by Fanny Blake
My anger and hurt were indescribable but, despite everything, I didn’t want to be responsible for him going to prison. ‘Then do that.’ I hesitated. ‘If you haven’t repaid it in full within one month, I’m going to the police.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Don’t push me too far.’ However devastated I might feel, I hadn’t lost my reason. ‘I’ll do whatever’s necessary. I won’t let you ruin my business.’
‘That’s impossible. We’ve spent some and some of it’s already committed. I don’t know how we’ll be able to. I was going to suggest—’
‘No!’
He flinched: a man used to getting his way in negotiations. ‘No?’ As if he couldn’t believe I was contradicting him.
‘You’d better go home and discuss it with Morag.’ I had to get him out of there before I broke down. I didn’t want him to see the tears that were stinging my eyes. ‘That’s my only offer.’
He thought for a moment. Then: ‘Very well.’ He reached out across the table. ‘Perhaps we can be friends again when this blows over.’
I ignored his hand and got to my feet. ‘Can you hear yourself, Rob?’ I didn’t want his apologies and self-justification and meaningless hopes for the future. ‘I think you should get out now. Take what you need and we’ll sort out the rest later.’ I didn’t want him in the house any longer than necessary.
‘I’m sorry.’ He hovered, as if he wasn’t quite sure, despite what he’d said.
‘Out. Now.’
I watched his retreating figure. ‘I’ll get that money back,’ I called after him. ‘I’m not letting Amy Green go. Not after all those years.’
After he left, the tears started. And they didn’t stop for days.
Now, I could not stop Rob and the business parading through my head as I veered between disbelief, hurt and fury. The pain was all-consuming. I thought about taking myself to our house in Mallorca, although the idea of being on my own there was unbearable.
Once, when I was much younger, I survived what seemed a life-changing turn of events. Although it was over forty years ago, I still remember what led to my expulsion from St Catherine’s School for Girls quite clearly. The art teacher’s word against mine. His missing watch found in my desk. I hadn’t a hope.
At the time, I thought my life was over; the ambitions I had to be a doctor scattered, my parents’ faith in me shaken. But I was wrong. My life hadn’t been over at all, though I ended up having a different career to the one I’d imagined for myself. I survived. But now I found my life was falling apart again, I looked back once more, and I found myself wondering if there was anything I could learn from what happened then that might help me now?
Of our gang of four – Linda, Kate, and Jane and me – I was pretty sure one of them had set me up by planting that watch, and I had a fair idea of who it might have been. But I could never prove it. Despite that, prompted by Kate, three of us had started to keep in touch sporadically, Christmas cards, round robins and the odd phone call, so I knew the barest bones of their lives and Kate relayed snippets of Jane’s. Recently she had suggested we all meet up but none of us had done anything about it.
Through my distress, an idea stuck in my mind. While Kerry and I were in limbo as we waited for Rob to pay back what he owed, I could take my mind off the present by sorting out what had really happened in my past. I appreciated the symmetry of that. That’s when I decided to take the initiative and act on Kate’s suggestion. I would suggest a small reunion. None of them knew Rob, so my personal life could be as off-limits as I made it, and their company would distract me.
This year the four of us were all going to have a milestone birthday – that merited something special, didn’t it? A long weekend away, for example. So why didn’t I take them to Mallorca with me? The house was standing empty, just a budget airline flight away with all expenses paid (by me, quite happily) when we got there.
This was utter madness. Why on earth should the four of us want to spend a weekend in each other’s company after so many years of managing quite happily without? On the other hand, I’d be offering a cheap weekend in a beautiful spot with sunshine, an infinity pool, to-die-for scenery and great food (even the King of Spain was said to frequent one of the excellent nearby restaurants) all laid on. Besides, what was four or five days in the great scheme of things? How terrible could they be?
2
Coming in from work, Linda went straight to the fridge, stepping over the post that lay on the mat as she went. There wouldn’t be anything interesting. Never was. Later, wine in hand, she went back to pick up the envelopes, only because it seemed wickedly lazy to leave them lying in situ. Among the mail-order catalogues, a bill and her monthly copy of Which? was a thick white envelope addressed in handwriting she couldn’t place. She took it to the sitting-room table and slit it open with a paperknife once given to her by someone. She unfolded the sheet of paper inside and stared at the blur of words. Unable to decipher it, she reached for the reading glasses she pretended not to need.
Come to Mallorca for a long weekend!
We can stay in our house and could catch up at last with no interruptions. What do you think? If you like the idea, I’d suggest we go next month when the weather’s lovely and the island is less crowded. I’m asking Kate and Jane too.
I hope you’ll all be able to come
Love
Amy x
Linda frowned, piecing together some memories. Jane once had a habit of snapping her fingers behind people’s backs, if she remembered rightly. And she had pinched a mascara of hers when she thought Linda wasn’t looking. At least she had given it back with an apology.
It was always the small details which stuck in Linda’s mind.
