The Queen of Wishful Thinking

by Milly Johnson

  For the next few days, Lew plunged himself into the taking apart of his marriage, piece by piece. When he wasn’t on the shop floor in the Pot of Gold, he was liaising with his broker and accountant making a report of his financial situation to give to Adriana. He could understand why so many people who had put one foot on the road to divorce doubled back and took the easy option, but there was no way back for him. That door had been locked, bricked up and cemented over. He wanted out of this marriage as quickly and cleanly as possible, whatever it cost him. He couldn’t think of Charlotte without also seeing the child they should have had, and he knew that his friendship with Gemma was over, too. He didn’t want to know if she stayed with Jason or not; he wished her silently well, but if they passed in the street, he would say hello and move straight on.

  Life at the hotel was driving him insane and he decided to check out one of the flats Bonnie had told him about, but when he rang Mike Bell, the estate agent dealing with the sale of Woodlea, he found Mike had an interesting proposition for him.

  As Lew was locking up the shop on the Sunday night, an impulsive thought came to him.

  ‘Bonnie, are you doing anything tomorrow? I know it’s your day off, but I’m after a favour, just an hour max of your time.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Bonnie, intrigued.

  ‘There’s a house I want to look at and I’d value your opinion.’

  ‘Yes, no worries,’ replied Bonnie with a smile, but a much watered-down version of the one she usually wore. She had been constantly on edge for a week now, since she had intercepted the letter that Stephen had sent to Lew. Not even sleep gave her respite because Stephen followed her into her dreams. He had taken root in her brain like a parasite and if she thought she could have drilled a hole in her head and yanked him out, she would have done it.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at ten then?’

  ‘I’ll be ready. That’ll be nice.’

  Something was upsetting her, Lew knew. He’d asked if she was okay a couple of times over the past days, and she’d replied that she was – but she wasn’t. Maybe she would tell him away from the work environment, the way he had spilled his situation to her over that Chinese meal. He was worried about her because he was fond of her. Very fond of her.

  The Daily Trumpet apologises to Mrs Edna Harris for any distress caused in the article headed, ‘Local Writer Pens Autobiography’. Mrs Harris has written a book entitled Living with The Nuns of Barnsley: a First-Hand Guide. Not, as reported, Living with The Nonce of Barnsley: a First-Hand Guide. Mrs Harris wishes it to be pointed out that she does not know any nonce in Barnsley or elsewhere and has never lived with one nor does she advocate any guide that might instruct one on how to live with a nonce.

  Chapter 72

  David Charles rang Bonnie at nine the next morning. It had scared her to death. He’d told her that he didn’t have a great deal of news; the file of collected evidence would be going to the CPS this week, but what she most remembered about the call was that the solicitor had told her it would be wise to prepare herself for a possible spell in prison. She was shell-shocked when she put the phone down. How did you prepare for something like that? She made a to-do list of various utility companies that she would need to contact, but she hadn’t a clue what to say to them. And what would happen if she went straight to prison from court? Who would empty the little house of furniture and where would it all go? She was terrified, as much of being locked up as of what people she valued would think of her. Especially Lew.

  He hadn’t arrived by twenty past ten and the thought crossed her mind that he had found out. An anonymous letter – from Stephen – sent to the hotel this time so he would be sure of getting it. Her stomach churned with nerves. Then she heard the cheerful pips of a car horn outside and she leapt to the window to see Lew’s Audi and him waving at her. She was almost drowned by the relief that washed over her. She gave herself a quick check in the mirror hanging on the wall and picked up her key. Her hand was shaking as she locked the door.

  ‘Bonnie, I’m so sorry I’m late. Some idiot rep for toilet rolls, of all things, blocked me in in the hotel car park.’

  ‘It’s fine, don’t worry,’ she returned.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked, noticing that her eyes looked slightly red.

  ‘I’ve just had a sneezing fit,’ she improvised. ‘I think the pollen count must be high today.’

  ‘Thank you for coming with me,’ he smiled and her heart gave a tattoo of thumps in response.

  ‘It’s a change from making confetti,’ she said, buckling herself in.

