The Desperate Wife’s Survival Plan

by Alison Sherlock

  ‘Just enough room for a small taster,’ urged Julie. ‘How about it?’

  But Charley had no inclination to do any kind of cooking. Most evenings she slumped in her armchair, staring at the small television. Tired from a day’s cleaning, she normally cooked herself a bowl of pasta with a tin of tomatoes poured on top. It was hardly nouvelle cuisine, but she didn’t care. What was the point of making an effort when there was only her to cook for?

  Besides, her lovely ice-cream maker had left along with the bailiffs.

  No, her ice-cream days were definitely behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  BACK AT MISS Fuller’s house, Charley had just finished mopping the kitchen when a small dachshund called Desmond trotted through the back door and across the floor, leaving a perfect set of dirty pawprints behind him.

  Charley thought it was a good thing that she was an animal lover otherwise Desmond could easily have ended up in her father’s workshop.

  On Tuesday morning she had to drive into Upper Grove, although thankfully to a different road from the one on which she had lived until a few short weeks previously.

  The reminder did little to lighten her mood, especially when she met her new customer. It hadn’t been instant dislike on Charley’s part. It had taken as long as thirty seconds perhaps.

  She didn’t know why Mrs Smith irritated her so much. Perhaps it was the ridiculous new home which had been built in the style of a Spanish villa. Maybe it looked all right when the sun was shining, but on a dismal April morning the pristine white villa appeared as fake as Mrs Smith’s generous chest.

  And then there had been the name. ‘It’s pronounced Smythe.’

  Charley watched Mrs Smith swan off to her fitness class and was about to close the back door when she spotted someone striding across the garden. With Grove Village not being the largest place in England, perhaps Charley should have expected that trained gardeners would be thin on the ground. But she had not reckoned on coming face to face with this one so soon after their last meeting.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Mike, with a nod.

  Charley stood aside as he stepped in through the back door. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I thought I recognised your Mini on the driveway.’

  Charley rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yes. There’s only one like it in the world. I hope.’

  Mike followed her into the kitchen. Most customers were happy for Charley to help herself to a hot drink. Some days it was the only thing that kept her going.

  Mike nodded at the empty garage viewed through the kitchen window. ‘Where’s she gone this morning?’

  ‘Pilates.’

  He gave a snort of derision. ‘Isn’t that some kind of Greek bread?’

  Charley smiled as she poured hot water into two mugs. ‘So the gardening business is going well?’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the mug from her. ‘Yes. Can’t say it was easy in the early days, but I’m doing okay.’

  She didn’t offer any information about herself. She was cleaning other people’s houses. Her situation was obvious enough.

  Thankfully her mobile rang so Mike gave her a nod and headed outside while she answered it.

  ‘Hey. It’s me.’

  Her heart lurched at the sound of Steve’s voice. It was the first time they had spoken in a couple of weeks.

  She tried to keep her voice level. ‘How are you?’

  He gave a sigh. ‘Not great.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ she snapped, before instantly regretting her words. Now wasn’t the time for nagging. Especially if he had missed her enough to call.

  ‘The doctor’s put me on antidepressants,’ said Steve.

  ‘Oh dear.’

  Charley was trying to work up the strength to feel sorry for him, but all she could think was that he hadn’t even asked about her, about how she was.

  ‘You’re not making this easy for me,’ her husband told her.

  Charley tutted in exasperation. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I did apologise, if you remember.’

  ‘No. I don’t, as it happens.’ Her tone began to harden. ‘I don’t think you ever said sorry for anything. For the money you borrowed from my parents. For losing the roof over our heads. For any of it.’

  He heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘This obviously isn’t a good time for me to have called.’

  ‘I haven’t had a good time since you spent all of our money and then cheated on me,’ she snapped.

  ‘Look . . .’ he began.

  ‘No, you look!’ Charley’s voice had risen above shrill. ‘I’m here, slogging my guts out cleaning other people’s toilets, for God’s sake! I’m trying to make enough so I can pay back the money you took from my parents. And I’m having to do it all by myself, because you’re not here!’ Her voice was now so high it was possible only dogs could hear her. ‘You haven’t even asked about me, have you? No, as always it’s all about you. It’s always been about you! You broke my heart, stole my parents’ life savings, wasted all of our money . . . and now you’ve got the nerve to ring up because you’re the one that’s depressed!’

  Charley gave a frustrated scream and threw the phone across the room, narrowly missing Mike who had come back into the kitchen to drop off his empty mug.

  He raised his eyebrows at her and opened his mouth as if to speak. But seeing her irate expression, he quickly changed his mind and left.

  Charley was left to stomp about the kitchen in a rage, before grabbing the mop and bucket to clean the floor. She slopped the damp mop against the tiles with a smack, shaking with fury as she swished it to and fro.

  Steve was a liar, a rat, and she wanted nothing to do with him ever again. He and that trollop deserved each other.

  Halfway across the floor she stopped and let the pain wash over her for a moment. He was still her husband and she missed him, despite his many faults. She missed him so much she ached.

