by Freya North
Vita looked at the eight glass jars. What on earth was she meant to say now?
‘It’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but I think you ought to keep them.’
‘No – really – they’re for you.’
‘I don’t want them, though.’ Vita sounded suddenly strident and they both looked up from the box and straight at each other.
‘No?’ Oliver looked a little hurt. And lovely at the same time.
‘No. Thank you,’ said Vita, looking away. She wasn’t happy, but reluctantly, she summonsed images of Michelle and Candy, imagining them standing behind her, arms crossed like bodyguards.
‘They work,’ Oliver said, not having expected this response, ‘honestly.’
Vita stared hard at the little button on his collar tip. He shifted the box a little and the sun caught on his wedding band, shooting a glint straight to Vita. ‘Thank you for coming and for the trap things but I don’t think you should come to my house again and don’t worry I’ll find someone else to do the tree when it’s time but I ask you not to come here again thanks.’ She hadn’t paused for breath and she then stood there, regretting everything she’d just said but knowing reluctantly that it all had to be said.
He just stood there, with his box of tricks.
She backed into her house. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Anyway – bye.’
Vita shut the door and sloped into the kitchen, sat at the table with her head in her hands and thought, Oh for God’s sake, can’t I just have a bloody break.
How can doing the right thing feel so soul destroying?
Don’t I deserve a knight in shining armour by now?
This had not been a good weekend for Oliver. He returned home embarrassed and pissed off with the world at large. He thought he’d been ready – ready to give wasp traps to a girl he liked. He thought, subsequently, that he was an idiot. He thought of how he’d girded his widower’s courage – of what had been wholesome intent, but also of the battle of wills he’d fought to do the right thing, at a time that finally seemed right for him, for DeeDee, for Vita. And he thought, now, how wrong he’d been. He also thought he’d have the house to himself when he returned. He wasn’t expecting Jonty back until supper-time but his son was home already, watching his dad come up the drive carrying a cardboard box.
‘Jont?’
‘I twisted my ankle playing cricket.’
‘Crikey – you want some frozen peas on that.’ Thank God for something else to think about. ‘Sit yourself down, keep your leg up. Flick on the telly – I’ll bring them in to you.’
‘You OK, Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘You seem—’
‘I’m fine. I’m fine. Let’s watch – something.’
‘What’s in the box?’
‘What box?’
‘The one you were carrying in from the car.’
‘Oh. That box. Just those – wasp traps.’
‘Did you take them, then? To that lady?’
Oliver thought, I could lie to my son to save my own face. And then he thought, What’s the point of that?
‘I did.’
‘She wasn’t in?’
They was no way out of this conversation. ‘She didn’t want them. I don’t know why. Women are strange.’
‘That’s what Mum used to say to you – when she wanted something or had done something or didn’t want to do something.’
‘She did, didn’t she?’ Oliver laughed gently at the memory.
Jonty watched his father fiddling absent-mindedly with his wedding ring. ‘Anyway, it was a wasted journey. She told me to buzz off.’
Jonty rearranged the pack of peas pensively on his ankle. ‘Dad – did you tell her? That the wasp catchers are ours?’
‘No. They look good as new, now.’
‘I don’t mean that. You didn’t tell her they were Mum’s?’
‘No, Jonty, I certainly did not.’
‘But Dad – I think. Can’t you see? I can.’
‘Jonty, you’re not making sense. Can we just drop it now? Oh look, a Mr Bean is on.’
‘But Dad – it’s sort of down to me. It’s sort of my fault.’
‘Sort of is lazy language.’
‘She knows you have a son, right? She met me at the yard, right?’
Oliver looked at his boy blankly.
‘So – if I was her, I’d assume I have a mum, then. If you see what I mean. What I’m saying is – she probably assumes you have a wife as well as a son.’
Oliver stopped looking at the television and cast his gaze outside to the garden he never went out in.
Jonty, you’ll always always have that mum of yours. As long as you live.
‘You wear your wedding ring, Dad, when you’re not at work. She probably thinks you’re some weird perv,’ Jonty said.
Oliver thought about it. He looked at his left hand, the band of gold with no beginning, no end. And then he thought, How on earth could his teenage son be so astute, so right?
‘Weird perv,’ Oliver said quietly. ‘Charming.’
‘I could have said weird old perv, Dad,’ said Jonty, ‘so there.’
‘Can we watch Mr Bean now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. But you should take them again, the wasp catchers – and just tell her.’
Beer and Jam
Really, Vita could have done with a full and busy day but Mondays were always slow. She’d decided to compare the frightfully British charleston with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s version on the other side of the Atlantic and was currently happily involved with The Great Gatsby. Candy, who wanted to pull her friend into the real world, had sent her a book entitled The Men I’ve Loved to Hate. Apparently it was fiction and fantastically funny, but it didn’t appeal to Vita at all and she had about as much desire to read it as to attend a blindfolded speed-dating session – another of Candy’s ideas. At least with Evelyn Waugh, the vile bodies were the antithesis to her, with their double-barrelled surnames and wealth and flapper dresses and shiny bobbed hair and everything. Escapism, that’s what she needed and she gladly drifted off into another world, another time, and didn’t look up when the customer came in at lunch-time.
