longingly at Julie as she swayed her hips to a romantic song while stirring a pot on the stove. He was transfixed. His love for her was becoming increasingly difficult to conceal. To have any hope of being with her or of being true to himself, he had to reveal his identity, lose the dress, rip his life apart, ruin his career, face up to his friends and publicly humiliate himself. He had to put it all on the line to be with her.
Like Michael, I realised that I had to find out. I was too young to stay with someone because it was the safe and sensible thing to do, because I was scared of changing my life or upsetting Rob or disappointing my father. I had no idea if I could trust my feelings for Lucas, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I had let him slip through my fingers because I had been scared.
As the film credits rolled, I took the ring off, tucked it back into the velvet padding and placed the box back in the centre of the coffee table. It was ready to take back. Then, exhausted, I curled up on the sofa and fell asleep under a blanket.
A few hours later, I awoke to the noise of the toilet flushing. Rob padded into the sitting room rubbing his eyes.
‘Why didn’t you come to bed?’
‘I meant to,’ I said, swallowing. The box with the ring inside was still sitting there on the table in front of me. If I reached for it, to put it on, to pretend to myself that I wasn’t going to say what I was going to say, or maybe to give myself time to pluck up the courage to say it, he would be immediately suspicious of why I had taken it off in the first place. There was no reason to wait, other than cowardliness.
I picked up the box and sat with it in my hands.
At first, he smiled. Then he noticed that the ring wasn’t on my finger. The smile dropped.
The guilt made me feel ill.
‘Why have you put it back in the box?’ Fear seemed to puncture his sleepiness. He was alert.
For a moment, I lost my nerve. I couldn’t say the words. Voicing the end of our relationship would be unreal. It would be the worst thing I had ever said out loud. A destructive, shocking thing to do. Yet I was compelled to do it.
‘I love you so much, Rob, but I’m so, so sorry, I can’t marry you. I’m not ready to—’
‘Shut up,’ he said, tears in his eyes, tears in his voice.
‘I’m so sorry.’ My voice wobbled. I wouldn’t cry. It wasn’t fair to cry. ‘I wanted so much to make this work. You are an amazing, amazing man but you must’ve felt something wasn’t quite right. Surely you knew deep down that it wasn’t going to work?’
‘No, Heather. I have never known it. I have loved you from the day I met you. But I do know that I want you to get the hell out.’ He hadn’t moved an inch, his body rigid like a statue.
I didn’t know if I had the strength to stand up, but I knew I had to find it.
My suitcase was parked by the bedroom door, ready, but as I moved towards it, Rob jerked into life, swung around and kicked it across the wooden floor. It slid to a halt right by my feet.
I took one last sheepish look at him as I picked it up, catching the terror in his eyes.
What had I done to him? It had happened too quickly. Too definitively. I had expected an in-depth heart-to-heart. He was supposed to have asked me why and I was supposed to have persuaded him that it was best for us both in the long term. The slow wriggle-out would have given me time to backtrack if it had felt wrong. If it had continued to feel right, I had imagined parting with tears and hugs and a sense of relief that the truth was out.
Now, I felt the opposite of relief. My chest had tightened and contracted.
‘I am so sorry,’ I mumbled again, and I picked up my handbag and lurched out as though I had been pushed.
Out in the street, with drunk stragglers lolling past me, I let my tears flow.
* * *
I was still crying as I drove back to Cobham.
There were lulls in my distress, when my salty face dried, but then the reality of what I had done would resurface, setting me off again. Stolen looks of sympathy and curiosity from a passenger in a car next to me heightened my shame. I was relieved that she didn’t know the true reason I was crying. I was more sympathetic as the victim: the dumped or the sacked or the grieving. Not the person who had just ripped someone’s heart out with a few simple words.
* * *
Lucas’s voice wa
s in my head, in my dream. Are you all right, love? Whose voice was that? I opened my eyes, wondering where I was.
My mother’s concerned face was peering around the door.
‘Are you all right, love?’ she said. ‘It was the early hours when you came in.’
I checked my watch, as if it might have the answer to that question. It was six thirty in the morning. It didn’t have the answer.
I sat up in bed and Mum perched on the edge. ‘We weren’t expecting you until this evening.’
Dad appeared and hovered by the door.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Mum’s eternally cold hand was planted on my forehead.
‘I’m fine. Jake – the lodger – came back from his mum’s early. It was awkward, so I decided to head off last night.’
‘We thought you’d be making the most of your time with Rob.’ Mum’s gaze darted towards my left hand.
I twigged. Of course, they knew he was going to propose. They would have been dying to see me, to hear the good news.
‘I’m sorry. It didn’t work out,’ I said, rubbing my bare ring finger.
My mother clamped her hand over her pearly lips.
I dared to look up at Dad. ‘You are having us on,’ he said.
I curled up into the corner of the bed and pulled the duvet around me.
‘I don’t want to get married. Not yet.’
‘But you’re almost thirty, love!’ Mum said.
‘Yes, I know, but I can’t marry someone I don’t love.’
‘You do love him,’ Mum insisted.
‘I love him in one way, but I am not in love with him.’
‘What nonsense. You’ve been happy together,’ Dad said. A frown had formed deep into his silvery hairline. My feet were sweating under the duvet.
