(2013) Four Widows (23 page)

Cece took one hand off the steering wheel and raised a finger. “
That
is beside the point. This is the plan. We do a little digging; see what we can find out. Go to the local stores, bars and ask around. Lori, you’re good at this.”

I watched the road ahead intently and protested. “I’m a journalist not a private detective.”

“EXACTLY. You’re great at getting leads.”

Heaven help me
.
Is it too much to ask for a normal life, not perfect, normal would do–

Miraculously, we made it to Crieff in one piece, a small market town somewhere between Perth and Crianlarich. We passed a ceramics and pottery shop, a gallery on the corner of a street, and yet another gallery, and also a place selling whiskies and cheeses. We drove past a building with a turret next to a tractor dealership while Cece reeled off shop names like a tourist guide:
Touch Of Glamour
boutique,
Cathy’s Cafe
and a sweet factory shop called
Gordon and Durward
.

After our whistle-stop tour of the main street, Cece skidded into the pub car park on Kate’s instruction. We agreed this was the most obvious starting point but were thwarted when we realised the place wouldn’t open until lunchtime.

“We exhaust all other possibilities in the meantime,” said Cece, showcasing leadership qualities. “Divide and conquer.”

I suggested the art gallery, thinking photographer, while the others earmarked various cafes and shops.

“Keep it swift,” advised Kate, directing the instruction more at Cece than me.

It proved a fruitless mission. It was the midmorning mini rush hour in Crieff and most shopkeepers were too preoccupied with pensioners and shopping lists to talk, especially when it became apparent that we weren’t going to spend money. When we reconvened, Cece complained that people couldn’t understand her accent. Vice versa.

“We tried,” I reasoned.

“Whattabout the candy store?” trumpeted Cece. “If nothing else I need chocolate. A soda. No, I fancy a fatburger. Correction, I
need
one. Ask them who sells burgers–”

“This is the last stop,” I said, firmly, volunteering to go.

Kate sighed. “We should wait until the pub opens. Children hang out in sweet shops. Not fugitives.”

I didn’t want to hang around, mindful of how much work needed to be done at the office. “We’ll see.”

The Chocolate Box
window was crammed with jars of candies, beans, marshmallows and handmade chocolates. I walked in and lurked behind other customers, focusing on the tartan gift boxes filled with macaroon, fudge and Drambuie truffles. When it was my turn to be served I asked for six sugar mice and three full-fat Cokes. Sugar hit.

“Will that be all, dear?” asked the woman behind the counter. I was encouraged by her friendly open face.

“Um.” I faltered.

Her eyes fell on a box of fudge as though this might tempt me.

Attempting to sound bright and breezy, I asked. “Ah, I don’t suppose you know this man, do you?”

I politely swooshed Ted’s photograph under her nose.

“Aye, that’s Ted.” She sounded pleased, like someone who has a reputation for always getting things right although noticeably disappointed I wasn’t interested in the fudge.

I gaped at her. Dear God, couldn’t believe it. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this.

“Do… do you know where I can find him?”

She leaned on the till and looked at me, suddenly suspicious. With good reason–I swear my eyes had taken on an overactive thyroid bulge.

I hastily showed her my media pass with photo to reassure her. “
Corset Magazine
is publishing his photos. I’m here to do an interview but can’t find his house. My phone is dead otherwise…” I sounded believably lost and flustered.

The pass impressed her and she looked at me in a new light, awe almost, and was much more forthcoming. “Sophia’s Ted?”

I nodded, biting my lip, telling myself there can be more than one Ted in the world. There was still room for reasonable doubt.

The sweetie woman relaxed. “You’re not far.” And gave me very precise directions.

I thanked her and hurried towards the door.

She called after me. “Good choice. The sugar mice. She
loves
them.”

I smiled wanly and spun onto the street in a clatter of a door chime and another shopper.

She
loves them. Poor Suzanne.

Cece practically pounced on me when I slid back inside the car. She sensed success. “Someone recognised him from the photo? They did, didn’t they? Mother Theresa resting in heaven, I
knew
it.”

I nodded, wearily, knowing I wouldn’t be heading back to Edinburgh any time soon.

