by Mandy Baggot
‘I’ll write down some of the websites Stanley recommended for me,’ Hazel suggested. ‘It doesn’t do any harm to look, dear.’
Three
It’s A Wrap, Amesbury, Wiltshire, UK
‘Shelley’s not coming in, dear. She texted me. Told me to let Megan know.’
Becky had got in early today to print off menu ideas for the nursing home summer party. She’d spent all night researching different types of tea – jasmine and hibiscus were her favourites – as well as looking up cake recipes with a D-Day feel. She should be able to knock up a Ration Chocolate Cake she’d gawped at on Pinterest. And there were plenty of bunting options for decorating the garden room of the care home. She was going to prove to Megan that she was capable of doing more than spreading margarine. She had even made more of a corporate effort with her clothes, hair and make-up today. She had swapped her favourite jeans for a pair of smart grey linen trousers she’d bought in Peacocks and teamed it with a cream-coloured short-sleeved blouse she usually reserved for weddings and funerals because it went with everything. She’d also pinned her hair up in a bun instead of simply winding it into a ponytail. No trainers on her feet, instead a pleather espadrille her mum had insisted she buy in Blackpool on her last visit. She felt a little bit different. Perhaps this was small scale power-dressing…
‘Oh, is she ill?’ Becky asked.
‘Not her,’ Hazel replied, hanging up her handbag and preparing to put on her working overall, hat and gloves. ‘Remember she told us about the triplets digging for glory?’
‘They didn’t escape?!’
‘Carter fell off the zip wire Frank made. Broke his arm.’
Becky didn’t know whether to be shocked at how accident-prone Shelley’s boys seemed to be, or astounded that Frank had constructed a zip wire in hours.
‘She says she’ll be back tomorrow once he’s back at school.’ Hazel began to fetch her ingredients for the beginnings of mixing. ‘No Megan today?’
It wasn’t lost on Becky that Megan wasn’t in yet. Usually Becky was in first, then her sister came in about 6.30 a.m. to help with prep and remind them of any special events coming up that needed a change to their usual routine. Becky liked those couple of hours best. She and Megan on their own, not only information-sharing, but chatting like they used to pre-Dean. It wasn’t high-brow conversation, more the ‘have you binge-watched The Witcher yet’ kind of talk, but it always reminded Becky of the relationship they had had when they lived at home together. The strain of their father’s incapacity after his stroke had definitely affected their sisterhood. Then his death had impacted everything else too.
Shelley started at 8.30 a.m. when she’d dropped the triplets off at school. Perhaps today Megan had a business breakfast or a meeting that wasn’t in the diary… or maybe she was simply avoiding Becky after their confrontation yesterday.
‘No,’ Becky answered. ‘I expect Dean needs her to do something or maybe the army called her in… did she tell you when the contract for that starts?’
Hazel shook her head. ‘No, dear. She didn’t even say how many sandwiches and rolls they were going to want each day, but I’m thinking it’s going to up our output at least three-fold, if not more.’
And they would definitely need another staff member if that was the case. Megan would have thought of that though. She was, after all, the one talking about costings and profit yesterday. The one in charge.
‘And that’s what I’ll be going for on my cruise,’ Hazel said, getting ingredients out of the fridge. ‘Three of everything. Including potential suitors. I mean, if you fixate on one and he combusts before the first port, or he starts getting cosy with someone else at the captain’s table you want a fall-back plan, don’t you?’
‘I… suppose so.’ Becky hadn’t had a fall-back plan after her date with Angus, apart from thinking about investment in Gaviscon and getting her sausages from somewhere else. Men she found attractive somehow didn’t appear in droves – and she really didn’t have high expectations. She just would have liked someone to share ‘the looks’ with. That simple first look that said: ‘I see you and I like what I see’. The second look that said: ‘I saw you, I wanted to look at you again’. And the third look that said: ‘I am definitely coming over. I want to get to know you.’ Everyone else in her world seemed to have found someone without needing a relationship road map or Rohypnol. They were booking couples’ retreats or moving into new homes together. Becky felt it wouldn’t be long before Tara swapped their monthly movie club nights for dinner parties with other couples and, without a partner, she wouldn’t fit. No one liked a single at a couples’ dinner party. It was like everyone was waiting for one of their partners to stray over the tiramisu.
