by Anna Cheska
Secrets In The Attic … She pulled a fiver out of the pocket of her jeans. What a night. A committee meeting from hell and then discovering that her partner had decided to get drunk and paint their shop and half its contents bright yellow. Secrets in the attic? It looked more like sunny afternoons in Provence.
* * *
Michael was still trying to extricate himself from the blonde – he knew he shouldn’t have given in and done ‘Lay Lady Lay’, it was against all his better instincts – when he saw Suzi.
She waved. She was wearing figure-hugging jeans and a black T-shirt, no make-up, all short spiky hair and a big grin.
Michael’s heart leaped, before he remembered how angry he was with her. And she made no effort to come close enough to see off the blonde, damn it. Was she so sure of him?
‘Got to have a word with my girlfriend,’ he told Blondie, who pouted the sort of dark red lips that might suck a man dry and murmured, ‘See you again soon then, Michael. That’s the best version I ever heard – apart from Dylan’s, of course.’
Of course.
Michael squeezed his way through, touched the nape of Suzi’s neck. ‘Where were you?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You won’t believe it when I tell you. First, the committee meeting went on for ever, then –’
‘Couldn’t you have left?’
‘Left?’ She blinked up at him, still smiling, not yet realising that this was going to be a row.
Michael didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘Walked out. You know, told them, sorry, but there’s somewhere you have to be. Someone you have to be with.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Suzi’s eyes narrowed. She seemed to be re-appraising the situation. ‘I had to stay there,’ she said at last. ‘Erica’s doing her best to take over the youth club and turn CG’s into something terribly exclusive and awful. We have to stop her. It’s important.’
‘And I’m not.’ He knew it was childish, but the adrenalin had left him, his after-performance high ruined. He felt disappointed and yes, he felt childish.
‘Of course you’re important.’ Suzi touched his arm. ‘But I knew you’d do fine without me. And you have.’
Michael just gave her a long look and went off to get his leather jacket. That was hardly the point.
* * *
‘I suppose Liam was there?’ he said, when they pulled up in the yard by the riverside, which was as near as they could get to her place. What was wrong with him? Could he be jealous of her brother?
‘Yep.’ Suzi had gone all tight-lipped. Their journey back to the riverbank cottage in the battered Granada had been a silent one.
‘Arguing with anyone who’d listen to him, no doubt.’ Michael was aware of the sneer in his own voice. What was up with him? He didn’t want this.
Suzi got out of the car, led the way down the path and into the cottage and petted the dogs who had come to greet them. ‘At least Liam cares,’ she said hotly. Briefly, she buried her face in Samson’s fur. ‘He believes in the future of CG’s. He wants ordinary people to benefit. Our local kids, for example.’
Michael felt the exclusion of her words. The local kids were nothing to do with him. He didn’t even live here. ‘Up the workers,’ he scoffed.
For a moment, he thought she was going to ask him to leave. For a moment he felt the drop of panic in his groin. He had gone too far. Then she turned away. ‘I don’t want to argue. I’m going to bed.’
Michael followed her up the narrow staircase. It curled its way like a comma into an equally narrow landing which led to Suzi’s bedroom. He ducked to enter. This wasn’t how he’d meant it to be. It was supposed to be flushed and warm between them now – post-performance heat sparking them off into a session of sex to remember, Suzi looking up to him, wanting to please him, with, OK, just a hint of groupie adoration in her dark eyes. But it wasn’t like that, not at all. Yeah – and whose fault was that?
She got undressed slowly – he tried not to watch, but his eyes were drawn back to her small, slim figure as she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt, as she pulled back the patchwork quilt, switched on the bedside light, shrouded within its fringed navy linen shade. He knew it didn’t matter to her that they might go to bed and not make love, that he might not hold her close, that he’d be lying beside her, staring up at her night-time ceiling, while she slept soundly on. Suzi was ace at pretending indifference.
Michael took off his shirt. Or was she indifferent?
‘The landlord reckoned I could have the spot once a month,’ he told her as she returned from the bathroom.
‘Great.’ Suzi climbed into the high bed. She plumped up her pillows and settled down.
