by Helen Lowrie
Published by Accent Press Ltd 2017
www.accentpress.co.uk
Copyright © Grace Lowrie 2017
The right of Grace Lowrie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Accent Press Ltd.
eISBN 9781682996188
‘None can have a healthy love for flowers unless he loves the wild ones’
Forbes Watson
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say a massive thank you to the team at Accent Press, for taking a chance on an unknown author like me. I am hugely grateful for all the wonderful work you do to get my books out there. If it weren’t for you, my stories would just be words locked inside a laptop. Writing can be a lonely process at times, so it is immensely uplifting to have the reassurance, experience and support of Accent Press, and their many successful authors, just a facebook post away.
Special heartfelt thanks go out to my fabulous best friend and fellow author, Alice Raine, for reading and believing in my writing, inspiring me to continue, and regularly making me cry with laughter. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.
My sincerest gratitude to my other friends (you know who you are), for not saying I was crazy when I wanted to quit a career in garden design, to write romance. Your willingness to answer random, practical questions – on everything from bicycles and underpants to rugby – is always appreciated. Any errors are my own.
And last, but not least, to my phenomenal family – thank you for always being there, cheering me on, tolerating my reclusive tendencies and giving me a kick up the bum when I need it. I love you more than I can express.
Chapter One
As I woke up so did the pain. It stabbed into my consciousness with steely determination, causing a thick wave of nausea to roll through me. Even with my eyes shut I could tell I was lying on the living room floor: the floorboards hard under my arm, hip, and knee, and the grain rough beneath my cheek. An icy draft chilled my calves where my nightshirt had ridden up. For several seconds I waited and listened to the wheezy snoring coming from the bedroom to be sure my husband was asleep. Once unconscious it was a fairly safe bet that Vic would remain so, at least until midday.
The flat was dark when I opened my eyes, and all was quiet in the cafe below, but outside in the street the market traders were busy reversing their vehicles, unloading their goods, and setting out their wares. They shouted, joked and laughed with each other in loud voices, combating the unsociably early hour, the raw weather, and the monotony of their work with bold and colourful banter.
I began to move but only gradually and in stages, gently testing my stiff limbs and joints for pain before risking sitting up. As the blood returned to my arm it brought prickly pins and needles with it, but that discomfort was nothing compared to the searing throb at the back of my head, the place where I’d connected with the edge of the coffee table. A tentative probe with my fingertips located the lump and a small amount of blood matted in my hair. Not life-threatening then.
Staggering to my feet I glanced at the clock, recognising that I was late and wouldn’t have time for a shower. Knocking back some bitter-tasting paracetamol, I stripped off my nightshirt and washed quickly in the bathroom sink before creeping into the bedroom. In the oppressive murk I pulled on clean clothes, perching carefully on the corner of the bed to put on socks, and studiously ignoring the slumbering body sprawled diagonally across it. Getting a sweatshirt on over my head was awkward, my hands were still shaking and my head pounding, but I managed. To hide the blood, I tied a red scarf around my hair and paused to check my reflection, using the dim light of the street lamp peeking through the curtains and a cracked hand mirror. I looked tired and as pale as usual – my complexion that of a woman who has spent most of her thirty-five years stuck indoors – but there was no bruising evident on my face, nothing to provoke comment or draw unwelcome attention. And that was some relief. How has your life come to this, Rina? I silently asked the woman in the glass. But she stared back at me, resigned.
Vic wasn’t always so violent. He’d gradually become more aggressive over time, little by little, step by step. Back when we were first married his temper would result in nothing more than a warning glare, a tightening grip on my arm or a cruel pinch of my thigh. But over the years, with time and increasing amounts of vodka, the violence had escalated, had become a part of our relationship. I had married out of necessity and there was no going back, no way of escaping – not that I could see anyway.
Before leaving the flat I did a quick sweep of the space – it wouldn’t do to leave it in a mess – straightening the coffee table and wiping away a crimson smear from the edge with a tissue. Collecting up the used mug, plate and cutlery, I deposited them in the sink, noting that my husband had eaten most of his dinner after all, despite his vicious outburst about it being burnt.
On the landing I gently tugged the door to the flat closed and tiptoed down the stairs in my plimsolls, keeping to the outer edges of each tread to minimise any creaking. At the bottom I checked that the customer toilet was stocked with soap and paper before stepping into Vic’s Cafe. With a brief scan of the seating area, to confirm that the tables and chairs were as tidy as I’d left them, I moved into the kitchenette behind the counter. I swept through on autopilot; tying on my apron and flipping switches for the strip lights, the radio, the coffee machine, the oven and the deep fat fryer. Half-listening to the headline news, I unloaded the dishwasher and then the larder and the fridge, dragging out the usual ingredients: bread, baked beans, eggs, sausages, bacon, milk and margarine. Once I’d loaded up the toaster I approached the plate glass windows at the front of the cafe, raised the frayed, floor-to-ceiling, heavy-duty roller blinds and unlocked the door, swivelling the ‘closed’ sign around to ‘open’.
