Supporting her gently under her armpits, he helped her stand, then guided her up the stairs and towards their bedroom.
‘Come on, one more step,’ he coaxed. ‘Nearly there.’
Romilly flopped onto the bed, turned her face towards him and began to sob. ‘I’m sorry, David. I broke two of our wedding plates. I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Matters to me…’ She sniffed.
‘What matters a lot more is not getting Celeste off to bed on time and forgetting to give her her supper.’ He sighed and his jaw tightened. ‘I thought you’d learnt your lesson on that front, after… after that day at your parents’, with Russian Viktor and the Pimm’s.’
‘Oh, David, I’m so sorry. I promised it wouldn’t happen again, and I never meant it to. I promise I didn’t.’
‘Daddy!’ Celeste’s voice came chirruping up the stairs. ‘The telly’s gone all fizzy. I want to watch my programme?’
‘Just a tick!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll bring you a glass of water when I come back up, Rom,’ he said as he made for the door.
As Romilly lay there listening to the distant chatter of the two people she loved most in the world, images from that horrible episode with the Pimm’s kept galloping into her head. It was summer and the whole family had spent the day in the garden at her parents’ house. Everyone was in high spirits. Carrie was running around the garden in her shorts and T-shirt, her arms outstretched like a child impersonating an aeroplane. ‘My Holly’s home!’ she yelled. She ran up behind her sister and lifted her off the ground, spinning her round with her legs in the air. It mattered little that they were in their twenties; when they got together after any time apart, they reverted to their thirteen-year-old selves.
‘Put me down, Car!’ Holly screamed, thumping her sister’s locked wrists. ‘Help me! Rom, for God’s sake, help me!’
Romilly had chuckled and remained anchored to her seat. She winked at David and smiled at Dr Miguel, who laughed nervously. It was the first time the doctor had seen the twins together; he was trying desperately to impress Carrie’s family while also working out what his role was. He shouldn’t have worried, however. Spending an hour showing an interest in their dad’s greenhouse, and downing two helpings of their mum’s trifle was enough to guarantee just about anyone Carrie’s hand in marriage.
Holly’s latest beau, Viktor from Russia, had made a fierce bucket of Pimm’s. As soon as Romilly sat down, he’d ladled a generous measure of fruit and booze into her glass. She had sipped away throughout the afternoon, accepting Viktor’s frequent refills, which he offered in lieu of making conversation in his limited English.
‘Darling, I don’t think you want any more of that.’ David pointed at her glass.
‘What? It’s only like fruit and lemonade, there’s nothinginit, spoilsport!’ She rolled her eyes in his direction.
David glared at the meaty Viktor, waiting for an opportunity to have a word with him out of Romilly’s earshot. It might have seemed funny to get her plastered, but she had a little girl to look after and it was him that would have to pick up the pieces later on. The chance never arose, however, as Romilly stuck close to Viktor and his generous ladle all afternoon.
It was only as evening loomed, when she stood up to join her sisters and her mum in an impromptu dance on the lawn, that Romilly realised just how much she’d drunk.
‘Oh, now she gets up to help, when I’m no longer in danger! Come on, Rom! She’s had her jiggle juice, David, and she’s ready to party!’
Holly screamed her laughter at the exact moment that Romilly’s legs gave way. She had tripped on a divot that would not have troubled sober legs. Stumbling forward, Romilly ploughed into her mum, who had a rather sleepy Celeste in her arms. Romilly sent Pat tumbling to the left, and as she fell, she dropped Celeste with a hard thump on the ground.
The little girl screamed, as much in shock as any real pain, the soft grass and mud having cushioned what could have been a very nasty impact. David leapt from his deckchair, casting his beer to one side as he scooped up his daughter, kissing her face and shushing her quiet while he stroked her hair. ‘It’s okay, darling, you’re fine,’ he repeated, over and over. ‘You’re okay.’ Dr Miguel checked her over. Seemingly nothing was broken, but a giant egg-shaped bump was growing on her forehead, topped with a purple bruise.