She read Amy’s invitation again, noting the expensive notepaper. What an extraordinary suggestion. The last thing she wanted to do was remember that time in her life any more than a Christmas card or round robin might prompt. But she couldn’t resist pulling her atlas from the shelf and opening it at a map of Spain. Sasha, fat and tortoiseshell, immediately jumped up and stretched herself out right across the Balearics so the sun fell directly on her. She extended a front leg and began cleaning herself, her purr a familiar engine.
‘Get off. I’m looking at that.’ Linda lifted her up and put her gently on the floor. ‘Go and do something useful.’
Sasha considered her for a moment before jumping straight back up onto the table and settling herself on the atlas again.
This time Linda removed her to her lap where she stroked her until Sasha’s purr was at full throttle. ‘Mallorca. What do you think, Sasha? You’d have to go into a cattery, and I don’t know if you’d like that.’
She took a sip of her wine. ‘Mike and I once talked about going to Mallorca for a long weekend when his wife was visiting her parents.’ She made a point of not using her name. ‘Remember? But then her plans fell through, so we never did. He should have been braver.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But how could he have been? And anyway, it was all talk, I see that now.’
Sasha stared at her.
‘But if he had been, my life might be so different.’
She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.
Was she turning into a mad old cat lady?
The thought was enough to make her want to phone Mike. She scanned the contacts on her mobile.
Stop. No. The last time she’d called him, he’d suggested in that kind voice he put on when he was dismissing an argument from a colleague that it wasn’t a good idea to phone him at home. Now he’d retired, his wife wouldn’t understand why Linda would be calling him. She had never suspected a thing over the ten or so years of their affair, but they had always had the pretext of work as an excuse. With the funding for his project withdrawn, Linda had eventually been relocated to the enquiries desk, which was a very different and much less enjoyable
role, and he had taken early retirement.
She loved him. Still, after everything. And hated him too.
But mostly she missed him. She also missed their work together on the Tom Florence Collection – a unique compilation of local recipes and culinary records. If only the sponsoring restaurant hadn’t gone belly up. The Robin Hood Library was an emptier place without him. Her life was emptier. She felt disoriented without his reassuring presence there. He had always been the one she had been able to rely on for support and advice when she was floundering. Without him she had no one at her back.
Her colleagues wanted change. They had kowtowed to Mike while he worked there as Head of Collections, but now he had left, his replacement, Simon, was bent on modernising the systems and making cuts. There was a rumour going round that the University HR department was going to be looking for candidates for voluntary redundancy. What would she say if asked? That she would prefer a cataloguing role to answering endless queries on the desk? That was what Mike had originally hired her to do, after all, and it was where her skills lay. But if she ever quoted Mike, there was a certain amount of eye-rolling, as if he was old wood that should have been cut out long ago. She too.
She was aware that the others whispered behind her back, speculating about their relationship, questioning whether she was pulling her weight. That last was outrageous, when she looked back and thought about everything she had brought to the job. The Tom Florence collection was respected nationwide. Michelin-starred chef Florence had funded the project to collect recipes from all the local communities with 1 per cent of his restaurant’s profits, and she had been brought in just as it started. She stood up, tipping Sasha to the floor, and went through to the kitchen to refill her glass.
Mike.
She’d met him when he’d been a rare books librarian and had taken her under his wing. He’d introduced her to cataloguing before she went off to Aberystwyth where she’d got her MA in Librarianship, specialising in special collections. After several blissful years working in the London Library, he had written to her.
I’ve secured funding for a new project and we’re looking for a cataloguer. You’d be perfect. We’re advertising very soon, but I hope you’ll apply.
That letter had changed her life. She had got the job and they’d worked together ever since. Over time, as they collaborated on the Florence collection, their relationship changed. She had only experienced that kind of electrical charge once before. Long ago. Mike was married with children and the shine on his marriage was wearing thin, or so he led her to believe. All such a cliché – but she hadn’t seen that then.
At first she had tried to avoid him but he’d seek her out, ask her about her work, but also about the other librarians. Gradually she became his unofficial spy without even realising. When something needed to be discussed with no danger of being overheard, they started going out for lunch or having a quick drink after work. She remembered Veneziano, the little Italian restaurant that had become their favourite, with a pang. Now deemed hopelessly out of fashion with its checked tablecloths and candles in bottles, it had been their private place.
‘They’ll never find us here,’ he’d joked on their first visit.
At the time, she had revelled in the secrecy that added a definite frisson to their meeting. She hadn’t thought he meant anything else until a long time later when his hand brushed her knee under the table. She jumped as if she had been electrocuted.
‘So you feel it too?’ He leaned forward, his smile broad.
She’d nodded, not sure what to say. He was married, after all. She knew what people said: never shit on your own doorstep. And experience had taught her something. But they didn’t act on the feeling for years.
Living out of town had meant that occasionally, after a work do, he missed the last train and had to check into a hotel. The Premier Inn wasn’t the most salubrious of starts but back then, that was all his expenses ran to. That first evening held a special place in her memory.