Beyond the mildew-edged glass, the street lamps barely penetrated the muddy January gloom. A northerly wind snapped and billowed at the tarps and awnings, while men and women, bundled up in numerous layers of clothing, toiled away in earnest. I recognised all the usual suspects: Melvin and his pimply teenage son on the hardware stall; Jo the greengrocer; Mags selling antiques and Gary the florist with his buckets of season-defiant blooms.
Jo, her arms laden with sacks of potatoes, grinned at me and I raised my hand in a wave. Exchanging the sacks for a plastic crate of goods, she staggered in my direction and I opened the door for her, marvelling at her robust strength.
‘Mornin’ Rina,’ she said, depositing the crate in the doorway, where years of foot traffic had worn away the lino.
‘Thanks, Jo.’ Suppressing a shiver I eyed the motley selection of past-their-best vegetables at my feet. Vic had worked out a deal with Jo to save himself money but it was me who had to peel and prepare the battered carrots, lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes to disguise their bumps and bruises. Of course I had to hide my own bumps and bruises too but Vic usually only injured parts of my body I could conceal with clothing and most people, like Jo, simply didn’t see what they didn’t want to. ‘How’s Teddy doing?’
‘He’s gettin' there,’ she said, burying her fists in her pockets. ‘Vet says the antibiotics have kicked in; he’ll be back to barking at postmen before long.’
‘That’s great; such a relief.’
‘Yeah
, it’s not been the same on the stall without him – too quiet by half. Anyway, must finish setting up but I’ll be in for me breakfast later,’ she said, hunching against the cold and turning away.
‘Yeah, see you later.’
Working in the greasy spoon had been stressful for me at first. It wasn’t so much the routine – juggling the cooking, serving and cleaning for long hours every day – it was the physical contact with other people that I struggled with. It made me uncomfortable. Having grown up in care, I found it hard to trust people. In the past I had avoided them if I could, stayed out of range, and maintained a distance. But that wasn’t always an option in Vic’s Cafe. I did what I could – kept the counter between myself and the customers most of the time, called them over to collect their orders if possible and carefully navigated my way around the tables when necessary. But I still had to receive cash. I’d rather they just placed their money on the counter for me but most people held it out in their fingers or, worse, in the open palm of their hand. Even now after eighteen years of working here, I had to fight the impulse to flinch at every touch.
And yet it was these regular characters – market traders wearing fingerless gloves; builders armed with hard hats, high-vis vests, and dusty boots; paint-spattered decorators; lone parents treating their offspring; OAPs riding mobility scooters; and students buried in revision notes – it was these folk who kept me sane from one day to the next with their daily greetings, gossip and grumblings which they shared, offloaded or simply chatted away, while I took their orders and fed them. And I was content to listen, patiently absorbing the ins and outs, ups and downs, and dramas of their lives, while my own life slipped by. No, despite the challenges of my job I was grateful for it – it was preferable to the alternative. Bending down I lifted the heavy crate from the floor and let the door swing shut behind me, as I turned back to the kitchen to start frying.
Chapter Two
I was hiding. I was a thirty-year-old man, hiding in his dad’s bathroom.
I’d heard that grief could express itself in strange ways, as if it was a living, breathing monster. But it wasn’t my grief that I was hiding from; it was the people downstairs in the lounge. And that wasn’t like me; I was usually comfortable in a crowd, good at saying innocuous things to put people at their ease. Jasmine, my girlfriend, said that I reminded her of a British Ashton Kutcher – my looks and mannerisms in particular – and that it was that that made people warm to me. Whether that was true or not, I liked people and they liked me. And these were good, kind country folk; they were just trying to be supportive.
But all the overt attention was stifling. People had been stealing glances at me all day: throughout the service; at the cemetery; even squinting through the tinted car windows as we crawled through town, watching with a careful air of sympathetic curiosity – waiting to see James Southwood’s monster express itself.
Because Dad was dead – a heart attack just a few weeks into the New Year. Reg Southwood – town stalwart and all-round good guy – was gone, just like that and I felt numb. Jasmine kept reminding me how ‘lucky’ it was that he had died so quickly. I knew what she meant – I wouldn’t wish a painful, lingering death on anyone – but I still wished she’d stop saying it. It didn’t feel lucky. I would have liked to have said goodbye, or at the very least, thank you. Thank you for rescuing me from care and adopting me when I was just a scrawny seven-year-old and thank you for not sending me straight back when your wife (the only mother I have any memory of) died, just three years later.
Gazing at the faded paisley curtains framing the bathroom window I listened to the murmur of dignified voices in the room below: friends and neighbours from all over Wildham, many of whom I should know better than I did. The names and faces were recognisable but I’d been away a long time, first at university and then working in London, so I had trouble putting them together. The city wasn’t far away geographically but it sometimes felt like another planet, and since Jasmine didn’t like venturing beyond the M25 we’d barely visited Dad in the two years and five months we’d been together. We were supposed to have come up and seen him on Boxing Day but Jasmine had been laid up with a hangover, following our two-day stay with her own highly strung family so Dad had driven down to call on us instead.
