Welcome to My World (34 page)

Stella’s words brought comfort and disquiet in equal proportions and they played on Harri’s mind all weekend as she helped Rob to tidy his loft – one of those jobs that aren’t much fun at the best of times, but are somehow tolerable with two people tackling it. As a reward for their dusty labours, Rob suggested they go to the Sunday night pub quiz. Harri, grateful for the distraction, agreed and, as Sunday night approached, she even caught herself looking forward to the chance of being immersed in meaningless trivia for a couple of hours.

The absolute last thing she was expecting to find when they walked into the Star and Highwayman was Alex sitting amidst his mates with Chelsea dangling off his lap. Judging by his friends’ expressions, they didn’t expect to witness this either. They sat in polite audience around Alex and Chelsea, their faces pulled into too-tight smiles as they did their best to sustain an air of normality. Rob’s fingers gripped Harri’s in a reflex action when he saw Alex – which made Harri feel secure. She was here with her boyfriend who was proud to walk into his local pub holding her hand; the boyfriend who, in little under a month from now, would be whisking her away to an impossibly romantic Scottish castle where they
just happened
to do weddings . . .

Rob’s friends had already commandeered a table and, considering the sheer number of people seated round it, were either attempting a new world record for the largest pub team or else working on the theory that the more bodies present, the better their chances of winning the grand prize of five drinks vouchers. Cathy Simpkiss waved at Harri and beckoned her over to claim the two remaining seats amongst the throng, as Rob headed to the bar to order drinks.

‘Harri! It’s lovely to see you!’ The others smiled and nodded their hellos.

‘Hi, Cathy. Hey, everyone.’

Cathy nudged her. ‘You and Roberto look pretty cosy this evening. Anything I should know about?’

Harri could feel her cheeks making a valiant bid to match her hair colour. ‘No, we’re just happy.’

‘I reckon she’s up the duff,’ a broad guy in a well-filled rugby shirt piped up, his comment met with sniggers from the other men. ‘She’s glowing tonight!’

‘I am
not
, Trev, thank you very much. It’s just hot in here.’

‘Talking about me again, are you?’ Rob said as he sat beside her, placing his pint and her red wine on the varnished table and pocketing his change.

‘I was just saying, Rob, you two look loved-up tonight,’ said Cathy.

Rob’s arm slipped around Harri’s shoulders and she leaned into the embrace, delighted by the gesture. ‘Well, we are. Actually,’ he sipped his pint, ‘I’m taking this lovely lady of mine to a castle in Scotland for Christmas.’

‘Leaving her there for Nessie to play with, are you?’ laughed Kelvin, the tallest of the group by a good five inches.

‘No, actually. We’re having a romantic Christmas break,’ Rob replied, his fingers caressing Harri’s arm as he did so.

Buoyed by this, Harri let the jibes and jovial laughter swirl about her ears as she looked around the packed pub lounge at the other teams. Without thinking, her gaze rested on Alex’s table. Unsurprisingly, Chelsea was holding court – in her element, knowing all eyes were fixed on her as she sat forward provocatively on Alex’s lap, twisting a lock of brassy blonde hair coyly around her painted fingernails while she spoke.

Feeling her irritation rising, Harri switched her attention to Alex and noted, to her surprise, that he wasn’t in awe of Chelsea’s performance. A broad smile was painted across his lips, but his body language told a different story. As Harri tried to get a better view of his expression, his eyes suddenly locked with hers and he mouthed ‘Hi’ before Harri, reddening again, looked away.

Rob’s fingers moved a strand of hair away from her face as her gaze returned to him. ‘You OK, Red?’

Shaking the question mark from her mind, Harri snuggled against him and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I love you.’

Rob bent down and kissed her forehead. ‘Yeah, I know.’ There was a metallic screech of electronic feedback, followed by a couple of loud thumps as Colin, the larger-than-life compere of the pub quiz, looking like a radio DJ from the eighties with his bleached blond-streaked mullet, thin moustache and shades-of-beige patterned shirt, brandished his microphone. ‘OK, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the in famous, world-famous Star and Highwayman Pub Quiz of Ultimate Info-tainment. You’ll find quiz sheets on your tables, plus exclusive biros provided at considerable cost for your quizzing pleasure tonight. Please make sure you hand these back in at the end of the quiz, though, because, as you know, there
is
a national shortage.’

