I was still wrestling with reasons to send Nick Brown text messages and their relative legitimacy and appropriateness in the scheme of things when the matter became academic anyway. It was about an hour after I got home from work by now and Jonathan was in the bath – he was headed off to some Tennis Club party, to which I had been invited but couldn’t face. Jonathan’s tennis club was full of old people and spotty teenagers who said yar instead of yes. More importantly, full of people that had known him since he was a teenager. Trisha had been a member. Their names were on the mixed doubles champions board. 1975. I couldn’t play tennis. I had tried, early on – God, I had been so anxious to please Jonathan – I had gone down there with him on a Sunday morning for a time when we were first married. I would fly around the court so enthusiastically, groping hopefully at the balls he lobbed so stylishly at me, hurling myself against the chicken wire and scraping great chunks of skin from my arms. But he always got so irritated with my ineptitude that after a while he stopped taking me.
I hadn’t expected my mobile to ring so it was a while before the strange trill that was emanating from my handbag made any sense. There was no name on the display, of course, ( Nick Brown had not made my mobile’s address book) and as I had been expecting a call from Kate, for a lift, my first – my only thought was that it must be her now, from a phone box.
‘CLEAR OFF! I’M BUSY!’ I bellowed, as per our usual greeting.
‘Sally? It’s Nick Brown,’ he said, without preamble.
‘Oh!’ I said, as my stomach did a back flip. ‘Sorry about that! We always –’
‘No problem,’ he rattled straight on. ‘I’m sorry to bother you at home, but we need to meet up.’ He sounded like he was making one of those calls that are recorded or monitored for quality assurance and/or training purposes. He seemed to have entirely lost the knack of doing mumbling half sentences all of a sudden.
‘We do?’ I asked, now realising two salient points. Married. At Home. Of course. And then another salient point. My snappy dismissal of him not an hour earlier. Was this what he was calling about? ‘Look, I said. ‘About Ruth. I’m sorry I –’
‘Not a problem, Sally,’ he said smoothly. ‘OK? No, I’m ringing because we need to fix up our appraisal meeting, don’t we? We never got around to scheduling it.’ Oh, I thought. My turn. Ri-ight. I could feel my cheeks growing warm. ‘I mentioned it this morning?’ he went on. ‘But we both got kinda sidetracked, didn’t we? And I’m off to Brighton in the morning so I thought I’d get on to it now – you don’t mind do you? Me calling you up at home?’
‘Er..no,’ I said, fanning my face with a take away menu.
‘Because I thought we could maybe get together Tuesday morning. I have a big Human Resources meeting at midday. And I really need to meet with you before then. So I thought breakfast. At the Meridien, perhaps.’
‘Breakfast? That sounds thoroughly uncivilised. I look like road kill first thing.’
He laughed. I could hardly believe I was having this conversation in my own kitchen at eight on a Friday evening with Jonathan in the bath. Having said that, it was entirely legitimate…
‘Well that’s the two of us, then,’ he said. ‘Wear dark glasses if you like. It’s that kind of place anyway. Say eight? In the foyer? We can easily head on to Amberley straight after. Does that work for you?’
I was still on the dark glasses bit. Should I also wear a scarf, like Grace Kelly?
‘I’m not sure the concept of the breakfast meeting will ever truly work for me,’ I said, feeling very jaunty all of a sudden. ‘But needs must, I suppose. Eight, then?’
‘Eight it is. In the foyer. I’m looking forward to it, Sally.’
OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGOD. So was I.
Chapter 13
‘Thou shalt not. OK? Got that, Merlin? Thou shalt not harbour lustful and unsuitable thoughts. Thou shalt not spend so much as a moment more in fantasising. Thou shalt not even think about committing adultery.’ Saturday morning. The South Downs all a-chalky and gleaming and dressed in their endless shorn apple-green gowns. There was a pair of walkers high above me on the hill as I drove into Eastbourne and I thought straight back to Wales, which made me have to say it again. ‘Thou shalt not – OK, Merlin? Thou shall not even go there.’ Oh, but Tuesday morning. Eight am. Breakfast. The Meridien. I was finding it difficult to think of anything else.