Great. Meant nothing, did great. ‘Fact is, I’m learning some new material, really getting into it again.’ Michael stepped out of his jeans.
Suzi’s eyes were closed. ‘Great,’ she said, more sleepily this time.
‘The job’s pissing me off,’ he continued conversationally, going through to clean his teeth. The bathroom of the two-bedroomed cottage was tiny and Michael had to stoop to enter. He fixed his gaze on the multi-coloured copper unicorn Suzi had hung from a ceiling flocked with silver stars.
‘So I’ve given in my notice,’ he said, when he returned to the bedroom. He ducked under the eaves to deposit his watch on the pine dressing-table. That would shake her. And he wanted to shake her, wake her, make her look at him, for God’s sake.
‘You’ve done what?’ She opened one eye.
Half a look was better than none, Michael told himself. ‘I’m leaving work,’ he said. ‘Leaving the factory. Leaving Fareham.’
The other eye opened.
‘In fact I was wondering – what do you reckon about me moving in here?’
* * *
It was two weeks later that Suzi got home from Secrets to find the narrow hallway of the cottage crammed with amplifiers, guitars and speakers.
‘Are we opening up a music shop?’ she said mildly. The last two weeks had been equally crammed – with guilt and bafflement mostly.
She had been baffled that Michael had given up his job in Fareham, even more baffled that he was expecting to move in with her.
In a way, she supposed, picking a route over one of the speakers, she had liked the fact that Michael lived in Fareham, and not Pridehaven, that he wouldn’t encroach on her space or her weekdays, suddenly turn up and expect her to drop everything in order to do what he wanted her to do. It was selfish of her perhaps, but she was used to living alone.
And then there was the guilt. Guilt that she was too selfish to want him living here, guilt that she hadn’t wanted their relationship to change, that permanence seemed a threat not a comfort. And guilt that she had inadvertently made him feel so unwanted, because when he’d dropped the bombshell and assessed her unguarded initial reaction, he’d looked so sad, she’d promptly taken him in her arms, hugged and hugged as if she could snatch that first horrified reaction away again. Oh, yes, Suzi was good at guilt. Weren’t all women?
‘Of course I want you,’ she had said, wondering if she said it often enough, whether it would happen, whether she would feel it. ‘Stay here for as long as you like.’ Knowing she’d made it sound temporary, knowing that was the only way.
She was fond of Michael – of course she was. She enjoyed his company, enjoyed going to bed with him, was happy to help him out if she could. And she would even … she climbed over an amplifier, give his musical equipment a home. Though it was telling, wasn’t it, that of all his possessions, there were more guitars, amps and speakers than all the rest put together.
But how the heck, she couldn’t help wondering, had Michael ever come to the conclusion that she’d want to share her home with him? It was hardly a spur of the moment decision for any couple. In fact right now, to Suzi, it felt life-threatening more than anything else. How would she cope? What had she let herself in for? And more to the point – for how long was Michael thinking of staying?
Chapter 8
&n
bsp; Michael wandered into the garden of the riverbank cottage and surveyed the lawn dispiritedly. In theory this was now his home, a home shared with Suzi. Only it didn’t seem that way somehow. And how come goats were so stupid? Hester always walked to the full length of her leash before she started eating, sidestepped and ate, sidestepped and ate, oblivious of the greener grass close to her tethering post. The result? A crop circle.
But then … He moved closer and stroked Hester’s white head. Who could blame the poor creature – never taken out like the dogs, not free to explore her territory like the cats. Even Suzi’s flock of chickens had more freedom.
Hester stopped munching for a second to look up at him soulfully.
‘I understand,’ Michael told her, glancing rapidly behind him to make sure Suzi wasn’t watching him out of the kitchen window. ‘And just to prove it – I’ll take you out.’
He went back inside, called to Suzi, ‘OK if I take Hester out?’
‘Out?’ Suzi looked up from the novel she was reading and raised an eyebrow.
‘For a walk,’ he clarified, aware it sounded daft.
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
Suzi shrugged. ‘Don’t lose her, then.’
‘I won’t.’
