Starting Over

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Always the bridesmaid and never the bride,’ Tess muttered, then forced a big smile to show it was a joke. Very still, she lay on the rug with the children, dowdy in old jeans whilst Franca looked stunning in tall black boots under a long black skirt split to her thighs, dawn-pink angora jumper clinging in a way that, Tess thought despairingly, must make every man long to touch.

  They left in a flurry of phone numbers, reminders, instructions, thanks and, probably, sighs of relief. Tess lay back on the carpet and glared at the ceiling. ‘Well, if that doesn’t just about take the shitty biscuit.’

  Toby clamped a gleeful hand to his mouth. ‘Tess, you said ...!’

  ‘Bi’cuit?’ asked Jenna, looking expectantly towards the kitchen.

  Tess sprang up, fuelled by anger and anguish, half blind in her own glistening hot-eyed world. ‘Why not? Biscuit for Toby, biscuit for Jenna! But none for Tess because she said a bad word! OK?’

  ‘Yeah ...’

  She relieved her frustration by stamping into the kitchen, jarring her legs against the unyielding stone floors and the children stamped happily after, swinging arms and waggling behinds.

  The adults returned late, replete, well-oiled, over-relaxed. The children had been in bed for hours. Grabbing her book, unwilling to be caught staring into space, Tess met Franca’s smouldering gaze with a carefully casual smile. She was too slow to stop Angel making her a cup of coffee and had to sip and blow rapidly, wanting escape.

  Ratty was quiet. Maybe he was the designated driver, the only one sober. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked her twice. He chose an armchair and, when Franca prowled across to sit on the arm, exchanged a peculiar look with her, hesitating before taking her hand. Maybe they’d had a row. Good.

  ‘Shall I walk you home?’ He jumped up when Tess zipped herself into her jacket.

  ‘No!’ Too loud. More softly, ‘Thanks. I can manage.’ She left them, silent, behind her.

  In the morning she did something she thought she’d never do again. She rang Olly.

  ‘Hi. I thought I’d just try your direct line, as you gave me the number.’

  He sounded pleased to hear her voice. ‘I was thinking about you, you must be telepathic.’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so.’ She heard a few keystrokes from a keyboard, and the big-office hum in the background, wondered what it was like to work in the same building as several hundred others, how much space must be given over to canteens and restrooms, how many people Olly now knew to shout hullo to. ‘What were you thinking about me?’

  More keystrokes. As Olly was speaking on his company line when that company was paying him to do something more productive, she really ought not be irritated that he was obviously not giving her his entire attention. The keystrokes paused. ‘I was wondering if you fancied coming down this weekend?’

  ‘Back to London?’ Olly lived in North London now, had to tube into work. She tried to picture him rocking down the Northern Line every morning, strap-hanging. ‘I’m busy on Saturday.’

  ‘Sunday?’

  Something inside her recoiled. ‘No, I can’t really be bothered, just for the day.’

  ‘Then stay longer.’

  The old feeling washed over her, frustration and impotence that she had to remind him. ‘I have to work!’

  He drew in his breath. ‘Yeah, sorry. The new me needs a lot of reminding, doesn’t he?’

  She laughed. Olly wasn’t all bad. ‘Maybe some other time,’ she said.

  ‘Or maybe I’ll whiz up to see you,’ he said, unconvincingly.

  The next day, too doleful to achieve much real work in the hour or two before she was due at the village hall, she went on with the painting on her workroom wall.

  Morning glory trumpets, proudly open on the earlier lengths of creeper, now became withered blooms like empty socks.

  Above the window overlooking Pennybun she painted a heart, a faithful technical representation: left ventricle, right ventricle, left and right atrium, pulmonary trunk, vena cava. On the blue background the colours darkened, making the heart look dead and disused as she painted the creeper choking it. Strangled by winding stems and dead flowers.

  Basic, callow. A portrait of her feelings.

  She stood back and assessed her dark work. ‘You’re sad, you are, plastering the wall with your most mediocre stuff. Sad woman. Can’t get to grips with what you want, not prepared to risk your emotions like anybody else.’

