‘There is nothing to apologize for,’ said Pav, relieving her of the weight of the boxes. ‘I rang your mobile last night to make sure you were all right. I left a message.’
Violet pulled her phone out of her pocket. It didn’t show any missed calls. She would have liked to have heard that message. ‘Nothing here.’
‘It was your voice, though, on the answering-machine message,’ said Pav. ‘I’d know it anywhere.’
Oh God, her cheeks were heating up. Again.
‘It’s obviously still in cyberspace somewhere, then,’ said Violet, lowering her head and finding a nearby table top interesting.
‘Oh a man called for you,’ threw Pav over his shoulder as he walked into the kitchen. ‘A window cleaner? He said he’d come back.’
‘A window cleaner?’ Violet shrugged. ‘Don’t know about that either.’
Then the phone rumbled in her pocket. Glyn.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘I’m at the shop,’ she replied.
‘Can you come home?’ Glyn sounded panicky, breathless. ‘I can’t explain over the phone. It’s just important that you come home now.’
Max’s PA, Jess, knocked on the door, opened it, popped her head round it and grinned. Then she produced a pretty bouquet of flowers from behind her back.
‘Present for you,’ she said. ‘Secret admirer, I reckon.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Max. It had to be a supplier because no one she knew would send her flowers. For a split second she entertained the idea they might be from Stuart, but that was dismissed immediately. She was out of his life, she knew that. She jerked out the card from the holder.
To cheer you up.
Luke X
‘Luke – Best-man Luke?’ asked Jess with round eyes.
‘Yes, Luke my old friend. One that’s like a brother to me. So take that salacious tone out of your voice,’ smiled Max, picking up her mobile phone.
‘I’m in receipt of a lovely bunch of flowers from you,’ said Max when Luke picked up.
‘Bunch?’ he bellowed. ‘Bouquet, surely?’
‘Bouquet, then,’ Max tutted. ‘There was no need to—’
‘I know there wasn’t,’ Luke butted in. ‘And I’m not hitting on you either. It was an impulse buy. To do exactly what it said on the tin and cheer you up. How are you?’
‘Very cheery,’ replied Max.
‘Liar,’ said Luke.
‘Okay,’ Max nodded. ‘I’m better than I was. I’ve sold the dress on, am very grateful that the Chronicle didn’t hear about it and have me plastered all over the front page, and I’ve had the big eyelashes pulled off at the salon.’
‘Ouch!’ Max could almost hear Luke wincing. ‘And what’s the tan like?’
‘I’m fully restored to my usual Caucasian,’ said Max.
‘Shit, Max, I’ve got to shoot off to a meeting,’ said Luke, catch-ing sight of the time. ‘You know where I am if you want anything.’
‘I do,’ said Max. ‘And thank you.’
‘Pleasure. Now bugger off.’
She put down the phone and wondered, not for the first time, why lovely Luke Appleby hadn’t been snapped up.
Violet charged into the flat expecting a medical Armageddon. What she didn’t expect was the table set for lunch for two with a bottle of wine in the middle of it.
‘I thought . . . what . . . Glyn . . .’ There were so many words trying to come out of Violet’s mouth they all glutted together in the crush.
‘Ah there you are,’ said Glyn, grinning. ‘Take a seat, why don’t you?’
Violet’s jaw locked open in disbelief as Glyn’s back disappeared into the kitchen. She stood there stunned into silence. What the hell was he playing at? A question she voiced to him, when he returned to the table ferrying a giant dish of lasagne.
‘If I’d said to you, “Come home for lunch” what would you have replied? “I can’t, I’m busy.”’ He affected a whiney voice in imitating her. ‘It says a lot about our relationship when I have to reduce myself to these tactics to share a meal with you.’
‘I nearly crashed the bloody car,’ growled Violet. ‘I thought you were ill or Mum had rung you about Nan or your dad had had another heart scare . . .’
‘Well, I didn’t mean for you to think that,’ said Glyn, spooning a huge slab of lasagne on her plate. ‘I just wanted to surprise you. No need to swear at me, Violet.’
