Losing You

by Susan Lewis

  ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ Emma confessed. ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Well, as far as I can make out they drop into Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, you name it, completely out of the blue, and pay people’s grocery bills.’

  Astonished, Emma reached for the paper.

  ‘They’ve been trying to work out if it’s because you’ve bought a certain product, but it doesn’t seem to be, and anyway, if someone like Heinz or Kelloggs or one of the big companies was behind it they’d surely be making a big deal of it.’

  Emma nodded agreement. ‘So how many of these angels are there?’ she asked, scanning the article.

  ‘No one seems to know. The press have only managed to get hold of one of them and she wouldn’t fess up to who she was working for. What she did say was that the golden angels were only about putting a smile on people’s faces during these difficult times.’

  Emma’s eyebrows rose. ‘Well, they’re definitely doing that,’ she remarked, looking at what surely must have been the happiest face in the paper. ‘A ninety-three-quid bill just taken out of this old chap’s hands and settled by a stranger. Amazing. Who on earth would do something like that?’

  ‘As I said, it’s what everyone’s asking. They reckon it’s someone local, because it only seems to be happening around the Bristol area. I wish they’d drop in on me, I know that. Anyway, fascinating, isn’t it? I think they’ve been turning up at garages too, since the price of petrol went through the roof. You know, if I could afford to work for nothing, which I presume they do, I’d go and buy myself a pair of wings tomorrow.’

  Emma looked startled. ‘You mean they actually dress up as angels?’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t think so, or not that anyone’s ever said, but you get my drift. The trouble is, I wouldn’t even know where to apply, because the whole thing’s so shrouded in secrecy that not even the supermarket managers seem to know who’s behind it.’

  Looking at the paper again, Emma remarked, ‘Well, all I can say is he or she must be pretty well off to be doing something like this.’

  ‘And the owner of a pretty big heart too, so, let’s drink to them, whoever they are. Long may their angels fly and even longer may their loot last.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘IS THAT ALL you can say to me?’ Sylvie Lomax cried furiously, her French accent slurring awkwardly around the words that were already being formed with difficulty. She’d been beautiful once, and vestiges of it remained, but right now temper and excess were torturing the loosening flesh of her pale cheeks, and turning her bloodshot blue eyes to watery pools of confusion and anger. ‘You’re sorry, but you’re not changing your mind?’

  ‘OK, how about this?’ Russell Lomax shot back angrily. ‘I’m not prepared to waste any more time going over this again and again ...’

  ‘I’m not yesterday’s paper that you can just throw out ...’

  ‘Try some new lines, I’m getting pretty sick of that one.’

  Looking as though she’d been struck, she said, ‘You are turning into a monster. You are not the man I married ...’

  ‘I’ve heard those too. Now, I’m leaving and if you ever pull a stunt like last night’s again I swear to God I’ll call the police.’

  Anguish was rushing through her so fast that she stumbled against the table as she tried to grab him. ‘Russ, stop,’ she cried wretchedly. ‘Please. I know I shouldn’t have ... Russ, please don’t go. We need to talk ...’

  With his back still turned he closed his eyes in furious frustration. ‘There’s nothing left to say,’ he growled. ‘You have to get a grip, Sylvie ...’

  ‘I’m trying, you know that, but I love you, Russ. I can’t go on without you.’

  He didn’t turn round, but for the moment he couldn’t quite make himself walk away.

  Sylvie’s face was starting to tremble with all the terrible emotions crushing her heart: fear, desperation, jealousy, hate, love at its very worst and most painfully intense.

  When he finally turned round her husband’s handsome face was still taut with anger, and there was no light of forgiveness or even affection in his harsh brown eyes. ‘You know I want a divorce ...’

  More panic surged through her. ‘No! I am not giving you a divorce. You are my husband ...’

  ‘You are the one who walked out on me,’ he reminded her cuttingly. ‘This is your flat, the one that you bought so you could live your own life, away from me.’

  ‘Not away from you, only independently now and again. It is for when I want to see my friends and do some shopping.’

  Though Russ knew very well that its purpose was to provide her with somewhere she could down as much wine or vodka as she pleased without anyone trying to stop her, he didn’t bother to point it out. She knew he knew and he really didn’t want to get into yet another row about that right now.

  ‘It isn’t where I want to be all of the time,’ she went on plaintively. ‘I need to come home, Russ ...’

  ‘No. What you need is to find yourself a lawyer so that we can both get on with our lives.’

  ‘No! No, no, no. I am not giving you a divorce just so you can marry the little tart you ’ave been screwing in my bed, in the house that I bought ...’

  ‘We bought,’ he corrected, ‘and I’ve told you a hundred times, if you want me to sell it ...’

  ‘Of course I don’t want you to sell it. It’s our home, it is where our children ...’

  ‘I can’t have this conversation again,’ he cut in savagely. ‘You know very well that our marriage isn’t working and hasn’t been for years ...’

  ‘That isn’t true. It has been for me ... Russ, please. My whole life is with you, and our sons. They need us to be together, you must understand that. You cannot deprive them of their mother.’

