Chances (17 page)

Really, Vita could have done with a full and busy day but Mondays were always slow. She’d decided to compare the frightfully British charleston with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s version on the other side of the Atlantic and was currently happily involved with
The Great Gatsby
. Candy, who wanted to pull her friend into the real world, had sent her a book entitled
The Men I’ve Loved to Hate
. Apparently it was fiction and fantastically funny, but it didn’t appeal to Vita at all and she had about as much desire to read it as to attend a blindfolded speed-dating session – another of Candy’s ideas. At least with Evelyn Waugh, the vile bodies were the antithesis to her, with their double-barrelled surnames and wealth and flapper dresses and shiny bobbed hair and everything. Escapism, that’s what she needed and she gladly drifted off into another world, another time, and didn’t look up when the customer came in at lunch-time.

‘Hullo.’

Oh good God, it’s Oliver Bourne.

In his work clothes. With that box again. No wedding ring today, Vita noted with some disdain.

‘Hullo,’ he said again, now that he had her attention.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hi.’ Back to the book.

But he remained standing in the middle of the shop, looking around – not at her wares, but as if scouting for a flat surface on which to put the box. He approached.

‘I—’ she started.

‘I look like a salesman trying to flog you wasp catchers,’ he said.

Vita wasn’t sure how to answer that because actually, it was an apposite image, an amusing one, and she fought a smile.

‘Look,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen them already,’ she said.

‘No – not
look
,’ he said, ‘but –
listen
.’

He bent down and placed the cardboard box at his feet. Just the console table behind which Vita sat was between them. He was in his work clothes. He was slightly grubby. He had sawdust or something in his hair. She could actually smell it. Warm, fresh. Vita wished she hadn’t noticed.

‘About the other day – about yesterday,’ he said.

‘I told you – yesterday – that I don’t want the wasp catchers and I didn’t want you coming over.’

‘Semantically speaking, yes, you told me not to come to your house. Ever again. But this is your workplace.’

‘But why are you here? What is it that you want?’ She’d intended to sound nonplussed but she could hear she sounded confused.

‘Oh,’ said Oliver lightly, ‘oh – nothing really.’ He wondered how he could sound so stupid. How could he feel just like an awkward teenager? If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny. Richard Curtis could make it very funny. Hugh Grant would do a marvellous job, acting out this scene.

Vita was starting to look cross, he thought. Then he thought of Jonty. He looked around the shop, thought of the many times his late wife would have been in here, sniffing candles and admiring all the pretty frippery.

‘Actually,’ Oliver said, ‘I didn’t make it clear to you. I didn’t
buy
you the wasp catchers – I should have said so and for that, I apologise.’ It was a sentence, certainly, but it didn’t explain much. Vita had put her book down, though, and was looking at him – a little suspiciously, but he had her attention all the same. ‘You see – what I should have told you was – the wasp catchers are my wife’s.’

Vita’s shoulders slumped a little and her displeasure was an audible squeezed sigh.

‘Why, then, are you trying to give them to
me
?’ She was accusatory, but her tone wasn’t hostile. It was just thoroughly deflated.

‘They –
were
– my wife’s.’

Oliver paused. He looked down, in every sense of the word. When he lifted his eyes, he caught Vita’s. They weren’t so navy today. Her hair was tidy. He hadn’t noticed the light spatter of freckles before. Then he steeled himself to stop looking and to start talking. But he hated these words out loud, really despised hearing them, having to say them.

‘My wife died.’

Vita’s intake of breath was sharp.

He shrugged, raised his arms and let them fall. ‘My wife died – almost three years ago. She used these wasp catchers in the garden – to great effect. And you’re right – I do have a big garden, not that I go out there much. At all really. Anyway, the wasp catchers were still there, filled with the little fuckers. I cleaned them out and thought you might like them and I have been talking way too much because, because—’

‘Your wife
died
?’

He nodded. ‘She was killed. In a road accident.’

Vita felt tears prick sharply. ‘I am
so
sorry.’

The depth of her emotion somehow calmed him. ‘Thank you.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Thank you.’

And while she was busy out the back, making tea, Oliver looked around the shop and said thank you under his breath a number of times.

