The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (ARC)

by Beth Miller

  ‘Yes,’ I said, surprised by the rare physical contact. ‘I really am.’

  She let me go, and began buttering my toast. ‘You’ll meet someone lovely, someone worthy of you, when the time is right.’

  ‘I’m planning to be single for a while.’

  ‘Wonderful idea. Did me no harm at all.’

  Perhaps I wouldn’t want to be single for quite as long as Gran: forty years and counting. I took my toast upstairs and went to find Dad. To my surprise, he was in his study, working on a spreadsheet on the screen as if everything was normal.

  ‘Ah, you’re back!’ He whirled his chair round. ‘Why are you back?’

  I told him about my split from Theo, and he hugged me tight. ‘How are you, Sparkle?’

  ‘Good. Strong. Resilient.’

  ‘I must take a leaf out of your book. I need to remember my Viking heritage.’

  ‘Our splits are a bit different, Daddy. I gave Mum your letter, by the way.’

  ‘Thank you. What did she say?’

  ‘She cried.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘She said she’ll write to you from Australia.’ I wished I could confide in Dad about how angry I’d been with Mum, and maybe exorcise some of the terrible things I’d said to her. But I didn’t want to make Dad any more sad than he was.

  ‘Seems so odd she’s taking this momentous journey and I have no involvement in it. She didn’t even ask me to get her some currency. Ah well.’ He let me go, and said, ‘What are you going to do about your home, and your business?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Am I really not needed here?’

  He looked at me with a kind expression. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Stella, but you’re not. You’ve been amazing but you need to get on with your own life. Gran’s an absolute powerhouse in the shop, and I think I’m ready to get back into the saddle.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. I need to be doing something. I’ll tell you what. Yesterday your gran convinced me to close the shop at four, because she was going somewhere, West London, I think she said, and Callie had a doctor’s appointment. Gran absolutely forbade me from taking over. That couple of hours when we had a ‘closed’ sign on the door of Quiller Queen, was a real wake-up call.’

  ‘Oh Dad, I’m sorry I wasn’t here to step in.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ He turned back to the computer. ‘The shop was closed, and no one actually noticed. Perhaps your mother had a point. Perhaps I was a bit obsessed.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Dad!’ This was something that the whole family had been waiting for years, in vain, to hear him say. ‘That’s massive.’

  ‘I’m going to be more sensible from now on, more balanced,’ Dad said, slightly undermining his words by clicking on columns as he spoke. ‘Then if your mother does come back, she will find me greatly improved.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, trying not to cry.

  * * *

  The ominous silence from Gabby since yesterday’s Threesome-gate made me wonder if there was a business to go back to, and whether she and Theo were still… well, the only way to find out was to go back. If Dad was willing to start facing up to things, then I certainly should be. The following afternoon I got the train to Romford and let myself into the house. I breathed in a curry aroma wafting down the hall and, averting my eyes from the scene of horror, aka the living room, opened the kitchen door. Gabby was stirring something on the stove.

  She whirled round and clutched her hand to her chest. ‘Jesus, you scared me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine.’ Gabby seemed nervous. ‘Er, how are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks.’ I feel reasonably confident, Bettina. ‘So where are we at? Haven’t we got a party to cater this weekend?’

  ‘Really?’ Gabby’s eyebrows could surely not go any higher. ‘You want to carry on?’

  ‘Gabby, if you don’t want to work with me anymore, just tell me. There are easier ways of arranging it than shagging my boyfriend, you know.’

  ‘Funny.’ Gabby turned off the heat under the pan and sat down. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry you slept with Theo, or sorry I found out?’ I said, echoing my words to Theo that fateful night.

  ‘Both, I guess. Ah, God, Stella. I wish I could put the clock back. Theo was here, you weren’t, we were both a bit pissed. One thing just led to another.’

  People were always saying that, as if they had no control over a situation. One thing led to another. But how did it?

  ‘Well,’ I said, realising that I had no interest in the gory details, ‘let’s get cracking.’

  ‘OK. I’m relieved, actually.’ Gabby ran her hand through her hair. ‘Theo’s cooking isn’t up to much.’