  Her tears splashed on to the floor. She began to move the mop around once more until they had disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  BY THE END of the week, Charley felt as low as she had ever done. The fresh misery caused by Steve’s phone call hung over her like a cloud. The cleaning had been exhausting and demeaning. Her husband had not called her back or even sent a text. She had hidden from Mike in the downstairs bathroom that afternoon at Mrs Wilberforce’s house, not able to face any questions about Steve.

  Charley blinked away a tear and pulled down the kitchen blind before washing up her solitary plate. She missed her dishwasher, her six-ring hob, even the microwave. She missed everything from her previous life, but especially the food.

  Having bought some basics and topped up the electric meter, she only had £14.50 left in her purse to last her the weekend. Everything was now paid for in cash, including the rent. Using an electricity meter had been an eye-opening experience. Now she made sure that every wall socket was turned off when not in use. She could see the meter count rising if even her mobile was charging, so nothing was left on standby.

  Being paid in cash did make it easier to keep to a budget, she had learned. Whatever amount of money she had in her purse was final. There were no hidden accounts, no cash stashed away. Once it had gone, there was nothing else.

  Charley was still using up the drawerfuls of shower gels, lotions and potions that she had purchased months or even years ago. They were all expensive, in total contradiction to her current circumstances. But at least her skin felt and smelt nice.

  It was a different story with the food she ate. All the store-cupboard basics such as pasta, rice and anything tinned were fine. She had lots of those, but it was all easy, bland fare. Her beloved special ingredients, the magic touches she had once used to make her ice-cream and other favourite recipes, were still boxed up untouched in the hall cupboard. She hadn’t yet been able to face unpacking them.

  The phone rang at eight o’clock on Saturday morning. There was only one person who would call her at that time of
the weekend.

  ‘Charlotte? It’s Mum. What are you doing today?’

  Charley stifled a yawn. ‘Not much.’

  ‘It’s the second day of the May Day Fête and I’m manning the cake stall. Why don’t you come down later and sample my rock cakes?’

  Charley grimaced at the thought. ‘I’m a bit tired, actually. Thought I’d rest today.’

  ‘Well, come over for lunch tomorrow. I know! You can make some ice-cream for pudding.’

  ‘I haven’t got the ice-cream maker any more,’ said Charley, feeling herself sink into melancholy.

  Her mother tutted. ‘Then make it the way you used to, lazybones. You don’t need those fancy gadgets . . . What’s that? . . . Your grandmother says a bit of your ice-cream will go down a treat before she heads home next week.’

  Charley thought Granny would probably be grateful for the opportunity of some edible food.

  ‘I haven’t got any ingredients in the house,’ she whined.

  Didn’t her mother realise how painful this was for her? How painful everything was these days?

  ‘Get yourself down the market then. You’ll get some cheap fruit there.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can, Mum.’

  ‘You’ve promised your grandmother now, you can’t let her down, and I forgot to pick up a dessert for tomorrow. Come round at twelve. It’ll be fun.’

  She hid under the duvet for a while, desperate to go back to sleep but the conversation with her mother had woken up the dormant chef inside. With a sigh, Charley threw off the duvet and stumbled out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

  She flung open the door to the tall cupboard and stared down at the pile of boxes. ‘Sugar and Syrups’, she had written on one. The word ‘Spices’ was written on another.

  Charley recalled the day when all her precious cooking ingredients had been packed away. Bottle by bottle, packet by packet, she had picked them out of her enormous built-in larder and put them into the appropriate cardboard box. Some of the ingredients had barely been touched; some were old favourites that she’d used time and time again. Her precious collection of cooking ingredients had been tucked out of sight if not quite out of mind. Charley had often found herself thinking about her cardamom pods or kirsch liqueur. She had even found herself standing outside Gino’s delicatessen and inhaling the fragrant aroma in deep breaths. But she no longer went inside. Couldn’t bear to.

  Now her precious ingredients were in front of her again, just waiting to be touched, tasted. She reached up to the box on top of the stack and brought it down. On the side she had written ‘Recipe Books’. She ripped off the packing tape, opened up the box and stared inside. There they were, her books, all with well-thumbed pages and creased spines. She had given away the ones she never used to the charity shop. But these were her favourites, her old friends that she could never give away.

  She knew which particular book she was searching for and dug deep until she found it. It was a book on desserts, in which she had found a basic ice-cream recipe many years previously. To that classic base, any number of flavourings could be added.

  Charley knew she had the sugar but she was going to require cream and fruit. She found herself pouting like a sulky teenager. She didn’t want to make ice-cream. It was too painful a reminder of how far she had fallen, of how happy she had been with Steve and how lonely and miserable she was now.

  Ultimately, though, she knew that the pain of making ice-cream would be nothing compared to the pain she’d endure if she turned up at her mother’s house the following day without it. Besides, she still owed them £40,000. A bit of ice-cream was nothing compared to that debt.

  She ate her breakfast in front of the television and remained there until she knew she could put it off no longer. After getting dressed, she walked out of Lower Grove towards the end of the high street where the market was held every Friday and Saturday.

  In the heady days when she’d had money to spend, Charley had bought all her fruit and vegetables in the farmers’ market which was held in Little Grove on a Tuesday morning. There she had bought produce which was fresh, local and organic. A little bit pricy but it was top-quality food.

