The Desperate Wife’s Survival Plan (22 page)

‘Hi,’ he said, just as surprised as she was to be meeting like this.

‘Hi,’ mumbled Julie.

‘I see you’ve got the little fella off the lead,’ said Wes, nodding at Boris who was nearby chewing on a leaf.

Julie nodded. ‘First time.’

‘Wow,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Pretty scary, huh? I remember the first time I let Cadbury
off the lead.’

Julie glanced over at the dark brown labrador sniffing around nearby. Cadbury seemed an apt name for him.

She glanced back to make sure Boris was within reach.

‘I’m just worried that he’ll wander off and won’t come back,’ she told him. ‘Any tips?’

‘Let me show you something,’ said Wes.

Suddenly, he took her by the arm and led her around the trunk of a large oak tree. He pushed
her up against the bark and put a finger to his lips.

‘He’ll follow you because you’re effectively his mum,’ he whispered. ‘Call out to him.’

Julie took a gulp to refresh her suddenly dry throat. ‘Boris,’ she croaked before clearing her voice. ‘Boris!’

She peered around the tree trunk and saw the puppy looking all around for her. Then he spotted her and bounded over.

‘See?’ said Wes, taking
a step away. ‘You might look a bit foolish hiding from your own dog but it does work.’

He broke into a grin. Julie smiled shyly in return.

‘Just watch out for him eating anything untoward,’ he added. ‘Especially because you’ve got a retriever and they’re just dustbins for any food they can find.’

Julie frowned. ‘What kind of things should I look out for?’

‘Wild mushrooms on the heath are probably
the worst hazard.’

‘Right, thanks.’ Julie had a sudden thought. ‘What about in the garden?’

‘Rhododendron bushes can be toxic. Daffodils, especially the bulbs. Larkspur. Mistletoe. All of them can be fatal to dogs.’

Julie was horrified. ‘But I’ve got rhododendron bushes all along the back of the garden.’

She thought of her beautiful garden, though it seemed suddenly not so beautiful as it
had.

‘You’re either going to have to cut them down or put up some kind of netting that he can’t get through.’ Wes smiled. ‘Don’t fret. I don’t have that many cases of poisoning from gardens. It’s usually chocolate that causes panic.’

‘Chocolate? As in a Mars Bar?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Wes. ‘Especially dark chocolate. Too much can be fatal. As can onions and grapes.’

‘God,’ groaned Julie. ‘I’ll
have to babyproof the kitchen.’

She thanked him and they went their separate ways across the heath.

Later on, the puppy staggered into the lounge. He was shattered after his first big walk and collapsed on to her feet with a big ‘whoomph’ of air. As he slept, Julie studied him. She watched the way his pale stomach went up and down with each quick breath. The way his ears and paws twitched as
he dreamt.

She reached down to stroke one of his floppy golden ears, but quickly changed her mind and took her hand away.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
in the morning on the last Saturday in July, Charley let herself into the shop. She walked through to the kitchen, nodding to herself in satisfaction as she glanced around. The shop was finally ready for its grand reopening.

The whiteboard behind the counter was filled with lists of flavours and prices. The shelves were stocked with brand-new boxes of tubs
and cones. All that was needed was the ice-cream. And customers, she added before sending up a silent prayer. Please God, let there be customers. Please don’t let this be a disaster. It
would
work. It had to. She needed to prove to everyone that she could be a success.

As Charley switched on the lights in the kitchen, she heard the bell tinkle into life. Someone was coming in.

‘Hellooo!’ called
her mother.

‘In here!’ shouted Charley in reply.

‘Hello, darling,’ said Maureen, as she entered the kitchen. ‘Isn’t this exciting?’

Charley nodded, even though her stomach was in turmoil.

‘Did I show you this new skirt? Oxfam, of all places. Only one pound and it still had the label in it. John Lewis . . . very fancy. I thought it looked appropriate, being in this bright pink. I’ve invited
all of my friends to come in . . .’

Charley let her mother witter on as she went back and forth, switching on the ice-cream counters in the shop and beginning to load them with different boxes from the freezer. She had already worked out the layout in her head and just needed to see it in reality to make sure it worked. It seemed to take a long time but finally she was done.

