The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (ARC)

by Beth Miller

  ‘Lucky you, a grand tour of all the dumps,’ Nita said. ‘Mind you, some of us still hang out here.’

  Newland handed me a twenty for the drinks, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and disappeared to the loo. Nita gave his departing back an appraising look. ‘Niiiiice. Very nice. What happened to that one from university?’

  ‘I’m not seeing Theo anymore. Newland and I are just friends,’ I said. ‘And I’ve moved out of my house-share.’

  ‘God, your life continues to be about a million per cent more interesting than mine.’

  ‘If I buy you a drink, Ni, would you be able to sit with us? I want to ask you something.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Give me five minutes. I’ll serve these people and come over.’

  I sat at a table and minutes later Newland joined me. ‘Beer then wine, you’ll be fine,’ I said, handing him his glass. ‘Nita’s joining us in a minute.’

  ‘Are you plotting something?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve realised what I want to do, but it will only work if Nita is in. I need someone like her as a business partner: hard-working and trustworthy. And I’ve got to think carefully about the food – it has to be something I have a connection to.’

  ‘None of that foreign muck, eh?’ Newland said, in a ‘Brits abroad’ accent.

  I gave him a shove. ‘I want to do something I can justify. To myself and others.’

  ‘Fish and chips?’

  ‘Nita’s probably had enough fish and chips to last her whole life.’

  ‘Pies? But pie stalls are ten-a-penny.’

  ‘That sounds like a nursery rhyme,’ I said. ‘Didn’t Simple Simon try and buy a pie for ten pennies?’

  ‘I believe it was only one penny, but he didn’t even have that, poor sod.’ Newland drank some wine, then said, ‘What about the sort of food your gran makes? Classic British dishes? They’re not exactly fashionable, but everyone likes them.’

  I sat up. ‘Shepherd’s pie!’

  ‘Yes, that sort of thing. Hotpot, whatever that is.’

  ‘Newland, you’re a genius.’

  ‘I am, I suppose. It’s quite the burden.’

  Nita came over, clutching a glass. ‘Thanks for the wine, guys.’ She sat down. ‘Stell, have your parents really split? I heard it from my dad, but you know, he is such a gossip and he doesn’t always get it right.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m afraid they have.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry. So weird. I always thought they were a very together couple.’ Nita shook her head. ‘Must have hit you hard. How have you been coping?’

  ‘This nice handsome librarian’s been helping,’ I said. I must be more drunk than I thought.

  ‘Not all librarians are nice,’ he said. ‘I used to work with this woman who made all the children cry during Rhyme Time.’

  ‘I like the sound of her,’ Nita said. She turned to me, and in a loud whisper, she said, ‘He seems great. Worth a shag, surely.’

  Newland started laughing.

  ‘Nita!’ I said. ‘I’m still getting over Theo turning out to be a rat.’

  ‘So, shagging’s not on the table then?’ Nita said.

  All three of us looked at the table.

  ‘Yeah, don’t shag on this table,’ Nita said. ‘I’m the one who’ll have to clean it.’

  ‘Can we stop talking about shagging for a moment,’ I said, ‘so I can run my idea past you?’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ Nita said. ‘I’m praying it has something to do with me getting out of this godforsaken town.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d like to take you to a different godforsaken town.’

  ‘The answer’s yes, in that case. Now tell me what the question is.’

  * * *

  It was almost midnight by the time Newland and I got back to Dad’s. I was rather drunk, and extremely happy. We sat at the kitchen table and ate toast.

  ‘That was a really productive evening,’ Newland said.

  ‘I know, I can’t believe how far we got. I need to talk to Gran tomorrow. It was because of her I went into catering in the first place. I did hospitality at university but I didn’t get such a good degree. My other granny got very ill just before my finals, well, I can’t use her as an excuse, but my mind was elsewhere.’ I must have been more than rather drunk if I was about to tell him this next bit. ‘And I messed up. Only got a third. As bad as not having a degree at all.’

