By the time she had finished it, the mascara blobs had been joined by splashes of orange soup and Australian red wine. Bel sat on the sofa and picked up the skirt to examine the tear. She slipped her hands inside it then pulled them apart, and the material split with a satisfying rip. Five seconds later she was locked in a dress-destroying frenzy, shredding the material between her bare hands, yanking wildly on the sleeves until they were dragged away from the rest of the gown and thrown across the room. She tugged at the neck and felt the zip at the back split. The tattered dress fell to the floor and she picked it up and wildly tore where she could at the net underskirt, swearing as she kicked it around the room. Then she slumped to the sofa in her underwear, the fight in her spent. All the strength that had carried her through the past two months was now depleted and the walls holding back all her hurt and pain crumbled in on themselves. Bel’s body curled into a ball and she dragged the quilt over her. In the sanctuary of her fifteen-tog nest, she cried and cried and cried.
Chapter 22
Glyn was humming in the kitchen as he cooked breakfast for them the next morning. His fry-ups were getting bigger, and if she didn’t finish off her plate his lip curled like a disappointed child’s.
‘Didn’t you like it?’ he would say if she left more than a mush-room. He wouldn’t mention the fact that he’d put enough on her plate to feed a small emergent nation for a week. She wouldn’t have been so cruel as to mention that he had outgrown all the trousers in his wardrobe and so slopped around in baggy lounge pants that made him look enormous. Instead she just hinted that so much fried food really wasn’t good for anyone. Violet wasn’t a food fascist – how could she be when she made ice cream for a living? – but Glyn grazed constantly on crisps and biscuits and sweets. They weren’t treats; they constituted most of his staple diet.
‘Breakfast is ready,’ he trilled.
‘Coming.’ Violet sprayed on her perfume and went into the kitchen. This morning’s effort was a belt-buster.
‘I can’t eat all this, Glyn,’ she tried to say kindly. He’d doubled up on everything. ‘I won’t fit into the shop if I finish that lot off.’
His cheery little smile faded.
‘I’m not saying it doesn’t look delicious,’ said Violet. ‘I’m just saying there’s a bit too much for me on the plate. You know I’m trying to keep in shape for the wedding.’
He brightened at the thought of the wedding. Behind him the kettle whistled and he leaped up to brew some tea.
Violet sat at the table and tucked into one of the four rashers of bacon. That satiated her appetite but to appease him she ate a little of the black pudding, half the egg, the end of a sausage and a couple of mushrooms. She pushed the remainder around on her plate, trying to make it look as if she hadn’t left as much as she had. As she used to do with school dinners.
‘Which one do you want?’ asked Glyn, holding up the Sunday newspapers that the paper boy had delivered to their mail slot downstairs.
‘You have first choice,’ said Violet, picking up her plate and going over to the bin in the corner. ‘I’m having a couple of hours in the shop.’
‘But it’s Sunday, Letty.’
‘Just an hour or two,’ said Violet. ‘The decorator is arriving tomorrow and I want to tidy up before he comes.’
‘Oh.’ Glyn’s face made Eeyore’s look like Frank Carson’s.
‘It’s only a couple of hours.’
‘What does he look like?’ Glyn asked the question casually enough, but Violet knew that his insecurities had been cranked up by mention of the painter.
‘He’s just a young gangly kid,’ she mirrored the casualness. ‘Student-type. Arty-farty.’
‘Right.’
‘The sooner I get everything done, the sooner I can move in and start making some money.’
‘If you say so.’
He had resorted to sulky monosyllables now, which Violet had no patience for. She grabbed her handbag, breezed out of the flat and said that she’d see him later.
She knew he would be waving her off through the window, but she kept her eyes firmly on the road as she drove off.
‘Oh God, help me,’ she said as she rounded the corner. Because He was the only one who could.
There was a bride special in the Sunday World supplement. Max almost dropped her yoghurt with glee when she saw it.
Stuart looked over her shoulder and virtually heard the cogs turning in Max’s head.