Romilly lay on her back with her arms cruciform, looking up at the twilight clouds, watching them float overhead as mayhem reigned around her. She could feel the weight of David’s angry stare, her mum’s acute embarrassment and the twins’ hysteria as they flapped and squawked in panic. Viktor’s loud, inappropriate laugh cracked the air like thunder.
‘Why are you laughing, you prick?’ Holly shouted at him, and despite his lack of English, he was left in no doubt that he would soon be Viktor the ex-boyfriend from Russia.
David blocked the sky as he reached down and took Romilly’s hand, pulling her upright. She stood on the spot where she had fallen and wobbled as if on springs.
‘Think we’d better get her home,’ David murmured, embarrassed, as he awkwardly kissed his mother-in-law and nodded to Dr Miguel and Viktor.
After strapping Celeste into her car seat in the back, David went to retrieve his mandatory tub of tommyatoes from Lionel. While he was gone, Romilly turned from the front seat to look at her daughter. The bloody, blue bruise on her little forehead looked angry.
‘What the fuck?’ Romilly slurred. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
Celeste wailed in response.
‘Why is she crying?’ David asked as he climbed into the car, his jaw jutting with anger.
‘Fuck knows!’ Romilly laughed, loudly.
‘Charming.’ David was beyond furious, but he knew that having a row right then would be pointless and would only increase Celeste’s distress.
They were only a few miles from home when Romilly woke in the front seat. The car was too hot and the air was thick. The motion of the car swaying from lane to lane on the M4 was all it took; it was almost simultaneous: as she opened her eyes, she vomited. A sticky pink foam splattered across the dashboard and windscreen.
‘Jesus Christ, Romilly!’ David yelled as he punched the hazard-lights button and coasted over to the hard shoulder.
Celeste, woken by his shouts, immediately started screaming and then she too started vomiting, the smell of her mother’s sick having this effect on her.
David wound down his window as they sat on the hard shoulder. His daughter was crying and shouting from the back seat, with sick dripping from her chin and outstretched arms. His wife was crying and vomiting into the footwell, puking all over her shoes, her handbag and her dad’s punnet of tommyatoes. He literally did not know which way to turn and so he sat, paralysed with fear, anger and a good measure of disgust, trying to remain calm. A police siren whined behind him. He loosened his seatbelt and climbed out of the car to greet the officers, wiping sick and a few chunks of strawberry and cucumber from his thigh as he did so.
Romilly narrowed her gaze and watched in the side mirror as the officer put on his hat and approached David, who stood by the verge with his hands in his hair. He looked like he might be crying as he explained the unfortunate situation in which he found himself. She saw the policeman take a step forward and pat his arm, which made her smile. Everyone loved David Arthur Wells.
The memory of this last image made Romilly turn towards the bedroom door just as David came in with the glass of water. She smiled weakly at him. He didn’t smile back.
‘I don’t much like the new neighbour,’ he said curtly as he set the glass down on the bedside cabinet.
‘You don’t know her!’ Romilly forgot her contrition and leapt to Sara’s defence.
‘Neither do you,’ he countered. ‘Obviously I’m not saying be rude or ignore her, but don’t encourage her to be friends. There’s something about her I didn’t like.’
Fun po
lice… Romilly felt a small giggle leave her mouth at the thought, as David switched off the lights and left her to sleep.
Celeste
Sara Weaver. Now there’s a name I haven’t considered for a while. I used to love her. I really did. My mum told me often enough that she was her only friend and so I was grateful to her for that. I wanted someone to look after Mum and for her to have fun with, just like I did with my friends. And Sara was fun to be around. She was different. She knew the words to songs on the radio, not old people’s songs but songs that my friends and I liked, and she could make me laugh. She wasn’t like any other adult I knew. She didn’t follow the rules and she liked to make a mess. She used to come into our house like a wind, shaking up the quiet and changing the way things felt, and when she arrived I’d see Mum’s expression lift and so I wanted her to be there as much as she could. My mum would call her, giggling, when my dad left for the day or had nipped out, like giving her the nod that the coast was clear, and that made it seem illicit, naughty. And it felt like I was in on the secret, like one of the grown-ups, even though I didn’t know what the secret was. It was exciting.
