“Reyt.” Mr Moseley bangs the kitchen table as if to harness the energy he needs to get to work. “Let me at her.”
I laugh. Wow, a smile and a laugh today.
We head out the back door through to the herb garden and towards the garage. I press the button to the electric door and such is his enthusiasm, Mr Moseley has snaked under it before it is even half open.
He dramatically pulls off the waxed cotton cover. “She’s still a beaut.” He rubs his hands together and looks across at me.
I stand for a few seconds before registering he is expecting me to open the car.
“Sorry, here.” I pass over the key, the heavy Jaguar logo keyring swinging onto his wrist.
“I’ll need a hand pushing her out of here, unless that husband of yours is around?”
“Erh no… he’s gone.”
“Gone gone?”
“Yes, gone gone.”
“Good, never did like him, bit too stuck up for his own good. I agreed with yer dad on that un. Not good enough fer his Rosa-lee.”
My mouth falls open. Well that is news to me, I never knew Dad thought that way. I could tell he didn’t warm to him, the way a father should to a son-in-law but I just thought they didn’t have much in common. I wished Dad had made that clear before I made the mistake of my life.
After the tenth twist of the keys, and no evidence of life, I give Mr Moseley a look. He nods in response.
“Just so’s ‘er nose out t’garage.”
I put my back into pushing the car but nothing happens.
“Have you still got the handbrake on?” I gasp.
“Na, jus’ give it some welly lass.”
I love the way Mr Moseley puts no distinction on the physical expectations of a woman versus a man. His wife is the same, often accompanying him to car meets around the country and rolling her sleeves up when needed to push a car off or jack it up to change a wheel.
Although I reckon if it came to it, Mr Moseley would step up to his manly responsibilities, especially in defense of a woman. Unlike my Charles, who tends to be all bark and no bite in any such circumstance; ballsy and arrogant until it comes to the crunch and then evading any action with a sidestep or verbal tactic.
The car inches forward and starts to roll down the brick driveway. He pulls on the brake and leaps out of the driver’s side.
It was a good while since I had seen the Jag in all its glory and it certainly is still impressive.
“Do you reckon you’ll be able to get it going today?”
“Aye as sure as eggs is eggs.”
“Awesome. I’d like to go see Dad today if possible.”
“Well I’ll make sure that ‘appens lass, an’ might as well join ye.”
“That would be nice.”
On two counts. First, it would be lovely for Dad to have two visitors to make up for the lack of any in the last few weeks and secondly, if the car broke down on the way I would have Mr Moseley there to help.
I fold my arms across my chest and rub my hands up and down them.
Mr Moseley looks up at me and gestures with his head. “Cuppa’d be grand.”
It was his way of saying, ‘go in if you’re cold’ but also reminding me that a constant supply of tea is in order.
I go back to the kitchen and scramble around in the back of the cupboard for a teapot, watching through the kitchen window as he bends over the engine and taps something with a spanner.
Before I get the tea to exactly the right shade of mahogany I hear the engine rumble. It’s a noise that brings back so many memories and I feel a nervous excitement building at the prospect of driving it very soon.
I take a large mug of tea out to him and we both stand looking over the engine, the smell of petrol filling the air around us.
“I’ll finish this and we can tek ‘er for a spin. Mek sure she’s gonna behave hersel’.”
“Okay, I’ll just lock up.”
I rush inside to get my house keys and make sure the doors and windows are secure before we head out of the driveway towards town.
As he is driving, he shows me what each of the buttons and switches are for and gives me a few hints on how not to flood the engine and what to do if it stalls. All of which seems fairly straightforward but slightly daunting considering the value of the car we are talking about.
We switch seats and I drive back home.
“Reyt, now that’s sorted, I’ll follow you to visit your father.”
Dad seems to be able to talk about cars with astonishingly clear vocabulary and not the garbled conversations I usually have with him. I hope Mr Moseley is able to visit more regularly. As ever Dad calls me Poppy and, if she was here, he would call her Iris. It is as if his memory stopped after Poppy was born which hurts slightly but not as much as seeing him in this shadow of his former self.
The car behaves beautifully and I love every minute of the drive there and back. I decide to keep it on the driveway so I can look out on it this evening from the living room and before I close the curtains in the bedroom later. My bedroom, the room that I intend to sleep in tonight for the first time this year.
As I pour my first glass of the evening I look out of the window and feel like I have made significant progress today, and although I know that I have to stop drinking, I still need a couple of glasses tonight to numb the lingering pain.
I also know that I need to delete all my social media accounts and not torment myself further. But I don’t. That’s a hurdle for another day too.
Chapter Seven
Rosa
I have several sales on eBay that I need to mail this morning and excitedly load the car boot with the plastic wrapped packages.
It takes a few turns of the key in the ignition, before the engine fires up which makes me panic a little and I decide it would be best to put it away in the garage each evening from now on.
