Summer at 23 the Strand

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Am I? No one had ever told Belle that before but she was going to believe it from now on. No, that wasn’t entirely true – Aaron had said she was the best a couple of times, just in general conversation about how she’d been doing finger-painting with the girls or making fairy cakes or something… perhaps it was time she believed him too. A warm and fuzzy feeling came over her thinking about Aaron. She’d missed him always being there, she knew that now. Time to give him a chance to be in her life, perhaps?

  And then there were more hugs and kisses and the little family were gone, Sam pulling their two cases behind him as Fiona pushed Cooper in his buggy.

  Belle waved and waved until they were out of sight.

  Dear next occupant,

  Well, I’ve had a lovely time here at 23 The Strand – all three of us have – far better than I could ever have imagined. I’ve read a whole book for the first time since I left school numpity-nump years ago. I’ve learned to be proud of what I’ve achieved (so far!) and I’m going to ditch those bits that went a bit pear-shaped. Oh, and I made a couple of friends as well. The book was a present from the person who was here before me, and it seems it’s the thing to leave something for the next occupant, although no one is going to shoot you down in flames if you don’t. So here you go, then. A bottle of wine. I hope you have someone to share it with.

  Bottoms up!

  Belle, Chloe & Emily

  Chapter Eight

  LATE AUGUST

  Caroline

  ‘Wine?’ Caroline pushed the bottle along the work surface in the galley kitchen with a wooden spoon. She didn’t want to touch it. This was some sort of sick joke, wasn’t it? She read the note: ‘…someone with whom to share it.’ Ha bloody ha! Caroline had no one, never mind someone with whom to share a bottle of what looked like very excellent – 2007 – Rioja. Caroline preferred white wine, but red would do. Or rosé at a push. Or would have done. But not now. Now, Caroline was giving all that up. Now she’d lost her husband, her son, her job. She was just about holding on to her flat but after this short – hopefully drying out – holiday she would either have to go on benefits to pay the rent or find a job.

  Belle, Chloe and Emily. Who were they? Three friends on holiday having a jolly, wine-fuelled time? Or sisters maybe? People who had a future anyway, Caroline decided. She also decided she hated them in that moment, whoever they were.

  ‘And you are feeling monumentally sorry for yourself,’ she told her image in the tiny mirror on the wall above the work station in the galley kitchen of 23 The Strand. A microwave, a two-hob cooker, electric kettle, toaster. Racks of mugs and plates and bowls hanging from the wall. Four of each. She slid open the drawer and found four of every category of cutlery, plus serving spoons. A door underneath the sink had a little sign on it – Saucepans.

  ‘As if I’m going to cook!’ Caroline said. She used the wooden spoon to slide the bottle of wine towards her again. ‘But maybe just one glass?’

  ‘I think you know what’s coming, Caroline,’ Mr Brewer – the manager of the bank where Caroline had worked for twenty-four years, apart from six months off when she’d had her son, Luke – said. ‘We’re going to have to let you go. You’ve been late for work one too many times, drunk alcohol while on duty one too many times, been unreliable one too many times, made too many errors in your work. Your employment here ends as of now and your pension is in question at this moment in time. Here it is, all in writing.’ Mr Brewer thrust an envelope towards Caroline. ‘Get help.’

  Caroline shivered, remembering every word Mr Brewer had said and the contempt in his eyes. We’re going to have to let you go. He’d made it sound as though he were giving her a prize for something, not shattering her life, her potential for getting another job torn to shreds. She was never going to get a reference from him, was she?

  Christ, but Caroline had needed a drink then more than ever. She had a small bottle that fitted in her handbag… just enough for one large glass but who the heck could only have one glass? She almost took it out and drank it in front of him but something in her made her stop. She knew she’d have to run the gamut of her fellow workers who just had to know why she’d been called into Mr Brewer’s office so early in the day. She knew they’d all be pretending to study the computer screens or papers in front of them, or be interested in whatever whoever was on the telephone line was saying, but they would all be watching her. Waiting for her to fall over, or bump into something. Slur her words.

