It was no hardship for Bonnie to listen to Stickalampinit enthuse about his latest creation or moan about his back. He was part of the antiques world which had embraced her and which she loved so much in return, and whilst she was in the Pot of Gold there was always plenty to occupy her and keep her mood buoyant. But there were now only three days until the end of the month.
When Stickalampinit and ‘Seventeen’ eventually left, Lew went next door to the teashop and bought a selection of toasted sandwiches for himself and Bonnie, hoping she’d feel obliged to share them with him.
‘This is a nice treat,’ she said. Leni’s sandwiches were always lovely. ‘What’s the occasion?’
‘It’s the auction today,’ returned Lew. ‘My nerves are in shreds so this is displacement therapy.’ He wasn’t lying.
Bonnie had forgotten too. Her brain had been too full of junk to spare a corner for the fate of the Chinese cup and saucer. ‘You need something to do to take your mind off it. Go and buy some more bubble wrap, that’ll waste a good hour,’ she suggested.
The traders all bought their bubble wrap from a bloke in Hillsborough called ‘Bubble Wrap Rashid’. He operated from the garage at the back of his house, cash only, obviously.
‘Great idea,’ said Lew. ‘Will you be all right by yourself?’
‘It’s quiet, go and get yourself away,’ Bonnie smiled.
Lew left her with the sandwiches. They were delicious, but he was too wired to eat them.
Bonnie didn’t eat them either. They were lovely, but she had no appetite at all.
Chapter 47
Bonnie had just pushed the sandwiches to the bottom of the bin in the back room when she heard the bell tinkle above the shop door. She emerged with her shop-smile intact, which dropped instantly when she saw who was standing there. Stephen looked as if he had aged since she last saw him. His usually neat hair was untidy and needed a trim and he was wearing the zip-up beige jerkin that she always thought made him look like an old man. But the biggest difference was his face: he’d lost weight and his cheeks were dark and hollowed out; his eyes looked more hooded than she could remember and the hair in his eyebrows sprouted off in all directions like wayward wire. Bonnie crossed her arms in front of her, an unconscious defensive movement and he registered that and enjoyed the fact that she felt threatened by him.
‘Bonita,’ he said. ‘You didn’t reply to my letter.’
She forced herself to drop her arms to her sides, hoping to convey by that that she might have been momentarily cowed by his presence, but she was over it.
‘I have nothing to say to you, Stephen,’ she said slowly and carefully. ‘My solicitor will convey everything to you and your solicitor when you engage one, as you should.’
He shook his head slowly in disappointment. ‘Have you forgotten all I’ve done for you, dear?’ Despite the endearment, there was no affection in his voice. His tone was patronising and arrogant.
‘Have you forgotten all I did for you?’ she replied, fighting the waver in her voice. ‘Years of cleaning your clothes, cooking your meals, being a presence in your house to stop you from being lonely? A housekeeper would have done the same job, Stephen, but obviously you’d have had to pay her for that.’
‘You silly little girl . . .’ He took a step towards her. Bonnie retreated two.
‘I will divorce you, you know,’ she said, despising him. How could she have ever thought she loved him? He’d conned her. He’d reeled her in like one of the fish he caught, lifting her from a chilled lake to a smaller, colder bowl.
Stephen took a deep steadying breath. ‘I will not let you divorce me, Bonita. You do not have the money to complete the process if I do not agree to it and you certainly won’t be getting any of mine.’
He was trying to intimidate her with lies, she knew. Adriana had assured her that whatever tactics he might try, he was only delaying the inevitable and she would be divorced from him. He could not prevent it.
‘I don’t want your money, Stephen. I don’t want anything from you. I just want a divorce. And I will have one, with your agreement or without it. It was never a proper marriage and so it won’t take much dissolving.’ She felt bitterness seep into her tone like acid. ‘Now please get out of here. We have nothing else to say to each other.’
Stephen’s eyes narrowed and then he unleashed a gush of invectives that she had never thought him capable of. He sounded possessed, mad. He was slavering, ‘. . . Bitch . . . whore . . .’
Then the bell above the door sounded and the couple with the Labrador guide dog walked in and Stephen sliced off his vitriolic stream. The woman picked up that something was wrong and looked from Stephen to Bonnie and asked if she was all right.
‘As I said, till the end of the month,’ said Stephen, feeling the heat of the couple’s attention on him, but still he strolled slowly out of the shop with his shoulders back and his head held high.
‘He looked a bit shifty,’ said the woman.
‘Awkward customer. Nothing I can’t handle,’ said Bonnie, sticking on a smile, but how she doubted her own words.
Chapter 48
Lew burst into the shop an hour and a half later with an enormous roll of bubble wrap.
‘Have you looked on the auction site?’ he asked.
‘No. I was waiting for you,’ said Bonnie.
‘Did we have any customers?’
‘The couple with the guide dog and a group of six ladies. They bought your writing slope and a vinaigrette from Long John’s cabinet.’ She didn’t mention the other visitor.
Lew dumped the roll and pushed Bonnie into the back office. The auction would have ended now and the sale price would probably be listed on Christie’s webpages.
‘What do you think, Bonnie?’
