Marriage and Other Games

by Veronica Henry

  She gazed at her reflection in the window, astonished at how unlike herself she felt, unable to believe how she seemed to have been stripped of all her femininity with a mere snip of the scissors. In any other circumstances she might have broken down and wept, but at this point in time she was just grateful that it was unlikely that anyone on the planet would be able to recognise her.

  It took Gussie a good ten seconds to clock who it was on her doorstep.

  ‘Crikey!’ Gussie wasn’t the type to give false reassurance. ‘Sinead O’Connor, eat your heart out.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘It’s pretty drastic.’

  Charlotte put her hand up to her shorn scalp.

  ‘It’ll grow.’ Then she sighed. ‘Someone spat at me in the street.’

  Gussie was her dearest friend. Forthright, no nonsense and fourteen stone, she dispensed advice and Pinot Grigio from her kitchen while a stream of children came and went demanding Pritt sticks, Pringles and reassurance, all of which she produced without turning a hair.

  ‘You’d better come in.’ Gussie opened the door wider, and Charlotte picked her way carefully through an assault course of rugby boots and dismembered Barbies into the heart of the house.

  Once Gussie had unscrewed the lid on a bottle of Tanqueray and poured them each a sharpener, Charlotte felt a little calmer. She filled her friend in on the hopelessness of her predicament: the fact that Ed was undoubtedly going to do time, that they would have to sell their house, that she was out of a job. Gussie listened carefully, non-judgemental, and then replenished their glasses.

  ‘Right,’ she said, fixing Charlotte with a look that meant she knew she wouldn’t like what she was about to say, but she was going to say it anyway. ‘I’ve got a proposition. You know the Millstone?’

  Charlotte nodded. Eighteen months before, Gussie’s Great-aunt Flo had left Gussie and her two brothers a decrepit cottage in Withybrook, a remote village on Exmoor. It had stood empty for all that time, as they didn’t have a clue what to do with it. It was too small for any of their families to holiday in, too shabby to let out, and none of them wanted to sell for sentimental reasons. So it was fondly referred to as the Millstone, as they still had to insure it and pay council tax.

  ‘We’ve decided to bite the bullet and sell,’ Gussie informed her with a sigh. ‘We’ll all come out of it with a good whack towards the school fees for the next ten years. There’s no point in hanging on to it.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ agreed Charlotte. ‘It’s just sitting there empty.’

  She knew very well that Gussie and her husband could do with the money. They never had any spare cash. Charlotte couldn’t remember the last time Gussie had bought a new outfit. Not that she was a vain creature; she was quite happy to live in jeans and rugby shirts. But sometimes she saw the strain of it all on Gussie’s face. She wanted to go back to work, but the children were her priority. If selling the cottage meant that Gussie could have a bit of fun, then Charlotte was all for it.

  But she wasn’t sure where she came in as part of the plan.

  ‘The thing is,’ Gussie went on, ‘the place is a total wreck at the moment. We know it’s structurally sound - Flo had a new roof put on about eight years ago, and it’s been rewired. But we think we’d get a much better price if we did it up. Gave it some kerb appeal. Slapped a bit of white paint around.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Charlotte could see where she was heading.

  ‘Why don’t you do it for us?’ Gussie pulled out a sheaf of photos and spread them out on the kitchen table. ‘You’d have a roof over your head. And a project. And a chance to think things over. You need some space, Charlotte.’

  Charlotte chewed her lip and looked at the pictures. The cottage was sweet - made of stone, double-fronted, a typical Play School house with four windows and a door. But judging by the interior shots it hadn’t been touched since the fifties at least. It was stuck in a time warp, and not in a good way.

  ‘So - what’s my budget?’

  There was a small pause.

  ‘Well, we’ve scraped around between us and we reckon we can raise five grand each . . .’ Gussie gave a small gulp.