  Caroline had walked through the open-plan office, head held high, looking neither left nor right. No one spoke, called out ‘Bye’, or ‘Good luck’ or anything. They were probably all thinking ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ or some other horrible thing. Fuck off, perhaps? She’d said that to Danny when he’d approached her a few weeks before, told her he knew she had a problem and understood and could he help. What a bloody know-all. He’d only just started working at this branch and it seemed he had the nerve to confront her.

  ‘When I want your opinion on my life, I’ll ask for it,’ Caroline had said. ‘Fuck off!’

  She’d been washing her coffee mug in the sink in the staff kitchen – coffee into which she’d poured a teensy tot of brandy, just to get her through to lunchtime. She didn’t think Danny had noticed because she was so adept at sneaking it in these days after years of practice, but perhaps he had.

  Danny had seemed unabashed at her spirited response, and her bad language.

  ‘Just saying,’ he said, ‘that more than a few in here told me about you before I’d even met you. I don’t listen to hearsay, but now I know they…’

  ‘…were being bitchy. Bet it was the girls who told you.’

  ‘Some, yes, but a couple of the men as well. But I’d still have known. Like I said, if I can help…’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Caroline said again.

  ‘Fuck off?’ Danny had repeated. ‘I would if I had anyone to fuck with.’ Danny had grinned at her, not shocked at all by her words. ‘But here’s a tip for you – ditch the brandy and drink vodka instead. No smell. It’ll get people off your back, stop them sniffing around you.’

  Caroline whirled round.

  ‘You too?’

  ‘Nope. And that’s all I’m saying. But anyone with half an eye can see you need a friend around here…’

  ‘You’re young enough to be my son!’

  ‘True, but I didn’t mean that sort of friend if – to borrow your terminology – it’s a fucking friend you’re thinking about.’

  Caroline had stared at him, stunned at how forthright he was. She was embarrassed now that he might have thought she thought he was coming on to her. She’d never met anyone quite like him and wondered what secrets he might be hiding that had made him say what he had.

  But before Caroline could come up with some sort of retort, Danny said: ‘Now then, tell me, which of those girls downstairs would oblige me with a fuck, seeing as you recommend it?’

  Caroline and Danny found themselves on the same tea-break rota a few times after that but the conversation they’d had around alcohol was never mentioned. Caroline had taken his tip, though, and it was vodka she slipped into her coffee now when no one was looking. It was good to be drawn into the conversation when Danny was there, but if he wasn’t, well, she was used to being ignored by the rest of the staff.

  But that day, when Caroline had walked out, she’d paused at the door and looked back quickly over her shoulder. All heads jerked to look back down at what they’d been doing, instead of at her as they had been. Only Danny had held her gaze, waggling fingers at her, a lips-pressed-together smile. Wishing her well in the only way he could? That finger waggle and the smile had brought tears to Caroline’s eyes. So unexpected. So undeserved.

  ‘Well, that was then and this is now,’ Caroline said to her reflection. God, but she looked terrible. The whites of her eyes, as she leaned closer for a better look, had a yellowish tinge to them. The skin on her cheeks and across her forehead was flaking off, like some sort o
f suntan that had started to peel off except that Caroline never sunbathed. Well, she might now, now she was at the seaside.

  It was Caroline’s GP who’d suggested she get right away from everything familiar.

  ‘I expect,’ Dr Shaw had said, ‘you could find your way to the Cork and Bottle or the York Inn from your flat blindfolded.’

  ‘And all the other pubs in between,’ Caroline had said.

  ‘Quite. If you’re in unfamiliar territory it will be harder to find that comfortable niche in which to drink, where people know you and encourage you to drink more… perhaps more than you really want.’ There had been the hint of a question in the doctor’s voice at the end of her sentence.

