by Rachel Dove
Sighing deeply, he fished the gilded envelope out of the bin, eyeing the calligraphy as though the letters were serpents, ready to strike. Sitting down at the kitchen table, he read the wedding invitation again, noting that Tanya had reverted to her maiden name for the invite. Classy as always, he thought to himself. It had eaten him up when he got back from his run that morning, ready to cook Amanda breakfast, to find it lying on the mat with the normal junk mail. He had been so happy, waking up with Amanda in his arms, and getting the news had felt like a huge punch in the gut. His ex-wife, marrying his ex–best friend, in London. God knows why they felt like they had to invite him. He had no intention of going—the shock and sheer brazenness of the pair had just enraged him. He had stared at it for ten minutes before he could even unclench his jaw enough to swallow. And now Amanda was leaving, and the perfect night he thought they had shared was tainted. She looked like she couldn’t get away fast enough. He ripped the invitation into tiny pieces and scattered them back into the bin. Not for the first time, he wondered why everyone in his life left, and why he was always the one sat alone at the end of it.
An hour later, Amanda was showered, dressed and packed. She felt cheeky using Ben’s hospitality, but she wasn’t entirely sure what she would be walking into when she got home, or if she had any hot water. She started to pull her case to the top of the stairs, when Ben appeared, freshly showered and dressed himself. He looked awful, and Amanda wondered why he would look so drawn.
‘I can help,’ he said.
Amanda shrugged, pushing the handle to him.
‘I’ll bring the kittens later, when you are settled.’
Amanda nodded, grateful. She had been worried about taking the little guys back to a potentially dangerous place, especially for a couple of curious cats. She walked out of the house with Ben, deliberately not looking behind her for a last glance of the house. Ben followed behind, putting her bags into the back of the jeep and locking up. She opened the passenger door and got in before he had a chance to open the door for her, and she mentally congratulated herself on the petty show of stubborn independence. He got into the driver’s seat next to her, and she turned in her seat to focus out of the window. The atmosphere was tense in the small space, and Amanda went to open the window, enjoying the breeze on her face as he drove towards Baker Street. They drove slowly through the village, and Amanda wondered whether she was imagining the slow pace. Did it just feel that way to her because she was dreading the journey’s end? She rubbed at her temple, trying to dispel the headache that was developing.
‘Are you OK? You shouldn’t be alone, you know.’
Amanda looked at Ben, who was driving whilst watching her from the corner of his eye. ‘I’m fine, Ben. I need to get home.’
Ben sighed then, a harsh sigh that came out like more of a huff. ‘Amanda, your flat isn’t finished, you are not well enough to work yet, the kittens are still at mine, you should have just stayed with me.’
Amanda frowned, wondering where this was coming from. ‘I’m a big girl, I can look after myself.’
Ben snorted. ‘It’s not about looking after yourself, Manda,’ he retorted, arms flexing on the steering wheel. ‘It’s about letting people help you.’
‘I don’t need your help,’ she spat.
Ben’s head whipped around in shock at her tone. ‘Manda, what’s the matter? What did I do?’
She shook her head at him, anger rising in her own hurt feelings. ‘I don’t need your help, Ben, or your pity. Let’s just leave it at that.’
Ben recoiled as though she had slapped him. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t pity you, I—’
‘Oh pur-lease!’ Amanda shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration. ‘Just leave it, Ben. I get it, OK? Game over.’
Ben said nothing as Baker Street came into view. Manoeuvring around a dark car parked outside A New Lease of Life, he slammed on the handbrake. ‘Amanda …’
She didn’t wait around for him to explain why he didn’t want her. She jumped out of the car, heading for the front door, her hand jabbing wildly into her handbag for her keys. Ben slammed his door and followed her, catching up with her as she reached the front door. They collided together, and Amanda’s bag fell to the floor. Kneeling down, she tried not to cry as she fumbled for her keys.
