Same Time Next Week

Chapter 16

As Mel sat in the doctor’s surgery waiting for the nurse to take a blood sample and check out her vitamin levels, she picked the least tatty offering from the magazines on the middle table. She chose the glossy mag supplement from the Yorkshire Standard , which had a picture on the front of a bloke in the middle of an American diner. She knew where it was, because she’d been there, but just the once because it hadn’t been her cup of tea – a pensioner’s café, dark and a bit grotty, she remembered. It couldn’t be more different from that now. She thought it would be worth a try, a treat for Steve – and herself, somewhere new. They sometimes went out for a curry or a Chinese with his brother Dave and whichever girlfriend he happened to have at the time. They all looked the same, petite, much younger than him and pretty, and it wasn’t worth getting to know them because they’d change so often. His wife had been lovely and she and Mel had become friends, but when their marriage had ended so acrimoniously, she’d buried the whole family in the metaphorical grave with him and that was that. Steve and Dave’s mother declared her the devil incarnate because no one had ever been good enough for her immaculate conceptions: Mel included.

She decided to be spontaneous and book them a table at the diner for tonight. He’d probably protest and say he was tired, and to that she’d say that she was as well but couldn’t be bothered cooking, so someone else was going to do it. He’d grumble a bit but he’d go along with her. It looked great from the photos and there was steak and eggs on the menu and Steve would find it very hard to grumble with his gob full of that.

Her name flashed up on the moving sign above reception. Melinda English, go to Nurse Beckett’s room. She got up and walked down the corridor, hoping that Nurse Beckett would find out what her system was lacking that was causing the odd underlying anxiety that she couldn’t shake, like staring at a picture where everything looked right but you knew something was wrong and couldn’t find what. Maybe it was a new symptom of the menopause, another one to add to the list, but it was interfering with her sleep and she wanted to nip it in the bud.

She didn’t have it bad compared to some, she knew. Her memory was a bit crappier than it used to be, though she never forgot a note of music, and she got a few twinges in her joints that she knew might lessen if she dropped a stone. She wasn’t exactly ready for growing a trunk, but her BMI was in the orange sector of the chart. Then again, she hadn’t been what it said she should weigh since she was fifteen and mere skin and bone. She’d never get back to that, she’d look poorly. One of the girls at work said she was ‘comely’, like a sexy milkmaid which was sweet. And a little extra timber certainly hadn’t interfered with her love life. Her libido was still working fine, though it was a shame she was so reliant on someone else pulling it out of the cupboard when it was required. They hadn’t had sex again on Saturday. Whatever she did to try and rev him up, Steve remained as floppy as a dead snake, and when she’d said that she was going to the doctors next week and should she ask for some advice for him while she was there he’d blown a gasket. There’s nothing wrong wi’ me , he’d said, then he’d rolled rudely over and gone straight to sleep and she’d lain in bed worrying about that as well. She hoped all it would take to send her back to un-anxiety land was a zinc, a magnesium or a strong Vit C once a day.

Bradley was back from Turkey. Amanda’s mother greeted her at the door with the good news when she called in to make her tea. ‘Ooh and he’s brought me the most beautiful tray thing for bits and pieces,’ she cooed, showing it off. Tourist tat that was actually an ashtray, as the grooves around the edge indicated. It had ‘Antalya’ painted in the middle and a scene of sea and sand. To her mother it was better than a Fabergé egg.

‘Very nice,’ replied Amanda, admiring it for her mother’s sake. She needed to see Bradley and tell him what was happening with their mother’s house; the time for asking him was over. Also she wanted to see his cosmetic dentistry. He’d developed a way of talking over the previous years to keep his teeth hidden because the results of his poor dental hygiene left much to be desired, so it would be funny to see him showing off a fine set of expensive gnashers. And if that meant she was evil, then so be it. She’d go round soon and try and catch him in after work. She might even be invited in to see the new gloss white kitchen.

‘I can’t stay long, Mum,’ said Amanda, serving up a baked potato, cheese and beans. ‘I’m opening up a new club for women tonight. It’s the first one. It’s in the café that Bettina Boot used to have. It’s an American diner now.’

‘Bettina Boot didn’t know one end of a kettle from the other,’ said Ingrid with a huff.