  Lew chuckled. ‘Is it a very lucrative sideline you have?’

  ‘Put it this way . . . no. But the Rainbow Lady does buy my Chinese meal every week for me.’

  Rainbow Lady. It fitted her perfectly, thought Lew, noticing the sundress she was wearing, spattered with dots of all colours. On her shoulders rested her yellow cardigan, bright as sunshine. She was bonny by name and nature and she never failed to lift his mood when he was in her presence.

  ‘Where’s the house?’ asked Bonnie.

  ‘Just outside Little Kipping,’ replied Lew. ‘The estate agent selling mine thought I might be interested. I should sensibly be renting one of those small flats you told me about, but since he told me about this, it’s become stuck in my head so I thought what the hell. I figured that if it was awful then at least it would leave my brain alone.’

  ‘Little Kipping is nice and very handy for Spring Hill.’

  ‘Yep. All the planets are weirdly lining up for this one. It’s a ridiculous size for a single man though.’

  You won’t be single for long, thought Bonnie. She wasn’t sure she could bear to be around when he found another lady. The planets were also lining up for her leaving him, she knew.

  ‘The name will have to go if I bought it. Coldred House. You just know that Colin and Mildred thought it would be a good idea.’

  Bonnie giggled and it felt good because she hadn’t been sure there was any laughter in her recently.

  Lew took a left into Little Kipping, past the Black Sheep pub and a pretty row of cottages covered in purple wisteria. He took another left up a lane darkened by trees on either side conspiring together high above their heads.

  ‘It’s somewhere up here I beli— ah, there we go,’ said Lew, ‘just on the bend.’ He took a right down an imposing drive, longer than he imagined, and there in front of them was Coldred House and a man in a slick suit, leaning against his car waiting for them.

  ‘Wow,’ said Bonnie, more of a sound than a word. How lovely it must be to have the money in the bank to buy somewhere like this. It was huge, double-fronted, square and solid with massive bay windows to the first elevation.

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ said the estate agent, walking over to shake Lew’s hand and then Bonnie’s, introducing himself to her as Mike Bell. She wondered if he thought she was Lew’s bit of stuff and the reason why he had left his wife.

  ‘As I said to you on the phone, Mr Harley, it’s been on the market for four years so the owner has just dropped the price again. Quite considerably. It wasn’t a bargain before but I’ll be honest, I think you’ll find it is now.’

  Mike unlocked the huge door and pushed it open to reveal an enormous reception hall with the most beautiful ornate staircase. Bonnie would have bought it on this alone.

  ‘Breathtaking, isn’t it?’ said Mike. ‘I’ll be honest and say I wish the person who’d decorated this had done the rest of the house.’ He grimaced. ‘Let’s start with the worst.’

  Bonnie didn’t see the maroon walls in the lounge, she saw windows where sunlight would flood in every morning. She didn’t see the broken, splintered wooden floorboards, but ones which were polished and glossy. She saw a crackling fire feasting on logs in the hungry mouth of the fireplace and a large red bear of a dog asleep on a thick rug in front of it, gently snoring and dreaming of bones.

  ‘Horrendous, but it’s only a paint job away from paradise,
’ guffawed Mike. ‘Plus a total rewire and er . . . all the plumbing work. Let’s go into the kitchen, you’ll like this.’ He clicked his tongue at Bonnie, as if this would be her domain.

  ‘Mmm, MFI units,’ chuckled Lew. ‘Dozens of them. Nice.’

  Bonnie saw a huge dining table in the centre of the room, herself standing at it folding cocoa into the contents of a bowl, a giggling child sneaking fingerfuls of the cake mix into her mouth. She saw a shiny green Aga pumping out heat and smells of stew and bread. She saw the door open to a garden full of nodding spring daffodils, and the cheery bubble of the brook beyond them.

  ‘Be honest, what do you think so far?’ asked Mike eagerly.

  ‘It needs a lot of work,’ said Lew, in a neutral tone, giving nothing away to him, though he turned to Bonnie and dropped a sly wink.

  There was a study tucked next to a stately dining room, a cellar, a scullery and an orangery, as Mike called it. Lew called it a condemned conservatory, but he could see where Mike was coming from.