The assembled quiz teams laughed politely, even though Colin’s biro-shortage joke had been recycled more times than the average milk bottle.

‘Eyes down, here we go for the first round . . .’

As the quiz progressed, Harri had to resist the urge to sneak a glance at Alex. To her knowledge, this was the first time he had been seen in public with Chelsea and, if his earlier expression was anything to go by, it might be proving to be more of a trial than he had anticipated.

‘Capital of Colombia?’ Trev repeated under his breath, as the team huddled around him.

‘Isn’t it something like Colombia City?’ Cathy suggested.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Kelvin frowned. ‘For some reason I have Caracas in my mind.’

‘That’s Venezuela’s capital. Colombia’s is Bogota,’ Harri answered, loving the proud expression on Rob’s face as the rest of the team congratulated her.

‘My secret weapon, aren’t you, Red?’

In the middle of the anagram round – something Harri could never work out – she took the opportunity to head to the ladies’, leaving Rob’s team deep in deliberation. The toilet cubicle smelled of stale cigarettes and the tell-tale remnants of somebody’s rebellion against the smoking ban were bobbing accusingly in the toilet bowl. As she emerged into the relative freshness of the washroom area, Harri was aware of the main door to the ladies’ opening. Looking up from the washbasin, she came face to face with false eyelashes, fake tan and a stormy-looking orange-foundationed expression. Chelsea was
not
amused.

‘Oh, hi, Chelsea. Enjoying the pub quiz?’

‘What the hell are you playing at?’

Nice to meet you too, Chelsea
. ‘Sorry?’

‘You know.’

Harri shook the excess water from her hands and walked over to the roller towel, yanking it down with perhaps a little more vigour than normal. ‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’

‘Oh, yes, you do. Being all lovey-dovey with your boyfriend, answering all those questions and looking so smug, making Alex look at you all the time like he wishes he was on your team.’

Harri had to laugh at the preposterousness of this. ‘
Excuse me?
You obviously don’t know your boyfriend as well as you think you do, mate. He’d rather bum-walk on hot coals than join Rob’s mates for a packet of peanuts, let alone a pub quiz. They wind him up, Chelsea, that’s why he’s staring them out. It’s a ritual.’

Chelsea remained where she was, hands on hips, chewing her gum frantically. ‘Yeah, well – it didn’t look like that to me.’

Despite her steadily building anger at Chelsea’s attitude, Harri kept a friendly smile firmly in place. ‘Don’t worry, Alex only has eyes for you.’ She began to walk towards the door, but was stopped abruptly by Chelsea’s surprisingly strong grip on her arm.

‘And that’s the way it’s
always
going to be, right? Alex is mine now and he knows I’m the best there is for him. Sooner or later he’s going to get tired of his geek friends – and sooner or later, he’s going to get tired of
you
. I’m the most important thing in his life, yeah, so you just need to get over it and walk away.’

Harri’s heartbeat pulsed deafeningly in her ears. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard. Back off. The best thing you can do for Alex is to leave him alone. He doesn’t need you whining in his ear about how tragic your life is and how you never get to travel anywhere. Oh, yeah, he told me that. It’s so sad, Harri: you think he’s being friendly, but really you’re just someone he feels sorry for.’

‘He said that, did he?’

‘Yeah. He said you were a pathetic charity case and he was just taking pity on you ’cos your mum and dad snuffed it.’

That was the last straw. Burning hot anger and hurt bubbled up like molten lava deep inside her, and she felt her hands clenching into incensed fists. She had to get out of there –
quickly
– or else she might end up doing something she regretted. Without another word, she flung open the door to the pub lounge and left a smirking Chelsea assuming centre stage in the ladies’.

For the rest of the night, she sat rigidly by Rob’s side, unwilling to let anyone else see the offence and indignation searing through her like a raging firestorm. How
dare
she say that stuff – and, more to the point, how
dare
Alex say that about her, for the second time?

As she sat numbly in the passenger seat of Rob’s car on the journey home, Harri came to an important conclusion: Alex was welcome to Chelsea; it was the last time she would let him get close to her.

Viv coughs and Harri hears the chair legs scuffing on the floor tiles as she shifts position.

