by Paula Daly
I don’t hear a reply, so I make my way towards her, guessing it’s Sean, wondering why he hasn’t used his key, and are we at that stage already? but then I see it’s Eve standing there.
She has a doleful expression, but God she looks good.
‘I had to come.’
I’m not sure what to say. Under normal circumstances the sight of Eve provokes a reaction of warmth within me, a rush of love towards the friend who has always had my back. And for a moment that feeling begins to swell, my body betraying me in such an appalling way, as though it hasn’t yet been able to process the latest necessary information.
‘I understand I’m the last person you want to see right now, Natty,’ she continues carefully, ‘but, all the same, I had to come.’
‘Why?’ I ask her.
‘Because it’s breaking my heart to know that you’re suffering.’
Alice steps towards her. ‘Maybe you should have thought of that before you went and—’
‘Alice,’ I say, laying my hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t.’ Alice shoots me a look as though I’ve lost my mind. ‘Let her speak. In fact, Alice, could you leave us? I think this is something Eve and I need to discuss alone.’
Alice marches off and I look at Eve, waiting for what happens next.
‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ she begins.
‘But you did.’
‘I know. But if you were only aware of how Sean and I wrestled with this, if you could see how hard we tried to stop it.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
She drops her head. ‘No,’ she answers. ‘But I want you to know that this was not done lightly. I want you to know that we both love you, Natty. That what happened totally stunned us, that it came out of nowhere. We weren’t prepared for it.’
Her voice quivers and I have to prevent myself from reaching out to her.
‘Sean says he’s never been loved like this,’ I tell her quietly. ‘Any idea how it feels to hear that?’
She shakes her head. ‘No.’
‘It feels like shit . . . Anyway, Eve, why exactly are you here?’
For a second, I think she might break down at this point, fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, but she doesn’t. Before answering, she hesitates. She holds my gaze and her mournful demeanour vanishes. It’s replaced by cold steeliness, visible in the whites of her eyes. ‘I know you’re not anywhere close to coming to terms with what’s happened, and I really don’t expect you’ll want to see either of us for a substantial amount of time, but I’d like you to consider something that’s always helped me in the past . . . helped me when I’ve had difficult times.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, Natty,’ she says earnestly, and my eyes widen in response.
‘Well, Eve,’ I say bitterly, ‘I’ll try to remember that,’ and I close the door before she has chance to say anything else.
Mad Jackie Wagstaff is cleaning my dad’s front room when I arrive three days later. She has a wet cloth in one hand and a clean tea towel slung over her left shoulder, for drying off. The first thing she says to me is, ‘Well, you know what I’d do . . . I’d chop the bastard’s balls off, an’ serve ’em to that bitch on a plate.’
I manage only half a smile as I sit down on the leather sofa.
My dad is opposite. He is perched on a tall, wing-backed chair. A friend who owns the residential home in Windermere let me have it when Dad came home after his knee surgery. It makes it easier for him to go from sitting to standing, standing to sitting. I survey my father now, and he looks misplaced. The dated tapestry upholstery of the chair is incongruous in here with the room’s taupe décor and its clean lines.
My dad is incredibly house-proud. He’s what you’d call ‘handy’ (he can do almost anything, or has a mate who can). Often I’ll turn up to find him re-plastering, or fitting double glazing to the porch, or plumbing in a new gas fire. Strictly speaking, he’s not supposed to work with gas because he’s not Corgi registered, but he reckons that’s only a problem when you come to sell the house.
He calls himself: Ken Odell PhD . . . Plumbing, heating and Drains.
The house is an old stone semi-detached on a street off the main road, about halfway between the villages of Windermere and Bowness. There are more cars than spaces so it’s always impossible to park, which drives me nuts when I visit. Especially if I’m loaded up with groceries and need to make multiple trips to the car.
I grew up in this house. It was just the three of us. My mum died when I was fourteen and, a few years later, Dad did have a couple of short flings – relationships he was very discreet about – but Jackie is the first woman acting like she might actually become a permanent fixture.
