Love-40

by Anna Cheska

  Sure enough … ‘A business proposition?’ Michael sneered. His arm swung out at the brambles at the side of the path. A thorn snagged on the sleeve of his jacket and he pulled it roughly away, careless of any damage.

  Suzi felt herself losing patience. ‘Yes – a business proposition,’ she said. ‘Buying some of our furniture and selling it in Germany. Like I said.’

  Michael didn’t reply.

  Suzi forgot about the guilt cocktail she’d been swallowing lately and felt only self-righteous anger. ‘What’s the big deal?’ She stopped walking, looked into his tight, angry face. What right did Michael have to suggest whatever he was suggesting, to cross-question her like this about what was her business – hers and Estelle’s. And her life. She had never asked him, she reasoned, to take such a part in it.

  ‘He’s the big deal,’ Michael snapped back.

  Suzi flicked open the latch of the gate and strode down the path towards the bridge. ‘So now I can’t talk to anyone of the opposite sex, is that it?’ she shouted back at him, the wind lifting her words, seeming to give them a hysterical edge that she had not intended. Above her the gulls swooped and soared, screaming at them, laughing like batty old women. The path was overgrown – the long grass whipped at the legs of her jeans, her feet in their trainers trampled buttercups, thrift, thistles, regardless. ‘I can’t do business with men?’ She laughed. ‘Hey – that’s a bit restricting, you know, it cuts out fifty per cent of the population. I could be done for sexual discrimination. And all because my boyfriend’s jealous to the point of paranoia.’

  Michael caught up with her in an instant. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she slowed as she felt the pressure through her denim jacket. ‘What do you expect, Suzi?’ he said, twisting her round to face him. ‘Some guy turns up in your shop. You don’t know him from Adam. He could be … I don’t know, some maniac, a stalker or something.’

  Suzi hadn’t thought of it like that. She realised that when she’d gone to lunch with Josh, she had not been in the least afraid, only curious. Curious and compelled – but she couldn’t tell Michael that. She moved away, glancing sideways at him, resisting that pressure. ‘I knew he was OK,’ she said shortly.

  He dropped his hand. ‘How? ESP?’

  ‘I just knew.’ And whatever was happening here, she would not allow Michael to question her judgement like this, to take over, as he seemed bent on doing. To dictate to her. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t anything she’d ever wanted.

  Suzi walked on. She could smell the dampness of the river now, feel the moisture in the earth beneath her feet, giving more easily under the weight of her body. Trusting Josh Willis was her decision – and her problem if she turned out to be mistaken, of course.

  Michael’s voice softened. He seemed to be pleading with her, though she didn’t know for what. ‘Even if you were right,’ he said, as they reached the blue bridge. ‘Even if the guy is OK, it’s a bit much, Suzi.’

  ‘What’s a bit much?’ She negotiated the wooden planking, leaned over the parapet of the bridge. The river was high today, the swollen water moving fast, the long hair-line sweep of the reeds bent into worship by the force of the wind, and no ducks to be seen. Perhaps she was being unreasonable, Suzi thought. Michael was probably right. It was a bit much.

  ‘Going off with him, God knows where.’ His voice had hardened again, and Suzi heard herself responding in kind.

  ‘We went to a car boot sale, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘It was work.’ And afterwards, she thought? That walk along the cliff. Was that work?

  ‘For the whole day?’

  ‘We were –’

  ‘Yes?’

  Suzi walked on, wanting now to be at home, in the cottage, out of the firing line, she supposed. ‘I don’t know … talking.’

  Michael scuffed at a stone on the path with the toe of his desert boot. ‘Oh, right, talking. Yeah…’ His head was down now. He looked, Suzi thought, like an overgrown child, kicking out at something he didn’t understand, had no control over.

  ‘Michael –’

  He swung round at her. ‘But you didn’t tell me about him, did you – that’s a bit odd, wouldn’t you say? And you didn’t tell me you were going to the car boot sale with him either. Never mentioned his name in fact. Come to think of it, you never leave at that time of morning to go to a bloody car boot sale. And –’

  ‘I didn’t think it was important.’ But of course it was.

