Every Vow You Break

by Julia Crouch

  As she went around the rooms picking things up and putting them in a bag, she tried not to think about Stephen and what was going to happen next. If she put it away to the back of her mind, the issue might resolve itself with no effort from her. But the imprint of him on her body was hard to ignore. Every step she took seemed to have a new significance. She felt his presence in the walls of the room, watching her every gesture, weighing it with his eyes.

  She felt this as she lay on her front on Bella’s floor, stretching her arm under the bed to retrieve a pair of knickers. Under his imagined gaze, it was more a dance movement than a domestic manoeuvre. As she dragged the knickers towards her, a piece of paper caught on them. Kneeling up with her find, Lara saw it was an old photograph of a girl, aged about twelve, unsmilingly confronting the camera. She was dressed in what Lara supposed must be nineteen forties’ clothing. Turning it over, she saw someone had written ‘Jane’ on the back.

  Lara brushed the dust from the photo and propped it up on Bella’s window frame.

  ‘Mummy!’ Jack shouted from his bedroom, marking the end of Lara’s time to herself. Now she had a long, hot afternoon stretching ahead, with only Jack for company.

  ‘How about a trip to the launderette, Jacky?’ she said. ‘I’ll just get changed first.’ She wanted to add Stephen’s shirt to the wash, although her motive for doing so – if it was clean, she would have to take it to him – made her feel slightly ashamed of herself.

  She gave Jack a book to look at while she took a shower in the little roll-top tub. As the icy water drew the heat from her body, an unprecedented clarity of thought hit her. She was going to have to tell Stephen to forget about it all and leave her alone. This family she had was more important to her than anything else in the world, and she had to put them first, before any selfish desires of her own.

  Everyone – most people – would be happier if things just remained as they were.

  She climbed out of the bathtub and towelled herself dry, averting her eyes from her reflection in the cloudy old mirror propped up against the tin-panelled wall opposite. The last thing she wanted to look at now was her sagging body with its mapped-out evidence of recent and distant pregnancies.

  The twins. What-if—

  She shook her head. What an awful thing a nagging doubt is, like a seed buried deep, always threatening to push up a shoot and break the earth.

  She cleaned away the remnants of mascara that had melted, panda-like, around her eyes. Then she smeared on some moisturiser and re-blackened her lashes. Putting on fresh underwear and pulling on her inky linen dress that always looked better for being crumpled in a suitcase, she bundled up Stephen’s shirt, added it to the laundry bag then set off, Jack in the buggy, to find the launderette.

  The murky heat had settled into a yellow haze so thick Lara felt she had to fight her way through it to get along Main Street. The village looked weighted down by the afternoon. As she passed the deli, a man exploded out of the door, nearly banging into her. Without stopping he jumped into his car, which he had left empty, idling at the side of the road, and roared off.

  ‘How can anyone be in such a hurry in this heat?’ she asked Jack, who looked round at her and shook his head sagely.

  After the turning to the theatre they found themselves on an unexplored stretch of Main Street. The road carried on past an unmanned roadside flower and corn stall and more houses in ever-increasing states of dilapidation. Then she came to the sign James had told her to look out for. Peeling and hand painted, it was of such an impressive vintage it could have been on sale in one of the antique shops up by the library. ‘Laundromat’ it said in a curly, hand-lettered script, and underneath there was a picture of two children hand-washing clothes in a zinc tub, bubbles flying up around their ears. At the bottom of the sign was an arrow pointing down a dusty driveway that turned sharply behind a derelict house. Lara hoped there were more than zinc tubs for her to do her large bag of washing in.

  In the low shed tucked away at the end of the driveway, she was pleased to find ten large washers and five tumble dryers. Apart from one load flopping about inside a dryer, the place was deserted. Lara stopped to look at the browns, creams and taupes of the clothes as they rolled around. The heat inside the laundromat made it almost impossible to breathe and Lara cursed as she felt her armpits dampen – she had forgotten to put deodorant on after her shower. It seemed a waste of effort to sweat in your clothes while you were doing the washing. For a moment she thought of stripping down to her underwear and chucking the dress in as well.