‘You don’t need to do the cleaning, Jackie,’ I say to her absently, gazing at my dad’s slippers, thinking they’re a bit past their best. ‘I’m not paying you to do that.’ Jackie is employed by the carers’ agency I hired to help my dad out after his operation.
‘No bother,’ she replies. ‘May as well do it whilst I’m ’ere.’
She and my father exchange a guilty look. They’re building up to tell me about their relationship. Their reticence is endearing, totally understandable because of the state I’m in.
My dad is careful with me, concerned. ‘How is Alice?’ he asks.
‘Still livid,’ I reply.
‘And Felicity?’
‘Still quiet.’
‘Do you want me to talk to him?’
I frown. ‘To who? Sean? And say what?’
He tilts his head and smiles sympathetically. ‘You never know, Natty, I might be able to knock some sense into him.’
My dad and Sean have always got along; they’ve always been close. More than once Dad’s claimed that Sean is like a son to him.
I dismiss his offer. ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ I tell him, thinking of the black lace thong I found hooked around my big toe when I woke this morning. I’ve not told anyone about it. It’s too humiliating. The thought of Eve’s underwear festering between my sheets turns my stomach.
My dad persists. ‘He might listen, he might if I can get him on his own—’
I cut him off. ‘He won’t.’
Sensing he wants to press the issue further, I glare at him. I am not up to discussing the ins and outs of this in front of Mad Jackie. She’s a nice enough woman – I’ve got nothing against her – but I could really do without her presence today. It’s not as if I really know her, and here we are, talking openly about my break-up, my breakdown, right in front of her.
My dad sits up in his chair. He adjusts his feet, grimacing as his new knees send a jolt of pain into the surrounding tissues. Though considering he’s had major surgery, he looks the healthiest I’ve seen him in ages.
He’s always looked older than his years – his beloved roll-ups are probably the reason for that. He’s sixty-one and he smokes far more than he lets on. When we went for his orthopaedic appointment a few months back he claimed to get through fifteen cigarettes a day. I’d raised my eyebrows at that until he muttered, ‘Could be closer to twenty.’ When asked what medication he was on, he answered, ‘Real ale,’ but the nurse was not amused.
‘Have you been to the hotel yet?’ he asks me.
I shake my head. ‘She’s there.’
‘Are they allowed even to do that?’ Jackie pipes up. ‘Is your husband even allowed to let her live there? The pair of ’em have got such a bloody cheek. Can’t you get her out?’
I sigh wearily. ‘And how am I supposed to do that?’
Jackie stops cleaning and turns to face me fully, hands on hips, jaw set. ‘Go and see a solicitor. Tell that bitch you’ll kill her if she doesn’t get off your property. Tell Sean he’ll not see his children.’
I bow my head. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not? ’Course you can. Everyone starts off playing fair, Natty, but they soon change their tune once they realize the
gloves are off.’
‘It’s Sean’s name on the deeds. Sean’s name on the alcohol licence.’
‘So?’
‘And they’ve moved out from the guest bedroom now,’ I reason. ‘They’re staying in the staff accommodation in the attic, so it’s not as if it’s actually costing the hotel anything. We’re not losing money by them being there.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Jackie presses, ‘but how can you even stand for her to be in there at all?’
‘I can’t. I hate it that she’s there.’
‘Why are you being so soft about it then?’ she says. ‘Do something.’
My mouth gapes open and I look at my dad helplessly, trying to indicate that I really can’t handle this barrage from Jackie right now. But he’s nodding his head like a donkey, like a silly old front-bench politician backing up the Prime Minister.
‘Sean needs to run the hotel,’ I explain patiently. ‘We can’t just shut up shop, whatever’s happened. And I’d rather he was there doing it than my having to face all the staff. That would be excruciating. It’s bad enough all of them know.’
Jackie goes to argue the point again and stops. Opens her mouth then closes it. After a moment she takes the black and white photograph of the girls from the wall and wipes it clean. It’s the professional one I had done of Alice and Felicity when they were seven and five. They’re adorable in old-fashioned nightdresses, barefoot, with their hair loose and tangled. Alice has four teeth missing top and bottom. At the sight of my daughters, my breath shudders inside my chest.