‘Did you look at the holiday websites last night?’ Hazel asked her, closing the door of their large fridge room with her hip.
‘A bit,’ Becky admitted.
It was actually ‘a lot’. Her whole evening had comprised the care home food research, in between lusting after impossibly beautiful mountain gorges around Austria, the Italian lakes and the tiny deserted aquamarine coves of Greek islands. It had given her shivers to even think about herself standing on those sandy shorelines or next to snow-capped peaks, a small person dropped into far-off lands she knew nothing about. But holidays didn’t come cheap and she wasn’t exactly flash with the cash. The little she had left had to be saved for a rainy day, didn’t it? You never knew when double-glazing might be needed or if, one day, her landlord might decide to sell… or die… or put up her rent. All those scenarios were why, after she’d finished browsing the websites Hazel had suggested, she’d searched for something else. And that something else was… housesitting.
An article had popped up, while she was viewing self-catering apartments on the isle of Madeira, about how housesitting was a fantastic way to immerse yourself in another country’s culture for free! All you had to pay was the cost of your flight, and there you were, paying nothing for accommodation in a gorgeous setting, looking after someone else’s home while they were away. There had to be a catch. It almost sounded too easy…
The door burst open and Megan sashayed through it like she was a brand ambassador for ASOS. Wearing Jackie-O-style sunglasses, wide-leg plaid trousers and a simple black tunic top, she did look every inch the young entrepreneur, capable of making mincemeat out of Deborah Meaden.
‘Good morning!’ Megan greeted breezily, pulling her sunglasses away from her face and sitting them on top of her head. She sounded happy, Becky deduced. She didn’t sound like someone who was holding a grudge after their disagreement of yesterday. That was good.
‘Good morning, dear,’ Hazel replied, starting to grate cheese. ‘You sound bright today. Ooo, is that a new handbag?’
‘Yes,’ Megan said, slipping a rather nice-looking tan leather bag off her shoulder. It matched perfectly with the colour of the line in the plaid of her trousers. ‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s lovely,’ Hazel answered.
‘It’s a present from Dean,’ Megan said, stroking the material with her beautifully manicured hands.
Becky couldn’t help looking at her own hands. Nails cut to the quick to aid getting the gloves on faster and nothing sticky-out to pierce the latex. It simply wasn’t practical to grow them. But maybe that was another reason she didn’t fit in at the moment. Tara always found time for manicures. Perhaps Becky ought to make an effort and suggest going together…
‘It was this gorgeous bag and another surprise,’ Megan said, eyes glazing over like she was experiencing an intense daydream.
‘If it’s of the smutty kind that Shelley would appreciate, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. She’s not coming in,’ Hazel said. ‘Little Carter broke his arm pretending to be Spiderman or something.’
‘I’m going on holiday!’ Megan announced. ‘In August! Can you believe it?! Dean’s kept it secret for months!’
‘Wow,’ Becky said. ‘That’s great. Where are you going?’ If it w
as a Greek island, she would feel a little bit jealous. She’d actually shivered when she’d looked at the photos of Kefalonia – the bright blue wooden chairs, checked tablecloths under a condensation-coated carafe of white wine and a feta-cheese-topped salad with purple olives almost the size of plums. A nice fantasy. Maybe soon to be her sister’s reality. Thanks to Dean. She chewed her lip. She mustn’t be bitter. And she didn’t do sibling rivalry.
‘Dean won’t say where yet,’ Megan continued. ‘Isn’t that romantic?’
‘It might be Blackpool. To see your mum,’ Hazel suggested.
Megan turned her nose up, as if Hazel had suggested her vacation might be to a one-star hotel near Auschwitz. ‘Oh no, he’s promised me we’re going on a plane.’