  Charlotte stared at her in disbelief. Gussie had two brothers. She did the maths. A complete refurb for fifteen thousand? That was less than she usually spent on lighting. As she looked at the photos of the gloomy interior, with the nasty bricked-up fireplaces and Formica worktops and hideous wallpaper, her heart sank.

  ‘Fifteen thousand? To do it up completely? New kitchen, new bathroom, new flooring . . . ?’

  ‘I know, I know. But we’ll give you a cut of the profit when we sell. We’ll split it four ways. I know it won’t be a fortune, but . . .’ Gussie looked anguished, knowing what she was offering was pitiful in comparison to Charlotte’s usual fee. ‘It’s the only way I can help you, Chaz.’

  Charlotte looked at her friend and realised that Gussie couldn’t even afford this lifeline. The money she was investing in the project wouldn’t have been readily available; she and Will would have probably had to borrow it, no doubt from one of the other brothers who would get the interest on it ultimately. She couldn’t throw this offer back in her face. And actually, what choice did she have?

  But how on earth was she going to survive, stuck in the wilds of Exmoor? It was remote even for Gussie, who was a country girl at heart. But Charlotte wasn’t a country mouse at all. The closest she came to the countryside was the evening race meeting at Windsor. Horses made her nervous, dogs made her cringe, mud made her recoil, grass made her sneeze. She didn’t even own a pair of wellies. She was a city chick through and through.

  A project like this was going to take three months at least. How would she manage? What would she do in her spare time?

  But what was the alternative? She wasn’t going to go back to either of her parents. Her father had enough on his plate, and her mother would go on and on until Charlotte would want to throttle her with her bare hands.

  Oh God. Life was so complicated. What wouldn’t she give to be Gussie? With a house that was a home, not a show-case? With a divinely cuddly husband who was kind and responsible, and a raft of spirited, happy children? Who really cared about Eames chairs and Roche-Bobois modular seating and Corbusier lighting? Were you really happier if you parked your arse on a thousand pounds’ worth of chrome and leather, instead of a scuffed old kitchen chair?

  She put the photos down with a sigh.

  ‘It’s not as savage as you might think,’ Gussie reassured her anxiously. ‘It’s becoming very fashionable. Lots of celebs have bolt-holes down there. Sebastian Turner’s got a big pile down the road. You don’t get more A-list than that.’

  ‘The artist?’ Charlotte raised an eyebrow. She’d seen a few of his paintings in some of the houses she’d been allowed in over the past few years.

  ‘It was his parents’ house. He’s got a studio down there.’

  Gussie was obviously eager to impart gossip, but Charlotte wasn’t that interested. As far as she was concerned, the quieter it was in Withybrook the better. The likes of Sebastian Turner round the corner might mean press intrusion. Not that she was on his scale.

  She fingered the photographs thoughtfully. At least Gussie’s offer gave her a roof over her head. It might mean temporary exile, but by the time she finished the mud-slinging might have abated and she could venture back out in public. Who knows, Connor might even have her back.

  She looked at the interior shots of the cottage and thought about possibilities. Something very washed-out that took advantage of the natural light; lots of pale grey, perhaps . . . She certainly had enough stuff stored up from over the years to dress it. Remnants of fabric and wallpaper; ornaments and pictures. She was going to have to get rid of it all otherwise; at least this way she could hang on to it for a bit longer.

  She took in a shaky breath.

  ‘Ok,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Four

  ‘Please, Daddy. Pleeease.’ />
  Jade was always the spokeswoman. Amber stood behind her, eyes wide. They both looked similar, with their long brown plaits and their skinny legs stuck into lurid pink Crocs smothered in badges, but their personalities were poles apart. Jade was the negotiator, the manipulator, despite being the younger by eighteen months. Amber bobbed along in her sister’s wake, more cautious, but it was the look in her eyes that made Fitch capitulate. He was putty in their hands. He always gave in eventually, which Jade knew perfectly well and exploited mercilessly.