‘Well, what are you going to do about the hotel?’ my dad asks. ‘You’re going to have to sort something out. Will you sell it and split the money down the middle?’
‘Dad,’ I cry, close to tears now, ‘I’ve not even begun thinking about selling the hotel. I’m barely able to get myself dressed at the moment. Do you not get it? Do you not get how hard this is for me?’
Jackie stops dead and turns. ‘You’ve got to toughen up, Natty. Because, sure as eggs is eggs, that woman’ll be getting her claws into everything that’s yours. By the time next year rolls around, she’ll have got your husband squirrelling away all the money . . . you’ll come out with nothing.’
‘Eve doesn’t need my money, she earns plenty from her practice and from lecturing. And she’ll have half her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s wealth to come as well. Besides, Sean’s always been very fair with money, Jackie,’ I say.
‘Not any more, he won’t be.’
I shake my head at her. ‘You don’t know him.’
She snorts loudly. ‘Last time I looked, neither did you.’
I know what happened to Jackie and her husband. There aren’t many people around here that don’t. I understand that losing everything can make you cynical. Understand that if your husband sold off your house and scarpered with all the takings, you may not be the most trusting of women.
But Sean has always had such a keen sense of fairness where money is concerned, and I really can’t see him trying to cut me out of what’s rightfully mine. Particularly when he’s the one who’s been at fault here.
‘Watch yer back,’ Jackie huffs, before getting down on to her hands and knees to clean the skirting board. Her expression is one of Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
By the time I leave I’m more fraught and tearful than when I arrived. I can’t make my mind up if it’s Jackie’s unsolicited advice that’s really got to me, or if it’s my dad, supporting everything she has to say – nodding along without question, as if her assumptions about Sean have some merit.
I’m not ready for all that. I can’t sit around planning ways to get back at him, ways to get back at Eve. It’s all too raw. Jackie’s idea of revenge is not the kind of thing I could ever go in for. Volcanic emotion and primal recklessness is just not me. It’s so easy for Jackie and my dad to babble on about selling the hotel as if this all happened months ago. As if I haven’t invested every single thing I’ve got into the building, the business, the gardens, the staff, the guests. I can’t possibly sell simply so Eve won’t get her hands on it.
I drive up to Windermere, scanning the pavements, the oncoming cars. I need to pick up some food for the next few days but I am filled with dread at the prospect of bumping into somebody I know.
I feel humiliated.
I’m embarrassed I couldn’t keep hold of my husband. I don’t feel wronged, or righteous, I’m ashamed. I can hear what people will be saying: ‘If he was getting some at home, he wouldn’t have gone elsewhere.’ And ‘She’s always looked down her nose, it’s about time she got what was coming to her.’
Today I wish I didn’t have this silly, showy car. I’d prefer to be in something discreet rather than this ostentatious red Porsche Cayenne GTS. I drove a standard Cayenne last year, in silver, which was fine. But Sean exchanged it for this pimped-up thing and I’ve never really got used to it.
I pull in to Booths’ car park and see a scruffy woman who was in my class at junior school. She’s pushing her trolley alongside another woman I’m not acquainted with and they exchange glances, smirk, when they catch sight of my car. They know. Everybody knows.
Inside, I keep my head low and move through the store, avoiding eye contact. I stick behind an annoying mother in her mid-forties who’s picking up vegetables and naming them loudly for her child. Probably scared Jamie Oliver will turn up at school unannounced and her son won’t recognize a cauliflower.
I stand at the cheese counter – some prick in a Driza-Bone hat with a booming voice is making a big fuss ordering white Stilton with apricots, as though he wants everyone to know he likes sophisticated cheese. For a moment I contemplate ordering an obscure Yorkshire sheep’s milk blue but stop short when I realize it makes me just as bad as him, and getting into a Who can order the cleverest cheese? competition is not what I really need. I’m perusing the selection of unpasteurizeds when there’s a gentle nudge at my elbow.