‘What’s the time?’
she asked.

‘I forgot to put my watch on,’ replied her mother.

‘It’s on the clock radio in the kitchen,’ Charley told her.

Julie had given her an old radio so she could play music whilst she was cooking.

‘I can’t see properly,’ said Maureen. ‘It’s flashing on and off.’

Charley frowned and went over to stand next to her her. ‘That’s odd,’ she said, pressing a few buttons. ‘It must be on the
blink.’

‘It says five to nine on my mobile,’ said Maureen, checking the screen.

Charley took a deep breath and walked around the shop one last time, checking that everything was switched on and in place. Then she crossed the shop floor and turned the sign over in the door so that it read ‘Open’. She turned round to survey the shop. Her shop. Or rather, theirs. It was a joint venture for her
friends and herself.

As Charley headed back behind the counter, her mother grinned at her. ‘Isn’t this exciting?’

Charley smiled back. ‘Very.’

She spun round at the ringing of the brass bell above the door. Their first customer!

But it was only Julie. ‘I’ve just abandoned Boris with Caroline for an hour or so. I couldn’t stay away!’

She too joined them behind the counter and they stood in
silence. But Charley’s prayers were answered as slowly the shop began to fill up. Julie sat down at one of the tables, watching and beaming with pride. Charley’s father stopped by with his newspaper and sat down at one of the other tables with a cup of coffee.

But in between all the family and friends there they came, slowly but surely, real customers. Local people, some of whom Charley recognised,
others whom she didn’t. They bought cups of tea, coffee, and yes, they bought her ice-cream.

By lunchtime, the smile on her face was genuine and relaxed. Her mother had been replaced by Aunty Peggy who was on the lookout for the food critic from the local newspaper who had promised to make an appearance.

‘Charlotte!’ called Aunty Peggy. ‘This lady says she’s got an allergy.’

Charley fixed on
a smile. Aunty Peggy’s customer skills weren’t exactly top notch.

‘Can I help you?’

‘As I said to your staff,’ said the woman, glaring at Peggy. ‘I have dairy intolerance.’

‘How about a strawberry granita?’ said Charley, still smiling. ‘That’s got no dairy in it at all.’

‘Okay,’ replied the customer.

But just as she was bringing out her purse to pay, another woman pushed to the front of the
counter.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, in a loud voice. ‘This tastes odd.’

She held out a dripping cone filled with toffee swirl ice-cream.

‘What do you mean, odd?’ said Aunty Peggy, squaring up for an argument.

‘Hello,’ said Charley, pushing in front of Peggy. ‘Can I help you? I make all the ice-cream myself.’

‘It tastes nasty,’ said the woman as Charley took the cone from her. It looked the right
colour but it had been a bit hard to scoop, not as soft as she had previously found. Had something gone wrong with the recipe?

She threw the cone into a nearby bin and plucked out one of the little wooden spoons to taste the toffee ice-cream from the tub for herself. Immediately she knew something was wrong. It tasted rancid, like milk that had soured after its sell-by date.

‘I’m so sorry,’
she said to the customer. ‘You’re quite right. Can I get you a replacement?’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said a man, coming to stand next to them. ‘This chocolate one doesn’t taste very good either.’

Charley was horrified as she took a sample from the chocolate ice-cream, which also tasted off. What on earth had gone wrong?

Then she realised. There had been brief power cuts throughout the week due
to some problems at the local power station. What if the ice-cream had defrosted and then refrozen? That would explain why it was more difficult than normal to scoop. And why some of it definitely did not taste right.

As Charley stared at the customers in horror, a man elbowed his way through the crowd to stand in front of them.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he roared.

The whole
shop came to a halt to stare at the man in the white coat which was emblazoned with the name ‘Wayne’.

‘My ice-cream van has stood on this green all summer,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t just start selling ice-cream now. It’s not right, stealing all my customers.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said the woman who had returned the toffee ice-cream. ‘Her stuff tastes foul.’

‘I think it’s the power cuts,’ said
Charley, trying to maintain some semblance of control.

‘Wayne’s Whippy is just outside,’ the man shouted. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with
my
ice-cream.’

