B01ESFW7JE

by Cathy Bramley

  Keys in hand, she contemplated her next move. It was too nice to go to the gym, she couldn’t bear the thought of spending another Saturday in the office and her parents’ house was a no-go zone since her dad’s visit to Gold’s. She wasn’t going there until he apologized. Her poor mum was at her wits’ end with the two of them.

  Maybe Sarah would be at home? She shoved the keys back in her bag and headed towards Rose Cottage in search of a cold drink and a chat.

  She lifted her hand to knock on Sarah’s door but a voice halted her.

  ‘No one in.’

  Jo looked into the next-door neighbour’s garden. An ancient mongrel, with more bald patches than fur, sat panting on the path. Jo raised her eyebrows and the dog cocked its head to one side.

  ‘You’ve just missed ’em, duck.’

  An old man stood in the open doorway of the cottage next door. His brown cardigan with leather buttons reminded her of one her granddad used to wear. It also made her feel distinctly underdressed in her T-shirt and denim shorts.

  Jo walked back to her car, wishing it had converted into a convertible in her absence. Today was a day for whizzing along country lanes, wind in your hair, feel-good music blaring out and drinking Pimm’s in the garden of a quaint little pub. She felt restless and in need of company.

  She would try Carrie’s house next and maybe even meet that mysterious husband. Jo jumped in the car and set off for Fern House, keeping her fingers crossed that the Radleys were both in.

  A couple of minutes later, she waited in the shade in front of Carrie’s house. The sudden change of temperature brought her out in goosebumps and she rubbed the top of her arms. The scuff of footsteps approaching across the tiled floor sounded male. Good; it must be Alex.

  From the little things Carrie had said about him, Jo imagined a surly, pompous old fart who liked his woman to be in an apron at all times. She was quite looking forward to locking horns with a man like that. As the heavy oak door opened she glanced down at her chest. Oh great; her nipples were sticking out like a pair of coat pegs under her lacy bra. If he was as stuffy as Carrie made out that wouldn’t go down well. She stuck her hands on her hips and decided to style it out.

  A totally gorgeous man appeared at the door and Jo stared in surprise, trying not to let her jaw drop open.

  This was Alex Radley?

  The man had a look of amusement on his handsome face. His full lips twisted upwards in a lopsided smile, his black eyebrows raised in question. Even his deep brown eyes were full of humour.

  Jo swallowed and glanced at the engraved slate sign by the doorbell. This was definitely the right house. Thank goodness her sunglasses were shielding her eyes.

  ‘Sorry to turn up unannounced.’ Her voice cracked. God, he was very attractive; she had lost the power of speech. ‘Is Carrie in?’

  ‘She is, who shall I say …? Ah.’ Realization dawned on his face. ‘You must be,’ he paused, looked her up and down and smiled, ‘Jo?’

  ‘Correct.’ She smiled back, dying to ask what Carrie had said about her. Get a grip, this is Carrie’s husband. Don’t even think about flirting.

  ‘Alex,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. Come on in. Carrie’s in the garden.’

  Jo couldn’t take her eyes off him as she followed him through to the kitchen. The soles of her Converse squeaked across the tiles and she tried to tiptoe. Alex was well-built and broad-shouldered, his thick hair was showing signs of going grey but it suited him. Jo approved.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ He stopped in front of the fridge and opened it.

  ‘Thanks. Water please.’

  The kitchen door was open and Jo looked out into the garden for any sign of Carrie.

  ‘I’m so glad to have met you,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you and Sarah. Carrie talks about nothing else. She certainly has come out of her shell a bit these last few months. And this diet business … She’s obsessed.’

  Jo scrutinized his face. She had imagined Carrie’s husband to be domineering and stand-offish. But the eyes that smiled back at her crinkled at the corners. She was perplexed; he seemed nice. In fact, he was absolutely charming.

  ‘She looks amazing, doesn’t she?’ Jo probed, accepting the glass of iced water gratefully.

  He nodded and smiled proudly. ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘Is she out this way?’ She gestured towards the door with her head.

  ‘Of course. Sorry.’ Alex made it to the door in three strides. ‘Carrie?’ he boomed. ‘Someone to see you, petal.’

  Petal? Sweet. Jo grinned as he graced her with another of his devastating smiles.

