by Beth Miller
The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright
An absolutely unputdownable feel-good novel about love, loss and taking chances
Beth Miller
Books by Beth Miller
The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom
The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright
* * *
The Good Neighbour
When We Were Sisters
Contents
Chapter 1
Letter written on 15 May 2018
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Letter written on 21 January 2018
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Letter written on 27 June 2017
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Letter written on 29 September 2002
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Letter written on 23 May 1996
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Letter written on 16 August 1988
Chapter 22
Letter written on 17 June 1988
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Letter written on 12 October 1982
Chapter 26
The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom
Books by Beth Miller
Hear More From Beth
A Letter from Beth
Acknowledgements
For John, who is nothing like Richard.
One
Kay
The shop labels were still on the rucksack. I cut them off with my nail scissors, then threw in some clothes: comfortable jeans, black top, blue sweatshirt, a fistful of pants, a sensible bra and a not-sensible bra. I tipped in several pairs of shoes, my sponge bag, a fancy lipstick I’d never worn because it was expensive, the book I was reading, my passport, and the Swiss army knife my father gave me on my fifteenth birthday.
Then, as if I was playing someone on a sappy TV drama, I twisted off my wedding ring. That makes it sound easier than it was. That thing was a nightmare to get off. I did remove it occasionally. When I made bread, for instance, because I hated the feeling of sticky dough caught under it. But I probably hadn’t taken it off for a year. I don’t make bread very often. When it finally came off there were red ridges on my finger. I slipped the ring into my jeans pocket, put the rucksack on my back – God, it was heavy – and went downstairs.
Richard was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a thick book about the Second World War.
‘It’s going to be great,’ he told anyone who’d listen, eighteen months ago, when he finally recruited someone to run his fourth shop. ‘I’m going to read all the books I didn’t have time for before.’ As far as I could see, he’d been reading this same what-if-the-Nazis-hadn’t-lost potboiler ever since.
‘Kettle’s still hot,’ he said, not looking up.
I automatically went over to the counter then realised I didn’t want tea. I didn’t want anything in that room at all.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, and I guess my voice was different from normal because he did look at me then, and raised his eyebrows at my rucksack.
‘To the shop?’ he asked. We both automatically glanced at the clock; it was eleven, the time I’d usually head out on Mondays and Wednesdays. Those were my leisurely days, when Anthony opened up at Quiller Queen and I didn’t have to be in first thing. But I didn’t usually take a massive backpack with me. I wondered if Rich remembered that he’d given it to me as an anniversary present four years ago; a symbol that now both children were grown and independent, we’d finally do some of the travelling I’d been begging him to do forever.
‘Are you going somewhere after work?’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten what you’re doing today.’
‘I’m the one who should be saying sorry, Richard,’ I said.
‘Why?’ he said, completely in the dark.
‘Because…’ I said, then stopped. He looked at me expectantly. I wanted to tell him, ‘I’m leaving,’ but it sounded so dramatic, so silly. Instead, I said, ‘I’m, er, I’m going away.’
Richard’s face lightened. ‘Oh, to Rose’s?’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean? Where else would you go?’
‘Well, Sydney, first. Then Venice, perhaps. Or Prague. Then who knows? Lisbon, or Russia.’
‘Um…’ I could see he thought I was joking but couldn’t work out why it was funny. It did sound like a joke, because I’d never been further afield than Winchester without him. Jovially, he said, ‘Shall I make you a packed lunch?’
‘Richard, I’m sorry.’ I took the wedding ring out of my pocket, and held it out to him. ‘I’m really sorry.’
He stared at my hand, then his eyes rose slowly upwards until they met mine.
‘Kay, what’s going on?’
‘I’m going away.’ I still couldn’t say, I’m leaving you.
‘But what does that mean?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m… I’m going away from you.’
‘Oh, Christ. Oh no.’ He pushed his book aside. ‘Have I done something?’
He stretched out his hand to me, but instead of taking it, I dropped the ring into it. He turned it over in his palm, as if he’d never seen it before.
‘Is this really happening?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. It’s such a little word, and it usually means something positive. But not always.
Richard looked from the ring to me, and then he just crumpled. His shoulders sagged, and the hollows under his eyes looked darker against his shocked white face.
‘Please don’t, Kay.’
I knew I should go straight away, but I also wanted to explain. Even though I knew he would never understand.
‘It’s just, there are so many things I want to do.’ Lame, Kay, lame.
‘Please sit down, Kayla. Take off your bag. Only for a minute.’
He hadn’t used that nickname in years. But I shook my head. If I sat down, I would lose momentum, find reasons to postpone, go tomorrow, or next week, or never.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘then I’ll stand.’
