The South West Series Box Set

by Rebecca Paulinyi

  “Good - I was worried it was me, when I saw you weren’t up yet.”

  “Having trouble getting going,” Lee said. “Which clearly isn’t the case for you!”

  “It was going to be a New Year’s resolution,” Gina said, bending into yet another impossible-looking pose. “But I’m a bit late starting!”

  By the time Lee had reached the cafe, following a very speedy shower and a brisk walk down the hill, her mood had lightened a little, although the fogginess and queasiness didn’t seem to wash away as easily. Still, she felt the familiar feeling of peace as she unlocked the doors, put the chairs down and began the daily routines that she already felt she could do in her sleep. The coffee was on, the cakes set out on their trays, the tablecloths straightened and the door sign switched to ‘open’.

  By ten, the cafe was full of a cheerful buzz that made Lee smile, despite herself. There was a young family in the corner that seemed to have become semi-regulars - mum, dad and two under-fives. Then an older gentleman with a walker who always took the first table by the door, and a couple of unknowns in fairly smart clothing. Val appeared in the doorway not long after, and Lee grinned and began to make her usual coffee.

  “Nice and busy, just what I like to see,” Val said, glancing around before taking a seat at the table nearest the counter.

  “Oh, we’re doing okay,” Lee said, wiping a few errant droplets of milk off the side before walking round the counter to put the coffee on the table. She was about to sit down and join Val for a moment or two, when the bell on the door chimed again and another customer stepped in.

  “No rest for the wicked,” she said with a grin, and stepped back behind the counter.

  “What can I get you?” she asked the tall red-head who was standing before her. A large messenger bag was slung over one of her shoulders, trapping a few of the dark red curls beneath the strap. The woman glanced at the menu on the blackboard behind Lee before answering.

  “Didn’t this place used to do food?”

  Lee didn’t feel her tone was particularly cordial, but she plastered a smile onto her face before responding. “Yes, but it’s under new ownership and it’s strictly coffees, teas, cakes and pastries right now.”

  “Oh.”

  “What are you doing in here?” They both turned to the source of the voice: the normally smiling, normally sweet-as-sugar Val. Lee’s eyes widened in shock; the woman in question narrowed hers a little.

  “Just visiting the area,” she said, running a hand through those long, curly locks. “Seeing how it’s doing.”

  “The area is just fine, no thanks to you. And it certainly doesn’t need any interference.” Lee couldn’t help but feel that she was missing so many parts to this conversation. While it was obvious they weren’t actually talking about the area, she had no clue what the actual topic of conversation was. And it wasn’t good for business, Val being so rude…

  “Can I get you a coffee?” she asked, a false cheeriness to her voice. The woman didn’t turn her head back to face Lee; instead she kept her eyes on Val’s.

  “I think perhaps I’ll go elsewhere.”

  “Don’t meddle, Lottie. You did enough damage last time.”

  The buzz in the cafe seemed to have evaporated, and Lee couldn’t help but think that everyone had stopped to listen to this exchange. Hell, who was she kidding, it was a small town - of course they were listening.

  The door closed behind Lottie and her messenger bag, and Lee stood, slightly open mouthed, unsure as to what she had just witnessed.

  “Val!” she finally said, when a little of the noise had returned to the cafe, and they weren’t being watched quite so closely. “What on earth was that all about?”

  “Just someone from the past,” she said, looking irritated still. “It’s not up to me to share it with you anyway.”

  Lee was thrown by that one for a minute; Val had certainly never snapped at her before, and what on earth did she mean about sharing it?

  She pottered around behind the counter for a few minutes, letting the words sink in and Val calm down. When she looked back at the table, Val was watching her.

  “I didn’t mean to be short with you, dear. I’m sorry. An old woman can get worked up about these things.”

  “But what things?” Lee asked, perplexed. “And how on earth could they involve me?”

  “It’s not my place to fill you in, dear,” she repeated, but a little more kindly this time.

  Lee’s head was whirring away, trying to solve the puzzle. How could that woman’s identity be linked to her in anyway? She barely knew anyone down here, properly anyway. There was Val, there was Gina, there was James…

  Oh. God.

  “Is that – was that her?” she asked, aware her words made little sense, but struggling to find the right ones. “Is that the woman James was going to marry? The one that left a week before the wedding?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Val nodded – and Lee felt the sickness in the pit of her stomach take an even tighter hold.

  ***

  Gina seemed to float through the door at twelve; clearly her new yoga regime was having a positive effect on her. Lee, on the other hand, felt anything other than floaty. She felt as though she was serving in a daze, with a heavy weight resting in the pit of her stomach and a million thoughts running through her brain. She wished she hadn’t been thrown so much by her morning visitor and Val’s revelation. Seeing the ex of a guy she’d been dating all of six weeks shouldn’t make her feel like she needed a lie down away from the rest of the room - should it?

  “What’s up?” Gina said, the second she’d looked at Lee.

