The Promise

by Michelle Vernal

  ‘Did you ever think you might be a team player and not a diva? What have you got to lose?’

  Isabel looked up at him and took a steadying breath deciding to focus on being annoyed with him, but it was no good. She couldn’t be mad not after the way he’d helped her out tonight. Besides, he was right; what did she have to lose? Monday was her night off and just because she popped along to check the group out didn’t mean she was making a lifetime commitment to sing with them. A jostling nearby caught her attention, and she looked around. The crowd was getting restless. It was time to get on with the show. Isabel pushed her conflicting thoughts aside and drained her juice.

  ͠

  The Angels of Wight were bringing the house down with their rendition of “Bootylicious”. Isabel was standing to one side of the stage, grooving along and mouthing the words, watching them do their thing. They were good. They were better than good—they were bloody great, she thought watching them.

  A bubbling feeling she recognised as excitement, surged. These girls, up dancing and singing, were having a fantastic time together. It was fun pure and simple, and they wanted her to be part of all that. She let herself get pulled up on stage to shake her backside with the best of them for the last few lines of the Destiny’s Child hit.

  Chapter 36

  ‘Last orders!’ Brenda shouted posturing about the pub as she rang the bell. She was in great form after the runaway success of the karaoke night, Isabel noted. She watched her in amusement from behind the bar where she’d begun clearing up. She was obviously feeling magnanimous having asked Rhodri, Delwyn, and Nico if they’d like to stay for an after-hours tipple seeing as they were friends with Isabel and all. Delwyn and Nico had demurred. Rhodri had accepted though, and she was pleased. She fancied a celebratory drink and who better to clink glasses with than her singing partner in crime.

  Brenda, who’d broken her no drinking when on duty rule in the excitement of having a full house, had also asked another chap if he’d like to stay behind for an on the house tot. Isabel was guessing given the way his headful of shaggy blonde hair had shaken with enthusiasm at her invitation, that a drink wasn’t the only thing Brenda was offering. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Brenda had been draping herself over the bar to take his orders throughout the night. She’d let him cop an eyeful of Wonderbra each time he’d asked for a pint. Ah well, she thought, beginning to load the dishwasher, each to their own. If you ignored the missing tooth and if you were three sheets to the wind as she was beginning to suspect Brenda was then he did have a vague look of Rockin’ Rod about him.

  ‘Night!’ she called over the top of a few die-hard drinkers’ heads to where Delwyn was waving out. ‘See you tomorrow at eleven.’

  Delwyn gave her a thumbs up and then followed Nico’s lead toward the door. Who’d have thought those two would be thick as thieves? Isabel thought, picking up an empty glass and wondering if it bothered Nico that her boyfriend was staying on at the pub for a drink with her. Probably not, she decided, Nico was far too bohemian to be jealous.

  Half an hour later, the pub was empty except for the four of them. The tables had been wiped, and the dishwasher was grinding away. Brenda had kept her promise, and Isabel had stuffed the additional rumpled notes she’d produced from the till into her jeans pocket. Rhodri was sitting on a stool at the bar with a tumbler of whisky, courtesy of Brenda in front of him and Isabel perched next to him, glad to take the weight off her feet.

  She was shattered; it had been a huge night, and her drink of choice was a vodka lemonade. She hadn’t let the spirit mixer pass her lips in a long time, not since a particularly big night in Sydney. One minute she’d been dancing on the bar top with Helena egged on by a cheering crowd, and the next she’d woken up back at the hostel feeling as though she’d been poisoned. She shuddered at the memory and took a tentative sip of the drink. The very smell of it might make her gag at the overindulgent memories conjured, but to her surprise, it went down rather well. A few sips later she felt it ease away the fatigue that was hovering over her.

  Her eyes flitted in Brenda’s direction. She wondered if she should invest in a Wonderbra. Brenda was sporting a most impressive cleavage that was once more getting an airing as she hung off her Rod look a like’s every word. It was lucky for Terry that he was away again because theirs was most definitely a private party for two, she decided. Now would not be the moment to present her with the packet of turmeric powder she had in her bag. Delwyn had recommended it, saying that when mixed with water to make a paste it worked wonders on bunions.

