How To Throw Your Life Away

by Laurie Ellingham

  ‘The garden centre you go to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. What about your job? You can’t just leave after all of the years you’ve put into that place.’

  ‘I don’t have to. They made me redundant last week.’

  ‘What? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I meant to, I just didn’t know how. Things have been pretty weird between us. Frankly, when I looked in your room this morning and saw your computer had gone I thought you’d moved out.’

  Adam paused and stared at Katy before looking down at his hands. ‘You thought I would just move out without speaking to you?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to think. You haven’t been here, I know that much, but if you haven’t moved out, then where have you been? And where’s your computer?’

  ‘It broke. That’s all,’ Adam’s gaze fixed on the window behind Katy. ‘I took it to a computer shop the other day. Some gigabyte issue or something. You should have told me about your job,’ he said.

  ‘I did try to phone you.’

  ‘When?’ he asked, his voice rising again.

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Well, I lost my phone yesterday. All my contacts too. The phone company are sending me out a replacement this week.’

  Adam fiddled with his fingers before continuing: ‘And what about us? I made you dinner, didn’t I?’

  ‘One dinner isn’t going to fix things, Adam, you must see that.’

  ‘But it was a start.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘I thought we agreed to talk, and then you just rushed upstairs. Who’s this new client? And you still haven’t told me where you stayed last night?’

  ‘That has got nothing to do with this,’ Adam said before standing up. ‘I’m not going to sit here and have you tell me you’re selling our house, then accuse me of something.’

  ‘I’m not accusing-’

  ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘Maybe you should calm down a bit,’ she said.

  Adam threw back his head and laughed. It sounded strange and nothing like the easy laugh she knew. ‘That’s really rich coming from you,’ he said, pointing a finger at Katy. ‘What a shame we don’t have a remote in here anymore for you to fling at me.’

  ‘I’m getting some air.’ Katy stood up and stepped past Adam. She grabbed her keys from the table and left, slamming the front door behind her.

  Adrenaline coursed through her body as she strode along the road. She had no destination in mind, just a desire to get distance from her house and from Adam.

  She had never seen Adam like that. He’d seemed frantic, almost scared. It seemed miles away from the easy going man she’d grown so used to over the past five years.

  Was it just about their relationship and the house? Something was going on, Katy thought. She just didn’t know what it was, or whether she even cared enough to find out.

  After an hour of walking Katy found herself back at the end of her cul-de-sac. She’d done a long loop of Henley without even thinking about it, or anything else for that matter.

  She felt better. Calmer. In control.

  She had counted to ten. She hadn’t snapped.

  Katy opened her front door again, ready to tell Adam what she should have done a week ago, or a year ago even.

  ‘Adam?’ she called out.

  The house had an empty feel to it. She walked upstairs anyway and knocked on the spare room door.

  After a silent pause she opened it. The piles of clothes she’d seen that morning had gone. Adam had gone. Katy breathed a shaky sigh of relief and pulled the door shut again.

  CHAPTER 16

  Friday

  This can’t be happening. This seriously cannot be happening. Katy extended her long strides in a vain hope of out-walking the heavy grey clouds looming above her.

  Weeks of clear blue skies and hot sticky nights. The hottest July since records began. Of course it had to end at some point, but why did it have to end right now?

  Why? Katy asked herself as the first fat wet rain drop landed on her shoulder. Why? After she’d spent an hour blow drying her hair in thirtydegree heat, recreating Valentino’s style. Well almost anyway. The ends had refused to scoop under, preferring instead to flick off in different directions.

  Why? When she’d spent twenty minutes rooting around in the back of her wardrobe for her one and only black dress. A floaty thing she hadn’t worn since the trip to Greece she’d taken with Claire the year before Archie had been born, and found screwed up in a ball in an old holiday suitcase.