“Yes, she knows Ted.”

“She said
Ted
? He hasn’t changed his name?”

“She said Ted,” I snapped.

“Son of a gun,” Cece gasped, clutching her throat.

“Breathe,” instructed Kate. “You can do it.”

I doled out sugar mice and drinks and told them the address. We took off with a screech of wheels with Kate hollering, “Hand brake, hand break. Cece, release the bloody hand break.”

I grind my teeth. I do it without realising. An orthodontist suggested gum shields at night but I haven’t got round to it. As a result, my jaw is stiff and aching. Even eating a sugar mouse is a challenge; I can barely open my mouth. Liquid diets are the way to go.

We drove up a one-way street lined with smart three-storey redbrick detached houses and well-pruned gardens with neat square lawns loved into lushness with incessant water sprinklers making a continuous
chi chi chi
beat through the air.

“Dead Man Walking sure wasn’t slumming it durin’ the missing years,” commented Cece, accent thicker than ever. “No wonder he was in no rush to come home.”

“No 17!” yelled Kate and we slammed to an emergency stop outside the front gate.

We sat for a minute. Cece pressed down the window and a soft pillow of heat from outside hit me round the head. I could smell cut grass and Kate’s thick Tom Ford perfume mixed with Cece’s Elnett hairspray. Three Nurofen had done nothing for a pounding head.

“Ain’t a campsite, that’s for sure,” said Cece.

I knew what we were all thinking. Do we go forward with this or do we go back home and never let on?

“We owe it to Suzanne,” said Cece, sensing reluctance. “She deserves the truth. He could have a lover waiting for him inside that house, just like Suzanne was left waiting. Ain’t it up to us to stop this? This
waiting
.”

I’ll admit I was intrigued and when Kate opened the car door, I followed. No one forced me. I didn’t think about consequences, I just wanted to find out.

Cece marched up the path while Kate and I shuffled in single file behind her, right up to the smart black door, flinching when Cece pressed the doorbell forever, finger stuck like chewing gum.

I stared at the letterbox feeling faintly ridiculous, hoping no one was at home.

Luck was against me.

A twentysomething attractive brunette with heavily kohl-lined eyes and thick lashes answered in a smoke-cloud haze. Through the fug, I saw ethnic sundress, leather sandals, beads and jewellery.

“Yeah?” she said, uninterested drawl.

We stared at her, drinking in detail. Black polish flaking where she’d bitten down her nails. Ankles thin as wrists.

“
Yes
?” she repeated, hissing.

Cece recovered first, flashing a photo of Ted Holmes under the woman’s nose like it was a crime scene investigation. “Do you recognise this man?”

“Is he dead?” The woman dragged on a cigarette hard.

We looked at each other. Cece cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, no…”

We waited for Cece to continue. “He has, however, just returned to his
wife
who thought he was dead after he dropped off the face of the earth
se-ven
years ago.” She pronounced each word acutely; I half expected her to start signing for the deaf. “Perhaps you could help?”

Kate and I looked at each other.
Break it to her gently
, I thought.

I could feel a trinklet of sweat snaking down my spine into the waistband of my chiffon-layered skirt.

The poor woman stared at us, dumbfounded. Her mouth fell open a little.

“Our friend Suzanne… she doesn’t know we are here,” I added, hastily, wanted to reassure her that the wronged wife wasn’t standing on her doorstep.

“We are concerned for our friend–
his wife
,” continued Cece, ploughing on. “
He
turns up on her doorstep.
She
takes him back. No questions asked. It doesn’t
feel
right.” The sentence was punctuated with much emphasis. More hard-of-hearing pronunciation. There could only have been a second’s pause but it lasted way long.

“Then let me make this easier–she’s welcome to the motherfucker,” roared the woman, making us jump back off the step. Then she slammed the door shut in our faces.

“Alright, then,” said Cece, straightening her shoulders, determined. “I think we’re gettin’ somewhere.”

The woman eventually opened the door again, after much more considerable persistent bell ringing from Cece.

This time Kate took the lead. “I’m so sorry. We’ve no right to turn up like this at your home. We’re just terribly worried about our friend–I don’t think she’s thought it through.”