We faced each other across the table. He was still easy on the eye, his salt-and-pepper hair lending him gravitas. His blue eyes, the exact same colour as Stella’s, were clear and bright, though uncharacteristically watery right now. Sure, he’d changed since I first knew him as a spindly twenty-something, but who amongst us hadn’t? For a man in his late fifties he was in pretty good shape. Broad-shouldered, six inches taller than me. Age shall not wither him, I thought pointlessly.
‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘there are things you want to do.’
‘Yes.’
‘And they aren’t things you can do while being married to me? Or even with me?’
I told myself not to get cross. I did that one-nostril-at-a-time breathing they were always going on about in yoga classes. It meant blocking my right nostril with my forefinger, but I’m pretty sure it just looked like I was thinking extra deeply.
I said, ‘Well, they’re not things I can do with you, that’s for sure.’
‘Oh, I see. I get it.’ His voice got louder. ‘It’s someone else, isn’t it? You’ve met someone else.’
I closed the left nostril with my thumb. Breathe in two, three, four. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘I’m such an idiot. You’ve been so distant lately, I assumed it was something to do with the menopause.
’
‘I haven’t started the menopause, Richard.’
‘Who is he, then? Do I know him? Christ!’ He banged his hand on the table. ‘It’s that guy, isn’t it, that guy you were in love with, the one you left for me? David. The one who wouldn’t…’
‘No!’
Our secret shimmered there for a moment, heady with a tiny puff of oxygen after years of starvation.
‘Don’t, please, Richard. I haven’t seen David since then. I swear. I am not having an affair with him, or with anyone.’
Richard stared at me. Then he said, ‘Do you want to know why Edward…’ and stopped.
‘Why Edward what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Go on, what you were going to say?’
He shook his head, and returned to his previous thread. ‘You must be having an affair, because otherwise this doesn’t make any sense.’ His voice cracked on the last word.
Gently, I said, ‘It makes sense to me. There are things I want to do before I’m too old, and they aren’t things you want to do.’
‘Try me!’
‘I have tried you.’ I couldn’t even remember all the things that I hadn’t done, because he’d not wanted to. ‘I’ve tried for years to do things with you.’
Out loud, it sounded pathetic. I could hear my mother-in-law’s voice – so he’s a workaholic, well, there are worse things in this world! I knew I had to walk out of that door, get into my car, but I felt incredibly tired at the thought of it.
Richard knew me so well, he could see that I was faltering. He began to smile.
‘Kayla, sweetheart. Listen.’ How well I knew that smile, the confident expression of someone used to always getting their own way. ‘How’s this for an idea? You go off for a while. A few weeks, a couple of months even, and see how you feel. No need to do anything drastic, we don’t need to worry the kids or Mum. Why don’t you go and find yourself, or whatever it is that you want to do, and I’ll be here, waiting for you. Mmm? Kayla? Why don’t you take off that heavy bag? We’ll sit down and talk.’
I knew what he was saying was perfectly reasonable and sensible. In fact, it only had one flaw, which was that if I did that, if I took a Richard-sanctioned sabbatical, I wouldn’t be able to walk into the future without a safety net. And I needed to do that the way a thirsty person needs water. I’d had a safety net my whole life; first with my parents, then for almost thirty years with Richard. Safe, knowable, no surprises. I wanted to try whatever life I had left without that net. Close my eyes and take a leap of faith.
How easy it would be to shrug off this bag – it seriously weighed a ton – and slide down into a chair. Talk, let him solve my problems, let him tell me how things would be.
But no. Not this time.
‘I’m fine standing, thank you,’ I said, and took a step back, one step closer to the door.
‘Look.’ He held out his arms. ‘Maybe I’ve been a bit unadventurous. I’m sorry. We’ve been so busy with the kids…’
‘Who are both grown up now.’
‘Stella’s only just left!’
‘She’s been gone six months,’ I said.
‘And with the shops.’
‘But you’re supposed to be taking more of a backseat now, Richard.’
‘Yes, but you’re not. You like running the shop.’
‘Do I?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘It was your dream, Richard, not mine. You did brilliantly. Built up one shop into a chain, four shops now, making enough money that you’ve officially stepped down. I thought we might finally do some things together, but you’ve kept on working.’ As I said it, I knew it didn’t matter what he replied, because actually, us doing things together was only one part of it.
‘Well, thank you for being honest.’ I could hear the old certainty creeping back into his voice. ‘It’s a wake-up call. Have your break, then let’s go travelling. Let’s do things. I’ll book somewhere lovely for supper tonight.’
‘It shouldn’t take me saying that I’m leaving to get you to want to do things with me, Richard.’ There, I’d said it. I’m leaving. ‘And anyway, it’s more than that.’ I took a breath. ‘I don’t want to be married anymore.’
