by Lilac Mills
Crikey, a woman sitting on a bench down there didn’t half look like Lottie. She’d been turned around on it, staring inland rather than out to sea, but she’d swivelled back to face the harbour before he’d managed to get a proper look.
Thinking about his wife made Henry recall the reason he was there, but now that he’d seen inside the Star, there was one thing he had to ask before he got down to business. ‘Are you taking bookings while you renovate?’ He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to stay here in its current condition.
‘Good lord, no!’ Crystal looked appalled at the idea.
‘I only mentioned it because the sign in the window said “Vacancies”.’
‘Bugger. I must take that down. Right, do you need a hand getting the piano out, or can you manage?’
‘I can manage,’ Henry said, and Crystal left him to drag it out by himself, after telling him to give her a shout when he needed help getting it down the stairs.
He’d taken the legs off it, and was just about to manoeuvre it through the door while wondering if it would fit in the car or whether he’d wasted both his time and Crystal’s, when he heard Crystal yell, ‘Oi, what do you think you’re doing?’
‘Looking for my husband,’ a woman who sounded exactly like Lottie yelled, followed by the noise of a door crashing open.
And just as he was thinking that his wife was so much on his mind at the moment that he was seeing and hearing her at every turn, a woman who most definitely was his wife shoved open the door to the bedroom he was in, barging straight into the piano and knocking him backwards.
‘Lottie?’ he gasped, winded.
‘Caught you!’ Lottie cried, then froze. Her eyes darted around the room, before coming to a halt on him.
‘What the hell?’ he demanded, pushing himself away from the wardrobe he’d fallen back on, and rubbing his shoulder.
‘Oh, sh—sugar. You’re not… I mean, I thought… Oh, Henry.’
‘Do you know this woman?’ Crystal appeared in the doorway brandishing her feather duster like she meant business.
‘She’s my wife,’ Henry said, weakly. He put a hand out to steady himself. What the hell was going on? ‘Lottie, what are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing!’
‘I was collecting this.’ He pointed to the piano. ‘For you,’ he added, in case she didn’t understand.
‘What about Crystal?’ Lottie was wearing a horrified expression.
‘What about me?’ Crystal asked.
Lottie whirled around. ‘You’re Crystal?’ She turned back to Henry and her face drained of colour. ‘Oh.’
‘What’s going on, Lottie?’ This was surreal. Henry was starting to wonder if there was a hidden camera, that this was some kind of a weird wind-up, and his shocked face would be broadcast on a TV show in the not-too-distant future.
Lottie slumped against the wall. ‘I thought… you were acting… I’m still not sure I… Shit.’
‘What’s going on, love? Are you having some kind of a breakdown? Should I call an ambulance?’ Crystal’s tone was sympathetic.
‘I’m fine,’ Lottie said, but Henry could tell she wasn’t.
‘How did you get here? Are you following me or something? And why are you asking about Crystal?’ He gawped at her, trying to find a logical explanation, but failing.
‘Donald’s taxi.’ She looked so miserable his heart went out to her. No matter what was going on, she was his wife and he loved her unconditionally. Seeing her so distressed upset him greatly.
‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’ he asked.
‘No, but I thought you were,’ she replied, in a small voice.
‘Look, if everything’s okay, do you mind if I get on? I’ve got a meeting with my architect in half an hour.’ Crystal was backing away, her expression wary.
‘Of course not. I’ll just…’ Henry gestured at the piano.
‘I’d… um… better leave,’ Lottie said.
‘Is Donald waiting for you?’ Henry’s thoughts immediately went to how much a taxi ride to Danyravon and back, plus waiting time, would cost. It seemed to be the only thought he could effectively grasp right now. Everything else was a swirl of dreamlike and outlandish images.
‘No. I’ll have to give him a call to fetch me.’
‘The car’s outside.’ Henry fished in his pocket for his keys and tossed them to her. Lottie caught them instinctively. ‘I’ll take you home, but first I need to load this in the boot. And Lottie? We need to talk.’
He waited for her footsteps to fade on the stairs before he resumed his grappling with the piano. He’d meant it when he’d told her they needed to talk. It was about time he told her his side of the story regarding the redundancy and his jobless state, because she’d patently discovered his secret – and was unmistakably not happy about it.
Chapter 34
Lottie
Seated in the car, Lottie had never felt so humiliated in all her life. It even exceeded the time when her waters had broken in the middle of a school concert, and she’d overheard some parents telling their children she’d wet herself rather than them having to explain the more gruesome details of having a baby to their offspring.
Ok, so she’d got it wrong big time today, but she was still convinced Henry was cheating on her. And now she’d totally blown her chances of finding out for sure. He’d be ultra-careful from now on, and she knew he was already being careful because she hadn’t found any evidence so far. Crystal didn’t count, but that failed to explain why he’d been so secretive about meeting her.
