The Optician’s Wife
Betsy Reavley
Copyright © 2016 Betsy Reavley
The right of Betsy Reavley to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2016 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction
April 19th 1983
April 20th 1983
April 21st 1983
July 11th 1983
July 16th 1983
July 17th 1983
July 19th 1983
July 24th 1983
January 7th 1984
January 9th 1984
January 10th 1984
September 3rd 1984
September 1st 1984
September 3rd 1984
November 23rd 1984
May 17th 1986
June 27th 1986
June 30th 1986
July 6th 1986
December 5th 1986
December 6th 1986
April 8th 1989
April 11th 1989
January 20th 1998
January 21st 1998
November 7th 1990
January 22nd 1998
March 19th 1991
May 22nd 1991
January 23rd 1998
July 21st 1991
January 24th 1998
September 18th 1993
January 26th 1998
November 15th 1993
January 28th 1998
January 3rd 1994
January 29th 1998
January 30th 1998
February 20th 1998
March 19th 1998
April 11st 1998
April 13th 1998
April 30th 1998
May 2nd 2016
For Freeman, Matilda and Elodie. You are my world.
‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my eyes and all is born again’
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
‘I love you without knowing how, or when, or from
where. I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I do not know any
other way of loving but this, in which there is no I
or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is
my hand, so intimate then when I fall asleep your
eyes close.’
100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda
‘People like to say that the conflict is between
good and evil. The real conflict is between truth
and lies.’
Don Miguel Ruiz
Inspired by true events
Introduction
I always knew I was different. I’ve known since I was very small, since I could hold a pencil.
I used to think it was a bad thing. That fitting in was the most important thing in the world. Growing up I wanted to be just like the other girls. It wasn’t easy being on the outside looking in. I felt utterly alone. My parents didn’t understand me. I had no real friends.
I used to look in the mirror and wish that I had a physical abnormality that would explain why I was different from the rest. If only I’d been born with a huge mole on my forehead or two noses, then I could have made sense of it. But I didn’t. I looked normal. Painfully normal.
For a long time I lived my life under the radar, not noticed. I was invisible.
Then I met Larry and my life changed. He saw me. He was the first person to ever really see me. He understood I wasn’t like everyone else and he embraced it. Nurtured it.
He taught me how to live. How to feel alive. And I taught him.
That is where it all began.
Now people notice me. Now they remember my name.
PART 1
April 19th 1983
I was sitting on a bench in the park eating a prawn sandwich and flicking crumbs off my jumper. The late April sunshine was warm on my face and the ducks on the river busied themselves with their young.
It was my lunch break and as usual I was eating alone. My colleagues from Woolworths all went to a trendy sandwich bar together. I preferred being outside watching the birds. Cambridge is lovely at that time of year. I often spent my breaks sitting by the river on Jesus Green.
When he sat down at the other end of the bench, his hands tucked into his brown coat pockets, I moved away from him, right to the edge. I didn’t look up and avoided eye contact.
We sat silently for a while. I fed the ducks and swans the crusts left over from my sandwich. A cocky swan lifted itself out of the water and came padding over, wagging its clean white tail feathers in a show of disapproval. The large bird came so close to me it was able to take the bread right out of my hand. The man on the bench next to me chuckled to himself, amused by the swan’s bravado.
‘Break your arm if you’re not careful,’ he piped up. I stayed silent, too shy to respond.
When the bird realised I had no more food to offer it turned and plodded back to the river, the ducks scattering to get out of its way as it returned to join its mate.
‘Most people like the swans best. But I like ducks.’ He spoke again.
‘Me too.’
I felt him turn and look at me.
‘Swans think they’re all that. Kings of the river. Pushy buggers if you ask me.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and placed them on his knees. I tried to sneak a look at him in my peripheral vision.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve seen you around. You’re always feeding the birds.’
‘I like watching them.’ Finally I turned my face to look at him.
He had a nice smile. Broad and open with small dimples in his cheeks. His mid-brown hair was thick and wavy around his square face. He reminded me of George Michael from Wham. His dark chocolate eyes were smiling at me. He was very handsome and I felt myself blush.
‘I’m Larry,’ he said still smiling and extending his hand, ‘It’s nice to meet you.’ I rubbed my hands together quickly to make sure I didn’t have mayonnaise on them before shaking his.
‘Deborah.’ My cheeks felt hot.
‘Do you work nearby?’ His eyes were searching mine and I didn’t know where to look.
‘Not far. In Woolworths on Sidney Street.’ I fumbled with the brown paper bag my sandwich came in, and fold it into the smallest possible square, pushing out the creases with my thumbs.