  She bundled her laundry into a machine, fed its slots and drawers with quarters and powder then turned to Jack, who looked like a butter pat in his buggy. ‘Shall we go outside and read this book?’ she said, getting a copy of his current favourite, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, out of her bag.

  ‘No,’ said Jack.

  ‘What do you want to do then?’ They had an hour until the washing was done and she didn’t want to go all the way back to the house to have twenty minutes before they had to set out again.

  ‘I want the swings,’ Jack whined. ‘And I think I’m going to die of hot.’

  He puckered up his sweaty little face into a scowl. Lara looked around at the laundromat. It was nearly as grim as their house, with cheap plastic laminate walls and scuffed lino floor. Lara wondered who on earth would run such a place in a village like this. Tucked away and shielded by trees, it was the perfect spot for a misdemeanour. Jack was right, Lara thought. The swings would be far better than hanging around here.

  He claimed to be too exhausted to walk, so she wheeled him outside, reckoning they could cut across the school grounds at the back to get to the playground. Just as they were crossing the car park, a vehicle swung down the lane and round the blind corner. Lara yelped and dived with Jack into the hedgerow. If she hadn’t reacted so quickly, the car would have clipped his buggy, or worse. The car screeched to a skidding halt.

  ‘Steady on,’ Lara said as she picked herself up.

  The woman driver got out of the car, muttering something to herself. Ignoring Lara and Jack, she strode into the laundromat, a flash of beige and a tan and turquoise silk scarf that Lara recognised from the diner the day before.

  ‘How rude,’ Lara said loudly to Jack, hoping the woman heard. ‘She could have killed us.’ She wondered if she dared go inside and confront her. But then, no more than a minute later, the woman marched back out of the laundromat with a stuffed bag. Her eyes were hidden behind a big pair of sunglasses, but her mouth looked mean and bitter. The woman slung her laundry into the back of the car, jumped in and reversed in an arc, screeching the tyres before speeding away, leaving behind a smell of burning rubber.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Lara said.

  ‘Nasty lady,’ Jack said.

  ‘Very nasty lady,’ Lara agreed.

  To the left of the car park, a path led down a grassy hill towards the school playing fields. It looked to Lara like a good short cut, but the buggy would have to stay at the top. After a brief negotiation with Jack, she folded it and left it under a bush. Then the two of them half-walked, half-slid their way down the slope, crossed the football field and climbed up the other side to the playground.

  Lara pushed Jack on the swings, chatting and prattling with him as she tried to work out what had just happened. The driveway to the laundromat was wide enough to accommodate pedestrians and a vehicle, and anyone in their right mind would take it slowly round that bend. Even so, the driver had had plenty of time to clock Lara and Jack and avoid them. It was as if she had driven straight at them on purpose. But why?

  Perhaps she had been dazzled by sudden sunlight. The clouds had scattered in the last half-hour and, from time to time, the sun shot out in the gaps. Lara tested her theory by first glancing up at the sky then straight ahead. Sure enough, her pupils took a short while to adjust. So it was a couple of seconds before her vision cleared and she realised she was looking at a tall man, a stranger, sitting in a sort of gazeb
o at the far end of the playground.

  Lara felt a prick of unease. She had thought she and Jack were alone. The stranger’s face was almost hidden behind a curtain of long blond hair and a baseball cap pulled low over his aviator-shaded eyes, but she had a strong feeling he was looking straight over her way. This was confirmed when he smiled and raised his hand to wave. There was something odd about him, which put Lara’s instincts up. He was wearing too many clothes for such hot weather, and he just didn’t seem to fit into himself. If Lara were casting a psycho in a movie, he’d get a recall.

  She looked away from the man, pretending not to have noticed him waving, and considered her situation. The playground was right on the street, with houses all around and the theatre just across the road. There were plenty of people nearby to hear if she screamed.

  ‘Who’s that, Mummy?’ Jack asked, pointing as he swung up high.

  ‘Shhh. Don’t point, darling,’ Lara said. Then she saw, with a note of alarm, that the stranger had got up and was heading towards them.