And if Crystal wasn’t the name of the woman he was seeing, what was? Who was the woman with the sharp blonde haircut and the sharp navy suit? For Lottie, the desire to discover the truth was eating away at her so deeply it hurt. How much longer could she go on not knowing but suspecting? Look at the mess she’d made of things today. She’d made a right idiot of herself, and goodness knows what that poor woman in the Star Hotel must think of her.
Lottie had been all set to use any means possible to find out what Henry was getting up to and who he was getting up to it with; but when she’d seen him standing so blatantly in the window of what was undoubtedly a first-floor bedroom and then drawing the curtain, she’d seen red.
She couldn’t remember leaping up from the bench and charging across the road, and neither did she have particularly good recall of barging in through the hotel’s door and thundering up the stairs. She did, however, remember pushing open the first bedroom door she came to with some considerable force and being shouted at by a woman who she’d ignored, before trying the next door along the landing.
What she’d seen, compared to what she’d expected to see, had taken her several seconds to make sense of, and even then she wasn’t sure she’d been successful in deciphering the image before her. Her fully clothed husband had been in a room chock-full of old furniture. There wasn’t a naked woman, or any other kind of woman for that matter, in it, and the anticipated bed of iniquity proved to be several grubby mattresses propped up against a wall.
Humiliated and embarrassed didn’t begin to describe it, and when she’d discovered that Crystal was a middle-aged, dumpy woman with blue hair, Lottie’s mortification had been complete.
Henry’s shocked expression would be seared on her eyelids forever, and the woman believing that she must be having a breakdown sent shudders of shame through her.
Thankfully, Henry had spared Lottie from having to phone Donald Mousel to ask him to come to get her: if he saw the state she was in…
Because she was in a state, and not just because her attempt at catching Henry in the act had so spectacularly backfired. The reason was more to do with Henry’s parting shot – that they needed to talk.
Dear God, he was going to tell her he was in love with someone else. She simply knew it. And no matter how convinced she’d been that he was unfaithful, she wasn’t ready for such a life-changing confession.
For some reason, if she’d
caught him in bed with his lover, her indignation and outrage might have kept her going. But to have a cold-blooded discussion after she’d made an incredible fool of herself was unbearable.
She desperately needed some ammunition, and soon, to bolster her dwindling fury, but there was none to be had. Or rather, none that she could get her hands on, his phone being about his person and locked, and there being nothing incriminating in any of his pockets or in his wallet. The only place she hadn’t scoured was the car, but he’d be daft if he’d left anything in here because she frequently drove it on the weekend to go to the supermarket or—
Lottie sat up straight and her eyes widened. There was one place she hadn’t thought to look, and that was in his briefcase. Come to think of it, the battered old case normally lived at the bottom of the stairs where he had a habit of leaving it, but she couldn’t remember moving it since last week. In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing it at all lately. Which meant he probably hadn’t brought it into the house, which also meant he might have something in there he didn’t want her to see.
It was a long shot, she realised, but the long shot was sitting innocently on the back seat of the car.
Lottie made full use of the opportunity.
Expecting the briefcase to be heavier than it was, she reached into the back, grabbed hold of it and hauled it towards her, nearly knocking herself in the face with it.
When she looked inside, she saw the reason – no laptop. There was very little in it at all, in fact, apart from some letters and some bits of paper.
She took everything out and began examining them.
What she saw made her gasp in shock.
There was a P45 and a letter giving notice of redundancy. Both documents had Henry’s name on them, and the letter was dated over a month ago and gave a last day of employment as the Friday just gone.
Lottie flopped back in her seat, her mind spinning and her pulse hammering.
This couldn’t possibly be right.
She checked again.
It was right; she hadn’t misread anything. Henry had been made redundant, and was now unemployed.
Two thoughts shot into her mind, and she wasn’t sure which one she was the most upset about – that he hadn’t told her such momentous news, or that he’d lied to her about going to work these past few days.
* * *
Lottie sat in the passenger seat of their car, staring rigidly ahead, as Henry opened the boot, put the back seats down and, with Crystal’s help, loaded the small piano into it.
She didn’t think he’d noticed that his briefcase was on her lap, its contents in full view, until he climbed into the driver’s seat and glanced across at her. She was conscious of his eyes on her face, but she didn’t trust herself to look at him. Relief at him not having an affair warred with hurt that he hadn’t confided in her. Was she so much of a harridan that he felt he couldn’t tell her he’d lost his job? What did that say about the state of their marriage (she deliberately ignored that her thinking he was unfaithful said just as much)? And how did he think he’d have been able to keep it from her?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice breaking as he stared at the letter. ‘I didn’t mean you to find out like this.’
‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘When I’d got another job. I didn’t want to let you down.’
Lottie shook her head in disbelief. ‘You do realise I thought you were having an affair?’
‘A what?’ He actually laughed, and Lottie wanted to sock him one, despite her abhorrence of violence. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ he cried.
‘As ridiculous as you not telling me you’ve been made redundant, then pretending to go to work?’
Henry sobered immediately. ‘I suppose not.’ He drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. ‘Is that why you followed me?’
‘I didn’t follow you. I overheard you arranging a time and I saw the address. I got here before you did.’