  Why? After she’d applied mascara, ironed her dress, found a pair of flip flops, checked her reflection two more times, battled with the ping pong balls jumping around in her stomach, scooped the bag of papers under her arm, looked up at the endless blue sky, and decided to walk the twenty minutes to Tom’s house, rather than drive.

  Why did it have to be that exact moment that the heat wave ended?

  A second cold raindrop slipped between her dress and her body, rolling down her skin and all the way to the elastic of her underwear.

  Seconds ticked by. The air around her seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. The sudden coolness so welcome after weeks of humidity.

  Then, just like a tap turning on, the clouds unleashed their torrent, pouring rain to the ground better than any high pressure shower, and drenching her in an instant.

  Goosebumps prickled her skin as her feet squelched one after the other along the road.

  Katy yanked at her dress, fighting to keep the flimsy straps in place as rain pummelled onto it, saturating it with water and pulling it further and further down to reveal the edge of her nipples. She shifted the bag from under her arm and used it to cover her chest.

  Katy fought the urge to laugh out loud. All of a sudden it seemed ridiculous that she’d gone to so much effort. For what? Tom only wanted to help her with her business plan, he’d made that clear. If he had even the slightest bit of interest in Katy, she would douse it quick enough when she arrived on his doorstep looking, and dripping, like a sea creature from the deep.

  As she approached Tom’s door the downpour seemed to ease a fraction. Enough for Katy to look up and consider her situation.

  How could she arrive at his house in such a state? She looked past his door to Claire’s house. The warmth of her kitchen, a hot shower, some borrowed clothes. Surely it would be better to arrive twenty minutes late and dry, than on time and in her current state?

  ‘KATY,’ Tom called from his front door. ‘What are you doing out there? Get in here.’

  A bright flash of lightning lit up the dark sky.

  ‘I’m just going to pop into-’ A loud rumbling of thunder drowned out the rest of Katy’s words.

  ‘KATY, will you get in here.’

  She spun towards the door and rushed inside.

  ‘Come in. I'll grab you a towel.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Katy said with a shiver. ‘But I was just going to pop into Claire’s for a hot shower and a change of clothes. I’ll be ten minutes.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll get soaked on the way back. You can have a shower here. I’ve got some clothes you can borrow.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Katy said as her teeth started to chatter.

  ‘Yes you can. The bathroom is the first door on the right,’ he said, pointing up the stairs. ‘There are clean towels on the shelf as you go in. I’ll leave some clothes outside the door for you.’

  Another wave of shivering gripped Katy’s body. ‘Thank you,’ she nodded.

  ‘Is that the paper work?’ Tom asked, reaching to take it from Katy’s arms. ‘I can start looking through it whilst you get sorted.’

  ‘Er yes, but...’ Katy tightened her grip. How could she explain to Tom that the only thing between her bare chest and him was the bag of papers he was now trying to take out of her arms?

  For the briefest of moments they seemed to wrestle with the bag, until Katy
felt her grip slip from the water soaking her hands and arms.

  A sound escaped Tom’s throat as he pulled the bag away from her. ‘Oh I’m...sorry,’ he stammered.

  She looked down and despite already knowing what she would see Katy gasped. The top of her dress had travelled almost to her waist revealing her bare skin complete with odd black smudges.

  She threw her arms up to her cover herself and looked up at Tom. His gaze was now fixed on the bag, but she could see the edges of a smile twitching on his face.

  ‘I’ll just...’ Katy nodded towards the stairs, before slipping off the remains of her sodden flip flops and dripping a trail of water with every step.

  She sighed as she closed the bathroom door. Was it too much to ask to arrive at Tom’s house looking effortlessly composed? Of course it was, Katy reminded herself as her face burned crimson.

  She reached for two towels from the shelf, laying one on the tiled floor to catch the drips, and the other around herself.

  Only after the shivering had subsided did she peel off her clothes and risk a glance in the mirror. A snort of laughter escaped her throat. Sea creature from the deep? If only.