Once Jonathan had gone out on the Friday evening, I had dithered for some time about whether to call Ruth. I needed to see if she was OK. Get things straight. But my need to tell someone what was happening to me was becoming so acute that I was terrified of speaking to anyone just then, least of all someone with Ruth’s penetrative powers. But as I might have predicted, she phoned me anyway.
‘Look,’ she had said, when I asked her exactly what she’d meant by redundant, and was she absolutely sure that was the case. ‘The bottom line is that
I have absolutely no intention of going to West Worthing, OK? Or Crawley, for that matter’
‘Crawley? Where did Crawley come from?’
‘They have a job there too, as it happens. In the pharmacy.’
‘Well Crawley’s not so bad! It’s only round the corner. You could – ‘
‘And is now run, you big twat, by Adam Winklehopper. You’d have to yoke me to the back of a dustcart before you’d get me there.’
‘Ah,’ I had forgotten that. Adam Winklehopper of the terrible rages and the halitosis. She had a point.
‘So there’s those two jobs for starters. Which means there must be others. Which is hardly the same as being made redundant, is it?’
‘Yes it is. I had a job. Soon I will not have a job. I call that being made redundant. What do you call it?’
‘Look, well, yes. OK. But it’s also an opportunity. Which is not the same thing. Sounds to me as if it’s a simple case of relocation.
‘Oh, or the Amberley job, of course. ’
‘What? There’s another job for you here?’
‘Yes here. But I really don’t want it.’
‘What sort of job?’
‘I can train to be a dispensing optician, apparently.’
‘But that’s brilliant, Ruth! How could you not want that?’
‘Because I don’t, Sal. I don’t want to start studying and training and having to learn stuff again! I want to write! I don’t want a career. I just want my job, don’t you see? I want to go to work and come home again, and write.’
I started to protest. ‘Oh, stop flapping, Sal,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s not the end of the world, OK? And, listen. I got home tonight to find I’d sold a story to Coffee Time magazine.’
Which had obviously improved her mood no end. I was glad for her. ‘Isn’t that the one that does the reader’s husbands’ bottoms?’
‘Yep. And lucrative bottoms they are too. Three hundred quid. That’s my eighth sale this year, you know. If I could just up my output a little I could earn enough to eat twice a week. Which reminds me. I’m glad you called. I want to ask a favour. My Gunk To Go party.’
‘Your what?’
‘Oh, you know. I gave you the invite weeks ago. I was supposed to be having it on Monday night. God only knows what possessed me but there you go. Veronique’s just been round. ’
‘Veronique?’
‘You know. Works on the Lancôme counter. Orange face.’
‘Oh, yes. I know.’
‘Well of course I had completely forgotten about it, and I’m picking my dad up on Sunday – he had a colostomy on Wednesday, so he’ll be coming out Monday, and he’s going to stay with me for the week.’
I felt awful, suddenly. I’d never even known he was going in in the first place. ‘You never said, Ruth. Why didn’t you tell me? Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Oh, it’s no big deal, Sal. He’s pretty chipper. But what with his colostomy bag and everything – well, there’s no way I can have it here, is there? So I thought, could yo
u?’
‘Me?’
‘It’s no bother. Just nibbles, wine, all the usual stuff, which I’ll bring, of course. I’ve invited about half a dozen from work, plus Demelza – you know – from my writer’s group. You could invite a couple of neighbours too, couldn’t you? I don’t want to let Veronique down because she’s got her Botox injections to pay for and I know she really needs the money. You get a gift voucher if you’re hostess. Ten quid, I think. Will you? Please?’
My evening’s engagement with the more neglected reaches of my body and a few aromatherapy candles faded and vanished before my eyes. But that was possibly not a bad thing in any case. I could certainly do it. No Jonathan, and Kate was sleeping over at Amanda’s. Should do it. It would help Ruth out and it would save me from myself. And I could buy some…well… gunk, I supposed. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘What time. Eight?’
‘Seven thirty. But I’ll confirm things Monday, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine. Why?’
‘Because you sound decidedly odd.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. Are you ill?’
And now it’s Saturday morning and the sun is shining and Eastbourne is positively creaking under the weight of so many people who can’t believe their luck that it’s hot and it’s sunny and it’s Saturday.