‘Thank you.’

‘Two sugars,’ she said, flicking a V sign at him.

‘That’s right.’

‘I did have biscuits here – but the Saturday girl is a greedy pig.’

Greedy pig. Oliver liked her terminology. Other people might have said
Fat Cow
or something. It was funny, it was gentle. It was quirky. It reminded him of when she’d said
flipping
– about the wasps being a flipping problem.

They made much of sipping their tea because it helped to mask the emotions churning. Vita felt almost high, Oliver felt exhausted.

‘Anyway,’ Oliver said, ‘I was just wondering whether you might like the wasp catchers now? Now that you know a little of their background?’

‘I would like them very much indeed,’ said Vita.

‘My wife had a great recipe,’ he said. ‘She honed it over the years.’

‘Beer and jam, I think you said?’

‘That’s right,’ he said, flattered that she’d remembered. He paused. ‘Would you like me to – put them up for you?’

Vita tipped her head and then nodded, hoping it was OK that a gentle smile was now a grin even though the man had just told her his wife had died.

Oliver nodded. ‘You provide the beer and jam, then,’ he said. ‘I think DeeDee used to use bottled French lager.’

‘DeeDee,’ Vita said the name.

‘Her full name was Danielle – but no one called her that.’

‘They’re both pretty names.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Yes.’ Then he looked at Vita. ‘May I ask – did you think, when I came over –’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure how to phrase this – but if you thought I was married, did you think I – well –?’

Vita looked a little embarrassed. ‘Well –’

‘I’m not sure how to phrase this either – but for what it’s worth, I was never like that, when I
was
married. I was very happy to be married.’

‘If DeeDee was alive, you’d never have brought me wasp catchers?’

Oliver laughed. ‘Exactly.’

‘OK,’ Vita said, ‘I’m happy to hear it.’ Oh God, that sounded wrong. But Oliver’s raised eyebrow put her at her ease and there was no need to backtrack. Vita thought of Michelle, of Candy. She thought of the nerve it must have taken for Oliver to bring the wasp catchers to her house yesterday, to the shop today. She had to do something for all of them. ‘Would you like to come over, then? Would you like to come over – perhaps even this evening? I don’t know. Or a different evening? Or a daytime?’

‘This evening would be fine,’ Oliver said. ‘I could come on my way back from work.’

‘Great,’ said Vita. And then she thought about it very quickly. Much as he looked a treat in his work clothes, with all the visible signs of his toil, perhaps it would be nicer if— She stopped thinking. ‘Or,’ she said, ‘you could come along later on?’

He thought about that. It was a much better idea. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll be along later on. I’ll have supper with Jonty – and come along afterwards. Jonty’s my boy.’

‘I think he was at your yard. When I came in, doing my unhinged hobo impression.’

‘He was indeed.’

Vita hid her head in her hands.

‘Tonight, then?’

She nodded and they shared a quick grin before awkwardly wondering how Oliver was going to take his leave. In the end, he raised his hand and said bye a couple of times, backing away for a few strides before turning, saying bye again, and going.

Vita wouldn’t know of the utter relief he felt as he walked briskly back to the car. Thank God, he thought to himself, thank God. And luckily Oliver was already driving out of town and thus had no idea of the jubilation Vita felt; that she was excitedly dialling her best friend because she had just heard the best news in the world.

‘His wife died!’ she said in an excited whisper as soon as Michelle picked up the phone. ‘His wife’s
dead
!’ Vita stopped and groaned. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Oh God – is negative karma possible?’

‘Stop,’ said Michelle, ‘just stop. Whoa. Backtrack. Whose wife has died? That’s terrible.’

‘Oliver,’ Vita said. ‘He’s a widower, not a philanderer.’

‘You’re joking.’ It had never crossed Michelle’s mind. People their age didn’t lose partners their age. The concept was hideous. ‘How do you know?’

‘He came yesterday – to my house. With a box. And a wedding ring – so, obviously, I assumed he really wasn’t divorced but married.’ She paused – that sounded wrong. She’d explain another time. ‘I thought of you – I wouldn’t let him in. I told him I didn’t want him coming around. I told him I’d find someone else to do the pear tree. He’d brought these glass bottles you kill wasps with – that was what was in the box. I told him to buzz off.’