  “Nothing,” Lee lied, wiping down the milk frother and not quite meeting Gina’s eyes. “Just feeling a bit under the weather.”

  “Still? Lee, that’s been a couple of weeks now, why don’t you get an appointment with a doctor?”

  “It’s nothing major, honest.” She didn’t feel she could share the fact that James’ jilter seemed to be back in town and, if Lee had read between the lines well enough, asking about him. Partly because it wasn’t her information to share, and partly because she couldn’t seem to wrap her head round it - and how she felt about it.

  “Go home, have a lie down then, at least,” Gina said, rolling up the sleeves of her denim jacket and gently pushing Lee out of the way.

  “I don’t want to leave you if it’s busy…” Lee said, but without any real conviction.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, we’ve both managed on our own perfectly well before. Scram, get yourself to bed. Have you got the car?”

  Lee shook her head, regretting her decision to enjoy the fresh air that morning. “I’ll be okay,” she said; Gina didn’t look entirely convinced, but ushered Lee out with her coat and bag, reassuring her once more that everything would be fine with the cafe.

  The hill seemed more like a mountain at that moment as Lee contemplated it from the bottom. She began to trudge up it in a daze, questioning why on earth she was feeling so messed up. She was the one who had said that they couldn’t be serious, she was the one that said about taking it slow, and they hadn’t even been together for two months. And yet… and yet seeing a woman who had hurt him so badly, a woman that he possibly still had feelings for, in her little cafe… well, it was making everything hurt in a way that she hadn’t expected to happen so soon after the end of her marriage.

  Around halfway up the hill, the thoughts began to make her head spin faster than she could keep up with. She leant in a doorway, head dropping, and tried to take some deep breaths. Was this a panic attack? Her eyes closed and she pictured James, a man she was worried she’d lost her heart to before it was ready to be lost again, and the woman he had hoped to marry. She pictured the man she had married, the man who had turned her life upside down in such a violent way that she felt she’d lost all identity, that she’d had to start from scratch. It was something she didn’t think she could survive twice.

  She pictured that blonde, the
one who had shattered her illusions about her own life - and was promptly sick all over the street outside the sweet shop.

  It was a testament to how friendly the residents of Totnes seemed to be that no-one screamed at her for such a display on a high street in front of a place of business. She knew, as she sat in the back room of the sweet shop on a rickety three-legged stool, that she would have been none too pleased if someone had vomited right outside her cafe’s front door. But here she sat, head still swimming a little, clasping a glass of cold water that she had kindly been given and trying desperately to apologise.

  “It was an accident, dear,” the elderly gentleman who seemed to run the shop replied. “My wife’s thrown a bucket of water over it, one good rainfall and it’ll be completely forgotten. Now, aren’t you the young maid who took over the cafe at the bottom of the hill?”

  The word ‘maid’ threw her for a second, before she remembered hearing another local use it when talking about a young woman - and his thick Devon accent made it sound less of an unusual choice of word.

  “That’s me,” she said weakly, sipping on the water and wishing she could be at home, in bed. “And I am really sorry, I don’t know what came over me, I’ve been feeling under the weather for a couple of weeks and then I got some news and-” She was babbling, she knew it, and she clamped her lips shut before she could reel off her life story to a couple of strangers who had probably witnessed her throwing up.

  “Been feeling rotten for a couple of weeks? Oh that won’t do,” said the man’s wife, suddenly by his side. “You need to get yourself down to the doctors, get checked over.”

  “I’m fine, honestly-”

  “You most definitely are not fine! Give them a ring now and get an appointment, or I’ll do it for you. The receptionist is our grand-daughter so I’d have no trouble getting you one.”

  Feeling beaten, Lee picked up her phone and dialled the number that the woman recited. She didn’t have the energy to argue and, besides, maybe there was something wrong with her. Something more than being an emotional wreck…

  “Hello, I’m wondering if you had any doctors’ appointments for today? Yes, I know it’s late…” She was glad now that her mother had always drilled in to her that the first thing to be done when moving in somewhere new was to register with the doctor - but even so, she didn’t rate her chances of getting a same day appointment after lunch time.

  “Pass me that phone,” the grey-haired lady said, taking Lee’s phone without much of a pause. “Shelley? It’s your grandmother Jonie here. Yes, yes, never mind all that. This young lady needs an appointment today, no messing around. Ten minutes? Great she’ll be there.”

  And with that the phone was passed back to Lee, who gave over her details a little in awe of Jonie, who must’ve been seventy if she were a day.

  “Thank you, I don’t know how-”

  “There was a cancellation,” Jonie said, seeming to know what Lee was about to say before she’d even said it. “Now, you’d better get going, it’s only a five minute walk. Do you think you’ll be okay?”

  “Yes, yes, thank you,” she said, and as she was ushered out of the door she felt an overwhelming sense of being completely out of control of everything in her life. It was a feeling she had felt before, that was true - but not for a few weeks. Following the directions that Jonie’s husband had given her, she wandered in the direction of the doctors’ surgery - trying her very hardest not to think about how her life could possibly shift seismically all over again if James were to reunite with Lottie.