Violet dropped her head into her hands in an effort to calm her nerves and her temper.
‘Pour yourself a glass of wine and chill. Okay, I was probably a bit out of order and I’m really sorry if you thought that someone was poorly, but you’re here now, so let’s enjoy it.’ He had a smile on his face the size of a new moon. He looked so calm and ordered that for a moment Violet wondered if she were the mad one here.
‘I can’t drink wine; I need to go back to work.’ The words came out through clenched teeth, which needed to be close together to stop a mother lode of fury being released.
Glyn sat down and his shoulders slumped.
‘Letty, I am really sorry if I worried you.’ He said with a contrite sigh. ‘Please, sit down and have lunch with me. I wanted to rescue you from working too hard. That shop seems to be taking up all of your time. And headspace.’ He rapped on his skull. ‘I could kick myself now. You’re right: you could have crashed because of me. Letty, I am so sorry.’
He had gone to a lot of trouble. There were flower petals sprinkled on the table, a bowl of salad with warm bacon and avocado, fresh warm bread. She found herself pulling out the chair and sitting. She knew she had been manipulated. Again. It would have been so much easier to fight a mean man than a kind one.
‘What exactly do you do in the shop at the moment?’ asked Glyn after a few silent forkfuls of food.
‘There’s loads to do. Making ice cream, inventing menus, the books . . .’
‘Couldn’t you do all that here?’ Glyn asked. The question sounded casual enough but Violet suspected it was the first of many which had been brewing in his head since she allegedly said Pav’s name in her sleep last night. She was ready for him.
‘How could I? All my cooking equipment is at Carousel—’
He interrupted her. ‘I know that, but you could do your books at home, and all the other stuff.’
‘I could, but I like to keep work separate. I can concentrate more when I’m by myself in a working space.’
‘You’re not by yourself, though, are you? You’ve got workmen in, haven’t you?’
He watched her closely to see what her reaction to that was. He was almost disappointed that there was none. That was because she was one step ahead of him.
‘One workman and he’s in a different room. I’m either in the kitchen or in the office.’
‘And what’s he like?’
Glyn’s eyes were trained on her face like those of a hawk hovering over a field mouse.
‘He’s just a painter.’
Glyn noted that she was finding her lasagne suddenly interesting.
‘What does he look like?’ said Glyn.
‘Tallish, dark hair,’ she shrugged her shoulders in a disinterested way.
‘Handsome?’ Glyn supplied and waited.
‘He’s okay, if you like that sort of thing.’ Violet reached for some bread.
‘And do you?’
Violet snapped her head up now. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘Well, if you’re shouting out his name in your sleep you must like him.’
‘It was a dream. I don’t have any control over what I dream about. I certainly have no recollection of dreaming about anything last night. Least of all about a man who’s painting horses on my walls.’
‘You seem to be spending more time with him than me, that’s all,’ Glyn sniffed.
‘He’s not there that often when I am,’ Violet said sternly. ‘He works a lot in the evenings when I’m here with you.’
‘Or at your mother’s or out with your
friends,’ Glyn said under his breath, but deliberately loud enough to be heard.
Violet felt her temper rumble awake again. ‘Am I not allowed to see my family or my friends these days?’
‘Well, how do I know that you’re there when you say you are? You never answer your damned phone. I could be dying here while you’re chatting and having nice cups of tea and slices of cake.’
Violet looked up at him then with his tear-filled eyes and she knew that she was viewing her whole future. Glyn would never change because he didn’t want to. He would try to track her constantly with phone calls and push her guilt button continuously to make her bow to order.
She stood and let loose a groan of frustration. ‘I’m not having this argument,’ she said, picking up her coat from the sofa arm. ‘Not again.’
‘Don’t go, Letty,’ Glyn sighed heavily. ‘I just adore you and I’m feeling really alone. We don’t make love any—’
‘I’m going to my mother’s to see how Nan is,’ Violet said, her words loaded with a tired sigh. ‘You can ring her if you want to check up on me.’