Michael returned to the garden, untied Hester, held on to the leash and attempted to open the back gate, usually a simple task that was hampered in this instance by the two dogs chasing each other between his legs and a surprisingly strong, lunging goat. Eventually he managed it.
‘C’mon, girl.’
After ten metres the struggle was becoming a mammoth one.
After twenty, it was almost impossible. Hester (or maybe all goats? Michael wondered) did not like being taken out on her leash. Probably thought he was treating her like a damn dog.
After thirty metres, Michael was about to give up. Hester, the placid goat, had become a goat from hell, one minute refusing to move, the next charging this way and that, irrespective of path, direction or river. Michael’s palms were sore, he was beginning to sweat and he had the uncomfortable feeling – remembering the expression on her face – that Suzi had known how it would be.
‘Enough.’ He decided to let Hester off the leash. She’d probably stand quietly, munching, give him the chance of a sit down. And Suzi would never know he’d not made it further than fifty metres …
He untied her. Hester promptly charged off down the path.
Michael stared at her retreating back. ‘Er … Hester!’ And with rising panic, ‘Hester!’ at full volume. But Hester was now out of sight.
‘Shit.’ Michael followed her, further down the path and then into the woodland beyond. ‘Hester!’ No sign. No sound. Only the gulls screeching in the near distance and the soft rush of the river, now just out of sight. The path grew more muddy as he hit the shade of the trees, made his way over the skeletal roots of beech and yew.
‘Hester!’
For fifteen minutes he trailed the woodland path, shouting at Hester, swearing at Hester, pleading with Hester, and then imagining what Suzi would say. Christ! What would Suzi say?
* * *
‘C’mon, Gazza!’ Liam tore a hand through his hair. ‘Switch that thing off!’ Liam hated mobile phones. He despaired of the way they’d become indispensable, infiltrated themselves into everyday existence. He hated people talking into them with self-important voices. And he worried that today’s youth spent most of its time punching out meaningless text messages or with the things permanently glued to their ears. God alone knew what damage they were doing to themselves and this fragile environment.
Meanwhile, fourteen-year-old Gareth Brown was haring to the net of the tennis court, all wild ginger hair and heavy black-framed glasses, making for his over-sized hooded sports jacket, casually thrown on the support post ten minutes ago. ‘Might be important,’ he gasped theatrically, as the third rendition of ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’, began.
Liam looked up at the grey sky and then into the middle distance that was Pridehaven. All he needed now was for the heavens to open, and they’d be off. Commitment wasn’t big around here. ‘Carry on, the rest of you,’ he called to the others. ‘Service practice.’ There was a collective groan.
Gazza had thrown out half the contents of his jacket pockets, located the mobile, but seemed too out of breath to speak into the thing.
That didn’t bode too well as far as his fitness was concerned. Liam eyed the black and silver pack of ten cheap brand cigarettes, assorted disposable lighters, packet of Rizlas with cardboard strips torn off, all lying on the asphalt, and sighed. Why was he bothering? He was trying to train a load of kids whose idea of sport was sitting around getting stoned. Gazza and the other twelve- to fourteen-year-olds plucked from the youth club might know what to do on a football pitch, but tennis was another ball game – literally. Maybe Erica Raddle was right. Maybe tennis was a class thing. Maybe this lot didn’t care about the youth club they went to, the ethos of CG’s, even the bloody view. Maybe he should just give up and let them do what they liked with the place.
‘How’s it hanging, babe?’ Gareth managed to ask whoever was on the other end of the line. He glanced across at Liam. ‘Can’t stop. Gotta skedaddle. I’m in training.’
Well, that was something, Liam supposed, ducking as another ball flew purposefully in his direction. The lad sounded keen. And he had to admit there’d been no shortage of volunteers from the youth club when he’d told them about the tennis tournament. ‘Those fat old tarts don’t stand a chance,’ and, ‘yeah, let’s show ’em a thing or two’ had been the gist.
‘It’s cool,’ Gazza was saying now, as he shoved lighters, fags and the rest back inside his jacket pocket. ‘Take a trip. See ya later.’ Liam raised his eyes heavenwards.