One day we pulled every cushion from every sofa and chair in the house and built a fort and then, when I was in it, Sara jumped on it, trapping me inside and squashing me. It was funny at first, I was giggling fit to burst. But then she put more weight on the top, might even have fallen asleep, I don’t know, but it felt like an age that I was inside, in the dark, unable to move my arms and legs and feeling the weight of her pressing down on my chest. My giggles had meant I’d lost my regular breathing pattern and no matter how hard I tried to fill my lungs, I couldn’t. I felt a tightness in my chest and I was very close to sheer panic, when she suddenly moved and flung the cushions high and wide until I was free and we both lay on the floor. I was laughing so hard from relief, but then my mum picked up this bean-filled cushion and stood there whacking me with it, and the three of us laughed and laughed until we cried. I cried really hard then, and I didn’t want to laugh any more.
When my mum put me to bed that night, I told her that I had been scared and that I couldn’t breathe and she said it was best that I didn’t tell Daddy, she placed her finger under my chin and lifted my face to hers, ‘we don’t want to worry him, do we?’ I shook my head. She then held me tight and kissed me, whispering into my ear, ‘you can throw all the bottles away with me tomorrow, we shall go on a secret mission!’ She knew I liked the sound of the glass smashing after you dropped it into a little hole in the top of the bottle bank.
Then, of course, as I got older and heard my dad speaking frankly about Sara’s influence on my mum, begging Mum not to even go out with her, I stopped loving her and started to mistrust her. I felt guilty about all those times I’d laughed with her and began to see that it was in some way disloyal to my dad. I could see she was the wedge between my parents, the thing keeping them apart, or so I thought. And I began to hate her for that.
As I say, I haven’t thought about her for a very long time, but now I suppose I feel sorry for her. I’m pretty indifferent. I can see that she was an enabler. She encouraged my mum to drink, so they could both have a good time. But Mum wasn’t forced; she was a consenting grown-up who wanted to go along for the ride. In fact, I see Sara a bit like an instructor, a boozing tutor, picking my mum up, taking her out and helping her to get better and better at drinking. They relied on each other. So I don’t blame her, not any more. If it hadn’t been her, there would have been another Sara. Mum would have found someone else to show her the ropes, help her become an expert at her chosen sport. Of that I’m absolutely certain.
Five
‘Can you see the difference?’ Romilly held the two fragile glass slides up towards the light and stared at them, holding them slightly to the right so that Warwick the intern could see them too.
‘Not really.’ He swallowed, looking nervous.
‘That’s okay.’ Romilly smiled, polite and patient, trying to put the young graduate at ease. ‘Let me show you in a different way.’
Warwick followed her to the end of the lab bench, where the microscope was set up.
She pushed her specs up onto her nose and squinted over the lens, silently twisting and adjusting the settings until she was happy. ‘Right, take a look now.’ She moved to the side and nodded for him to take over.
The young man sighed and placed his eye close to the eyepiece. ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed.
‘Go on,’ she coaxed.
‘Erm… I think the seed on the left has tiny new radicles on the base and the one on the right doesn’t.’ He lifted his head and stared at his mentor.
‘Exactly! Well done, you!’ She beamed. ‘And that means, Warwick, that there is something about the seed on the left that the grey field slug didn’t like! This is marvellous. Really marvellous.’ She clapped.
‘It’s exciting, isn’t it?’ he said, flushing.
‘It really is.’
Romilly logged the data and tidied her workspace, as was her habit. She knew her colleagues laughed at her OCD-like meticulousness, but it was a trait she couldn’t alter. It was just one of her quirks that they affectionately ribbed her about, another being her need to work alone. ‘There’s no “I” in team!’ her colleague Tim regularly shouted at her from the other side of the lab. To which she always replied, ‘And there’s no “Do I look like I give a shit?” there either!’