  ‘Let’s stop now, Jack, eh? We could go and see Dad at his work.’

  ‘Yay!’ Jack said as she grabbed hold of his swing to still it. Then, picking him up, she turned to leave.

  ‘Hey there!’ the man called as he quickened his pace across the playground to catch her up. He had a strong Southern accent. ‘Wait up there, now.’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t think we’ve met,’ Lara said, resigning herself to stopping and facing him. She had little choice. If this man were dangerous, she’d never outrun him, and if he were just being friendly, she would appear rude.

  ‘Sam Miller,’ the man said, putting his hand out to shake hers.

  ‘Hello. Lara Wayland,’ Lara said, looking at him.

  Jack giggled, wriggling out of Lara’s arms towards the man. ‘Stephen,’ he said. ‘Why are you in fancy dress?’

  ‘Rumbled,’ ‘Sam Miller’ said in a familiar Mancunian twang. ‘Out of the mouth of babes, eh?’

  ‘Stephen?’ Lara laughed with relief. ‘What on earth are you playing at?’

  ‘How else do I get around?’ he said. ‘I’ve spent years in wardrobe and make-up. Might as well put the knowledge to work.’

  ‘But why like that?’ Lara said. ‘I thought you were a lunatic coming to abduct us.’

  ‘People tend to keep their distance from Sam Miller,’ Stephen laughed. ‘They don’t tend to ask too many questions.’

  ‘It seems like an inordinate length to go to,’ Lara said, realising how stupid she had been. Under the four or five external elements of the disguise, it was clearly Stephen looking back at her.

  ‘It’s a nice change from everyone staring because they think they own a part of me. I just need a break from all that, and although this may seem crazy, it does work, you know.’

  ‘I can’t really take you seriously with all that on.’

  ‘I’m glad I bumped into you,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking about our conversation last night and I wanted to say sorry.’

  Lara shot him a warning glance, inclining her head towards Jack, who had her by the hand, pulling her towards the theatre.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Lara said. ‘I promised him we’d drop in on Marcus.’

  ‘Do you like ice cream, Jacko?’ Stephen bent so his eyes were the same level as the little boy’s.

  Jack nodded and smiled, his freckles dancing up and down.

  ‘Well I’m going to take you and your mum to our local ice-cream shop: the best in the whole county.’

  ‘Wow!’ Jack said.

  ‘It’s called Pretty Fly Pie …’ Stephen told him as he got up. ‘And it is really something. My car’s over there.’ He pointed to a dented red Wrangler parked outside the theatre.

  ‘We have to drive?’ Lara said, thinking about her laundry.

  ‘Yep. It’s about ten miles thataway.’ Stephen pointed west.

  ‘And that’s local?’

  ‘Welcome to America.’

  When they stopped by the house to pick up the child seat, Stephen rolled down the top of the Wrangler, much to Jack’s delight. Then they set off, the wind in their hair, out of the village in the direction that Lara had taken on her run. Instead of turning along the river once over the bridge, they went straight on, out into the countryside. They zigzagged steeply up a hill and down the other side, where they crossed a gargantuan, six-lane freeway on which they counted just three cars and one lorry. An empty gas station stood at the side of the road, dwarfed by an incongruous, thirty-foot-high illuminated Sunoco sign. Apart from a small trailer park, it was the first building they had seen since leaving Trout Island.

  ‘How much longer?’ Lara yelled over the roar of the Wrangler and the rush of the air. She was amazed Stephen’s wig had managed to stay on.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said. ‘Look out for the pie.’

  They took a right after the freeway bridge and crawled through a village that looked like a mirror image of Trout Island, different only in that it lacked the grandiose presence of the theatre building. They picked up speed and covered another couple of miles of the wilds until they came to a wooden cut-out of a giant winged pie.

  ‘Pretty Fly Pie …’ Stephen said, turning into a gravelled car park in front of a red-painted barn. Over the doorway, another sign proclaimed ‘… and darn dream ice cream’.