  I stared at my plate. It was the first time I’d told anyone, other than my family and prospective employers, that I’d got a third. I got that creeping, prickly feeling running up and down my back, which I always got whenever I thought about my finals, how all my job applications were rejected automatically, because of that useless little three.

  But Newland didn’t turn a hair. ‘Degrees are overrated,’ he said. ‘You’re smart, talented and interesting. I can’t wait to see what you do next.’

  I looked up at him, into his sparkling eyes, and for a moment, I saw myself as he was seeing me. I liked, very much, what I saw.

  Twenty-One

  Kay

  ‘You’re an utter barbarian, you know that?’ Rose took the cup firmly out of my hand.

  ‘You have mentioned it once or twice.’

  ‘I’ll make it. In a pot. Go and sit down.’ Rose pushed me towards a chair. ‘You are officially excused from tea-making duties from now till the end of time.’

  I sat down and grinned as Rose tipped out my bag-and-milk-in-the-cup-all-together teas, and boiled a fresh kettle.

  ‘Honestly,’ she muttered, ‘I go upstairs for five minutes, and when I get back you’re putting on a horror show.’

  ‘I’m just doing it badly so you end up doing it,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Tim used to do that with every domestic chore.’

  ‘I bet Graham doesn’t.’

  ‘Too right.’ Rose winked at me. ‘So, what are you going to do while I’m out today?’

  ‘First, contact Imogen and put in my offer for renting the cottage. Thanks to Graham.’

  ‘He’s brilliant, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’d never have thought of Airbnb, and his barn idea is genius. I can only hope that Imogen’s family thinks so too. I also need to sort out a bank account. It’s beyond embarrassing that I still only have a joint account with Richard. Oh, and there’s the small matter of trying to reconnect with my children.’ There was one other thing I needed to do, but it wasn’t something I could tell her about.

  ‘That’ll be a solid day’s work.’ Rose put the teapot on the table and sat down. ‘I emailed Bear this morning.’

  ‘Ah, I’m glad.’

  ‘Do you think she’s still looking at her email?’

  ‘I don’t know. She never used it much at the best of times.’ I remembered Bear’s expression, gazing up at the stars in the gondola. It made me think of my mum’s face, the last time I saw her conscious in that awful hospital. I’m ready. ‘I don’t think she can have very much longer.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Rose said. She pressed her lips tightly together. The news of Bear’s illness had hit Rose hard, even though they weren’t particularly close anymore. I too was still reeling from it, and from all the other uncertainty in my life. Thank God Rose had been there to take me in when I got back from Venice, and to help me process my strange wanderings. As on Running Away Day, there was no question of who to ring when I arrived back in Heathrow. But this time, she picked up.

  That first evening in Winchester, I poured it all out about Bear, and Rose and I cried together. When we’d got past that, I cried some more, this time about what I was going to do with my life. Rose – and Graham, too, a wonderful man – listened patiently, and helped me piece together something that looked like a plan, something that might just be a way of making my life resemble more closely the ever-expanding list in my diary. While Rose boosted me up, Graham was practical, writing down timescales and making estimates of how much I’d need to live on each month, and how long my savings could last.

  ‘You excited?’ Rose said.


  ‘About the tea we’re waiting an absurd amount of time for?’

  ‘About the possibilities for your new life. Though this tea will be amazing.’ She lifted the lid and gave it a stir. ‘Patience is a virtue.’

  ‘Excited, yes, and also terrified and anxious.’

  ‘All the good emotions. I hope Richard will be able to move on soon, as well.’ Rose stood up to get the milk out of the fridge.

  ‘He’s already got a girlfriend.’ It was only now I realised I’d forgotten to tell her this, because I’d forgotten about it myself. I wondered what the significance of that was.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Rose whirled round so hard I feared she’d get whiplash. ‘How do you know? When did you find out? Who? When? How? I have so many questions.’

  ‘I rang him from Venice and he told me.’

  ‘You rang him from Venice? Why?’ Rose sat down and fixed me with a suspicious eye.

  ‘I, er, well. I sort of briefly changed my mind and wanted to see if he’d take me back.’

