‘Submit, you thick bastard, and let’s go and have a pint.’
Guy submitted. Little Eric bent to hear the words and declared the match over. The crowd stood to cheer. Steve did a lap of honour whilst Guy lay limp in the ring.
‘Easy easy easy . . .’ yelled the applauding crowd.
Steve and Guy had never fought in their lives before that night. Not even when Guy was out of it a few years ago and would have fought a brick wall if it meant losing some of the pain that had built up inside him. Steve’s meaty paw came out to help him up and Guy took it, and together they clambered out of the ring and went back to the changing rooms, signing some programmes on the way.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Guy, when they were stripping off. ‘I thought . . .’
‘Yes, you told me what you thought.’
‘I just presumed . . . you get on so well with Floz and—’
‘And Juliet and I don’t – or rather didn’t,’ Steve finished for him. ‘Well, no one is more surprised by the change of events than me, you can trust me on that one. Oh sorry, I forgot – you don’t trust me, do you?’
‘Don’t,’ cringed Guy, burying his head in his towel. ‘It’s just that you and Floz are actually quite well suited,’ he mumbled.
‘I wouldn’t do that to you, mate. Not even if I fancied the arse off her. Which I don’t,’ Steve added quickly for clarification purposes. ‘She’s lovely, but, well . . . Juliet and I want the same things, I suppose.’
‘What?’
‘Some warmth, some fun. Somebody to wake up with, no promises, no regrets at the end. I’m not disrespecting her, Guy,’ Steve said quietly. ‘I like her a lot. I always have.’
‘You never told me that.’
‘I never told anyone,’ said Steve. ‘I didn’t think I had a cat in hell’s chance with her.’
Juliet and Floz were waiting for them at the stage door.
‘Were you arguing for real out there?’ asked Juliet.
‘Don’t be daft,’ laughed Steve.
‘You know it’s all staged,’ said Guy, mirroring Steve’s amusement. ‘Little Derek told us to put it on a bit. Are you coming for a pint with us?’
As Juliet said yes, Floz declined. ‘I’ve got a bit of work to do,’ she explained.
Guy’s heart sank.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Steve – for Guy’s benefit. ‘Just one. It’s too late to write jokes.’
‘No really, I can’t. It’s a busy time for me and I have deadlines to meet.’
‘You take my car, I’ll get a lift home with Steve then,’ said Juliet, handing Floz her keys. She would have bet her life that Floz wasn’t going to work. So what was she rushing off for? Something to do with that ‘old flame’, she bet.
Floz was glad to escape from Guy. He unsettled her. Those looks he had cast her from the stage during the bout were scary. She wondered again what it was in Guy’s past that had made him need the staunch friendship of Steve – something which both Juliet and Coco had nearly let slip. She wouldn’t have put a mental illness past him.
None of them noticed the old man in the suit at the back of the hall. He had taken a few photographs on his phone and was sending them over to his son now. What a very interesting night, he thought.
Chapter 34
When Floz got home to the flat, she went straight to her PC, but there was no mail. A lump of heavy disappointment settled inside her. She made herself a coffee and warmed her hands on the mug, but it couldn’t defrost the chill in her bones.
She sat at her keyboard and began to type.
Dearest Nick
Just a wee email to wish you well and hope that things are easy for you. You’re on my mind so much. I ache to give you some comfort and feel so helpless that I can do nothing from this distance except pray for you.
I am hurting so much – I just wish we had met and that I had held your hand so I could recall it rather than imagine it. Life feels so very cold at the moment.
Wishing you gentle days and nights, my love.
Cherrylips xxx
By the time Floz had changed into her nightie and brushed her teeth there was a reply.
Cherrylips
Then I think its time to say goodbye.Its not easy this end either,too many what ifs and all the rest.This will be my last message,we each have things to do and so its time that we do them.Take care and live out a million dreams.
Nick
Floz screamed at the PC, ‘No, no, please don’t leave me!’ She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want to be left in the wilderness again, hunting in the dark for information. But he must tire so easily and it wasn’t fair of her to make him feel obliged to write. She had to let go – she knew it, but did not feel it.
She tossed and turned in bed and was still awake long after Steve and Juliet stole into the flat, stifling their giggles as they retired to her bedroom to make each other feel warm and wanted.
September
September is the month of fruits fattening and crop gathering
Of blush-sky evenings and golden afternoons
Of leaves toasting and fires burning
Of mists curling and large wine moons
‘September’ by Linda Flowers
Chapter 35
Steve awoke the next morning and immediately smiled at the sight of Juliet, fast asleep beside him and snoring ever so slightly. He’d never realized before how thick and dark her eyelashes were or what a lovely shape her mouth was. Her eyelids were fluttering as if she was dreaming. He shifted across the bed and snuggled into her and, in sleep, she nestled against him.
