‘Oh, piss off with your Ms Mitchells, Clive,’ Kate told him. ‘It was me who cleaned your vomit up at our New Year’s party in 2010. In case you’ve forgotten!’
Clive sighed. ‘Kate, it’s been a year since you and Ian split up. You have to move on.’
‘I know how sodding long it’s been!’
The door opened, and Ian appeared. ‘It’s all right, Clive,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to press charges. But I would like a word with Kate before she goes.’
‘Sure.’ Mightily relieved, Clive left them to it.
As the door clicked shut behind him, Kate kept her eyes fixed on the table. It was a long time since she’d been alone with Ian.
‘I had to do a lot of persuading to get you off,’ he told her. ‘Assaulting an officer is a serious offence. And your “friend” hasn’t done you any favours, hurling abuse over the counter.’
Kate’s heart leapt. She looked up. ‘Geoff?’ she said. ‘Geoff’s here?’
Ian sniffed. ‘Not anymore. The Sergeant had him ejected.’
Geoff had been here. Kate smiled, warmed by the knowledge. Then she remembered the trifle. If the whole thing were a failure, it would all be her fault.
Ian sat down opposite her. ‘Kate,’ he said, ‘I know you still have feelings for me, but you really must try to control yourself.’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps Jennifer and I should have done the decent thing and moved away. But I’m up for promotion here soon, and besides, Jennifer’s mother isn’t a well woman, as you know… Look, I’m not going to press charges this time, but I can’t promise to keep on…’ Ian’s voice suddenly tailed off as he realised Kate wasn’t listening any longer.
‘I don’t,’ she said, and then she clapped her hands together and began to laugh.
Ian frowned. ‘You don’t what?’ he asked.
‘I don’t have feelings for you anymore!’ she said, grinning all over her face because she had finally realised it was true. ‘I am over you, you insignificant, pathetic little prick!’
Twenty-eight
Janet didn’t plan to go to her mother’s house after the scene at Estelle’s flat; it was simply where the car took her. And once there, she didn’t get out of the car straight away. Turning the engine off, she stayed behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. Every scrap of energy had deserted her. The only thing alive was her mind, and that was on overload, processing everything that had happened.
Ray was Estelle’s married man. Ray was sleeping with the woman who had become her best friend.
One of her mother’s neighbours was out the front clipping his hedge. He looked at her oddly, obviously wondering why she was just sitting there in the car. Janet forced herself to open the door and get out.
‘Hello there, Mrs Thornton,’ he said. ‘Looks like rain later.’
She pretended to look at the sky. ‘I think you could be right,’ she said politely and opened the garden gate. Her world had fallen apart, and yet she was still ex-changing social niceties. How very British. How very good.
Fishing her key out of her handbag, she opened the front door and went inside. Leaning back against the front door, she spoke to her mother. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You were right about Ray after all. I hope that makes you very happy.’
There was no answer.
To fill the silence, Janet went into the living room and switched on the television. There was a cookery competition on. One of the contestants, a nervous, over-anxious woman in her mid-twenties; reminded Janet of herself in her early days of being married. Cooking had never come naturally to her, but she had slaved and stressed over recipes with ingredients she’d never heard of anyway, all to impress Ray and the business colleagues he invited home from work.
The nervous woman had thirty seconds left to complete her dish. In the top right-hand corner of the screen, the seconds were counting down. Her male competitor was whizzing about efficiently, straining, arranging and garnishing. The nervous woman was perspiring. She started to carry a pan of sauce across to some rather charred-looking meat on a plate, but somehow… she managed to drop it. Sauce went flying in all directions, and a horrified gasp went up from the studio audience.
Janet’s hands flew up to cover her mouth, exactly like the poor cow’s on the television were doing.
‘Oh no, Mandy!’ the presenter said, rushing over to clasp her. ‘Mandy, Mandy, Mandy!’
