Ice and a Slice

by Della Galton

  Chapter Seventeen

  Yet she knew the real reason she didn’t confront him about Alison was that she was scared. More than scared: she was terrified. A fear that stretched right back to her childhood coiled and uncoiled inside her like some giant malevolent snake.

  She thought back across the years. There had been a few times when Alison had inadvertently messed things up for her. She thought about the beach party at Sandbanks and the way Alison had mucked things up between her and Jed.

  There had been other occasions too. Once they’d both gone to a 21st birthday party and the cream top SJ had been planning to wear ended up with a mysterious stain across the front. And another time she’d brought a group of friends back from college for an impromptu party and Alison had been ill with such a bad headache that Mum had told them they’d all have to leave.

  And then of course there was her wedding, which she’d had to postpone because Alison needed to get married first. No, that was crazy. Alison hadn’t meant to get pregnant – obviously. SJ had always given her sister the benefit of the doubt, but suddenly everything seemed to make a horrible kind of sense. Alison was jealous of her. She didn’t like SJ having something she couldn’t share or didn’t already have.

  SJ blinked away these uneasy thoughts. Alison wouldn’t make a move on Derek – surely she wouldn’t. That was too big a quantum leap. She was being irrational and paranoid.

  For a start, Alison was happily married. Or was she? SJ had never questioned it before because Alison had always seemed settled with Clive. But settled wasn’t the same as happy, was it? Perhaps she just put up with him because he was the father of her kids.

  She’d only been seventeen when she’d had Sophie, but SJ still didn’t really know whether Alison and Clive had got married because they wanted to or because Dad had threatened to knock Clive’s block off if he didn’t face up to his responsibilities.

  “A wedding made in heaven,” their mother had crooned, as Alison floated down the aisle in fraudulent white. But then their mother would say that – she’d had to get married young herself – and she’d always loved her youngest daughter best.

  SJ gave herself a little shake. She knew that was unfair; Mum had always tried to treat her daughters the same. And actually when Alison got pregnant so young it had changed things between them. SJ had felt a rush of almost maternal love as Alison’s belly expanded week by week. And it had been SJ who’d held her hand when her waters had broken and she’d been scared witless. And SJ who’d sat in the delivery room while Alison screamed for more pain relief and called the midwife every name under the sun.

  Okay, so they’d drifted apart again since then; they still bickered and fought, mostly because they didn’t have an awful lot in common, but surely Alison wouldn’t hit on her husband? Unless, of course, she really was unhappy with Clive…

  In the end, SJ could bear her churning fears and restless paranoia no longer. It was half term, which didn’t help – she decided to ignore the piles of marking she was supposed to be doing and pop round to her sister’s for a little chat.

  She might not be able to confront Derek, but she was pretty sure Alison would let something slip – that’s if there was anything to let slip. And if there wasn’t then she could stop torturing herself and life could get back to normal.

  Alison answered the door with a tea towel in her hands and a guarded expression in her blue eyes. Or so it seemed to SJ, whose internal radar was on full alert.

  “Well, well, and to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “I thought I’d come round and give you the money for Dad’s season ticket,” SJ announced as she strolled into Alison’s sunny kitchen.

  “Where are the kids?” she queried. Was her sister deliberately not meeting her eyes, or was she imagining it?

  “Clive’s taken them to his mum’s for half term. He thought I needed a break and Joyce can’t get enough of her grandchildren. She soon would if she had them all the time, I can tell you.” She raked a hand through her immaculate highlighted hair. “It’s hard work being a full time mother.”

  “I bet,” SJ said, glancing at a pile of fashion and beauty magazines on the kitchen table.

  “I’m thinking of having hair extensions,” Alison said, following her gaze. “What do you reckon? I’ve always fancied long hair, but I’m just too busy to grow it.”

  SJ couldn’t imagine how being busy could stop your hair growing. It was hardly something you had to have an active role in. Didn’t hair just get on with the business of growing all by itself? But she nodded anyway. If she was going to have a heart-to-heart with Alison, they needed to start off on a good footing.