‘Amanda!’ he said again, touching her arm. She flinched and pulled away, feeling wretched now. Ben’s face fell and she cringed at the hurt look he gave her, his grey eyes moist with emotion. ‘Please, Amanda, I don’t know what you think, but please, we need to talk.’
Amanda spied her keys on the step and grabbed for them. Scrabbling to her feet, she looked down at him, sniffling already.
‘Ben, it’s fine, I—’
‘Mandy?’ A voice startled them both.
Looking to the sound of the voice, Amanda stared, floored with shock. Ben jumped to his feet and looked from the man to Amanda, and back again.
‘Marcus?’ she said.
He nodded, looking from Ben to Amanda, and back again, a confused look on his face. He was about to say something when the car door opened again, and Celine stepped out. She looked at Ben with a look that dripped pure disdain, and then levelled her gaze at her only child.
‘Amanda Perry, what in God’s name are you doing here?’
Twenty-Two
A New Lease of Life was positively buzzing. The builders were absolutely terrified, having to work under the eyes of such intimidating women, and they were pulling out all the stops to finish the job well, and finish it early. Agatha was pacing the shop floor, muttering things under her breath. Taylor sat in a chair nearby, nursing a coffee and watching the women plot and plan. Hetty and Marlene were cleaning up after the builders, much to their chagrin, and Grace was furiously knitting in a corner.
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Agatha asked, swinging her arms wildly.
Taylor sighed. ‘Agatha, there isn’t much we can do. She has gone, we can’t just drag her back.’
‘Of course we can,’ she scoffed. ‘She has a life here now, friends, a business, a … a … Ben! And what about the community centre, she helped to save it. Mr Beecham is coming personally to reopen it once the roof is fixed. She needs to be here to look the beady-eyed buffoon in the eye like the rest of us!’ She was turning purple now, gesticulating wildly.
Hetty’s brows rose at Taylor’s use of her first name, and Marlene sniggered, covering it up with a fake cough before Agatha noticed. Grace, still knitting away, huffed loudly.
‘I just don’t understand them, they are so good together. How can she flit off back to London with that flash git, and why didn’t Benjamin even try to stop her! He was right there! In my day, those two would be on their way to their first wedding anniversary by now, instead of flitting from county to county willy-nilly.’ She tutted as she dropped a stitch, and picked it back up with a determined flourish of her needles.
‘Where is Ben anyway?’ Taylor asked.
Agatha sat down next to him, exhausted from stomping up and down. He placed his hand over hers on her lap, and Marlene made a kissy-kissy face at Hetty, who snorted with laughter, belatedly disguising it as a sneeze. Taylor looked at the two and grinned, giving them a look that told them he was on to them. Agatha, holding his hand tight, was oblivious, very upset about the previous day’s events.
‘He is home, we think,’ Agatha said, frowning. ‘Dotty is on her way there now, to try to talk to him, and Amanda’s phone is switched off. If I hadn’t seen her leave with my own eyes last night, I never would have believed it! I didn’t like who she was with either, his eyes were too close together, and that suit, well,’ she said, puffing her hair up with her hand as she spoke, ‘it just wasn’t classy. And why did he bring her mother? Something does not sit right with me, not at all.’ Agatha remembered the look in the woman’s eyes as they had briefly glanced at each other. Amanda was her double, but younger, softer, kinder. This woman was all airs and graces, hard edges to her face. Was Ama
nda in trouble?
Taylor looked at the women. ‘We only saw her get into the car with them as we drove past, it could be for any reason, but I must admit, she didn’t look her usual self, and Ben nearly took us out on the road. He must have been coming from there.’
The ladies nodded, and Agatha frowned at him.
‘I just said all that, didn’t I?’ Taylor waggled his brows at her, which made her start to giggle, but she squashed it down to a ladylike clearing of the throat.
‘What about the shop?’ Hetty said. ‘It will be ready to open again soon, what is she going to do, sell up?’