  ‘OK,’ he relented, and he smiled as the two girls grinned at each other triumphantly and rushed off to the DVD player. He prided himself on not having to resort to television when they were with him, but they were shattered and starting to whine because they sensed that Hayley’s non-appearance was making their father not so much annoyed as worried.

  Once Fitch knew that she was all right, then he would be annoyed, because it would inevitably be lack of consideration that was delaying Hayley, not one of the hideous eventualities he was imagining as he took the lunch things out of the dishwasher and put them away. Fitch hadn’t always been house proud, but now he was on his own again he was determined not to become a slob. It would be so easy not to bother and live in fetid bachelordom, with washing-up, take-away cartons and empty bottles piling up. Every time she came round, he could see Hayley mocking the fact that the house was spotless, the eyes that had once laughed with him now laughing at him as they swept their gaze over the gleaming surfaces and the neatly folded pile of tea towels. OK, so when they’d been together there had been better things to do than housework. Now, each evening stretched interminably, the hours between six and half eleven, when he usually went to bed, seeming to take up as much time as his nine-hour working day. Half an hour’s cleaning and tidying each night urged the hands of the clock forward more quickly, and that, it seemed, was all it needed to make the house ready for the approval of the most pernickety household inspector.

  She was supposed to be back by three. It was written in stone. It wasn’t that he minded looking after his daughters - he never resented a moment with them - but the agreement was Hayley would take them back to her parents’ farm, where the three of them were living, early on a Sunday afternoon so the girls had plenty of time to sort out their things for the week, wash and condition their long, brown curls, have their nails cut, check through their homework, sort out their ballet things, their gym kit, their reading bags. All the things Fitch had helped with until eight months ago. Without complaining. His speciality had been nits. He was so much more patient with the nit-comb. Hayley went at their hair like a bull at a gate, while Fitch was gentle. He didn’t mind how long it took. He told them funny stories while he did it.

  Sometimes, he wondered how on earth he had got here. Fitch, the Jack the Lad, the rough diamond, with his devil-may-care attitude, had found himself a family man and was surprised to find it was a role he relished.

  Until it all went pear-shaped . . .

  Fitch had always been a square peg in a round hole. As a child, he had suffered the ignominy of an itinerant lifestyle without the glamour of actually being a gypsy. His father was a glorified farmhand, and they went wherever the work was - fruit and vegetable picking, mostly - peas, plums, strawberries, mangles, sugar-beet. In the winter they picked holly and made wreaths to sell in the market. They lived in whatever accommodation was on offer; more often than not a ramshackle mobile home or a tumbledown cottage adjoining whichever farm they were working on. Fitch knew his father had other ways of procuring money, and that he had light fingers, which was why they were so often moved on. When he was fourteen, it seemed as if they might have settled at last when they got a council house outside Pershore, and his dad took to driving an unlicensed taxi.

  Fitch didn’t remember his mother ever lifting a finger to help the situation. Once a ravishing beauty, the drink had raddled her completely by the time she was forty. Her skin was a map of red broken veins, her teeth were rotting, her eyes bloodshot; but she still laboured under the delusion that she was magnetically attractive to men, because she still had her figure despite her alcohol consumption: slender legs, a trim waist and an impressive embonpoint, which she flashed to great effect in all the local pubs. She was a laughing stock, but that didn’t stop the more unscrupulous taking advantage of her need to be the centre of attention.

  Ironically and miraculously, Fitch was bright, very bright, at school but he did disastrously, because teachers rarely bothered to engage with him, or encourage him, largely because he didn’t make it easy. He had an impregnable defence mechanism that made it difficult to communicate with him. He constantly skived and wagged off, undermining the teaching staff (whom he was often cleverer than), and narrowly escaped expulsion. All the time he was looking for a way out, but there weren’t many opportunities in this rural ghetto if you had no qualifications.