  Yes, she had it right there. How many times had Caroline told herself she would stop at two glasses of Chardonnay only to go to the loo and come back to find someone had bought her another, placing it where she’d been sitting, her coat draped on the back of the seat? Dr Shaw had been sympathetic enough, and had run all the blood tests to check on her liver – which was just about holding up, thank goodness – but she had no idea really how hard it was going to be. To Caroline, the doctor looked younger than her own son, Luke, who was twenty-six and hadn’t spoken to her for the past five years.

  Luke? Not only had he not spoken to her, she hadn’t seen him either, not since her divorce from Luke’s dad, Evan. Luke had taken sides, and Caroline couldn’t blame him for that. She’d embarrassed him in front of his friends one too many times, been sick in public one too many times, forgotten his birthday because she was out of it on drink one too many times, and his fiancée, Sophie, had dumped him because of her. It had reached her on the grapevine that Luke was getting married at the end of the year. Sophie or someone else? Would anyone bother to tell her? Would there be an invite for her? Would there?

  Caroline turned her back on the bottle of wine, reached for her bag and got out her mobile. She scrolled down to Luke. Text or voicemail?

  As she’d known it would be, Luke’s phone was turned to ‘collect’.

  ‘Hi, Luke. It’s Mum. I just want you to know I’m trying to sort this thing once and for all. Love you.’

  Luke would know what ‘this thing’ was. He was teetotal because of her. Had lost too many friends because of her. Luke had tried in the beginning, often dropping everything to fetch her from hospital or a pub or a shopping mall. And he’d done that just one too many times to his fiancée, Sophie.

  But Caroline was grateful Luke hadn’t changed his number and that she was still able to at least leave a message if not speak to him.

  Maybe just one glass?

  Dr Shaw had advised against going ‘cold turkey’. It would be too huge a shock to her system if she did that.

  ‘You need to find other things to do to fill what would normally be drinking time for you,’ Dr Shaw had said. ‘A walk. Go to the cinema. Gardening. You could visit an art gallery, perhaps? You’re an intelligent woman, Caroline, and I’m sure you don’t need me making suggestions. I’m sure you’ll find something to pique your curiosity. If you look at what’s out there.’

  She turned to her computer screen, clicked on things too fast for Caroline to follow, and then the printer kicked in and a sheet of A4 slid out. The doctor handed it to Caroline.

  ‘The local Alcoholics Anonymous group will welcome you.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Caroline said.

  ‘You’d be surprised at how mixed the group is, people from all walks of life and all ages.’

  ‘And local,’ Caroline said. ‘I don’t want anyone who might work on the till in Sainsbury’s or in the pharmacy or Next or something knowing my business.’

  Dr Shaw placed a hand on Caroline’s arm.

  ‘I suspect,’ she said, ‘that many of them already do have an idea. But that’s okay. You can sort it.’

  Dr Shaw’s kindness – and her belief in her – had been almost overwhelming to Caroline. When had she last had a walk, been to the cinema, done a bit of gardening or visited an art gallery? It would be alien country for her. She had no idea how she’d cope. And with no one to do those things with her, could she go it alone?

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘I don’t know your personal circumstances, apart from your medical ones,’ the doctor had said, ‘but booking into a retreat works for some.’

  Caroline had a hunch the doctor had clocked her expensive clothes and shoes and top-end haircut – well, there wouldn’t be any more of that for a while, would there? – and decided Caroline could afford to go to a retreat.

  ‘Like the Priory, you mean?’ Caroline said.

  ‘There are others. Some find the group approach works, others prefer to go it alone.’ The doctor glanced at the clock over her desk.

  ‘And my ten minutes are up,’ Caroline said.

  ‘For today. But do come back if…’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Really. Thanks.’

  And Caroline had fled before she dissolved into tears. She was on her own with this.

  Caroline put the phone back in its slot in her bag. Her fingers found their way around the mini bottle of wine she’d had there since the day she’d got the sack. The snap of the seal breaking was like a gunshot in the chalet, bouncing off the wooden walls and floor and the hard surfaces of the kitchen. Caroline removed the top, inhaled the heady aroma of best Australian Chardonnay. And then she necked the liquid. Bliss.

  Bugger. This detox was going to be far harder than she could ever have imagined.