‘Max McBride, I know you. Don’t you dare be getting any daft ideas about turning up to church in a crinoline,’ and he kissed her cheek. Max chuckled along with Stuart but gulped inside.
It was a good job he hadn’t seen the list in her diary of all the things she had to get him to change his mind about. First, she needed him to upgrade his suit and for that she would enlist the help of his best man and oldest friend, Luke. Then there was the matter of a slight tweak on the number of guests they would invite; after all, it would be daft to have the whole church to themselves. Then a reception, because it was only right and proper to feed all those guests. And you couldn’t have a church without flowers either – Bel’s wedding proved that one. The church was naked without them, totally without atmosphere. And bridesmaids, and a palatial cake. And she couldn’t arrive at church in an enormous frock in just an ordinary ‘Barry’s Taxi’. It would have to be a stretch limousine or – even better – a coach and horses. Max was gripped by a momentary panic at such an impossible task, but then again, Max had always been known as ‘Max’ll fix it’ – they’d even made her a fake Jim’ll Fix It badge once at a conference – because if Max couldn’t bend a will and get her own way, no one could. Looking at Stuart, now sitting across the kitchen table, still with that rare defiant look in his eyes, even Max knew she had her work cut out.
Chapter 23
Bel woke up with the hangover from hell and found she was cuddling an empty bottle of wine. She opened her eyelids and the thick belt of pain in the front of her head thrummed even more, then she closed them again and nestled back into the quilt.
Someone knocked on the door with a big fist.
‘Bugger off,’ said Bel from her cocoon. But the knocking didn’t stop.
‘Hang on,’ she said, pulling herself up to a sitting position. There was a big iron weight in her head that prevented her from doing that quickly. ‘I said “hang on”,’ she shouted at the door when it rattled again in its casing.
She was wearing only her knickers as sometime during the night she had unhooked her bra and placed it on the coffee table. She pulled the quilt around her and waddled to the door. She didn’t even think, or care, to check what she looked like in the mirror. What opened the door to her renting neighbour wasn’t a pretty sight.
His fist was raised to knock once again as she threw open the door. He really wasn’t the most patient of fellows.
‘Yes. Can I help you, Mr . . .’
Again he didn’t supply his name. She’d just have to call him knobhead, then.
‘The tin opener. Could I have it back, please?’ She saw his eyes drift to the ball of shredded dress on the floor. But she didn’t give a damn what conclusions he might draw from it.
‘Yes, I suppose,’ she said and pin-stepped to the sink. When she returned with the tin opener, she held it out as far as she could without letting go of the quilt and giving him an impromptu floorshow.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and he turned away.
‘Absolute pleasure,’ she said.
‘Oh and your father called me on the house phone,’ he said, just before the door fully closed. ‘He said it was a long shot but had I seen a “lady” of your description. I told him I hadn’t seen anyone.’
‘Most kind,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm he attached to the word ‘lady’.
‘By the way, I’d appreciate it if that’s the last of my involvement in your family squabbles,’ he said. ‘I came here for isolation, not to practise any skills of duplicity . . .’
‘Ye
ah, join the club,’ said Bel, slamming the door. The cheek of the man. She’d only asked him for a quilt, a pan and a tin opener, which happened to be her family’s quilt, pan and tin opener, actually. And not to mention to anyone that he’d seen her. It was hardly asking him to forge a passport for her and smuggle her over to Cuba.
She wondered what his story was and why he wanted to be here in the middle of nowhere. Then again, it was quite obvious he didn’t have many social skills. Living a hermit existence was probably better for both him and the world.
She listened to some music on the rubbish radio while she made herself a coffee and hunted for her charger. Even though her phone was switched off, the light was flashing to say it was running out of juice. She couldn’t find it anywhere. She couldn’t actually remember packing it. And there she was, thinking she’d been well organized.
There was a universal phone charger upstairs in Emily, if Bel could but get to it. She wasn’t going to knock on the door and ask Mr Stroppy Git for it. She would sneak in and steal it at the first opportunity – he’d be none the wiser.