It was a delicious feeling and one which he savoured. He had slept with a lot of women in his time, hoping to find this sort of connection that would make him want to hang around the next morning and share breakfast and conversation and plan future dates. He never had. He thought about the events of the previous night and how Guy had thought he had moved in on Floz. He loved Guy like a brother and wished he could find some way to convince Floz that he was a great bloke. They could bring each other a lot of happiness if they got it together, he was convinced of that – and the elder Millers thought she was lovely. The Millers had been the family he’d always craved, the sort of family he wanted for his own children one day. He knew he had a reputation as a dog, but in his heart of hearts, more than anything Steve wanted a wife, children and a warm, safe home. And he wished the same for Guy – that he would settle down with someone who would bring his heart peace at least. His friend had lost a big chunk of his life, but hopefully the opening of his new restaurant was the kick-start he needed to go for it and make up for all the time he had lost after Lacey Robinson’s suicide.
Talking of which, he remembered that he had something to tell Guy that would really make his day. He had seen it whilst driving from his mum’s yesterday. He reached for his mobile, but his fingers fell short of it and he didn’t want to dislodge Juliet from his embrace to get it.
He knew he would have to be careful because this was just sex to her and he’d lied and said it was just sex for him too. He’d get mashed one day because as soon as Juliet met someone who would satisfy her emotional needs as well as her sexual ones, he would be toast. But for the moment, Steve Feast was happy existing in the here and now, pretending to himself that this was forever.
He lay close to Juliet for the next twenty minutes until her alarm went off and totally forgot to ring Guy.
Chapter 36
Floz knew there would not be another email waiting for her when she woke up, but she checked all the same. She had to trust that one of Nick’s sisters would let her know ‘when’. But a letter was bursting out of her and she wrote to him again.
Dearest Nick
This is written without any hope whatsoever of a reply. Feel free to ignore it or read it – that is your prerogative.
I feel so privileged that you came into my life at all. You were always special – and this is coming from a total sceptic because you, alone, know my history.
I can only guess that you are surrounded by your family’s warmth. They always sounded so wonderful.
All my love
Cherrylips xxx
She pressed send and knew that now she really had to let go. She had said everything she needed to. She gulped back the tears, dressed and prepared to write jokes for the greetings-cards industry. But she waited until the giggling Juliet and Steve had left before emerging for her breakfast.
Guy rose and dressed and put some fresh coffee through the percolator. He hadn’t slept well. He was due at the bank this morning to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s on a loan agreement. Whereas he had merely existed for a few years, breathed and eaten and worked, now he felt as if he was about to leave the plodding slip-road in life and rejoin the motorway. A thought that both thrilled and terrified him.
Over the years he had spent little, saved his wages and invested wisely, and he had enough money to buy the restaurant almost outright. Kenny might have thought he was giving Guy a bargain, but he had failed to take into account the massive refurbishing costs if Burgerov were to shed its cheap bistro image and become a centre of serious cuisine. Guy was a good, steady customer of his bank and they had readily agreed to lend him the money he asked for after submitting estimates from reliable local builders.
Guy seriously needed to find somewhere else to live, a place big enough to spread out in, unlike this bolt-hole which had put him up for too long and for which he felt no affection. He wanted a home, he wanted somewhere he could bring a woman back to and a kitchen where he could be creative. His mind strayed to buying somewhere like Hallow’s Cottage and living there – with Gina – but that thought was quickly expelled. She might have been available to him, but she wasn’t the one he wanted. He dared to think of Floz snuggled next to him on a big sofa in a refurbished Hallow’s Cottage, beams above their head, a baby in a bouncy chair at their side. It was so perfect a picture that it hurt, because Floz Cherrydale obviously didn’t feel the same and so that was sure never to happen.
Anyway, buying the restaurant would put paid to all of his savings. A house would have to wait. That was the trouble, he had a picture in his mind of him and Floz and Hallow’s Cottage and really everything else would be second-best. And he’d had enough of second-best to last him a lifetime.
Chapter 37
Steve arrived at the flat that evening with a Chinese takeaway banquet for three.
‘Thought I’d surprise you,’ he said, then noticed the smell of garlic in the air. ‘Oh, have you eaten?’
‘I was just about to dish up a spag bol,’ said Juliet. ‘It’s okay though, it’ll do for tomorrow. That all right with you, Floz? Fancy a Chinese with us?’
‘Yes, that’s fine by me,’ nodded Floz, closing her notepad and going into the kitchen for plates.
The three of them watched a film about Jack the Ripper afterwards. Then Floz went to bed, leaving Steve and Juliet leaning on each other on the sofa.
‘Are you staying?’ she asked.
‘Well, I will,’ he said, ‘but I’m too knackered for sex. I’ve been plastering a ceiling and my back is killing me.’
‘I’m tired myself,’ said Juliet through a yawn. ‘Let’s just sleep then, shall we? I’ll relax you with a massage.’
‘That sounds bliss,’ said Steve – and meant it.
Surprisingly, there was an email from Nick in Floz’s inbox which she checked as a matter of course before she went to bed.
Cherrylips
I have a cousin who lives alone.He lost his wife in a car accident 12 years ago and has no children.He is trapped in his greif.So,he makes no new friends.He could start a new book but prefers to be stuck on the last chapter of an old book forever.I’m proud and sad that I will be missed,makes it easier somehow than doing the down the toilet dead goldfish route.