  At the top of the magnificent staircase was a stained glass window of a garden scene, rays of sunlight shining down on a green field of large yellow daffodils, their trumpets just a shade darker.

  ‘It used to be called Daffodil House,’ said Mike. ‘And that’s why. It’s a tad cheesy, which is why I imagine the last owners changed it.’

  ‘Yep, Colin and Mildred totally de-cheesed it,’ Lew said for Bonnie’s ears only and she snorted and then clamped her hands over her face in embarrassment.

  ‘No ensuites but I’ll be honest, the bedrooms are so large they could easily accommodate them,’ said Mike, pushing open the door to the master bedroom. There was enough room for Bonnie’s house to fit into, never mind an ensuite. Two massive windows afforded a view of the garden and the smoke-blue Pennines beyond. Bonnie saw herself leaning over a cot in the corner, checking that the baby was sleeping, then tiptoing back to bed where a Lew-shaped man was waiting for her to snuggle into. She turned away and found an awful built-in wardrobe temporarily interesting whilst the sudden blush faded from her cheeks. There were five more bedrooms on that floor, a gigantic house bathroom with a 1970s avocado suite and an attic, where once the servants had lived, split into four small rooms.

  ‘It comes with three acres of land and a garage that is standing up on a wing and a prayer, I’ll be honest,’ said Mike. ‘It’s a house for someone with vision.’

  ‘And a hell of a lot of money for renovations,’ said Lew, shaking his head regretfully.

  ‘The new price reflects that,’ said Mike quickly, feeling this potential sale slip through his fingers like ultra-fine sand. ‘I’ll be honest, there haven’t been any viewings for over a year. The owner will look at any reasonable offer.’

  ‘Offer him seven grand less than he’s asking,’ said Lew. ‘That’ll make up for the knock I’ve had to take on mine plus interest.’

  ‘You’re going for it?’ said Mike, with a strangled gulp. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really?’ asked Bonnie also.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lew. ‘Really.’

  ‘That was a mad, impulsive, ridiculous, stupid decision, wasn’t it? Thank God I didn’t put anything in writing,’ said Lew, pulling up outside her house half an hour later. ‘I think Colin and Mildred must have cast a spell on me.’

  ‘The house is beautiful, stunning,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s got everything you’d ever want a home to have. And it has that lovely happy feel in it.’ Some houses had it; like the one she’d grown up in, which had borne all its best and happiest times like a watermark. ‘If you can afford it, you should go for it.’

  ‘My heart is leading my head on this,’ admitted Lew. ‘That’s very scary for me.’ Then he grinned his lopsided grin and added, ‘I’ll be honest.’

  Bonnie burst into a peal of laughter. ‘He was extraordinarily honest for an estate agent, wasn’t he?’

  Lew’s laughter joined with hers and fed it, which in turn fired his and both of them thought that they couldn’t remember when their bellies had last ached so much and so joyfully.

  ‘I couldn’t carry on calling it Coldred House though, could I? What do you think, Bonnie? Any suggestions?’

  ‘I think Daffodil House is perfect,’ she said, thinking that when the sun was in the right position behind the stained glass window, it would throw a warm golden light on the stairs. ‘It’s very yellow though. Do you like yellow?’

  Lew mused for a moment. He pictured Bonnie standing in front of that same window in her Bonita Banana mac. Yes he liked yellow very much.

  ‘You might have to change the name of the orangery to the lemonery,’ she smiled.

  ‘I love it,’ replied Lew. ‘The lemonery. Yes, Daffodil House it is. Let’s cut its marriage with Colin and Mildred out of its history and return it to its maiden name.’

  If only it were that simple to erase history, thought Bonnie, unclipping her seat belt.

  She didn’t suggest he come in for a coffee. He was a man who could buy a mansion on a whim and she made confetti out of scraps of paper so that she could afford a Chinese takeaway once a week.

  ‘Thank you for coming with me, Bonnie. Enjoy the rest of your day.’

