by Hilary Boyd
Driving home, Karen felt happier than she had in months—years, possibly. A crazy sense of freedom fluttered like a butterfly in her stomach, the only downside being that she could never have Largo in that tiny flat, three floors up. Mike hadn’t objected, although he didn’t look too keen when she’d asked, but it was far too small for a large dog used to roaming a spacious house and extensive garden. It was only for a while, she told herself, and Sophie would look after him—she clearly loved the Labrador.
*
“You’re going away for a month or two?” Her stepdaughter, recently returned from a night in London, looked bemused. “I don’t understand.”
“I just want a break . . . to be on my own for a while.”
Sophie frowned. “This isn’t because of the other day, is it? I was just winding you up. I didn’t know for sure there was anything going on with you two.”
“No . . . well, yes, partly. I . . . I just don’t want to hang around bumping into him all the time.”
“That bad?” The girl’s tone was sympathetic. “Oh, dear.”
Karen, who suddenly felt sick of all the lies, nodded.
“Not a good look, a married vicar. But it seems a bit drastic, exiling yourself to the seaside. What will you do there?”
Karen smiled. “The same as I do here, I suppose. Not a lot.”
“Won’t you be lonely?”
“I might be.”
“So it’ll be just me here . . .”
“And the dog. The place is too small for Largo.”
“You don’t know when you’ll be coming back?”
Karen had thought Sophie would jump at the chance to be shot of her, but the girl seemed unnerved at the prospect of being left to herself.
“Will you be OK?”
Her stepdaughter nodded uncertainly. “Sure.”
“You’ll have to look after the place, remember to feed Largo, take him for walks.”
“Yeah, I can do that . . .” She paused. “You’re not going so you can get away from me, are you?”
Karen shook her head, gave her a smile. “Of course not. And for all I know, it’ll be hideous and I’ll be back before the week’s up, tail between my legs,” she added, not really meaning it.
Sophie’s face lightened. “It’s true, you might not like it.”
“But you’ll be OK, won’t you? I’ll be on my mobile, so if you have any problems you can always phone me . . . or even if you don’t have any problems. I’m only an hour away.”
They stood in silence, absorbing the change of circumstances.
“Does William know?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you going to tell him?”
Karen didn’t reply immediately.
“I don’t want him to think I’m going because of him.”
“Even though you are. I’ll tell him, if you want. Just say you’ve gone away for a break when he asks.”
“Thanks . . . that would be good. I’d rather not have the conversation.” A thought occurred to her. “And maybe you could stand in for me on the fête committee? It’s only every two weeks now we’ve got the basics organized, and I’ll definitely be back for the event itself.”
Sophie was looking alarmed, and raised her hands. “Whoa . . . hold on a minute. The fête committee? Totally no way.”
They both laughed.
“Well, it’s in our garden, we can hardly escape.”
“You seem to be making a pretty good job of it.”
Before she and Sophie parted, Karen took the girl’s arm, looking intently into her face. “I just want to get something clear . . . about me and William. We aren’t having an affair. And we both know our feelings for each other are wrong.”
Sophie nodded. “I wasn’t blaming you.”
“No, but I wanted you to know.”
Karen, as she walked away, found her head beginning to whirr with tasks she had to do before she left: people, including Jennifer on the committee, whom she must tell; things she should remind Sophie of; what stuff she would need to take to the new flat. But the most insistent thought was that she would soon be putting a distance between her and William Haskell that meant she might not see him again, at least until the church fête at the end of August, which was weeks away.
So much the better, she told herself sternly.
But her heart did not agree.
Chapter Nine
The weather turned very hot. Karen had been in the seaside flat for nearly two weeks now, and had sunk into an almost soporific calmness, a lull akin to convalescence, where nothing happened all day, but nothing needed to. Karen had no responsibilities now, not even to feed the dog or let him out. There was no one she knew around her, and no stepdaughter to fight with.
Although at first she was restless, pacing around the tiny space, going out, coming in, going out again, not knowing what to do with herself, gradually she had settled into a routine that involved coffee and toast at Mike’s café, a long walk on the beach, a swim when it was fine, rootling amongst the second-hand bookshops along the front, buying food, another walk, an early supper at Mike’s, then reading or watching television—or variations on this theme. She slept like the dead, woke to the sound of seagulls, forgot to charge her mobile, and almost managed to block out the fact that she had another life—which had been forced behind a locked door for the time being.
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Mike said one morning as she sat eating a croissant while he prepared some sandwiches for the day. There was no one else in the café this early—Gina, Mike’s brainless helper, wasn’t expected until nine. “A polite, well-turned-out lady pitches up, says she wants to rent the flat for three months, or thereabouts . . . and hasn’t got any plans.” He grinned at her over the counter. “The flat’s nothing more than a room, but she seems happy in it—although it’s clear she’s used to better. So I ask myself, what the bloody hell’s she doing here?” Before Karen could answer, he rushed on, “And I figure there’s got to be a bloke involved. Some bad boy who’s done a runner and broken her heart. That, or it’s a bank job and she’s on the run, stashed half a mil under the sofa bed.”