  Despairing of the repetition, he said, ‘The boys are twenty-one and twenty-three years old. Neither of them is even living at home any more.’

  ‘Oliver is.’

  ‘Temporarily, while he looks for a job.’

  ‘So you are allowing him to be under the same roof as you and that bitch. This is not a good situation for him. I will not allow my son to be exposed to your debauchery.’

  Knowing from bitter experience that it was a waste of breath trying to tell her he wasn’t having an affair when she’d already managed to convince herself he was, he said, ‘This has nothing to do with Angie.’

  ‘How can you say that when she is in my home, stealing my husband, making up to my sons, using my things ...’

  ‘OK, I’m out of here.’

  ‘Noooo! You can’t just leave! Please, Russell, please let me come with you. I swear it’ll be different this time. I’ll do whatever you want ...’

  ‘All I want is for you to let me go.’

  ‘But I cannot do that. I love you ...’

  ‘Sylvie, your drinking, your jealousy ... they’re out of control ...’

  ‘I will get help.’

  ‘That’s what you always say, but you never do and I’ve had enough. I want to live in a world where I can breathe and not have to keep watching what I say in case you take it the wrong way, or feel afraid of even looking at another woman, never mind speaking to her ...’

  ‘I swear I will change. Please give me another chance. I know you still love me, really. I can see it in your eyes. We’ve been through so much together ... Twenty-five years, two children, my cancer ... Remember how afraid you were that I would die?’

  His eyes closed again. Though he’d known it was coming, at least this time the cancer card had taken longer to play – usually it was one of the first out of the deck.

  ‘Don’t look like that, please,’ she implored. ‘I know you care, because it’s not in you to stop just like that. OK, I have not always been easy, but after Papa died ... Grief does things to people, Russ, you said that yourself. Remember how you felt when your own father passed? For a long time you didn’t know who you were or where to turn. I was there for you then, the way I’ve always been, so
please don’t just throw me out now when I need you the most.’

  Feeling the knife of guilt twisting deeper and deeper, he came to put his hands on her shoulders and waited for her anxious, teary eyes to come to his. ‘This isn’t about your father, or your cancer, or grief. It’s about the fact that I don’t love you any more – or not in the way I used to ...’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t, don’t. She’s put you up to this. You’re besotted, delusional ...’

  ‘Sylvie ...’

  ‘Don’t you realise that all men your age go through a mid-life crisis? No, don’t look like that. I know this is not what you want to hear, but it is what’s happening to you. We married young; you didn’t get to play the field, so you’re doing it now. I understand that, and I’m trying to deal with it ... Moving here, to this flat, was me trying to give you some space to be you, but we can’t go on living apart. It’s not right, Russ. It’s not who we are. We belong together.’

  Letting his hands drop to his sides as she distorted the truth to suit herself yet again, he said, ‘I have to go. Please don’t vandalise Angie’s car again ... No, don’t deny it, I know it was you and honest to God, if you carry on the way you are ...’ He didn’t even want to think about what might happen. ‘She was extremely upset ...’

  ‘She was upset ...’

  ‘And scared ...’

  ‘She’s sleeping with my husband and she’s the one who’s upset?’

  Knowing he’d be insane to go any further with that, he simply said, ‘Charlie’s coming to see you sometime in the next couple of days.’ Charlie was their elder son, now living in London. ‘He’s worried about you and frankly, Sylvie, he could do without the distraction when his bar exams are coming up in less than a month.’

  Her eyes filled with disbelief. ‘You told him what I did?’

  Though he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised by the question, he found that he was. ‘You told him, Sylvie. You rang him at three o’clock this morning ...’ Suddenly he almost felt sorry for her, as shame and bewilderment seemed to crush her. A drunk’s amnesia could be a blessing until someone came up with a reminder.

  ‘Why is he coming?’ she whispered. ‘He doesn’t have to.’

  ‘You’re his mother. He loves you and he needs to know you’re all right. Please tell him that you are, Sylvie. His future is at stake and he’s worked so hard ...’

  ‘Why are you telling me something I already know? He’s my son. Nothing matters more to me than him – and Oliver. They know I love them equally, which is more than I can say for you.’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t start that again ...’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. You’ve never had a favourite between them, have you? Charlie was never the ...’

  ‘Sylvie! If Oliver feels that I love him less than Charlie then the blame lies squarely with you, because neither one of those boys means more to me than the other.’

  ‘Try telling Oliver that ...’

  ‘No! You try telling Oliver that, because you’re the one who’s fed him all the crap about him being the spare after the heir. For Christ’s sake, we’re not royalty ...’

  ‘But Charlie is your favourite.’

  ‘Charlie is not my favourite. I love both my sons more than my own life and if I hear those words coming out of your mouth again, so help me God, I’ll push them back in a way we’ll both end up regretting.’

  Stepping away from him, she said, ‘You never used to be like that. There was never any violence in you before.’