  It was a bit hard to hear Gabby talk about him so casually. But I wasn’t going to show her that. ‘His Thai green curry tastes like sick. Now let’s move on. You and I have a business relationship, and I’ll do my best to make it a success. We don’t have to be friends, but I do expect you not to betray me in the future.’ I imagined Mum applauding me as I spoke.

  ‘Betrayal?’ Gabby snorted. ‘Hella fancy word for a few shags.’

  ‘Let’s just work together and keep it professional. If you want to keep seeing Theo, please be discreet.’

  Piet came into the kitchen, and Gabby said, ‘Piet, can you dish up? I’ll be back in a sec.’ She went to the door, and said over her shoulder. ‘It wasn’t a serious thing, you know. Theo still wants to be with you.’

  ‘Nah, you’re all right,’ I called after her, ‘I’m not into sloppy seconds.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Thirds, really, isn’t it? Sloppy thirds!’

  ‘Hello, Stella!’ Piet took some bowls over to the stove. ‘What is this sloppy thirds, a new kind of dish?’

  ‘Something like that. Hey, Piet.’

  ‘I am going to that meeting later, Stella, for adult children of divorce. Will you come?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Piet. I’m not sure I’m in the—’

  ‘OK. It’s at six o’clock. I will be grateful for your company.’ He held up a bowl. ‘Would you like some of Gabby’s curry?’

  I realised I was starving. ‘Yes, please.’

  He and I were halfway through our food when Gabby came back in.

  ‘This is delicious, Gabby,’ I said. She might be a bit crap as a human being, but she was a good cook. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s chicken – “Kukul mas kariya”. The marinade’s made with cashew nuts and coconut.’ She took a bowl herself and sat down. ‘I was thinking we could serve it at the thirtieth birthday party on Saturday. They want three curries: meat, fish and veggie.’

  ‘This would certainly work for the meat one,’ I said.

  ‘I must say,’ Piet said, piloting a huge forkful of curry and rice towards his mouth, ‘you are being extremely professional, Stella. Isn’t she, Gabby? Putting aside personal issues to focus on your work – I admire you greatly for it.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Gabby said.

  ‘Thanks, Piet,’ I said, genuinely touched, and amused, as always, by Piet’s willingness to address the elephant in the room. Not just address it, but bring it right over to the table and invite it to pull up a chair and have a bowl of curry. Gabby looked gratifyingly uncomfortable, which was a bonus.

  ‘I’m sure we can put all this behind us,’ I said, scooping up another mouthful of curry. I felt oddly content. I liked the unusual feeling of someone else having messed up, and also the curry really was good.

  There was a knock at the front door, and Gabby jumped up to get it. Moments later she came back in, a sheepish-looking Theo behind her.

  ‘Hello, Stella,’ he said.

  ‘What the hell?’ I said, looking from him to Gabby.

  ‘You didn’t answer any of my messages,’ Theo said.

  ‘No,’ I said, adding in my head, You shagging someone else kind of made me lose interest. I realised that when Gabby slipped out of the room ear
lier she must have messaged him to say I was back. I frowned at her, wondering how it was that he seemed to have such a hold over her.

  ‘What?’ She shrugged. ‘I know he’s been wanting to speak to you.’

  Piet said cheerily, ‘Hello Theo, my old bum-boy!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Piet,’ Theo said, going very red.

  ‘What?’ Piet said, looking puzzled. ‘Is this not a real expression?’

  ‘What do you think it means?’ I said, starting to enjoy myself.

  ‘Can I sit down?’ Theo said.

  ‘Sure, sit down on your bum, boy,’ Gabby said, smirking.

  ‘Piss off, Gabby,’ Theo said.

  ‘Is it not a male friend with whom you sometimes have anal intercourse?’ Piet said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘OK, you are using it correctly in that case,’ I said, trying not to laugh.

  ‘We haven’t had anal, er, that thing you said,’ Theo said. ‘I’m not gay, Stella! Nothing happened between me and Piet, I swear! I don’t like men! I was only even willing to try it because…’ he dried up, presumably realising that his upcoming defence wasn’t going to win him any credit.