And I am standing in the dim reaches of the Arndale Shopping Centre with a somewhat bemused Merlin sprawled on the ground beside me and a save-the-refuge petition in my hand.
‘I did ask the lady in the café if we could borrow one of her tables,’ said Polly, apologetically, ‘but she was having none of it. Nothing like feeling welcome is there?’
I looked at Polly, with her vague air of menace and her tattooed biceps and her uncompromising footwear (I had never seen her in anything other than what looked like army surplus hobnail boots), and I wondered if being made to feel welcome was something she enjoyed a great deal of the time. I thought not. I wondered what sort of personal circumstance had led her to the unselfish life she lived now. I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to bash her up. But then what did I know? Perhaps she’d become the person she was now precisely because she had been. I felt slightly humbled by her.
‘I’m fine standing,’ I assured her. ‘Been sitting in the car for an hour, so I’m happy to stretch my legs. I should have thought about bringing a water bowl for Merlin though. He’s going to be parched pretty soon.’
‘Not a problem,’ she said, beckoning one of the other women over. As the girls in the refuge had to keep low profile, my mother had roped in a posse of neighbours. ‘I’ll ask Hetty to nip along to Shoe Heaven for you. I’m sure Kayleigh’ll be able to dig something out for you.’
‘Thanks ever so much –’
‘No, no. Thank you. This sort of support is more valuable than you know.’ She slapped me on the back and almost sent me reeling. ‘Can’t tell you how much it’s appreciated, you know.’
Two hours and some three hundred signatures later, I decided Merlin would appreciate being taken out for a walk. To a lamppost.
‘We’ll pop home,’ suggested Mum, flushed with excitement about her now bulging clipboard. ‘Have a sandwich or something. I’ve got some liver sausage in.’
Once home, I went off to splash some cold water on my face, and when I returned to the living room, it was to find Merlin was rolling around the floor, with something brightly coloured clamped in his mouth. I pulled it from him. It was a threadbare Tellytubby.
‘What’s this?’ I asked my mum, following her into the kitchen. She glanced up.
‘Oh, that’ll be Megan’s, I expect. Thanks for rescuing it for me. They stayed here last night, and you know what it’s like with little ones. So much paraphernalia!’
‘Stayed here?’ I asked, dabbing Merlin’s dribble from it. ‘What, the children?’
She nodded. ‘Tracey, too.’
‘Why?’
She was busy buttering bread. ‘Oh, something and nothing, most probably, but one of the other mums had seen a blue Cavalier parked over the road for a while yesterday morning, and then again driving by at teatime. Tracey’s husband – no, partner – or would it be common law husband? Him, anyway – he drives a blue Cavalier. She was a bit anxious about it, so I suggested they come here overnight. It had ladders on, you see.’
I rinsed my hands then pulled the milk from the fridge and splashed an inch into two mugs. ‘Ladders?’
‘He’s a decorator.’
‘Oh.’
‘And he works locally.’ She put down her knife. ‘And I felt a bit bad, to be honest. It didn’t really occur to me at the time, but we really shouldn’t have let little Megan pose for the photo, should we? Only Tracey was off talking with the reporter at the time, and, well, we never really thought. I should have stopped them putting it in.’
‘Oh, dear. That sounds like a bit of a worry. Have you told the police?’
She nodded. ‘They’ve already got one of those – what is it? Restraining orders, that’s it – on him, but they said it was good that we kept them informed. We’re all keeping an eye out for them. I’m sure everything will be fine.’
She smiled, but I wasn’t convinced.
Chapter 14
Ruth’s friend Demelza was six feet tall, wore red stiletto boots and a dress made up of remnants, and arrived clutching a personal fan and a quarter bottle of gin.
‘Ciao,’ she said, proffering it. ‘Ruth’s doing the driving. Have you any tonic water, pray?’