‘Hullo.’
Oh good God, it’s Oliver Bourne.
In his work clothes. With that box again. No wedding ring today, Vita noted with some disdain.
‘Hullo,’ he said again, now that he had her attention.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hi.’ Back to the book.
But he remained standing in the middle of the shop, looking around – not at her wares, but as if scouting for a flat surface on which to put the box. He approached.
‘I—’ she started.
‘I look like a salesman trying to flog you wasp catchers,’ he said.
Vita wasn’t sure how to answer that because actually, it was an apposite image, an amusing one, and she fought a smile.
‘Look,’ he said.
‘I’ve seen them already,’ she said.
‘No – not look,’ he said, ‘but – listen.’
He bent down and placed the cardboard box at his feet. Just the console table behind which Vita sat was between them. He was in his work clothes. He was slightly grubby. He had sawdust or something in his hair. She could actually smell it. Warm, fresh. Vita wished she hadn’t noticed.
‘About the other day – about yesterday,’ he said.
‘I told you – yesterday – that I don’t want the wasp catchers and I didn’t want you coming over.’
‘Semantically speaking, yes, you told me not to come to your house. Ever again. But this is your workplace.’
‘But why are you here? What is it that you want?’ She’d intended to sound nonplussed but she could hear she sounded confused.
‘Oh,’ said Oliver lightly, ‘oh – nothing really.’ He wondered how he could sound so stupid. How could he feel just like an awkward teenager? If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny. Richard Curtis could make it
very funny. Hugh Grant would do a marvellous job, acting out this scene.
Vita was starting to look cross, he thought. Then he thought of Jonty. He looked around the shop, thought of the many times his late wife would have been in here, sniffing candles and admiring all the pretty frippery.
‘Actually,’ Oliver said, ‘I didn’t make it clear to you. I didn’t buy you the wasp catchers – I should have said so and for that, I apologise.’ It was a sentence, certainly, but it didn’t explain much. Vita had put her book down, though, and was looking at him – a little suspiciously, but he had her attention all the same. ‘You see – what I should have told you was – the wasp catchers are my wife’s.’
Vita’s shoulders slumped a little and her displeasure was an audible squeezed sigh.
‘Why, then, are you trying to give them to me?’ She was accusatory, but her tone wasn’t hostile. It was just thoroughly deflated.
‘They – were – my wife’s.’
Oliver paused. He looked down, in every sense of the word. When he lifted his eyes, he caught Vita’s. They weren’t so navy today. Her hair was tidy. He hadn’t noticed the light spatter of freckles before. Then he steeled himself to stop looking and to start talking. But he hated these words out loud, really despised hearing them, having to say them.
‘My wife died.’
Vita’s intake of breath was sharp.
He shrugged, raised his arms and let them fall. ‘My wife died – almost three years ago. She used these wasp catchers in the garden – to great effect. And you’re right – I do have a big garden, not that I go out there much. At all really. Anyway, the wasp catchers were still there, filled with the little fuckers. I cleaned them out and thought you might like them and I have been talking way too much because, because—’
‘Your wife died?’
He nodded. ‘She was killed. In a road accident.’
Vita felt tears prick sharply. ‘I am so sorry.’
The depth of her emotion somehow calmed him. ‘Thank you.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Thank you.’
And while she was busy out the back, making tea, Oliver looked around the shop and said thank you under his breath a number of times.
‘Thank you.’
‘Two sugars,’ she said, flicking a V sign at him.
‘That’s right.’
‘I did have biscuits here – but the Saturday girl is a greedy pig.’
Greedy pig. Oliver liked her terminology. Other people might have said Fat Cow or something. It was funny, it was gentle. It was quirky. It reminded him of when she’d said flipping – about the wasps being a flipping problem.
They made much of sipping their tea because it helped to mask the emotions churning. Vita felt almost high, Oliver felt exhausted.
‘Anyway,’ Oliver said, ‘I was just wondering whether you might like the wasp catchers now? Now that you know a little of their background?’
‘I would like them very much indeed,’ said Vita.
‘My wife had a great recipe,’ he said. ‘She honed it over the years.’
‘Beer and jam, I think you said?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, flattered that she’d remembered. He paused. ‘Would you like me to – put them up for you?’
Vita tipped her head and then nodded, hoping it was OK that a gentle smile was now a grin even though the man had just told her his wife had died.
Oliver nodded. ‘You provide the beer and jam, then,’ he said. ‘I think DeeDee used to use bottled French lager.’
‘DeeDee,’ Vita said the name.
‘Her full name was Danielle – but no one called her that.’
‘They’re both pretty names.’
Oliver nodded. ‘Yes.’ Then he looked at Vita. ‘May I ask – did you think, when I came over –’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure how to phrase this – but if you thought I was married, did you think I – well –?’