  The rain had not simply washed the mascara down her cheeks, but across her entire face and down her body. Her hair, the hair she’d spent an hour blow drying and fussing over, which was an hour more than she’d spent with a hair dryer for as long as she could remember, now sat glued to her head with the odd clump on her forehead and face.

  She looked more like a sea creature on its way to a Halloween party. She shook her head and stepped under the spray of Tom’s shower.

  ***

  ‘You’ve got so much stuff here,’ Tom said as she padded bare foot into his kitchen, wearing a baggy grey polo shirt and a pair of striped pyjama bottoms that still had the sales tags on.

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t sure what was important.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s great. We’ll have a forecast fired out in no time,’ he smiled, twisting the screen of the laptop towards her to reveal a spreadsheet already filled with columns.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?’ She asked.

  ‘Are you kidding? I love spreadsheets. It’s the one thing I miss from working in the City.’ He slid a steaming mug towards her. ‘I’ve got some white wine in the fridge, but after seeing you on the doorstep I thought a cup of tea would be more appropriate. Are you warm enough now?’

  Katy nodded, taking a seat in the chair next to Tom and gulping back a mouthful of hot tea. ‘You have a great shower. Thank you.’

  Tom looked up from the laptop, his eyes finding hers.

  She put a hand to her damp hair. ‘Do I still look like a drowned rat?’

  ‘Yes, but a clean one, at least,’ Tom laughed.

  ‘Thanks,’ she smirked.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, moving the laptop back into position. ‘You talk and I’ll type. Tell me everything about Green Tips. What’s it like now? What do you want to do with it? And what sort of timeframe do you have in mind?’

  Two hours later Katy’s stomach growled, jolting them both out of their concentration on the laptop screen.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Stop apologising. I’m starving too. Shall I whip us up a pasta?’

  ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that. I can cook something.’ Katy looked around the kitchen.

  ‘It’ll take me longer to show you where everything is than to cook it myself. Besides, I have just learnt how to make arrabbiata sauce. You keep reading through what we’ve got so far. Shout any questions you have, and I’ll do the cooking,’ Tom said, standing up.

  ‘Thank you,’ Katy said. ‘For all of this.’

  ‘No problem at all. I’m glad I can help.’

  Katy used the mouse to scroll back through the document Tom had written. She couldn’t believe how much they’d accomplished in such a short space of time. Every single one of her thoughts and ideas had been transformed into an official business proposal.

  ‘So, if it was me,’ he said, leaning over her and pointing to the screen as she reached the spreadsheet, now embedded into the document. ‘I would ask the bank for this figure.’

  She caught the scent of his cologne. The smell triggered a memory from the party; of making cocktails and laughing.

  ‘More would obviously be great,’ he said, ‘but you need to be realistic. A loan officer will take your credentials into account before granting a loan, and if they see someone with no experience of running a garden centre asking for so much money, they may be more inclined to say no.’

  Katy nodded as a knot formed in her throat. ‘What does that mean for my business plan?’

  ‘Well, it just means that you’ll probably need to scale back on the cafe idea for now. I’ve only roughly estimated how much it will cost to fit out a working kitchen and get all of the equipment, and it’s looking like a lot. It would be better to get a loan approved now, and then in twelve month’s time, when you have a year’s experience in running the business, go back and ask for a top up. In my experience getting a loan officer to approve an extension on an existing loan is a lot easier.’

  Katy slumped back in her seat, her mood deflated.

  ‘This is a great business, Katy,’ Tom said, stepping back to the dish, now simmering with onions on the hob. ‘And most importantly, it can be a profitable one. There will be setbacks along the way, but you can’t let them get you down. Just look at me. I swapped a decent job in finance to become a counsellor. If anyone knows about making big changes, it’s me.’

  ‘Have you had setbacks, then?’ Katy asked, twisting in her chair to watch him.