My point is that there are countless unique guys out there just waiting to meet a girl like you and the only barrier stopping them is you.
I wish you life,love and great (moderately safe)adventures and maybe the ability to worm hooks,especially if one day you adopt a son and teach him to fish.
Nick
Floz burst into tears. All day she had been getting to grips with letting go, felt she was mastering it, and now she was all ripped open again. She sat at her PC and wrote the one question she now had to ask.
Dearest Nick
I’m sorry, I am writing too much and tiring you. Just one more question that will not require any detail in the answer. Please tell me definitively, without elaboration – truthfully because I can take it – did I have any place in your heart these past eighteen months?
Cherrylips
Floz tried to sleep, and managed it but not well. She awoke in the wee small hours knowing without any doubt that a new email had arrived for her. She was right. That she was so in tune with Nick strengthened her belief that they would have been so right for each other, had fate been on their side.
Dearest Cherrylips
you are not writing too much.i read much better than i write nowadays.my spellcheck is in therapy and not expected to return to normalcy.gave up on capitals but still punctuate. don’t know if you have Boost over there but don’t drink it if you don’t have to.it tastes like its good for you,has three colours,white,brown and pink.has the flavour of dirt with sweetner added.Snowed on the mountains last night,guess global warming is over.
make sure you keep writing those jokes and smiling. There is too much sadness out there.And to answer your question,you are the only woman I think I ever knew.You are and will always be my constant if only.
Nick
Chapter 38
On the following Monday morning, Floz sat at the window enjoying her first coffee of the day and a slice of toast. The school was open again after the long summer break. Children were walking up the road towards it in their pristine uniforms, shiny shoes and new coats with mittens on strings poking out of their sleeves. Some of them looked little older than babies as they gripped their mothers’ hands and skipped along. It was an achingly sweet sight.
Tim, from downstairs, was raking up leaves, but as soon as he gathered a pile, the breeze blew on them and sent them whirling up into the air before he could scoop them up into the green bin. The autumn wind was a minx, Floz decided with a grin as she watched him.
This week’s work brief was Christmas, but there was nothing odd about that. She often had to write copy about Easter in December, and ‘Happy Hallowe’en’ cards in March. Many a time she would be writing about Santa when the newspaper headlines were, PHEW, WHAT A SCORCHER. Such a shame no one sent ‘Happy Autumn’ cards. It was such a bonny time of year.
Yet people scurried through leaves, seeing only nature’s nuisance litter and paying no heed to the glorious mix of colours: scarlet, gold, rust, bronze, spice, claret, amber, crimson, copper. They gave a cursory glance upwards to the big blushing Harvest Moon, once so important in helping farmers work extra hours on their crops at night. They failed to notice the raspberries and blackberries fruiting fat and sweet on the brambles or the sweeping bleed of poppies in the fields.
Floz always loved that autumn brimmed with activity. At Harvest Festival, people sang rousing hymns in church of ‘swelling grains’ and ‘sweet refreshing rain’, children collected groceries in baskets to give as gifts to pensioners. At Hallowe’en, families scooped out pumpkin heads and placed them outside their doors to tell little skeletons and witches there just might be ‘treats’ available here, if they knocked and promised not to ‘trick’. Then, when November came, the night air was filled with crackles and smoke and sizzling barbecues, f
izzing fireworks and booms, bangs and merriment. Yet most people instinctively thought of autumn as a ‘non-season’ – a mere fill-in between beloved summer and sparkly winter.
Floz had more reason than most to hate autumn, but she could never quite manage to believe that God would paint the season with such a beautiful palette if He were not imparting a message of hope: that the earth was not dying, but preparing to rest and renew itself and would survive to flower again. And she so needed to keep her faith that there was a God – and a heaven.
She took herself out for a walk around the shops and ended up in Morrisons, wandering idly down the aisles but not seeing anything that might tempt her appetite. Food didn’t interest her much at the moment but she forced herself to eat when she felt weak and shaky. She looked down at her shopping trolley. She could have sworn she had put some potatoes in there, but there were none. There was, however, a huge bag of onions which she didn’t need. She was tired out: physically from not sleeping too well, and mentally from thinking about Nick and filling in the gaps as to what could be happening to him, what his family were going through, his niece and nephew, even his dogs. He had two beautiful huskies – Amak and Pilitak. They were Inuit names, she remembered him telling her. Amak, the female, meant ‘playful’; Pilitak, the male, meant ‘useful’. She had a feeling there would be a lot of people pining for the demise of this strong, lovely man. And animals.
She had not heard from him in nearly a week now and suspected the worst. The not knowing was tearing her apart.
The woman on the till asked Floz if she was all right because the tears were rolling down her cheeks as she put her shopping into the carrier bags.
‘Yes, fine.’ Floz attempted cheerfulness. ‘I think I’m allergic to this eyeliner.’
An Autumn Crush Page 16