Vita looked a little embarrassed. ‘Well –’
‘I’m not sure how to phrase this either – but for what it’s worth, I was never like that, when I was married. I was very happy to be married.’
‘If DeeDee was alive, you’d never have brought me wasp catchers?’
Oliver laughed. ‘Exactly.’
‘OK,’ Vita said, ‘I’m happy to hear it.’ Oh God, that sounded wrong. But Oliver’s raised eyebrow put her at her ease and there was no need to backtrack. Vita thought of Michelle, of Candy. She thought of the nerve it must have taken for Oliver to bring the wasp catchers to her house yesterday, to the shop today. She had to do something for all of them. ‘Would you like to come over, then? Would you like to come over – perhaps even this evening? I don’t know. Or a different evening? Or a daytime?’
‘This evening would be fine,’ Oliver said. ‘I could come on my way back from work.’
‘Great,’ said Vita. And then she thought about it very quickly. Much as he looked a treat in his work clothes, with all the visible signs of his toil, perhaps it would be nicer if— She stopped thinking. ‘Or,’ she said, ‘you could come along later on?’
He thought about that. It was a much better idea. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll be along later on. I’ll have supper with Jonty – and come along afterwards. Jonty’s my boy.’
‘I think he was at your yard. When I came in, doing my unhinged hobo impression.’
‘He was indeed.’
Vita hid her head in her hands.
‘Tonight, then?’
She nodded and they shared a quick grin before awkwardly wondering how Oliver was going to take his leave. In the end, he raised his hand and said bye a couple of times, backing away for a few strides before turning, saying bye again, and going.
Vita wouldn’t know of the utter relief he felt as he walked briskly back to the car. Thank God, he thought to himself, thank God. And luckily Oliver was already driving out of town and thus had no idea of the jubilation Vita felt; that she was excitedly dialling her best friend because she had just heard the best news in the world.
‘His wife died!’ she said in an excited whisper as soon as Michelle picked up the phone. ‘His wife’s dead!’ Vita stopped and groaned. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Oh God – is negative karma possible?’
‘Stop,’ said Michelle, ‘just stop. Whoa. Backtrack. Whose wife has died? That’s terrible.’
‘Oliver,’ Vita said. ‘He’s a widower, not a philanderer.’
‘You’re joking.’ It had never crossed Michelle’s mind. People their age didn’t lose partners their age. The concept was hideous. ‘How do you know?’
‘He came yesterday – to my house. With a box. And a wedding ring – so, obviously, I assumed he really wasn’t divorced but married.’ She paused – that sounded wrong. She’d explain another time. ‘I thought of you – I wouldn’t let him in. I told him I didn’t want him coming around. I told him I’d find someone else to do the pear tree. He’d brought these glass bottles you kill wasps with – that was what was in the box. I told him to buzz off.’
‘He didn’t mention the wife,’ Michelle said, almost to herself.
‘No – but he’s just come in to the shop – with the box of wasp whatsits. And he told me. She died almost three years ago. Her name was DeeDee.’
‘DeeDee.’
‘DeeDee – short for Danielle.’
Vita and Michelle said her name with gentle reverence. They allowed for a dignified pause.
‘And now?’
‘He’s coming over tonight,’ Vita said, unable to keep an excited squeak from her voice, ‘with the trap things.’
‘Yes!’ Michelle was thrilled and not merely excited but relieved too. ‘Tell me properly what he’s like?’ So Vita indulged them both.
‘You know, Michelle – even when we thought he was a philandering sod, there was something about him that, to me, just seemed genuinely nice.’
‘I remember,’ said Michelle. ‘So speaks a true judge of good characters.’
‘Want a lift?’
She kept on walking. ‘Oh – no, thanks.’ She put a cheery lift to her voice so he wouldn’t think she was being awkward.
‘Don’t be so stubborn, just hop in,’ he said and the passenger door was suddenly flung open, encroaching on her passage forwards. She thought how, sometimes, it was just easier to do what Tim wanted than to make her case to the contrary. So, giving in, she sat herself in the car and clung to the box.
‘Seatbelt, Vita,’ he said. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘Wasp catchers,’ she held one up. ‘You put jam and beer in them and then the wasps are trapped.’
‘And come to a sticky end?’
He was being charming, funny, friendly. It was more unnerving than when he was being a grumpy sod.
‘Where do you want me to take you?’ he asked. Suddenly, Vita didn’t want to be in his car at all. She didn’t want to see that a hair scrunchy was around the gearstick. It was as blatant as Suzie’s hand encircling his cock. But, most of all, she didn’t want Tim anywhere near her house.
‘Just drop me on Durham Road,’ she said. ‘That would be great.’
‘You don’t want me to take you – to your home?’
‘No, no, thanks – I have to post a letter,’ she lied.
They drove on.
‘How’s life?’ he asked.
‘Good,’ Vita said, ‘very good. And you?’
‘Fine – you know. As ever.’ He swore at another car. ‘Vita – I’ve been meaning to ask you something. It’s awkward – but you said you’d spoken to Suzie? That she picked up when you called?’