  Rose gave me a ‘WTF’ look.

  ‘After everything I said. I know. Lost my nerve. Dark night of the soul. It was straight after Bear bailed out and went back home.’

  ‘I guess you were feeling pretty vulnerable,’ Rose said. She poured the tea.

  ‘Yes, I think so. I suppose I felt adrift, and he seemed safe. It was an existential crisis. I still feel adrift, and there will probably be other crises, but I’m OK for now.’

  ‘So what did he say when you offered to try again?’

  ‘Thank the Lord it didn’t get that far. He talked over me, so I didn’t get to say my piece, and he said his instead.’

  Rose laughed. ‘He was always one of those men who says, “who wants to go first, OK I will”.’

  ‘I’m now extremely grateful to him that he shut the door behind me so decisively.’

  ‘So who is she?’

  ‘I don’t know, but whoever she is, she’s already got him to buy a mobile phone and take her to Paris.’

  ‘Wow, that’s so annoying!’

  ‘I know.’ I laughed, surprising myself. ‘But maybe he had got in a rut too, with me, and needed someone new to spring him out of it.’

  ‘You’re being very mature,’ Rose said.

  ‘I won’t be mature when I find out she’s a twenty-five-year-old dolly bird. But honestly, I’m relieved. It clarifies things. That option is no longer open, and I don’t want it to be.’

  ‘Men sure move on quickly, don’t they? Tim certainly did,’ Rose said, sipping her tea. ‘Mmm, this is what tea should taste like.’

  ‘I don’t know about all men. I think Richard certainly isn’t designed to be on his own.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m any good at being alone because I haven’t been single since 1980.’ I picked up my cup. ‘Tastes exactly the same as the way I make it.’

  ‘Jeez, who the hell did you go out with in 1980? Weren’t we like, thirteen?’

  ‘Do you remember that boy Steven in the year above us?’

  ‘Vaguely.’ Rose put her hand to her head. ‘I’m getting ice-skating…’

  ‘Well remembered! We went to the ice rink. Everyone thought he was the best boyfriend ever, because he took me somewhere more fancy than the Wimpy.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Rose said.

  ‘No idea. But after that I had one boyfriend after another.’

  ‘Serial monogamy, they call it now.’

  ‘Back then they called it something a lot ruder.’

  ‘So come on, Kay, tell me more about your travels. The non-sad-Bear parts, I mean. You must have had some fun as well.’

  ‘As a matter of fact…’

  ‘Kay Bright! Is that a dirty smile? What, what, what?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, in Venice I had sex with someone.’

  Rose, who had just taken a sip of tea, looked as if she was going to have to spit it out. She stared at me for several seconds, her mouth stoppered with liquid, till she was able to swallow it down. ‘Good God, Kay, for a minute there I thought you said you’d had sex with someone!’

  I put on an insouciant expression.

  ‘I can’t believe you haven’t told me this already! Waffling on about Richard’s girlfriend, who cares about that?’ She slapped her hand on the table. ‘Speak, damn you!’

  ‘It was really nice,’ I said.

  ‘REALLY NICE? I am going to tip the rest of this pot of tea over your head, young Kay. I need details and I need them now. First off, is calling the person you slept with “someone” a deliberate ambiguity? Should I assume “someone” was a woman?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Apologies for my boring adherence to gender norms.’

  Rose waved her hand graciously.

  ‘He picked me up in a café by the Grand Canal.’

  ‘Romantic setting. He was handsome, I presume.’

  I swiped through the photos on my phone and showed her one I’d taken of Luca the morning after our date. He was standing outside the palazzo, wearing the same clothes from the night before. His hair was a little mussed, and he was smiling that smile.

  ‘Ooh, he’s sexy. Well done! Was it weird?’

  I didn’t need to ask Rose what sort of weird she was referring to.

  ‘Yes. Completely weird. I kept expecting him to do things the way Richard did them.’

  ‘And was it nice, or not nice, that he didn’t do them?’

  ‘Really nice.’

  ‘You should see your face, Kay. Cat that got the creamy Italian stallion doesn’t even begin to express it.’