I turn, and my heart sinks.
It’s Alexa Willard and she has a mournful look on her face. I can’t abide this woman and I know she’s only stopped me so she can gloat.
She clutches my arm. ‘Natty, I’ve heard. How absolutely dreadful, how utterly horrific. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.’
I’m tempted to say, Can’t you, Alexa? I thought your husband played away from home every chance he got. But I don’t. Because I’m not like that.
Instead I flush red and say, ‘Got to put on a brave face, Alexa. I’ve not really got any choice.’
She nods furiously and her eyes widen as she speaks. ‘I admire your spirit. Poor you. Poor you. Obviously, it goes without saying . . . if there’s anything I can do . . . How are the girls? They must be devastated. And after what you’ve just been through with Felicity’s appendix . . . how is she, by the way?’
‘On the mend.’
She takes a fast breath in and closes her eyes, shuddering as she considers my ordeal. ‘Bloody men!’ she hisses.
‘Quite,’ I say, and thank her, ordering half a pound of creamy Lancashire and hoping Alexa will leave me alone and move on. She doesn’t.
She can be very trying. One of those women you can’t wait to get away from. She’s known for, amongst other things, allowing her children to watch DVDs only if the language function is changed to either French or Spanish. I’m one of the few people around here who make the effort to be nice to her. Now I wish I’d never bothered because she’ll be straight out, spreading the word, saying she’s seen me and that I looked utterly dreadful, saying she’s so desperately sorry for me.
Which, of course, she isn’t.
I can tell she’s secretly quite pleased. And I’m not judging Alexa unfairly here, because she’s not alone. I know we all take some pleasure in the downfall of others. It makes our own lives more bearable if someone who seemingly has it all no longer does.
The British press have the reputation for building people up only to knock them straight back down again. Which they’re often cr
iticized for. But after reading about Jennifer Aniston’s latest break-up, or another heartache for Kylie, do you not walk away thinking, Well, I suppose there is a price to be paid for being rich, famous and beautiful after all? Do you not go back to your own little life, reflecting that things aren’t so bad, you’re not really missing out by being you?
I do.
And if you look at it that way, the press are actually providing quite a good service.
So I don’t blame Alexa for getting a small thrill from my situation. I just wish she’d fuck off so I don’t have to discuss it with her in public.
Eventually, she says her goodbyes, telling me again how sincerely sorry she is, and flees. I watch her abandon the last two aisles and head straight for the tills. I can’t see over there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she dumps her basket and gets on with calling her cronies, telling them the latest.
Inwardly, I curse Sean for doing this to me. He’s left me exposed, vulnerable to the likes of Alexa, and I hate it.
To my left, in the meat section, one of the young butchers emerges from the fridge carrying a new fillet of beef in his arms. Lovingly, he places it inside the glass counter and I feel a jolt. A yearning. I realize I suddenly want steak.
A nice thick fillet in red wine and garlic, with a big blob of Saint Agur cheese on top. Refocusing on the cheese, I ask for a slice of the French blue and lick my lips, because I’m salivating. For the first time in days I’ve got an appetite.
I buy three steaks, grab a good bottle of St Emilion, a couple of leeks and some oven chips, and I’m good to go. I can do this, I’m thinking, imbued with a sense of empowerment as I leave the store, slinging my carrier bag on to the passenger seat of the car. I can come here and hold my head high. I’ve done it once, I can do it again.
And that’s when I spot Sean’s car. The Maserati.
I’m just about to back out of the space when I see it pass in my rear-view mirror. Eve is driving. And she appears absolutely fine. She’s singing along to the stereo, not a care in the world.
Following her, I head to the recycling area at the far end of the car park. She stops and I hang back, waiting for her to get out. She turns sideways a little, perhaps to retrieve something from the passenger seat, and I urge myself to leave. Spying on her like this will only end in misery. If she steps out looking together and beautiful, as she did the other day on my doorstep, I will go home feeling even more shitty and inadequate.
