by Clare Lydon
Scarlet shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “Your house is okay, though?”
Eamonn caught his breath, nodding. “Yeah, but the shop’s not.” Eamonn’s fiancée, Steph, ran a cake shop in the town centre called Great Bakes.
“Over a foot of water, up to my knee,” Eamonn said, reaching down to demonstrate the water level. “They didn’t even tell us in time either, so we weren’t able to save anything much, including our wedding cake which Steph had just finished icing.” He ran a hand through his shiny black hair, his cheeks rosy from exertion. Eamonn hadn’t shaved that morning and he had a ten o’clock shadow on his face.
“Shit,” Scarlet said, before pausing. “My flat went the same way as your cake — completely gone. Underwater, never to be seen again.”
Eamonn put a hand to his mouth, then he engulfed Scarlet in a hug, his arms gripping her body tightly. “I forgot you were in a basement. You could have drowned. Did they give you much notice?” He held her at arm’s length now, as if checking she was still there, his breath warm on her face.
“Yeah, they knocked on my door at 4am and gave me half an hour to leave.”
Eamonn shook his head in dismay. “So where are you staying? Do you need a place? Because we’ve got the spare room.” He was still holding her, almost scared of letting her go.
Scarlet was touched, but she shook her head. “I’m good. I’m staying at the mayor’s house, no less. She put a few of us up last night, said I can stay till I get sorted. She seems nice, so…” Scarlet tailed off.
Now she was saying it out loud, it sounded odd to her. Why was she turning down the offer of one of the few friends she had in town to stay in a total stranger’s house? Probably because the thought of playing gooseberry with Eamonn and Steph didn’t appeal. She had a lot of time for Eamonn, but she’d never considered living with him — that might be taking the friendship too far. Plus, she didn’t really want to cramp their style, especially the week before their wedding.
“Mayor’s house?” Eamonn stood back and regarded her. “Isn’t she the snooty one who’s trying to push forward the plans to build on the football stadium? You’re living with her?” His face told Scarlet he didn’t approve.
Scarlet’s cheeks coloured as she answered. “It’s a temporary thing, while I wait to see how the flat is. Not good, I’d say, looking down that hill.” She glanced sideways towards the town, but then averted her eyes. It was best to pretend the devastation wasn’t there.
Eamonn whistled to underline the devastation. “Can you actually believe it?” he said, shaking his head.
“Not really.”
“I mean, fucking hell, it looks like a disaster movie set. Only, it’s our town. My initial plan was to get drunk, but I had two obstacles to that. First, Steph wants to get plans in order — she’s a Virgo, she can’t help it. Second, the local pub was flooded, so that put paid to that. All the electrics and gas are out in the centre of town, too; the pipes got flooded. No lights, no cashpoints, no services. Nothing.”
Scarlet’s mouth dropped open at his explanation. “It’s just… surreal.”
“And now you’re living with the mayor. Now that’s surreal.”
Scarlet shrugged. She didn’t want Eamonn laying into Joy. She’d felt calm and content at Joy’s place. She hadn’t felt like she had to stand on ceremony, or be on her best behaviour. With Joy, it’d been easy, and she’d been herself. She’d cried, for goodness sake. And despite everything, she’d relaxed. Honest-to-goodness relaxed, even with everything that was going on. That said a lot. So Scarlet wasn’t going to stand by and let him slate her.
“We don’t know if she was involved in that development plan. It was only hearsay, and she says she’s still working on it, she’s on our side. She seems genuine and she was very welcoming last night.” She paused, giving Eamonn a shrug. “Look at it this way: I might be able to sway her, bring her on-board.”
Eamonn raised an eyebrow in Scarlet’s direction. “You seem positively glowing about the mayor today — quite a turnaround,” he said, nudging her with his elbow as they fell into step together, walking along the road.
Scarlet rolled her eyes. Eamonn’s world was very black and white when it came to attraction, and she wasn’t going to tell him he wasn’t far off the mark. She hadn’t fully processed the thought she might be attracted to Joy herself yet, her mind too caught up with her world falling apart to pay attention to much else.