  ‘Just a few,’ he shrugged. ‘I had to do a year’s voluntary work in the psychiatric ward of a hospital before they would even consider me for the course. That was tough. I had to sell my house and move. My...’ Tom paused and stared off into the distance. A moment passed before his gaze moved back to Katy. ‘I’ve got two more years left, which basically means I’ll be studying until I’m forty-five.’ He rubbed the palm of his hand against the stubble on his face.

  ‘It helps,’ he added, ‘if you think about where you’ll be in five years rather than where you’ll be in five months.’

  Katy squashed down the pain of disappointment lodged in her throat. Tom was right, but thinking about her life, long term, still felt tainted with a sadness she couldn’t explain.

  Katy stood up and moved the empty mugs to the sink. She stared out of the window, still stained with rain drops. The storm had passed leaving the pale fading sun to light the sky.

  Her eyes felt drawn to the bench nestled between two small pear trees, and only just visible from the window. It seemed so innocuous in the sunset, a different bench to the one where she’d sat in the darkness a week ago.

  Images engulfed her, vivid and intense, stirring the same heat she’d felt sitting out there.

  She looked down at the clothes Tom had lent her. It felt strange to be wearing them, as if a part of him was touching her skin. The thought sent a fizz travelling up her body.

  She turned to face Tom. He had stopped cooking and was leaning against the counter watching her. His eyes bore into hers as if reading her mind.

  ‘It smells great,’ she said, shaking the flashbacks from her head.

  He wasn’t interested, she reminded herself, stepping closer to peer into the saucepan.

  ‘So do you,’ he whispered, leaning towards her and touching the ends of her damp hair. ‘I really do like your hair this length.’

  Katy’s heart began to pound as she registered his words and the closeness of his body.

  ‘It’s gone all wavy from the rain.’ She reached up to swish it away, and found his hand instead. ‘I must look like-’

  Katy’s sentence trailed off as Tom’s fingers entwined with hers.

  He pulled her closer to him, their bodies touching.

  ‘I’ve wanted to do this from the second you walked in from the rain,’ he murmured as his lips touched hers,
the movement causing a fire to blaze through her body.

  Then they were kissing; frantic and desperate as their hands ran over each other’s bodies.

  ***

  Afterwards as they lay entwined on the cool tiles of the floor, she could feel his heart still racing against her bare chest. A smile stretched across her face from the pleasure and desire still pumping through her.

  Tom touched her neck with his lips, brushing gentle kisses along to her collar bone.

  A beeping broke the silence between them.

  ‘The pasta is ready,’ Tom whispered, making them both laugh.

  CHAPTER 17

  ‘Wine?’ Tom smiled, scooping piles of penne onto two plates. The rich smell of sweet tomatoes and basil hung in the air.

  Katy nodded, pulling Tom’s grey polo shirt over her head. ‘Sounds good.’

  Outside, the sun had disappeared from the horizon leaving them in a soft gloom. Tom flicked a switch, filling the room with bright light.

  She sat back down at the laptop and stared at the document still open on the screen. The words blurred and floated across the page. She blinked them back into place and tried to concentrate her mind on something other than the tingling running around her head and all the way to the tips of her toes.

  ‘Here you go,’ Tom said, placing a glass of chilled white wine in front of her, ‘and here is my penne arrabbiata. I should have added the grated parmesan a little earlier, but I got distracted,’ he grinned, bending down to kiss the top of Katy’s head and pulling his chair in next to hers.

  The gesture lit a smile on Katy's face. It was natural and yet intimate, as if they’d known each other for years. A warm glow to spread through her.

  ‘So it’s my fault if it’s inedible?’ she grinned.

  ‘Definitely.’ Tom laughed, taking a swig from a bottle of beer.

  They sat in silence for a moment, their focus on the food in front of them.

  ‘Obviously, I’m not that distracting because this is divine,’ she said between mouthfuls.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that. It’s strange learning to cook when you only have yourself to test it out on.’

  ‘Why are you only just learning to cook now?’