  ‘Because Gabby, who you were having sex with, suggested it,’ I finished. ‘Yeah, that’s all right then.’ I couldn’t look at him now without seeing his weaselly face, his untrustworthy eyes. I should be heartbroken, but all I could do was wonder why I had wasted so much time and energy on him.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Gabby muttered. She got up and started loading the dishwasher.

  ‘Uh, Stella, can we talk?’ Theo said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, thinking fast, ‘I’m about to go out to a meeting with Piet.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Piet, reliably quick on the uptake, ‘it starts soon, so we had better be on our way.’

  ‘What time will you be back?’

  ‘Late,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ Theo said.

  There was a pause, in which we all looked at Gabby, who had her back to us, but feeling our eyes on her, turned round, and said, ‘Bloody hell,’ again.

  ‘On second thoughts, I’ll come back later,’ Theo said. ‘Ten o’clock?’

  ‘Let’s leave it till another day,’ I said.

  ‘I really need to speak to you,’ Theo said, ‘so I’ll come back later.’

  ‘If he gets here before me,’ I said to Gabby, ‘try not to shag him.’

  Theo turned and went out; we heard the front door close.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s so fucking professional, Piet.’ Gabby slammed the dishwasher shut and all the crockery inside it rattled. ‘Look, Stella, this isn’t going to work if you’re going to mention it at every single opportunity.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but you went behind my back again just now, telling Theo I was here, literally seconds after I’d asked you not to betray me again.’

  ‘There’s that word again. You are really over-using it.’

  ‘That’s because you are really betraying me a lot.’

  There was a pause. Then Gabby said, ‘OK. Sorry I texted him.’

  I noticed she didn’t apologise for sleeping with him, but I was the one who wanted to move on, so I nodded, and gritted my teeth.

  ‘I’m sorry, too, for going on about it.’ It seemed a bit rum that I was the one apologising, but I owed it to the business to give it a go, and that meant making it work with Gabby. ‘Really,’ I added, ‘you did me a favour.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Well, if Theo’s not the faithful type, it’s as well to find out now, isn’t it, before we got engaged.’

  ‘Er, yes, I suppose so.’

  The uncertainty on Gabby’s normally over-confident face made me smile. ‘So, thanks, Gabby. I appreciate it.’

  Piet grinned at me. ‘Let’s get to this meeting, Stella.’

  ‘Oh, Piet. I only said I was going to get rid of Theo. I need to catch up with Gabby and the business.’

  ‘I think you should come,’ Piet said. ‘It will be more authentic when you see Theo later, and also I wish very much to have someone with me.’

  ‘Go,’ Gabby said, ‘we can talk tomorrow. I’ve had enough talking for now. I’m going to make two fish curries and you can taste-test them in the morning.’

  I didn’t fancy this weird support group. But though Theo had lied to me, I had never lied to him and I didn’t want to start now, even if we were finished. Piet was right, it would be more authentic. And it was good karma to tell the truth. Not that good karma seemed to be particularly going my way right now, but still.

  Fifteen

  Stella

  Piet and I strolled companionably into town. I thought of him calling Theo his ‘bum boy’ and burst out laughing. He smiled down at me.

  ‘It’s nice to see you laugh,’ he said, and added, with his usual impressive, but slightly muddled, command of English idiom, ‘You have been through the mill and backwards again.’

  ‘Thanks, Piet. I do seem to have had my share of challenging life events lately.’

  ‘Yes, and for my part in this latest one, I sincerely apologise.’

  ‘I don’t blame you, Piet, and I don’t even blame Gabby. Neither of you owed me anything.’

  Piet stopped walking and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘That is terrible, Stella, of course we owed you something. We owed you our friendship, and we let you down.’

  ‘That’s very sweet.’

  ‘I will make it up to you, one way or another.’

  ‘That’s OK, there’s no need.’

  We arrived at the venue, an unremarkable town-centre pub, on the same road as the library. Piet bought us beers, and we carried them upstairs. I wondered why I’d come. I wasn’t ready to bare my soul to a bunch of strangers. Would it be all, ‘Hello, my name’s Stella, it’s been nine days since my parents split’?

