She put on her tracksuit and her running shoes and it was only when she reached the end of the front garden that she realised how close the beach was. There was a curling path that led down to the sand. The beach was deserted, but then no one but madmen and women pretending to be French would be out in this.
Her ‘spidey senses’ picked up that something had changed when she got back. Something wasn’t quite as she left it. She leapt to her suitcase in a wild panic, angry at herself that she hadn’t secreted the money somewhere, but it was still there in the zipped compartment. Nothing seemed to be missing, but there was an imprint on her bed as if someone had sat down on the quilt and it hadn’t been her. She didn’t know if ghosts made bottom prints, though she doubted it. Maybe her imagination just needed to calm down, but then again, she was sure she hadn’t left her make-up bag on the edge of the table like that. She walked into the hallway. ‘Hello,’ she called. She tried the door on the opposite side, but it was locked securely, as were all the other downstairs doors. The one underneath the stairs wasn’t, however. She opened it and peered down into the inky darkness because the light switch didn’t work. A shiver rippled down the full length of her back. It wasn’t ghosts who could hurt her though, it was people who did that.
She stripped off her tracksuit and changed into dry jeans and a sweatshirt. She needed to buy some clothes if she was going to be away from Cherlgrove for any length of time, because her packing had been panicked and absolutely rubbish: tracksuits, too many bras, not enough pants or socks, no coat, smart trousers, a silk shirt that was hideously creased, and a pair of Christian Louboutins – as if she’d need those. Then she knelt by the grate in order to make a fire. She reached into the bag of newspapers, pulled out yesterday’s News of the Day and was confronted by her own face. And John’s and Rebecca Robinson’s. She felt a sudden physical ache inside her as if her heart had been pinged with an elastic band.
She didn’t want to read it, but she couldn’t stop herself. Rebecca’s story. This was the newspaper she had given the exclusive to, sold her soul for.
This is not all the truth, said that voice inside her. But some of it was. John had slept with this woman. He had trashed their wedding vows, ridden roughshod over their marriage for sex. Sex that he could have had with his wife.
John liked risky sex. He loved the idea that we might be seen. We once had sex in Cherlgrove woods near his house. I was screaming with delight with my back against a tree whilst his wife was less than half a mile away arranging flowers . . .
Was this true? She didn’t know.
He said he loved me and that we would be together. He told his wife he had to go to Germany on business but instead we went to Italy for a long weekend. She rang him when we were on a gondola and he had to pretend he had lost the signal . . .
She had rung him when he had been in ‘Germany’. He had said that the signal was weak and he would ring her back.
I picked his wife’s birthday present for her. Sapphire earrings. In the same shop he bought me diamond earrings. That should tell me all I needed to know about who he loved the most, he said.
Sophie swallowed. He had bought her sapphire earrings for her birthday. How would Rebecca Robinson know that?
I wangled an invite to the Cherlgrove Ball last week. I wore the expensive red dress he bought me and no knickers. He was so angry that I was there because he thought his wife might smell a rat, but it didn’t stop him dragging me into a cubicle in an upstairs toilet.
Sophie felt sick. He had taken a strangely long time to come back from the toilet at the very end of the evening but blamed it on being caught up with ‘some dreary tosser droning on’ to him. How could she even hope to unpick the truth from the lies?
She heard a pulsing noise and it took her a long few seconds to realise that it was the noise of her new phone. Elise’s name was on the display.
‘Hello, can you talk?’ said Elise in her brisk no-nonsense way.
‘Yes, I can. Hello.’
‘I shan’t ask where you are but do you know what’s going on?’
‘No, I haven’t got a TV and—’
‘The official line is that you had a mental aberration and you’re being looked after for the poor, sick thing you are in the bosom of your loving family.’
‘Am I?’ asked Sophie.
‘Yes you are. Gerald told me, so I immediately rang John and asked if there was anything I could do. He told me that the doctors had decided you should have no visitors and plenty of rest. So, you’re in seclusion. That’s what the papers will report when you eventually get to read one. Your wonderful husband is tending to your every need.’
