Charlotte huffed impatiently. ‘I really want to go to Alaska.’
‘I would rather yank out both of my lungs and use them as an accordion,’ said Lew, slipping off his jacket.
‘Lewis. How could you say such a thing about a holiday with our friends.’
‘Quite easily,’ said Lew. ‘Having dinner with the Sheffields is one thing, spending a fortnight with them glued to our side is another.’
‘I would have thought that if anything, today would have taught you to grab the bull by the horns and live a bit,’ said Charlotte, rather pleased with herself for thinking of that.
‘Precisely,’ Lew nodded. ‘To enjoy ourselves and destress, which is why I wouldn’t go on holiday with Patrick and Regina if they paid for us to go and threw the spending money in as well. And, in case you’ve forgotten, I don’t need someone else’s death to remind me of seizing the day, seeing as I almost had one of my own.’
‘Of course I hadn’t forgotten,’ said Charlotte quickly. ‘What do you take me for? I’ll tell them no. I’ll make something up and say that you can’t take the time off.’
‘We will have a nice holiday, just the two of us. Let’s book a few nights in Venice. How does the Cipriani sound?’
‘Venice again?’ said Charlotte with a curled lip. ‘God, no.’
And Lew thought, She’s turning more and more into Regina with every day that passes.
*
‘You’re very sullen,’ Stephen remarked at dinner. ‘I’ve asked you twice to pass the condiments and twice you’ve ignored me.’
‘Sorry,’ Bonnie replied and passed over the wire basket which sat next to her containing the salt, pepper, vinegar and oil.
‘Thank you. What on earth is the matter, Bonita?’ Stephen said impatiently as he reached over to take it from her.
‘One of the traders died,’ Bonnie answered him. ‘I’ve known him for years.’
‘Oh,’ said Stephen as if he’d expected more serious news. ‘Well, we all have to go at some point.’
Bonnie didn’t reply to that banal observation but carried on eating a Sunday roast she had no appetite for.
‘And why are you so upset about it?’ Stephen pressed, after a minute or so.
‘I liked him,’ said Bonnie. ‘I liked him very much. He was a good man, a decent man. And the most knowledgeable person ever about ceramics.’
‘Is he survived by a family?’ asked Stephen, dabbing his mouth with the kitchen roll square tucked in the top of his shirt.
‘Yes. A daughter. She was only married last month,’ said Bonnie, putting down her knife and fork because the food was just rolling around in her mouth protesting against being swallowed.
‘I do wonder how all these traders of yours manage to earn their living. I mean, is there actually money in dealing with pots?’ He gave the words ‘traders’ and ‘pots’ all the disdain he could heap onto them.
Bonnie tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she delivered the line that she hoped would wound his snobbery gland. ‘Yes, I imagine there is, seeing as Jack drove around in a brand new Bentley.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Stephen, wrinkling up his nose as if there was a bad smell underneath it. ‘Fools and their money are soon parted.’
They ate the rest of their meal in silence. Then Stephen picked up his newspaper and went out into the garden leaving Bonnie to clear the table. Though Stephen wanted his wife to work full-time, at home he expected her to act like a traditional wife. His manly duties covered the gardening, the bulb-changing and general maintenance, the woman did the washing, ironing, cleaning.
As Bonnie filled up the sink with warm soapy water, she thought about Jack. He’d only just gone sixty-two and was far too young to leave the earth. But at least he’d lived. He’d been married to the same woman for over thirty years and he idolised his daughter. He had a big house and a series of expensive cars, he’d travelled all over the world and had a consuming passion for ceramics. He’d wrung the juice out of his life and drank it greedily. And if you died tomorrow, could you say the same? asked a voice in Bonnie’s head. The answer was a very resounding no.
She couldn’t wait to leave and start a new life. The day when all the planets aligned for her and she found a house that she could afford couldn’t be that far away now, surely. But she knew she would be taking a huge risk in leaving because it wasn’t financial worries or fear of the unknown that had really held her back, there was something else. Something that had stopped her from going before, four years ago when she’d had her bags packed and was about to walk out of the door for good. That was the something she was most afraid of.
