Homecoming (21 page)

‘No, not big. It’s all smashed up, actually.’

Claire looks surprised.

‘Well, not all smashed up. I got a bit angry. Got a hammer out. Made a bit of a mess.’

‘Don’t blame you,’ says Claire.

‘What Karen said . . .’

‘Oh flaming Karen Marshall. Someone wants to gaffer-tape that woman’s gob.’

‘Yes, I know, but what she said.’

‘Do you want the truth of it?’ Claire says.

‘I know what the rumours are. I want to know if they’re true.’

‘That Max ’as been knocking off Sheryl after closing? Yes Prim, I’d say they’re true. Tal told me – not in a gossipy way, mind. More out of worry for ’im drinking so much.’

Claire says this without stumbling or looking away. Primrose shuts her eyes and leans back in her chair.

‘Are you alright?’

Primrose doesn’t reply.

‘I’m so sorry Prim.’

‘It’s better to know. I’m just tired. Tired of all of it.’

They sit together for a time, their hands cupped around warm mugs of tea.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Primrose says eventually. ‘Sheryl – she won’t be having a good time. Take my word for it.’

Claire makes them dinner: chops with Co-op cauliflower cheese that’s a day past its sell-by and frozen peas. They eat it at the dining table, absently working on the puzzle between mouthfuls and with the telly on, burbling out
Coronation Street
. When they have cleared away the plates (Claire washing, Primrose drying), Claire wipes her hands on the end of Primrose’s tea towel and says, ‘Why don’t we go for a quick drink at the Crown? It’s only round the corner.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Primrose. She is loving Claire’s flat, warm and cosy with the curtains drawn and the telly on.

‘Oh go on,’ says Claire and she goes through to the living room and switches the television off.

‘I’m not looking my best,’ says Primrose.

‘When has that ever bothered you?’ asked Claire.

‘I just feel a bit . . .’

‘Not up to it?’

Primrose nods.

‘Fair enough,’ says Claire.

‘Right, so, the George’s team is incomplete – they’ve lost two of their key players to the barn dance over at Kirkby Lonsdale,’ says Elaine Henderson. She’s filled out into her role of Mrs Iron-Knickers-in-Chief, thinks Ann. ‘So we’ll just play between ourselves shall we? Lauren, would you like to captain one side and I’ll take the other?’

Ann looks over to where Lauren is standing – a couple of feet from her, with several ladies in between, including Fat Mo Dorkin and Smiling Pat Branning. Lauren has not met Ann’s eye since they arrived in their separate cars at the George for darts night.

‘I’ll take Mo Dorkin,’ says Lauren, and Mo gives a little dance, jabbing her elbow downwards with a ‘Yessss’.

‘I’ll take Ann Hartle,’ Elaine says.

‘Good luck with that,’ mutters Lauren. ‘And Pat Branning,’ she says louder, nodding to Pat. Pat shuffles towards Lauren.

The rest of the teams are selected, eight on each side, and during the process, Elaine places a hand around Ann’s shoulder, and Ann has the impression this is all for Lauren’s benefit but she submits to it. Then, once Lauren, Mo and Pat have taken their drinks to their usual banquette – the captain’s work all but done – Elaine stoops to whisper in Ann’s ear.

‘I’ll keep you in reserve if it’s alright,’ she says, and nods towards the door. ‘Brenda Farley’s just walked in.’

Ann stands at the bar, ordering a cider and black and thinking how little she’s enjoying herself – you could cut the air with a knife – and whether it’d be bad form to leave before the game’s even begun. But they’d become so isolated this past fortnight, her and Joe. That’s why she’d made herself turn up, against her better judgement.

‘Can I join you?’ Ann says, standing before Lauren. She has bolstered herself to say this, in part because there’s no one else she wants to sit with: she was always Lauren’s wingman and now she’s no one’s.

‘If you must,’ says Lauren. The open fire has flushed Lauren’s cheeks but her eyes are piercing cold.

Mo and Pat shuffle up nearer to Lauren, making space for Ann at the end of the line. Pat taps the banquette and recruits her entire face into a grin, saying, ‘Here you go, love.’

Ann sits, casting a nervous glance along the row, past Pat and Mo’s profiles to Lauren, who is watching the game. And a wave of anger comes over Ann, that she’s being punished – ostracised – when she’s not done anything to be ashamed of. She leans
forward
.