On court – fearful of the fate of the more delicate grass, Liam had taken them on to the hard courts instead – the others were still pounding the balls every which way, focusing on power at the cost of accuracy, in order to defeat the enemy. Liam had begun to wonder if he was that enemy, considering the number of tennis balls he’d had to avoid so far.
‘Crap serve,’ yelled Steven Hunt, also known as Stunt, not because he was vertically challenged (though he was) or because of his name, but because he regularly walked the plank across the River Pride down by the harbour. ‘Out by a bloody mile.’
‘Just long,’ Liam confirmed to Tiger Rogers, the server in question, tall and skinny and with the strangest service toss – more like a muscle spasm – that Liam had ever witnessed. It had started to drizzle with rain. So far the boys didn’t appear to have noticed, but Liam knew it wouldn’t be long.
‘Yeah, bloody long way out,’ said Stunt.
‘Watch it.’
‘Watch what? Your fat arse?’
‘Here it comes. Number two.’
‘Second serve.’ Liam waited, close to despair. Perhaps this time, he’d taken on too much.
Tiger tossed the ball with a jerk of one bony wrist, sidestepped to the left, swung his body round and whacked it.
It shot past Steven Hunt, whether by luck or judgement, perfectly placed in the far corner of the service court.
Everyone stopped and stared – no one more surprised than Tiger himself. Except perhaps Liam.
‘Bloody ace,’ said Gazza.
He wasn’t joking. Shit, Liam thought. He had their support. And they were trying their best. How could he even think about giving up now?
* * *
Michael spotted two women approaching from the other direction. Maybe they’d seen her? ‘Hester!’ he called weakly.
‘Lost your dog?’ The first woman clucked with sympathy. ‘I had one like that once,’ she confided. ‘Never came when called. I had to bring a whole bag of dog biscuits to get him to come back to me.’
‘What does she look like?’ the other woman asked more helpfully.
‘This tall.’ Michael held up his hand. ‘Coarse white coat.’
‘Breed?’
‘G
oat.’
‘Pardon?’ The second woman, dressed in tweed jacket and brogues, took a step back.
‘She’s a goat. A pet goat.’ What the hell was so strange about that?
‘I haven’t seen any goats,’ said the first woman doubtfully, as woman number two took her arm and pulled her away.
It was beginning to rain. Michael walked on, rehearsing what he would say to Suzi. She tore the leash out of my hand … I chased after her – for miles … She charged off, I hung on, she dragged me along the ground … I tried to stop her. What could I do? Somehow, whatever he said, he didn’t think Suzi would understand.
* * *
The light was getting dim by the time Liam and his six volunteers trooped back into the clubhouse. Liam half-wished CG’s already boasted a restaurant, though not at the expense of the games room – he’d stand this lot a meal for what they’d achieved today. They might be rough but they were certainly ready, and a couple of them had showed real promise. Surprisingly – for the lifestyle they led wouldn’t have suggested it – they had stamina, whilst years of messing around with a football in the park had given them bodily co-ordination and a good eye for the ball. Best of all, they wanted it.
The clubhouse was full of the usual cross-section of people. Liam nodded to Simon and Diana, frowned as he clocked Nick Rossi in the far corner of the conservatory, talking to Estelle. Her flame-red hair was a halo around her pale face, she was smiling and leaning slightly over the glass-topped table, towards Rossi, as if she couldn’t quite hear or believe what he was saying. It was probably bullshit. But what bothered Liam the most was that neither was dressed for playing tennis. Rossi was in close-fitting designer jeans and one of his poncy sweaters and Estelle wore a long and close-fitting midnight-blue skirt and a silk top Liam had bought her on holiday in France last year.
For Christ’s sake! Did the woman have no feelings? And if they weren’t playing tennis … Liam strode up to the bar to buy drinks for the lads … then what the bloody hell were they here for?
‘Will there be girls at the tournament then?’ Gazza asked Liam as Liam handed him his coke. He eyed it dubiously – probably considering a quick top-up from the miniature tucked in his pocket, Liam thought.