  ‘She’s up at the top. We’re on a bit of a slope, as you can see.’ He pointed to the far end of the garden. ‘Among her precious roses. Her other passion. I come a miserable third these days. Can you take this glass for her?’

  Jo was aware of Alex’s eyes on her back as she made her way up the garden with the two drinks. Carrie stood up, pushed a huge floppy sunhat out of her eyes and looked down towards her. Her face lit up.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Jo murmured as she handed her a glass and kissed her cheek. ‘Your husband is gorgeous.’

  She held her friend at arm’s length, noticing how Carrie squirmed at the mention of him.

  ‘I know,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I know.’

  Jo looped her arm through Carrie’s and they walked to a white wrought-iron table and matching chairs in a sunny area of the garden surrounded by a flower bed full of big floppy pink blooms. Jo angled her chair towards the sun and fanned her face with both hands. ‘He is hot! You dark horse,’ she continued. ‘Here was me thinking you were married to a monster and it turns out you’ve bagged yourself your own George bloody Clooney.’

  Carrie picked up her glass and grinned. ‘What’s he doing married to a moose, you mean?’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ Jo scoffed. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and wriggled her toes in the cool grass.

  ‘Bliss. Firstly, your husband clearly adores you. You should have seen him in there, all gooey over you. Secondly, forget moose, you’re positively gazelle-like these days!’

  ‘Pff.’

  Jo studied Carrie’s eyes under that big hat. She was still sure she was hiding something. What was it? Surely her husband wasn’t violent towards her? Jo flicked her eyes over Carrie’s body – what she could see of it; she was wearing one of her shapeless baggy dresses.

  ‘Carrie …?’ she began tentatively.

  As if sensing the conversation was about to turn personal, Carrie jumped in quickly. ‘So to what do I owe the pleasure?’

  Jo paused, recognizing Carrie’s pleading expression as a bid to change the subject.

  ‘I promised Abi that I’d check up on the house for her every now and then. The last thing she needs is to come back from Australia to a wreck.’

  Carrie nodded, looking more relaxed now the conversation had turned away from her marriage. ‘It’s a lovely house.’

  ‘Then I was at a loose end so I thought I’d call in here and we could sunbathe topless in your garden and ogle your husband.’ Jo grinned as Carrie spluttered on a mouthful of water. ‘Joke.’

  ‘I’ve never sunbathed topless,’ said Carrie nervously, glancing back towards the house.

  ‘You should try it, it’s very liberating.’ Jo laughed. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Sarah. I had a text from her saying that she had had a row with Dave and she thought he was fed up with her.’

  ‘Oh.’ Carrie winced. ‘That’s not good. Do you think it’s true? I mean, she can be a bit dramatic.’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Jo shrugged and grinned wickedly. ‘Perhaps he wants his balls back.’

  Carrie bit back a smile. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but for such a tiny person, she is very bossy.’

  Jo tilted her face up to the sun and closed her eyes. ‘Perhaps he’s not getting enough?’

  ‘Jo!’

  ‘I’m just saying, you know, she’s working, she’s tired …�
��

  ‘Knowing Sarah, I’m sure she has a schedule for sex in her notebook.’

  ‘Or a signed contract!’ They both laughed.

  Jo opened her eyes and leaned forward. ‘I wonder how long it takes your lady garden to get better, you know, after giving birth.’

  Carrie shuddered.

  ‘You are a prude!’ Jo snorted.

  ‘It’s not that, I …’ Carrie paused and brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. ‘It takes months to get over the trauma. I should imagine,’ she added.

  Exactly. What did either of them know about it? Jo took a deep breath of fresh air and exhaled, and lazily took in her surroundings.

  The garden was charming; it was quite big and terraced to make the most of the slope. Next to the house was a yellow flagstone patio, with a wooden, ivy-covered pergola. A central path cut through an immaculate lawn. But the most prominent feature was the mass of flowers. With the exception of the roses and possibly a few others, Jo couldn’t begin to name them. But it seemed that blooms of every shape, size and colour had a place in Carrie’s garden. The effect was magical.

  ‘Your garden is amazing,’ she said. ‘It’s like being at the Chelsea Flower Show here. I didn’t know you were a gardener?’

