Nearest Thing to Crazy (18 page)

‘I’d love a cup of coffee.’

‘Coming right up.’

‘You look tired, Cass.’

‘Early starts and late nights. I’m getting too old . . .’

‘Do you think you might be doing too much, taking on too much with all your gardening and everything?’

‘My little jobs? They don’t amount to very much. I haven’t got anything big on, just a couple of border redesigns and an hour or two of maintenance here and there. It’s good for me – gets me out of the house.’

‘You just seemed a bit stressed, and I wanted to check you were okay.’

The kettle was boiling. I heaped a couple of spoonfuls of coffee into the cafetière and added the hot water. As I fiddled about getting cups and milk it gave me time to formulate how I was going to respond. All sorts of things were going through my mind; for instance, I just wanted to snap her head off and say, ‘For fuck’s sake, why is everyone so damned worried about me? It’s
her
you should be worried about . . .’ but that wouldn’t have been the clever thing to do.

‘That’s really thoughtful, but honestly I’m fine. I mean, what makes you think I’m not?’ I handed her a cup of coffee and perched myself against the Aga rail while I waited for her to answer.

‘Well, nothing really, honestly. It’s just that last night, well I didn’t think you seemed yourself. You were very quiet during dinner. I was worried about you. Is everything okay – with you and Dan, I mean?’

I laughed gently into my cup. ‘That’s funny, isn’t it, because you were the one at Amelia’s the other day saying that we were okay – welded together at the hip, I think you said.’

‘I do think that. I really do . . . just so long as everything’s okay.’

‘You’re incredibly sweet to be concerned. But really there’s nothing . . .’

‘You’re okay with Ellie, aren’t you? I just felt there was perhaps a bit of tension between you.’

‘Honestly, Sally, there’s nothing wrong between me and Dan, and nothing wrong between me and Ellie . . . I mean look at her . . . Laura’s up there right now getting help with contacts.’ I decided to change tack. ‘How do you find her?’

‘I think she’s lovely. A real breath of fresh air . . . just what the village needs. And she couldn’t be kinder, could she? I think she’s really brave coming here, not knowing anyone, all by herself.’

‘Has she mentioned to you anything about a husband . . . or boyfriend?’ I wanted to find out if I was the only person she’d confided in about the madman she’d run away from. I wasn’t planning to break her confidence, although to be honest, under the circumstances, it seemed more than a little crazy to care about respecting her privacy.

‘No. She just said it was complicated, so naturally I didn’t want to pry.’

‘Like Amelia felt I did last night.’

‘Well you did seem a little intense, but perhaps it was the champagne talking.’

‘I wasn’t drunk, Sally.’

‘No . . . no . . . I didn’t mean to say –’

‘When I fell over, I really did get my heels stuck in the bloody lawn. And I probably seemed a bit tense because I was feeling the cold.’

‘Sorry, I really didn’t mean to . . . um, how’s your mother?’

‘The same. Charming and warm as ever.’

‘Oh Cass, poor you. I think you’re an angel the way you keep on going to see her.’

‘I don’t really have a choice.’

’No, I don’t suppose you do.’ Sally stood up and put her empty coffee cup on the sink. ‘Thanks for the coffee. So you’re okay, then? Everything’s all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said, probably a little over-emphatically. ‘I’m
fine.
’

‘Good. So I’ll see you tomorrow, at Amelia’s.’

‘Yep, I’ll be there.’

I watched as she climbed into her car. And I had the strangest feeling. It was really uncomfortable; no, worse than uncomfortable. It was a feeling that bordered on alarm. Once again I sensed that the whole conversation had been heavy with subtexts, that Sally had most definitely come on a mission. I wondered then if Ellie had heard the row between Dan and me last night, and if she had, had she told Sally? Were they all now gossiping about us, picking over every nuance of our behaviour towards each other and towards other people? It was a nasty, creepy feeling of something dark and insidious gathering around me, and because it had no face or name I didn’t know how I was going to fight it.

‘Mum, she’s so lovely,’ Laura gushed. ‘She said she’d love to read some of my stories and then suggest where I should submit stuff to. She also said she’d try and get me some work experience, maybe even an internship on
Mode . . .
’

‘That’s good,’ I said, keeping my face turned towards my bubbling saucepans.

‘Yeah, she’s really cool. She said I could go up there any time and hang out with her. God, how lucky am I to meet someone like that
. . . on our doorstep? Is that all my washing? Oh thanks, Mum, that’s really nice of you . . . I wouldn’t have bothered to iron half of it as it just gets creased in my bag.’

‘Well pack it carefully, and then it won’t.’

‘Okay. How long before lunch? I’ve just got to go and check
Facebook.’

‘Ten minutes, so don’t be too long.’

Dan came and stood behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘You okay?’ he said.

‘Yeah, fine.’ I continued stirring the gravy, ignoring his hand. He let it slip and I heard him sigh.

‘It’s great what she’s doing for her, isn’t it? She said she remembered what it was like when she was Laura’s age. How difficult it was to get a foot in the door.’

‘But she doesn’t know if Laura’s any good. Wouldn’t she want to know that, before pushing her forward?’

‘I dunno, but she can see how keen she is. You should have heard
Laura giving her the third degree about how she got into journalism .
. . it was nice seeing her so fired up. Funny, ’cos I was never really sure about her doing media studies. If you could see the number of CVs that come into the agency . . . It’s sad but true that the only way you get on is through knowing someone these days.’