‘Nooo. You’re getting her mixed up with someone else.’

‘She broke up my marriage to Arnold, that trollop.’

The words rang out as if they had been sounded by a bell.

‘What?’

‘It was her fault he left me. They’re still living together.’ Ingrid plunged her fork into her baked potato. ‘It’s her son that inherited his money when he died.’

That made no sense and Amanda realised straightaway that Ingrid was talking rubbish, even if a stranger would have found her statements totally convincing because it wasn’t the delivery of them but the content. She opened up her mouth to put her mother right but she went with it instead, to try and find out what was going on in her mum’s head.

‘I think they split up a long time ago. That’s what I heard.’

‘Who?’ asked Ingrid.

‘Bettina Boot and Arnold.’

Ingrid pulled a face. ‘What are you talking about, Bettina Boot and Arnold ? Have you gone daft?’

Amanda shivered. She really did need to speak to her brother about their mum. There was an acceleration at work here she didn’t like at all.

Sky sold ten of her bears that afternoon. A woman who had seen the article about the repair shop in the magazine Up North had journeyed down from Harrogate to check it out, specifically the Sky Bears. She had a shop called Plush in the centre of town and was always on the lookout for craftspeople’s wares. She had customers all over the world who would be interested in commissioning bears, she said. It sounded very exciting, except Sky just couldn’t whip up the joy today. A long bath and then a takeaway pizza shared with Katy would have sorted her out, but those days were gone.

They texted each other occasionally to check in. Katy was beyond glad she’d moved out but said she missed her, and they must get together soon but she and Ozzy were off to Canada to stay with his brother in a couple of weeks, so after that. She was horrified about Wilton moving in.

‘Sky, he can’t do that, surely?’

‘Well, I think he can really, he’s his own tenant.’

‘You have to get out of there, Sky. This is no good for you at all.’

Katy and Jordan were the only people in whom she’d fully confided about her health problems, because they’d been living here together when Sky had to go into hospital for her hysterectomy. The two of them had looked after her, helped her recover, made her meals, forbade her from lifting anything for weeks. But she’d had to give Katy the full picture of her complicated health history, over and above the need for an early hysterectomy, because when Katy had witnessed Sky having an attack of angina one time, she’d been ready for ringing an ambulance. She’d cried watching her friend spray under her tongue, bringing herself out of it. Thank god the attacks didn’t happen too often; but stress had the power to change that.

‘Sky, really,’ Katy was firm. ‘I worry about you. Promise me you’ll get out.’

‘I promise,’ returned Sky; she just didn’t say when that would be. It wasn’t so easy simply to cut and leave. She was hoping the five months left on her tenancy agreement would go quickly; she had no choice but to wait it out or lose her money and her bond and she just couldn’t afford to do that. When she’d pored over the details of her tenancy agreement, it was clear that she only had exclusive rights to her room and no say in who else lived in the house. Even if she had a case for Wilton trying to rebrand their ‘relationship’ as owner-lodger, rather than landlord-tenant, reporting him to the private housing team on the council would all take time and stir up all manner of crap for her if she dared.

Wilton was boiling kidneys in the kitchen and the smell had permeated the whole house, slipping under the gap of Sky’s door and stinking out her room. She squirted some perfume around but it wasn’t strong enough to prevail in the battle of the odours, and she felt the first pricks of the familiar tightening in her chest. She sat down on the bed: breathing deeply, hoping the attack would pass before she needed her spray. The perfect end to a perfect day .

She’d felt flat and confused earlier when Bon had told her that Mrs van de Meer wasn’t really Mrs van de Meer. He hadn’t taken her into his confidence, because she was nothing to him but someone who paid him a fee for space in his shop. Yes, he might be polite to her and make her the odd coffee, but that was all it was, and she’d be fooling herself if she imagined there might be any more. She’d stolen off home when she’d seen that Bon was on a call in his office. Usually she’d shout goodnight, but today she’d let him read into her silence what he would.

She remembered that there was a friendship club up at the new diner tonight, and though going to something like that wasn’t really what she would ordinarily have done, who knew, maybe she would meet some friends? And if she didn’t, then she could kill a couple of hours rather than spend it in the company of a yeasty, vile landlord and that smell of boiling offal.