  At least today would be busy and full. Decorating stalls, manning the door, dismantling stalls, rearranging them for the evening dance. Raffle drawn at nine, the final prize her picture. She must mount the stage to present it to the winner, make light-hearted remarks and smile for the photographer as she flourished a signature across the corner. Then she could go home.

  A busy morning became a long one. Tess and Hubert took pairs of stepladders around the hall, festooning roses across the stall tops under the sponsors’ signs. The Three Fishes. MAR Motors. A. & G. Crowther.

  On automatic pilot, Tess tried to ignore Carola dashing about with fanatical eyes and a handful of lists, discourage Toby, Jenna and friends from climbing the steps behind her, act normally with Angel and wield a staple gun on the navy and white skirts at the front of the stalls.

  It was stupid, childish, to feel excluded because her friends had gone out with Franca. And naïve to have assumed that her friendship with Ratty would continue forever unchanged. Obviously their special friendship had suffered the instant he found somebody more special still. If she’d wanted more, she should’ve ...? Done something or other, anyway. Taken a chance. Taken him up on one of his casual smutty suggestions, returned his kiss, been first to clasp hands. Allowed herself to react to him instead of suppressing her libido until it surfaced only at night in vivid, spectacular, erotic dreams.

  Tack, pin, fetch, carry, sweep, dust, until lunchtime finally arrived, and they broke until one thirty.

  Through the kitchen door she shucked out of her jacket and picked up a letter from the mat. The handwriting was familiar. Showing a rare sensitivity in realising e-mail from him might not be welcome, Olly had sent a clipping from the Evening Standard about Kitty and some client who’d won an award. And on a fold of paper, written, ‘Thought you might like this. Hope you’re OK.’ She was staring at it, acknowledging sinkingly that Olly was making an unlikely amount of effort, when Ratty tapped and strolled in.

  Familiar in his soft fleece jacket, his jaw was shadowed because he only shaved when he felt like it. Under his arm was a bottle wrapped in a crisp white cloth. ‘I wish you’d let me see you home the other night. I wanted to know you got here all right.’

  ‘You were with Franca.’

  ‘Franca wouldn’t mind.’ He looked out of the window, putting his bottle down on the sill. ‘Am I disturbing you?’ He nodded at the letter.

  ‘Olly.’ She threw the envelope at the bin. It missed.

  He pulled a face. ‘I hope he’s behaving? How’s it going at the village hall? Anyone quarrelled with Carola and stormed out yet? Were you going to offer me coffee?’

  ‘Yes. OK. Nobody. Yes, OK.’

  So they sat across the table, as they used to, talking about the Feast.

  ‘You’re doing your famous local artist bit, tonight?’

  ‘Carola would throw herself under a bus if I backed out. She thinks her idea’s wonderful.’

  ‘It is.’ He ate an apple, she watched the square whiteness of his teeth crunching through the rosy peel and into the flesh. Then he glanced at his watch and got up. Sod. ‘Don’t mind if I leave this in your fridge, do you, Princess?’ He opened the fridge door, slid the wrapped bottle onto a shelf, winked at her and grinned his most brilliant, lascivious grin. ‘Special plans tonight.’

  Gone. So. Special plans. Too busy to nip home to unload a bottle of – she opened the fridge door and peeked – champagne. Moët. She wondered when he anticipated retrieving it. The old, easy ways were still there, but obviously his priorities had altered.

  S
he sighed. Climbed the stairs to shower slowly, brush and plait her hair, slide into a blue dress because Carola thought jeans were for gardening. Time up. She had to go and take twenty pences and smile as if she was enjoying herself because everyone had put in so much that she couldn’t let them down.

  Tomorrow, maybe, she’d stay in bed all day. Or camp in front of the television with assorted chocolate bars. Or get forgetful-drunk. And she’d surf the Net and get a last-minute deal, because now would be a good time to take a couple of weeks out. Somewhere that was already hot, a blue sea, a blond beach, walks along cliffs. She could almost taste the sea on the breeze already. The freedom.

  But, today, she had to get on with the Feast.