‘I’m doing my training at the opticians in the centre. Rook’s, do you know it?’
‘I think so.’ I said lying.
‘You have very pretty eyes.’ He said as he got up from the bench and plunged his hands back into his pockets.
I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing and focused my attention on the rowers who were passing by.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
‘You didn’t.’ I tried to sound relaxed.
‘Well, I need to get back to work now. My boss is a bit of a slave driver. Maybe I’ll see you around, Deborah.’
‘Sure.
I need to get going too.’ I checked my wristwatch and got up brushing the final evidence of crumbs from my indigo tights.
‘I hope so,’ he said with a smile before turning around and walking away down the path.
I stood watching as his frame grew smaller and smaller and the distance between us widened.
No one had ever given me a compliment like that before. I hoped our paths would cross again soon.
April 20th 1983
The next day I went into the bakers to buy my lunch. I bought my usual prawn sandwich on brown bread and treated myself to a bag of crisps.
I returned to the same spot by the river in the hope that I might see Larry. I picked at my food, tossing crumbs to the greedy flock of pigeons that descended round me. The swans were nowhere to be seen and neither was Larry. I felt bitter disappointment when I realised I needed to return to the shop. Ever since our meeting yesterday I had been thinking about the friendly stranger.
As I walked over the footbridge that connected Jesus Green to Sidney Street I dragged my feet. I was in no rush to return to work. My job was boring and I hadn’t made any friends. It paid the bills though and that was something.
I didn’t do well at school. ‘You’re not academic,’ my dad would say. It was his way of calling me thick. But it never really bothered me what he thought. Ever since my mum died six years earlier my relationship with my dad had taken the strain.
‘Go on, go out. Meet up with some friends. Get out from under my feet,’ he would say so that he could sit at home and get drunk without me knowing. But of course I knew. I would stay in my bedroom and listen to him cry over his beer. He used to talk to a photograph of Mum when he was drunk.
‘I miss you, Sue,’ he would sob. I can’t deal with that girl all alone. ‘Why did you have to leave me?’
I knew he meant me whenever he said ‘that girl’. My younger sister, Dawn, was the apple of his eye. She could do no wrong. She was perfect.
As I passed by a shop window I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection. Not usually one to indulge in vanity, I stopped for a moment to look at the girl everyone else saw. My pudgy face stared back at me, my little blue eyes empty of hope. I wondered why that nice stranger even gave me the time of day. I was plain. My light brown hair was so dull it appeared almost grey. Other people had luscious waves. I had frizz. Uncontrollable frizz that makes each individual strand stick out and appear brittle. Still looking at my disappointing reflection I tried to smooth my hair with the palm of my hand. It didn’t work. Nothing would tame it.
Everyone else I knew my age wore make-up. Bright candy pink lipstick and electric blue eyeliner were all the rage then. But those bright garish colours never suited my pallid complexion. And besides, make-up was for girls who wanted to be noticed. Girls who followed fashion and thought that their appearance was the most important thing in the world, spending most of their income on clothes from Topshop.
I went to charity shops for my clothes and wore some old things that belonged to my Mum. My sister, Dawn, didn’t want them. They’re old fashioned, she would say, and they wouldn’t fit her anyway. She was tall and skinny like Dad. I got Mum’s figure. Curvy, she used to say with a giggle. I missed her.
Walking away from my reflection I bowed my head, keeping my eyes on the pavement as I made my way back to work. I was avoiding stepping on any cracks. I was always careful and a bit superstitious. Dad said it was stupid to think like that. Maybe he was right.
When I got to the glass doors into the shop I was met by a gaggle of co-workers, chatting and smoking cigarettes. They would say that they were just stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. I never got the joke.
Silvia, a girl a few years older than me with long silky blonde hair, blew her smoke at me as I passed. The girls standing with her sniggered. I felt angry. I wanted to turn around and slap her but that would take courage and I didn’t have any back then. Instead, I pretended not to notice and hurried inside holding my breath.
Once indoors I headed straight to the bathroom to clean my face and wash away the foul smell of cigarette smoke. I bumped into Trisha. She was about the only person in the shop who ever bothered to speak to me. She was washing her hands and smiled when she saw me.
‘Good lunch?’ She checked her perm in the mirror from various angles.
‘Fine, thanks.’ I could still smell the smoke.
‘Stuart is really pushing us at the moment, don’t you think? It seems a bit extreme.’