  “When did he go?” she asked idly.

  “Saturday morning. I thought I’d miss them, but I can’t say I have. It’s been bliss having a bit of time to myself.” Alison stretched her hands above her head and smiled, her blue eyes as innocent as a baby’s. “So what have you been up to, SJ? How’s that hunky husband of yours?”

  “You know how he is, you saw him on Saturday. I think he enjoyed having a weekend to himself, too. Plenty of time to get drunk without me nagging.”

  “Mmm.” Alison tilted her face up to the sun that streamed in her back door and closed her eyes.

  “Was he drunk when you saw him?” SJ asked casually.

  “Pretty much.” Alison giggled. “Men are funny when they’re pissed, aren’t they? Clive gets all morose, but your Derek’s a right laugh.”

  A spike of jealousy seared SJ’s stomach like a branding iron. She didn’t want to think of Alison and Derek having a laugh when she wasn’t there.

  “He never takes anything seriously,” she said.

  “So I noticed.” Alison’s silvery laugh tinkled out. “He was clowning around pretending to be a drunk. He’s great at impressions, isn’t he?”

  “By the sound of it he didn’t need to pretend much.” SJ wondered how drunk Derek had actually been. He had quite a high tolerance level – they both did; going to pubs was their main social life.

  “So how come you ended up staying for pizza?”

  “Oh well, the poor love hadn’t eaten all day. I was just doing my sisterly duty, what with you being away and that. I know you’d do the same for me.”

  SJ couldn’t imagine sharing pizza with the morose Clive, who she’d always thought was old before his time.

  “I take it you weren’t drunk as well,” she queried, feeling the twinges of jealousy increase and concentrating hard on a picture of a leggy blonde on the cover of one of Alison’s magazines, which didn’t help at all.

  “Me? No – I was stone cold sober. I had to drive home. I never miss the kids’ bedtimes.”

  They must have pretty late bedtimes, SJ thought, remembering what time the pizzas had been ordered. She blinked.

  “Hang on a minute. I thought you said Clive went to his mum’s on Saturday morning?”

  “Did I say Saturday morning? I meant Sunday morning.” Alison’s eyes widened in feigned innocence, but she couldn’t resist a smirk, and suddenly SJ was sure she was lying. There was something going on. She was certain of it. Every instinct she had told her she was being taken for a fool.

  “You stayed the night, didn’t you?” She hadn’t planned to come out with it like that, but her sister’s flippancy was getting to her. “I know you did. Our next door neighbour saw you on Sunday morning. She told me.”

  Alison chewed her bottom lip, and SJ was reminded of a thousand other times she’d seen that look. Usually when her sister was trying to think up a good enough excuse to get herself off the hook for something she’d done, or not done, for which she didn’t want to get the blame.

  “Okay, so I stayed the night. So what? It was getting late and I did have a couple of glasses of wine. Derek thought I might be over the limit. So he insisted. What’s the big deal?”

  “Well, that depends on where you stayed,” SJ said, her mouth so dry she could hardly form the words.

  “I’ve had enough of
this.” Alison stood up and sashayed across to the open door. “What do you take me for, Sarah-Jane? I’d hardly dump on my own back doorstep.”

  “Just tell me where you slept.” SJ hated herself for begging. “And why you lied about it in the first place.”

  “I lied because I knew you’d go off on one – exactly like you ARE doing. And I slept on the settee – where do you think I slept? Contrary to what you might think, your husband isn’t that much of a catch. The whole world isn’t trying to get into Derek Anderson’s Armanis ... I saw them on the line,” she added, fractionally too late for this to have been true.

  SJ felt sick. Even though a part of her had suspected it, knowing for sure was something else. It was like being hit by an articulated truck. She was glad she was sitting down, or she’d have keeled over right there on her sister’s sunshine-yellow laminate floor.

  “You’re lying,” she whispered. “You slept with him. You slept in our bed. How could you do that?”