‘It’s good to know I’m being so well cared for,’ said Sophie, with a snap of sarcasm.
‘I think he did suspect initially that I might know more than I did but I’m very good at lying when I need to. I do hope you are holed up in the Ritz or somewhere, darling. They’re very discreet there.’
Sophie looked around her and thought that she was about as far away from the Ritz as it was possible to be.
‘What are you going to do, Sophie? How long do you think you’ll be away?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t know,’ answered Sophie with a long outward breath. She couldn’t go back at the moment, that was for sure. They’d take one look at her hair and conclude that she must be mad after all.
Sophie made a fire out of the newspapers and some of the logs and sticks stacked up at the side of the hearth. Her headache had gone now, thanks to her run in the very unsummery weather, and she thought it would be a shame to waste the wind once the rain had stopped. There was a washing line outside the house and she’d found a few wooden pegs in the cupboard underneath the sink so she hung her tracksuit out to dry and the bedsheet for airing. It snapped impatiently on the line as if it wanted to fly free like a kite and was frustratingly tethered. Half an hour later, she spotted raindrops on the window and went to bring them in.
She was folding the sheet when she heard a small voice.
‘Hello lady. Whatcha doing?’
She looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Then she detected a movement behind the picket fence separating the almshouse garden from the neighbouring one. A small boy was peering through the slats.
‘Hello there,’ she said. ‘I’ve been drying some damp things.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘My name is Pom. And what is your name?’
‘Luke,’ the boy replied. ‘Luke George Peter Bellringer.’
‘Goodness,’ said Sophie, suddenly remembering to put on her French accent. ‘That is a mouthful.’
‘I’ve been on my swing,’ said Luke.
‘You have a swing in your garden? That’s nice. I always wanted a swing.’
‘I live there.’ He pointed behind him, at a house where a man had just appeared on the doorstep, arms akimbo with annoyance. ‘I haven’t gone to nursery today because it’s Saturday. I’m four.’
‘Luke Bellringer, what have I told you about going outside and not telling me,’ called the man.
‘That’s my dad. Oh boy, I’m in big trouble now,’ said Luke, in such a theatrical tone that Sophie had to bite on her lip to stop herself from laughing aloud.
The man walked down the garden towards them. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, showing off a pair of arms that hinted at being no stranger to weights. He had thick, straight dark hair, combed to the side and geek-chic framed black glasses. Very Clark Kent, thought Sophie, Christopher Reeve version. Tall, wide-shouldered, the handsome-but-didn’t-know-it type, totally unlike her husband. As he approached the fence, she could see his smile widen in greeting.
‘Once you start talking to my son, that’s a day gone,’ he said and held out his hand. The breeze lifted his scent, carried it to her: notes of cedar. ‘Elliott Bellringer, nice to meet you. I hear that we are possibly going to be neighbours for a little while.’
Sophie hoped this wasn’t a gossipy village, otherwise she�
��d have to leave immediately.
His hand engulfed Sophie’s when hers came out to meet it.
‘Hello,’ she said, warily.
‘I’m Tracey’s brother,’ he clarified. ‘I’m the local vicar.’
Surely not, she thought. Vicars didn’t look like this. The vicar at Cherlgrove looked like the first Doctor Who. He had cotton wool for hair and drank more of his communion wine than he administered.
‘Oh.’ Wow. ‘I am very grateful for your ’ospitality,’ said Sophie.
‘Sleep well?’
‘Like an ’orse,’ replied Sophie.
Elliott Bellringer grinned. Sophie thought she saw his lips move over the words ‘like an ’orse’ and then he reached down to take the hand of his son just as there was an ominous rumble of thunder above their heads.
‘Come on then, Lukey. Let’s get you inside before the skies open. Nice to meet you . . . Pom.’
‘Nice to meet you both too,’ said Sophie. It was good to be Pom again. It had been too long.