‘You’re a lone wolf, Rom!’ Tim yelled at her now, impressed by her latest finding.
She gave a high-pitched howl in response, as she always did when he said that.
Romilly eventually hung up her lab coat an hour after her official workday should have ended. ‘Bye all, see you tomorrow! Good job today, Warwick.’ She noted the lad’s beam of pride as she waved to her colleagues, then began fishing one-handedly in her bag for her keys as she made her way to the car park.
*
‘Rom!’
She turned to see who had called her. ‘Sara?’ She was surprised to see her neighbour waving from a car window by the gate. ‘What are you doing here?’ Romilly was taken aback, wondering if all was okay with the house. Questions and scenarios flashed through her head. Burglary? Fire? Where is Celeste?
‘Yeah, I’m good. How are you?’
‘Fine.’ She felt a little confused by the exchange, as though it was normal for her friend of six months to turn up at her place of work and hang out in the car park.
‘Hope you don’t mind me pitching up, but there’s a new cocktail menu being launched tonight in town and I have a VIP invite that’s a plus one. So, as I don’t have any other friends, I thought you might like to jog along with me. Please don’t make me go on my own!’ she begged, hands pressed together as if in prayer.
‘I can’t just go out, Sara! I have to go home.’ She looked at her watch. It was about now that the afterschool sitter would be packing up to leave, and David would be heading home too. ‘They won’t have supper without me. I need to get back.’
‘Can’t they eat without you just once? We are talking VIP!’ Sara raised an eyebrow suggestively. ‘When’s the last time you went out and had a giggle, like you didn’t have a care in the world? A good old bloody giggle!’
Romilly bit her lip, pulling her oversized handbag into her waist like a shield. ‘I’m not sure. David thinks you’re a bad influence on me and I think he might be right!’ She laughed.
‘Yes, because David is a fellow member of the fun police, the atmosphere hoover club. I can tell. And what’s more, he can tell that I can tell, if you follow!’ She roared with laughter. ‘Come on, Rom! You’re not having enough fun! What’s one evening?’
Romilly laughed too and with a heady jolt of carefree abandonment shooting through her veins, she jumped in the passenger seat and swiped her phone to send David a text, explaining that she was working late and to go ahead and eat without her. She shoved the phone in her bag, too nervous to study his response.
Sara punched the air and shouted ‘
Yes!’ as though her team had just won the cup. ‘You can lose that ponytail for a start!’ She reached across and pulled at her friend’s hair. ‘Let the mane loose!’ she shrieked.
Romilly laughed and did as she was told, teasing off the elasticated band and letting her hair fall in lustrous waves over her shoulders. She shook her head and raked her fingers through the shining red mass.
‘Oh my God, your hair is amazing! All you need is a bit of this…’ Sara dipped low and plunged her hand into her handbag that sat in the well by Romilly’s feet. The car swerved a little to the right. They both gave a nervous giggle as the driver of the Volvo coming in the opposite direction beeped his horn.
‘Fuck off!’ Sara waved back. ‘I’m trying to get to my lipstick!’ she shouted, as though this was explanation enough for her meander across the lane. ‘Here.’ She handed Romilly a berry-red tube of sparkling lip stain. ‘Go on, pop it on. It is so your colour. It’ll accentuate your hair and as you have next to no eye make-up on behind those shades, we need to make your lips pop. That’s the rule: dramatic eyes or lips but never both. Did you not learn that at beauty school?’ she lisped in a fake American accent.
Romilly shook her head. ‘No, I must have skipped that lesson. Too busy learning the periodic table.’ Pulling down the sun visor, she tentatively drew the wand across her mouth, staring at the instant, glistening pout that was bright and did indeed make her mouth pop. It didn’t look like her. ‘I’ve never been very good with make-up. I think because I wear glasses and I can’t see too well without them, I’m nervous of eye shadow and stuff. I only wear a bit of mascara. I guess because David and I met at uni, he knows what I’ve always looked like and it would feel odd to suddenly walk around with a face full of colour. I’m just not that type.’
Another Love Page 6