‘Jack thought it might fetch ten thousand.’
‘That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? But let’s not get our hopes up. Or should we? I’m not sure I dare look.’
‘I’m not sure you’ll be able to stop yourself though,’ Bonnie chuckled.
Lew threw himself into the captain’s chair at his desk and pulled the spare over to his side for Bonnie. ‘Okay, here we go.’ He logged into the Christie’s site, found the latest auction results, marvelled briefly at some of items listed before his impatience speeded him up, and then he came to a picture of the cup and his lungs froze.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Bonnie, more breath than sound.
Lew looked at the figure on the right of the screen, under ‘price realised’.
‘I know this, but I’m asking anyway: that means the sold price, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Bonnie weakly.
‘Thirty-five thousand pounds for that cup and saucer, that’s right, isn’t it?’
‘No. That’s just the cup. The saucer must be listed separately.’
He turned quickly to her. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘Lew, it is.’ She extended her finger to the wording. ‘That is one item. They weren’t sold as a pair.’
‘Oh boy.’ He shook the shock of pins and needles out of his hands. ‘So, I’ll . . . go onto the next page . . .’
‘It’s there,’ yelled Bonnie, immediately apologising for nearly deafening him.
‘Holy f . . .’ He didn’t have enough voice for the rest of the expletive because there, on the page, was the little Chinese saucer with the staples and a price realised of forty-eight thousand pounds. The figure didn’t sink in. Lew’s brain seemed to be trying to push it back in case it entered and blew all his neurons.
Beside him, Bonnie was as still and quiet and disbelieving.
‘That’s wrong. That has to be wrong. Is it sterling or some other currency where there’s three million to the pound?’
‘Lew, it’s sterling. It says. Thirty-five and forty-eight, I can’t add them up.’
‘Eighty-three thousand pounds.’
Bonnie gulped. ‘I’ll bet the same person bought both.’
‘I’m in shock,’
said Lew.
‘Obviously there will be fees to take off that figure.’
‘I get that.’
Bonnie’s outstretched hand crept into his peripheral vision.
‘Congratulations, Mr Harley.’ Her slim fingers closed around his and she shook it. But he didn’t want to shake her hand, he wanted to leap up into the air and pick her up and dance around the room with her and he didn’t know how he stopped himself from doing it.
‘I’m in shock,’ he said again and Bonnie laughed. She was thrilled for him, and he knew that because her eyes were smiling as much as the curve of her soft, plump lips.
‘You sent that old lady to me,’ he said. ‘You are in for such a bonus, Mrs . . . Miss Sherman.’
‘If anyone should get a bonus, I think it should be Mrs Twist, rather than me.’
‘Don’t you worry about her. Mrs Twist was always going to get something extra if the pieces were valuable. I kept her details just in case. And there’s the white jade pieces in the August auction to look forward to too.’
‘I think you’ll have spontaneously combusted before then, Lew.’
‘And I think my wife is in for the handbag of her dreams for her birthday,’ he smiled. Although it wouldn’t be white or made of crocodile. That would never happen.
‘She’s a lucky lady,’ said Bonnie. She bet Charlotte Harley didn’t appreciate just how lucky she was.
Lew arrived home with a bottle of champagne and a huge bouquet of flowers. News of the amazing sale surprisingly shifted all traces of Charlotte’s depression and they made love that night for the first time in months.
Bonnie sat in the little house in Rainbow Lane and filled in some more forms which had arrived from Adriana, then she punched out five packets of Happy Birthday pink confetti which Lew had ordered from her for the weekend.
Chapter 49
A lady was waiting for Lew to open up on the Saturday of that week. She had a hoard of ink pens and said that she’d been told he’d give her the fairest price for them, which pleased him immensely because he had finally established a reputation in the business. Lew knew a lot about pens so he was on safe ground here. Amongst the collection was a vintage Waterman Art Deco fountain pen and a fake Mont Blanc. The body of the pen was a fair copy, but the nib gave the game away. The woman thought that the Mont Blanc was the real prize and Lew knew that he could have sent her away to try her luck elsewhere with it and bought the rest off her for fifty quid, but he just wasn’t built like that. He took time to explain to her why the pen was worthless and though she probably believed him deep down, she kept it and sold him all the others. He gave her much more than she had expected for them and Lew knew that he could sell them on straightaway for a substantial, easy profit. He was starting to have some excellent sales – the Pot of Gold was very well named.
As the woman walked out, Bonnie hurried in, splashed with rain from the summer morning shower. She was wearing her yellow mac again and the words ‘Bonita Banana’ pinged into his brain, and he smiled.
‘Morning,’ he greeted her.
‘Good morning. She was an early customer.’ Bonnie thumbed behind her.
‘She wanted to sell me some pens. What do you think?’
‘Wow.’ She spotted the Waterman immediately. ‘What a beauty. You have to show this to—’
‘Criss-cross. Oh yes. I’d be mad not to,’ Lew finished off her sentence.
Crispin Crossmoor-Innesworth was as posh as he sounded. He was a man obsessed by quality pens and mechanical pencils which he bought to add to his already vast private collection. And, even better, he bought everything with cold hard cash.
