Nearly Almost Somebody (6 page)

She kicked off her boots, frowning at the boxes stacked in the hallway. Zoë had been busy. In the living room, the curtains and every single knick-knack had gone, and vast decorator sheets covered the sofas. Maggie was being erased. But oddly, Libby missed the clutter.

I’m sorry, Maggie.

Why did she feel guilty? Maggie was dead. She wouldn’t care.

Following the aroma of roast lamb, garlic and rosemary drifting from the kitchen, Libby wandered through to find Zoë preparing green beans.

‘You’ve eradicated half of chintz hell
and
made dinner?’

‘No. I eradicated half of chintz hell, made dinner
and
made a batch of banana muffins for you. And that was all after work.’

‘I love you.’ Libby grabbed for an errant walnut half. There was a lot to be said for living with a Nigella wannabe. ‘How’s Hyssop?’

‘Asleep on your bed. I don’t think he’s moved since I came home.’

Libby frowned at the open bottle of Merlot. ‘Wine o’clock already?’

‘You’re not the only one who’s landed a crappy job.’ Sighing, Zoë wiped her hands on her tatty, dust covered jeans and picked up a mug. ‘It isn’t going how I expected, moving here. I hate this house.’

‘It’s spooky, isn’t it?’ Libby frowned at the plates displayed in the welsh dresser. ‘Like she’s still here.’

‘That’s why I’ve been evicting the old cow.’ Zoë knocked back the contents of her mug and refilled it with a healthy glug of wine. ‘So, what’s wrong with Kim?’

‘Well, I got there at two minutes past eight, but from the look on her face, you’d think I’d arrived at twenty-past.’ Libby poured an inch of the red wine into a second mug and slouched against the breakfast bar. ‘She’s actually lovely to the nags, as she calls them, but fifty percent of the horses in the yard are exercised by their owners and the rest are retirement cases. I don’t get to ride. I just get to listen to Kim bitch about the clients, her husband, me and the god who invented all of the above. Horrible, horrible woman. And she’s definitely having an affair with Michael, the feed merchant.’

‘But it’s none of your business. Don’t let your bloody morals get you sacked again.’

‘It’s wrong.’

‘It’s life.’ Zoë sighed. ‘They could be in miserable, abusive marriages for all you know.’

‘Kim said her husband Pete was a useless waste of space. He’s not. He’s lovely. He works his arse off and from what I’ve seen–’

‘You’ve been there for one day. You don’t know anything.’

‘She married him for his landowner status. She married Langton Hall, not him.’ Libby sipped her wine. ‘I hate it. What’s worse is that Michael is married too. His wife had their second child less than a year ago. Why can’t people keep promises and not shag around?’

‘Because the human race is inherently hedonistic. And you need to accept that.’

‘Sorry. Here I am, whining away. What’s wrong with your job? Is your boss an immoral arse too?’

‘I don’t know. I still haven’t met him.’ Zoë wandered outside with her mug and the bottle.

Libby followed her and sat on the steps of the crazy-paved patio, wriggling her toes in the overgrown lawn as she lit a cigarette. ‘Why?’

‘He’s only in the office on Thursdays. Rest of the time he’s at our Kendal or Kirkby Lonsdale offices. Which leaves me working with
four
bloody women. No men.’

Libby pressed her lips together. ‘Oestrogen hell?’

‘This morning, all they could talk about was what they were having for lunch, and this afternoon, it was a minute dissection of their salads from the deli down the road and what they were having for
tea.
They’re the dullest bunch in the world ever.’

‘Oh, give them a chance. I bet they’re nice really and it can’t be as bad as working in testosterone hell.’

‘I know. There’s this one girl, Nikki. She seems okay. Shame she hates me.’

‘Hates you, why?’

‘Who knows? Doesn’t like the competition, maybe?’ Zoë let out a long frustrated sigh. ‘In other depressing news, I got an electrician to come round this afternoon. Remember Sparky from the pub yesterday? It’s him. He condemned the electrics. It’s going to cost a fortune to rewire the place.’