  There was a long pause. Alison stared out of the window. Finally, she turned her gaze back to SJ. “Oh for goodness’ sake, okay, but it didn’t mean anything. We were legless. I don’t suppose he can remember much.” A small smile played around her lips. “That’s probably why he didn’t tell you.”

  “You bitch.” SJ leapt out of her chair and lunged across the kitchen, but she hadn’t got full control of her legs and instead of grabbing Alison around the throat, which had been her intention, she found herself stumbling and ending up on her knees on the floor.

  As she scrambled to her feet again, still intent on doing damage – a lot of damage – Alison sidestepped nimbly away from her, the smugness on her face replaced by a look of alarm. The voice of reason was pounding through the anger in SJ’s head. Beating Alison to a pulp would be very satisfying, but it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that Derek had betrayed her. It wouldn’t alter what had happened on Saturday night.

  She sagged into a chair and covered her face with her hands as her world caved in around her. For the first time in her life, she’d felt as though she had something her sister couldn’t take, something beautiful and precious that belonged just to her. Derek was her soul mate, her true love, her raison d’etre. She thought he’d felt the same about her. But she’d been wrong.

  When she finally looked up, it was to see Alison back on the other side of the kitchen with the table safely between them, her eyebrows arched in a look somewhere between amazement and concern.

  “If it’s any consolation, I can see why you’re so enamoured,” she murmured sympathetically. “He may not be much to look at – but he’s quite something, isn’t he? In the bedroom department, I mean. Quite the little dynamo. You’d never guess by looking at him.”

  SJ didn’t remember leaving the house, only that she was suddenly outside and in her car. She put the key in the ignition, but she was shaking too much to drive. For an indeterminate amount of time she sat rigid, watching people drive by in their cars, or stroll past with their kids and their shopping.

  Life swarmed on around her, even though her world had just shattered. How could she stay married to Derek knowing that Alison had lain with him, skin to skin, had held him, touched him, and enjoyed him while still managing to disparage him? It made their love seem somehow surprising, as well as sordid and worthless.

  SJ had always felt she wasn’t quite good enough for Derek. A part of her was sure she hadn’t deserved to find someone so right for her; a part of her had been afraid it was too good to be true. Life didn’t get that perfect.

  Now she knew she’d been right. It didn’t. She remembered with a knife-like thrust of pain how he’d changed the sheets – how he’d laid her tenderly beneath that hideous purple duvet because he and Alison had dirtied the only matching duvet set they had. Their beautiful pale green honeymoon set. And somehow that was worse than everything else he’d done. It was the ultimate betrayal.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the drunken dinner party with her parents SJ had rebooked her Tuesday appointment with Kit. He hadn’t seemed surprised to see her. Neither had he given any indication that he thought she was mad, or unreliable, or any of the other things that SJ was beginning to suspect she was becoming.

  He’d been wearing his usual faded jeans with a black T-shirt, which had a small brown mark on the front just below his right breastbone. A burn mark maybe, or spilt food. Somehow it had made him seem more human. And his questions had been gentle.

  He’d asked her if she could remember any other specific occasions when she hadn’t been able to control her drinking – and she’d told him that she sometimes drank when she was afraid, or when she was alone, or when she felt worthless – which, to her surprise, seemed to happen a great deal more often than she’d ever previously acknowledged.

  She hadn’t told Kit or Tanya or anyone else the full story behind why she’d made her first appointment with S.A.A.D. The memories were still too raw and too painful. But as she got the bus back on Tuesday lunchtime after her latest appointment, the memories had crawled back, unbidden.

  Tom had been working away that weekend. He’d phoned earlier to tell her he’d be a day or so later than planned and, disappointed to be spending yet another evening alone, SJ had decided to unwind with a glass or two of wine. It was easy to drink too much when you were watching television and she hadn’t bothered with dinner – there didn’t seem much point in even cooking a ready meal for one.