‘Isn’t there anyone else we know – someone at work that might have contacts as well? I mean, I thought Laura was set on going travelling this summer, not working.’

‘Well it may not happen this summer, and it may only be for a week or two, but she won’t want to pass up an opportunity like this. She can travel anytime.’

‘She should be having a break, having some fun with her friends while she’s got the opportunity, before she has to knuckle down in the real world.’

‘Yeah, well she’s luckily being a bit more sensible than that. Funny, I thought you’d be pleased that she’s being so sensible.’

‘Well of course I am. How could I not be?’

‘I don’t know, Cass, I really don’t know.’

Ellie might as well have been with us during lunch as all I heard was ‘Ellie this . . .’ and ‘Ellie that . . .’ After I’d cleared everything away I pleaded a headache and went upstairs for a lie down. I could hear Dan and Laura chatting together downstairs. Laura must have plugged her iPod into the sound system because I got drifts of music I didn’t recognize. I could hear them both laughing, the sound of my husband and daughter being happy, enjoying a perfect family Sunday together. Knowing that they were happy should have made me happy, but it just made me feel alone. I must have dropped off to sleep eventually, because when I woke up the bedside clock said it was just before six, and when I went downstairs Dan told me that Laura had gone back to Birmingham already. He said she told him to say bye to me, that she hadn’t wanted to wake me.

My first meeting with Laura. What can I say? Bright, beautiful, bubbly. A bit shy at first, which was rather charming. She made a big fuss of Coco while Dan helped me mix the drinks. He said he hadn’t tried a Bloody Mary with freshly grated horseradish before, and that he thought it was one of the best he’d tasted. He also complimented me again on last night’s supper. I asked him if Cass was all right. He looked a bit surprised; I don’t know, it’s hard to explain but there was this funny look that came into his eye – sad, almost like a wounded animal – and his shoulders just sort of sagged. I got the feeling he wanted to say something, but was afraid to. I didn’t tell him that I’d heard the row between them, that I knew things weren’t great, because I didn’t want to say anything in front of Laura. So we took our drinks outside and I told her about my life on Mode, how I’d got into journalism, my time in Rome. I sensed that Dan was much more relaxed than he had been the night before, like he was more himself, somehow. I thought Laura was very like him: same sense of humour, funny little mannerisms. Obviously I wanted to help her as much as I could, so I told her she could come round any time and I looked forward to really getting to know her. Of course I had no way of knowing that Cass would be really upset. I mean, why would anyone have been upset by someone helping their child? Honestly, the thought would never have crossed my mind in a million years.

CHAPTER

9

It seemed another potentially ‘perfect’ Monday had arrived. Was it really only a week ago since I’d read all that bile? So much seemed to have happened, so much that seemed to change the way I viewed my little world and my own little family and my lovely, loyal friends. As I reached Ellie’s I was sorely tempted to drive on past. I could say afterwards: ‘God, Ellie, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that . . . I’m just so vague sometimes . . .’

She was all smiles when she opened the door, ‘Come in, come in
. . . It was so lovely to see you both on Saturday.’ I hated the fact that she could look so normal and happy, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, when she had just waltzed into my life, from nowhere, and was busy messing up everything that I cared about.

‘And I loved meeting Laura. She’s such a sweet girl,’ she said.
‘You must be so proud of her.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We are.’ I hated hearing her say Laura’s name. I couldn’t look at her, so instead I stroked Coco, but she wouldn’t shut up about Laura. I’d called Laura last night but her phone went straight to voice mail, and I’d texted her this morning to say ‘please call me’ but she hadn’t. My fingers stopped their stroking motion on Coco’s coat and I started pulling at the loose skin around the line of her collar, squeezing it between my fingers and twisting it around and around. Coco winced and snatched her head away from me, and then slunk off towards the kitchen, but Ellie didn’t notice. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to help set her up with some work experience, maybe even an internship. I still have lots of contacts.’

I didn’t respond, but rubbed at an imaginary patch of dirt on the sleeve of my jacket. I knew I couldn’t risk speaking in case I actually snarled. A vivid image flashed into my imagination of me throwing myself at her, clawing at her hair and scratching her eyes out, wrestling her to the floor and then smashing the light out of that lovely mask. I put my hand up to my mouth and cleared my throat and took a couple of deep breaths.

The intensity of my anger and my desire for violence had really shaken me, and for an instant I was afraid that this was how it felt to be unhinged, to suffer a moment of temporary insanity. Is this what they meant by diminished responsibility? As I struggled to calm myself, waiting for Ellie to lock up the dog and collect her handbag, or whatever it was she was bustling around doing, I felt a tiny nagging doubt drift like the wisp of a cloud over the rim of my mind. Was this what it felt like to be ‘on the edge’? Was it really possible that my mind was playing tricks with me? But then I saw the computer, the shiny white case with the big silver apple emblazoned on its lid and I remembered the crunching noise that my pendant had made when it smashed against the hard plastic keyboard. I remembered the way the image of Ellie had dissolved to reveal the black and white virtual typescript and the words that had leapt from the screen and into my heart. ‘I know that he wants me as much as I want him . . .’ and I knew that I hadn’t dreamt it. This sick bitch was at best using our story because she didn’t have the imagination to make up her own; and at worst she was, right now, having an affair with
my
husband. That was the cold, hard reality.