  They reached the gate that led to the back garden of the cottage, and Suzi opened it, relief swamping over her at the familiarity of it all, her herb kitchen garden, Hester straining at her rope, the hens restless and scrabbling for food. The sun was going down and everyone would want feeding – which would be a distraction at least, she thought.

  ‘Not important? Like I said, Suzi…’ Michael took a deep breath, shutting the gate after him. ‘What’s going on?’

  * * *

  Later, after the animals had been fed, after Suzi had spent an hour in the bath trying to soak it all away, after they’d opened a bottle of wine and she’d started preparing an omelette, she tried to tell Michael how she felt.

  ‘I never asked you to move in,’ she said. Perhaps not the best way to start, but she had to try and be honest, she owed him that much. ‘I did say that it was only for a while.’

  Michael got two plates out of the cupboard. ‘I see. So that’s how it is.’

  ‘No…’ Lightly, she touched his arm. ‘You don’t see – yet. But I’m trying to explain.’

  ‘You want me to move out?’ He looked so helpless standing there, holding two yellow plates, one in each hand, like some sort of sacrificial offering, that Suzi felt overwhelmed by tenderness.

  ‘No.’ She’d spoken too quickly. She took the plates from him, placed them on the table, grasped his hands. They were cool to the touch, and her mind spun back to that afternoon, to the warmth that had rushed through her as Josh Willis had linked his arm into hers. Stop it. She had to stop it. The idea was ridiculous. There was no idea … She was just lonely and confused, wondering what had happened to herself and Michael. OK, it had never been exactly a rock-of-Gibraltar-like security, but she’d enjoyed him, he’d enjoyed her, they’d had a laugh and she’d never looked at another man. Until now, that is.

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ she went on. ‘I’m saying that I didn’t ask you to move in. We barely discussed it, you just assumed and I tried to let you know that it wasn’t permanent.’

  He looked confused now. ‘But I thought you wanted us to be together as much as I did.’

  Oh no, Michael, she thought. I never wanted us to be together as much as you did. That much, at least, she knew. And she was sorry – but she couldn’t help her own feelings. ‘I was happy with things as they were,’ she told him. She was moving their hands in the rhythm of her words, as though this could emphasise their meaning, make things clear for Michael, who didn’t seem to understand. ‘I like my freedom, I suppose. I wanted to see you, I liked our times together.’ She took a breath. ‘But I was never looking for commitment.’

  Michael just stared at her. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked at last, his voice bleak.

  Suzi let go of his hands and got the eggs from the side. Freshly laid, one of the many benefits of keeping hens in your back garden. She broke them and whisked, gently. What was she saying? ‘That I don’t want to be tied down,’ she told him. ‘That I’m not sure things have been going too well since you’ve moved in here. That it’s all too much too soon.’ She added the herbs – sprigs of thyme and rosemary from the kitchen garden. ‘I’m saying that I want to live my own life.’

  ‘Without me?’ Michael looked desolate.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Though she couldn’t help wondering. It rather depended on how – or why – they had stopped being lovers. And how – or why – they’d become some parody of an old, established – sexless for God’s sake – couple. And that wasn’t all. She steadied her breathing.

  �
�I don’t want twenty questions, jealousy, all that sort of stuff.’ She looked him full in the face. ‘I want my independence.’ Perhaps it was some failing in her, that she couldn’t live with a man, couldn’t allow a man to take over any part of her life. That she fought back when she felt dictated to, that she felt easier and most at peace when she was alone in her cottage with her dogs and her cats. But whatever it was, Suzi reflected, it was better that Michael knew now rather than later.

  Michael though, was still focused on the events of the day as he saw them. ‘Just tell me there’s nothing going on with that guy.’ He drained his wine glass.

  Was that all he cared about, Suzi wondered. Was it OK for their relationship to have no prospects – just so long as she hadn’t humiliated him by seeing someone else? She poured oil into the pan. ‘There’s nothing going on.’

  ‘And in the future?’

  ‘Michael, stop it!’ She felt trapped. Didn’t he realise? Perhaps she was being unfair to him. But he was pushing and pushing and she couldn’t stand it any longer. Shaking, she poured the egg mix into the sizzling pan. The aroma of heating eggs, thyme and rosemary drifted up from the hob, almost making her giddy.