  Carrie’s face glowed with pride. ‘I’m not really. I’m just addicted to flowers and this is my favourite time of year when nearly all of them are out.’

  Jo grinned. Carrie looked so happy and at home. Now she thought about it, Carrie nearly always presented her and Sarah with flowers. Jo had assumed they were shop bought. But obviously not. She stood up and pulled Carrie to her feet.

  ‘Come on.’ She slipped her sunglasses back on. ‘Educate me.’

  Ten minutes later, they were back in the kitchen, Jo’s arms full of flowers and her head buzzing with Latin plant names. She passed them gently to Carrie, who filled the sink and rested the stems in water.

  ‘Next lesson,’ said Carrie, fishing a large glass vase out from a cupboard. ‘Flower arranging. Don’t groan! And while I’m doing that you can tell me about your fear of heights therapy.’

  Carrie had eventually admitted to Jo and Sarah about her sessions with the hypnotherapist. Jo had been so impressed with Carrie’s success that she had contacted Michelle Terry and had begun hypnotherapy herself.

  Privately, though, she didn’t think it was working for her. When the therapist was supposedly ‘talking to her subconscious’, as she put it, Jo found she was drifting off and thinking about something entirely different. Men usually, or shoes. Or in the case of Patrick, both. She was still no closer to working out what she was going to do without him. It was catch-22: she couldn’t manage without him and she couldn’t afford to pay him more to persuade him to stay either.

  ‘Fill this with water and you can do your own arrangement,’ said Carrie, handing her the vase.

  ‘I’d rather just watch you,’ Jo grumbled.

  She turned the tap on too forcefully and cold water spurted out, bouncing off the sink and soaking them both. They squealed; Jo’s face and arms were wet but the front of Carrie’s dress was soaked.

  Jo rubbed herself down with a towel and laughed at Carrie, who held her arms out to let the water drip on to the floor.

  ‘You’ll have to take it off!’ She laughed, throwing her the towel.

  Carrie looked horrified.

  ‘Off, off, off,’ chanted Jo, tugging at the hem of Carrie’s dress.

  Carrie turned to the wall and peeled off her wet clothes, preserving her modesty with a tiny kitchen towel.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Jo, unable to drag her eyes off Carrie in just her underwear.

  ‘What?’ Carrie mumbled, her face ablaze. ‘Haven’t you seen a fat girl without any clothes on before?’

  ‘You silly moo!’ Jo shook her head. ‘How much weight have you lost, exactly?’

  Carrie gripped on to the towel and lifted one shoulder. ‘About two stone.’

  ‘That’s amazing! So why dress in sacks all the time?’

  Ignoring the question, Carrie darted out to the utility room and came back wearing another similarly unflattering dress.

  ‘I mean it, Carrie. You look fantastic. I’m so proud of you.’

  Carrie’s eyes shone as Jo pulled her into a hug.

  ‘Right. Come on, then. Let me show you how to arrange these flowers.’

  Jo fell silent, watching as Carrie selected stem after stem, slotting them into the vase, standing back to assess, adding another and so on. Somehow, without Carrie even appearing to think about it, she created a work of art. The contrast between the large flowers and the tiny ones, the balance of the petals and the foliage, seemed completely natural to her.

  ‘All I normally do is hack a bit off the stems and plonk them in water,’ Jo said admiringly.

  Carrie grinned. ‘So I can arrange flowers. Big deal. You run a company, for heaven’s sake.’

  Jo groaned. ‘That’s debatable. Where did you learn to do all this?’

  Carrie pushed a strand of hair off her face. ‘I used to be a florist. Unplanned career move. But when I dropped out of uni, it was the only job I could get. As it turned out, I loved it.’

  Jo was struck by the depth of sadness in those deep brown eyes.

  ‘You said you’d had a dead-end job. But that wasn’t true, was it? Why on earth did you give it up?’

  Carrie was doing her best to feign indifference but Jo could sense she was holding back on her.

  ‘Oh you know,’ she said vaguely. ‘I had to work one Mother’s Day. You can imagine how busy it was, that and Valentine’s Day are the two maddest days of the year. But it was our first wedding anniversary too, unfortunately, and Alex tried to insist that I took the day off and I wouldn’t. He’d booked a restaurant for lunch or something. We had a terrible row and it upset me so much that I gave up work shortly after that. It just wasn’t worth it.’