  Lew wanted to suggest lunch but something inside him held up a stop sign. He was developing strong feelings for Bonnie and she had enough on her emotional plate with that husband of hers. Moving in on her when she was vulnerable was Stephen’s trick, not his.

  As he drove away, his thoughts strayed to Daffodil House. Bonnie had not been the only one to see past the revolting paint and the peeling plasterwork. He saw logs spitting in the fireplace and a large dog asleep on a rug in front of it. He saw a grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs made from the same dark wood as all the furniture in the house. He saw children playing hide and seek on every floor, and he saw them drawing at a huge wooden table in the centre of the kitchen. The door to the lemonery was open letting the heady scent of garden flowers drift in. In his imagination, it smelled just like Bonnie’s perfume.

  Chapter 73

  The cheque from Christie’s arrived on the Thursday of that week. Bonnie rushed over to the door when she saw the postman’s head appear in the glass of the door. She was always first to pick up the post at the moment, even if it meant excusing herself from talking to a customer. It was always a relief when she flicked through it and found nothing with Stephen’s writing on it.

  She knew that Stephen had been following her around because she’d spotted him in the Morrisons car park in the town centre the previous night. He was driving an Aygo now and she wondered if he had changed cars so he could tail her, and if so, how many times he had managed to do so before he gave himself away.

  The lines between her life and her nightmares were starting to blur; more so with every day that took her closer to 5 July. The CPS would have her file; it would be in someone’s workload pile waiting for them to study and assess whether or not to prosecute her. Stephen’s account would be damning and no doubt Katherine Ellison would have told the police how she had witnessed the heated exchange when Bonnie told Alma that she hated her enough to kill her. No one could bear testimony to how her relationship with Stephen’s mother had altered beyond all belief over those last three months, how their two hearts had reached out to each other, met on peaceful ground and embraced, and the quiet tender moments they’d shared. On her last morning, as Bonnie gently sponged her face, Alma had been agitated, frustrated by something inside her she had to get out. Then, as if she’d summoned every vestige of strength left inside her, she had grasped Bonnie’s hand, held it as tightly as she could and said with slow, clear, laboured words, ‘You’re a good girl. Be happy. When I’m gone, promise me you’ll leave him.’ The effort had exhausted her and she’d fallen back against her pillow then and Bonnie had stroked the hair back from Alma’s face and said, ‘I will, I promise.’ It had saddened Bonnie that she had failed to shield Alma from the truth that her son was a cold, unfeeling shit.

  She had grown to lo
ve Alma a little over those last weeks, and she was worried now that the old lady’s resting memory would be dragged awake, paraded, dissected, mocked. Her last days had been constantly on Bonnie’s mind, replaying during idle moments, at night before she slept, in her dreams. And every time she revisited that defining moment of lifting the bottle to Alma’s lips, not once could she see her hand tilting even a fraction. She knew now that whatever acid Stephen had tried to drip into her consciousness to corrode the facts, in no way could she have hastened Alma’s chosen moment to die by a single second. But she had no proof of that.

  Every day now, Bonnie expected to walk into work and find Lew reading a letter from Stephen telling him what she had done. He didn’t know that she’d diverted his last letter but he might guess that was the case and try a more direct method of contact. She lived in dread of Stephen finding out Lew’s email and writing to him that way, because she’d have no chance of intercepting it. She had almost crashed her car that morning, seeing a black Aygo following her up Spring Hill. She’d been looking in her rear view mirror more than through the front windscreen and had to brake hard to stop herself ramming into the back of a left-turner. It hadn’t been Stephen but she was still shaking when she pulled into the car park and had to stay there for five minutes to compose herself.

  But today the post contained no bad surprises, only good ones: a thank you card from someone who had safely received a much-desired clock which Bonnie had parcelled up and sent to Australia, and that big, fat, fabulous cheque from the auction house.

  ‘Do you want me to take the cheque straight to the bank when I go to the dentist at lunchtime?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, and as it is very unlikely to bounce, will you do me a favour and go around to Mrs Twist’s house and give her a cheque of her own.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘Don’t rush back. Go have lunch outside somewhere.’ Let the sun work its magic on you and cheer you up, my lovely Bonnie.