Chapter 25
Bonnie was cheered the next morning to find she had a message waiting in her eBay mailbox from a craft shop enquiring if she could supply fifty bags of assorted confetti. They wanted it at a ridiculous price, but she was still making a pound a bag clear profit, more if she dared to drive up the price a little. She sent a reply asking for another thirty pence per hundred, a counter offer came in for twenty and she accepted it. She loaded her handbag up with the punches and it clanked as she lifted it over her shoulder.
‘What have you got in your bag that’s making all that noise?’ asked Stephen.
‘Some craft stuff,’ replied Bonnie. ‘I get a bit bored in my lunch hour so I’ve been making a few cards.’
His eyebrows dipped in puzzlement. ‘And what on earth are you going to do with them?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Bonnie. ‘I just like making them.’
‘Seems a very strange thing to do,’ said Stephen, shaking his head. He rolled up his left sleeve to precisely match the length of the right one.
‘Why is that strange?’ asked Bonnie, irked that someone with all his pernickety, peculiar ways could call anyone else odd.
Stephen looked shocked that she’d questioned him. ‘Pardon?’ he asked.
‘Why is it so strange that I’m making some cards?’
‘Well,’ he cleared his throat with a cough, ‘you’ve shown no propensity to craftwork before.’
‘How do you know?’ Bonnie cut him off. ‘How do you know what I do when you’re watching your stupid documentaries and I’m sitting in the kitchen?’
Stephen’s eyes widened to the circumference of side plates.
‘I don’t think there’s any need for using that tone, Bonita. You’re being ridiculous,’ he said in such a way that Bonnie had a sudden vision of him holding a handbag in his fingers and lifting it up in front of his chest with extreme indignation.
‘I’m not being ridiculous at all, Stephen. I used to do lots of this kind of stuff when I was a kid. Thousands, millions of people around the world cut things out of paper, but because I do it, it’s strange. Is it because “it’s not the way of things”, Stephen?’ For once, she did not hide the fact that she was mocking his sad little ways. She’d had enough. Inside Bonnie was screaming and kicking against the walls of her marriage. He looked down on everyone, especially people in her world because they didn’t sit behind desks and file paperwork. All that projecting herself outside of this oppressive set-up was making her brave. Maybe too brave. She wanted to shout at him that she was punching shapes out of paper in secret to fund a life away from this sham of a marriage so that she never had to see him or hear his boring diatribes again, but she knew she had said too much already. She needed to stay calm, focused, not give him any clue what she was really up to behind his back.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t sleep very well and I’m a bit tetchy this morning.’
‘Yes, you are, Bonita,’ he replied, after a thoughtful pause. ‘Maybe you need to drink less caffeine. I notice we are going through a full half jar of coffee per week more than usual.’
‘Yes, it can’t help, can it?’ She forced out a smile but could only manage a weak, watery one.
Stephen slipped on his stiff gardening apron as Bonnie buttoned up her coat.
‘See you later,’ she said. ‘Have a nice day of
f repotting your dahlias.’ She hadn’t meant it sarcastically, but unfortunately that’s how it came out.
‘Well really,’ said Stephen to himself, hearing Bonnie’s car start after the second attempt. He knew something was amiss. He wasn’t fooled by her pleasantries which sounded forced, as if she were covering up a deep resentment. He detected a change in her, the same one he’d sensed four years ago. Back then, he’d known for days before she’d actually said the words that she was planning to leave him and he felt it again now.
Stephen slipped off his gardening shoes and went upstairs into Bonnie’s room to make one of his periodic checks on her things. It didn’t do any harm to be forewarned of her intentions.
On Thursday the Daily Trumpet mistakenly reported that local independent councillor Alan Stanley is a hermaphrodite. This should have read that he was a haemophiliac. The Daily Trumpet has made a donation to a charity of Mr Stanley’s choice.
