Dear Anybody

by Rosa Temple

  ‘Something like that. You have no idea how many marriages have been saved because of Dear Vicky.’

  ‘Dear Vicky?’ The thought of me and Rob comes back to the forefront of my mind. Would our relationship have lasted if I’d written to Dear Vicky and told her that my boyfriend stays out drinking too much when I wished he was with me? Would Rob have written in to say what exactly his problem was with me and why he felt he had to cheat? I collect myself because I can feel the cloud of hurt and anger I’ve successfully managed to suppress building up around me. My shoulders are tensing up the way they have been whenever thoughts of Rob and the other woman are invited back into my mind.

  ‘So, who is this Vicky person anyway?’ I ask. ‘Will I find her at the local pharmacy on the days she isn’t at the office? Assuming Vicky is a she.’

  ‘Well that’s the thing,’ Beth says. ‘The Agony Aunt is always the domain of the editor. The Dear Vicky page was the brainchild of the first ever editor of the magazine and it’s tradition for each successive editor to carry it on. I think it would be a shame to jinx it now, being as it’s always worked so well in the past.’

  Time is ticking and a shower beckons. I could put my foot down but as I’ve been, in the main, a less than average editor before this meeting, maybe I could win some Brownie points with the team. They haven’t turned out to be quite the shower I thought they were the day before. I am an expert on problems, well expert in having them, anyway. Maybe I could do some good for others even if my own world has more or less fallen apart. I know all about infidelity, broken relationships, failure and addictions, not to mention homelessness.

  ‘Okay, fine.’ I put my hands up, surrendering to their pleading faces. ‘I’ll do it. How bad can it be, right?’ If anything, it might be reassuring to know that there are people out there worse off than me. ‘Okay, everyone. Thanks for all the great input and I can see that every edition of Bridley Green is going to be amazing.’

  The energy levels go up and everyone shuffles back to their desks. Jack, Mags and Bartie grab their coats and say goodbye and I realise they only came in today, their days off, for the supposed first thing in the morning meeting I had called. It also dawns on me they only turned up yesterday to meet with me, too. They might actually hate me, but their smiles seem genuine. Maybe I am gaining Brownie points. Maybe I could be a good editor and not just blag my way through the next three months, crying over Rob and drinking myself senseless.

  Back in my office I’ve convinced myself I can do this. I have to.

  Chapter 12

  ‘You travel light,’ Carey says as I bundle two suitcases and a holdall into the hallway of her house. She grabs one of the cases, places it by the radiator and helps me off with my jacket.

  I’d grabbed all my stuff from the Travelodge after the shower but went straight back to the office because of the pep talk I’d given myself after the meeting. I had to show willing and stop skiving. In the spirit of fresh starts I wanted to give Carey the impression I was a serious working woman with goals and ambitions. I didn’t want her to think she had agreed to put up some flake who got drunk at Happy Hour, went home with the entire football team and bunked off work early.

  At the office I’d read several back issues of Bridley Green, found out where the kitchen was and sorted all the drawers and cupboards in my office. I’d sat beside Jenna and Beth in the afternoon learning more about them and getting a better sense of the magazine and its readership.

  I puff and drop the holdall next to my suitcases in Carey’s hallway. They look out of place against the fresh walls and the subdued lighting.

  ‘I honestly thought I’d brought too much considering I’m only here for three months.’

  ‘Why is it just three months? I thought they wanted a permanent editor for the magazine.’

  ‘They did. They do. But I think Alexandra wants to do a trial run. And to be honest, I didn’t want this to be long term here. Whatever happens after the trial period, I’ll go back down to London. I can’t see myself living out in the middle of nowhere forever.’

  ‘I see. Anyway, three months is long enough for you to have seen the whole of Bridley at least a hundred times over. Time enough for you to tell if you want to stay.’

  I know I won’t stay but I decide not to drive it home in case Carey takes offence. I follow her through to the kitchen. Here the aromas of a Thai curry fill the air. Two places have been laid at the enormous dining table, large wine glasses twinkle under the low-rise lighting, waiting to be filled.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to find somewhere else to crash before the three months are up,’ I assure Carey with a hand held up in front of me. ‘I won’t impose too much.’