‘We want our money back,’ came a shout from near the door.

‘Yeah,’ came another voice. ‘Me too.’

Charley looked at her aunt. But Peggy was too busy staring wide-eyed at a woman with elaborate glasses who was scribbling on to a notepad nearby.

‘She’s the food critic from the local paper,’ hissed Aunty Peggy.

Charley closed her eyes at the horror unfolding in the shop. This was a disaster.

JULIE AND CAROLINE
did the best they could, rallying around Charley with hugs and tissues to mop up her tears. Her parents told her that it would be okay, that she should soldier on and get past the catastrophic opening of the shop.

But Charley liked her own plan better. Get up, clean, come home and get drunk. Repeat as necessary.

Monday morning arrived and she went to work
as normal, keeping her head down and cleaning like a demon at each house. Then she went home and consumed most of her daily calories via a bottle of wine. But it didn’t blot out the bad memories of the previous Saturday. Nor did it help her sleep.

At Mrs Smith’s house on Tuesday morning, she cleaned the house, avoiding Mike whenever he appeared to be heading near her. She just knew he would be
waiting to laugh at her like everyone else in the village was probably doing.

Towards the end of the morning, Charley was vacuuming the hall carpet when the post thudded through the mailbox. She picked up the many envelopes, glancing briefly at the headline in the local newspaper which had arrived at the same time.

It wasn’t until she was placing the post on the kitchen table that the words
in the headline sank in.

‘
Dairy Disaster! Cones at Dawn!
’

Charley stared at the article which had exaggerated all the problems from the grand opening, including the ‘mouldy ice-cream’. It made very upsetting reading. The words swam in front of her eyes as she spotted the sub-heading, ‘
How Not to Run a Business!
’

‘Hi,’ said Mike.

Charley gave a start as she hadn’t even heard him come in at
the back door.

‘Look,’ he carried on, ‘you haven’t got time to be standing around reading the paper. Shouldn’t you be out shopping for handbags or something?’

Charley slowly lifted her head until she locked eyes with him. The wide smile he had been wearing quickly faded as he saw her expression.

‘Can we have the discussion about how useless and spoilt I am another day?’ she said, her voice
breaking. ‘Okay? Any day but this one, all right?’

She turned her back to him, not wanting him to see the tears that had begun to roll down her cheeks. But her feet wouldn’t move, couldn’t take her away from the tell-tale sound of the newspaper rustling as Mike picked it up to read the story.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, letting the humiliation wash over her. But it gave her time
to brace herself for the inevitable sarcasm about her business skills that he would no doubt throw at her.

But no scathing words came, just a large hand touching her shoulder and, turning her round before she found herself crushed against his chest in a hug. She tried to resist but Mike’s strong arms held her tight until she finally let go and began to sob.

He held on to her for many minutes
until finally she was spent and could cry no more. Mike released her then before reaching out and tearing off a piece of kitchen paper which he held out for her.

‘Thank you,’ she managed to mumble before wiping her eyes.

‘Sit down,’ he told her in a gentle tone, watching her as she sank on to one of the fancy bar stools. Then he sat down next to her. ‘What happened?’

‘The power cuts,’ she said
in a small voice. ‘The ice-creams had all defrosted and then refrozen so they were rancid. I had no idea . . . hadn’t tasted them beforehand.’

‘Well, that’s a hard way to learn that particular lesson for next time,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charley, with a shrug. ‘There won’t be a next time.’

‘Why not?’

‘You saw the newspaper, didn’t you? Who the hell’s going to come into the shop
after reading that article?’

‘Maybe not everyone reads the local paper,’ Mike told her. ‘Maybe some people want to form their own opinion and not believe some idiot reporter.’

Charley sighed. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be a serious thing anyway. It was only going to be open for the summer.’

‘It’s the first of August today. There’s still a lot of summer left.’

‘What’s the point?’ she muttered.

He reached out to cup her chin, bringing her face level with his. ‘The point, Charlotte Summers, is that you’ve still got time to convince everyone that you can do this.’

‘What if I can’t?’

‘You won’t know unless you try.’

She stared into his dark eyes for a beat. ‘Since when did you start being nice to me?’