‘Is it warm up there on the moral high ground?’ she says to Lauren. Mo and Pat shoot a glance at each other.

‘It’s nice enough, thanks,’ says Lauren.

All four sip their drinks in silence. She doesn’t want to sully herself with an argument, thinks Ann. Stuck-up cow. But then Lauren leans forward and looks down the row at her for the first time. Her expression is hard.

‘I took Primrose in, day before yesterday,’ she says. ‘Gave her a bed for the night. Right mess she was. It’s a wonder no one’d been looking after that poor girl. She needed a D&C at Malton General.’

‘You had no business taking her in,’ says Ann. ‘You should’a brought her over to me.’

‘She didn’t want you. And I don’t blame her,’ says Lauren.

Mo and Pat have their heads pinned to the banquette’s padded backrest. Pat is smiling vainly, Mo’s eyes are shining. A ringside seat – Mo can’t believe her luck, thinks Ann, but she can’t be bothered to rein it in. They are in the mud now, sleeves rolled up, her and Lauren.

‘Getting back at me were you?’ Ann says to Lauren.

‘Getting back at you for what?’ Lauren says. ‘For throwing yourself at my husband? I don’t think so.’

‘Now ladies,’ says Pat. ‘Let’s just calm it down, shall we?’

They all take sips of their drinks. Ann’s is not deep enough, nor long enough, to cover her shame. She longs to walk out but that, somehow, would be to admit guilt. Or defeat.

‘Poor Primrose,’ says Mo and Ann can see a ghastly relish in the woman’s eyes. She hates her for even mentioning Primrose’s name. ‘And with that business between Max and Sheryl, too.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ says Ann.

‘Well, Max and Sheryl. You know . . .’

Ann is dissolving. Max and Sheryl? Well, why should that be such a surprise? Sheryl was a trap waiting for any man weak enough to fall in. But oh, the stupid, stupid, stupid boy. To risk all, to throw it away on that.

She is brought round by Lauren’s voice, boiling with fury. ‘Oh why don’t you just button it, Mo? Not enough going on in your life is there, that you need to go meddling about in others? Pilfering the donations from the church bowl not giving you sufficient thrill any more? Oh yes, don’t think we don’t know about all the money that’s gone missing. Father John knows about it an’ all.’

Mo has blanched as if she’s been slapped. Lauren has stood up and is gathering her cream coat off the banquette. She’s so
clever
, my friend, thinks Ann and she stands and begins gathering her coat at the same time.

Lauren is standing over Mo. ‘It’s alright to dole it out, isn’t it Mo, but not quite the same taking it, is it? Right ladies,’ Lauren says, ‘I’m off. Give my apologies to Elaine will ye?’

And Lauren marches out of the bar, proud and purposeful, with Ann stumbling on rapid steps after her and nearly getting clocked in the face by the pub door swinging shut in Lauren’s wake, hard and fast.

Their feet crunch on the gravel in the black night, Lauren a few steps ahead of Ann and her cream coat glowing. She’s standing at her car when Ann calls out.

‘Lauren! Wait!’

Lauren stops, her car keys in her hand.

‘Thank you,’ Ann says.

Lauren nods.

‘There’s no truth in it, you know,’ Ann says.

‘What, Max and Sheryl? I wouldn’t care if there was. What goes on between folks is private.’

‘No, not that. About me . . . and Eric.’ Even saying it is sullying, makes it exist, when there never was any truth in it. Not a shred. ‘I’d never do owt like that. Not to you, especially not to you. Not to anyone. You know me. You’re my best friend, Lauren.’

Lauren nods, but not warmly. More like she’s tired.

Ann can see a bruised and damaged thing and she feels the tears prick behind her eyes and then the dam breaks and she starts to cry.

‘Everything’s falling apart,’ she sobs. And it feels rotten to be standing alone in the middle of a car park crying and this makes her cry more, giving way to it, her sight now completely blurred. Then she feels Lauren’s arms around her, gathering her up, and hears Lauren say, ‘Come here,’ and Lauren is resting her chin on Ann’s forehead as she holds her close and tight.

Ruby is having a relapse, scrolling through the texts on her phone. Not the Inbox but the Sent box. The stupid torrent of texts she’d sent on Christmas Day.

The next one was a picture of a curved mass in a jumper with two feet poking out and the words ‘my stomach’ underneath.

