‘It’s apple wine. I would be on the floor by now if it was peapod.’
‘Will you be OK if I leave you on your own?’
‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’ Things had begun to look a bit swimmy after the sloe gin and wine on a totally empty stomach, but I was far from drunk. ‘It’s about time I managed to stand on my own two feet and stopped relying on Ben for support, anyway. It just isn’t quite the way I would have chosen to do it.’ I added resolutely: ‘I’ve got a big roll of recycled bin bags, and I’m going to try and strip all his possessions out of the cottage before I go to bed.’
She looked at me worriedly. ‘Perhaps I ought to get my things and stay with you overnight, after all.’
‘No, really. I’d rather be alone and I’m going to be really busy.’
‘Promise? You won’t drink so much you do anything silly?’
‘No, of course not. I’ve too many responsibilities for that and I’ve got loads to do tomorrow too—all your cupcakes to ice and put the sugar roses on. Did I tell you Violet Grace had made over a hundred of them? I think they look better than mine do,’ I added, with an attempt at normal conversation.
‘That was kind of her. And the tablecloth they made for our wedding present is lovely. Gina was terribly impressed. I think she intends serving afternoon tea on it every day when we get back from honeymoon. She’s convinced all the English do that kind of thing.’
‘Tell her I’m looking forward to catching up with her again when she’s a bit more settled,’ I said, though it seemed unlikely that I would ever look forward to anything ever again.
Before she finally left, Libby made me a mug of very sweet tea, for the shock, but as soon as she’d gone I poured it down the sink and started on a second bottle of wine—more apple, last year’s vintage.
Then, in a drunken frenzy, I began to pack all Ben’s belongings (including the tin box) in bin bags, which I dragged outside the back door. I stuck a note on one, telling him to put what he couldn’t take with him in the studio and to send for the rest as soon as possible, or I would dispose of them.
It was lucky for him it was a dry, if chilly, night. He was back from the pub, or wherever he had been, by then, because I could see him walking up and down in the studio with his phone to his ear, but when he looked in my direction, I went back in and locked and bolted the door again.
What was left of the long night I spent sleeplessly wandering the house, which looked weird, as familiar things in nightmares often do. I felt cold, hollow and shivery, detached with exhaustion and shock, my eardrums vibrating with tiredness.
The alcohol just seemed to increase my sense of alienation and I really, really wanted to get away from myself, especially towards dawn, when one of the peacocks gave its mournful, lost-soul wail. I couldn’t stand it any longer and I’d have put my head in the oven if we hadn’t had a solid fuel range: I didn’t want to be slow-cooked. Anyway, I’d promised Libby.
Instead I poured out about half a bottle of the sloe gin and then downed it quickly, before passing out on the living room sofa…
Did I dream that I heard Ben calling my name over and over, or the rattle of the van’s exhaust pipe as he drove off, for ever?
When I did finally wake up, it was with a splitting head, furry mouth, seriously creased face and an appalling sense of devastation and loss.
For a moment I was the child Josie, as Granny explained that I would never see my parents again…Then memory came rushing back and I remembered what had happened yesterday: Ben, the love of my life, my soul mate, my best friend, the one who shared all my dreams and comforted me through the nightmares, was gone.
It was as though part of me had been wrenched away, roots and all, and I had the appalling thought, which I was instantly ashamed of, that it would have been easier to deal with the pain of his loss if he had been dead, like practically everyone else I had ever loved.
But overnight it seemed that I’d somehow metamorphosed into a monstrous, alternative Josie, because a desire to get some measure of revenge burned fiercely among the ashes of my heart—and I knew just how to hit Ben where it would really hurt.
Chapter Twelve
Stitched Up
I have always found the cycle of nature, the seasons following one another in regular succession, very soothing. But suddenly even nature seems to have turned capricious, so that things flower and fruit earlier than they used to, or later than they used to, and everything’s turned on its head. I find that very unsettling.
