‘Don’t eat much. I have presents and cake and surprises and I’m going to whisk you out to lunch,’ Max said breezily, hoping to cheer him up with that. ‘Oh and the cleaner will be here – don’t forget, will you? – although I’ll be back by then. But if I’m not, will you ask her to give that downstairs toilet an extra good bleaching?’
‘Yeah, bye,’ said Stuart, turning his head sulkily into the pillow.
‘Happy birthday, darling,’ she said before closing the bedroom door quietly, as if he were asleep.
Stuart crossed his arms in bed and huffed. The annoying thing was that he knew Max would be buzzing as she drove to work. He wondered if she would ever leave that office if she didn’t have to.
He didn’t go back to sleep; he was too cross. Instead he got up and showered and shaved and was fully aware that instead of putting on sloppy weekend tracksuit bottoms, he hunted out his best Diesel jeans and splashed himself with aftershave – something he never did unless he and Max were going out, not that they’d done much of that recently. Jenny was coming this morning. And he couldn’t help it: he was looking forward to seeing her again.
He collected the newspaper from the letter box and sat at the breakfast bar with a coffee. He should go out, really, before she arrived, then he wouldn’t have to see her. He wouldn’t fan any more flames that way. He was getting married in exactly four weeks and was obsessing about another woman. That wasn’t good. Yes, he really should go out and avoid Jenny Thompson. So Stuart tipped his half-finished coffee down the sink, marched down the hallway and took his jacket from the peg. Then he drove off into town and mooched around aimlessly, trying not to wish he was back home instead.
Chapter 57
Bel sat bolt upright in bed. She had woken up crying after yet another awful dream. It was a recurring one, which varied a little each time, but it still left her reeling with guilt. She was back at her wedding reception and had just delivered her speech but hadn’t marched off. Instead she was standing there waiting for rapturous applause to begin, but everyone was viewing her with their faces screwed up in disgust. Her father was shaking his head with shame and Dan Regent was there, his arm round a sobbing Shaden. Even Max and Violet couldn’t meet her eyes. And Richard’s heart was breaking. ‘How could you do this?’ he was imploring. ‘I love you so much.’
Bel felt totally disorientated as the real world engulfed her conscious soul. She got up and made herself a coffee but it did nothing to quell the anxiety that was rattling her head. She hadn’t heard any of Richard’s side of the story yet. She needed to. When anyone had an affair it was never as clear-cut as ‘all his fault and none of hers’, or vice versa, so all the agony aunts said. There were always two sides to a story. Hadn’t she said that to herself too, whenever she watched Jeremy Kyle?
She wished she was back in Charlotte, with no phone reception, and fighting with her ebony-eyed neighbour over a tin opener. She wondered what Dan Regent was doing now. If he was still there. And if he was there alone, or had twatty Cathy shown up and they were rolling around in bed sheets together under the white-painted eaves? She imagined that Dan Regent would be very nice to tumble around in bed with. He would be gentle and slow, not like Richard, who saw sex like an Olympic event. If it didn’t involve a full Kama Sutra of positions, it wasn’t proper sex to him.
Like Richard, Cathy must have been visited by the temporary-madness fairy and she had to have come back to her senses and thrown herself on Dan’s mercy; and of course he would have taken her back. The Cathys of this world were irresistible creatures: evil witches armed with dangerous spikes that pierced hearts over and over again, yet still those hearts came back for more.
She tried to chase thoughts of Dr Dan out of her mind. She’d had to do that a lot since she left Haworth. So many things hijacked her thoughts, plucked her up by the collar and dropped her right back in Charlotte; any reference to barmy Dr Donald Reynolds in the news, any tin in her cupboard without a ring-pull top, even the cheese in her fridge. Plus, she had a heightened awareness of all things Bronte; there was a new adaptation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on the TV and as she passed the cinema she saw they were showing the old Orson Welles version – her favourite Rochester – of Jane Eyre at the Pensioners’ Silver Screen morning.