Chapter 26
Bonnie ran the shop by herself for the next two days. On the Monday Lew was on a stock-finding mission in York. It wasn’t really worth opening up as only three customers visited and didn’t buy anything, but still it was much better than being at home with Stephen. On the Tuesday, Lew was at a giant antiques fayre in Newark. As Bonnie, in sole charge, walked around the shop, she let herself imagine that it belonged to her. That the Rainbow Lady earned so much profit she had bought it from Lew outright, or better still gone into partnership with him because her days would be much greyer without him in them. She had him to blame for her increasing agitation with her home life, for which she both cursed and blessed him. She’d thought it was possible to live without love. When Joel died, she’d tried to convince herself that life would be so much easier without having her heart broken over and over again. Emphasis on companionship rather than passion seemed the perfect way forward, but she’d been wrong.
There was a steady stream of customers that morning, but nothing that Bonnie couldn’t manage. No traders came in to refill their units though, which was unusual. Vintage Valerie hadn’t missed a Tuesday so far, but she wasn’t here today. She and Jack had fallen into the pattern of going to the teashop next door for breakfast and Bonnie wondered how she’d be feeling. Valerie probably saw more of Jack than his own wife did. Bonnie had tried to ring her home a few times, but Valerie hadn’t picked up.
Bonnie was just about to close a deal on a grandfather clock when in came a twittering couple of women, both very well-dressed and in heels, one blonde and one brunette. The latter was carrying a Chaput crocodile handbag, which Bonnie recognised immediately. It turned her stomach to think of the doomed life of the farmed animal from which it came.
‘I have to confess that I pretended I wasn’t in. Isn’t that awful? I saw her number and I let the machine take it,’ the one with the long blonde hair, tiny waist and springy boobs was saying to the other woman as she approached the counter with some urgency, scanning the room for the person in charge. Then she spotted Bonnie and marched over, interrupting her sales spiel.
‘You must be er . . . I’m Lewis’s wife Charlotte.’
So this was the famous what-was-her-name, thought Charlotte. And to think a couple of times she’d actually had stabs of jealousy that this woman spent so much time with her husband. She needn’t have worried though. She was very average: neither tall nor short, slim but with no spectacular curves. She’d had no surgical intervention, that was clear. Unremarkable face, nose neither small nor large, Charlotte noticed a bump on the bridge that she’d have had ironed out had it been hers. This woman’s lips looked naturally full and plump, without the duck-like fake protrusion that Regina’s had. But it was her eyes that attracted Charlotte’s attention the most: large and browny-green, fringed with thick, dark lashes. Those eyes lent an ordinary-looking woman more beauty than she should have had.
At the same time that Charlotte was appraising Bonnie, Bonnie was thinking, So this was Lew’s wife. She’d expected her to be pretty, with a lovely figure and she’d been right. What she hadn’t expected was her to look as if she had just come out of a mould with her cloud of blonde, lacquered hair and none-too-friendly red pout. She’d imagined Charlotte to be softer, fresher, smilier, not exuding snootiness through her high-heeled stance and granite-faced expression.
‘I’ve left my purse so I’m taking some money from the till, okay?’ Charlotte informed her husband’s assistant, turning on her fancy heel and flouncing back to the counter.
Bonnie’s warning flags shot up. She wouldn’t have thought Lew’s wife would be the sort of person to walk in and make that kind of demand. Quick as a flash, Bonnie skirted around her and placed herself in front of the till.
‘I’m sorry but you can’t do that.’
Charlotte looked over at Regina who pulled a half-shocked, half-amused face. Then she turned back to Bonnie. ‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘You could be anyone,’ said Bonnie. What a horrid position to be put in, she thought. She had no reason to believe it wasn’t Charlotte, but without proof she couldn’t allow her access to the till.
Charlotte smiled politely but impatiently. ‘But I’m not just anyone. I’m the owner of this shop,’ she said as she made to push past Bonnie. Bonnie barred her passage with her arm.
‘Look, just to be on the safe side do you mind whilst I ring Lew?’
Regina gave a hoot of laughter and Charlotte’s cheeks began to heat.
‘I’LL ring my husband, LEWIS,’ Charlotte emphasised and scrabbled in her handbag, a very expensive Burberry, noted Bonnie. She pulled out her mobile and tapped a lot at the screen, getting flustered as she entered the wrong pass code, then the wrong contact name. She crossed her arms waiting for Lew to pick up, but it went to voicemail. She tried again and this time let it record her voice.