  Jo bristled with anger on Carrie’s behalf. So that was the problem; Alex was a bully behind that charming exterior.

  ‘It was wrong of him to make you give up a job you loved,’ she urged. ‘You’re entitled to a life too.’

  Carrie pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  ‘You’ve got passion, talent—’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Carrie smiled sadly. ‘It sounds so black and white when you say it but …’

  The phone in the hall rang and Carrie, with a look of relief, raced to answer it.

  ‘Hello, Vicar?’

  Jo followed her out to the hall. ‘Give him my number!’ she mouthed, tapping Carrie’s arm.

  ‘Shush!’ Carrie giggled and turned her back on Jo.

  ‘Oh no, the poor thing! Oh goodness. Hold on a moment.’

  Carrie’s eyes were wide as she looked at Jo.

  ‘He’s got a bride with him,’ she hissed, covering up the mouthpiece with one hand. ‘She’s getting married next week and her florist has let her down. He wants to know if I can decorate the church. What shall I say?’

  Jo’s heart squeezed for Carrie; this was just the sort of confidence boost she needed.

  ‘Yes! Bloody hell, Carrie, say yes!’ She jumped up and down on the spot, tempted to rip the phone out of Carrie’s hand and answer for her.

  Alex appeared in a doorway, his eyebrows raised in question. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Carrie’s got a job,’ said Jo triumphantly.

  ‘Hello again,’ Carrie took a deep breath and with a trembling voice replied, ‘I will.’

  Chapter 19

  Carrie looked round the elegant city-centre bistro and tingled with anticipation. She could get used to this. Walls lined with old black-and-white photos of films stars, eclectic mirrors, marble-tiled floors and a pianist playing Sinatra songs; she never normally went anywhere without Alex. It was about time she did more of this.

  The waitress showed Carrie to a corner table and she settled in a chair with her back to the wall to watch for the others. The waitress c
ame back almost immediately with a jug of water and the bread basket. She waved the bread away firmly. She was early and had already had texts from both of them to warn her they were running late; the last thing she needed was to fill up on stodge while she was waiting.

  Carrie studied the other diners, trying to guess their relationship to each other and their reasons for lunch. Business meetings were easy to spot with their phones and tablets cluttering up the table. A group of girls were giggling and gossiping over a bottle of Prosecco. Two lovers were leaning so close together that they were nose to nose. Judging by the number of times the woman checked furtively over her shoulder, it was possibly a clandestine lunch date.

  For once Carrie didn’t feel uncomfortable sitting on her own people-watching and the thought made her proud. Meeting Sarah and Jo had been the best thing that had happened to her in years. They had made her see how much she was missing out on, that her cushioned, reclusive life was really no life at all. That she was capable of making some real, positive changes. This was only the beginning, she decided. She smiled up at the waitress and accepted a menu.

  She smoothed her slate-grey cotton dress over her stomach. It was a new online purchase. She hadn’t summoned up the courage to go shopping in real clothes shops yet. She wondered whether Sarah and Jo would approve of her new outfit. Probably not; it was still fairly shapeless. Carrie could feel the rolls of flesh underneath the fabric. She knew she was still overweight, but the uncomfortable folds of her belly had gone and her boobs were now two cup sizes smaller.

  She was still one of the plumpest in the restaurant. But not actually the biggest, she noticed with a shiver of satisfaction. Not any more. She ran a hand over her new shiny bobbed hair. Gone was the straggly pony tail, instead there were short layers at the nape of her neck, long wisps at the front. She had only had it cut that morning and every time she caught sight of her reflection a whole new Carrie smiled back.

  Still no sign of Jo and Sarah.

  She took her phone out of her bag and slipped a pair of headphones into her ears. A couple of minutes listening to her hypnotherapy track now might help her resist making any bad choices over lunch. She’d never done it in a public place before, but no one would know. She wouldn’t even close her eyes, that way as soon as she saw the other two, she could turn it off and they would be none the wiser. Carrie pressed play and the chatter and clatter of the restaurant disappeared, replaced by the gentle voice of the therapist. ‘From now on, you will be satisfied with smaller amounts of food …’