‘Another?’ He had leaned towards her, to scoop up her empty glass. He smelled of woodsmoke and something citrusy. She still missed the scent of his aftershave.
‘I ought to go home,’ she said, not moving.
‘Just one more.’
She watched as he ordered their drinks. Most of the team had drifted off home a little earlier but she had barely noticed, so engrossed she had been in their conversation. He’d been telling her about being in the 1989 train crash at Purley that had injured many and killed five. His face had changed as he told her about the casualties he’d seen. ‘I’ll never forget the sound of one woman screaming.’ His eyes glazed with tears. ‘Never.’
She wanted to reach out to him, to hug him close. But that would have been highly inappropriate, especially with the last of their colleagues still propping up the bar, so she held back. But he had looked at her with such sadness, her heart carried on melting.
‘You understand?’ he said.
She nodded, appalled by what he had seen and the effect on him.
‘Gemma, my wife, thinks I should be able to forget what happened. Maybe she’s right. But …’ He looked down at the table, tracing his finger round the marks left by the glasses.
Still she resisted reaching out to touch him.
‘It isn’t something that’s easy to forget.’ He shook his head.
‘Have you talked to anyone, I mean professionally?’ How buttoned-up and formal she sounded.
‘No. But talking to you is a help.’ He took her hand in both of his.
Startled, she pulled back but then as he looked up at her, his eyes intent, she relaxed.
She could still remember how she’d felt as she’d given herself up to him, not something that she had done lightly. Married men were off her agenda. Her fingers had been burned before. But look at her now. She had nothing. They would never be a couple and soon she would be out of the job that had kept her going for so long. If she didn’t have him, at least she had work. But not for much longer. If she didn’t offer herself up on the altar of voluntary redundancy, they’d find another less pleasant way of making her go, and that would be without a financial cushion. She hadn’t even reached retirement age.
She returned to her tiny sitting room, where Sasha had reclaimed her position on the atlas. She straightened one of the pictures on the wall before sitting down again.
‘You know what?’ she said to the cat. ‘Maybe a few days away would do me good.’ She opened her laptop and googled Amy Green. ‘Let’s see.’
Her search took her straight to the Amy Green website, but she found nothing about the villa there. She flicked through the pages to check. She had read Amy’s biog so many times she almost knew it off by heart but looked at it again. Their lives had taken completely opposite and unexpected paths. When they were at school, Linda was the one who carried everyone’s high hopes whereas Amy was ambitious but blew it. Stealing from a teacher was a stupid thing to have done. She typed in ‘Mallorca Amy Green’ and clicked on Images. And there it was.
She had imagined the place as a modernist white box, minimally but expensively furnished, accessorised by pieces from the Amy Green range but this was something much more comfortable looking. A sandy-coloured stone building stood against a backdrop of wooded mountains, a glittering blue pool in front of it with views stretching across a deep valley and, as far she could make out, a large terrace for dining outside. Plants grew in pots around the place, everything from brightly coloured flowers to exotic-looking palms. Below the house, she could make out the terracotta rooftops of a small village trapped in the folds of the hillside. She caught her breath.
This was a house that was asking to be visited. Linda longed to be able to step inside, to find out more about Amy’s life and how she’d got here from such an unpromising start.
More than anything, she wanted to escape her own and have a taste of it.
&n
bsp; ‘You should have seen where she grew up,’ she said to Sasha, under her breath. Then she raised her voice. ‘Nothing like this. I used to go round there and we’d spend hours listening to records, dancing in front of the mirror, trying out make-up and talking about the boys we fancied.’ What a world away that was. Amy’s mother would be downstairs in the front room measuring up clients or sewing furiously. Everything was accompanied by the whirr of her sewing machine as she ran up wedding dresses, evening dresses, suits and day dresses, costumes for school plays or dance school performances.
She made almost all of Amy’s clothes too until Amy begged her to stop. After that, Amy had taken a weekend job at the local pub so she could save up to buy clothes mail order from Biba. When the catalogue arrived, they would spend hours browsing through it, picking one thing each that they couldn’t live without. She still remembered her knee-high kingfisher-blue suede boots. Those were the days: the days when she had loved colour and fashion and excitement.
She sipped her wine. ‘I’m going to accept. Sorry, Sacha, but I’ll soon be back. I deserve this.’ Opening her email, she typed one quickly to the care agency who came to her aunt every morning, asking if they would step up the visits for the five days she’d be away.
3
The post was late that day. Kate had been clearing away breakfast when she heard the snap of the letterbox and the post falling on to the mat. She loved receiving birthday cards, all the more from people she hadn’t seen for ages, so she rushed into the hall. Five, including one from Amy. She recognised the writing and saved it till last. No card, but what she read surprised her.
Come to Mallorca for a long weekend!
We can stay in our house and could catch up at last with no interruptions. What do you think? If you like the idea, I’d suggest we go next month when the weather’s lovely and it’s less crowded.