  At sixteen, when he was legally entitled to escape, he read and reread the local college prospectus looking for inspiration, but would have needed a gun at his head to do any of the courses on offer. Something inside him told him he needed to get away: from Pershore, from his parents, from the drinking and the disappointment. He was convinced there was more to life; that one didn’t have to be downtrodden and eke out a mean existence while playing the system. He had no respect for his parents. He had never received any encouragement or guidance from either of them. They’d given him no ambition, no sense that he could in any way better himself. They were happy to accept their lot, were resigned to packing up their things every three, six, nine months and moving on. They never seemed to learn by their mistakes, just repeated the pattern.

  Fitch was determined to make it on his own. And as luck would have it, he fell into a trade that suited him down to the ground. He got a job helping out a local stonemason, initially just as an extra pair of hands, but found he had stumbled upon a world he felt he belonged in. He fell in love with stone - smooth, white marble; harsh, black granite; soft, crumbling limestone - and threw himself into learning everything he could about the craft. It was hard, unforgiving work, arduous and at the mercy of the elements, as he shivered in the icy workshop or fixed headstones into the frost-hard ground in the local cemeteries. But eventually his boss saw his potential, and he was weaned off the donkey work and taught the skill. Soon, with a simple chisel he could carve the most exquisite and intricate patterns into the stone. He rented a small flat from his boss in the stonemason’s yard. He didn’t miss his parents, and he was pretty sure they didn’t miss him, except possibly for his erstwhile financial contributions. For the first time in his life he was if not ecstatically happy, then at least content.

  After three years’ hard graft, he had enough money saved to put a deposit down on a tiny one-bedroom cottage in the picturesque village of Chipping Campden. He loved having his own roof over his head, four solid walls around him that no one could take away. He worked hard and he partied hard. He bought himself a hatchback Subaru, a wolf in sheep’s clothing that went like shit off a shovel. He instinctively went for good-time girls and made it clear that all he wanted was no-strings sex. He appreciated beautiful women, but there wasn’t room in his life for anything serious. His rugged, dark features, his impressive physique and his bad-boy aura made him an attractive proposition and he had no shortage of admirers. But no one cracked the façade, or found their way to the real Fitch. How could they, when he wasn’t sure who he was himself?

  Eventually, he realised that he had gone as far as he could for the firm he was with, and that there was nothing his boss could do that he couldn’t. It was time for him to strike out on his own. He sold his house and gave his boss two weeks’ notice. He’d searched the West Country for the right premises, and eventually bought an old bakery with an adjoining workshop in the Exmoor village of Withybrook. Then he set up in business, putting an advert in the church magazine and leaving flyers in builders’ merchants.

  The bread and butter of his work was headstones and memoria
ls, but he could also turn his hand to restoration work, fireplaces and kitchen tops. He repaired façades, cornices, canopies, mullion windows, chimneys, staircases, fire surrounds, balustrading and pillars. He could produce garden ornaments, plaques, sculptures and sundials. There were often pretty women to be found in his yard, after bird baths and house signs and pastry boards. They loved to watch him work, painstakingly carving an elaborate Celtic knot with the edge of his chisel, slicing away the stone like butter. He had been pleasantly surprised to find himself inundated with work. There were, it seemed, a lot of restoration projects in the area.

  His workshop was freezing, but Fitch didn’t mind the cold. Besides, he worked so hard he didn’t notice it. He was often seen manhandling lumps of stone off the back of his truck, with a carelessness that would make any health and safety inspector shudder. He was always covered in a layer of fine stone dust.

  He quickly earned the respect of the locals, because he worked with his hands. He wasn’t a typical incomer. He hadn’t come down with a dream of getting away from it all, to set up some airy-fairy internet business, pushing up the local house prices. He spent all of his money locally; didn’t dash off to London at the drop of a hat for social engagements or business meetings. He soon had a network of local builders and craftsmen who put work his way, and vice versa.