  By comparison, the main Grove market was less organic fair, more flea market. In a small car park at the back of the cinema about fifty stalls jostled for space. Amongst the fruit and vegetable stalls were imitation handbags, knock-off DVDs and dodgy mobile phones.

  Charley strolled around, enjoying the calls of the market traders and the smell of fresh produce. There were lots of imported bananas and melons, but in the end she chose a large punnet of early strawberries. She also picked up some new potatoes and a cabbage. The whole purchase came to £2. In the good old days, the only thing that had cost her less than a fiver on her supermarket bill was Vogue magazine.

  She wandered away from the stalls, swinging her carrier bag and feeling a rare glimmer of something approaching contentment. On the way back she popped into the corner shop and picked up a large pot of whipping cream, which was about to go out of date. It was going to be frozen that afternoon so it didn’t matter.

  Her silent flat was in stark contrast to the noise and bustle of the market. Anticipating the loneliness about to engulf her once more, Charley brought out the small radio that her father had lent her. Her iPod and CDs had all been sold by Julie on eBay the previous week, which had brought in a few more precious pounds.

  She placed the radio on the kitchen counter and switched it on. Every pop song was either about being happy or unhappy in love. She didn’t need reminding of either, so fiddled with the dial until she came across some classical music. No words meant no reminders and the tunes were quite jolly, so she was able to start making her ice-cream.

  She washed and hulled about half of the strawberries, before cutting them up into tiny pieces. Normally she would have puréed them in a blender, but the bailiffs had taken both the blender and food processor. Instead she mashed up the strawberries with the end of a rolling pin. There were a few small lumps remaining, but Charley figured that they would add a bit of texture.

  She whipped the sugar into the cream until it was just thickened, another task that took a lot longer without her precious food processor. Her arms were aching by the end.

  Then she folded in the strawberry mush, giving it a ripple effect, and poured the whole mixture into an old Tupperware box, ready to freeze. Without her ice-cream maker, she had to remove the box from the freezer every half-hour to give the mixture a stir and ensure it remained smooth.

  At least it kept her busy. By the time the ice-cream was frozen, Charley had managed to lose a couple of hours and it was the middle of the afternoon. She looked down at the mixture and felt impressed with herself. Without any kitchen gadgets, she had made this.

  Still, she felt she should have made a bit more of an effort. Perhaps a touch of strawberry jam to bring out more of the fruit taste. Or making a chocolate base would have been a nice twist. But she was exhausted by the cleaning and by the mental strain of the week, so she put the ice-cream back into the freezer and went into the bedroom for a nap.

  She tossed and turned before curling up on the bed in a tight ball. Without anything to distract her, her imagination ran wild. She daydreamed of Steve arriving unexpectedly at her door, apologising, sobbing that he’d make a terrible mistake and that they should be together, for ever.

  Unable to sleep, Charley groaned in despair. She was tired but knew that keeping busy was going to be the key to survival. So she dragged herself off the bed and went back into the kitchen to begin making another batch of ice-cream.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Charley found herself sitting at her parents’ dining table, looking at their new double-glazed patio door.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said to her mother, hoping her tone was enthusiastic enough. It was hard to become animated about a sheet of glass at any time of the day.

  ‘They’ve made a right mess on your father’s decking,
which we’ll have to fix somehow.’

  ‘But how can you afford it?’ said Charley.

  ‘They couldn’t cancel the order, could they?’ said Granny, who was sitting at the head of the table. ‘The fools paid in advance.’

  ‘All those dodgy cancellation policies these companies have,’ added Aunty Peggy, who had also joined them for lunch. ‘Disgusting it is, how they can rip off good people.’

  Charley hung her head, once more feeling the burden of guilt for her parents’ current financial status.

  ‘Wasting the last of their money, when the roof’s got a leak and the washing machine’s up the creek,’ carried on Granny.

  Charley looked across the table at her parents. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said her mother quickly. ‘It’s been a nice change going up the launderette.’

  She didn’t look her daughter in the eye and Charley knew she was lying. For a start, the launderette was in Lower Grove.

  ‘Anyway, Peggy’s giving us her old one when her new machine comes at the end of the month.’

  They were both being so cheerful, so plucky, despite the fact that they had nothing much to live on. Charley looked down at her plate, which looked worse than normal. Her mother appeared to have bought the smallest chicken in the world for the roast dinner. Plus they had been given only two small roast potatoes each. The meal was inedible as usual, but there would never have been as little of it on offer as this in the old days. Charley felt wretched.

  ‘Lovely chicken, Maureen.’ Aunty Peggy’s faulty tastebuds were legendary. ‘Charlotte? You not eating any?’

  Charley glanced down at her plate of burnt offerings and undercooked poultry. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache.’

  ‘That’ll be all those chemicals you’re using in that new job of yours. Your lungs are probably hardening up. Plus all those filthy houses . . . Goodness only knows what kind of skin complaints you’ll pick up! Those dust mites can be nasty little buggers. It wouldn’t surprise me if you ended up covered in eczema . . .’