‘Lewis, can you please ring me urgently. And I mean urgently.’
Then she tried again and growled as once more it went to voicemail. She marched out of earshot and recorded a very angry message. ‘Lewis, why aren’t you picking up? I’ve tried both your mobiles and I’m getting nothing but your stupid answering machine. Your woman in the shop is refusing to let me get some money out of the till. She’s totally ridiculed me in front of everyone so you better ring me back. NOW.’ She pressed end call so hard that the phone flew out of her hand and she had to bend down to pick it up. By the time she had straightened herself, her face was as scarlet as her shoe-soles.
Bonnie stood resolutely by the till, even though the man with the clock was trying to get her attention.
‘That is your boss’s wife,’ said Regina with a nasty little smile. ‘I’d just give her the money if I were you.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ replied Bonnie.
‘Just show her some ID, Charlotte,’ huffed Regina impatiently.
‘I haven’t got any.’ Charlotte ground the words through clenched teeth. ‘It’s all in my purse which I’ve forgotten, which is why I’m here.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Bonnie shook her head. ‘Unless I have permission . . .’
‘Why on earth would I come in here and say it if I wasn’t his wife?’ Charlotte tried to keep the volume on her voice down but it seeped through on alternate words.
‘I’m really sorry but I still can’t let you open that till.’
‘Absolutely ridiculous. This is stupid beyond stupid. You are stupid beyond stupid. Do I look like a shoplifter?’ She spread her arms out and showed off her expensive linen swing jacket, the sharp cut shirt and skirt, the gold necklace at her throat, the newly touched up hair roots, immaculate nails, immobile forehead.
‘I won’t take that chance with someone else’s money, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s my bloody money as well, you stup—’ Charlotte’s anger spilled over the top of the pan before she managed to slam the lid back on it. She was not only feeling humiliated in front of Regina but also a couple of other customers were showing interest in what was going on and looked primed to jump in to prevent a burglary. Sh
e stabbed her nail at Bonnie. ‘You are in big trouble when my husband rings me, lady,’ she said.
Regina, who ate shop assistants for breakfast and was bored with this impasse now, attempted to push past Bonnie with a well-aimed bony elbow in her side. ‘For fuck’s sake, get out of my way,’ she snarled, but she was ill-prepared for Bonnie’s slick body twist and seconds later, Regina found herself being fast propelled out of the shop with her arm twisted behind her back, Charlotte teetering behind in pin-heels screeching like an injured parrot.
‘Look, I’m sorry if you are who you say you are,’ said Bonnie breathlessly at the door to Charlotte as Regina stretched the agony out of her arm, all the while swearing and growling as if possessed. ‘But if you really are Lew’s wife, you have to see it from my side. You wouldn’t like me emptying the till into the hands of someone I don’t know,’ she said.
‘You are so sacked,’ said Charlotte, further infuriated by the sound of applause coming from the customers inside the shop. And if Lewis didn’t sack the bitch, Charlotte would leave him.
Chapter 27
Bonnie walked back into the shop to jokey comments such as ‘Remind us not to mess with you,’ and the man who wanted to buy the clock asked her if she was all right. She answered that she was, but behind the smile, she wasn’t really. When the clock had been bought and the shop had emptied of customers, Bonnie tried to ring Lew’s mobile from the office phone but he didn’t answer. She copied the number into her own mobile so that she could text him an explanation, but deleted it. If that really was his wife, and the chances were that she was, he’d want to hear her version of events first anyway and he would be more likely to believe it, especially as the dark-haired woman was sure to substantiate what she said. On the off-chance that he didn’t sack Bonnie on the spot, she could tell him her side of things and hope he accepted that she’d acted in the only way she could. Both of the women had been very angry and Bonnie was only glad she hadn’t had to manhandle Lew’s wife out of the shop. Her rib hurt where the dark-haired woman had rammed her elbow into her side. It felt so sore she was worried it could be broken.
The Queen of Wishful Thinking Page 13