  ‘No, you’re not imposing,’ she says with a smile. ‘When I offered I meant for you to stay as long as you needed. There’s more than enough space. You won’t be in my way. I have a workspace in a small building in the garden and a further studio at the end of the upstairs hallway. I can’t imagine we’ll be under each other’s feet or anything. Just make yourself at home. I’m serious about that.’

  ‘I just hope you won’t regret saying that. Rob always said I was a bit of a slob.’

  ‘Rob? Your husband?’

  ‘Boyfriend. Ex. Very Ex.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Carey goes over to the hob to stir some pots and sprinkles black pepper into one of them after a taste test.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘I’m over him now. Sort of.’ A complete lie but I don’t want to talk about Rob. ‘And don’t worry, there’s no one in the pipelines, nor likely to be any time soon, so I won’t be bringing anyone round.’

  ‘Well, you’d be welcome to if there was.’

  ‘What about you? Will there be any men walking around in your dressing gown in the morning that I should be aware of?’

  Carey does that thing she did earlier, sinks her head down so that her face is completely covered by her hair. It’s a strange thing to see, it’s quite juvenile to me and I try to ignore it. She picks up the spoon she’s just put down, dips it in the pot and tastes the curry again.

  ‘Can’t tell if this needs more salt,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘Could you have a quick taste and let me know?’

  As I make my way over to the hob, Carey is smiling as if the whole burying her face and not answering a simple question ever happened. She has a hand under the spoon of curry sauce she’s holding out for me. I blow on the spoon and have a taste.

  ‘Mmm. This is delicious,’ I say. ‘Perfect.’ I give a little cough.

  ‘Not too spicy is it? I like it spicy and I normally only ever cook for myself.’

  So no boyfriend then, I think, and obviously a touchy subject. Maybe she’s getting over a breakup, too. A very bad one by the way she reacted.

  ‘Do you cook like this every night?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t get used to it. I’m a bit of a reluctant cook but when I do, I go all out.’

  ‘Thus the massive kitchen,’ I say, looking around at the room again, happy to have landed on my feet here. ‘What is it you do, again?’

  ‘I don’t think I actually told you what I do,’ she says, getting plates out of the cupboard.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ I ask marvelling at how organised Carey seems to be.

  ‘You can open the wine. I thought red would go with the curry.’ She nods over to an expensive looking red on the counter, the corkscrew is right beside it. Had it been my kitchen the bottle of red would have a screw top and a label that said, ‘Plonk Supermarché’. The label on this bottle looks serious and I know I won’t find a price label saying £4.99 on it.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ I ask.

  ‘Perhaps it can breathe a bit while I serve? Let me know how much you’d like. No starter or anything. Just as it comes.’

  My favourite meals are “just as it comes” as long as it keeps on coming.

  We sit at the table looking out onto a lawn. The light is fading outside but I can see the garden is a well-kept affair, as
you’d expect, and obviously professionally attended to. Unless, of course, Carey is as amazing a gardener as she is a cook.

  ‘I’m feeling really spoilt,’ I say as Carey puts full plates of jasmine rice and generous helpings of red Thai curry on each of the place mats. It’s like being at an expensive restaurant.

  ‘You’ve kept me in suspense all this time, Carey.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She pours the wine into the bulbous glasses.

  ‘You really have to tell me what it is you do for a living and how I can learn to do it, too.’

  ‘Well, I’m self-employed. Photographer.’

  ‘Ah.’ I look around again and spot more of those black and white stills on the far wall. ‘So these are all yours?’ I gesture to the photographs. ‘They’re really quite amazing. You’ve got a real talent for what you do.’

  ‘Well I have been doing it for over twenty years so I should have learned a thing or two.’ She looks embarrassed as if she doesn’t like to talk about herself or isn’t prepared to share too much too soon.

  ‘That’s a long time to be in one line of work,’ I say hoping to coax just a little bit more out of Carey.

  ‘I’ve always done photography but it didn’t always pay. I’ve been a camera operator along the way.’

  ‘You mean for television?’