  Michael was hunched at the kitchen table now, chin resting on folded arms, eyes accusing. ‘I’m surprised you bothered with those bloody concert tickets,’ he said.

  ‘What concert tickets?’ She followed his gaze to the envelope on the shelf above the worktop. The orange tickets were just discernible, peeping out of the top. Anger at the fact that Michael had obviously been rooting around among her things, fought briefly with guilt. He thought the tickets were for him and Suzi, that much was clear. Well, he shouldn’t have looked at them in the first place.

  ‘Those are for Liam and Estelle,’ she told him starkly. Perhaps she was wasting her time and money, but it was her time and money and why shouldn’t she do something for her own brother and closest friend? ‘I was hoping to get the two of them together again. I thought, you know…’ She caught a glimpse of his crestfallen features as she scooped the edge of the omelette up with her spatula and allowed more egg to run through underneath, oh hell, ‘… if music be the food of love and all that.’ They belonged together, didn’t he see?

  Michael had stood up and was standing beside her at the hob. ‘You don’t love me, do you, Suzi?’ he asked.

  Suzi studied the pale blue eyes. Even now, she couldn’t say the words, couldn’t hurt him. ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ she floundered.

  ‘Everything.’ He took the spatula away from her.

  Suzi buried her face into his chest. She could feel the bones of his sternum through the denim shirt he was wearing, sensed his hesitation as to whether or not he should hold her.

  ‘You’re trying so bloody hard to get your brother back with Estelle…’ At last she felt his hand, stroking her hair, smoothing away the rough edges of her day, trying to make it better ‘… and in the meantime…’

  ‘Yes?’ She looked up at him, the tears not far away.

  ‘You and I are falling apart,’ he said.

  Chapter 15

  It had been a long and trying day, and Liam was attempting to wind up the rehearsal. He hadn’t got round to doing his laundry, so no clean shirt this morning, and running out of fresh coffee hadn’t improved his mood – the piss-poor instant available in the staff room was not something with which any poor sod should start the day. The kids had played him up during the mandatory RE, the head had bollocked him about the literacy testing results, and now Bradley Jacobs and Marcus Weatherby were taking advantage of the long-time war between the Capulets and Montagues by creating a pretty convincing war of their own.

  ‘Ouch! Jesus!’ Marcus had let loose a punch in the direction of Bradley’s ribcage.

  ‘Hey, Marcus. I thought I said no contact.’ Liam jumped on to the stage and stepped between them.

  ‘He bloody elbowed me in the face,’ complained Marcus. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Don’t swear,’ Liam snapped.

  ‘You said get in there and look like you want to kill him, Sir.’ Bradley performed his customary flick back of the hair. ‘I was only acting.’

  Titters from the wings and the flash of a mini skirt and long, bare legs, announced the side-line presence of Jade Johnson.

  ‘Jade,’ Liam yelled. ‘They’re fighting because of you. You’re supposed to be looking shocked and scared. You’re Juliet, remember.’

  Juliet smiled at Marcus (who was not her Romeo) in a manner that could only be called provocative, and stuck out one hip. Liam was aware of the buzz of teenage sub-text. Someone’s mobile went off.

  ‘I thought I said switch off all the bloody mobiles,’ yelled Liam, leaping down from the stage again.

  ‘Oooh, does that include mine?’

  Liam swung round to face Lorraine Johnson, who was sporting a batwing leather jacket teamed with what looked like black PVC trousers and high-heeled gold sandals. Ye Gods. ‘No.’ He smiled briefly.

  ‘Ready, babes?’ she called.

  No, she bloody well wasn’t. And if she must pick her daughter up after rehearsals, why the hell couldn’t she wait outside in her car like all the other parents, Liam wondered. ‘Can you give us a minute?’ he said.

  She consulted her brassy gold watch. ‘Sure. No probs.’

  Liam turned his attention back to the fight scene. It was supposed to evolve from a dance – with Juliet spun from one to the other of them, her smile for Romeo the spark that created the action. ‘From the top.’ He looked around. ‘Jade!’

  Jade, who seemed to be involved in some sort of complex semaphore communication with someone on the other side of the stage, stopped abruptly and tottered in on her platforms.