When she looked at Glyn his eyes were full of watery pleas. Look at what you’re doing to me, Letty. You’re breaking my heart. It was all wrong, so wrong. This was doing neither of them any good. God, she needed oxygen before she drowned in the stale recirculated air of the flat. His love felt like a tourniquet round her chest and she couldn’t breathe.
She walked outside leaving him pushing his lasagne around on his plate like a child, tears dripping down his nose, and she had to fight against the weight of guilt pulling her back. She had made herself his rock and then tried to cut him adrift from it. She really was the biggest cow in the world.
Chapter 85
‘Do you want one of my little beers or shall I put the kettle on?’ Nan said, putting her arms round her granddaughter’s shoulders and rubbing her back. She could tell straight away that something was wrong.
‘I’ll have one of your little beers. I’ll get it.’
‘No, I’ll get it. I’m not that infirm yet,’ Nan snapped, which was becoming more and more the norm these days, according to Susan. Nan was rebelling fiercely against the progression of her illness, denying that she was forgetting and misplacing things. ‘You go and sit down and then you can tell me why you’re the colour of Irene’s cat.’
Violet smiled a little. Irene was the woman next door whose cat was pure white and deaf. She called it Ludwig.
Nan busied around making coffee for two and tipping out her favourite Jaffa Cakes on to a plate. She’d forgotten that Violet had asked for a beer, not that Violet mentioned it.
She watched Nan, who used to be so straight and now her shoulders were crouching over. Her hands were shaking slightly as she carried the cups over, before going back for the plate of biscuits. Violet stamped down on the urge to help her.
‘Come on, then, what’s up?’ said Nan.
‘Nothing’s up. I just came round to see you. Where’s Mum?’
‘She’s nipped into Morrisons. You’ve just missed her.’
Violet knew her mother wouldn’t be very long. She didn’t like to leave Nan these days at all. She had even asked if Violet would teach her how to use a computer so she could do her shopping online.
‘She’s going to make herself a prisoner in this house, if she doesn’t watch out,’ said Nan quite crossly. ‘Do you think I want to be responsible for that?’
‘She only wants to know you’re safe.’
‘Of course I’m safe,’ barked Nan. ‘She’s being stupid. I’ve done nothing for her to be on my back twenty-four hours a day checking up on me.’ Her voice sounded alien. But doctors had told both Violet and Susan what stages Nan was likely to go through so Violet knew that Alzheimer sufferers often refused to believe they were anything but competent. Nan now categorically denied ever wetting the bed or talking in the middle of the night to the ‘red-haired angel’.
‘I’ve got a dress for your wedding. I bought it from Susan’s catalogue,’ said Nan, after a slurp of coffee. ‘It cost me nearly two hundred pounds.’
Tears sprang to Violet’s eyes. More expense. Every penny spent, every effort expended made it one degree harder to stop the process.
‘Eeh love, what’s up?’ Nan reached over and stroked Violet’s cheek, and that one action almost tipped Violet over the edge.
‘Oh nothing, just wedding nerves, I think,’ said Violet, pulling herself together. How could she burden Nan with anything? Although once upon a time it would have been Nan to whom she would have poured out her heart.
‘Nerves? What are you nervous about, love?’ said Nan. Her hand dropped to rest on Violet’s knee. The skin was as thin as rolled-out filo pastry, and spotted, the tips of her fingers warped and knotted by arthritis.
‘Were you nervous, marrying Grandad, Nan?’
Nan tilted her head back and conjured up a host of warm old memories, and they, at least, were still as sharp as the day they were made.
‘Nice nervous,’ she responded with a nostalgic grin. ‘I was so in love. It couldn’t come fast enough for me. I took that aisle in leaps and bounds. I shall look forward to seeing him again. I bet he says, “Nanette Flockton, where have you been till this bloody time?”’ and she laughed. ‘Eternity with your grandad still wouldn’t be long enough. I miss that man every day of my life.’
An eternity with Glyn. Violet felt as if her head was a cake mix in a blender.
‘You know it means a lot for me to see you settled before I go,’ said Nan, as Violet drank the coffee and hoped it would push down the rising emotion in her throat. ‘He is good to you – Glyn – isn’t he? He looks after you, doesn’t he?’
