by Sharon Booth
I shook my head, dazed. "And that's the money you were talking about? I thought you were getting a job."
He smiled again, suddenly looking more sure of himself. "Ah, but it's even better than that. Isolde and I are going into business. I'm going to use the two hundred and fifty pounds as an investment. We're going to make a fortune."
I wanted to slap him. "And what business is this? It must be something amazing, if you're planning to spend my money on it."
He didn't seem to hear the emphasis on my. Obviously too enthralled in his own wonderful plans. "Isolde knows someone who knows someone who's got all the equipment, and is willing to sell it cheap. She'll be putting up most of the money, but I'll be a partner. I reckon, in that spare bedroom, we could grow quite a lot of it, and the profit from that would be fantastic. I mean, there would be expenses, obviously. We'd need to keep the heating on full all the time, for a start, but when you think what it costs just to buy enough for a few joints, we could make a fortune. I reckon we could—"
"That's your plan?" A lump of concrete seemed to be sitting in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. "You're going to become a drug dealer?"
He glanced around like we were being watched, and glared at me. "Don't say it like that! You make it sound as if I'm one of those sordid men who push heroin on schoolchildren. This is just cannabis. Everyone smokes it."
"I don't."
"No, well. You're—you."
"Meaning?"
"Well, you're so bloody honourable, aren't you? I mean, you never do anything exciting, or edgy. Everything's by the book with you. I'm all for honesty, but you're ridiculous. It's quite boring, to be honest. Can't you just turn a blind eye? It's easy money, for God's sake."
Turn a blind eye. Oh, I was so good at that, wasn't I? "Thanks very much."
"Well, honestly, you're so innocent. It's time you grew up. You're no fun anymore, Cara. I'm struggling to stay positive around you. I didn't like to say, but you're having a negative effect on my poetic output. I'm barely managing ten poems a week these days."
"You used to admire my innocence," I murmured. "You used to say it was refreshing."
"Yeah, well, maybe it was, when you were young. But you're thirty now, and you still don't understand the way the world works. It can be very wearing."
Something seemed to be happening inside me. Like all my feelings had been encased in a giant egg shell, and over the last few months, a tiny crack had appeared, through which some of them had managed to peep through. Suddenly, though, I could feel the shell splitting open. I stared at him in wonder. He stared back.
"What's up with you?"
I didn't answer him, just shook my head and rushed into the kitchen, where I dished out the shepherd's pie. I couldn't believe it, but my overwhelming feeling was joy.
Joy!
How extraordinarily unexpected was that?
I forced myself to sit with him as we consumed the shepherd's pie in silence, then I left him watching some programme about Coleridge and went to bed.
I couldn't sleep. I knew I wouldn't, and that was fine. I didn't want to sleep. I lay there in the darkness, thinking about Seth's little speech. Clearly, I'd been fooling myself that he loved me just the way I was. I was boring, ridiculous, unexciting. To win his approval, I would have to compromise yet again, and I was tired of compromising. I'd turned a blind eye to so many things during the fourteen years we'd been together. I'd ignored the pain those compromises had cost me, just to keep the peace, to keep him happy. I'd convinced myself that I didn't really mind living in the flat, in the city, working in a nursery on a sink estate. What did it matter where we lived, as long as we had each other? I'd told myself that it wasn't an issue that I had to earn the money, while Seth stayed at home, pretending to write poetry, even though I hadn't seen any evidence of his efforts for a couple of years. I'd persuaded myself that it was okay that he didn't want to get married, because, after all, Cathy and Heathcliff never married each other, did they? No one could deny that they were meant to be together, and they didn't need a licence and a ring to prove it. It hurt that there were no children, but maybe Seth was right. The world was overpopulated already, and it would be irresponsible to bring more into the world. Besides, children put so many restrictions on your life. We didn't want those restrictions, did we?
As I stared up into the blackness, an excitement built inside me. What was I doing? What had I been doing all those years? How had I fallen for all his—bullshit?