  ‘Film mostly.’

  ‘Wow, Carey. Like, that’s amazing.’ I’m more in awe of Carey by the second. ‘Anything I would have seen?’

  ‘Um, Bridget Jones, Gosford Park. To name a couple.’

  ‘My God. Everywhere I go I seem to surround myself with exceptional women who make me feel so small. So inadequate.’

  It’s my turn to drop my head to my chest. The enormity of that sentence and what it actually means in my life only goes to remind me of what a loser I am and what a fraud.

  ‘Don’t say that, Sydney. You’re hardly inadequate. You moved all the way here to head up a magazine. That’s nothing to be sniffed at.’

  ‘Ignore me. My life’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for some time. I needed this job to settle the motion sickness. I only hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one moment. I know what it takes to up sticks and leave everything you know behind and try to make it in a new part of the country.’

  ‘So you’re not from around here then?’ I say. ‘You must have been here a while, though.’

  ‘No, I’m not originally from Bridley. I came up from Bristol. Over two years ago, now.’

  ‘And you settled down. You obviously like it.’

  ‘I must admit, I do. At first this place was like a caricature, small village. You know, Summer Fêtes and maypoles. They take it all seriously but they’re a friendly bunch. Having said that, it is possible for you to keep yourself to yourself if you want to. No one pries.’

  ‘So you escaped from Bristol to keep yourself to yourself? What were you running away from?’

  Again the dip of the head and I lose sight of Carey’s face behind her shiny brown hair. It emerges seconds later with a shake of the head for a sip of wine.

  ‘Like I said,’ Carey replies with her eyes on the wine glass before taking a deep gulp. ‘I like that people don’t pry into my background.’

  Meaning me, I guess. I’ve upset her. I didn’t mean to do that. I haven’t given away much about my history so I shouldn’t expect Carey to. She stops talking and carries on eating as if she’s eager to leave the table, chewing for all she is worth and making little gulping sounds every time she swallows. Every now and then, when I think she’s looking up to say something, I try to catch her eye but she ducks her head down and another mouthful stops her from having to talk to me.

  Carey has gone from friendly host to freaky recluse all because I asked a question. If she didn’t want me to know about why she left Bristol she shouldn’t have brought it up. Hell, she shouldn’t have asked me to stay. I look at Carey from time to time, sipping my wine and speeding up my eating, too. I clutch at something to say to break the ice again, all the time my mind is working overtime trying to come up with all the possible reasons Carey would clam up so quickly and so definitely. What is she hiding? The thing that keeps circulating my thought process is a failed marriage of some description. I’d thought Carey was my age before we’d sat and had coffee earlier. But on closer inspection I’d put her in her early forties. It’s possible she has children. Did she leave them behind? Did she desert young children? She might have grown up children who have left her. But my biggest suspicion is that there is a man involved somehow.

  It occurs to me when we’ve both bolted through most of our food, and I’m feeling a bit queasy, that the only way to prise the truth out of Carey is to tell her my truth. She might start to trust me.

  I look over at the row of photographs on the far wall again. Unlike those in the living room, these are not framed. There’s a common theme running through these pictures and possibly the ones in the rest of the house. The commonality being the subject. Each time the picture is of a woman, out in a busy street or city centre. No one is taking any notice of her. Carey uses a different model in each photograph, the model being the only one in colour. Everything around her, the streets, the passing cars, buildings or people walking by, are all in black and white. It’s a clever trick in the printing process that I haven’t seen often. Carey seems to have adopted it as her style. The subject doesn’t see the people and they don’t see her. It’s all very deep when I come to think about it. Sad. Lonely. Is that what Carey is all about then?

  ‘More wine?’ Carey speaks. At last the silence is broken. I was beginning to think it was a mistake agreeing to stay. I don’t know anything about Carey and what drives her. I just assumed she was a Good Samaritan who recognised the newcomer in me and tried to help.

  ‘Yes, I’d love some.’ I push my glass towards Carey just as she begins to pour and a few drops of red splash onto the tablecloth.