Stupid, stupid, stupid cow. Ruby is bashing her forehead with the heel of her hand which also holds a wet tissue. She is in this shabby, unfamiliar house, surrounded by boxes and bin liners. Nowhere is home, except when she’s smoking. Smoking is her passion now. When she finishes a cigarette she immediately wants to light another one. Smoking makes a home of anywhere, even a derelict place. Especially a derelict place.

She had stood in front of the house with Dave Garside and looked up. It was absurdly grand. Double-fronted with wide steps and two pillars on either side of the front door. But it was decaying and on a thundering main road – a wide ribbon of cars and lorries – on the outskirts of town. The paintwork was peeling and grey with exhaust fumes. Weeds were springing up around the edges of the steps. The windows were boarded up with ply.

‘Shall we go in?’ Dave had said, and he’d jogged up the steps and opened the front door.

She’d walked in and the damp had hit her, hanging in the hallway like a wet web. The house was freezing. Dave switched on the lights and she saw a black and white Victorian tiled floor.

‘This is massive,’ she said gazing up the stairwell. ‘Why’s he not selling it?’

‘Shit location,’ said Dave. ‘Even in a bull market, no one wants to be on a three-lane motorway out of town. He’ll make more from it as a student rental. We’re not that far from the university campus here. Needs a lot of work, though.’

They walked down the corridor to the kitchen. Ruby’s shoes stuck to the linoleum. She heard their crackling peel in the gloom. A light from the yard shone across the sink and she could make out the jagged silhouette of a pile of unwashed plates and pans. While Dave felt for a light switch, Ruby stepped forward in the dark and her foot crunched into a tray of cat litter which gave off a blast of ammonia. Dave found the light and Ruby saw the darting of black flies above the sink and around the bulb.

‘Holy shit,’ she said, covering her mouth and nose with her coat collar.

‘I did warn you,’ Dave said.

He’d stayed and helped her with the washing-up and switched all the lights on. They had explored the upstairs bedrooms – six of them – each decorated with energetic floral wallpapers and all darkened by their boarded-up windows. Then he’d had to go. His mobile phone had been buzzing insistently. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple want to complete by the end of the day.’

And she’d felt a pang of jealousy towards the unknown couple and their presumed happiness.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she’d said, standing at the door while Dave descended the front steps in the 4 p.m. February darkness. The minute he’d gone, she searched for her cigarettes and lit one, sitting on a box in the lounge, taking in the room: the television in the corner with the armchair up close to it, its fabric thin on the arms and a greasy dark patch on the back, where a head would lie. There was a large grey-green button-back couch – an antique – with a blanket laid on it; beside it a tiny table with a pair of glasses and a glass of water. Someone had been sleeping in here. Maybe they could no longer manage the stairs. She should have found this creepy but she didn’t.

For a week she’d lived in the house’s boarded-up half-light, walking to work each day, lying down under the blanket on the sofa each night. Smoking cigarettes. Crying. Looking at old text messages. Remembering him coming into the bedroom in the morning with a coffee for her and then dancing around the bed in his pants while she sat up, squinting into the sun. The queen bee. Remembering meeting him in the freezing street, when she was moving. Not dead, after all. And the shock, new as if it had just happened, that he’d cut her from his life, like a bruise from the flesh of an apple.

‘All my love, my kindness, my niceness,’ she’d sobbed on Dave Garside’s toned chest, ‘he’s erased all of it.’

‘It’s not that easy to erase someone,’ Dave had said.

‘I want him back.’

‘I know you do,’ said Dave.

‘But he doesn’t want me.’

‘No,’ he said, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head. ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

She hobbled through her days at work, crying in the toilets, hollow-eyed with customers who could still laugh, shop, talk about films and the couples still together, making their plans. That was the worst of it: couples. Couples moving about freely in their lives. Couples planning holidays. Couples taking joy in the telly and a takeaway, as if there had been a nuclear holocaust outside their window – the grey, charred dereliction that she was living in – but they couldn’t see it because they cheerfully had the curtains drawn. The pain of existence didn’t touch them. And it felt like the only person – the only person in the entire universe who could make it better was him. How could one person be so powerful? How could one person so expertly reverse into her driveway, dump his truckload of steaming horseshit, and then drive off into the night?

When she wakes, neon strips of day push around the boards that are hammered to the lounge windows. She makes a cup of coffee using some old Nescafé granules she has found in a kitchen cupboard. It is Monday – her day off.