Well, I'd finally seen our relationship for what it was, and I knew, without doubt, that I couldn't un-see it.
Seth fell into bed around half-past eleven, and I waited a good half hour until his breathing was deep and regular, telling me he was asleep. As quietly as I could, I crept into the living room, switched on the lamp, and went straight to the old biscuit tin he kept by the side of the sofa. I knew he kept his joints in there, so the chances were, he would have put the piano money inside, too. Opening the lid, I discovered a roll of twenty pound notes.
Four hundred pounds in twenties, to be exact, not two hundred and fifty.
Lying swine.
Underneath them was a piece of paper. It was a sketch of Seth, and it was an extremely flattering one. Whoever had drawn it was certainly looking through rose-tinted glasses.
I shook my head, not caring anymore. There was no signature on the paper, but as Isolde had spent two years at art school, for no reason I could fathom, unless it was to kill some time without actually doing any work, she was the most likely candidate. Maybe he'd already slept with her. Maybe he'd been sleeping with her all along, ever since the last one. He'd told me, three years ago, that his affair with Gina had been meaningless to him. That it was just sex, and sex was just another way to express the creative urge.
‘I love you,’ he'd assured me. ‘Only you. You're my other half. My world. Infidelity means nothing.’
Well, maybe it had meant nothing to him, but his betrayal had almost destroyed me, and to survive it, I'd had to lock some part of me away, where no one could reach it. Maybe that was when my love for him had started to die, when I'd started to see him for what he really was.
I wasn't sure, and it didn't matter. All that mattered was that, now, I saw everything, and I was free.
At least, I would be, once I'd organised things.
Maybe Granny Reed had given me the greatest gift, after all.
Chapter Four
Tamsin, unsurprisingly, looked astounded, when she opened the door and found me standing on her doorstep. "What the heck are you doing here?"
"Oh, good. You're in." I pushed past her and dumped my suitcase in her hallway, then leaned against the wall in relief. "I was worried you wouldn't be back yet."
She seemed a bit nervous. "What do you mean? How do you know I was out?"
I tapped the screen of my phone a couple of times, then handed it to her. It was open on her Facebook page.
New hula-hoop class started in town! Exhausting but fun! Hope I can keep up!
"Oh," she said, handing the phone back to me. "Well, I got back a couple of hours ago."
"And did you keep up?" I asked.
She stared at me. "Does it matter?"
Taking that to mean no, I smirked.
She looked almost scared. "What on earth are you doing here?" she demanded again.
"I've come to stay. It's just until tomorrow, when my new accommodation is ready," I added hastily.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. After a moment's awkward silence, she shook her head slightly. "You'd better come through to the kitchen. I'll make you a drink."
Sitting at Tamsin's table a few minutes later, sipping tea from one of her china cups, I glanced around the kitchen admiringly. It was amazing. Very contemporary, with grey units and granite worktops, and lots of stainless steel. Several large flower displays had been dotted around. Tamsin loved flowers and was always buying them. Good job I didn't suffer from hay fever. Against one wall was a huge frid
ge almost as big as the kitchen in my flat. Bet she stored more interesting and tasty things in there than mince, milk, and value margarine.
From the kitchen, I studied my sister. Free of makeup, she pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail. I guessed she'd showered after her hula hoop session, and hadn't yet bothered to tart herself up again. There was no way she'd have gone into town without her war-paint. The skinny jeans and ribbed top she wore showed that she hadn't an inch of spare fat on her, and even without the makeup, she was attractive, but I noticed suddenly that there was a tired expression in her eyes, and she didn't appear to be exactly glowing with health, despite the diet and exercise programme.
"Stop staring at me," she said grumpily, "and tell me what you're doing here."
"I told you. I've come to stay. You don't mind, do you?"
"Have you left Seth?" Her eyes widened. "I don't believe you. You haven't got it in you."
"Clearly, I have." I hadn't thought myself capable of it, either, but it just showed you.
