Same Time Next Week

Chapter 20

Erin felt her jaw tighten a little more with every step she took towards the teashop in Spring Hill Square, just across the way from Bon’s repair shop. She had to go in this week, no question. Molly, who ran the sessions, knew sometimes it took a couple of false starts to walk in and join them, but she wouldn’t keep the space open for her for much longer; besides, it was unfair if someone else could be using it, so she had to stop being a wuss.

She felt her feet stall abruptly at the doorway and a microsecond later someone barged into her from behind. She turned to find a man there, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase as if he’d just come here directly from a top-level board meeting. Tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed. It was his eyes she noticed most of all.

‘I am so sorry,’ he said, voice deep and plummy, pure private education. ‘I didn’t expect you to brake so hard there, though it was my fault for being at your heels. Had we been cars, I would have been entirely at fault in an insurance claim.’

‘It’s perfectly fine,’ Erin answered him.

‘Allow me.’ He opened the door and she walked forward. She was in.

‘Welcome,’ said Molly, who was standing there smiling in a way that told her, I knew you’d get here eventually. ‘Come in, give Mr Singh your orders, he’s waiting patiently for them.’

An elderly gentleman in a blue turban and a white apron with frilled edges was standing behind the counter, ready to dish up drinks and cut cakes by the look of the silver cake slice in his hand.

‘I could only find this apron today. I look like Alice in Wonderland,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Now, what can I get for you both?’

Everyone else had cake, so Erin forced herself to choose something and join in. She hadn’t been in this teashop before and she marvelled at the ambience because usually new-build properties hadn’t the time to build up layers of sediment, essence from lives, but this café seemed to already have them in abundance. She wondered what had been deposited in her apartment for the next owners to inherit and hoped that someone would come along and overstamp it with better.

Erin took her seat and the man with the briefcase sat next to her, after asking her if she minded. He put down his coffee and plate of cake and held out his hand. She noted how square it was, how strong his grip was when he squeezed hers.

‘Alex Forrester,’ he said.

‘Erin va… Flaxton,’ she returned. It had been years since she had referred to herself by her maiden name and, weirdly, it was going to take some getting used to again.

‘First time?’

‘Yes. It shouldn’t have been but I’ve chickened out before.’

‘My first time was last month and it made me realise I wish I hadn’t taken so long to pluck up the courage to join, if that is in any way helpful.’

‘That’s a good recommendation,’ said Erin, while thinking this man really did have beautiful eyes. Soft and large with eyelashes some women would have killed for. She wondered what had brought him here and guessed it must have been the loss of a wife. Then she wondered if he was wondering about what had brought her here and she knew he would have got it totally wrong.

There was a fragile-looking man whose age was impossible to guess at, because he carried himself like a much older gent but his face was unlined, at least what she saw of it since he kept his head down, unwilling to seek eye contact, his long fringe obscuring his vision. He sat away from those who were already clustered in the circle: an old priest, all in black with a white collar and a tall, straight-backed elderly lady who occupied the chair next to him. She had a long face, long nose, loose neck and reminded Erin of Lady Rosemary on The Herbs that she used to watch many years ago. She imagined when she spoke, she’d have a voice like a duchess.

She was right. Her name was Dilys, she said, and she was there because she’d lost her twenty-year old cat and didn’t feel as if she could tell anyone why she was so upset about for fear of them saying that it was ‘just a cat’ and there were far bigger problems in the world. The cat had been a constant in her life since her late husband had given him to her. He’d been a great comfort when her son emigrated to the other side of the world, taking her grandchildren with him, and when she lost her twin sister and then her husband. And Erin had listened and felt her pain because a pet had such ability to bring uncomplicated joy to a life, and a drench of sadness when it died. She’d had a dog when she was a girl and presumed they’d travel up life’s road together until the end and it had been a wake-up call to find out that wasn’t to be.

‘But something rather remarkable happened last Friday,’ said Dilys, crooking her finger and tapping it against her lip. ‘I had my patio doors open and in walked a small scraggy stray. Obviously unwanted from the state of him. Very thin, full of fleas, with grass hanging out of his back end so I presume that’s what he’d been trying to live on. Just strutted in, as if it owned the place. I loaded it into a carrier and took it to the vet. There was no microchip – not surprisingly – but they treated him, de-fleaed him and I picked him up the next day. I’ve asked around, but no one has claimed him. I have no idea where he came from, but he has stemmed something inside me that was leaking pain.’