  ‘Damn, I’m sorry. My fault,’ I say, standing and running for kitchen roll. ‘I’m such a clutz.’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’ Carey springs up too and as I look around trying to find kitchen roll, without success, Carey simply goes to a cupboard and pulls out a packet of table salt. She sprinkles salt generously onto the spilled wine.

  ‘You just leave it and the salt absorbs the wine. Then it’s just like new again,’ she says, sprinkling a little more so that there’s a salt mound covering the red stain. It quickly changes from white to pink then darkens. It’s working already.

  ‘Where did you learn that?’ I ask, relieved that all is not lost. I take my seat and so does Carey.

  ‘Oh, someone I knew taught me this.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to put white wine on red to get it out.’

  ‘Actually, that never works,’ Carey says, her warm smile returns again. ‘Cheers.’ She touches her glass to mine. ‘Here’s to a fresh start.’

  By that she means a fresh start of me not asking questions. But being me and having an inquisitive mind, especially when it comes to living in a stranger’s house, I go back to my previous idea. Telling Carey all about me in the hope it compels her to spill the beans on her secret life.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say and down the whole of the glass. ‘My boyfriend had sex with another woman in our bed and I tried to stab him.’

  Carey’s head dips down, hair covering up her expression. TMI?

  She refills my glass and tops hers off. Shaking the remaining hair from her face she raises her glass again.

  ‘To new beginnings and saying goodbye to adulterous exes!’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ I say. ‘But please stop me if my eyes start to glaze. I promised my mother I’d cut back on the alcohol.’

  ‘I’ll watch out for you,’ she says with a look that says “You obviously don’t listen to your mother”.

  ‘And thank you for looking out for me last night at Frankie’s? You saved me, Carey, just like you’re doing now
by putting me up. Thank you so much. I just can’t believe how lucky I am.’

  With that, my bottom lip starts to tremble and tears start spilling out and down my face like the Trevi fountain. I’m completely moved by her kindness. She is the big sister, good friend and good listener I’ve needed all this time. I know we’ve only just met but somehow I’m able to bare my soul to her and that’s a great feeling. Wow. I opened up to someone at last about what happened between me and Rob. Saying nothing was driving me crazy, and now, it’s finally out.

  Chapter 13

  I can tell from the tap, tap, tap on my office door that it’s Beth on the other side. Even in knocking on doors she is as gentle as a lamb. I wonder what Beth’s home life is like. I have no idea whether she’s married, single, lives on a farm or in one of those darling cottages I’ve spotted high up on a hill on my walk from Carey’s house into work. I could see myself up in a cottage like that, clouds billowing past my window, sheep in a meadow below. It hasn’t been long but I’m starting to get used to Bridley. I think this trial period is going to be much easier to handle than I’d first thought. Especially since the outpouring of my emotions to Carey. She was great about it, as you’d imagine. Despite that schoolgirl habit of hiding her face behind her shoulder-length bob when anything I say becomes too difficult for her, she comes across as a woman of the world and I’m sure I can learn a lot from her. Anyway, something about Carey made me feel able to reveal what that son of a bitch, Rob, has done. A problem shared and all that. Not that the situation has been halved. Not in terms of how much it still hurts, but I’m not carrying the burden of silence with me any longer. I kept quiet about it all because I blamed myself in some way that Rob strayed. Also, because of how much I love Rob, I couldn’t bear the fact that anyone would see him in a negative light. Silly, I know. It didn’t take an Agony Aunt to make me realise he’s an absolute bastard to have cheated that way.

  My own problems have made me really sit down and think about this Dear Vicky role I’ve adopted. Agony Aunt to an entire village is a big responsibility. I doubted myself every time I read a Dear Vicky email. I wished I could handle other people’s problems in the same way Carey handled me. A blubbering mess for whom she listened to for an entire hour about how Rob and I first met. She ran a lavender bath for me and we stayed up late, listening to Ellie Goulding and singing loudly until we were both hoarse and lightheaded. I fell asleep on one of the sumptuous couches in Carey’s massive living room and she covered me with a warm, fleecy blanket. And if that wasn’t enough, she made me rich coffee the next morning and brought it in so I wouldn’t be late for work.