The South West Series Box Set

by Rebecca Paulinyi

  “Hello?” The voice picking up the phone did not reel off the usual greeting - perhaps because it was outside office hours - but Lee recognised it immediately as Tania.

  With a deep breath and the knowledge that there was no turning back, Lee spoke. “Hi, Tania, it’s Lee.”

  “Lee! We were expecting you in today, did we get our wires crossed?”

  Oh boy. No, Lee thought… the wires had just drastically changed.

  “Where are you living now? We could pop over tonight if you like, catch you up on everything. It feels like forever since we saw you last!”

  Lee let her babble on for a few minutes, planning her next words in her head until she got the opportunity to speak again. “Tania, is Gemma around still? I’d like to talk to you both.”

  Tania’s tone changed slightly, and Lee could imagine the confused look on her face. “She’s just heading out, I’ll see if I can catch her.” Silence, and then the clear sound of being on speaker phone.

  “Hi, Lee,” Gemma’s voice floated through the phone. “Happy new year!”

  “Happy new year,” Lee answered. “I’m sorry to do this over the phone, but I’m not actually in Bristol to do it in person.” She pushed through, needing to get the words out before their protests began. “I’ve decided I need to stay down here - for me. I can’t move back to Bristol, not for the foreseeable future anyway. And so… I need to leave the firm.”

  There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line, and Lee gave them a second or two to process what she had just said.

  “You’re leaving law?” Tania asked, sounding incredulous.

  “I don’t know. For now… yes. Maybe not forever - but I need to start again, and that means not moving back to Bristol, and not coming back to practise law. I’m so sorry…”

  “We don’t want you to be sorry, Lee,” Gemma said. “But is this really what you want? A break, I get it, your life has been turned upside down, everyone would need some time to get over that. But leaving your home city, leaving the law firm you’re partner in, making it permanent? You can’t just put your life on hold.”

  Lee had known there would be opposition to what she was saying - hell, if she’d heard someone else deciding to give up the career they’d worked so many years for, she probably would have given them a harder time than Gemma was doing now.

  “I know how mental this all sounds, believe me - but I’m not putting my life on hold, I promise. I’ve just decided to start my life again, here.” She hadn’t really thought too deeply about her career in law - but there was no reason she had to give up on it all together, just because she was leaving Phillips, Jones and Sharp, just because she was leaving Bristol in her past.

  She heard a sigh that she thought was Tania. “So… you want leave the partnership? Permanently?”

  Lee felt her breath catch in her throat: permanently. She guessed that was what she was saying - but permanent was a hell of commitment. What if things didn’t work out with James? What if Gina got sick of living with her? What if the cafe didn’t turn a profit? There were so many unknowns, so little certainty about this path she’d chosen to follow…

  “I don’t know whether things will work out, permanently,” she admitted - but then she’d thought things in Bristol would be permanent, and look how that had turned out. “But I know it’s not fair to you to keep you hanging on, waiting for me to come back. I’m going to give ‘permanent’ a good go down here - and so I need to leave the partnership.”

  “Okay. If that’s what you want, Lee, we’ll get it sorted. We’ll miss you, though.”

  Lee swallowed. “I’ll miss you too, both of you. I’ve loved working with you both…” She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and cut her sentence short to try to make it to the end of the conversation without sobbing.

  “We’ll be in touch, then, Lee,” Tania said, and although Lee knew the conversation felt stilted and awkward, she couldn’t find a way to make it less so.

  “Speak soon…” she said, and before the line clicked off she thought she heard Gemma speaking to Tania. She quickly hung up - she didn’t think she wanted to know what they were saying about her. Pulling the blanket more tightly around her and taking a large sip of her glass of wine, Lee decided she didn’t have the emotional strength right now to phone her mother and let her know of the changes to her plans. She knew already what her mother would say; the range of ways she would try to talk her out of it, the many seeds of doubt she would sow in her mind. An email, she decided, would suffice - and not just because she knew her mother checked her emails once a week at best…

  For simplicity’s sake - and to get a chance at having someone on her side - she decided at the last minute to add her sister in to the email too. Typing on her phone reminded her sharply that at some point in the not-too-distant future, she really needed to go back to Bristol and collect her things - her clothes, her laptop, her passport - all the things she had left that night when she’d abandoned the city that was once her home.

  Hiya,

  Hope you are both having a great start to the New Year. It was really snowy here but we haven’t had any for a few days - it’s just very cold! The cafe’s busy so far even with it being January.

  I made a decision a few days ago that I wanted to let you both know about. I’ve decided that I’m going to stay here, in Totnes, and not move back to Bristol. I know it was only going to be temporary, but for now I feel like this is where I belong. I hope you’ll understand and support me in this - and I’d love to see you both soon.