“Somebody giving you a bed when you’ve got nowhere to live can do that.” Scarlet thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. She wished she’d remembered her gloves, but she had a feeling they might be underwater, too.
“She left her husband, didn’t she? My mate, Dean, used to work with her — rumour is she left him because she bats for your side.”
Scarlet’s stomach lurched when she heard that, but she kept a lid on her emotions, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Could Joy be a lesbian? It was possible, she supposed.
Eamonn shrugged. “The offer stands if you want somewhere else, anyway. I’ve met her once and she seemed a bit superior, a bit looking down her nose at everyone else. So if you need it, our door’s open.”
Scarlet’s hackles rose, but she didn’t respond. Defending Joy any more would just raise his suspicions even further. And when there was nothing going on, there was no need to do that. So she glossed over it.
“Anyway, I was just going to the club to see if I can help. Were you heading that way?”
Eamonn nodded. “I was. I need to see what the damage is — for next week and all.” He winced as he said it.
“Shit,” Scarlet said, stopping in her tracks. “I forgot about the reception. How you feeling? I was down there earlier and it doesn’t look good.”
“I know, they called me.” Eamonn shrugged, but pain was etched on his face. “What can you do? Steph doesn’t know which to be more upset about: the shop or the wedding. For now, the shop’s taking up most of her time, and I need to get back to help with that. But I said I’d assess the ground first, to see if there’s any hope. But Billy told me earlier he didn’t think there was.”
Eamonn and Steph had been planning their wedding for the best part of a year, and Eamonn had been so proud when his bride-to-be had agreed to have the reception at the football ground. Scarlet knew he’d been looking forward to having his wedding photos on the pitch, but she didn’t bring it up.
Eamonn pulled his shoulders up as the wind whipped round his ears. He shivered, just as the clouds got a little bit angrier above. “It never rains but it pours. Never has a metaphor been so true,” he said. The sky above them was heavy, clad in iron grey. “We’ve got a drowned business and a soggy wedding. At least the town hall was up high, along with the catering business. But where we’re going to put all our guests to eat the food is anyone’s guess.”
They fell back into step, hurrying along the road, Scarlet keen to get to the ground before the heavens opened once more.
She put a hand on Eamonn’s back and rubbed it up and down. “We’ll figure something. Maybe Joy can help, in her role as mayor. I can ask her if you like?”
Eamonn squinted at Scarlet, considering her offer. Then he nodded. “It can’t hurt, can it? Right now, we’re having a street party, and I don’t fancy our chances when half the streets are actually rivers.”
Scarlet gave him a grim smile as they walked. “And the shop — is it bad?”
“Awful. All the equipment is buggered, all the appliances. And it’s just covered in… sludge. And wet — just everything is wet. When we saw it, we both just wanted to cry. At least we’re insured — there is that. Some of the businesses weren’t.”
Scarlet stopped walking again. She was doing that a lot these days. “I wasn’t,” she said quietly, the hopelessness engulfing her so that she thought her legs might cave from under her.
Now Eamonn stopped walking, too, as the rain started to fall. “Fucking hell, Scarlet,” he said, pulling her to him before she fell of her
own accord.
CHAPTER FIVE
It’d been a brutal day, with terrible stories of lives and businesses sunk overnight. Plus, what with having hardly any sleep, Joy had drawn on every ounce of mental toughness she had to smile her way through and reassure people the council was doing everything it could. Not even the endless stream of sandwiches and cupcakes coming through the door of the community hall could mend the damage done. The situation was very real and damaging for everyone concerned, even though they were still smiling through, showing the British spirit.
Joy had finally got away around 9pm, and was now in her kitchen, making her go-to comfort meal of beans on toast with a poached egg. Even if everything else in her world was falling apart, this meal had all the ingredients she needed to soothe her soul. She was just winding the wheel of the tin opener when there was a knock at the door. She set the tin on the counter and scooted into the hallway.