Yes, that was exactly what she’d been like herself in those fraught early days of marriage. Dropping things, burning things, forgetting vital ingredients. Ray had found it endearing at first, but his indulgence had soon turned to exasperation, and finally Janet had stopped trying to cook anything elaborate.
Thinking about it now, she knew she had never felt as if she came up to scratch in any aspect of her married life with Ray, or at least not in any aspect that he considered to be important. Ray didn’t award points for interior decoration, listening skills or child rearing; he awarded points for those skills that satisfied his appetites – namely those of use in the kitchen and the bedroom.
And when she had failed so blatantly on both those fronts, he had ordered takeaways when he fancied something more exotic than the plain food that was all she could cope with cooking, and had affairs when he wanted more than an acquiescent body.
But he had chosen someone who was as inadequate as she was herself at letting go in bed…
If her marriage and the whole structure of her life hadn’t been in tatters around her feet, Janet might have found it funny. No, she did find it funny. Ray had turned to someone else because he thought Janet was frigid, and without even realising it, he had chosen somebody else with exactly the same problem. It wasn’t only funny; it was hilarious.
So why was she crying?
Suddenly her mobile phone began to ring. Wiping her eyes on her sleeves, Janet took it from her bag to see who was calling.
Estelle.
She switched the phone off.
* * * * *
When Kate left the police station, she found Geoff sitting on the steps outside, waiting for her. He was still dressed in his bakery whites, minus the hat, and as she walked towards him she focused on the splatters of custard on the front of his tunic, feeling shy.
‘You all right?’
She nodded. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘Couldn’t have kept me away.’
She risked a glance at his face and saw that he was smiling. ‘What about the trifle?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Sod the trifle. They charge you?’
She shook her head. ‘He decided not to press charges.’
‘Just as flaming well! He’d have had me to deal with if he had!’
Now Kate was looking at him, she found she couldn’t look away. He was so very dear to her, custard splatters and all.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get you home before he changes his mind.’ He held out his hand and looked at her. She hesitated for just a moment then put her hand in his. He smiled and they started to walk along the High Street in the direction of her bedsit.
‘I’m scared, Geoff,’ she said after a while.
Geoff didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. ‘I know you are, Katie.’ He stopped by a fish and chip shop to look down at her. ‘But I will never, ever hurt you. Got that?’ When tears filled her eyes, he used his free hand to brush them away from her face. ‘I mean it, Katie,’ he said. ‘I think the world of you. Always have. Ever since we first met. If I wasn’t such a klutz where romance is concerned, I’d have made my move the minute you split up with PC Plod.’
Kate dropped his hand to fish in her pocket for a tissue. ‘If you’d said anything then, I’d probably have run a mile. In fact, if you’d said anything this morning I’d probably have run a mile.’
‘But it’s all right this afternoon?’ he asked with a smile.
She smiled back. ‘Somehow, yes, it is.’
‘Nothing like being arrested to put things into perspe
ctive,’ he said.
She smiled some more. ‘No, it wasn’t that,’ she joked. ‘It was seeing you up on the cement mixer with that giant ladle.’
‘Sexy, huh?’
She laughed. ‘No. Just…significant.’
When he pulled her close to kiss her, he smelt of custard. ‘Significant,’ he said. ‘I like the sound of that.’
* * * * *
The telephone rang. Estelle snatched the receiver up. ‘Janet?’
‘No,’ a male voice said. ‘It’s Mark. I need to talk to you about something. I was wondering if I could come round.’
Estelle closed her eyes. The last thing she needed right now was to have to pretend to be all right when she wasn’t. ‘It’s not a very good time, actually, Mark,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ he said. Then he spoke again. ‘Look, Estelle, it’s something pretty important. I think you’d want to know about it.’
Something about his voice made an impression on her. She sighed. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can come round.’
Mark arrived five minutes later, clutching a news-paper. It must have been obvious she’d been crying, but although he looked carefully at her face, he tactfully didn’t mention it.