  Lots of love,

  Lee xx

  She hit send without even reading it back, in case she changed her mind, and then took a deep, calming breath. They knew. They all knew. Anyone who needed to know was now aware that Shirley Davis lived in Totnes, and was not returning to Bristol any time soon.

  She felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she contemplated this massive change, and was in desperate need of one or two more deep breaths.

  Chapter 3

  Two weeks into January and Lee had received a positive email from her sister regarding her move, with a promise to visit soon - but nothing yet from her mother. She was trying to put it to the back of her mind, but it loomed there often whenever she let her mind wander. It was a horrible feeling, waiting for someone to disapprove of you.

  Most of the time, however, her mind wasn’t able to wander. The cafe kept her days busy, and James kept most evenings busy, with more dates than she had been on in years. They’d been out to dinner three nights, each time somewhere small and new with local produce and a romantic ambiance. Lee felt she needed to pinch herself on these nights; she felt like she were someone else entirely, living a fairy tale that she had never imagined for herself. One night they went to a tiny cinema with two screens, and laughed over their popcorn at an awkward teenage couple who seemed to be on their first date.

  “You make me feel like a teenager,” Lee said that night as they strolled gloved-hand in gloved-hand through the chilly night air and back to the car. “I feel like all of this is new, and exciting, and I don’t quite know what to expect.”

  “Isn’t that what makes it fun?” James asked with a grin, ducking into a nearby shop doorway and kissing her away from the rain and the passing strangers.

  And he was right. Lee couldn’t remember the last time she’d grinned so much at someone texting her, or made mistakes at ridiculously simple tasks because she’d been daydreaming. Apart from that cloud of her mother’s comments - or lack thereof - life seemed pretty perfect.

  They wandered past the dark windows of the cafe, and Lee felt that same burst of pride in her chest when she saw the sign above it: Carol’s Cafe. She’d done this, she was making a success of this - and she thought she was almost more proud of this than when she’d qualified as a lawyer.

  “Did you hear back from your mum yet?” James asked as they reached the car. Lee felt her breath suck in even as he opened the passenger door for her.r />
  “No,” she said. “Not yet. I’m half expecting her to turn up at any moment and try to shake some sense into me…”

  “Well, you have already met my parents, after all!” James said with a grin, giving her hand a squeeze before starting the engine.

  “I’m not sure you want to meet my mum when she’s on a mission to tell me I’m making a mistake with my life…”

  “Do you think you’re making a mistake with your life?” James asked, not taking his eyes off the road, but Lee let herself glance over at him and thought she saw a little tension around his eyes.

  “I really don’t,” she said with a grin. “Now, are we going back to my place or yours?”

  James laughed, and indicated right, driving away from town in the direction of his picturesque cottage.

  ***

  They stepped through the door onto the polished wooden floors, and Lee glanced around, marvelling at how tidy he seemed to keep it. She supposed he was currently spending most of his hours at work or with her - but still, it was definitely neater than her and Gina’s place, although she had to admit Gina was the messier of the two. The Christmas decorations were gone, and Lee slipped off her heels so as not to mark the floors before following James into the kitchen.

  “Wine?” he asked, taking a bottle of white from the fridge.

  “I’ll leave it thanks - is it boring if I have a cup of tea?”

  “Showing your age!” James said with a laugh, but replaced the bottle without opening it.

  “Oh ha, ha, very funny. Doesn’t mean you can’t have some, though - I just feel a bit off, don’t fancy it. Too many early mornings, I reckon.”

  “Or too many late nights…”

  “And whose fault is that?!”

  They both laughed, a care free sound that filled the kitchen right up to the exposed wooden beams.

  They chatted over tea (James declined to have a glass of wine on his own) and sighed at how early their respective alarms needed to be set the next morning: James’ for a funeral of a family member that he’d never met but had promised to take his mum and dad to, and Lee’s for her usual opening shift in cafe.

  “I could do with a lie-in,” Lee said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Can Gina not open up?”

  “I don’t want to change the plan this late - but maybe the next morning, give me a chance to catch up on sleep.”

  Lee’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and James took the opportunity to wash up the cups while she checked it. She grinned as she watched him for a moment - she guessed that attention to detail was why his house was always tidy. At her and Gina’s flat she knew those mugs would have sat there for a couple of hours at least.

  Then she looked down at the screen at felt the smile freeze on her face. New message from Nathan.

  She hadn’t heard from him for a while, but the sight of his name on her phone still made her heart start to hammer and her blood chill. She glanced up: James hadn’t noticed her freezing. Without really wanting to, she clicked on read. She couldn’t help it; she couldn’t leave it there to fester.