  Tess took money as quickly as people could push through the door and the village hall filled and filled. The stalls looked cheery and pretty. Table-toppers did brisk business with old china and unloved CDs, outgrown toys and books, the corn-dolly lady put on a lovely display, Angel did makeovers. At the counter that would become a bar later, Hubert, Grace, Ida and Rose dispensed tea and coffee in proper cups. A team of teenagers constantly ferried in trays of clean cups and saucers, disappearing reloaded with dirty ones. In the corner by the tea stand Ratty perched on a stool and played acoustic guitar whilst Franca drank coffee close by.

  A constant stream of people chattered past, shoving coins into the plastic box that was Tess’s till, bringing in the smell of fresh air and making her wish she was out there, tramping about the lanes.

  ‘Been roped in?’

  Meeting the calm grey-green gaze of Elisabeth Arnott-Rattenbury, Tess tried to look as if she hadn’t been looking at Ratty. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘You’re being kept busy.’ All the Arnott-Rattenburys spoke the same nice, accentless English.

  ‘It’s slowing down now, but they’re still coming.’ She shook back her pigtail and delved in her box for change. Elisabeth moved aside to let a family pay.

  Tess glanced at her. ‘Ratty ... Miles is playing.’

  ‘Yes, I see him.’ Elisabeth smiled.

  Tess watched her make her way to where Ratty was making music on a beautifully inlaid twelve-string guitar, throw coins into his guitar case. Ratty laughed and challenged her; she pantomimed exasperation and shook her purse upside down, to show that it was empty.

  Tess took her eyes away to take more door money, and suddenly Elisabeth was back with a china cup of tea. ‘You must be parched.’

  Once she thought about it, she was. ‘Well, thanks,’ she muttered, easing a back pleated from standing so long, resting her behind on the table edge, wishing someone could turn the volume down on all the exclamations and laughter that seemed to fill the old stone hall up to its wooden rafters. ‘That’s lovely.’

  Elisabeth lifted her own cup. ‘Do you know whether Cassie and Christopher Carlysle have been, yet?’

  ‘Been and gone I’m afraid.’

  Elisabeth smiled. ‘Good. I can relax. Are your parents coming today?’

  Good God, she hoped not. ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘No moral support required when you do the raffle prize, tonight?’

  Tess took sixty pence from a woman with two kids. ‘I can manage.’ Relations weren’t that warm, yet, though Tess had at least rung home.

  Elisabeth looked around. ‘I see my son is doing his own thing, as usual.’

  ‘He plays well.’ Tess thought of Ratty playing in the sunshine in the garden at Rotten Row or Honeybun. Singing in the rattling van pulling the stripped-down E-Type back from Devon.

  Elisabeth sipped. ‘He’s not a bad sort.’

  ‘’Course not,’ she agreed cautiously.

  ‘Has his own ways. His own way of getting people to fall in with his plans. Circuitous ways. Rather than negotiate, he navigates himself into the position he wants.’ She sighed. ‘I wish he’d make things simpler for himself. But, that’s Miles.’

  Elisabeth ran a long-fingered hand over neat hair, watched her son play, curled around the guitar, left hand sliding over the frets. ‘Look at his precious cars. His results in business studies were so good Lester and I felt it was the obvious way to go, accountancy or something, and Miles agreed, yes, it was only sensible. Applied to the right places and off he went.

  ‘Instead of saying, “But it’s not what I want, I want to do something else,” he went along with us till he could change it. Then turned up one day saying he’d finished with the course. He’d been buying cars, doing them up and selling at a profit in the holidays and evenings. He’d accrued enough capital to strike out full-time, and rented a “place” – a shack really.

  ‘I can see him now, standing there so pugnaciously. Showing us that he’d made it happen. Lester doesn’t react very well to Miles in that mood. He was hurt at the way Miles had gone about things. Lester tends to withdraw when he’s hurt, which Miles calls disapproval. Pity it couldn’t have been different.’ Elisabeth’s cup was empty.

  Tess took it absently, brow creased in thought. ‘He’s his own person, you have to take him or leave him.’

  Elisabeth looked at her curiously. ‘Take him or leave him,’ she agreed. Then, ‘Your picture is very good. Miles said your talent shone out.’

  Her face went hot with pleasure. ‘Flattery!’

  ‘He never flatters. He feels things strongly, passionately, there’s no one I’d rather have in my corner. But Miles does not flatter.’

  Tess stared after her.