  I followed Piet through the door at the top of the stairs, into a scruffy room with a flamboyant orange-and-pink carpet that bore the battle scars of all the beer and cigarettes that had been ground into it. There was a circle of chairs in the centre of the room, which seemed more alarming than basic chairs ought to be. There were eight or nine people there, a mix of ages, most looking awkward or strung out. Apart from Piet, of course, who was always relaxed, and exactly the same wherever he went or whatever he did.

  I couldn’t help noticing that there was one good-looking boy standing in a corner clutching a beer glass and looking uncomfortable. There was something familiar about him.

  A smiling woman who was clearly the organiser came over to us. ‘Welcome! I’m Martine. I’ll be running the session today.’

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Martine, who was dressed in what looked like the exact same 1980s’ puffball skirt Mum was wearing in ridiculous photos from her university days, and – hopefully – ironic blue eyeshadow from the same era. But Piet beamed genially at Martine, and held out his hand, and I decided that I should try to be more Piet. I told my shoulders to relax, and chugged down half my pint in an attempt to speed up the process.

  At Martine’s encouragement, we all took a seat in the circle and smiled awkwardly at each other, apart from Piet, who smiled un-awkwardly at everyone. I nodded shyly at the hottie opposite me, and he smiled back broadly, which was excellent. Then, to my surprise, he made the ‘phone me’ gesture with his hand, and pointed at me. I looked over my shoulder, to see if he was gesturing to someone else, but there was no one there. Puzzled, I pointed at myself, and he nodded, and carried on calling me on his pretend phone. Sure, I’d like to phone him, he was gorgeous! But one, I didn’t have his number, and two, I had no idea who he was, and three, maybe I’d already gone off him as it was such a weird thing to do.

  ‘I’d like to welcome you all to this, the first meeting of Romford ACODs,’ Martine said, and Phone Boy put his hand down and made a ‘let’s talk later’ face, which I greeted with a ‘certainly, you handsome chap’ face.

  ‘Let’s find out who’s in the room,’ Martine said. ‘I’ll st
art. I’m Martine, you know me, and my parents split five years ago. Let’s go round this way.’

  Though it was an excellent chance to find out Phone Boy’s name, I hated introducing myself in groups like this. But no one else seemed to mind. The first woman, Carol, launched into a long rambling explanation of her parents’ horrible divorce.

  ‘That’s great,’ Martine said, as soon as she could get a word in. ‘These are going to be quick intros for now, if that’s OK?’ She moved on to a middle-aged man sitting next to Phone Boy. The man introduced himself succinctly enough – ‘I’m Michael’ – and then gave a startling one-line summary: ‘My parents were fuck-buddies who should never have had children.’

  I was still wrestling with what that might mean when I realised too late that Martine had moved on to Phone Boy before I was ready. It sounded as if he said, ‘I’m a new man,’ but that wasn’t the sort of thing people said, was it? Yet it must have been his name, as Martine simply smiled and said, ‘Welcome.’ There was no time to puzzle it over as it was coming round to my turn. An intense-looking woman with her hair in bunches mumbled that she was called ‘Dreda’, which also didn’t seem like a real name, and that her parents had separated two years ago and both of them had remarried within six months. Piet whistled through his teeth at that.

  Martine smiled at me. I mumbled, ‘I’m Stella. My parents have only just split up. About a week ago. I guess I’m still processing it.’

  ‘We are all still processing our parents’ splits, Stella, but that is horribly recent, and I’m so sorry for your experience,’ Martine said. Everyone nodded and made sympathetic faces.

  ‘I am Piet, and my father had the affair with my aunt and they made my mother move out of the house,’ Piet said. ‘It was six years previously.’

  ‘Wow, that’s harsh,’ Martine said. ‘Is your mother OK now?’

  ‘No, she is dead, I am afraid,’ Piet said.

  I whipped round so hard to look at him that I heard my neck crack. ‘She’s dead?’

  Piet nodded. ‘Well, it was not unexpected,’ he said calmly. ‘She was riddled with more than one disease.’