But it seems all things must change, even those that seem as fixed in time and space as stars…
‘Cakes and Ale’
Most of the bags of Ben’s belongings had gone—and so had the van too, which I hadn’t expected. I thought hearing it drive off was just part of a nightmare.
I dragged the two remaining bags down to the studio and booted them through the door. Inside, everything looked much as usual, with new works in various stages of progress, a mess of half-used tubes of paint littering every surface, and three stained mugs left in the little sink in the kitchen/darkroom.
Normally I found the studio smell of oil paint, wood and glue, deliciously comforting when Ben was away. But not now.
The building is made of timber and his artworks and the materials stored there are highly combustible…But of course I wasn’t going to turn the place into a funeral pyre of our love, tempting though the idea of it was. Ben’s moral code might be so low it dragged on the ground when he walked, but still, I respected his art too much to destroy it.
I had a subtler revenge in mind, but first there was something I needed to go out and buy. My eyes were so red and swollen that before going up the High Street to Neville’s Village Stores I had to put on sunglasses, even though it was a dark, overcast day.
There I amazed Annie Neville by purchasing a packet of jumbo shell-on prawns from the freezer cabinet, because buying luxury foods was not something I’d ever done a lot of. She gave the dark glasses a strange look too, but when asked, supplied me with a couple of empty cardboard boxes.
Hurrying back home, the prawns clutched to my chest under my coat to start them thawing, I heard a ‘Coo-ee!’ from the direction of Poona Place in Pansy’s high-pitched tones. Breaking into a run I shot indoors, where I locked my front door, panting.
Tipping the prawns onto a dish I set them on top of the warm stove and, while their little ice jackets were defrosting, went through the house on a last sweep, collecting anything of Ben’s that I’d missed last night. There was quite a bit, like his collection of old vinyl records culled from car boot sales, and a lot of portfolios of his work in the attic I’d forgotten about, until it occurred to me to check up there too.
I carried everything down to the studio, where I finished by tossing all the tubes of paint and other bits and pieces into the boxes I’d got from Annie Neville.
Then I fetched the bowl of prawns, patted them dry with a tea towel, and ate them while sitting in the old swivel chair in the dead centre of Ben’s studio. Having been defrosted on the stove, they were quite likely to give me terminal food poisoning, but I didn’t care about that. And I wasn’t hungry either; it was just that eating them seemed the logical way to dispose of them. They were extra salty because tears were dripping down on them, though until then I hadn’t realised I was crying.
I suppose eating them also added a ritualistic layer of meaning to what I was about to do, one that Ben would come to appreciate, in time.
Eventually the pile of shells lay on one side of the dish, the prawn heads on the other, and I put it down on the floor. A rag of slithery, glistening, dark blood-red fabric still hung like a dead tongue from the old treadle sewing machine in the corner of the room and I tried wiping my hands on it, but it wasn’t terribly absorbent.
Going back to the chair I spun slowly round, examining those artworks he hadn’t taken to London for his last solo exhibition, mostly older works, or unfinished. I used to love Ben’s paintings when what burst through the ca
nvases were flowers and small creatures and twisting stems. But his recent series reminds me of nothing so much as that scene from Alien, where the weird life form rips its way from the host before skittering evilly off. If you were in the room with one of those artworks, you wouldn’t want to take your eyes off it: it might literally follow you round the room and jump on you.
Perhaps the way they’d changed had been an indication of how Ben, too, had been evolving into something alien under the façade of his everyday self, if only I’d realised. But I hadn’t, and here I was, stitched and stuffed like all his other creations. But not, fortunately, inanimate.
The mobile phone in my jeans pocket rang and I snapped it on impatiently, thinking it was Libby checking up that I was still in the land of the living. Then I heard Ben’s voice.
‘Josie, are you in the studio?’ he said presciently. But then, we always were mentally in tune, right from the moment our eyes locked across the school playground…or I thought we were.