‘You’ve been going through my pockets?’
Lottie bit her lip. ‘I used the crayon trick.’
‘The what—? Look, never mind.’ His expression was stricken and his eyes were wild. ‘I’d never be unfaithful – I love you more than life itself.’
‘And I love you too, which was why I had to know.’
‘I can’t believe you thought I was having an affair with Crystal. She’s old enough to be my mother.’
‘I didn’t know that, did I? I thought she was the woman I saw you with in Builth Wells.’
‘You followed me to Builth Wells?’
‘No, Delia took me and Morgan to the Winter Fayre at Penygraig Castle and I saw you go into a cafe with a blonde woman as we were driving past.’ Lottie’s gaze sharpened. ‘Who is she?’
‘Someone I hoped would give me a job. It didn’t pan out.’ He rubbed his hands across his face and she only just heard his muffled, ‘I’ve let you down. I’m a rubbish husband.’
‘Did you lose your job on purpose?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Then you didn’t let me down, and you most definitely aren’t rubbish! These things happen, and it’s unfortunate it’s happened to us, but we’ll get through it as long as we’re honest with each other. We’re a team, and never forget that, you daft man.’ She blew out an exasperated breath, her emotions in a tail spin, the overriding one being relief, funnily enough. Redundancy they could overcome: adultery not so much.
She’d have to take time to process this new development, but before she did, there were more important things to concern herself with. ‘Right, what are you doing about getting another job, and how can I help? It’s probably about time I went back to work, so I’ll start applying for jobs, too.’
‘But I wouldn’t want you to work, and not because I want you chained to the kitchen sink, but because it’ll cost a fortune in childcare and the children still need you to be there for them.’
Aw, Henry was so sweet. She was still mad with him for making her think the worst, and was even more cross that she’d had to go to such lengths to discover the truth, especially since he’d have had to have told her eventually, but she could see his actions were coming from a good place.
‘We’ve got some savings behind us, so we’re not destitute,’ she said, feeling guilty that she’d taken such great delight in telling him she’d visited the cafe. What she’d spent in there could have bought them their food shopping for a day.
‘But what about the extension? I know you’ve set your heart on it—’
He looked so upset, she wanted to cry. ‘Stuff the extension, it isn’t important. If we never get it done, it doesn’t matter! What’s important is that we’re all together, we’re healthy and we love each other.’
Lottie leant across the gap between the seats and pulled her husband into her embrace, feeling ridiculously happy and light-hearted considering Henry was out of work. She’d meant what she said, and she was just about to give him the best kiss of his life when his phone rang.
‘I’d better get that,’ he said. ‘It might be about a job.’
It was, Lottie deduced by the expression on her husband’s face, and when the call ended Henry had a sparkle in his eyes that she hadn’t seen for a while.
‘I am a rubbish husband,’ he declared with a smile. ‘At least, I hope I will be,’ and he proceeded to tell her all about the interview he’d just been invited to, and the man who’d made it happen.
Chapter 35
Henry
This time Henry didn’t need to sneak his best suit out of the wardrobe and into the car, and neither did he have to change in the toilets of a roadside cafe. This time Henry had a kiss from his wife, who wished him luck before he set off.
He and Lottie had had an in-depth discussion regarding the pros and cons of taking the job with the council, and the pair of them had jointly arrived at the decision that he should accept should he be offered it.
The one thing that stuck in his mind was Lottie’s ambivalence about
the extension.
‘I’m not bothered,’ she’d said. ‘These past few weeks has made me appreciate what’s important in life, and having more room in the house so everyone can better avoid each other isn’t one of them. We are a family and we should enjoy spending time in each other’s company. When you get another job, I suggest we blow some of our savings on a decent family holiday – nothing exotic, but somewhere we can all enjoy.’
‘Good idea,’ he’d said, but he still felt a little sad that Lottie wouldn’t have the large family room with the new kitchen that she yearned for. She was right, though – what was the point of scrimping and saving for goodness knows how long, when what they should be doing was living life right now. And by that, he didn’t mean splashing the cash around; what he’d meant was not working all hours God sent in order to buy something unnecessary.
Henry angled the car’s rear-view mirror and checked that his tie was straight (it was) and that he didn’t have a dribble of toothpaste on his chin (he didn’t). He thought he might be overdressed, but having never been to an interview for a household waste operative before, he hadn’t been certain what to wear, so he’d fallen back on his suit, and hoped he didn’t look too smart.
‘Come in. Mr Hargreaves, isn’t it? It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Hazel Dean and I’m the HR officer. This is Gareth Warner and he’s in charge of waste management.’
Henry shook hands with them both and sat down, feeling extremely nervous, but he was pleasantly surprised when neither of the interviewers asked him a great deal about any previous experience in household reclamation sites, because it was clear from his application form that he didn’t have any.
After they’d run through the usual spiel of asking him to tell them about his working life to date, and him attempting to stress that he had many transferable skills and wasn’t averse to hard work, the more challenging questions began.
‘Why do you want this role?’ Ms Dean asked him.