Chapter 20
Eighteen years ago
Sophie’s disgraceful exhibition at the poolside was an offence that would earn her a heavy punishment, namely a massive chunk of Petronius’s ‘The Millionaire’s Dinner Party’ to translate from Latin, which was nothing compared to the penalty she received from her parents. As her father said in his furious letter, he had never once had a daughter put on a full report before and he was beyond incensed. Victoria and Annabella were the Mother Theresas to her Anti-Christ. This was not the sort of behaviour with which a Calladine was associated and it would be stamped out absolutely.
Sophie and her parents were due to spend that summer in the Far East: Cambodia, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea; along with Saint Victoria and Saint Annabella, both home from Oxford University. Now, Sophie would remain at the school instead. A sole pupil, undergoing two and a half months of extra academic lessons. Maybe then she might learn how to behave and respect her fellow pupils.
As it happened, her parents ended up committing their errant youngest daughter to the best summer of her life. Miss Gateley, who had been given the job of running the one-girl summer school, was dumped rather unceremoniously by her boyfriend and begged the school cook for help whilst she tried to sort out her chaotic love life.
Mrs Ackroyd, the school cook, had felt extremely sorry for Sophie having to stay by herself all summer. So, between them, they arranged it that Miss Gateley would pay Mrs Ackroyd to look after Sophie for her. Sophie was to stay with Mrs Ackroyd in her house in Briswith instead of at the horrible, freezing, lonely school. No one would ever know. No one did ever know.
Catherine Ackroyd lived in a beautiful olde worlde cottage with deep window seats and uneven floors. She was a widow with a grown-up daughter, Lucy, who lived in Australia, and thirteen-year-old twins Charlie and Tina. This would be her last summer in Britain because they were all going to join Lucy, so she was willing to take the risk that Miss Palmer-Price would find out what had taken place. She was kindness itself and a wonderful cook. It was lucky that Sophie had discovered running by then because if she hadn’t she would have been as rotund as Fat Fiona from all the lovely baking she mainlined that summer.
Sophie shared a bedroom with Tina and after an initial awkwardness, they were soon chatting about boys and bonding over make-up techniques. On sunny days, Sophie joined Tina and Charlie and their friends down on the beach, where they sunbathed whilst listening to music or combed the beach for treasure. They played hide and seek in Briswith Woods and held a car boot sale of all the things the Ackroyds weren’t taking to Australia. On rainy days they stayed in and talked and watched TV, helped Mrs Ackroyd with cleaning or did some baking. Tina showed Sophie how to make pom-poms and Sophie made hundreds of them, stitching them onto a jumper. ‘This will be a fashion one day,’ she insisted: she was totally convinced of it, and she stitched pom-poms on everything she owned. ‘We’ll have to call you Pom,’ laughed Mrs Ackroyd, and the nickname had stuck. ‘Pom’ told them of her plan to open up a clothes shop full of all her own designs, except she’d only mastered how to make an A-line skirt so far.
So Mrs Ackroyd taught her how to sew and knit, because she was a dab hand at making clothes. She’d knitted jumpers for her children and made their school uniforms because the stuff off the pegs never fitted them right and she was a stickler for a good fit. She taught Sophie how to measure properly, put in zips, fit sleeves, do ladder-stitch and darts. She taught her about inverted pleats and scalloped edges and Sophie soaked it all up like a sponge. Now she could make all those wonderful clothes she had seen in her head.
Then Sophie had to go back to school with Miss Gateley and pretend that she had been studying with her all summer. Miss Gateley was a happy bunny now that she had been reunited with her boyfriend and didn’t push Sophie too hard before term started.
Magda didn’t come back after the summer holidays. Sophie never heard from her again in fact and she reasoned that Magda wanted to put the whole St Bathsheba episode behind her and forget everything and everyone associated with it, and she couldn’t blame her for that. The Ackroyds left for the Antipodes and no one called Sophie Pom any more. And even though Sophie thought she might never see that happy, free, wild and wonderful side of herself again, Pom stayed curled up inside her, waiting.
Chapter 21
Sophie was inexplicably tired and dropped off to sleep that afternoon. She was woken by the sound of someone knocking loudly on the front door.
Tracey was standing on the doorstep with a large shopping bag, hair plastered to her face from the falling rain.