She swallowed, overcome with emotion, sniffed and laughed at herself. ‘Silly old woman, I know.’

‘You aren’t silly at all,’ said Molly. ‘Sometimes things are sent to us that we need and who knows who the postman is.’

‘I wonder if it’s Gerald. I wonder if he’s up there thinking, “Dilys, do I have to send you another cat to sort you out? Well, here you go then.”?’

The priest nodded. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe that cat just turned up at your house when it could have turned up at any other house, but he was needed there most.’

‘So far he’s cost me two hundred pounds,’ said Dilys with a smile. ‘I said to Gerald, “I hope you’re going to send me the money for this if it is you.”’

‘You look a different woman from how you looked last week,’ said the priest. ‘If I may say so.’

‘You may indeed,’ said Dilys. ‘I feel it too. Just for a hungry scrap of fur. What magic, what sorcery. No wonder people used to think cats had powers.’

Erin had wanted a cat. Carona hadn’t so they hadn’t had one.

‘Jesse, do you feel ready to talk?’ Molly asked the man hiding behind his hair. Jesse’s head gave the slightest of shakes. ‘All in your own time,’ said Molly, who knew that he would soon, because he was here and walking in through the door was the biggest step.

‘How have you been, Father Paul?’ asked Molly, addressing the priest.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I have a new housekeeper. She’s nice, reverent, she brings a strong energy with her. And even stronger perfume.’ He chortled.

‘Well, that’s a start,’ said Molly. ‘Alex?’

The man in the suit nodded. ‘I don’t think I’ve made any great strides this week but I’ve slept better and that helps. Without self-medication, I may add.’

‘Erin? Would you like to tell us why you’re here?’ asked Molly softly.

Erin, feeling the heat of the attention, wanted to do a Jesse, shake her head and let them move on to other business. But something inside her knew better. She heard her own voice speaking:

‘My name is Erin and I lost my partner, Carona, six months ago.’

Mel was glad she’d kept the chain on because she didn’t know the person who was standing on her doorstep from Adam. A tall, lanky bloke with a Liam Gallagher mod haircut, heavy eyebrows and sideburns.

‘Is this where Steve English lives?’ said the man, in a strong Mancunian accent. He was taking the Oasis theme seriously.

‘Yes,’ said Mel, with a cautious smile.

‘Can I have a word with him please?’

Who was he? thought Mel. People didn’t tend to call up to the house wanting to speak to Steve about a job, but what else could it be?

‘He’s…’ Mel urged herself to be careful. It would be a bit stupid to tell him she was in the house alone. ‘He’s… in the bath.’

‘Is that right?’ said the man, who was quietly polite. Coldly polite. ‘He’s not away for the night by any chance, is he?’

‘No,’ said Mel, doing a really bad job of sounding convincing. ‘Can I ask what you want him for?’ She was primed for shutting the door and bolting it quickly if the man made any attempt to try to barge his way in, but he was keeping his distance so far, standing on the doorstep, feet together, hands by his sides.

‘I want him to stop shagging my wife, that’s what I want him for,’ said the man. He stabbed his finger at Mel now. ‘You tell him, when I see him he’s fucking dead.’

A bucket of cold water appeared from somewhere and threw the contents in Mel’s face. At least that’s what it felt like. She was so shocked by the words she couldn’t breathe.

‘That bloody school reunion caused all this,’ the man on the doorstep went on.

Mel could barely hear him for the blood pounding in her ears. She couldn’t move.

‘You tell him that from me,’ said the man, his mouth now a tight moue of fury. He swaggered back down her path, shoulders thrown from side to side, got in his car and screeched off. And still Mel didn’t move.

‘I was married for five years,’ said Erin, feeling the words leave her mouth, the first of a long ball-of-string of words. ‘I was… content. He was a lovely man, wonderful, we’re still good friends, though god knows how.’ She took a sip from her teacup because her throat was already dry.