‘Wonderful. If only every transaction could be like that. I’ll give him a ring if you like. I’ll pop the kettle on, shall I?’ said Bonnie.
‘Yes please,’ said Lew, thinking that despite the sunshiney smile, her eyes were puffy as if she hadn’t slept very well. He called after her as she disappeared into the back office, ‘There’s an envelope on the desk for you from me.’
‘P45?’ she quipped.
‘Got it in one,’ he replied. His ear traced the sounds of the kettle building to a boil, the fridge opening, a ting of metal spoon stirring inside the cups, an envelope being torn open and then silence. Then Bonnie appeared with two mugs, walking slowly because her hands were shaking. She put them down on the counter just in time before she dropped them.
‘You’re joking, right?’ she said.
‘Nope. It’s your cut.’
‘My wage is my cut,’ said Bonnie. ‘You’re the boss.’
‘So I say what happens,’ said Lew. ‘And I want you to put that cheque in the bank.’
Bonnie shook her head. ‘You haven’t even got the money from Christie’s yourself yet. What if for some reason the buyer retracts . . .?’
‘He won’t and you know he won’t,’ said Lew. ‘The market is strong, and even if he does, as you and I both know, another Chinese bidder will snap those items up. Probably for even more. I wanted you to have the money now. I won’t argue.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Bonnie, blinking hard. She couldn’t look him in the eye and she knew that he knew she was close to tears. Seven thousand pounds was a fortune to her.
‘You don’t have to say anything. Just don’t leave. My luck changed when you walked in through the door.’ He hadn’t meant it to sound as loaded with tenderness as it came out, but it didn’t matter that it did, because that was what he felt.
‘I won’t, I promise,’ said Bonnie. She wouldn’t dream of leaving this place, if she didn’t have to. But she might have to. Today was the first of the month and she hadn’t gone back to Stephen. He wouldn’t have made a threat if he didn’t mean to carry it out. She had dressed in her brightest colours today hoping to ward off his darkness but it wasn’t working. Not really.
When Lew left work later, he drove straight to Meadowhall to collect Charlotte’s birthday present: the bright red version of her favourite black Lulu Guinness handbag, along with the matching purse. He also bought a huge bottle of her favourite perfume, a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy shoes and some Tiffany earrings. He had spent far too much, but what the hell. He felt as if his home life was turning a corner, just as the shop had. He and Charlotte hadn’t had a cross word all week and they were going to spend a lovely birthday evening tomorrow with Gemma and Jason, without the viper that was Regina. He hoped Charlotte was going to be thrilled by the surprise party.
At home, Bonnie pinned the cheque to the noticeboard in her tiny kitchen. The money would finance her divorce first and foremost, which was far more important than anything else she could spend it on. She’d bank the rest. She might need it for more legal fees.
She wouldn’t see Lew until Tuesday now. He was having the day off tomorrow as it was his wife’s birthday. She imagined he would spoil her with all sorts of romantic, feminine gifts: gorgeous shoes, a designer handbag, perfume, flowers, champagne. He would take ages in choosing a card for her with lovely words that meant something. He wouldn’t buy her presents like old-fashioned slippers, practical dressing gowns, dull hardback books that she should read like Stephen had for her.
Stephen. She shuddered as she thought about him and the loaded gun that he was holding to her head. She could feel the cold steel press against her temple, hear his finger play on the trigger, drawing out the moment of cocking the mechanism for full effect. She closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like when he finally let the bullet fly and blew everything in her world away. She wondered if she would feel release more than pain.
She was ready. Let it come. Let it all be over.
Chapter 50
Stephen Brookland savoured the ten-minute journey from his house into town because – or so he’d convinced himself – at the end of it he would be doing the right thing, even if it was long overdue. He had taken care over choosing the right clothes for his forthcoming task as if it were a sacred ritual: polished shoes, charcoal trousers, light blue polo shir
t and a casual grey jacket. The combination said, ‘this is an upright, law-abiding citizen whose word is to be believed.’ He would never have admitted, not even to himself, that the prime reasons for his actions were vindictive, devious, and vengeful. A crime had been committed and he was obliged to do his civic duty and report it, whatever had forced his hand.
He parked the car and walked down the road towards the police station, feeling a shot of adrenalin course rapidly through his veins, as if someone had fully released the tap on the gland where it came from. It was the first of the month and a Saturday night; he hoped the station would be busy. Under his arm he had tucked the A4 folder full of information which the police might find useful: a handwritten account of what had happened five years ago signed and dated, people to contact to verify his allegations, even a photo of the house where Mrs Brookland was now living. He had followed her home one night, at an unseen distance. There was also information about where she worked, a copy of her passport and her National Insurance number.
The front office area was crowded but he didn’t mind waiting, because it all added to the drama and was very interesting, like a real-life Jeremy Kyle Show. Someone respectable, like himself, came in to report a stolen car, everyone else in the queue was loud and foul-mouthed and obviously lower working class, though he used the word ‘working’ loosely because he doubted any of them had ever had a job. Then it was Stephen’s grandstand moment.
The Queen of Wishful Thinking Page 23