‘Sorry, did I wake you up? I brought food and wine,’ she said. ‘I thought you might like some company but if you don’t, I’ll leave you to it. Fish and chips. Best in the area.’
‘No, please, come in.’ Company would be nice. And some food.
The last time Sophie had eaten them from a fish and chip shop was in Briswith with Tina and her friends. They’d sat on a wall outside the shop and talked about rubbish but soaked up each other’s company just as much as the chips soaked up the salt and vinegar.
The smell was making Sophie’s stomach grumble with anticipation. Was it the sea air working its magic? And why did they taste so much more delicious out of paper than on a plate? Sophie broke off the greasy tail of the fish and popped it in her mouth.
‘I have some money, I can pay you for this,’ she said. Tracey waved it away. ‘It’s only fish and chips and cheap plonk. I figured you hadn’t managed to get out to do any food shopping with the weather being so vile today.’
‘Not yet, no. Thank you.’
They polished off the food and a glass of wine each whilst the rain pelted at the windows.
‘When you get a storm up here, you get a proper storm,’ said Tracey, looking at the clouds boiling in the sky.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Sophie. ‘Can I make you some tea?’ She was enjoying Tracey’s easy company and didn’t want her to rush off.
‘That would be nice, thank you. I’ll make you a fire.’
‘I had one burning earlier but it went out when I fell asleep.’
‘I thought it was warm in here when I came in.’
Sophie put the kettle on. Tracey screwed up the fish and chip paper and put it in the grate, rested some kindling on it and a log, then lit a match to set it alight. ‘Ells Bells said he’d met you this morning. Elliott, my brother.’
‘Ells Bells.’ Sophie chuckled. ‘Oh, that is a wonderful name for a vicar.’
‘Couldn’t make it up, could you? Everyone calls him Ells Bells. Plenty of women around here would like to be Mrs Ells Bells, let me tell you. Well, when he manages to rid himself of the present Mrs Ells Bells that is, the . . .’ Tracey bit off her words and shook her head as if annoyed at herself. ‘Sorry. Sore subject. Like you want to hear about this sort of stuff !’
‘I don’t mind at all.’
‘She left him soon after Luke was born. Couldn’t take the respon
sibility, she said.’
Some women threw away what others would kill for, thought Sophie.
‘And what is your story?’ asked Sophie, stirring the teapot to hasten the brewing. Mashing, that’s what Mrs Ackroyd used to call it. Mashing the tea.
‘You really don’t want to hear my story when you’ve got your own problems,’ said Tracey. ‘I came here to see if you wanted to offload, not to offload onto you.’
‘Sometimes hearing the stories of others helps you put things into perspective.’ And as long as I’m listening to somebody else, I’m not being asked about myself, thought Sophie.
‘Okay then. I was with Barry for seven years. I was a bit of a fatty when I met him: not much confidence, aimed low, didn’t think I was worth much. And that’s how Barry treated me, as if I wasn’t that valuable. I made his dinner, which he ate silently before he went out to the pub with his pals, then on Saturday nights we had the obligatory bonk but even that died off. It was all very boring and unfulfilling. Then, three years ago, a free day’s pass to join the new swanky gym in Slattercove landed through the letterbox and I have no idea what made me do it, but I went, by myself in monster-sized tracksuit bottoms and a top that Billy Smart could have used as a circus tent. And I enjoyed it. So I signed up for the whole year. It’s testament to how much Barry looked at me because he only asked me if I’d lost some weight after I’d shifted four stone. I got thinner and fitter, he got fatter and balder. My confidence grew and I packed my bags. He didn’t even see it coming. I didn’t even see it coming if I’m honest. I woke up one morning expecting a normal day and by eleven o’clock I thought, “Go, leave now.” So I did, before I could change my mind. It was like I had a voice inside me, another person lending me some strength: I know that sounds bonkers. He couldn’t believe I’d done it. Then it all got a bit nasty. Sometimes you don’t realise you’re on a leash until you try and walk off further than usual.’
The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew Page 12