She took some Nurofen and sat in the silence waiting for them to kick in. The only sound was the rhythmic tick of the old clock on the wall, which began to lull her back to sleep. Then the sound of a car revving up jerked her rudely awake. She sprang to the window just in time to see her miserable sod of a neighbour’s Range Rover driving out of sight. The nearest shop was a ten-minute drive away, which would give her ample time to get into Emily and take what she needed.
Quickly, she grabbed her jeans, bra and a top, threw her feet into some shoes and slipped out of the back door, taking the bunch of keys with her. She opened up the rear door of Emily and stole in. She nearly tripped over a briefcase, which had gold initials under the handle: DR DR. Bel wondered if he was a doctor, or had a stutter where lettering was concerned. Anyway, she’d muse about that later as she currently had a job to do. She went straight up into the larger of the two bedrooms and into the corner where there was a narrow ‘glory hole’ cupboard. There on the top shelf was a shoebox full of bits and bobs such as fuses and the charger she needed. She took it out, put the box back and made sure the cupboard door was fully shut so as not to arouse suspicion. He couldn’t possibly have told that she had been in his bedroom. Mission complete.
She was safely back in Charlotte a good fifteen minutes before he returned. By which time Bel had charged up the phone sufficiently to write a text to her dad to reassure him that she was fine and staying in a hotel down south, then one each to Violet and Max.
Just to let you know that I’m really okay. I still need some time out. No one can find me where I am. I know you’ll both feel helpless but don’t let this spoil your own wedding arrangements. Sorry again. Will be in touch very soon, B x
Bel walked to the bottom of the hill where the small curling private road met the main road to the moors. It was the nearest point where there was any phone reception. When she saw that her outbox was now empty, she quickly turned off her phone because it had already started buzzing with messages received and she really didn’t want to read any of them at the moment.
It was raining yet again. Fat drops that were so big they were hitting the ground and splashing back up. She was soggy by the time she had walked up the hill. She sneered at her perfidious car with its flat tyre, then noticed that the man in Emily was looking smugly through the window at her, dry and cosy in the cottage that she should have been in. She curled her lip at him and narrowed her eyes, and only just stopped herself from giving him the Vs. Then Bel unlocked Charlotte’s door and slammed it so hard she hoped the reverberations would knock something heavy off a shelf next door that would land on his head.
Her duty to her friends and dad performed, she could go back to being Greta Garbo ‘vonting to be alone’ for a while. Until her brain had a clue what it had done and what it was going to do now.
Violet smiled sadly when the text came through while she was sitting at the Leach family dinner table again. She would have given anything to be having a coffee with Bel and Max in the Maltstone Garden Centre coffee shop, having a laugh. Their friendship was already precious to her. Apart from them she had only one other friend in life – her cousin, Eve, and they didn’t see enough of each other. Eve was probably the only person to whom Violet could have poured out her heart about the mess she was in, but the lovely Eve was grieving for her soldier fiancé, killed in Afghanistan. She had enough sorrow in her world. So going out for a gossip and a meal and wandering around White Wedding these past few weeks with Bel and Max had been so lovely, so needed.
Sitting here now with her future father-in-law doing a running commentary on his beef-slicing and having Joy give her disapproving looks for checking her phone at the table, Violet wished she could take a giant leap back into her past and start her adult life again. No men, more ice cream. When she had finished her course at catering college, the world really did feel like her oyster. Dreams were within her grasp but mortgages and pension-planning and dull stuff like that were miles off. And marriage was something that would happen one wonderful day when she was madly in love with a man, and he with her. Life was sweet, uncomplicated and light. Now she felt weighed down by chains – like a living Jacob Marley.