‘Sorry, Zo.’ Libby fished into her back pocket, taking out the flyer Tallulah had given her. ‘Is it too soon to look for a new job?’

‘The only reason I’m going back tomorrow, is so I can make a cup of bloody coffee without getting a dose of ECT.’ Zoë sighed at the sky. ‘I’ve spent the last three hours in a pair of rubber gloves.’

‘Sexy.’

‘Sparky certainly thought so.’

‘Bit young isn’t he?’

‘Didn’t stop him trying it on.’

Libby laughed. ‘Did you let him ravish you over the fuse box?’

‘As if. Nice arse, but you’d need to put a paper bag over his head.’ Zoë grinned, elbowing her. ‘Ring it.’

Reluctantly, Libby took out her phone, still staring at the flyer. It’d be quitting and she’d never given up on anything in her life – anything other than ballet. But she’d get to ride show-jumpers like Tallulah’s horse, Shakespeare. She dialled.

‘Hello. Low Wood Farm,’ said a woman with vowels capable of etching crystal.

‘I’m ringing about the groom’s job you–’

‘The advert clearly stated the closing date for applications was Saturday.’

‘Oh, Tallulah gave me the number. ’ Libby cringed. ‘I hadn’t seen an ad.’

‘I can’t...’ The snooty woman paused. ‘The interviews are arranged for Wednesday morning. Perhaps I could take your details. If none of the other applicants are suitable–’

‘That would be great.’

‘Name?’

‘Um... Olivia Wilde.’ She’d rather Tallulah didn’t know she’d failed to get an interview.

‘And number?’

Libby recited her mobile number, desperate to get off the phone, and stared at the dandelion clocks, the flowers already past their best. In one call her hopes had been dashed. There’d be no show-jumpers and no escaping Kim Langton-Browne.

Where was the idyllic rural dream?

The next evening there were no enticing aromas to greet Libby at the door and the dark grey clouds left little sunlight to creep its way into the house. She sat on the stairs and pulled off her boots, sighing at the clumps of dried mud she’d scattered across the tiles. She ought to sweep up but instead she brushed it to the skirting board with her foot. The dirt settled into a previously invisible crack in one of the tiles. Oh god, had Maggie’s head caused that?

Goosebumps covered her arms as she rubbed the tile clean with her jacket. Something moved behind her. She glanced up the stairs, her heart racing.

Hyssop.

Libby laughed as he padded down the stairs, meowing. ‘Hey, mister. You scared me. But then it doesn’t take much in this place.’

He rubbed his head against her chin, purring. He was so content, his purr almost soporific. Why did a silly old tabby cat stop her feeling... edgy?

I have a cat. That’s all I have. A cat. I am Maggie. I’m going to end up old, alone and dead at the bottom of the stairs.

‘I suppose you want your dinner? Looks like I’ll be cooking for everyone.’

After serving Hyssop one of the high end pouches of sardines Grace had given her and spending twenty minutes under the pitiful shower, Libby rifled through the cupboards, searching for gastronomic inspiration. Leftover lamb and… Dried apricots and cous cous? A Moroccan-spiced salad? She set to work roasting red peppers under the grill, slicing the lamb, chopping the mint and parsley from Maggie’s herb garden, but it wasn’t until she’d finally tossed it all together with a healthy sprinkling of coriander and chunks of apricot that Zoë’s text arrived.

Not home for dinner. Nikki on peacekeeping mission. Later gator. Zx

She’d created a Middle-Eastern taste sensation and had no one to share it with. Libby switched on the kettle to make a cup of tea, but plunged the house into semi-darkness.

This house sucked. This life sucked.

Impulsively, she picked up her phone, glancing at Hyssop as she dialled Paolo’s number.

Please, don’t tell Zoë.

‘It’s me,’ she said when he answered.

‘Ach, hello you,’ Paolo replied. ‘How’s the countryside?’

His familiar voice elicited emotions she’d been unaware she’d bottled up, and fat tears tumbled down her cheeks. She didn’t speak for a moment.

