Marriage and Other Games (20 page)
Then she gave herself a talking-to. Just because she was used to dealing with demanding clients who only wanted the best didn’t mean she couldn’t compromise. She was perfectly down-to-earth and practical. She was able to source a good deal. She had imagination. It pained her to cut down on quality, but at the end of the day she was only dressing the house to make it look palatable for prospective purchasers. Never mind if the carpet wore out in six months, or the kitchen cupboards fell off. She was creating an illusion. And although it went against the grain, and everything she stood for, she didn’t have a choice.
By now it was midday, and her head was throbbing. Whether it was the stale air, the surfeit of wine or the stress, she couldn’t be sure. Not having any breakfast probably didn’t help. She decided to get out and explore the village and go in search of sustenance.
She came out of the front door and into the street, turning right, as she was pretty sure she remembered seeing a shop on the other side of the road from the pub. She inspected the houses along the way, surprised at the disparity. Some of them were almost derelict. The frames were rotten and she could see tattered curtains through the filthy windows. Some of them had prams and plastic toys scattered over the gardens, and cars up on bricks. Others looked as if they might be empty, or even harbouring an unnoticed corpse. At the other end of the scale were the houses that had been done up tastefully, with slate house signs, muted colours on the doors and windows and interesting beaten copper sundials and water features. There didn’t seem to be anything in between.
The village shop-cum-post office was an extraordinary mixture of exotic and prosaic, which she supposed accurately reflected the demo-graphics of the village. You could get olives and tinned corn beef, but not Marmite. Dom Perignon and Carlsberg XXX, but not a reasonably priced bottle of half-decent red. A girl with ginger and white striped hair and a belly-button ring chewed gum behind the counter. A board boasted scrappily written index cards offering bunk beds and BMX bikes for sale, next to beautifully designed adverts for art exhibitions and garden openings. There was a pile of local papers on the counter, but no other papers or magazines. Racks of faded wrapping paper hung next to a carousel of gaudy greetings cards. A set of shelves displayed rows of homemade chutneys and jams with handwritten labels. Boxes of free-range eggs sat next to Tupperware cartons of penny sweets: fizzy cola bottles and chocolate mice and strawberry laces. The air was thick with their sugary scent.
‘Do you sell . . . bread?’ ventured Charlotte, thinking that what she really needed was several rounds of toast and a pot of tea.
The girl pointed to a shelf that contained a couple of sorry-looking sliced loaves.
‘S’all we’ve got left. Thursday and Saturday, the baker comes. But you’d do best to order what you want, ’cos it goes quick, like.’
Charlotte picked up one of the loaves reluctantly, thinking that she had better go to a supermarket and stock up. She chose a pot of homemade strawberry jam, and was grateful that she had packed butter in her cool-box.
‘What about milk?’
The girl wearily reached behind her and plonked a carton of UHT on the counter.
‘Fresh milk you’ve got to order, too.’
Charlotte added a packet of ginger nuts to her purchases, and a tin of tomato soup. She needed something for lunch. As for supper, there was absolutely nothing in here that would serve as a meal. She wasn’t a food snob by any means, but one look in the freezer and she had dismissed boil-in-the-bag curry and crumbed haddock fillets.
As she approached the counter, she decided she would do her best to ingratiate herself with her first villager.
‘I’m Charlotte, by the way.’ She smiled at the girl as she handed over her purchases. ‘I’ve just moved into Myrtle Cottage.’
The girl stared at her, then managed a smile.
‘I’m Nikita,’ she finally offered. ‘Have you got kids, cos I do baby-sitting? ’
‘Um, no,’ said Charlotte. ‘It’s just me.’
Nikita frowned. ‘What do you want to move here for, on your own?’ she asked, stuffing Charlotte’s shopping into a paper-thin plastic bag. ‘You’ll go mad.’
Charlotte pulled a ten-pound note out of her purse.
‘Do you sell magazines?’ she asked hopefully, thinking that what she really needed was to sit down with a copy of Homes and Gardens.
‘You’ve got to order them,’ Nikita replied, handing over the bag of shopping just as it split and the contents fell all over the floor.
When Charlotte got back from the shop, there was a letter from her solicitor on the doormat. She recognised the cream vellum envelope. She felt slightly sick, as she always did when faced with something official. She hoped it wasn’t a bill. She opened it carefully. There was a letter, and wrapped inside it a form of some sort.
She scanned the letter quickly.Ed has asked me to pass this on to you, in the hope that you might visit. If you do not feel able to do so, please return the order to me at your earliest convenience . . .
Her stomach turned over as she looked at the form. A prison visiting order. Did he really expect her to visit him? In prison? She had instructed his solicitor to pass any communications on, but she thought she’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t want any more to do with Ed than was necessary.
She pinned the order up on the kitchen wall next to her sketches, and stared at it.
Ed was still her husband.
She was still his wife.