Chapter 24
A wave of tiredness washed over Bel as soon as the door slammed behind her. She slumped on the sofa and wrapped the quilt around her again to extract some warmth from it because she was shaking with damp cold. Even her bones felt wet. It wasn’t a healthy tiredness that was pulling her down;it was a fatigue born of depression and exhaustion. Her body wanted oblivion, and she felt sniffly too. She knew that adrenaline had kept her back stiff, her body in perfect working order, her head like a polished computer ready for her big moment, and now it was no longer pumping through her, her body was seizing the opportunity to break down.
She switched on the radio just in time to hear the news on the hour – none of it good. A teenager stabbed in London, a soldier killed by a roadside bomb, someone shot dead outside a nightclub. The same old usual depressing crap. Her thoughts were grabbed by the final news item, though.
‘Police in West Yorkshire are still on the alert for an escaped convict. Dr Donald Reynolds absconded from a secure hospital unit in Wakefield last Thursday afternoon. Reynolds was found guilty of stabbing six of his patients in a killing spree last January and of garrotting his wife. Fifty-six-year-old Reynolds is six foot three, with greying black hair, and has an athletic build. Members of the public are advised that Reynolds is extremely dangerous and must not be approached under any circumstances.’
Dr Donald Reynolds. DR DR? The initials on the briefcase? And the height and build fitted – and the hair colour, give or take a rinse with Just for Men. But no way was he fifty-six. Unless he used a super moisturizer that made him look a lot younger than his age. Or he’d had a bit of plastic surgery done. It explained why he wanted isolation. He may have lied about renting the house from her father and just broken in. He could have easily found out who owned that cottage from a casual question or two in the village. Jeez, as if life couldn’t get any worse.
Of course the stroppy man next door isn’t a serial killer. Get a grip, Belinda, said a stern voice in her head. But still, she got up to wedge a chair behind both doors. Just in case.
Chapter 25
Max looked at her legs before slipping on her tights for work. Not only could they do with a shave, they were also the colour of a snowman’s arse. She needed to start building up that tan. No self-respecting gypsy bride would turn up looking whiter than her own frock.
Max had her own company: San Maurice. She had started it up five years ago after seeing a gap in the market for quality fake-tanning products at much lower prices than the then market leaders. She took a leap of faith, leaving a very well paid marketing job to set up by herself, and it had paid off dividends. Since then the company had branched out into bubble baths and body creams, scented sachets, drawer liners, soaps. The fir
m was whipping the backsides of its competitors at award ceremonies, thanks to a mix of fabulous creations and brilliant teamwork.
As soon as she got into work that morning, she asked her PA, Jess, to bring her a box of fake-tan bottles from the mezzanine. Then she put Operation Stuart’s Suit into action.
Max rang Stuart’s best buddy on her mobile and he picked up straight away.
‘Hello, Max,’ came his cheery voice down the phone. ‘How’s the bride-to-be doing, then?’
‘Fine and dandy, Luke. Can you talk?’
‘Yes, I can talk.’
‘Sure? You’re not in a board meeting or anything important, are you?’
‘Just let me check. Nope, only me in my office. Unless you count the rubber plant.’
‘I need a favour. A huge secret-squirrel favour.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ Luke drew in his breath but Max could detect a smile in his voice.
Luke was the MD of a huge firm dealing in property. He and Stuart had started together in the warehouse of Crabbe’s Nuts and Bolts, doing Saturday jobs at fourteen, but whereas Luke’s ambition had taken him to university to read business studies then on a steeply rising career path, Stuart’s total non-ambition had kept him where he was, give or take the recent promotion he had earned. Not that Max cared about that. Stuart was happy doing what he was doing and she earned enough for both of them and more. But she really did admire Luke’s work ethic, partly because it closely mirrored hers. He loved work. He loved to earn money and then spend it on good clothes and fast cars. But for Luke, as for Max, it wasn’t the money that was the real thrill, it was sealing the chased deal; the money was just a welcome by-product of the success. How Luke Appleby remained single was anyone’s guess because he was a six-foot-five hunk with very short grey-white hair (it had turned that colour in his twenties) and smiling grey eyes. He’d had many girlfriends over the years so Max knew he wasn’t gay, but they never seemed to last very long.
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