  Liam shook his head in despair. ‘You can’t dance in those,’ he told her. ‘You’ll twist an ankle.’

  ‘He’s right, babes,’ put in Lorraine Johnson. ‘Wear your Le Roc shoes.’

  Jade scowled at her parent. ‘I didn’t bring them.’

  ‘Barefoot then,’ Liam suggested, losing patience. ‘Music, Crystal?’

  Crystal pressed the play button, the song began, Jade pulled off her platforms, and was duly twirled by first Marcus, then Bradley, then back to Marcus again. At this point she put out just the tip of her tongue and ran it over her lips. In what was probably schoolboy instinct, Marcus grabbed her bottom, Jade giggled and thrust out her breasts, and Liam threw his hands in the air.

  ‘Hold it, hold it!’

  ‘He bloody well was,’ muttered Bradley.

  ‘Marcus is supposed to be your cousin,’ Liam reminded Jade. ‘That…’ He pointed at Bradley, ‘is Romeo. He’s the one you’re in love with, in case you’ve forgotten the story-line.’

  ‘I’m not sure about this Juliet stuff, babes.’ Lorraine Johnson flapped the arms of the batwing coat so violently that Liam half-expected her to take off. ‘I thought this Shakespeare was a highbrow sort of a bloke.’

  Before Crystal Woods could leap into the breach with her once-weekly request to take over the part of Juliet, Liam took charge. ‘On to the fight scene,’ he said. ‘Hold his lapels, so…’ He jumped back on to the stage and demonstrated. ‘Move with your fist, like so. Bradley, you move back. Push his shoulder, like this, then back. No contact, remember. But it’s got to look convincing.’

  The two boys glowered at one another.

  ‘Good,’ Liam said dubiously.

  Ten minutes later he was as satisfied as he would ever be. ‘That’ll do.’ He pushed his hair back from his face and wondered if they would ever get the play finished in time. What with this and his training programme for CG’s, it was no wonder he couldn’t find time to do the bloody laundry.

  He started to clear up, moving chairs, getting the stage ready for tomorrow’s morning assembly, as his cast began to drift away. The caretaker had complained that clearing up after drama was not in his contract, and Liam knew that any power struggle between caretaker and headmaster could only have one outcome. Sure enough, the
head had spoken to Liam – and now Liam did the clearing up himself.

  ‘But everyone’s going,’ He heard Jade move into wingeing mode. ‘I can’t be the only one not allowed. It’s not fair.’ Life isn’t fair, Liam thought.

  Behind her a group that included Marcus, Bradley and Crystal, were hovering, awaiting the parental decision. The hostility between the two boys appeared to have temporarily abated – for which Liam was grateful, he didn’t want the production to turn into a blood-bath – but, being experienced in the handling of young teenagers, he couldn’t help but be suspicious of Jade’s role in all this.

  He was dimly aware of Jade’s mother’s capitulation, Jade’s assurance to her parent of lifelong love, and then the fact that … hell, he was now alone in the school hall with Lorraine Johnson. He thought of what Amanda had said about recognising her as a man-hunter and tried not to panic. To avoid looking at Lorraine, he looked at the still lifes of various pieces of fruit that the year 6s had been drawing yesterday and which were now proudly displayed next to the shortlisted designs of the sports day programme. He felt a bit like a lemon himself. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake. How could he be frightened of a parent?

  She lit a cigarette from a flashy gold lighter. Liam considered pointing out to her that it was not appropriate for a school hall to smell like an ashtray in morning assembly, but he daren’t risk saying anything that might delay her departure.

  He was just about finished moving chairs and had looked at as much fruit as he could take, when she made her move. ‘I wondered if we might have a little talk,’ she said, taking a few steps closer.

  Liam eyed the gold sandals. ‘A talk?’ Since when had his voice risen by an octave?

  She nodded, blew out smoke through red lips. ‘Man to woman, woman to man.’

  ‘Sure.’ Liam grabbed a chair and placed it between them. Ridiculous, perhaps, but better to play safe since gender had been mentioned.

  She smiled. ‘Not here, silly. In the pub. I’ll even buy you a beer.’

  Liam couldn’t think how to say no. He tried, ‘I really don’t think –’ but got no further.