They both began to laugh.
“Yeah, I wish,” she said.
“So which is it?”
“Kind of Option One. Although he’s not a bad boy, that’s the trouble.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Not bad enough? How’s that a problem?” He bent his head to his task of buttering baguette chunks and filling them with ham or cheese while Karen thought about how she should reply. But before she had time, he looked up again. “Ah, got it. He’s married. Am I right? Won’t leave the missus.”
She gave him a wry smile. “You got it. I haven’t asked him to but even if I did, he wouldn’t. It’s not like that. And it never will be. We haven’t done anything.”
Mike looked puzzled at this. “So what’s the plan? You hole up here and hope he sees the light and follows you?”
“Nope. I hole up here and hope I forget him.”
“Hmm, not much of a plan, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“I agree, it’s a bit thin.”
Mike’s expression brightened. “But hey, could work . . .” He thought for a moment. “Thing is, people don’t leave their other halves as often as they say they will.” He turned away.
*
“How’s it going?” Karen eventually phoned Sophie; the silence from the village had begun to unnerve her.
“Oh, you know . . .”
“Has Largo been OK?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. He seemed to be searching around for you a lot in those first few days, but I’ve been looking after him, taking him for walks and stuff . . . I enjoy it.”
“Good, that’s great.”
She wanted badly to ask about William, but she was embarrassed to do so. So she listened to her stepdaughter telling her about the tap in the kitchen seizing up and that Peggy Blake—a ninety-four-year-old in the village—had died.
�
�Did you go to the committee meeting?” she asked at last, unable to contain herself.
“I did,” Sophie said proudly. “And bloody boring it was too.” She heard the girl chuckle. “Martha and Jeffrey had a set-to, but Jennifer said afterward that they always do.”
Karen took a deep breath. “Was William there?”
“No, he couldn’t make it . . . an archery contest or something. But I told him last week that you’d gone. I saw him with Rachel when I was out taking Largo for a walk, and we had a chat.”
“OK . . .” Karen waited, hoping Sophie would elaborate.
“He asked after you, and I said you’d gone away for a break and he just nodded.”
“Thanks for doing that.”
She felt deflated. How did I think he would react? she wondered. He hasn’t been in touch, no texts, no emails, so he’s obviously thoroughly relieved that I’m out of his hair. Not that he’d ask too much about me in front of Rachel, she conceded. And I haven’t texted him either.
“How’s the sea, then? Is it working out?” Sophie was asking.
“It’s great . . . I’ve kind of switched off from everything.”
“Even the reverend?”
Not used to confiding in her stepdaughter, Karen hesitated. “Umm, sort of,” she replied non-committally.
“Been there, done that,” Sophie said. “Tricky thing to pull off, the forgetting thing.”
There was real feeling behind her words, and although Karen knew little about Sophie’s love life—she always clammed up if ever Harry asked—she suspected it had not been a smooth ride for the girl, who always seemed to cut quite a lonely figure.
“There isn’t really anything to forget.”
“Still,” said Sophie, ignoring Karen’s denial.
“Listen, if you fancy a break by the sea,” Karen found herself saying, “drive down and visit. I don’t do much, and there’s a nice café and a gorgeous beach.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Sophie sounded surprised by the invitation. “I might do that one day.”
After they’d said goodbye, Karen sat with a cup of tea on the balcony of her flat. It was after nine in the evening, the sun going down to the west, lighting up the water with a shimmering path of gold. She loved sitting here in the cool sea breeze, the uninterrupted view of the ocean spread out before her, alone and at peace.
But despite what she’d intimated to Sophie, she hadn’t switched off from William. It felt so much like unfinished business between them, something tantalizing but not yet real. There had to be more, didn’t there? She would go home eventually, she couldn’t hide out by the sea forever, and then . . . then maybe things might have changed in some way. But always, at this stage in her fantasy projection, her rational mind would interrupt. No, it told her, there was absolutely no reason whatever to expect anything to have changed. The only change that could occur would be for her, Karen, to get over her insane crush on Reverend Haskell. Everything else, the voice assured her, would remain as it was.
She had also been thinking a lot about Harry, comparing how she felt about her husband with the feelings she had for Will. It was unfair to set a new infatuation against an eighteen-year relationship, she knew that, but examining her marriage, even in this lopsided fashion, threw up truths that Karen had barely thought about before now.
Harry had always been her boss, she his PA, both in her own mind and in his. She had looked up to him, hero-worshipped him for his worldliness and charisma, his power as head of the company. And he, she felt, had never quite made the adjustment that morphed her from PA to wife. She was always his inferior, not least because she was so much younger than him, and a woman—Harry was a male chauvinist if not actually a misogynist. But while they were still working together they had his beloved company in common. Which they talked about night and day, year in, year out, whether at work or at home. It was their bond, their obsession, their baby . . . because Harry had refused to have an actual one, said he was too old. She took his point, but she had not been too old back then, only thirty-nine. And at the time she wasn’t sure she cared that much about having a child, as she was swept up in Harry and the company. But later, when other resentments surfaced, she realized she had not been given a choice. Harry had railroaded her into agreeing with him, into not caring.