When she opened the door, Scarlet was standing on the doorstep, dripping wet. Her jacket had a hood, but the rain had managed to worm its way under it and onto her face, rivulets slaloming down her cheeks. The rains had indeed returned tonight, adding insult to injury — just as the forecasters had said it would.
“You look like a drowned rat,” Joy said, standing aside as Scarlet walked in.
“I feel like one, too.” Scarlet bent down and took off her boots, followed by her coat, stowing them in the correct places. She needed no telling where to put them tonight — she remembered it all from the previous day.
“How are you? You’ve been out for ages.” Joy’s arms were folded, but she immediately felt calmer, somehow better now Scarlet was home. She hadn’t quite realised it, but she’d been waiting for her guest, her house not feeling complete without Scarlet in it. But she wasn’t going to tell Scarlet that. She’d known her less than 24 hours, now was not the time to come across all Single White Female.
Scarlet breathed on her hands and rubbed them together in an effort to get warm. Then she stood by the radiator in the hallway, her hands glued to it. Her cheeks were pink from cold, her shoulder-length dark hair flat to her head. But even dishevelled, Scarlet still managed to look quietly beautiful.
That thought sent a burning sensation to Joy’s cheeks.
“I’ve been at the football ground all day, helping to clear up the mess — it subsided from the pitch quickly but the whole place is shot. They won’t be playing any football on there for a while.” Scarlet shivered again. “Still, it’s given me a taste of what my flat might be like — not pretty is the answer.” Scarlet paused, shaking her head.
“Then we helped out with the houses around the ground, clearing stuff out. One guy, Dan, he has terminal cancer and is very weak, so he was particularly thankful for our help.” She paused again. “It’s kinda humbling seeing that; I might have lost everything, but at least I have my health, and that’s far more important in the bigger picture.” Scarlet shrugged. “I’m not the only one who’s fucked, you know? The club are, thousands of other people are, my mate’s wedding’s buggered — it’s a huge issue.” She paused. “And you were right about the community spirit — it was so thick today, you could almost hug it. I guess this is what it was like in the war, right?”
“According to my gran, yes.” Joy paused, glad her guest was feeling a little more positive than the last time she’d seen her. “I was just making beans on toast with poached egg — fancy some?” Joy didn’t wait for an answer, moving into the kitchen.
“That sounds divine,” Scarlet replied.
***
Scarlet sat at the breakfast bar while Joy busied herself with pans and toast. She should offer to help, but she’d probably just get in the way being that she didn’t know the kitchen. She always preferred to do things herself when she had guests over, not that it’d happened for a while. Joy had a look of intense concentration on her face as she cracked the eggs into a pan of boiling, circling water.
Scarlet leaned forward as the eggs dropped in, not splitting. “I’m impressed,” she said. “Being able to do that with poached eggs is a skill. I’ve never mastered it, mine always go everywhere.”
Joy blushed at the compliment, which was endearing.
“My mum taught me,” Joy said. “She was a chef, so poached eggs, omelettes, all of that, we learned them at a young age. Not that I get to use my skills much these days. Poached eggs is about as advanced as it gets.” Joy batted her fringe out of her eye as was her habit.
“Comfort food is what this whole town needs tonight.” Scarlet looked around the kitchen. “Talking of which, where’s everyone else?”
The toaster popped and Joy got the bread out, flinging it onto the plates and blowing on her fingers.
“They left — they sorted out places elsewhere with friends and family.” She paused, looking up at Scarlet. “I thought about offering the other room to someone else, but my guilt is assuaged having you here — I’ve taken in my refugee, so no fingers can be pointed.”
The smell of hot, buttered toast made Scarlet realise how hungry she was; she’d hardly eaten all day. “If anyone asks, I’ll say you had a family of five as well as me, okay?”
“Make it a family of seven for good measure,” Joy replied, laughing. She loaded up the toast with beans and the freshly poached eggs, put them on the breakfast bar, and sat on the stool next to Scarlet.
Their knees touched as Joy jostled for position, but Scarlet said nothing, despite it causing a frisson up her body. She wasn’t sure what had happened since yesterday, but there was something underlying tonight.