Stuart was our supervisor, a short, balding man with elevated self-worth. He used to bark at people to stop chatting and get back to serving but he never told me off. I was never caught talking to anyone other than a customer.
‘He’s OK.’
‘I think he’s a total drag, Debs.’ Trisha rolled her eyes. She was the only person who ever called me Debs, other than my sister. I didn’t like it but said nothing. ‘Oh and you’ll never guess what. Sarah has only gone and got herself pregnant. Pregnant! She broke up with Luke a week ago and only just found out she’s got a bun in the oven! Awkward or what.’
Trisha had a large mouth that appeared to never stop moving. Her brown eyes were large and framed by too much mascara. Her large bust would heave whenever she laughed and her cleavage was often on show. Sometimes I didn’t know where to look.
I didn’t have a clue who Sarah was and certainly had never come across Luke. But I was thankful that Trisha talked to me the way she would with everyone else. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t part of the popular crowd. She was happy as long as she could share gossip with anyone who would listen.
‘But you didn’t hear it from me, OK?’ She gave a wink and left me standing alone in the toilets, the door swinging backwards and forwards on its hinges.
I was dreading going back to my till. Silvia sat a few seats away, surrounded by her gaggle of friends. Sometimes they would throw little balls of paper at me when Stuart had his back turned. Too ashamed to do anything about it, I’d tidy away the evidence scattered around my chair. People were much more immature in those days. Not like the young of today.
I straightened my blue polyester tabard and made the long walk back to my till, which was on the far side of the large shop floor.
The best thing about my job was that the shop had windows that went from ceiling to floor. When I wasn’t having my ear chewed off by a customer, I could look out across the road at the people walking by. I liked watching people when they didn’t know they were being watched. Men and woman going about their business, shopping, collecting their kids from school. Normal life. But it fascinated me and I used to fantasise about what those people were like behind closed doors. I’d give them all roles to play and pretend I was directing them. Once Stuart caught me staring out of the window instead of working. He shouted at me in front of everyone. I was so embarrassed. The others laughed and then he shouted at them.
It was a typical day for me. I’d wake up, have a wash, get dressed, eat some toast and then walk to work. I’d have my lunch, always a prawn sandwich, by the river unless it was raining very hard, in which case I’d sit at one of the bus stops or stay in the back room of the shop. I’d spend the afternoon serving customers until half-past five when the workday ended. Then I’d leave the shop and walk home in time to make tea for Dawn and Dad.
That day was no different.
I scurried out of the shop, keeping a low profile, and made my way along Chesterton Road and away from the town centre. At the time we lived in a small two bed on the northeast side of the city. Dawn and I had to share a bedroom, which we resented.
We moved to Cambridge in 1978, the year after my mother died from cancer. My aunt Mary, Dad’s sister, lived in the area and he said he wanted her to help look after us.
Before living in Cambridge we lived in Harlow. I missed it for a long time. We’d had a bigger house and I’d had my own bedroom then. But Dad reminded us that now Mum was gone things had to change. We all have to mak
e sacrifices, he used to say. He would cry a lot then and I didn’t want to upset him more, so I stayed quiet and didn’t complain.
My mother, Sue Campkin, died in 1977 aged thirty-seven, after a short battle with breast cancer. She had been a loving mother and wife, and worked at a doctor’s surgery in Harlow as a receptionist.
I was just twelve years old when she passed away. Dawn was nine. Since my father found solace at the bottom of a bottle it was left to me to keep things running. My father was permanently drunk from September 22nd 1977, the day after she died, right up until he took his last breath. In the end his liver had had enough.
After mum died I became the housekeeper. I cooked and tidied and made sure that Dawn and Dad had clean clothes. My childhood was cut short but I was always older than my years. I wanted to look after them, just like my Mum would have wanted me to. It was my duty, and besides, somebody had to step up to the responsibility. Dad had no intention of doing so.
I have never been sure if Dad was sad after she died because he missed being looked after or if it was her additional income he missed. The rent got too much for him and, so, unable to afford to stay in that house he decided to move us all to Cambridge. Looking back, I suppose he was probably too ashamed to stay locally. He was a proud man. He wouldn’t have wanted his friends to see us downsizing. So he decided we needed a fresh start. But Cambridge had other attractions too. Namely his sister, Aunt Mary, who he hoped would be a substitute mother to Dawn and me.
Mary did her best to help out, but she had a family of her own and three young children, including twin boys. To begin with she would come over and bring meals, usually casseroles or pies. She was a good cook. But then as her family grew, and she had her fourth child, she spent less and less time with us.
The Optician’s Wife: a compelling new psychological thriller Page 1