  Have filed divorce papers. Need an address for you. N.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and, without thinking, responded.

  You have the address already. I’ve not moved.

  No more words were needed. She didn’t even add an initial on the end - he knew who it was who was messaging. Of course he did. Who else would he be messaging about divorce papers? He might well have slept with whoever he liked, but he was only married to one of them, that she was sure of.

  Well, not for much longer.

  “Everything okay?” She’d been staring angrily into space for some time, she realised, and James had finished his tidying up and had obviously noticed her carefree mood had evaporated as quickly as the unexpected snow had melted.

  “Just…” She didn’t really know what to say; she didn’t want to ruin what was blossoming between her and James with this from her past - and yet there was no way she couldn’t feel strange at the message telling her that her marriage was soon to be legally over. Even though it had been over in her heart the second she’d walked in on Nathan with her… “Nothing important.”

  “Really? You don’t look like it’s nothing important.” Her eyes met his, and she felt so much warmth coming from them that she thought that maybe she could share just a little of her strange pain without jeopardising their romance.

  “It’s weird to mention,” she said apologetically. “But it was a message telling me divorce papers have been filed.” She avoided saying his name; it felt less personal that way. Nevertheless, she felt tears pool in the corners of her eyes and blinked furiously to dispel them. She’d cried enough over that bastard, that was for sure, and she didn’t know why the tears had to make an appearance again now. “At least I know lots of lawyers,” she said, trying to joke past the moment.

  James leant over the table and took a strand of Lee’s blonde hair between his fingers, gently placing it behind her ear.

  “Lee,” he said softly. “It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to be upset when you’re told divorce papers are being filed. It’s okay to feel miserable about it.”

  “It’s not okay to be like this in front of you, though,” Lee said, rubbing the tears from her eyes when blinking didn’t quite do the job. “I should go - I feel really weird about this, and it’s not your problem to deal with.”

  “Lee.” He was in front of her now, kneeling on the floor so he didn’t tower above her seated form. Lee placed a hand in his hair, feeling the soft curls between her fingers, and tried to smile. “If you want to go, I’ll drive you home now. But don’t feel you have to go on my account. I wish you weren’t sad, I wish you hadn’t been hurt like this - but you don’t need to hide it from me. You can be sad here, with me.”

  Their eyes met once more and Lee found she could smile, even if tears were still partially obscuring her eyes. “How on earth did I meet someone so good?” she whispered, and she leant forward to press her lips gently to his, feeling a tear drop onto their lips as she did. She sighed, feeling frustrated at the lack of control she seemed to have over her emotions.

  “I’ve got my flaws, believe me,” James said when their lips broke apart. “And I’d rather be with you even if you’re sad than without you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, that was cheesy - and maybe a bit too much. I find it hard to make myself slow down when I’m with you, to remember that you’ve just come out of a long relationship, a marriage…”

  “I haven’t seen any flaws,” Lee answered. “And I promise I’ll tell you, if I need to slow down.”

  They kissed there in the kitchen, hands in each other’s hair, lips and tongues burning a pathway that seemed to make the sadness melt into the background.

  It was much later, when they were wrapped in each other’s arms in bed, on the edge of sleep, when Lee heard him whisper words that she suspected he wouldn’t have said under the bright kitchen lights.

  “Don’t walk away and leave me without any warning…”

  It was a second before the words registered in her sleepy mind; this plea to not just disappear, a plea she couldn’t really understand. But she could roll into his arms even tighter, she could wrap her arms around him, and she could murmur back: “I never would. I promise.”

  Chapter 4

  It was the first day of February, and Lee found she had to drag herself out of bed in rather a foul mood. She couldn’t put her finger on why - the early mornings were normal for her, and she didn’t usually resent them - but for the last few days it had just seemed liked such hard work. It didn’t help that James had been working nights for the whole week, she supposed, and she had barely seen him, let alone curled up in his arms at night (something which had become a fairly regular occurrence.) They had a date planned for two days’ time, but she still found herself feeling unreasonably irritated by it all. She sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands for a moment, willing herself to get
going and go and shower. That would make everything better, she was sure; wash away this fog in her mind and nausea in her stomach.

  When she eventually made it into the living room, after giving herself a stern talking-to, she was surprised to find Gina already up and doing some sort of yoga poses in the middle of the floor.

  “Morning,” she said, heading straight for the kettle.

  “You’re opening up today, aren’t you?” Gina asked, as the tips of her toes seemed to touch the back of her head in a position Lee was sure she had never been able to manage - not even as a child.

  “Mmmhmmm.”