But she wasn’t going to dwell on it — dwelling wasn’t Scarlet’s style. She was going to eat her dinner and chat politely to the mayor. Only, she didn’t look at Joy as the mayor anymore. Now, Joy was her friend, as well as being her temporary saviour. And a friend was exactly what Scarlet needed after everything that had happened.
“So the stadium was terrible?” Joy asked, in between mouthfuls. Joy did not speak with her mouth full, which Scarlet appreciated. It wasn’t an appealing habit, and it was something Liv had done all the time.
“Awful,” Scarlet said, resting her cutlery as she swallowed. “They only just put the new gym in, and all the equipment is ruined. Plus, the stands are going to need replacing, the turf, the flags, the goals — everything. And when the water subsided it was just… grim. Mucky. Same goes for all the houses around it, too. And the smell…” Scarlet winced, then picked up her knife and fork. “Anyway, let’s not talk about it while we’re eating.” She paused. “Let’s talk about something more cheery. How was your day?”
Joy sighed. “I’m not sure you’ve come to the right place for cheery,” she said. “You want the real version or the fake one?”
“Which one’s lighter?”
“The fake one, of course.”
“I’ll go with the fake one, then,” Scarlet replied with a definite nod.
A mischievous grin worked its way onto Joy’s face, then she raised both eyebrows at Scarlet before answering. “How was my day?” she asked, using a tone way higher than normal. “Well, dear,” Joy continued. “I dropped the kids off at nursery, the dog got his shots, and I’ve chosen our new wardrobes — I’ve gone for shiny burgundy, I hope that’s okay.” The smile that creased Joy’s face lit up the room.
“Burgundy is my absolute favourite,” Scarlet said, her mouth dropping open in wonder. “And did you remember to pick the kids up again?”
Joy’s eyes shot open in mock alarm. “OMG! I knew there was something I was meant to do…”
And then Scarlet was laughing too, just like Joy. So hard that a baked bean spilled out of her mouth and landed on her top.
Which only made the pair laugh harder, as Scarlet popped the bean back in her mouth, licking her finger of bean juice as she did. Their laughter was infectious and just got louder — it’d been a long day, and they both needed this.
Tears were now rolling down Joy’s face, and she wiped them up with the back of her hand, almo
st hysterical. And then she began to hiccup, softly at first, then more often, and louder.
“Shit,” Joy said, then hiccupped again. She hopped off her stool, hiccupped, then ran to the sink. She filled a glass with water, hiccupping the whole time, and began to gulp at a rapid pace.
Scarlet blew her nose and carried on eating, glancing at Joy who was now gulping water from an upside down angle. It didn’t surprise Scarlet. She’d seen many tricks to get rid of hiccups in her lifetime, and this was tried and tested. Eventually, it worked and Joy retook her seat, eating her now-cold plate of food, with Scarlet mopping up the last of hers.
Joy swallowed a mouthful down, then held her fork in the air and waited. When no hiccup came, she raised her fork in triumph. “I win!” she said. “I hate hiccups.”
Scarlet grinned. “You looked very cute while you had them, if that’s any consolation.” And then she wished she could just shut up: that comment had just flown out of her mouth with no recourse.
Joy eyed her, clearly trying to work her out. But thankfully, she decided to let it slide.
Scarlet crashed on, ignoring the noise of her heart in her ears. Thump, thump, thump. “I heard about one kid in America who had hiccups for, like, four years. I mean, that’s brutal. Imagine — I get agitated after four minutes.”
“I don’t think I’d last four hours,” Joy said, smiling. Then she carried on eating, and a comfortable silence settled on the kitchen like a warm blanket.
“So, you said you were married. When did you get divorced?”
Scarlet eyed Joy. This was her moment to come out, she supposed. It wasn’t a big deal, Scarlet was out to everyone in her life. It wasn’t an issue; it was just a part of who she was. Yet saying it to Joy felt like it was a big issue. Like something would shift, and perhaps not for the worse. And that was something that made Scarlet’s heart race just that little bit faster still.