"So, why have you come here?" she asked, adding hastily, "Not that I mind, of course. Just, I would have thought you'd have gone to Mum and Dad's."
"You were closer," I said, which was partly true. It was quicker and cheaper to get to York than Beverley from Oddborough, and meant just one train, rather than two.
"Even so," she said. "And what did you mean by your new accommodation?"
I smiled. "I've booked a caravan. I can move in tomorrow. So, you see, it really is just for one night."
"A caravan? In this weather? Where abouts?"
"On the moors," I said vaguely. "It's in a field on a farm. The farmer rents it out to make extra money. I've booked it for three weeks."
"You'll be freezing! You must be mad. And what are you going to do after that? Are you going back to Seth?"
I shook my head. If there was one thing I was sure about, it was that I wasn't going back to Seth.
She waited, and when I didn't give any verbal response, she reached over and took my hand. "Seriously, Cara, what's happened?"
What had happened? I supposed I'd finally realised that Seth didn't love me the way I thought he did, and that had set me free.
It occurred to me that I just wasn't the sort of person that people loved. Not unless I was doing something they wanted, behaving the way they needed me to behave. It was always conditional, and I wasn't playing that game anymore. Love and passion had led me away from who I really was. Trying to please Seth, live a life that suited him, had forced me to compromise for the last fourteen years. And it wasn't just Seth. Looking back, I could see that I'd always done the same thing.
Even as a child, I'd always been easily persuaded into doing things I would never have done in a million years by myself. Upon leaving school, I'd had no idea what to do for a living, but then I met Seth in that bookshop in Newarth, and that was that. He’d been spending the week in a holiday cottage on the moors with his family, and I was visiting Granny Reed, but within six weeks, he'd convinced me to move into his friend's grotty flat with him, just a couple of miles from the vicarage in Oddborough, and I wasted a year practically glued to Seth's side, totally besotted and happy to do whatever he wanted.
During that time, Seth grew increasingly irritated by the job centre's determination that he should find a job. Clearly, they didn't understand that he needed to be at home to write his poetry, and I’d totally sympathised with him, so I’d sought advice from them and ended up getting a placement at a nursery, going to college part-time to take my exams in childcare. From then on, I’d become the breadwinner, and for a long time, that was okay. We'd moved into a bedsit in the city centre, which was so bad I think the landlord should have paid us to live there, and after a few years, the council gave us the high-rise flat, which, initially, had seemed like heaven, because we had our own bathroom at last, if nothing else.
If the flat wasn't exactly a beautiful home, if Oddborough wasn't exactly my ideal location, if nursery nursing wasn't exactly my dream career choice, it didn't matter, because Seth was the man I loved, and so much better than I imagined I deserved.
The delusion I'd cocooned myself in became threatened when I realised he was sleeping with Gina, but somehow, I'd bottled up my feelings and stumbled through the last three years, closed off and numb. Until then.
I wasn't entirely sure what had changed. I couldn't pinpoint a moment when I'd started to feel things again. I only knew that when I did, those feelings weren't positive. And after his little speech the previous night, I'd finally realised that Seth didn't love me. He needed me. I was his protection against the world. With me in his life, he didn't have to find a job, earn money, be a grownup.
All those thoughts ran through my mind, but out loud I only said, "I'd just had enough."
"Well, about time," Tamsin said. "But how are you going to manage? What about your job?"
"I've walked out," I said, wrestling another pang of guilt. "I had no choice. If I didn't leave there and then, I might never have done it."
Jilly had been wonderful. I'd called her early that morning to tell her I wouldn't be in. That I wouldn't be in ever again. She'd been sad to hear that I was leaving, but all the same, she was glad, for my sake, that I was finally going. She'd assured me that she and the other nursery nurses would cope until they got a replacement, and wished me luck, begging me to keep in touch, which was much kinder of her than I deserved.
Tamsin stared at me, anxiety in her eyes. "He must have done something dreadful. Did he hurt you?"
"Yes," I said. "He sold the piano."