Cece had the good sense to keep quiet. I think she saw that Kate’s personable approach was having more effect.

The woman stared at us warily, harassed and vulnerable. I felt a surge of sympathy for her. She grunted something and turned on her heel but left the door open. We took this as a sign to follow.

Sophia Dunelm, as she reluctantly introduced herself, marched straight to the freezer and sloshed vodka into glasses. Our kind of girl. It was 11.10am but no one refused. Cece limited her intake to one large gulp.

I passive smoked 12 cigarettes while Sophia puffed as Cece spoke, which left me feeling lightheaded and flu-feeling. We were sitting on an enormous chocolate leather sofa, distressed, expensive.
Ted was here
, I thought.

Sophia Dunelm sat, smoked and listened while Cece brought her up to speed on Ted; how he walked out on Suzanne seven years ago. How she, we all, thought he was dead.

It didn’t feel right talking about Suzanne in her absence but there was no stopping Cece who was thundering along at juggernaut speed.

Sophia fiddled constantly with her long hair, pulling it to one side of her head, then the other. She chewed her nails and tugged at the beads around her neck, rosary like. While she chain-smoked, she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, smudging kohl and mascara, which furthered the exotic, exhausted effect.

Cece reiterated facts. “She’s taken him back. He’s with her now.”

“Then she’s an idiot.”

Cece looked as though she was inclined to agree but I couldn’t let this go.

“Ted is her husband and this is all she ever wanted–for him to come home. She doesn’t know about you or where he has been.” My voice came out sharper than I intended.

Sophia looked rankled. “I don’t
care
about her, okay? If she’s dumb enough to take him back, good luck to her. She won’t thank you for being here, trust me.”

There was a pause while we considered this. She had a point.

Cece wouldn’t let it lie. “Why? Why
now
?”

I realised I was drinking my vodka neat. Kate had already knocked hers back. Sophia cleared her throat, cigarette-smoke hoarse. “Ask him not me. Yeah, we had our ups and downs but who doesn’t?”

“He never
ever
mentioned Suzanne?”

Sophia clicked her tongue, a sharp hostile noise. “What do
you
think?”

Cece sighed and sank back into her chair. “Goddamnit, I thought he was dead. He didn’t make any contact–even to ask for a divorce?” She gave Sophia a meaningful look.

Sophia snorted. “I
am
divorced. I’ve no intention of
ever
getting married again. Ted was fine with that.”

Cece reciprocated the snort. “I bet he was.”

It didn’t take more than a quick calculation to work out that Ted had lived with Sophia for almost seven years, while Suzanne had been married to him for just over three. Strictly speaking, on a time scale, Sophia was the wronged woman.

“Look, I know you want answers,” continued Sophia, thawing ever so slightly, “but I seriously don’t
know
what is going on in his head. I come home one afternoon and the motherfucker’s gone.”

Cece made a sympathetic noise. “Lemme guess–he walked out and took nothing with him.” She threw her hands in the air. “The great disappearin’ act.”

Sophia exhaled smoke vigorously. “Oh no, he packed a suitcase this time.”

Half an hour passed. Sophia reluctantly talked a little more, filling in details on an ordinary life she had with Ted. Eventually, she looked at her watch, prompting Kate to announce we should leave. “Sorry for just showing up.”

“You did me a favour. I can’t take him back now even if I wanted to.”

I stood up, lightheaded from the vodka, desperate to escape outside for some fresh air. It was an awkward departure. We knew we would never see her again but we could hardly kiss her goodbye. Shaking hands seemed absurd.

“Take care,” I said, with a nod of the head.

She seemed hesitant but it was no more than a pause before she delivered her knockout punch.

“Did Ted tell you that
we
have a daughter?”

I almost swallowed my tongue while Cece exhaled, tornado force. Kate gasped like she had just fallen through ice.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

“T-Ted has a child?” I stuttered after a moment. It was all I could manage.

“
Douchbag
,” exclaimed Cece, hands forced into fists.

“Her name is Imogen.” Sophia wrapped her arms around herself even though the brilliant August sunshine was burning bricks. “She’s five years old and has just started primary school.”