‘Sorry,’ she said, sniffing. ‘I just wanted–’

He shushed her. ‘No apologies. Where are you?’

‘The cottage.’

‘I...’ he started, but a creaking sound suggested he’d shifted, ‘am lying on my battered second-hand leather sofa, in my new loft-style apartment in Shoreditch listening to folk music. ’

‘Why? You hate folk music.’

‘I’m trying to incite a cultural riot inside my heart.’

‘You’re crazy. What on earth does that mean?’

‘I miss you,’ he replied softly.

‘I miss you too. I have no friends and living in the country isn’t proving very idyllic.’

‘Then come to London. You can share my sofa.’

‘Is that all you have?’

‘There’s a bed too.’

Despite the misery swamping her, she laughed. ‘Shame it’s in London. You could’ve picked any other British city and I might’ve jumped in my car tonight. How can you afford a loft-style apartment in Shoreditch anyway?’

‘Remember the Love Triangle?’

‘The threesome series?’ Libby blushed, remembering the huge oil paintings. ‘How could I forget?’

‘Sold the lot for five grand.’

‘I’m so proud of you. You’ll be rich and famous in no time.’

He laughed. He used to run his fingers through his hair when he laughed like that. She closed her eyes, remembering, imagining.

‘I still love you,’ he said.

Her tears tumbled again and she didn’t respond. How many times had he whispered those words – a hundred, a thousand? But they were words she’d never returned. How could she pretend to love him when her heart still belonged to ballet?

‘Come here, Lib.’

But what if Paolo was it, the best distraction she’d ever get from ballet? They were friends, good friends, and intense lovers. Who could ask for more than that? Okay, she suspected what he truly loved was sketching the clean lines of her body, but wasn’t that good enough?

No.

He was nearly perfect, nearly as good as ballet, but nearly wasn’t enough.

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But let someone new in.’

As she ended the call, she grabbed a bottle of red from the wine rack. Shiraz? Perfect. It’d stand its ground against the cumin and coriander in the salad. Did she care it cost only four pounds seventy-nine? Not that night.

Still reading the label in the dim light, she groped for the corkscrew but sent it skidding off the counter just as Hyssop came in through the cat flap. The corkscrew narrowly missed his head and he yowled, darting between Libby’s legs, almost knocking her over. Only years of dance training kept her vertical and she balanced on one foot, arms outstretched, as Hyssop clawed his way onto the worktop.

Jesus, was that how he killed Maggie? Something scared him, he ran to her for security and she fell? Libby bent down to retrieve the corkscrew, but one arm of it remained on the floor, shattered. She closed her eyes, swearing. She could go to the pub and ask them to open the wine, but what if Grace was there?

Seconds later, she rang her neighbour’s doorbell. She’d not seen much of Sheila since they’d moved in, but the fifty-something mother of four sons had dropped off a homemade carrot cake and made Libby promise to pop round if she needed anything. Libby smiled as the door opened but had to stifle a giggle when she saw Sheila’s
I ♥ Gary Barlow
t-shirt. That explained why
Back For Good
and
Rule the World
were played on repeat most nights.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Sheila, but do you have a corkscrew I could borrow?’

‘Come in, come in,’ Sheila said, wiping her hands on a tea towel, ‘but excuse the mess. Two teenage boys under one roof and it’s a full-time job tidying up after them. And Jack’s no better, still treating this place like he lives here.’

Libby followed her through to the back of the house, picking her way over the trainers and cricket bats strewn along the hallway. In the kitchen, Sheila handed her a corkscrew and muted the TV, cutting off the barmaid ranting in the Rovers.

‘How are you settling in?’

‘Okay.’ Libby paused before pulling the cork out. A little company would be lovely. ‘Fancy a glass?’

‘Oh, go on then. Just a small one.’ Sheila winked and took two wine glasses from the cupboard. ‘Just
okay
? I’d have thought a pretty young thing like you would be having a whale of a time.’

Blushing, Libby joined Sheila at the kitchen table and poured the wine.
I hate my job, I have no friends and I’m living in a death-trap.