‘You can fly to Blackpool these days, you know,’ Hazel told her.
‘It’s not going to be Blackpool,’ Megan insisted.
‘Blackpool’s not bad. Mum loves it,’ Becky added.
‘That’s because Mum’s never been anywhere else,’ Megan snapped. ‘And she only likes it because Auntie June’s there and because…’
Becky knew what her sister was going to say before she stopped. Megan had been about to say ‘because Dad liked it’. But she couldn’t bring herself to. Erased. Forgotten about.
‘Anyway, as romantic as it is, it’s left me with so much to sort out,’ Megan said. ‘I’m trying to only think of the positives though. Like the sunshine and the white sand and the—’
‘White-haired widows,’ Hazel added with a sigh. She jerked suddenly, the grater taking off a strip of her gloves as she lost concentration.
‘When does the army contract start?’ Becky asked.
‘Oh, that’s not until the beginning of September. But it’s wedding season coming up, isn’t it? And we have five of those booked in already.’
‘Shelley could ask her cousin to come in and help temporarily,’ Hazel suggested. ‘She’s back from university.’
‘I’ve already asked her,’ Megan answered, taking a folio pad from her bag. ‘I was talking about someone in a managerial capacity really. Someone I can hire in to hold the fort here while I hold margaritas for a few weeks.’
Becky was bristling before she ever realised it. Megan was going to employ someone to come in and manage the business while she went on holiday? Someone not already within their team. Someone who wasn’t Becky. So much for her almost-power-dressing. She obviously did need Shellac to be noticed around here… She itched to say something. She wanted to ask Megan why she needed to bring in an outsider when she was perfectly capable of running the sandwich empire while Megan was away. But, after yesterday, after Megan’s insistence that she couldn’t count how many rolls were needed to feed the care home residents, her confidence was waning. And now she was beginning to feel stupid in these trousers… and the waistband was pinching a bit. Damn the slow-cooked meatloaf on a bed of mash she’d eaten last night.
‘Oh… well… dear, I’m sure we’d be able to manage for two weeks, with Shelley back and her cousin helping out,’ Hazel said. ‘Wouldn’t we, Becky?’
Now she had been put on the spot. Now she was going to have to say something and, the way she felt, she really wanted to be able to project her voice and make it sound like it came from inside someone with authority. Someone like… David Attenborough. She opened her mouth…
‘I’ve got no doubt you’d manage the workload,’ Megan forged on.
Becky closed her mouth again, clamping her teeth together as the chance was lost.
‘But there’s an endless list of things I do behind the scenes that really needs someone with a business brain to take on.’
Oh my God. Becky was gripping her butter-spreading knife like it had all the capabilities of turning into a lethal weapon at any second. Forget David Attenborough, if Megan kept this up, Becky might turn into Villanelle. Did her sister not even realise how rude and dismissive she was being?
‘I mean, I need someone who’s across contracts and the legal jargon that goes with that,’ Megan continued.
She was still stroking that bloody new handbag like it was a guinea-pig at a petting zoo. If Dean had got that from his mate Terry, the chances were it was actually a knock-off. Becky should tell her. She should say, right now, that she could handle things in Megan’s absence. She might not know every shortcut an Excel spreadsheet had to offer, but she knew enough. Definitely enough for the sandwich-business. And she was very personable. Everyone said so. If there were new opportunities in those two weeks Megan was gone, Becky would be more than able to sell It’s A Wrap’s services and win bids…
‘I thought the contracts were all the same,’ Hazel piped up, recommencing the cheese grating. ‘A template on the computer.’
‘The basics might be,’ Megan stated, sounding a bit annoyed. ‘But every client is different. They all have little requests that need attention. And that always requires delicate tweaking of the wording, you know, additional clauses and sub-clauses… and sub-clauses of sub-clauses.’
How up-herself did Megan sound now? Becky’s usual placid nature was disintegrating, morphing into bubbling acid that could melt platinum. If she didn’t say something soon, her temper was going to lead to some sort of self-destruction, or ruination of their products. She stuck the knife in the butter tub like she was lancing a boil.