Or perhaps he’d developed clairvoyance as well as a chronic case of adultery? (And so what if we were never married in the first place—what we had was more than marriage.)
‘Yes,’ I said, in my new, husky voice. ‘What do you want?’
‘Josie, don’t be like that,’ he pleaded. ‘I want you to understand what happened—that it was like being offered champagne and caviar after a diet of crusty wholemeal bread and water. They were both good, but one was new and exciting and for a while I—’
‘You’re making bad worse,’ I interrupted, through stiff lips. ‘And bad was already the pits of hell, when you let Sugar Mummy break the news you were having an affair and leaving me.’
‘I didn’t know Olivia was going to do that and, anyway, I never had any intention of leaving you. That’s why she told you about the affair, to force my hand.’
‘She’s got what she wanted then, hasn’t she? Everything she wanted, if her notes to you are anything to go by.’
‘You’ve been through my things?’ he exclaimed incredulously.
‘Yes, though porn isn’t my usual bedtime reading. Another of my failings, perhaps? Boring old Josie!’
There was a short pause while he mentally regrouped, then he said, persuasively, ‘Look, Josie, can we meet up and talk in a day or two, when you feel a bit calmer and ready to listen to my side of things?’
‘Oh, yeah, like that’s ever going to happen,’ I said, and he sighed long-sufferingly, as if he was the injured party.
‘I’ve managed to find someone to collect my stuff at short notice and deliver it to the studio in Camden, though it took a bit of doing. They’ll be there in the morning and they’ll pack the artworks up. You haven’t…I mean, you aren’t in the studio because you’re thinking of destroying them, are you?’
‘Of course not! Don’t be any dafter than you can help.’
He sounded relieved when he said quickly, ‘No, of course you wouldn’t, Josie. What was I thinking of? And you could keep the small one in the living room, the one I did at college. That was always your favourite.’
‘Not any more. It’s here with the others, waiting to go. I’ll be at Blessings all day tomorrow—it’s the wedding, remember? So tell the removal men the side gate will be unlocked and the studio key will be under the broken flowerpot by the door, though there might be a toad in there too, so they’ll have to be careful.’
I clicked off the phone and put it back into my pocket and then, picking up a seam ripper, began the delicate process of opening up a tiny bit of concealed seam in each artwork and inserting a prawn head, before neatly and tidily sewing them up again.
I may or may not have been entirely in my right mind, but look at it this way: I’d added a new sensory dimension to Ben’s work that would only emerge in its full glory over the course of time.
Suddenly life stank, and I think that’s what I really, really wanted to share with my ex-life partner and one untrue love.
When I came out of the studio, carrying the plate, I came face to face with Harry, who looked at me dolefully, then gave me a hug. Luckily, I didn’t think his eyesight was up to discerning seafood remains on pink-patterned china or he might have wondered what I’d been up to.
‘How are you, lass? I never thought to see the day when Ben would do the dirty on you like this! I thought he was a grand lad, despite his arty ways, and so did your gran.’
Mac licked my hand, which I expect tasted of prawns. It was all too much sympathy and I felt myself on the verge of breaking into sobs again.
‘I—do you mind if we don’t talk about it at the moment, Harry? I have to pull myself together, because I’ve so much to do today. It’s the wedding tomorrow, so there just isn’t time to curl up into a ball in the corner and go to pieces.’
‘That’s a brave lass,’ he said, following me into the house and putting the kettle on. ‘Let’s have a brew.’
I tipped the prawn shells into the bin, washed my hands, and then got out the mugs and biscuit tin. When I turned he was taking his car keys out of his pocket.
‘Oh, I was going to ask you if I could borrow your car, Harry! Ben’s taken the van, and I have to collect the co-op order. And then tomorrow I’ll need it for delivering the cakes to Blessings, though I could pack them into cake boxes and carry them over in batches, at a pinch, though it might be difficult with the Leaning Tower of—’
He unclipped the car keys from the ring and pressed them into my hand. ‘Here. You don’t need to borrow it. I’m giving you the car. It’s yours.’