Did she owe him a visit, after what he had done? He’d reduced them both to nothing, literally and metaphorically. He was in prison, and she was in hiding, scrabbling to make a living, in fear of being discovered by her newfound friends. She was having to live under an assumed name, disguise herself; she had little hope of a future. Everything had been snatched from her: her home, her career, her marriage, her friends.
Most of the time, she operated on automatic pilot. But sometimes, like now, the grim reality closed in on her and her mind was filled with questions. Would she ever be someone else’s lover again? Or someone else’s wife? Or even . . . someone’s mother?
This was the really painful question. But she had to consider that, without Ed in her life, there was a chance, a small chance, that she might conceive with another partner. She took in a tiny breath, allowing herself for the first time to give this possibility some real head space. No one had ever pinned down which of them was the cause of their infertility. Suppose it wasn’t her . . . ?
She shook her head and told herself to stop. She couldn’t go down that road. Not yet. After all, she was still married to Ed. They hadn’t actually discussed the future of their marriage. It had seemed insignificant. And there had been so much other bureaucracy to deal with that Charlotte couldn’t face divorce proceedings on top of everything else. Not that there would have been any doubt that she could do him for unreasonable behaviour. How unreasonable could you get?
Now, looking at the prison order, she wondered if she ought to visit him and discuss the future. Until she put Ed behind her, she wasn’t going to be able to move on. She was living in the shadow of what he had done.
She deserved a future, surely?
‘Hello?’
Lost in her reverie, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked up to see her rescuer of the night before standing in the kitchen doorway. What was his name? Something weird. Mitch? Fitz? Fitch . . . that was it.
‘Fitch. Hi.’
He took up nearly the whole of the doorframe with his broad shoulders.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just thought I’d come and check there were no more visitors.’
‘Not that I’ve seen so far. And thank you so much for last night.’ She moved automatically over to the kettle.
‘I was just going to make another pot of tea. Can I tempt you?’
‘Why not?’
He looked around.
‘Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.’
Charlotte made a face. ‘I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew.’
‘It’s pretty daunting. I did up the old bakery, down the road. It’s still not properly finished.’
‘I’ve got to get my skates on. The owners want this on the market in the early spring.’
‘And you’re doing it all yourself?’
‘Well . . . there’s stuff I can’t do. Like plastering.’
‘Give me a shout if you want a hand. I can turn my hand to most things.’
‘Thanks.’
Charlotte smiled, not sure if he was offering out of the kindness of his heart or if he wanted paying.
‘And if you want a fireplace, or a house sign, I’m your man.’
‘I’ll probably want both.’
She handed him a cup of tea.
‘Do you want sugar? Only I don’t have any . . .’
‘No, no . . . that’s fine.’
She could see the visiting order over Fitch’s shoulder, and wondered if she would be able to take it down without him noticing. He was going to turn round any minute and spot it. It was unmissable.
‘Actually,’ she said hastily, ‘you could come and look at my fireplace now and tell me what you think. Bearing in mind that I am on the tightest budget imaginable.’
He followed her obligingly into the living room. They both looked at the hideous fireplace and exchanged grimaces.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘If it was me I’d just rip the whole lot out, plaster it up and have a plain slate hearth. Have it as a feature, stick a vase of flowers in it. Then if the purchasers want a real fire, they can put whatever they like in.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘Good idea.’
He handed her back his empty cup.
‘I better go. I’m on my way to pick up the girls from school.’
So he was married with children. Of course he was. Most people their age were.
‘Monday nights is swimming. My wife refuses to take them.’ He gave a small cough. ‘My ex-wife.’
‘You’re divorced?’
‘Not yet. Talking about it.’
Charlotte bit her lip. Part of her wanted to spill the beans and share her own dilemma with someone, and the temptation to share it with someone who was going through the same thing was huge. But she didn’t want to reveal her life story to the first person that stepped over her threshold, so she kept quiet.
‘Well, thanks for dropping by.’
‘It’s OK. I know what it’s like being the new kid in town. The locals don’t fall over themselves to be welcoming around here.’
‘No?’
‘You’ve got to have been here a long, long time before you’re accepted. At least three generations.’
‘I’m not planning on staying here that long.’
‘You say that,’ warned Fitch, ‘but it gets under your skin. It’s pretty hard to adjust to the real world once you’ve lived in Withybrook.’
When Fitch had gone, Charlotte plonked herself down on the sofa in the living room, stretched and yawned. She was absolutely exhausted and yet she felt she had achieved nothing of note. She picked up her notebook and tried to draft out a plan of action, making a list of people she needed to call - skip hire, telephone, internet provider - but she couldn’t get the visiting order out of her head. She knew that unless she dealt with it, she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate.
The quickest option would be to stick it straight in an envelope and send it back to Ed’s solicitor. But somehow she felt that was the coward’s way out, and would provide her no respite. What she needed to do was to visit Ed, outline her terms and conditions, and draw a line under the whole hideous affair. A divorce would mean freedom and a chance to start again. Pleased with her decision, she went to find the order and work out what she had to do. The instructions were firm and clear and not to be argued with. She was to phone the prison and make an appointment.
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