She didn’t feel strong enough to meet Richard yet, but she knew she had to soon. She was married to him, for God’s sake, and her thoughts should be on him, not some doctor whose path she’d happened to cross when she was vulnerable and not thinking straight. She owed her husband the right to speak, to explain. Only then could she know if she had been truly justified in her behaviour. The more time went on, the more she doubted she had. She knew she had always been a stubborn cow, forming an opinion and then sticking to it despite whatever contradictory evidence might be thrown up. Her treatment of Faye was testament to that.
Bel reached into her jewellery box and lifted out the golden hoop. Then she tried it on the third finger of her left hand. It felt lovely. She had wanted to be married so much, to belong to a man who could find the soft, vulnerable part that existed inside her hard bolshie shell, and treasure it. A man who smiled when thoughts of her brushed past his brain.
She decided there and then that she would ring Richard and meet him within the week. Then she would give him every chance to make everything up to her.
Chapter 58
Max’s car wasn’t in the drive when Stuart returned over two hours later, having exhausted every shop in Barnsley’s town centre. She was still at work, then, he thought with an inner sneer. So much for it being his birthday. He put his key in the door, but it was already unlocked. Jenny was in.
She jumped to attention when Stuart opened the kitchen door. She was standing there chewing a sandwich and drinking a coffee.
‘I’ve finished,’ she explained quickly. ‘And I brought this sandwich with me.’
‘Jenny, for God’s sake, you don’t need to tell me that,’ said Stuart, smiling at her. She was so cute with her swingy ponytail and little pink apron.
‘I didn’t want you to think I was raiding your cupboards,’ Jenny replied, wiping her mouth in case there were any crumbs round it.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. His smile had extended to a grin now because she was there and he was happy to see her. More happy to see her than he would have been to see Max’s car in the drive, if he were honest, even though he recognized how wrong such a thought was.
‘Mum said it was okay to make myself a coffee here, you know, that you didn’t mind that. But I wouldn’t touch any of your food or anything.’
‘Jen, give over, will you?’
Jen nodded. ‘I do go on a bit, don’t I? I’ve got to snatch a lunch today because I’ve got an extra cleaning job straight after this.’
‘Where is it? I’ll give you a lift.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Jenny forcibly. ‘Especially not today.’
‘Today?’ said Stuart.
‘You know, your birthday.’
‘How do you know that?’ said Stuart.
‘Well,’ Jenny coughed. ‘I remember from school. It was the day after mine.’
‘Oh—’
‘You wouldn’t have remembered,’ Jenny jumped in quickly, flapping her hand dismissively. ‘I’m not sure you even knew in the first place to remember. I happen to have the memory of an elephant, that’s all.’
She had remembered it was his birthday from all those years ago. He suddenly felt his insides blush with warmth and grow ever so slightly mushy.
‘Did you do anything nice for your birthday, Jenny?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, an intimate dinner for two at mine.’
‘Oh.’ A shadow of disappointment passed over Stuart’s heart.
‘Alan and me, I mean,’ laughed Jenny. ‘He had a stalk of broccoli and a banana, and I had a Chinese and too much Baileys.’
Stuart laughed and most of that laugh, he knew, was founded in relief.
‘What are you doing for your bi
rthday?’ Jenny threw the remainder of her sandwich in the bin and reached for her coat.
‘We’re going out for lunch,’ he looked at the clock. ‘Supposedly,’ he added, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
‘Has Maxine gone shopping?’ Jenny asked, folding up her cloths and putting them in her bucket. ‘I expect she’s got a lot to do with your wedding being so close.’
‘She’s gone into work,’ said Stuart. ‘She’s always at bloody work.’ He looked up at Jenny and apologized for swearing. ‘Sorry, Jen. Life with a workaholic, eh?’
‘More to life than work, I always think,’ said Jen, ‘but it doesn’t do for us all to be the same. The world would be very boring if we were.’
‘Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘Yes, I will give you a lift.’ He would have bet his life savings that he could drop Jen off, run a marathon and still Max wouldn’t be at home by the time he got back. That said a lot, really, on his birthday. Too much.
Jenny gave a resigned sigh. ‘All right. Thank you. If you can drop me outside Pogley Top post office that would be lovely.’
‘Come on, then,’ said Stuart.
As he followed Jenny out, his nose caught her trail of perfume: light and apple-scented. She was a foot smaller than he was and he imagined what she would feel like if he wrapped his arms round her and lifted her up. And then kissed her.