Taylor patted her hand. ‘Hey, she will have to come back at some point, it’s not over yet. We don’t know what happened, and I can’t see that she is the flighty type.’
The ladies all nodded, seeing the truth in what Taylor said.
‘You are right, Sebastian, it’s not lost yet.’
Dotty flounced through the door at that moment, causing Fred, the plasterer, to drop his trowel. The plaster splattered to the floor, just missing her clothes. She gave him a stare that could curdle milk, making him step away from her, before she flew over to the group.
‘Ben’s a mess, but he is not letting on, of course. He is a stubborn mule, just like his father.’ She rolled up her sleeves, spooning coffee into the machine. ‘He won’t talk about it. He is locked in his office. He has even asked the locum to stay on a while, says there is nothing wrong, he is just behind on paperwork. He practically shoved me out of the door.’
‘I told you, Sebastian, it’s not good. How are we supposed to get them to talk when they are not even speaking to us?’
Taylor stood up. ‘We make them talk to us. We don’t give up. We keep trying.’
The girls all nodded, Grace even pausing the super stellar click of her needles to show her agreement.
‘Right, plan of action then,’ he said, wiping the blackboard on one wall of the shop clean and brandishing a piece of chalk.
‘I have a question,’ Dotty said. ‘Who the heck is Sebastian?’
Amanda felt like she was playing dress up in her mother’s clothes, as she hobbled down to the hotel reception in her high heels. They felt alien to her after so many months in flats and walking boots, and the skirt suit she was wearing felt like a body bag, suffocating her. As she reached the foyer, she saw Marcus there waiting for her.
He jumped out of his seat as she neared him, quickly sweeping his hair back in a distracted move. ‘Good morning, sleep well?’
Amanda nodded. She hadn’t, in fact. After fielding questions and admonishments from her mother for over two hours, finally getting her to shut up long enough to escape, she was exhausted. She was so relieved that her mother hadn’t insisted she stay with them, but apparently her father was ‘too disappointed’ to see her right now. Amanda couldn’t have cared less. What did they think she had been doing all this time, running a meth lab in the Yorkshire Dales?
They had dragged her back her to sort out her mistake, and sort it she would before, as her mother put it, ‘she put great shame on the great name of Perry’. Not once had her mother or father asked whether she was OK, or happy. Marcus was there the whole time, simpering to her parents. They obviously had no idea of what had gone on between them, and Amanda wasn’t about to add fuel to their indignation.
The hotel room had been stuffy, and when she managed to open the window a crack for ventilation, the noise of the streets below had shocked her with its volume, so she had spent a night tossing and turning. She couldn’t get the image of Ben out of her mind, his face when he realised that the man before them was part of her past. By the time Marcus had slipped and slid around her like the snake he was, telling her the firm needed her back, that the Kamimura contract was going south, and Amanda had managed to take the information in, she was numb. She had turned to see Ben looking at her. He had been standing behind Marcus the whole time, listening to the conversation, not saying a word, all the time having Celine glare at him like he was the Antichrist. Before she had even had a chance to process, Ben had made his apologies for intruding and left. He was as polite as ever, of course, being Ben, and Marcus and her mother sneering at him didn’t even seem to register, but Amanda couldn’t stop picturing the look on his face when he left.
‘Good, good, well, we have a busy morning, so if you are ready?’
She smoothed down her skirt, eyeing him coolly.
‘Fine, Marcus, but I don’t see why they would want me back, they fired me, remember? How can I help sort the account, when I was the one who screwed it up? And what have you been saying to my mother? Why the hell did you get her involved in all this?’
‘Did I tell you how glad I am to see you?’ he said, shifting from one foot to the other as he walked beside her, struggling to keep up with the determined pace she kept as she strode out onto the street.
‘A few times,’ she said tersely, putting her hand up to call a taxi. ‘And I told you, I’m only here to set right what I did wrong, nothing more.’
Marcus nodded, practically falling over himself to stop the taxi that drove past, whilst agreeing with her like a nodding dog.