  The day got longer and drearier. The hall was slow to empty, leaving little time to dismantle the stalls and relocate the decorations for the dance. Through the middle of their muddle the DJ and his mate trucked all their stuff, and calls of ‘Where’s this going?’ were overlaid with ‘One-two, one-two,’ through speakers the size of fridges.

  Chilly from standing in the draught from the door, Tess dashed home for another shower, Carola calling after her, ‘Dress up – make us look important!’

  There was a message on the answering machine from Olly. ‘Just ringing to see you’re all right,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sodding busy,’ she snipped, hurling her clothes at the laundry basket in her bedroom and watching them bounce off, supposing bad-temperedly that she’d have to wash her hair. The shower was hot, ran into her eyes, making them boil. Just like tears.

  Life wasn’t always kind. Although she felt strained from making an effort all day, now she had to go back and do it again, when all she wanted was to crawl in bed and just lie.

  And there was the back door again, rap-rap, probably Ratty wanting his champagne back for his specially planned night. Damn, blast and bugger him. Bastard. Maybe she should phone Olly back. Get him lined up to go somewhere tomorrow, away from the village.

  But it was Angel who peered back at Tess through the glass. ‘I’ve come to do your hair!’

  Tess opened the door. ‘Do my ...? I don’t need –’

  ‘Carola wants her star to be just right!’

  Angel chivvied her upstairs, bullied her into a short black skirt and a gold-shot lace top which made her hair blaze. ‘Got to make the effort, it’s for the village!’

  With Angel that bright and bouncy, Tess gave in. It wasn’t worth the energy she’d expend arguing, so she slumped on her stool and submitted her hair to being blow-dried.

  ‘I’m putting it up,’ she said ungraciously.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t want ...’

  ‘Up!’ Silly tears pricked. Must be overtired. Yes, all tomorrow in bed.

  Silently, Angel swept Tess’s hair up on the back of her head, Tess felt the spike slide through the curved black barrette. Felt the cool spray of lacquer on her nape. ‘No need to get upset,’ Angel said, giving her a quick hug from behind.

  The hall looked good and sounded better as Tess stepped back through the door. Gently rotating lights, crêpe, velvet bows around the bar where the optics twinkled and glasses were stacked, businesslike, tray on tray.

  ‘Now, you look marvellous,’ Carola encouraged. ‘Your piccie’s
on its easel up on the stage, look! Nothing to do but circulate and enjoy yourself until raffle time. After that,’ she gusted out a sigh and clasped her forehead, ‘we can all relax and get sozzled.’

  Tess felt suddenly small over the way she was dragging her feet. Carola worked like a horse to keep the hall up to its wonderful standard, full of energy and ideas, expecting no thanks, accepting others’ excuses.

  Right, she’d give Carola her all these last couple of hours, circulating, buying people drinks and generally doing what she could to make jolly. She’d do her piece at the raffle with huge smiles and twinkles, make a great impression.

  Then she’d go home to bed.

  As if reading her mind, Pete and Angel dragged her off to start the dancing, Jos cornered her to meet his dear, shy Miranda properly, and soon the hall was jumping and she was tripping over people, whisked from conversation with Tubb from the pub to chat to Lester Arnott-Rattenbury, attractive silver hair alight beneath the lights. Hubert introduced her to the vicar, Grace wanted her to meet her mother, Gwen Crowther asked her to sign a card for Carola. ‘It’s one of yours, duck!’

  Almost everyone in the locality turned up. Christopher Carlysle asked her to dance, using the opportunity to badger, ‘I wish you’d tell me what went on with Simeon.’

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ she called, over the music. She didn’t need reminding. There was Simeon, in fact, beer in one hand, some poor female in the other, his face red and movements loose, already. She looked away.

  And if her gaze kept drifting to the door as the hall filled up, nobody would’ve noticed, what with dancing and chatting and having such a good time.

  It was inevitable that Franca would shimmy in, gorgeous in a shiny pink skirt and top. Tess turned to the barman, not wanting to see Ratty follow.

  She didn’t get a second to eat any of the bits of pizza or sausages on sticks, never seemed to finish a drink before putting it down and losing it, but at least that way the first part of the evening was quick and painless. Fairly, anyway.