‘I’d not had good relationships in my life until I met this fantastic person who ticked every box, I mean every box, except one. The “do you fancy this man enough to want to rip his clothes off” box.’

Erin eyes darted at the priest, hoping he wouldn’t start crossing himself in disgust, but he listened in non-judgemental silence as others had listened to him when he’d braved his own story in Molly’s safe space.

‘I felt lonely’ – she pressed at her heart – ‘here. My marriage wasn’t enough but it was also too comfortable to leave, and I know that makes me sound really callous and selfish, because I was. Then I met someone.’ She swallowed. ‘I’d never considered that I might be gay or even bisexual, I’d only ever dated and slept with men. But I went to a nightclub after a work event and… there was Carona. She was like no one I’d ever met before: an artist, strong, flamboyant, confident, wild. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, she impacted on my life like a freight train. I wasn’t unfaithful, not physically anyway but emotionally I suppose you could say I was.’

Erin looked up, still expecting expressions of disapproval and seeing none.

‘I’m ashamed of my own weakness, my recklessness. I knew the morning after meeting her that my marriage was over. A month later, I told my husband I was leaving him. He was more worried about me than himself, told me that I must do what I thought was right, but to be very careful. He knows nothing of what really happened after that. I’ve been too ashamed to tell him.’

Molly’s benign expression told her she wasn’t about to say anything new, that she’d heard it all before – and worse.

Erin didn’t say that she was love-bombed because it sounded idiotic, but she knew she had been. She knew that Carona had moulded herself around her, pandered to her stupid ego, detected instinctively what was missing in her life and she had supplied it by the ton. Erin was drugged with desire, a fly staggering willingly into the spider’s lair.

‘She made me feel special and loved, the centre of her world; I was intoxicated and it was fantastic. I didn’t take anything from my husband when I left, I wouldn’t have, and he didn’t take anything from me, we were both well set up before we married. I owned a house which I had rented out sometimes on short leases. I sold it, put the money into a top-of-the-range apartment with her. I was totally convinced this was a grand passion that only very few experienced. I have no idea what was going through my head. Something deep inside me must have been aware, though, because for whatever reason, I didn’t press to rush through a divorce and Carona wasn’t happy about that at all.

‘Needless to say, it all started to go wrong, very, very wrong and we limped along because she made it extremely difficult for me to leave, and she died in a car crash after we’d had an argument. She’d stormed out. The last thing I ever heard from her lips was the c-word aimed at me. She had a very fast car; she drove it stupidly at the best of times, I hated being in it with her. I hated—’ She pulled herself up short. She’d said enough for now.

‘I felt very shocked, very sad that there was hardly anyone at her funeral, no family other than her sister who really didn’t want to be there. There was no one who came to share memories of her, better memories than I had because all my happy ones of us had been stained, ruined, cancelled out by the awful ones. I’ve learned from her sister that her relationships followed a very similar pattern, except I hung in there much longer than most. If we hadn’t argued that night she would have still been alive.’

‘You don’t know that. And the accident wasn’t your fault. She was behind the wheel, not you,’ said Molly.

‘We had mirror wills. The life insurance paid off the apartment and I inherited everything of hers and I feel guilty about that because I was planning to leave her. I’d have felt much better if we’d split and sold up and just taken away what we brought to the relationship, as I did with my marriage. I think that guilt is what I feel most of all, not grief; guilt that I don’t feel grief, and that’s why it took me so long to come to your meetings, because I felt a fraud.’

‘That’s more common than you know,’ said Molly, her voice like balm. ‘And so is the impulse to spend the money in a way that benefits someone else other than yourself, to give it away, distance yourself from it. You need time to separate the money from the negative emotions that tie you to the relationship. It’s just money. You can use it to better your life when you feel able.’

Erin sniffed and didn’t realise she was crying until she felt a splash on her hand.

‘That’s exactly how I feel. I haven’t touched a penny of it yet.’