‘Come in. Can I get you a glass of wine? I’m sorry the place is such a mess…’ Estelle realised she was bumbling about the way Janet might.
Janet.
‘Estelle? What’s wrong?’
Suddenly she couldn’t stop crying. The split with Janet seemed to have opened the floodgates to thirty years of suppressed tears.
Mark led her to the sofa and sat her down, his arm around her. ‘Shh,’ he said very tenderly. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Estelle spoke raggedly through her tears. ‘It’s not all right at all. I’ve lost the only real friend I’ve ever had, and I didn’t even know! I’d never have done anything to hurt Janet. I care about her too much. And I don’t even like him really. God knows why I got involved with him in the first place. It’s all such a bloody waste!’
She cried until she had no tears left, and after she’d finished, she still lay in his arms, too exhausted to move. Besides, what was the point of feeling self-conscious now? Her barriers were well and truly down. And so, when Mark began to ask her gentle questions about what was wrong, she told him.
Afterwards, he was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m sure Janet will understand when she’s had a chance to think about it,’ he said. ‘She’ll see that you had no idea this RT was her husband.’
‘Yes,’ Estelle said miserably, ‘but will that make any difference? I’ll still be the one who broke up her marriage.’
‘It might not come to that,’ Mark said. ‘She might forgive him.’
That had Estelle sitting up. ‘She’d better not,’ she said, her eyes flashing with the strength of her feelings. ‘She deserves so much better than that…that arsehole.’
Mark looked at her. ‘So do you,’ he said, and the stupid, weak tears flooded back into her eyes.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t.’ But suddenly she felt as if Jade were there in the room.
‘You are beautiful Estelle,’ she was saying. ‘You deserve only the very best from life.’
It would be so nice to be able to believe that.
Mark shifted slightly in his seat. Estelle looked at him, worried he might have had enough of looking after the maudlin female she had somehow transformed into.
‘Why don’t we have some of that wine now?’ he suggested.
Why not? Why not get utterly, totally pissed out of her brains? ‘All right.’
While he was gone, Estelle picked up the newspaper he had brought with him. It was turned over to page seven and she saw the report straight away.
Shelthorpe Lingerie Trader in Vandalism Charge.
Shit.
Mark came back with the opened bottle and two glasses. ‘Ah,’ he said, putting the glasses down onto the coffee table and starting to pour. ‘That’s what I came over to tell you about. I thought you should be prepared.’
The article gave her name and her age, but mostly it dwelt on her business and the scale of the damage she’d done to the summerhouse. They’d even managed to find a photograph of her from somewhere. It was an old one; her hair was different and she was dressed in a bikini, holding a cocktail.
‘Shit.’ This time she spoke the word out loud.
‘Here.’ Mark offered her a glass of wine. She took it from him, still squinting at the photograph. Vaguely she remembered it being taken by a long-ago boyfriend on holiday on his boat. God only knew how the press had got hold of it.
‘They’ll know,’ she suddenly thought. ‘Mum and Dad will know.’ And suddenly she resented that more than anything else – the fact that her parents would now be aware of the impact they still had on her life.
‘Want to tell me about it?’ Mark asked gently.
Estelle took a large slug of wine. ‘It’s a long story,’ she warned him.
‘I’m in no hurry,’ he said.
* * * * *
‘So these workshops,’ Geoff said. ‘They been doing you any good?’
They were lying, fully clothed, on Kate’s double bed. Because the bedsit was so untidy, it was the only place with enough space for them both. Or at least, that was the excuse they were both sticking to.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?!’ teased Kate.
‘I would,’ Geoff said. ‘That’s why I asked!’ He was leaning back against a pillow propped against the wall, and she was kind of nuzzled into his side. It wasn’t that comfortable, but there was no way on earth she was going to move.
‘I don’t know really,’ she told him. ‘Haven’t really put all the techniques we’ve learnt to the test yet.’ She looked at him closely. ‘I’ve always wondered,’ she said. ‘Why did you challenge me to do the course? Was it just for your seedy little kicks, or…?