He drove the long way to Pogley. It gave him half a mile of extra time with her. Just sitting next to Jenny Thompson made his heart feel lighter by pounds.
When Stuart pulled up outside the post office, Jenny reached into her handbag and brought out a square parcel wrapped in jelly-bean paper. She held it out to him.
‘It’s just a little present I was going to leave on the work surface for you,’ she said. ‘Don’t get excited. But I found it and copied it and I thought you’d like it.’
‘Jenny, you shouldn’t have.’ He felt embarrassed now that he hadn’t even remembered it was her birthday and here she was giving him a present for his.
‘It didn’t cost me anything,’ she said.
Stuart opened the parcel and pulled out a framed photo of their old class dressed in costumes.
‘Oh my God, the nativity we did for the old people’s home. I’d forgotten all about that,’ he beamed with sheer delight. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘The Chronicle came to take a picture of us but they never put it in the paper in the end. My mum went up to the office and asked them for a print, though.’
‘Oh my God, look at me,’ Stuart barked with laughter seeing himself as a grinning shepherd. He was standing between tiny Timmy Foster, the class softie, and Luke, who was playing a king and had an enormous black false beard that was bigger than his head. ‘Where are you, Jen?’
‘Top right, next to Gav,’ said Jen, pointing to the place. ‘We were donkeys.’
‘Hey, nice ears,’ said Stuart, his finger touching Jenny’s hair on the photo. ‘Ugh and Julie Armstrong. The Teacher’s Pet.’
Stuart shuddered at the sight of the golden-haired angel with the butter-wouldn’t-melt expression.
‘Wasn’t she just a horror?’ nodded Jenny. ‘She’s got five kids to five different men now. Three of them have been taken off her. I see her sometimes in Asda. You wouldn’t recognize her.’
‘How we change,’ sighed Stuart.
‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ Jenny tutted. ‘You still look the same.’
‘You haven’t changed either,’ said Stuart.
‘Oh I have,’ argued Jenny. ‘I was a right little fat thing back then.’
‘No, you weren’t,’ said Stuart, unable to remember Jenny being anything other than as slender as she was now. ‘Your smile is just the same. “Smiling Jenny” all the lads used to call you.’
Jen’s mouth fell into a long O of surprise. ‘Did they?’ She was blushing now. Stuart had to stop himself from putting his arms round her and hugging her.
‘Jen, this photo is lovely,’ he said. ‘It’s just brought back so many nice memories for me.’
‘Ah, I’m glad you like it.’
Stuart leaned over and kissed her cheek. His lips lingered on her skin as he breathed in her apple scent. ‘Thank you.’
‘Have a lovely birthday,’ said Jen, completely flustered now. She dropped her cleaning bucket as she got out of the car. She almost ran round the corner after picking it up.
Stuart was home an hour before Max returned from work. She was carrying a smile on her face so wide that the ends almost crossed over on the top of her head.
‘Oh Stuart, I’m so sorry I’m late, but guess what? I emailed B.J. Brothers Industries and sent them all the info they asked for and they rang me. God knows what hours those people work. They want me to supply them with San Maurice products and they’re going to market them all over the United States. I’m so excited, I can’t breathe.’
Then Max noticed that Stuart wasn’t sharing her enthusiasm and she remembered why that was. Mentally she sat on her inner bubbling self and turned her attentions to the birthday boy. ‘Anyway, forget about all that, this is your day.’
Then Max made Stuart sit down at the kitchen table while she excitedly pulled presents out of their hiding places in cupboards and heaped them on him. Exquisitely wrapped parcels containing a cashmere sweater, a TAG Heuer watch, Adidas trainers, Godiva chocolates – it was all expensive and stuff he didn’t really want or need, although he wouldn’t have hurt Max’s feelings by saying so. But still, there was nothing in the Santa-pile of presents that made him smile like Jenny Thompson’s gift of the class nativity photo.
Chapter 59
‘I don’t like this at all,’ said Stuart, looking at himself in the suit-shop mirror. ‘I look like a twat.’
‘No, you don’t. But you’re standing like a constipated duck,’ said Luke. ‘What’s with the arms stuck out like that? Put them down by your side and straighten up your back.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ said Stuart, but doing as his friend said.