  As she’d told Tanya she’d opened a second bottle and then things had got rather fuzzy and hazy, although bizarrely there were parts of the evening that were as sharp and as clear as the stills on a DVD:

  Herself – staggering through the hall to let Ash into the garden, fiddling with the catch on the back door, cursing because it wouldn’t open quickly enough and she was dying to go to the loo; Ash, standing beside her, wagging his tail patiently.

  Then there was a chunk of blankness, empty as the blue screen on a television when the channels aren’t tuned in.

  Another picture: herself again, prostrate on the hall floor, aware of the hardness of the wooden floor against her cheek and the sour taste in her mouth; opening her eyes to see a glint of gold on blackness – one of her gold hoop earrings, not far from her face, coming in and out of focus as she blinked; a hand, her own hand, scrabbling around to reach it.

  Another blue blank.

  The sound of frantic knocking on the front door – and the awareness that their musical doorbell was chiming softly.

  Another blue blank.

  Their next door neighbour’s anxious pale face looming in and out of focus.

  “Oh, SJ, love. I’m sorry to disturb you, but your dog’s been out on the road. He’s been hit by a car. He’s okay. Don’t panic. I think the car just clipped him.”

  “Where is he?” SJ gulped, the coldness of shock knifing through the alcohol fuzz in her head.

  “I put him in the back of my car. I couldn’t get you to answer the door, you see.” She tailed off, worried brown eyes quizzical, and SJ wondered if she could smell the drink. There were several feet between them and she had her hand over her mouth, but she must reek of it.

  Her neighbour was already turning away. SJ followed her, barefoot – goodness knows what had happened to her shoes – to where her car was parked outside the house.

  “He’s scraped his front leg, but he seems fine apart from that. You never can tell with dogs though; he might have internal injuries. If he were mine I’d nip him down the emergency vets and get him checked over. Just to be on the safe side.”

  The neighbour smiled uncertainly and as the coldness of the pavement chilled SJ’s feet, she wondered if it was obvious that she was in no fit state to drive anywhere.

  Ash sat in the hatchback, panting. When he saw her, he wagged his tail and held out his injured paw, which looked grazed and bloodied. He’d cut his muzzle too, and flecks of blood spattered his chest.

  SJ buried her head in his soft fur, im
agining him being hit by some callous driver who hadn’t even bothered to stop. He was trembling and she felt guilt tighten around her heart. Tears gritted her eyes as she coaxed him gently onto the pavement.

  How had he got out anyway? Their gate should have been shut. Calling out a husky thanks to her neighbour, who didn’t respond, she led Ash slowly back to their house. As they approached the front door, SJ saw that the side gate, which was normally shut, was wide open, and the bins were this side of it. She had no memory of putting them out, but she must have done. So it was her fault he’d gone wandering.

  She was as bad as the people who’d dumped him on the motorway. No, she wasn’t as bad as them. She was worse. Ten times worse, twenty times worse because she loved Ash and she hadn’t kept him safe.

  She remembered being sick again when they got inside. Then she’d switched on her laptop and tried to find an emergency vet but she couldn’t type properly and Google kept throwing up irrelevant websites. And the next thing she recalled after that was waking up on the floor of the lounge and seeing Ash on the rug. The memories of what had happened flicked into her head like the mixed up pieces of a jigsaw, and she’d crawled across to check he wasn’t dead. The utter relief that he seemed to be breathing normally had tipped her back into oblivion.

  It was only when the dawn light stabbed through the undrawn curtains that she’d woken up again. Stiff and sore, with a pneumatic drill going off in her head and a foul taste in her mouth, she’d shuffled into the kitchen and downed two pints of water and some Nurofen. Ash was okay, he was fine, hardly even limping when she’d persuaded him to come into the kitchen and had sponged the dried blood off his chest. But it was no thanks to her. The remorse and self pity had kicked in big time.

  She would never drink again. She would go one step further than that. She would make an appointment with someone to talk about her drinking – just in case it was becoming a problem. Frantically she’d scrolled through the list of alcohol advice websites on the internet; she’d ignored the number for AA, which she already knew didn’t work, and that’s when she had phoned S.A.A.D.