‘That’s me too,’ said Jesse suddenly, spurting it out. ‘I didn’t get on with my dad at all and I got all his pension money and his house when he died, and I don’t know if that’s because he had to give it to someone or deep down he loved me and so I don’t know what that money means and I’ll never get my answers now.’ He started sniffling, pushing balled fists into his eyes like a child and Molly went to sit with him and Erin took in a breath and realised it was the first in a long time that her lungs had dared to fill to capacity.

Mel almost staggered back into the lounge after she had locked the door. She didn’t know what to do first, she was totally disorientated. The man had asked for her husband by name, he hadn’t just got the wrong house. It was rubbish, it had to be. She knew Steve. She’d known him for thirty-one years; she didn’t know the Liam lookalike threatening and swearing like a yob on her doorstep. And she had no place believing what he said was true. How dare he say those things ? She was angry at him, incandescent enough for the emotion to bring tears flying to her eyes.

She needed to talk to Steve urgently. She unplugged her phone from where it was charging up on the work surface and rang him. He always picked up. Even if he was busy, he’d pick up and tell her that he’d have to ring her back. He’d pick up and they’d talk and he’d tell her the bloke was a nutter and he’d no idea what he was on about.

He didn’t pick up.

She rang again, let it ring for ages until it went to voicemail. The message she left was all over the place.

‘Steve, can you ring me. I’ve had a man at the door saying that you’re… saying his wife and you… Just ring me, can you?’

He’d ring back straightaway. His phone never ran out of charge. It was always in his range. She texted him to ring her urgently.

Five minutes later she was still sitting at the dining table waiting, her foot tapping nervously on the floor, her fist tapping nervously on the table and the microwave beeped yet another reminder that something was sitting inside its belly that hadn’t been taken out.

She went into the fridge and poured herself a large glass of wine, then gulped at it too fast and made herself cough. Then she went to the toilet upstairs instead of the one downstairs, knowing that as soon as she did that, the phone would ring and she’d have to run back down to answer it. It was sod’s law.

It didn’t ring.

She left another voicemail and a WhatsApp message as well as a text. And another. All unanswered. She felt consumed by panic and hadn’t a clue where to put herself to stop the tumult inside her. He must have had an accident or something and be unconscious. Maybe his phone had been nicked. What had that man said about the school reunion?

She pulled up Facebook on her laptop: Saran Sykes’s page, looked again at the photos, studied them forensically, scouring for clues. What was the conversation going on between them in that one where she had her back against the wall and was smiling at him? And to think she’d thought Steve’s unrequited crush on her was a joke. Had they finally requited it? Had Saran realised what she could have had back then and gone for it now?

She turned her phone off and on again in case somehow he’d replied to her but a glitch meant all his messages were delayed.

Steve didn’t shag other women. He didn’t even flirt, he didn’t eye up anyone, they’d had loads of disapproving conversations about his brother’s shenanigans. He was not that guy. Her head started to drag substantiating evidence from anywhere it could, but rather than soothe, it did the opposite. Is that why he didn’t want to have sex with you on Saturday night? Is that why he couldn’t get it up? Is that why he didn’t want to go and eat at Ray’s diner with you yesterday? Does this job in Doncaster even exist that is taking up so much time recently? Is that why his shirt stunk of Chloe when he came in from the reunion party, because it’s what she wears?

The questions fired at her like bullets and she had no armour to protect herself. She didn’t know what to do except stare at her phone, cry, throw wine down her neck in a vain attempt to anaesthetise herself against the Catherine wheel of hissing sparks in her head that seemed to be saying Saran Sykes on a continuous sibilant loop.

‘You okay?’ asked Alex as he fell into step with Erin as they walked to the car park.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Let me guess, you’re thinking I’ve overshared, I need to beat myself up .’

She smiled out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Yep.’

‘Don’t go straight home,’ he said, ‘that will only continue and by the time you get to your front door you’ll be looking for a leather strap with which to flagellate yourself. Last week, after I’d bared my own soul, I called in at a pub nearby and just sat and had a drink and… decompressed. I’m going there now if you want to follow me. The Spouting Tap in Little Kipping, appropriately enough. Out onto the main road, take a right, then a left and follow the road round the bend.’

And because Erin didn’t want to go back to the flat she had inherited from her dead partner and wallow in the cesspool of emotions that had just been stirred up, she said that she’d meet him there.