  Now, however, would be the perfect time to get to know Rhodri a bit better. She snuck a surreptitious glance up at him over the rim of her glass. All she knew about his past was that he’d grown up in the same Welsh town as Tom Jones and had gone on to be a mover and shaker in London’s art world. The alcohol made her bold, and she decided to get the ball rolling.

  ‘I’ll tell you a random fact about myself that you don’t already know and then you do the same, okay?’

  Rhodri looked bemused. ‘Okaay,’ he drawled unsure what would come next.

  ‘Well, I’m an only child.’

  ‘I knew that.’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Isabel admonished. ‘I’m also adopted. Mum had some complicated woman’s problem, which meant she had to have a hysterectomy not long after she and Dad were married. Mum always says I was meant to be theirs because when I was born in 1992, there weren’t a lot of babies being put up for adoption, but they got me.’

  Rhodri smiled but stayed silent waiting for her to continue.

  ‘They didn’t meet my birth mother, but the staff at the agency they went through said she was a lovely, young woman who wanted the best for me but who needed to move forward with her life. She felt she couldn’t do that if the adoption were to be an open one, you know, where she could’ve visited me or received regular updates as to how I was getting on.’

  ‘Would you have liked it to be open?’ Rhodri asked, leaning forward on his stool.

  ‘No, I don’t think I would have, it would have scared me. I mean what if she changed her mind and decided she did want to keep me after all and tried to take me away? That happened in the States you know? I read about it online. I mean, I know it was highly unlikely, but that’s how I would have felt as a child. I needed the security of knowing Mum and Dad were my mum and dad. Kids are black and white.’

  Rhodri nodded. ‘Yeah, I can see that. Have you met her, your biological mother?’

  ‘No, I haven’t felt the need to. If I’m honest like I said, my mum and dad are my parents and besides which, she will have moved on with her life.’ Isabel eyed her drink for a beat. ‘I suppose I sometimes wonder if I have any brothers or sisters. I mean I probably do, and it’s a strange thought that I could walk past my birth mother or siblings in the street and not even know it. It scares me a little, the thought of this whole other life I could’ve had. I don’t do change well.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. You put yourself down too much, Isabel. You’ve lived on the other side of the world and look where you are right now. I think you do change pretty good.’ He swirled the ice in the bottom of his glass. ‘Do you think that’s possible though when a child is involved? To move on with your life I mean.’ His tone was sharp, and Isabel looked at him over the top of her glass startled.

  ‘I don’t know, but I have to think that it is otherwise it’s rather sad.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you do.’ His eyes were hooded, and Isabel was puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have a child, or I think I might do. It sounds crazy, but I know nothing about him or her, not even their sex. I told you I ran away too?’

  Isabel nodded; she was all ears.

  ‘Yeah. Well, Sal, my ex and I were engaged. We’d been together nearly four years, and marriage seemed like the natural next step. I thought life was moseying along pretty well. We both had careers we loved—she’s a lawyer and a good one. We had a grea
t social circle, a smart flat and I thought we were happy. When I think back on it now, and believe me I’ve thought back over it.’ His laugh was ironic and unfamiliar to Isabel’s ears, ‘I was caught up in myself, work was my focus, living the London lifestyle to the hilt and that included Sal. She fitted the bill for what I saw as a successful life for this small town boy from Wales. You know a great job, beautiful girl but I suppose she was also pretty shallow and so was I. Anyway enough of the retrospection. The wedding plans were almost finalised. We’d booked a country house in Shropshire. She’d been going for dress fittings, the whole shebang. It was a done deal, or so I thought. Then one evening I came home to an empty flat. All her stuff was gone; it was like she’d never lived there. She left me a note, you know how sorry she was blah, blah, she never meant to hurt me, it just happened.’ He paused and took a sip of his drink.

  ‘What just happened?’