‘But—Harry!’
‘No, not another word. I don’t need it. How many times have I used it in the last couple of years?’
‘I don’t know. I seem to use it more than you do, but even so…’
‘Apart from getting it out to polish, not at all. My eyes aren’t up to it any more. And you’ve got the garage key, so you can still keep it there. After all, if I need to be driven anywhere, you’ll take me, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’ I kissed him. ‘You’re so kind, Uncle Harry. At least I still have you!’
‘Yes, well, I won’t be going anywhere yet awhile, I hope.’ He looked a bit sheepish and added: ‘I went down to the Griffin last night after Libby told me what Ben had done, Josie-love, and gave him a piece of my mind.’
‘You did? And I suppose there was the usual crowd there?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Oh, well,’ I said resignedly, ‘at least it will be all over the village already, so I don’t have to tell anyone. Mrs Neville did give me a strange look, but I thought that was the sunglasses and the prawns.’
‘Prawns?’
‘I had to go to the stores and fetch some boxes to pack Ben’s things in, and I just suddenly fancied some. A little treat. I’m not feeling quite myself this morning.’
‘You need to take care of yourself, our Josie.’
‘I need to take care of Mac too. He hasn’t had his walk. It’ll have to be a short one. I’ve such a lot to do today and it’s getting late.’ Mac, hearing the magic word, pricked up his ears and looked up at me hopefully.
After walking Mac I went straight out in the Cavalier and picked up the co-op delivery from Mark and Stella. I’d rung them up to say I was coming and they had told me where to find my stuff if they were out, which thankfully they were, since I was not exactly in the mood for conversation.
On my way home I dropped off the Graces’ part of the order at Poona Place, thinking I was unlikely to get off so lightly there. But I was wrong, for although I was quite sure they had heard all about Ben, they were exercising monumental tact and kindness.
Violet helped me put the trays of sugar roses she had made on the rear seat of the car, and then pressed a bottle of her ginger cordial into my hands. ‘No Acorns, dear—it’s a gift. Ginger is so warming in times of crisis.’
Back home, I wrestled the sack of henfood out of the boot of the car and into Harry’s larder, where I tipped it into the big metal bin. There was no si
gn of Harry, who had probably gone to his dominoes club at the parish hall, but Mac was curled in his basket, guarding a manky-looking marrowbone.
By the time I’d iced a hundred and fifty cupcakes and stuck a rose on each one, there was only time to snatch a quick cup of tea before dashing up to Blessings, where I’d promised to help Libby set up and lay out the trestle tables. She’d already phoned me five times, to see if I was OK, so if I didn’t turn up she would be hammering on my door in short order.
By now I was feeling a bit zombie-like, as if I was just an empty shell of Josie going through the motions. My eyes weren’t so red and puffy any more, though, so I laid off the sunglasses.
I seemed to pass muster with Libby, because after scanning my face anxiously she set me to work, putting cloths on the tables she and Gina had already set up—scarlet ones underneath, and snowy white linen diagonally on top.
I put the Graces’ lovely embroidered cloth on the little table meant for the Pisa cake first and then, just when I was unpacking the two spiral stands to hold the cupcakes, Gina came back from the house and, enfolding me in an embrace like a feather bed, kissed me on both cheeks, while commiserating with me loudly in Italian.
That nearly set the tears flowing again, until Libby started briskly ordering us about in her usual way, after which I was too occupied to think about anything else.
Between the three of us, all was soon done and looked lovely and sort of expectant, like a theatre before the curtain went up. The heaters had been on all afternoon to take the chill off the place, and the Pisa backdrop Ben had painted swayed gently in the warm draught…
We went back up to the house, because Libby wanted to show me yet more wedding presents she had received, mostly from her extended step-families. She was listing them as they arrived, and wanted me to help her write the thank you notes when she got back from her honeymoon.
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