There is no working radio in the car and certainly nothing to connect my phone to, but I’m happy listening to the engine burble and watch the turn of heads as I drive up the high street. I park in the marketplace and haul the packages out of the boot and in to the Post Office.
There is a large line, as ever, and I lower my gaze when I see there are two of my gym acquaintances further along it. One of them must have spotted me though, and I cringe when I hear my name being called out.
“Hi.” I respond with a fake uplift to my voice.
“Wow, you look… different.” One of them responds.
Hah. I knew she couldn’t resist a catty comment.
“Thank you,” I reply, with a sarcastic smile.
“We’ve not seen you at yoga in ages. Have you been hiding or something?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“We’d heard as much,” she bitches.
“What have you been doing anyway? You look like you’ve shed pounds.” The other one sidles up to me and rudely lifts away one side of my cardigan.
“I stopped all those unnecessary lunches. It does wonders for your waistline, you should try it sometime.” The words tumble from my lips before I have time to censor them, although they stoke a fire in my stomach that I am slightly proud of. Standing up to them feels good, like it did that time I stood up to the school bully after she tripped me up in the dinner queue.
They are called up by the counter assistant, which gives them no opportunity to retort to my malicious comment.
I allow myself a little smile and chalk up my first win of the day.
Rosa 1: life 0.
They are standing around outside gossiping with more of the town’s elite when I leave, and are left agape when I get in the Jag and screech off up the high street. I had intended to go to the deli before leaving town but the delight of seeing their faces when I get in my car was too good to pass up. I’ll have to drive onto the supermarket on the outskirts of town instead.
After getting all the essentials I need for a week’s worth of paltry, single-person meals, I decide to stop at the supermarke
t petrol station to fill up the tank.
I nearly drop the nozzle when I realise Charles is filling his car only two pumps across from mine. I quickly turn my back and watch him in the reflection of the pump screen, although I can’t resist looking over my shoulder to see whether she is in the car too. When I see that she is, I squeeze the trigger extra hard and wish I could turn the nozzle on them and light it with a match. Seeing them erased in a ball of flames would make my day.
I chose to pay for the petrol with my card at the pump before I started filling, which is fortunate, otherwise I would have had to walk in front of him to pay. And it seems he has made the same choice, as he gets back in his car at the same time as me. I hang back and let him pull off first, following him at a short distance to the exit. Then, for reasons unbeknown to me, I follow them away from my home and probably towards theirs.
For the next five miles, I’m wondering what they’re talking about and whether she has her hand rested on his thigh, or his on hers. Are they returning home or perhaps going out for a date? Maybe they have been invited to a friend’s house. Possibly to one of my former friend’s.
He indicates to pull off into the next town and I speed up, knowing there are some traffic lights ahead that I don’t want to lose them at. They are heading towards the centre and turn off just before, into the car park of one of the flash new apartment blocks overlooking the small marina. A whole world has built up around this once working canal-boat dockyard. Lots of hip bars and swanky restaurants.
Hah. I can just imagine him in an apartment overlooking the marina, sipping cocktails on the balcony and dining in a different tapas bar each evening; while I’m at home drowning my sorrows.
Cxxx.
I park up on a side road and watch them pull into one of the reserved parking spaces. The bile burns up into my throat when I see them laughing and joking, walking hand in hand up to the front door of the block.
I don’t know what I think I’ll achieve, other than making myself miserable, by staying.
But I do.
With my hands gripped tightly around the wooden steering wheel, it’s not long before I see a light come on in a third floor window and I have a perfect view of them as they stand in front of it kissing. I cannot force myself to turn away, even when I see him unbutton her blouse and move his mouth down onto her breasts.
It is not until they dip out of sight that I’m able to prize away my gaze, lowering my head onto the steering wheel. I sit motionless and continue to torture myself with the thought of their lovemaking.
The tapping on my window causes the blood to rush back into my head and I nod at the security guard, who is obviously trying to get me to move on, before switching on the engine and driving away from the set of the horror movie I have just forced myself to watch.
I don’t remember the drive home, or parking the car in the garage, and I wouldn’t have remembered the shopping in the boot if it didn’t contain the bottles of wine that I needed to immerse myself in.
The house seems emptier and lonelier than ever. It is the antithesis of the warm, cosy, fun-loving apartment that I watched my husband and his bimbo occupying earlier. This is big and cold and lacking life.
I have had to agree to his demands to put this place up for sale. Despite the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into the renovation. Despite the love I held for this place when we first clapped eyes on it three years ago. Despite the hopes I had pinned on it being a family home, full of the sound of children playing and dogs barking.
I agreed because it is never going to be any of those things; all it is now is a knife in his back. But actually, it seems it isn’t even that. He has moved on and I have just witnessed that for myself.
I turn Adele up until the whole house shakes with her voice. Tonight, I will throw a wake, wallow for the last time and mourn the death of my marriage. In the morning I will embrace a new day.