  ‘I was so caught up in myself and living what I thought was my dream that without me noticing she fell out of love with me and in love with my so-called best mate, Darian. It fell to me to cancel all the wedding arrangements. And when I stopped being angry enough to want to see them both to get some sort of explanation as to how it happened, I couldn’t find them. They’d deliberately disappeared. Then one of our friends let slip that they thought perhaps this crazy out of character behaviour of hers was down to her hormones. When I pressed, her she told me Sal was pregnant when she left.’

  ‘Oh God, Rhodri! That’s awful.’ Isabel reached over and placed her hand on top of his. She’d struggled with what Ashley and Connor had done to her, but this was worse. He’d almost made it to the altar. She could only imagine what it would have been like having to cancel all those arrangements and explain to everyone that the wedding wasn’t going ahead. ‘Did you try and find them?’

  ‘Yeah, it wasn’t hard. We had the same social circle remember although when you split with somebody, you soon find out where people’s loyalties lie.’

  ‘I know,’ Isabel breathed. That had been the worst of it when she and Connor had broken up, realising people you’d counted on weren’t there anymore. You didn’t just lose your partner you lost your way of life too. It explained Rhodri’s casualness where Nico was concerned too, she realised. He would be wary about diving in again after what he’d been through. It was the same for her. She hadn’t been interested in taking anything further than a bit of a snog on the dancefloor while she’d been in Australia.

  ‘Yes, you do.’ Their gazes locked. Rhodri was the first to look away. ‘They’re living in Manchester, and that’s as far as I took it. I didn’t want to go any further. They wanted a new life, that much was obvious and it made me stop and take stock of my own. It was a pretty empty existence and,’ he shrugged, ‘you know the rest.’

  ‘Oh, Rhodri I’m so sorry that’s—’ Isabel couldn’t find the right words— awful or terrible didn’t quite cut it.

  ‘History, that’s what it is, and I think a lucky escape too.’

  ‘What about the baby though, I mean, what if it was yours?’

  ‘You just summed it up. The baby might be Darian’s, it might be mine, but either way Darian is his or her father and my busting in on their suburban existence demanding a paternity test, I just don’t see what it would achieve.’

  ‘Relationships and friends can be total shit.’

  ‘Yes, they can.’

  They drifted into silence, and the only sound in the near empty pub was the low murmur of a private conversation broken by Brenda’s throaty laugh at the other end of the bar.

  ‘I think we’d better be on our way,’ Rhodri said, scraping his stool back.

  Isabel wondered if he regretted having told her what he had. She swung her bag onto her shoulder. ‘Goodnight Brenda, and er—’

  ‘Al.’ Rod filled in the blanks for her.

  ‘Al. Thanks for the drinks, Brenda.’

  Rhodri repeated her sentiment, and the two of them stepped out into the cool night air.

  Chapter 37

  It was a quiet walk home for Rhodri and Isabel if you didn’t count the chap on the corner of Union and Castle Streets. He was leaning against the wall his hands clutching onto a grease-soaked bag of chips for grim life. He recognised the duo walking toward him from the Rum Den and decided to burst into song with “Delilah.” His plaintiff, ‘Why, Why, Why’, breaking the silence of night as he tried to engage them in the song.

  Isabel half expected a head to pop out the window of one of the flats above the row of shops to tell him to shut up. They’d be well within their rights to do so, she thought coming over all holier than thou. He was silenced when he dropped his chips; she paused to help him. He needed them to soak up all the booze. Rhodri, however, was in no mood to hang about. He kept walking and she scurried to catch him up.

  ‘Chips with curry sauce. I’m sorry to say they couldn’t be saved.’

  ‘Well, I pity the poor sod who stands in that treat tomorrow morning on their way to work.’ He growled as they rounded the corner onto the Esplanade. They reached Pier View a few short steps later. Isabel stood alongside Rhodri in the doorway waiting for him to unlock it. Her key would be buried at the bottom of her bag somewhere, and she couldn’t be bothered rummaging for it in the dark.