Stuart looked at the guy in the mirror in the tailed suit, snow-white winged-collar shirt and cravat foaming at his neck.
The shop assistant returned with a grey top hat.
‘Not a chance,’ said Stuart, holding up his hand to stop the assistant coming any closer. Stuart looked over his shoulder at Luke, whose eyebrows were raised. ‘No. This is far enough. I’ll do the penguin look if I have to but no way on this earth am I wearing a chuffing topper.’ He pulled the collar away from his neck. ‘How come you always look so bloody comfortable in a suit?’
‘I’m just naturally stylish,’ said Luke, lifting then dropping his broad shoulders like a cocksure Frenchman. Unlike his friend, Luke felt very at home in a suit. He enjoyed shopping for them, having them made to measure, looking good. At weekends he relaxed in Stone Island jeans but he had worked in suits for as long as he could remember. He bought expensive shoes and handmade shirts. ‘Clothes maketh the man’ was an adage his stylish dad had sworn by and passed on to his son.
Luke adjusted his friend’s stance as if he were a tailor’s dummy, pulling back his shoulders, pushing in his stomach. He looked much better then. Good, even.
‘This wedding is getting bigger and bigger and I don’t like it,’ said Stuart, turning to the side to view his profile in the mirror. ‘Church, suits. I’ve even ended up booking a small surprise reception and getting my mum to make a cake.’
‘Have you changed your mind about taking a honeymoon?’
The look that Stuart gave him said that no, he had definitely not changed his mind about a honeymoon.
‘We’re going to have a quiet weekend at home,’ said Stuart.
‘You only get married once,’ said Luke.
‘So everyone keeps saying,’ Stuart huffed. ‘Do you know, I wish we hadn’t started all this off. I don’t know why we tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. I’ll never have any of my mother’s cherry brandy again. G
od knows what I’d be letting myself in for next time.’
‘You’re a miserable bastard today,’ laughed Luke, ‘considering it’s your birthday as well. Thirty-four? You old sod.’
‘You’re only a month behind, Appleby.’
‘Don’t you fancy going away for a weekend? I was thinking of giving you a honeymoon as a wedding present.’
Stuart rubbed his forehead wearily.
‘Do you think I can’t afford a honeymoon? Is that it?’
‘Is it?’
‘No, it bloody isn’t it,’ Stuart rounded on him, then held up his hands in apology. ‘Actually, what I mean is that I can afford a honeymoon but not the sort that Max would be happy with.’
‘What?’
Stuart tried, but failed, to keep the exasperation out of his voice. ‘How overjoyed do you think Max would be if I said that I was taking her for a honeymoon to Blackpool?’
‘I think she’d be very overjoyed,’ said Luke.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Max isn’t a snob,’ said Luke. ‘She wouldn’t care if you booked a weekend in the Bahamas or Blackpool. The only thing she would see is that you booked it.’
‘What planet are you on, Luke? For my birthday Max bought me the equivalent of a Santa’s grotto. Every year I have more of a mare trying to match what she spends.’ Stuart felt like ripping his bloody collar off and throwing it to the other side of the room.
‘I’m sure she doesn’t want you to match it—’
‘That’s not the point,’ snapped Stuart, interrupting him. ‘Have you any idea how it makes me feel? Her giving me cashmere jumpers and TAG Heuer watches and buying me a house and a car? I feel like I’ve had my dick cut off.’
The shop assistant put one foot into the changing, room, then did an about-face and vanished.
Luke searched for some diplomatic words, but couldn’t find any. How could he say that he understood Max far more than her partner of seventeen years obviously did? Luke knew that Max had a stupidly generous heart. She always had. Even at college Max was first in the queue at the coffee bar, buying everyone a round of milkshakes with her Saturday-job money. She was one of life’s givers – it was as simple as that. Luke knew that it didn’t matter to her if Stuart earned ten quid or ten thousand quid a week. The only person it mattered to was Stuart, and he was projecting his own hang-ups about it onto Max, which wasn’t fair. Luke wondered how long all this resentment had been bubbling under Stuart’s surface. A very long time, by the sounds of it. A very long silent time.
White Wedding Page 22