‘Ohhh, fuck.’ He sat down, abruptly, as if I’d punched him in the gut, and stared at me, like he didn’t know who I was. An eternity passed in silence, him sitting, me standing, looking at each other. Then he said, ‘What about the shop?’
It was a sign of how shocked he was, that it had taken him so long to get to the most important thing of all: the staffing rota.
‘Anthony can manage on his own today,’ I said. ‘But he has Tuesdays off, so you’ll need to get cover tomorrow.’
‘Jesus.’ Rich covered his eyes with his hand. Me saying he’d need cover was clearly the thing that convinced him I was serious. In the twenty-five years that I’d run his flagship shop for him, I’d almost never requested it. I took two more steps towards the door.
‘What will you do for money?’
‘I’ll be all right. I’m sorry,’ I said for the hundredth time.
He looked up. ‘Don’t go, then. If you’re sorry.’
Me standing there was only prolonging the agony for both of us. I gripped the straps on my bag, and said, ‘I’ll see you.’ Then I turned, and walked out into the hall.
‘Christ! Kay!’ I heard his chair scraping back and falling onto the wooden floor as he ran after me.
I opened our yellow front door and he sprinted towards me, as if he was going to push it shut, so I quickly stepped outside onto the path.
‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Please.’
I’d like to say that I coolly walked away, without saying anything more. But for some reason, I turned and said, ‘Goodbye. Thank you very much for the marriage.’ Thanks for having me. I had a lovely tea. Christ!
He looked as surprised as I felt, so maybe it was a fortuitous, if embarrassing, leave-taking, because it didn’t give him anywhere to go. I suppose he could have said, ‘You’re welcome,’ but he didn’t. He stood and watched as I put the rucksack into the car boot, climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled away from our house. I could feel his eyes burning into me even after I’d driven into the next street.
I wish I could have kept my confidence going for a little longer, but my hands started shaking so much I could barely hold the wheel steady. A few streets further on I pulled over, almost outside Stella’s old primary school. Too far for Richard to come running after me, not that he was likely to.
Now what?
I stabbed uselessly at my phone. I couldn’t remember my password, and my fingers were too sweaty for the thumbprint recognition to work. Finally the password came back to me – Edward’s birthdate – and after a couple of tries, I broke into my phone. But once in, I wasn’t sure what to do. I typed ‘hotels’ into Safari, but didn’t know where I wanted to be. This was London – there were more Premier Inns than you could shake a stick at. Should I get one nearby, so Richard and I could meet to talk? Or somewhere further afield, so that we couldn’t? What was the correct running-away procedure? I googled ‘how to leave your husband’, though it seemed a little late for that. Anyway, the advice was mostly financial, and scarily assumed that I might need a woman’s refuge. I could hear my breaths loud in my ears, little strangled gasps. I tried to slow my breathing down, do the alternating nostril thing, but I couldn’t seem to get control over it.
I needed someone to tell me what to do next. I rang Rose, the obvious person, but it went to voicemail, and I remembered she was away for a long weekend in Lille, not back till tomorrow. She was no doubt swanning round whatever the fancy sights of Lille were. I had no idea. I wasn’t even a hundred per cent sure where Lille was. France, probably. Or Belgium? I also didn’t know who she was with. Her kids? One of her Winchester friends?
My finger hovered over Stella’s number, but would she appreciate me asking if I could nip up to Essex to see her, stay for a few days? Just us girls, have
fun, do some shopping, oh by the way I’ve left your father… maybe not.
I was such a damn idiot not to plan this. I should have waited till Rose was around, or at the very least booked a hotel. But then, if I’d waited, planned it, would I have had the guts to do it? It was only this morning that the thought had pushed me out of the door, even though it was a thought that had been knocking around for a long while. A thought I’d always banished to the back of my head before it became too deafening. A thought of walking out on my life, closing the yellow front door behind me. I’d never breathed a word of this thought to anyone, barely even acknowledged it myself, and had assumed it would eventually go away. Something was different this morning, though, and the thought of leaving had turned itself, with little warning, into action.
It was so weird that Richard had mentioned David. We never spoke of him, and I myself hadn’t thought about him for years. Not much, anyway. But a few weeks ago, looking for Bear’s letters, I’d come across some of my old photos, and there was David in arty black and white, as beautiful as I remembered him.
I scrolled through my contacts, trying to breathe like a normal person, and thank God, saw Imogen’s name. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of her already. I pressed her number with such force, the phone asked if I wanted to delete it.
‘Oh, Kay, chérie, how lovely to hear from you.’
‘Imo, dear,’ I said, as always, though I didn’t usually punctuate each word with little gasp-gasp-gasps. ‘I don’t suppose lovely Bryn Glas is free?’