‘He didn’t mention the wife,’ Michelle said, almost to herself.

‘No – but he’s just come in to the shop – with the box of wasp whatsits. And he told me. She died almost three years ago. Her name was DeeDee.’

‘DeeDee.’

‘DeeDee – short for Danielle.’

Vita and Michelle said her name with gentle reverence. They allowed for a dignified pause.

‘And now?’

‘He’s coming over tonight,’ Vita said, unable to keep an excited squeak from her voice, ‘with the trap things.’

‘Yes!’ Michelle was thrilled and not merely excited but relieved too. ‘Tell me properly what he’s like?’ So Vita indulged them both.

‘You know, Michelle – even when we thought he was a philandering sod, there was something about him that, to me, just seemed genuinely
nice
.’

‘I remember,’ said Michelle. ‘So speaks a true judge of good characters.’

Oliver had left the wasp catchers at the shop. It would have been more convenient if he’d taken them with him and brought them over later, but neither he nor Vita had thought of it at the time. So, after locking up, she headed for home, carrying the cardboard box. It wasn’t heavy, it was just a little awkward, but every time she shifted it up, or an edge caught her arm or stomach, she’d glance down at the contents and feel bolstered. She was in her own little world and the car horn was just a faint background detail, really. But then Tim’s voice calling her name corrupted her peace. It had been his car horn, it was his car crawling along beside her. The passenger window was down.

‘Want a lift?’

She kept on walking. ‘Oh – no, thanks.’ She put a cheery lift to her voice so he wouldn’t think she was being awkward.

‘Don’t be so stubborn, just hop in,’ he said and the passenger door was suddenly flung open, encroaching on her passage forwards. She thought how, sometimes, it was just easier to do what Tim wanted than to make her case to the contrary. So, giving in, she sat herself in the car and clung to the box.

‘Seatbelt, Vita,’ he said. ‘What’s in the box?’

‘Wasp catchers,’ she held one up. ‘You put jam and beer in them and then the wasps are trapped.’

‘And come to a
sticky end
?’

He was being charming, funny, friendly. It was more unnerving than when he was being a grumpy sod.

‘Where do you want me to take you?’ he asked. Suddenly, Vita didn’t want to be in his car at all. She didn’t want to see that a hair scrunchy was around the gearstick. It was as blatant as Suzie’s hand encircling his cock. But, most of all, she didn’t want Tim anywhere near her house.

‘Just drop me on Durham Road,’ she said. ‘That would be great.’

‘You don’t want me to take you – to your home?’

‘No, no, thanks – I have to post a letter,’ she lied.

They drove on.

‘How’s life?’ he asked.

‘Good,’ Vita said, ‘very good. And you?’

‘Fine – you know. As ever.’ He swore at another car. ‘Vita – I’ve been meaning to ask you something. It’s awkward – but you said you’d spoken to Suzie? That she picked up when you called?’

Vita looked out of the window. They were approaching Hereford Street. In the British Isles, Hereford was right the other side of the country from Durham but in Wynford, Hereford and Durham were neighbouring roads.

‘What did she say?’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’

‘I’m asking you,’ he said softly.

Vita recalled Suzie’s haunted look the other week. ‘Look – it was some time ago. I phoned – she picked up. I think you were in a pub or somewhere.’

‘What did she say?’

Vita thought back; a memory of how she had felt that evening spliced through her. She could go for it, really go for it. She was sure Candy would say, Oh, sod the Bank of Karma, let rip, baby! But a sudden rattle from the wasp catchers as Tim took a speed bump too fast jolted Vita back to how her week was unfolding. No. Be bigger. Just leave it all behind. ‘She just said
Tim’s phone
.’

‘That was it?’

‘How is Suzie, then?’ Vita asked, a strong instinct telling her not to inform Tim about her silent visit to the shop’s window. Tim made much of shrugging with a nonplussed look on his face.

‘It’s not what you think,’ he said.

‘I try not to think of it at all,’ she countered.

‘I mean, she’s – not
you
. She’s
so
not you.’