‘Oh yes, he looks after me,’ said Violet, with no warmth in her voice.
‘I wish he had a bit more spark to him but I know he loves you a lot.’
‘Yes,’ said Violet.
‘I’m so looking forward to the wedding,’ said Nan with a chuckle. ‘So is your mum. Oh I must tell you. I’ve got an outfit for the wedding. It cost me nearly two hundred pounds.’
‘Oh Nan,’ said Violet, not sure she could hold herself back from crying any longer. She felt as if her body was cracking and her tears were going to spurt through the faults at any moment.
‘Will you make me another coffee, love? The one you’ve just made was far too strong for my tastes,’ said Nan.
And Violet knew that her nan was slipping away from her fast. Violet’s constants were changing. She was losing hope of ever escaping the quicksand that her life had become. And life without hope is a living death.
Glyn snatched up the plates of half-eaten lasagne and scraped them roughly into the bin. Then he up-ended the almost full salad bowl on top of it instead of putting it in the fridge.
Of course he knew that Violet didn’t want to marry him. He knew that he had railroaded her into it, but he had done that because he also knew that she would grow to love him again. No one would ever care for or cherish her like he would.
He could tell straight away when he saw Pav that he would use women and leave them heartbroken. Most men did, especially the good-looking ones. He remembered how fragile Violet was when he first met her, crushed by the ex who had left for her someone else. In fact his last five girlfriends had all been mashed by men and he had loved them and given them back their faith before they, in their turn, dumped him so cruelly. He had been determined from the first that Violet wouldn’t do that to him. So when he felt the pattern begin to repeat, he made sure that it would not end the same way as the others. What was wrong with women? They wanted someone who wouldn’t hit them, would love them, put them on a pedestal, cuddle them in bed, and then when they found someone like that they ended up dumping him for another man. For someone like fucking Pav.
Chapter 86
Richard had a meeting on the Wednesday evening, so suggested that he and Bel have lunch in Leeds instead. He knew of a very swish new restaurant he was keen to try out, and there was no one he w
ould rather try it out with – so he said.
The last time they had been to Leeds together was when they picked their wedding rings, Bel recalled. They’d had dinner at the Hilton and energetic sex afterwards in a suite upstairs.
Lunch was very swish, even if the salmon portion was the size of a tadpole, served with a single asparagus spear. Maybe the restaurant owners didn’t think anyone would notice the ridiculously small – but ludicrously expensive – portions if they dressed the walls in sumptuous red silk and concentrated all their efforts on the wine list. Bel felt as hungry when she left it as when she’d entered.
They strolled around the arcades like they did on the wedding-ring-buying day. There was a large knot of people gathered outside Quillers, a small independent bookshop.
‘They must be doing a signing,’ sniffed Richard, turning the other way. He had no interest in books or authors.
‘Ooh let’s see who it is,’ said Bel, tugging at his sleeve.
She couldn’t see at first because there were too many people. Then she spotted the poster.
JOHN NORTH will be here signing his first three books on Wednesday, 20 July, 2 p.m.
Pre-orders will be taken for his new book
Who Kissed the Bride?
Bel felt her hands prickle. Dan Regent was in there, behind that glass window. Then a couple in front of his signing desk moved and she saw him. He was talking to a quivery woman who was holding out her book for him to enscribe. Bel’s whole body started to vibrate from a chemical rush. He’s had a haircut, she thought. It wasn’t as wild as it was when she had encountered him in Emily. Emily, where they had laughed at Ricky Gervais and dipped cheese toasties into soup, where they had waged war over a tin opener – and where he had once nearly kissed her after a cushion fight. She watched as he held his head at an angle, listening patiently to the twittering fan, and felt herself smiling – inside and out.
She tapped lightly on the window and he turned towards her. She saw his eyes widen, a grin appear, watched him spring from behind the table, manoeuvre himself through the crowd and throw apologies behind him as he did so, and then he was there outside on the pavement, in front of her, his hands on her shoulders.
White Wedding Page 32