  On the front desk was a woman Lee thought to be younger than herself, with ringlety blonde hair and a bright pink headband.

  “Mrs Jones, isn’t it?” the woman on the desk said, and Lee nodded, wishing she hadn’t registered in her married name. “I’m Shelley - it seems you know my grandparents!”

  Lee nodded again, but didn’t speak; as lovely as it could be that everyone knew each other, she felt that in this moment of time, sat in a doctors’ waiting room, she just wanted a little peace, quiet, and anonymity.

  Her lack of conversation didn’t seem to deter Shelley. “Anyway, doctor’s running about five minutes late, so you shouldn’t be waiting too long. Take a seat, enjoy a magazine, and we’ll call you when it’s your appointment.”

  “Thanks,” Lee said, and took a seat next to the bathroom door, just in case the sickness hit again. She didn’t expect it to, however; she was fairly confident that her problem was emotional, not physical, and she was exerting great effort to not think about things that might set her off.

  ***

  “So, Mrs Jones, how can I help you?” the doctor asked. She smiled, and Lee opened her mouth to speak - and then wasn’t sure where to start.

  “It’s a long story,” she said - and it all came flooding out. The insane hours she’d been working, Nathan cheating on her, the move, the cafe, James, the uncertainty of it all. Then the heavy, sick feeling, the exhaustion, the vomiting that morning. She barely breathed as it all spilled out, and when she finally took a breath and realised she was crying, she was shocked to find it had only taken her five minutes to share the most mortifying details of her life.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, taking a proffered tissue and wiping at her eyes.

  “No need to be. It sounds like you’ve been through the emotional wringer lately, Mrs - Shirley.” Lee cringed a little - Shirley made her shudder almost as much as Mrs Jones did.

  “I do think these symptoms could all be stress related, but I want to rule out a couple of other things first, if that’s okay?”

  Lee nodded, not really trusting herself to speak in case she had another attack of verbal diarrhoea.

  “So, are you on any medication at all?”

  “No.”

  “And when was your last period?”

  Lee paused to think; it had never been something that was particularly predictable; it appeared when it decided to, lasted for five days of misery then disappeared again. She’d definitely had one since she’d been in Totnes, though…she remembered borrowing from Gina’s sanitary stash.

  “About half way through December, I think.”

  The doctor tapped away on the keyboard for a second. “Shirley, have you considered you could be pregnant?”

  Pregnant? The word had never been close to her mind, not since her world had fallen apart and the idea of children had become a distant dream once again. “Pregnant?”

  “It’s been 7 weeks since your last period…”

  “They’re always erratic,” Lee responded, trying to let the word settle in her mind.

  “Even so, it would explain some of these symptoms. Let’s do a test, shall we, no point thinking about possibilities when we could know in a few minutes.”

  If Lee had been feeling out of control before, it was nothing to how she felt now.

  Sickness overwhelmed her once more - but luckily this time it was in the bathroom as she gave her sample, and so she didn’t make such a fool of herself. Not thinking was proving more and more difficult by the minute.

  The two women sat in silence as they waited for the strip to reveal all. Lee focussed on her breathing and on not contemplating any what-ifs, for the minutes that it took. She thought she must have been making the whole surgery run late, but she couldn’t quite find it in herself to worry.

  As the waiting became unbearable, she closed her eyes and revelled in the darkness.

  “Shirley?”

  “It’s Lee,” she responded, opening her eyes to find the doctor’s brown eyes looking right into hers.

  “Sorry, Lee. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Just tell me…”

  “You are pregnant, Lee. And if your period date was around the 15th of December, it would put you at about seven weeks.”

  The world swam in front of Lee’s eyes, and she promptly vomited into a conveniently placed bin.

  Chapter 5

  Lee didn’t think she could have told someone how she got home from t
he doctors’ that day if they’d asked. All she knew was that she found herself outside the front door, key hovering in the lock, wondering how on earth this possibility had never occurred to her.

  It took a few moments for her to actually manage to unlock the door and step inside. Dumping her keys and her handbag on the dining table, she headed for the sofa and wrapped herself up in a blanket, closing her eyes and letting the overwhelming mix of thoughts and feelings wash over her like a tidal wave.

  Pregnant.

  Six months ago she would have been secretly overjoyed by the news, even though they’d not been trying. It was, after all, something she’d wanted for a very long time.

  But six months ago her life had a path, a plan. She’d followed everything in the right order: meet a guy, get a career, get married, buy a house - having a baby would have just been the logical next step in the journey. Now her life was a mixed up jumble and, as much as she was enjoying it, she certainly didn’t have a clear cut future lined up. This was certainly not planned; yes, she’d stopped taking the pill when she and Nathan had split, but it wasn’t like she and James hadn’t been careful…