Chapter Eight
Rosa
The garden is a mess. Apparently. A slight exaggeration but I’m not going to argue if Charles wants to send someone to tidy it up for the estate agent photographs. Especially as he has reluctantly offered to pay. We always used a gardener anyway, it was one aspect of domesticity that I hadn’t quite mastered, and now winter was supposedly over, the gardener would have expected to start making his rounds again.
I leave the gate open and pin a note to the shed door, informing the reader that I am out at a meeting and, if he finishes before I get back, I will see him next time. I hope I will be back to see him though, as he is another lovely gentleman. The only visitors to the house since my husband’s departure have been older gentlemen who are nice to spend time around, with the exception of the Policeman and the car-transporter driver. Although that was probably more to do with the circumstances than the men themselves.
And I am lonely.
Poppy is due next week and it has been a whole month since she said she was going to visit. Boy, has that month dragged.
So, a chat with the gardener is something to look forward to. In fact, if the meeting hadn’t have been with my solicitor about the divorce, then I would have stayed home. But, at £150 per hour, I’m not about to notch up a cancellation charge.
The solicitor appointment starts with the usual exchange of pointless pleasantries, before we get down to it. We are still poles apart and the requirement to attend mediation is looming. A face to face meeting with Charles isn’t something I am anywhere near ready for. And I think he knows it. Which is why I’m sure he is still playing hard ball.
“Right, Mrs Cockburn-Holt.”
I hold up my hand and lean in to her. “Ms Lawtey.”
“Erh…,” she stutters.
I know that legally I am still known as Mrs Cockburn-Holt but, as soon as I can, I plan to change my name back to Lawtey. The ring hasn’t disappeared from my finger yet, but it will, and soon so will my married name.
Her mouth makes a few different shapes before she shakes her head and carries on with what was obviously her original announcement. “We have the latest demand from the other side and I am afraid, instead of coming towards our position, it seems like we are farther away. He is citing your inability to adequately look after the main asset, i.e. the house, as a reason for you to move out immediately, so he can take over custodianship and maintain its value.”
“H…W…C…N…” It seems I am unable to say more than the first consonant of any of the words that are flying through my head right now. I brace myself, take a large swallow and a little cough for good measure.
“Obviously there is no way I am agreeable to that. I have agreed to sell the house and that should be enough and, anyway, what has been said about maintenance and the share of his dividends and his company pension?”
“Hmm, well it seems as if we will have to forge ahead with the forensic accountancy option, as it appears they are being a little obscure on the amount and availability of such incomes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Unless we contest, which of course we will, you are only entitled to half of the equity in the house. Which after the mortgage and the secured loans have been deducted, is not even a tenth of what we initially spoke about as a settlement figure.”
“Secured loans? What secured loans?” I am shouting at her now.
She raises her hands up towards her chin and carefully places her two index fingers in a triangle in front of it. A pose I used to watch Charles do when we worked together, usually before he laid a blow of disappointment to a client who was about to get shafted. I hated that pose then and I sure as hell hate it even more now.
“It seems, having looked at the charges registered on the property, there are two secured loans taken out last year, for which you are both jointly liable. If you are saying you know nothing about these loans, then we can possibly put forward a case for them not to be applied to your half of the equity. Although, as you were married and living together at the time of them being taken out, there is a distinct po
ssibility that will not be granted by the bank.”
“What?”
“I know. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Ms Lawtey. I will arrange for the accountant to investigate further and let you know his findings.”
I leave the office with a range of emotions surging through my chest, none of which are good and all of which I’d experienced more in these last few months than ever before in my entire life.
Shit, this is tough.
It feels like nothing is within my control right now. I need to find a way to stop this before I become a twisted bitter soul.
I fumble with my keys and drop them twice beside the car door before I manage to open it. It seems as if the car is working against me too. It won’t start.
I take my frustration out on the steering wheel several times before taking one last rallying breath and shouting, “Start you bastard.”
The car does as commanded and I tremble with relief, grinding the gear stick into reverse and pressing a heavy foot onto the accelerator. Two loud bangs make my heart leap in my chest and, with the momentary lack of concentration, the car stalls. I lift my head to look in the rear view mirror and realise I nearly drove into someone. Shit. I raise an apologetic hand to the victim and sit, waiting for my heart to return to a near normal beat.
Fortunately, I manage to get home in one piece and am relieved to kick my heels off inside the doorway. I’d power dressed for my meeting, hoping it would give me a sense of entitlement or least not to look like a disheveled loser to all the winners in life that worked at the solicitors’ firm.
I need a drink and, although that means breaking my ‘before five o’clock rule’, it is necessary. On this occasion, anyway.
The wine rack is empty and the gin bottles have long since hit the recycling truck. For a moment, I think I am saved from myself, before remembering the champagne we had brought back from Reims on a road trip to France last year. It is down in the cellar, a tiny room entered via an absurdly tight stone staircase off the rear entrance hall. I’d never ventured down to it before but knew from Charles’ description that it was small, cool and perfect for storing wine and little else.
Into the Light Page 5