  ‘It had better be darn dream,’ Lara said. ‘It’s got a pretty heavy carbon footprint.’

  ‘Believe me, it’s worth every ounce.’ Stephen reached Jack out of his car seat. He went to put him down, but Jack clung to his neck. The three of them looked every bit the family as they crossed the car park.

  The barn doors led them into a vast airy space, unexpectedly full of people sitting at mismatched tables and chairs, eating pie and ice cream. Some played chess on boards painted on the table tops; others pored over jigsaw puzzles. There was produce for sale, too – a wooden stall in the doorway bore a display of Pennsylvania peaches so ripe that the air tingled with their downy scent. A rack of baskets stood to one side, brim-full of sweet corn, the yellow kernels still dewy underneath the papery husks. There were piles of organic tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, and every sunset colour, as well as blueberries, tiny strawberries, basil, courgettes and peppers. To the back of the barn rows of wooden shelves offered honey, preserves, maple syrup and chopping boards made from local timber by someone called Wally Woodshop. Along the side wall, though, was the holy grail they had come in search of: thirty different flavours of home-made ice cream.

  ‘They make the ice cream and pies here, all the vegetables are organically grown round the back, and most of the other stuff comes from within twenty miles, so you don’t have to feel too guilty,’ Stephen said.

  Lara picked up a peach and inhaled. It was almost liquid in her hands. Jack scrambled down from Stephen’s arms and made a beeline for the ice-cream counter. Lara found tears coming to her eyes, simply because this place was so lovely. She looked up at Stephen, who was watching her with a smile on his face.

  ‘It’s reet great ’ere, lass, in’t it?’ he said.

  Lara put the peach down and looked around. ‘It’s perfect.’ She smoothed over the lurch his look had set in her stomach by joining Jack at the ice-cream counter to help him choose.

  ‘I want them all,’ Jack said, holding on to the counter, pulling himself up on tiptoe so he could see.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Lara said, ‘but perhaps you could choose two?’

  As she helped Jack make the difficult decision, she felt Stephen standing close to her.

  ‘Hey Sam, how ya doin?’ the plump man behind the counter said.

  ‘Just fine thank you, Jim,’ Stephen said, putting on the gallant Southern accent he had used in the playground. ‘I recommend the sundae for the little guy,’ he said to Lara in the same voice. ‘The chocolate sauce is to die for. It’s on me, by the way.’

  ‘Why, that’s very kind of you, sir,’ she said, curtsying like a belle. ‘You seem to be a great co
nnoisseur of the menu. Do you come here often?’

  ‘All the time,’ he said, and Lara thought of Stephen driving out here on his own, in his absurd disguise, and sitting and eating ice cream. Did he do a jigsaw to pass the time? Did he find a chess partner?

  Eventually, decisions were made, and the patient, pleasant Jim got a fancy, scallop-shaped dish and doled on to it one enormous scoop each of cookie dough and peanut butter ice cream. He moved over to the back counter with a surprisingly balletic step and pumped two dollops of warm chocolate sauce on top.

  ‘Sprinkles?’ Jim turned to ask Jack.

  ‘Sprinkles.’ Stephen nodded.

  ‘There’s so much,’ Lara said, taking the dish for Jack.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Stephen said, still in his American accent, ‘I’ll help him out.’

  ‘Any more for any more?’ Jim stretched his full lips into a cherubic smile.

  ‘I’ll have one of these.’ Lara pointed at the low fat, no sugar water ices at the far end of the counter.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘These are so much nicer.’ He waved his hand along the counter at the fuller, billowier tubs full of double chocolate, Hershey Bar, butter almond and maple fudge.

  ‘Go on, little lady,’ Stephen said. ‘You don’t need to watch your figure, surely?’

  ‘You old charmer, you.’

  In the end, she settled for a cone of pumpkin on the grounds that she had never tasted it before. Stephen had strawberry cheesecake and toffee cookie crumble in a dish like Jack’s with maple cream on it.

  ‘I’ve tried them all now,’ he said, with some satisfaction.

  While Stephen paid, Lara and Jack turned to find a table.