  Throwing up his hands, he sighed. ‘I don’t know why I came here. Talking to you is like wading in quicksand and I’m in over my head. I’m drowning, Sylvie, in who you are, what you’re trying to do to us all, what’s made you like this ...’

  ‘You made me like this. If we were still together ...’

  ‘Sort yourself out, Sylvie, because I’m done with trying. I have a business to run, two boys to care about and ...’

  ‘... a whore to satisfy! Does she know you take Viagra?’

  He blinked.

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘If I were you,’ he said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t go any further with that, because I swear you won’t want to hear ...’

  ‘Oh,’ she spat, ‘so it’s my fault, is it, that you are impotent? Is that what you’re telling yourself?’

  ‘OK, this really is over now. Please be sober when Charlie gets here, and if Oliver comes round try to remember that he’s way more sensitive than you give him credit for and ...’

  ‘Don’t lecture me about my own son. I know Oliver a thousand times better than you ever will.’

  Since this was an utterly futile argument, he turned, walked to the door and tugged it open.

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you,’ she shouted, ‘that I will have to go on the game to support my children?’

  Stunned, he turned back again.

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ she cried, ‘and I’m not qualified for any other kind of work, because all I’ve done for years is give you the sex you want and bring up your children.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he shouted, coming back to her. ‘Will you look at where you are? This is one of the best addresses in Bristol, and your net worth is about three times more than mine since your father died. Actually, why the hell am I getting into this? I don’t know what makes you say the things you do, Viagra, prostitution ...’

  ‘They are true ...’

  ‘... but you’re making me think you’re losing your mind.’

  ‘If I am, it is your fault for making me stay here. I am like a prisoner, unable to go to my home ...’

  Turning away, he went back to the door and would have left had she not charged after him and blocked his way. Her eyes were glittering with desperation and fear, her chest was heaving as she tried to catch her breath. ‘If you go now I will tell everyone what I know about you,’ she hissed.

  He frowned in confusion.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘Oh yes you do. You are lying to everyone, pretending you don’t know things when you do.’

  A small glint of suspicion, and unease, sparked in his eyes.

  ‘If you do not want me to go public with the truth you will change your mind and let me come home.’

  Standing her aside, he grabbed the handle and tugged open the door. ‘You need to sober up,’ he told her savagely.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she yelled, pulling on the door as he tried to close it behind him. ‘Why have you changed so much?’

  ‘Go back inside.’

  ‘No, because this is not where I belong. You can’t leave me here. I have no one without you. My father is dead and my sister is in Cape Town. I have nowhere else to go.’

  Forcing himself to ignore her, he ran swiftly down the stairs, expecting the other residents to appear at any moment, while praying she wouldn’t follow him in her dressing gown, praying she wouldn’t follow him at all.

  ‘Russell!’ she screamed, as he let himself out of the main door. ‘Russell, please.’

  The door slammed, and his footsteps moved away.

  ‘Mum, you have to come in.’

  She spun round in shock. ‘Oh, Oliver,’ she gasped through her sobs. ‘I forget you were there.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, keeping his voice gentle as he reached for her in spite of wanting to shout like his father, and shake her back to her senses. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  ‘But how can it?’ she asked pathetically as he drew her inside. ‘Will you talk to him, Oliver? Will you make him let me come home?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said, knowing already that it would be a waste of time. When his father’s mind was made up about something, that was the way it stayed, and it was definitely made up over this.

  ‘You are such a good boy,’ she said, resting her head on his shoulder. He was as tall as his father, and almost the same build; he looked like his father, to
o, with his deep-set brown eyes and mop of silky dark hair. In fact, he reminded her so much of Russ at twenty-one that sometimes when she looked at him she almost felt young again. Perhaps it was why she loved him so much. She loved Charlie too, her adorable, brilliant, serious older son, who was more like her, at least in looks, with his fair hair, green eyes and delicate skin. They were so different, her boys, and so much a part of her that she knew she would be unable to carry on without them. She wouldn’t even want to try.

  Needing a drink she went back across the sitting room, and around the breakfast bar into the kitchen. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, searching for the bottle she’d hidden somewhere, she just couldn’t remember where. ‘When did you come?’

  ‘Oh Mum,’ he groaned, angry with her for already forgetting how he’d practically run in through the door less than half an hour ago, desperate for the bathroom, but not forgetting to give her a big hug first. It was while he was drying his hands that his father had turned up, and knowing very well what had prompted the visit he’d decided to stay out of the firing line until the worst of it was over. He’d found, over the last few years, when the drinking had become so much worse, that it was the best way when his parents started laying into each other. ‘I got here just before Dad, don’t you remember?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she mumbled, dashing a hand to her head. ‘I’m sorry, my mind is all over the place this morning.’ Finally finding the vodka in the bin she dropped to her knees, took a glass from a cupboard, quickly filled it, then went to run the tap, making out she was filling her glass with water. After downing the drink in one, she took a deep breath, wiped a hand across her face and turned back to find Oliver standing at the breakfast bar, watching her.