‘Well,’ Hazel continued, ‘no one knows our customers’ needs better than Becky.’
Hazel had said ‘Becky’ at a volume slightly higher than the rest of the sentence and Becky’s internal furore was starting to make itself known on her cheeks. Now was her chance. Make a stand.
‘Well, obviously I’ll be counting on you all to keep things running at ground level,’ Megan said, finally putting the handbag back on her shoulder. ‘But, Hazel, if you do know anyone qualified to step into the breach and do management while I’m away, please let me know.’
That was it! That was absolutely it! Becky stood up from her stool before she was tempted to hurl this morning’s delivery of crab sticks at her sister. With as much composure as she had left, despite the trousers gnawing at her bellybutton, she swept out the door that led to the back garden, slamming it hard behind her.
Four
London, UK
‘She’s going to take everything, isn’t she? Because that’s what they do, isn’t it? It’s all whispered sexual promises and home-cooking at the beginning, and then it’s commands about DIY and M&S meals you have to microwave yourself. And then… then it’s bitter accusations that you’ve been ignoring their needs, when really you’ve been negotiating million-dollar contracts so they can carry on having spa weekends with their friends where they go all-in for facials and Watsu, but complain about how terrible their lives are and how their husbands are nothing but unreasonable bastards who haven’t been able to find their erogenous zones since the honeymoon. Well, Elias, I challenge any man to find Kristina’s erogenous zone when the hedges haven’t been cut for a decade. Do you get what I’m saying? But, of course, it’s all my fault, isn’t it? Everything is always my fault.’
Solicitor Elias Mardas sat back in the hotel meeting room chair and regarded his client, Chad. Hair flecked with silver, wearing a navy suit from Moss London, this businessman would usually be the epitome of calm and controlled. Chad was used to negotiating hard with counterparts across the globe and here the man was, unravelling in a hotel in Central London. Not that Elias was surprised. This was what usually happened. Most of his clients became a shadow of their former selves, when it came to the topic of divorce. And that’s where Elias came in. It was his job to control this whole process, legal and emotional, to ensure that his client dealt with the inevitable fall-out and arrived at Destination Decree Absolute in the best possible position. Matrimonial law might not have been his legal area of choice when he’d first qualified – originally he had intended to deal with property and real estate – but circumstances had changed and he had changed and this was his niche. His company, working alone, picking
and choosing his clients. He excelled at it and it was lucrative. What more could you want from a career?
‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ Chad wanted to know. ‘You haven’t said anything in forty-five minutes.’ He picked up his water glass and downed a mouthful. ‘I’m not paying you an extortionate amount of money per hour to say nothing. I want strategy and planning. I want to wipe that triumphant look off Kristina’s face when she realises that she isn’t going to win this time.’ He blew out a breath. ‘She isn’t going to completely win this time, is she?’ He hesitated only for a beat. ‘Fuck! Of course she is! They always do!’ Chad stood up then, beginning to pace, along the carpet in front of the full-length window giving them a London summer skyline, all shafts of light gleaming off steel and glass.
‘Sit down, Chad,’ Elias told him, topping up both their water glasses.
‘I can’t sit down,’ Chad replied. ‘It’s the stress! I’ve never been this stressed! It’s playing havoc with my piles and she knows that. She will know that.’ He aimed a designer shoe at the pot of a fake orchid plant in the corner, then yelped.
Elias figured that Chad was very nearly done. The anger was calming a little. When the meeting had started, Chad had exploded into a frenzied verbal tirade, his face turning a vibrant beetroot. He’d had to loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt, despite the air-conditioned atmosphere. He’d then patrolled the space like an over-zealous security guard, blaming mainly Kristina’s signing up to a weekly book club as the reason their marriage had completely fallen apart. But Elias knew exactly why the marriage had fallen apart. He knew exactly how every marriage fell apart. Communication. Or, rather, the lack of it.