‘I know, I know, that’s fair enough,’ he said contritely, and Amanda itched her palm, trying to ease the tingle she felt with the urge to slap him across the chops.
‘You look great by the way, really different from last time I saw you.’
Amanda snorted at the clumsy compliment. ‘Well, I am different, and you look different too.’ She pointedly looked him up and down. He did look different, she decided, and not in a good way. He had gone downhill fast, like a politician once elected to office. His suit gaped at the bottom, the buttons struggling to keep his expanding belly within its confines, and he was so pale and clammy he looked positively green. He was looking at her like she had the power to end his world, and she wondered again how bad things must be at work for them to have called her back, especially after how things had ended.
‘How’s Angela?’ she asked tartly, as a taxi saw her gesticulating and pulled in.
‘Err,’ he said, fumbling with his collar, which seemed to be constricting his neck, ‘we are done.’
‘Oh,’ she said, oddly feeling a little bit sad for Angela, who had obviously harboured desires to be the first Mrs Marcus Beresford. She marvelled at how little she felt at all when she looked at Marcus, when he had been invading her dreams for weeks. Amanda thought back to the night the dreams stopped, and remembered Ben, his warm, protective, arms around her in bed as they slept, and her heart seized violently. Gliding into the cab, she looked across at the pudgy, shiny man before her and, once again, wondered why the hell she was here, and not with Ben. If only he had wanted her then the urge to run to London to put her ghosts to rest wouldn’t have mattered a jot. She would have found the strength to fight against her mother, to stay with him, stand her ground. She leaned her head against the window, wishing the day ahead of her away.
Ben whanged his biro across the room, startling the kittens in their basket. He had brought them across from home to keep him company as he worked, or pretended to, and they had been unsettled all morning. Sighing heavily, he sat down next to their basket, which was on the comfy chair in his office. Sitting with his back against the wall, he sagged down into himself and smiled as the furry pair jumped onto him, purring instantly.
‘At least you guys are pleased to see me, eh?’ Pinky rubbed her nose against his hand, and he stroked her affectionately. ‘Well, if your mummy moves to London, you might have some adjustments to make, girls.’ Perky miaowed at him, as if she understood. ‘I sure hope that doesn’t happen though, I kinda got used to having you ladies around.’
He stroked both cats, thinking of the last time he saw Amanda. Something had happened that night, or that morning, to make her pull away from him, but he couldn’t think of anything that could account for that, other than the fact that she just didn’t like him as much as she did, and she regretted getting close to him. God knows,
he had been waiting for the alarm bells to ring that night, but it had felt so perfect to just be with her that he had found himself happy. Happy, and falling for her. Hard. Something had happened, but when he had got that invite, he had been distracted, probably too distracted to notice how she was feeling. He wished to God he could have spoken to her for longer, sorted things out, but then the smarmy git and the ice queen from London had shown up, and things had fallen apart. He had got out of there, even though what he had wanted to do was knock the guy flat on his ass and bundle Amanda back into his jeep, away from him, back to his home. He had driven home like a lunatic, and spent the night obsessively checking his phone and drinking enough Jack Daniel’s to give him the hangover from hell this morning.
He had gone straight back this morning, under the pretence of taking supplies to the dog groomer’s, only to see a sign on the shop door of New Lease, stating that the shop would be closed for a few days as the owner was away. It was in Amanda’s cute swirly handwriting, and he had known then. She had gone to London with them, with him, Marcus. He had been holed up in his office ever since, maintaining radio silence from the ladies in the village, who had taken to ringing him every ten minutes since dawn. He knew that they knew she had gone, but he didn’t care to hear the details, or speak about the reasons behind them. He had lost, again, and was left with the animals as usual. Dr Doolittle had nothing on him. He could see himself now, fifty years on, grey-haired, alone, living with a menagerie of abandoned animals. A modern-day masculine twist on the old woman who lived in a shoe. The thought depressed him to his core.