Her eyes widened, and she let go of my hand. "He sold the piano! That's it? After all you've put up with all these years, you left because he sold the piano!"
Put like that, I supposed it did sound ridiculous, but there was so much more to it that I just couldn't put into words. Especially not to someone like Tamsin. How could she, with her perfect life, ever understand?
Standing there, clutching that four-hundred pounds in my hand, it had at last been crystal clear to me that the relationship was over, and it was time to leave. I'd put the tin back, stuffed the money in my purse, and crept back to bed. The following morning, I'd got ready for work, as usual, kissed Seth goodbye, and walked out, knowing I wouldn't go back. Knowing he wouldn't shift off the sofa to see me off, it’d been easy to open the bedroom door and grab the ancient, battered suitcase that’d once belonged to my parents, which I'd packed after my shower, on my way out. Seth hadn’t noticed a single bit of it.
I hadn't got much with me, only a few essentials. The worst thing was, I'd had to leave my books behind. Maybe one day, I'd have the courage to ask him to send them to me, although, by the time that day arrived, he'd probably have sold them all. "It was just the final straw," I said. "Anyway, it's done now. That life is finished."
"But what are you going to do with yourself? What about money?"
"I've got four-hundred pounds on me. Well, minus my train fare," I said. "And Granny's five-hundred pounds is in the bank. I'll be getting my wages paid into my account in a few days." And for the first time, it would be all mine.
How would Seth manage? He would have to sort himself out, wouldn't he? The kitchen cupboards were full of tinned goods, and there was some food in the fridge—however basic. He wouldn't starve. Though, he’d be forced to go to the job centre and grow up. I was doing him a favour, I told myself. He couldn't hide away in that flat doing nothing forever.
Besides, I was pretty certain Naomi and Isolde would take care of him.
"I booked the caravan to stay in, while I figure out what to do next."
"But that's just throwing money away," she said. "And you're going to need every penny. I don't suppose your wages are very high, and they won't last long. Then what?"
I didn't want her to burst my bubble. "I'll find another job," I said. "Look, I needed to get away, and that's that. It's just for one night. I won't get in the way, I promise. Besides, it will be nice to see Alice and Robyn again. I expec
t they've grown."
"I'd be very worried if they hadn't," she said sarcastically, "considering it's nearly three years since you last saw them." She stood up. "I'll put fresh bedding in the spare room," she said. "Goodness knows what Brad will think of it all."
"Where is Brad?" I said, then tutted. "Sorry. Of course, he's at work. I forget that some men do that."
"Huh. Some men do nothing but that," she muttered, opening the door into the hallway. "Help yourself to something to eat. You must be hungry, and there's plenty in the fridge."
There certainly was, and most of it was stuff I'd never seen before. Lots of fancy pots with weird pasta things in them, or couscous, or rice. No value vacuum-packed ham for Tamsin, but slices of real ham, beef and chicken, and three different varieties of cheese, and proper butter, and cream. The salad drawer was packed to the brim with lettuce, baby spinach, and watercress, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions, and all manner of salad vegetables. Free range eggs, organic milk, soya milk, and almond milk. How much milk did a small family need?
I thought about the fridge at home. I'd have been embarrassed if Tamsin had ever looked inside it.
I realised that I was hungry, which surprised me. Surely, I should’ve been pining away and unable to eat? But no, there were definite rumblings going on in my stomach, and that cheese looked really tempting, particularly since I'd spotted a granary loaf in her bread bin.
By the time Tamsin came downstairs, I was tucking into a huge doorstop of a cheese sandwich and feeling much more contented with the world.
"Surprised you have something as high calorie as cheese in the house," I said, between mouthfuls.
She wrinkled her nose. "Brad loves cheese, and the children need a certain amount of calcium, although I watch their calorie intake, of course. I never eat the stuff."
"You ought to be careful," I warned her. "Your bones could end up snapping like twigs. You could do to eat a bit more, if you ask me. You're stick thin."
"Whereas you," she said pointedly, "are getting distinctly rounded."