We were a disparate bunch. Briony had arrived with her mother in tow, bless her, but given the short notice I’d not managed to corral many others; just the girl down the road who I sometimes walked the dog with and a few press-ganged stalwarts from work. Veronique, who had come straight from work herself, had already laid out all her Gunk on the dining room table. Oils, salt scrubs, night creams, day creams, creams you could slap on any old time, creams you should only use sparingly (if ever), shower gels, eye gels, lip balms and foot balms, micro-fine powders for the concealment of blotches, micro-pore patches for the removal of spots. Demelza swept past these as if a general surveying some tatty recruits, before plopping herself down next to Briony, who quivered slightly, like a stalk in a gale.
‘Why Gunk To Go?’ Demelza demanded now, sweeping her hair back and lunging at the nuts. She put me a little in mind of Morticia Adams. Kate would have thought her to die for.
‘Well,’ offered Veronique. ‘It’s, like, what we call our take away range.’
‘Point taken,’ Demelza shot back, volleying a peanut into her gaping gash of a mouth. ‘Point taken. But don’t the expressions ‘to go’ and indeed ‘take away’ signify that the purchaser comes to you – i.e. as in into your shop and indeed take away the goods? Isn’t it a bit of a contradiction in terms to call the home delivery service ‘to go’? Shouldn’t it be ‘to you’ perhaps? She shot up a querying eyebrow.
‘Yes, Like Sainsburys,’ offered Briony helpfully. ‘Sainsburys to you dot com. Ha ha ha ha ha.’
‘Quite!’ applauded Demelza. ‘Like Sainsburys to you dot com. Good point. Valid point.’ She nodded her head a few times and bestowed a slap of approval on Briony’s back.
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with “to go”,’ I said. ‘You come here, you buy it, you go home with it. Where’s the problem?’
‘No problem per se,’ she went on. ‘Except that am I right in thinking that Gunk is the name of the shop you hail from, Veronica?’
Veronique looked confused. ‘Er..Yes.’
‘Therefore shouldn’t your home delivery service be called something other than Gunk to go? Given that the gunk you sell in your shop could reasonably be construed as being gunk that goes, then gunk of the variety you have on display tonight is surely, more correctly, gunk that comes? Hmm? It’s of no consequence, of course. Just playing with words. Just kicking the idea about. Hmm?’
‘Oh, I see,�
�� said Briony. ‘Like – ‘
Demelza’s arm shot out suddenly, veiling Briony (and her contribution) behind the swathe of purple material that was inexplicably trailing from the sleeve of her dress. ‘And what is this evil looking contraption?’
Veronique, who had begun to perspire, now looked much relieved.
‘Ah, now,’ she said, lifting herself to commence her big spiel. ‘That “evil contraption” as you call it, is the Gunk Wonder Mask. It’s revolutionary. It’s –’
‘A PVC eye mask, by the looks of it,’ observed Ruth, squidging one in her hand. ‘Filled with glittery water. What is it supposed to do, exactly?’
Veronique cleared her throat. ‘As I said, it’s revolutionary. If you look on the inside you’ll see it’s not PVC but a revolutionary new microporous capillary action material and filled with a revolutionary new formula of all-natural beneficial ingredients, and it works by actually… er… osmosing these beneficial nutrients into the delicate eye area as you sleep. ‘
She paused here, either to take in a quantity of oxygen or to brace herself for dissent.
‘Ah, osmosis!’ barked Demelza, who seemed to respond to syntactical errors in an almost Pavlovian fashion. Briony’s mother, who had been snoring throughout, woke up now with a start. ‘There’s a fine concept for you!’ Demelza boomed at her. ‘And here’s another.’ She lunged at a basket on the table, which was filled with an assortment of cosmetics, and which I belatedly realised had a ticket stuck in it, saying ‘all lipstick’s £1.99’. This she plucked up.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘The scourge of modern life. Call me Mrs Picky. Call me Mrs Ranty-pants even, but it’s my belief that the misplaced apostrophe has a very great deal to answer for.’
‘Blimey,’ I said to Ruth, once I’d escaped to the kitchen to top up the Pringles and wine. ‘Is she on something, or what?’
Ruth shrugged. ‘She’s a writer.’
I pulled a bottle of white from the fridge. ‘That says it all then, does it?’
She nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Indeed it does, Sal. There’s just the two main types of writer, you see. Cardigan ‘n’ handbag or mad person, basically. Everyone’s pretty much one or other.’
Straight on Till Morning Page 14