‘Viv, I’ll be fine. You go – I just need a little more time.’

‘Then I’ll stay until you’re ready.’

Squinting her eyes against the dull ache now throbbing its way around her eye sockets, Harri groans – out loud this time, hoping against hope that Viv will take the hint. ‘Honestly, I don’t need babysitting, Viv. I know you mean well and I really appreciate it, but I have to deal with this in my own way.’

‘You’re just like your mother,’ Viv mutters, loud enough for her to hear.

‘What?’

‘I said, you’re just like Niamh.
Stubborn
. As a donkey.’

‘Don’t you mean a mule?’

‘No, Harriet, I mean a donkey. And don’t be clever: I knew your mother a good many years longer than you did and I know about donkeys because my father kept them when I was little. Completely immovable when they want to be—’

Harri winces again. The headache is getting worse. ‘Viv, do you have any paracetamol?’

Interrupted mid-flow, it takes Viv some time to back up. ‘Well, I was just – er – paracetamol, did you say?’

‘Or aspirin. Or pretty much anything as long as it’s not ibuprofen.’

‘Have you got a headache?’

‘No, Viv, I’m thinking of topping myself with two tablets.
Of course
, I have a headache!’

Viv tuts, but Harri can hear her rummaging in her handbag. ‘You’ve become so sarcastic since you came back. Here.’

A small packet of Panadol skids underneath the cubicle door, landing at Harri’s feet. ‘Thank you. Don’t suppose you’ve got a bottle of water, have you?’

‘What do you think I am – a minibar? Of course I haven’t . . . Oh never mind,’ the chair scrapes back, ‘I’ll go and see if I can find one. Stay where you are. And don’t do anything stupid.’

Harri hangs her head.
It’s too late for that . . .

December blew into Stone Yardley with an icy intensity, stronger than even its older residents could remember witnessing before. First came the sharp frosts that added twenty minutes of windscreen scraping and spluttering engines to every car journey; a week later the whole area was shrouded in freezing fog, causing traffic to crawl at a snail’s pace due to the shortened visibility; by the week before Christmas snow had claimed the roads and pavements, bringing cars, pedestrians and schools to a standstill.

Nevertheless, preparations for Ethel and Geoff Bincham’s big day continued in earnest, contingencies being put in place daily as the arctic conditions prevailed. It was fortunate that Harri had asked Emily and Stu to help out, Stu being the proud owner of a bright red Massey Ferguson tractor complete with snow plough (which he had inherited from his father several years before).

‘Even if we get ten-foot drifts, we’ll get the Binchams to their party,’ he’d joked, patting the back wheel of the tractor lovingly.

Since the pub quiz, Harri had found a plethora of plausible excuses for not spending time with Alex: she was getting more involved in setting up Emily and Stu’s holiday business, or she had more work at SLIT, or she was spending time with Rob, who seemed to become more loving as the weeks went on. Alex didn’t question any of these, but Harri suspected he had an opinion on it that she wasn’t party to. Not that she cared, of course. Knowing that he had ridiculed her behind her back not once but
twice
was more painful than she would admit to anyone.

As the Binchams’ celebration inched closer, Harri was aware that she would have to break the deadlock with Alex – albeit temporarily – in order to assist him with the catering. Dad had always impressed upon her the importance of keeping promises, no matter what, and it had consequently become a vital component of Harri’s ongoing memorial to him. It was the reason she hadn’t backed down from the ‘Free to a Good Home’ letters, helped Viv out of her many idiotic schemes and not broken her friendship with Stella when she got together with Dan. Like it or not, the fact remained that she had promised Alex she would help. And so it was that, with a heart heavier than a concrete overcoat, she trudged slowly across the snow-blanketed playing fields and past the church towards the town on the last Friday before Christmas. Snow was falling at an impressive rate: the large, feathery flakes that looked, as Mum used to put it, ‘like they mean business’ kissing her cold cheeks.

With SLIT closed due to the inclement weather, Harri had arranged to meet Alex at Wātea just after lunchtime to begin prepping dishes for the next day’s celebration. Their phone conversation had been businesslike and to the point, with none of the usual banter. What are we going to talk about? Harri wondered, emerging onto the High Street. What will we say to fill the hours?

Only one brave couple was seated in Wātea, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and melting marshmallows, when Harri arrived.