  I thought of Luca, in the half-dark, raised up on his elbows, looking into my eyes. It had been a long time since Richard had looked at me like that. Familiarity was only part of it. Somewhere along the line, Richard and I had stopped seeing each other as desirable. I wondered if Richard’s new woman made him feel that way, the way Luca had made me feel.

  ‘Will you see him again?’

  I shook my head. ‘It was a classic one-night stand.’

  ‘Didn’t he take your number?’

  ‘Yes, but only out of politeness.’

  ‘Bet it wasn’t.’

  ‘Honestly, Rose, I’m not holding out for him. I’m not eighteen anymore, waiting for the phone to ring. It was a lovely night, exactly what I needed.’

  I didn’t tell Rose how utterly life-affirming that night had been. How uncomplicated, how physically fulfilling. Bear had been resolutely turned towards the place she was soon to be heading and, standing alongside her, I had been staring in that direction too. Then Luca helped turn me back towards the light. For that I would always be grateful. Well, for that, and for the outstanding orgasms, too. Plural intended.

  ‘You’re smirking again,’ Rose said.

  ‘I know.’

  Rose looked at her watch. ‘Damn! I’m already late.’ She swigged down her tea, and said, ‘I’ll see you this evening. And I will get some more details out of you, don’t think I won’t.’

  * * *

  ‘Imo, dear, have your sons accepted a tenant yet?’

  ‘They’re making a final decision tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Oh, I do hope you’re able to take it. Tell me you are.’

  ‘I think so. I think I have an offer that they won’t be able to refuse.’

  After I’d told her my (actually Graham’s) ideas, Imogen whooped delightedly. She promised to call her sons right away and ring me back.

  While I waited, I opened up Rose’s laptop and took a breath. I knew David Endevane had a Facebook account, and an open-access one at that, because a few years ago I’d come across it by chance in an idle hour of googling. OK, fine, I had gone looking for him. I just wanted to see what he was up to. Nothing much, it had seemed – some random posts about films and music, and a few photos.

  I looked at the page now, and it was as uninteresting as I remembered. He obviously didn’t use it much as he only had thirty-seven friends, and his posts were very sporadi
c. In fact, the last one was from more than a year ago, and was of people in a restaurant looking at the camera with fixed smiles, David in the middle, holding up a glass bottle of Coke. Though the picture was pretty lousy, I could see that he didn’t look at all like the David of my memory. He was older of course, but also much heavier, his face puffy, his eyes lined and baggy, his hairline receded. There were some other photos of him with what I presumed must be his wife and kids, and with older people who might have been his parents. I scrolled through some more, stopping at a picture of him holding a child of around seven with the caption, ‘Having fun at Corfe Castle’.

  I couldn’t quite deal with the thought of the children in the pictures, and what their connection was to me. I turned my attention instead to his wife. He clearly had a type; we were both slim and flat-chested, with straight, brown shoulder-length hair. She was really pretty though, with a beautiful beaming smile. She was the upgraded version of me, and probably about ten years younger – the sort of new model Richard had got for himself, most likely.

  Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I sent David a brief message, saying who I was, reminding him of our long-ago friendship, and asking if he’d be willing to speak to me. If he didn’t check Facebook very often, it could be a while before I heard from him. I then opened another tab and googled his name, not expecting much. There were a couple of results featuring people with the same name, both in America. One was a news item in a finance magazine announcing that David Endevane had been promoted to head of Missouri Multi-assets, and one from a music website discussing how David Endevane’s band had found fresh sounds in their 1960s’ inspirations. There were a few images, none of which were of my David.

  And then – Christ – an article from a Dorset newspaper last year. My heart flipped over.

  * * *

  David Endevane, aged 50. Beloved Husband of Verity, much loved Dad of Ben, Owen and Abbie and a treasured Brother and Uncle. Sadly missed by his family and friends. Service Bournemouth Crematorium on Thursday 12 October at 11 a.m. Family flowers only please. Donations made payable to ‘Addaction’ may be sent c/o Peter Layton Funeral Services.