  Caroline slept in late on Sunday. When she woke and groped for the travelling bedside clock she’d bought in Waitrose when she’d been in for a few essentials – bread, butter, jam, tea, a box of chocolates (but no wine) – the clock said 10.39. The sun was shining. She’d forgotten to draw the curtains in the bedroom and it was as though she’d woken in a Christmas grotto of fairy lights. There were all sorts of noises going on outside. A child was crying somewhere a little distance off. God, but that had to be loud wherever it was that child was. And gulls. Caroline could hear gulls squawking. A train rumbled by on the line a couple of hundred yards away.

  Caroline put her hands over her ears and then realisation hit her – she did not have a dry mouth. The wine drinkers’ dry mouth she was used to waking with in the night at least three times. One bottle of wine for Caroline meant the whole six-glasses bottle not a handbag-sized bottle. Well… this was news. But wine, and alcohol in the system, was accumulative, Caroline knew that. The more she drank the more she needed to drink for it to have the same effect… that relaxed feeling with her shoulders down, that shedding of nerves when she had to walk into a party or lunch with colleagues on her own – no partner, no special friend to be with. Except wine. Wine was her special friend.

  Caroline wrapped the duvet around her, slid from the bed and went to the window to pull the curtains so she could walk about naked until she’d had her shower and found something to put on. She stood there for a moment, the duvet tucked under her armpits, a curtain in each hand. The tide was way out now and the sand, covered in a light film of water, looked as though someone had spread a massive sheet of tinfoil over it. Beautiful. Caroline gulped. She only had herself to blame for the state she was in, she knew that. Oh, she’d done her best to blame her parents, her husband, even her son, who’d been a faddy eater and had had a temper on him when he was younger that had been hard to deal with. But the bottom line was that neither her parents, nor her husband, nor her son – nor any of her friends, ex-friends now – had gone down the grape route, as she’d heard someone, somewhere, in some pub or other, quip. But God, what would she have given now to be able to turn to someone and say, ‘Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?’

  Caroline’s calves were unused to walking. Unused to not having teeteringly high heels on the ends of her feet, and a tight skirt that made her steps short in those heels. Her calves were beginning to ache. And her ankles. She was barefoot now on the sand. It felt damp and gritty and hard between her toes, and
in the arches of her feet when she sank down into it. Her sandals were dangling from her left hand by the straps. In the other she had an ice cream. Pina colada. Caroline hadn’t known ice cream could come in such a flavour but, well… best not to go cold turkey the doctor had said, and besides, pina colada had never been Caroline’s drink.

  ‘Luke!’ someone called.

  Caroline’s heart stopped for a moment at the sound of her son’s name. Surely not? She looked in the direction the shout had come from and saw a tall, skinny young mum, her dark hair piled on top of her head, racing after a small boy.

  ‘Luke! Stop this minute!’

  But Luke raced on as her own Luke had when he’d had fun running through every pore and thought it a game to run away from her, hide from her. He was running and hiding from her now.

  Sorrow engulfed Caroline like a particularly soggy and coarse damp blanket. She finished her ice cream and decided to walk through the shallows towards the harbour. Two miles, there and back, it had said on a plaque on the wall on the promenade outside 23 The Strand. And here on the sand, there were no bars calling her in. No Tesco Metro, no discount wine stores, no pubs.

  By the time Caroline reached the harbour and sat on the sea wall to get her breath back, the tide had turned. It seemed to be coming in quite fast and she wondered for a moment if it would come right up to the promenade in front of her chalet.

  ‘Better get back,’ she said to a gull that had landed beside her, probably hoping for some scraps of something. Already the sea was covering children’s sandcastles and people were moving their things further back on the beach. Small waves were forming now, making tiny white horses which some young lads were boogie-boarding on. Caroline had bought Luke one of those when he’d been about fourteen. Did he still have it? Did he remember it was she who had bought it and not his dad? Did he remember it had always been Caroline who had sat on the beach with him while he played when he was little because his dad was always busy doing other things?