  ‘Rhodri,’ she said tentatively. ‘Our conversation tonight won’t go any further.’

  He turned toward her his dark eyes searching her face for a second before he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. He felt around on the side of the wall for the switch and flicked the lights on. Isabel followed him inside eager to be out of the cold.

  ‘I know it won’t.’ He headed over to where the canvas he was working on was covered with a sheet. ‘I might sit up for a bit and work on this.’ He hovered by the sheet waiting for her to pass by before taking it off. She took the hint.

  ‘Well, goodnight then and thanks again for this evening.’ Isabel disappeared out the back to take the steps two at a time up to her room.

  ͠

  Isabel was tired but not sleepy. She could not stop thinking about what Rhodri had confided to her at the bar. What kind of a woman was this Sal—to have behaved like that? He’d had a lucky escape in her opinion, and his so-called mate was just as bad. To go behind his back the way they had and to wipe him just like that. And they’d left him to clear up the mess they left behind while they went and lived their happy homemaker existence elsewhere. It was incomprehensible, and it made her blood boil.

  She pulled the bed covers up with her spare hand, her other was holding her mobile, and it shook as her hand trembled with indignation at all. It had stirred up all her emotions where Connor and Ashley were concerned. She wondered how he could just shelve the idea that he might be a dad too. I mean, she’d heard what he’d said but not to know one way or the other? She frowned. She was going around in circles, and she’d be awake all night at this rate. To distract herself she replayed the video Delwyn had recorded of her and Rhodri in action.

  It did take her mind off it as their onstage antics made her mouth curve. Watching it now as an observer, she could see they had sounded good, and they’d had stage presence too. It dawned on her that it was the most fun she’d had since the car accident where she’d encountered Ginny. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true; she’d thoroughly enjoyed her makeover day with Constance too. Her mind flicked to her invitation from Alice to the Acapella Group’s practice. They’d seemed like such a great group of girls. There was a real sense of camaraderie about them, and she’d loved the way they’d harmonised together. It would be nice to be part of something where everyone pulled together. She was looking forward to seeing them in action rehearsing on Monday night.

  Her promise to cover for Delwyn for a few hours tomorrow sprang to mind, and she wondered where she was off to. It was none of her business, but thinking back on their earlier conversation at the Rum Den, she’d looked quite desperate for Isabel to say that yes, she’d man the fort. Isabel had been far too n
ervous about her and Rhodri’s performance to pay much heed at the time; now she hoped everything was okay. She’d check in with her friend tomorrow. Delwyn had asked her to be at The Natural Way for eleven so if she got up at a reasonable clip in the morning she’d have plenty of time to call in on Constance beforehand. Isabel frowned. Something was going on with her too, she was sure of it.

  It had been a few days since she’d last caught up with her, but she’d noticed then how preoccupied she seemed. She’d listened to Isabel’s chatter, nodding and commenting in all the right places, but it was as if part of her hadn’t been there in the room. Something wasn’t right, and tomorrow, Isabel decided, she’d delve into it. A problem shared was a problem halved after all or however the saying went. Her finger remained in limbo over the video. She’d promised Mum she’d send it through and so she flicked it off not expecting to hear back from her until the morning.

  She lay there propped up on her pillows for a minute or two holding her mobile and debated putting her bedside light out. She knew she should, but she still felt wired. Instead, she reached over and put her phone down on the drawers that served as her bedside table, and her eyes stared blankly at the wall wondering what Molly would have recommended for sleeplessness. That morning had seen her wake up with a dull throb in her temples; it was anxiety about the evening ahead at the Rum Den that had brought it on.

  The subconscious was a powerful thing, and it had been needling away that she was going to have to get over her fear of standing up in front of a crowd and singing because it was a done deal. She’d called in to see Constance and asked if she could have a look at Molly’s journal to see if there were any suggestions. She’d found what she was looking for under a heading of hysteria. Borderline hysterical was exactly how she was feeling! It was followed by the suggestion of lemon balm steeped in boiling water. Lavender oil too was helpful for calming the nerves.