They shared almost no other interests, however. She couldn’t talk to him as she talked to William, he would have laughed at her for expressing her feelings, not out of meanness but because he just couldn’t comprehend what she was talking about. He wasn’t interested in the wider community, although he liked to think he was, and he never listened to music—he’d banned the country music that Karen loved—or read a book. Harry was a single-focus individual who never wanted anything more from life than to sit at his desk in his engineering company and work. And when that wasn’t available to him, of course, he fell apart and so did their marriage, no longer glued tightly together by Stewart Engineering.
Thinking about it now, Karen didn’t feel cheated, or even sad that her marriage hadn’t amounted to more. It had been enough for them both for a long time—often a lot of fun—and she was grateful for that. The thought of Harry’s face now, with that tender, amused smile he kept particularly for her, brought tears to her eyes. But she knew she didn’t miss her husband nearly so much as she missed Will Haskell.
*
“Gina, can you please get a move on and clear those outside tables?” Mike called out to his waitress in the lull following the lunchtime rush.
Gina, aged nineteen, didn’t even acknowledge her boss’s request, just moved toward the deck with her slow, provocative gait. She knew she was eye-catchingly beautiful with her heart-shaped face and luminous blue eyes, her dark-blonde hair, lightened in fetching streaks by the sun, floating loose down her back, the tiny shorts and vest top exposing as much as possible of her smooth, tanned limbs and perfect young body. Every man—any age—who came into the café or passed along the beach would do a double take, instantly bewitched. And maybe, thought Karen, as she watched Gina lazily collect the dirty plates from a table, she felt she didn’t need to make any more effort, that her beauty alone was enough of a contribution to the world.
As she reached the counter, Gina said, “I won’t be able to come in Saturday. My gran’s not well and Mum needs me to watch the kids.”
Clearly Mike didn’t believe her.
“Christ, Gina, not again! You know Saturday’s our busiest day. How the hell do you think I’m going to manage on my own?”
Gina shrugged. “Sorry, can’t be helped. I could give Sonia a bell, find out if she’s free.”
“Yeah, do that, please.” He sighed with exasperation, hands on his hips, waiting while the waitress dug her phone out of the back pocket of her shorts and tapped the screen. But Sonia, it appeared, had plans for Saturday.
As soon as Gina had gone on her break and was safely out of earshot, Mike exploded.
“I’m going to kill her. I’m definitely going to kill her,” he said, to no one in particular, his back turned as he twisted the small stainless-steel container full of ground coffee into place on the espresso machine against the back wall. The café was empty inside, apart from Karen, although all six tables on the sunny deck were occupied. “My mum would’ve called her a floozy, but that’s not it. What really gets me is she’s got no bloody conscience. She never, ever thinks of anyone but herself.”
“She might have been telling the truth,” Karen ventured. “About looking after the kids.”
“Ha! She might have, but it’s odd how her mum only ever needs her on a Saturday, when that lout of a boyfriend comes free from the tire shop.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “Sure, this time she could just be telling the truth, but week after week it’s the same old, same old. Sick gran, sick kids, sick dog, sick whatever—you wouldn’t believe what a diseased bunch they are in that family. You can see why I don’t trust the girl.”
“So what’ll you do?”
He shrugged, giving her
a hopeless grin. “Sink under a tide of angry punters, I suppose. Or hope it pours with sodding rain.”
“It’s not going to rain, I checked.”
“Right, well, it’s the angry punters, then.”
Karen was silent for a moment. “I could help out if you don’t find someone.”
Mike looked across the room at her, surprised. “Nah . . . thanks, but it’s hell in here Saturdays at this time of year. ’Preciate the offer, though.”
“You’ve somehow got this idea I’m a spoiled rich girl, but I’ve worked all my life till recently. I won’t faint at the sight of a dirty plate, you know.”
He laughed, looked embarrassed. “No, I’m sure not. But there’s no need, I’ll sort something out.”
“OK, but the offer stands if you don’t.”
Karen, as she walked off along the beach, was a bit disappointed that he didn’t want her help.
*
Johnny laughed. “So you’re running away from Sulky Sophie.”
“Actually, we’re getting on pretty well these days. She’s not so bad, just a bit lost.”
“So why are you living in a box by the sea?”
“I’ve explained, I needed to get away.”
But her brother knew her better than that. “From what, Kar? Tell me.”
She sighed. “Oh, just someone. I don’t want to go into details.”
“Mmm, I see. A man. OK . . . that was quick. But I don’t blame you, you deserve some fun.”
“I’m not having fun. Not in the way you think.”
“Right. Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I can’t help.”
“I don’t want you to help. No one can help.”
Karen could almost see her brother rolling his eyes.