Geoff looked suddenly embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘There was that, of course.’
‘Of course,’ smiled Kate, then waited for more.
‘But I also thought…well, that it might help you to get close to people. I thought you’d have to with a class like that. And since your break-up, you’d virtually shut yourself off from people.’
Kate knew that only a short while ago such an observation would have hurt her, angered her even. But now it didn’t. ‘Hmm,’ she teased. ‘Quite the psychologist, aren’t you?’
Geoff grinned at her and gave her a kiss. ‘I’m not bad, am I?’ he said. ‘For a baker.’ Then he stroked her hair back from her face, his expression growing more serious. ‘I didn’t have any idea if you needed to do a workshop like that of course, but I figured with PC Plod as a husband, it was fairly likely.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Was I right?’
It was Kate’s turn to blush. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled, avoiding his gaze. ‘You were right. Didn’t think it mattered at the time, but now, I think…Well I think it probably does.’
‘Definitely,’ agreed Geoff.
Kate sighed, snuggling even closer to him. ‘Anyway, I don’t know whether there’ll be any more classes or not now we’ve been chucked out of the church hall.’
‘You could use the function room at the pub,’ Geoff suggested, and Kate laughed.
‘Yeah, right,’ she said. ‘And have you lot perving in the bar next door!’
‘We wouldn’t do that,’ he lied.
Kate pulled a sceptical face. ‘It’s supposed to be Orgasm Night in three weeks’ time,’ she said. ‘Orgasm Night? When we’re all supposed to have an orgasm together? I don’t think that’d go down very well with the brewery somehow.’
‘We could organise karaoke in the bar at the same time. That’d drown the sound of you lot out, especially if Tom gets up to sing.’
Kate laughed. ‘Or you!’ she teased.
‘Hey, watch it!’ Geoff said, and began to tickle her. She squealed, attempting and failing to wriggle away.
‘Stop! Stop!’ she panted.
>
‘Only if you kiss me,’ he said.
Kate was glad Tom wasn’t around to see them. She knew he’d be pretending to hurl by now. She and Geoff were behaving like a couple of teenagers and it felt good. Very, very good.
‘They’ll never believe this at work,’ she said when they finally broke away from each other. Then she looked at him. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Do I still have a job after this afternoon?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you don’t, then I don’t, because I’ll walk if she sacks you. And I’ll make sure the whole catering department goes on strike into the bargain.’
Kate smiled. ‘My hero,’ she said, and although the teasing note was still in her voice, she meant it.
Geoff seemed to know that because when he gathered her close again there was something more urgent about the way they kissed. Very gently and very tenderly, he began to stroke her through her clothes. Kate felt a shiver of delicious desire right down the length of her body. Reaching out, she began to undo his custardy buttons.
* * * * *
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Mum? The state the car’s in, I can’t believe you and Dad aren’t hurt!’
Reenie smiled grimly. ‘I know. Certainly looks bad, doesn’t it? But honestly, we’re fine. Dad’s got a bit of whiplash, but that’s about it.’
‘So why’s Dad so angry then?’ Marcia persisted.
‘Probably fed up about the car,’ Reenie said, and was relieved when Marcia nodded, seeming to accept this explanation.
‘Well, I’m glad you’re both all right,’ she said, and turned to go upstairs. Then she remembered something and turned back. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘This is one crazy day. First of all Mrs Mitchell gets arrested at college, and then you and Dad– ’
‘Kate’s been arrested?’ Reenie interrupted, and Marcia smiled, cheering up a bit.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘She hit a policeman. It was really cool! It’ll be on the news tonight for sure. There were loads of TV cameras.’
Reenie looked at her watch; it was just after six o’clock. She switched the television on to the local news. And there, staring out at her from the screen was a picture not of Kate, but of Estelle.
The Goddess Workshop Page 24