Mum made them herself – these curtains – I vaguely recalled her sitting at the dinner table one weekend when I was nine, guiding the fabric through the Singer machine with her fingertips, her slippered foot coaxing the pedal, the pace. Dad had hung them up for her and I could tell she was pleased with the result. We all pretended not to notice that one curtain stopped an inch short of the windowsill. She had died not long after that.
The door handle jiggled, making me jump.
‘Just a minute,’ I called through the door.
‘It’s Liam. You all right mate?’
Despite his casual tone, I recognised his concern. ‘I’m good mate, thanks. I’ll be out in a sec.’
He didn’t reply and his tread was heavy on the stairs as he retreated.
Liam Hunt had been my best mate since school. We hadn’t seen much of each other over the last few years but then our friendship had been built on a shared passion for rugby – that and the fact that we were both motherless, though that wasn’t something we ever discussed. Liam was here to pay his respects to my dad but he also had my back – and that meant a lot.
Washing my hands in the sink, accompanied by the familiar clank and hiss of the cistern re-filling, I glanced out the condensation-fogged window. Through the dying January light I could just make out the plant nursery and garden centre below. Soon everything would need ‘tidying in readiness for spring’ (Dad’s standard phrase) – the spent foliage of each plant trimmed back; the roots top dressed with fresh compost; and every pot labelled with species, variety and price.
But who would organise that this year? Dad’s Will seemed relatively straightforward and to the point. Since he had no other close relatives or partners in the business, and I had no siblings, everything belonged to me now: house, garden centre, nursery, the lot – he had even made me sole executor of the business so that it could be kept running during probate. But he had never meant for me to run the business myself surely? My parents had loved it, built it up from nothing, but they had always wanted more for me. That’s why Dad had packed me off to university; that’s why I worked in insurance, climbed the corporate ladder, paid into a pension and drove a company car. I’d not worked on the nursery since I was a teenager. The notion that it was now mine made my head swim.
With growing unease I noticed the rickety lean of the timber storage sheds; the ripped and greying plastic sheeting of the polytunnels; the tower of empty wooden pallets that usually held neat stacks of compost bags; and the raised benches bereft of stock. Clumps of straggly weeds had pushed up through the uneven rubble paths and were now collapsing under the choking weight of rotting sycamore leaves. Even allowing for the time of year, the family business was looking shabbier than it should. The grounds and buildings needed attention and new stock would need to be ordered in time for spring. Why had Dad let things slide like this? Had it become too much for him recently? He’d never mentioned anything over the phone – but then we never talked, not really.
Downstairs someone barked with restrained laughter, interrupting my mounting worries. Time was up. Taking a cursory glance at my reflection and straightening my tie, I unlocked the door and headed back to my guests.
Liam stood hunched in a corner near the front door with his girlfriend, Cally. They nursed their drinks – a pint of orange juice and small glass of wine respectively – while they listened to another of our mates blithely relaying one of his notoriously far-fetched stories. Liam and I nodded to each other, a discreet look of understanding passing between us, and Cally smiled at me, her eyes misting with sympathetic tears, but I didn’t stop to chat.
The lounge felt unnaturally stuffy, as if the peeling wallpaper, sagging upholstery and threadbare rugs were c
reeping closer, but at least somebody had cleared away the last of the Christmas decorations. In the centre of the room Jasmine oozed chic in her little black dress, her bottle-blonde curls swept up behind her head, her eyes sparkling. She gesticulated expressively as she talked, her voice distinctively high-pitched and girly against the more sombre tones. There was no denying she held the attention of almost everyone present, as usual, but for once I was grateful because it took the focus off me.
‘There you are, James,’ she said with a glossy smile, squeezing my arm as I reached her side. Jasmine was often affectionate with me in public as if practising for a new part in a play, or auditioning for the role of ‘girlfriend’. ‘Your guests were starting to wonder where you’d got to!’
The ice cubes in her glass chinked as she tottered slightly in her six-inch heels. With a downward glance I noted, with relief, that she had managed to scrape the worst of the mud from the cemetery off her designer shoes. From the indignant look she’d given me at the time – while sinking – I knew she blamed me personally for the boggy state of Dad’s graveside but hopefully I’d now been forgiven.
‘Sorry I was just taking a call, is everyone alright?’ I said, smiling at the faces around me. ‘Has everyone had something to eat and drink?’ With my free arm I gestured towards the sideboard which was crammed with a seemingly infinite supply of donated triangular sandwiches, cocktail sausages and mini scotch eggs, most of which, as a vegetarian, I couldn’t eat. There was a general murmur of assent and a teary-eyed woman nodded and patted my arm reassuringly. It took me a moment to realise it was Barb, a woman who had been a close friend of my mother’s and an employee at the garden centre. Barb would be in her seventies now; was she still working for my dad when he died? Glancing around I spotted a few other faces I recognised as being staff members and it dawned on me that the future of their jobs now lay in my hands. Mine wasn’t the only life that Dad had left a hole in.