Same Time Next Week

Chapter 51

As Amanda poured out her heart to the women of the Tuesday club, she was wondering how she could only have known them for such a short time. This was her safe place and these were her safe people and if she’d had to describe them to anyone, she would have used the word ‘friends’ without even thinking about it.

She told them the lot, her spot-on suspicions about Bradley and the house sale and how Kerry had chosen the clothes her mother was lying in. She told them about the will that clearly stated Bradley was the sole executor unless he didn’t want to be, and then his wife Kerry would take over the duty. Her mother had left her thirty thousand pounds, a respectable figure that might make her unlikely to try and sue for more. She had no doubt it would be difficult because Ingrid would have signed anything Bradley told her to. Going by the date on the new will, his dodgy solicitor pal must have endorsed her as being of sound mind in a face-to-face assessment at a time when Ingrid was showing definite signs of mental weakness, not that there was any medical report to support that. Had it all been fair and above board, Bradley having been left more than Amanda was something she would have had to swallow, but she’d never know what might have been, because her mum had been duped by her own flesh and blood, a son she trusted and idolised – and she couldn’t swallow that, at least not without choking.

‘You could always try and contest it, after all the years you’ve spent looking after her,’ suggested Erin.

‘She might end up spending more in legal fees than she inherits,’ Mel said to that.

‘He’s going to have to pay a lot of tax on that money. Isn’t there a rule that if you’ve handed over a lot of cash but die within seven years, the taxman comes sniffing? He won’t escape them.’ Erin was certain of it.

That brought a modicum of comfort, but not enough to offset the heartless, grasping duplicity of her brother.

‘I can’t believe he’d do this,’ said Amanda. She’d vented and she’d sobbed tonight and she was full circle back to spitting like a cobra again. He’d not only robbed his own mother but cheated her out of a decent send-off. That’s what stuck most in Amanda’s craw.

‘What about a memorial service?’ Sky suggested. ‘He can’t stop you having one of those, can he? Then all your mum’s friends can come and pay their respects.’

Amanda gasped in surprise. She hadn’t thought of that. She could have kissed Sky. In fact she did; she grabbed her lovely face and laid a smacker on her cheek.

‘Oh Sky, that is a wonderful idea.’

‘Might be worth asking if Mr Hyde would take your mum up to the crem in a hearse rather than one of their vans,’ said Mel. ‘He’s a nice man, kind, he looked after my mum and my dad.’

‘Can I say what a bastard your brother is, though?’ said Astrid, crunching down on a cookie as if she were sinking her teeth into Bradley’s head.

Amanda’s mouth spread into a slow smile. ‘I’ve got a plan where he’s concerned, but let me keep my powder dry for a while until it’s in place. It’s the one thing keeping me going at present. Now, someone, please tell us some good news.’

‘I’ve got some.’ Mel stuck up her hand. ‘Steve came home at the weekend and I told him we were done. Totally finished. Didn’t want him back.’

The others were clearly confused, if their expressions were anything to go by.

‘No, honestly, it really is good news,’ said Mel. She’d give them the short version of what happened for now, minus Steve sniffing the pillows like an off-his-tits bloodhound. ‘I’m okay. I know I’ve got a hard road ahead of me, but I would have had anyway. At least letting him go won’t turn me as barmy as him staying and trying to stuff everything under the carpet. I’d have just been looking at the big mound and trying to ignore it, avoid it, and I couldn’t have.’

‘Oh, Mel,’ said Amanda.

‘I might have been able to if I hadn’t shagged the postman, but I did, and—’

‘Whoa, whoa, rewind that cassette,’ Erin yelled over. Astrid almost spat out her mouthful of coffee.

Mel realised she’d only told Amanda that choice detail after everyone else had gone the previous week, so filled them in.

‘I know in Steve’s eyes I’m as bad; I’ve lost the moral high ground.’

‘But he threw you away!’ Astrid was outraged on Mel’s behalf.

‘According to him it was a mere temporary dumping,’ said Mel to that, which was greeted with a round of gasps, ‘What the actual…’s and a ‘bellend’.

‘Did you really think he’d come back, Mel?’ asked Erin.

‘No, I didn’t. I was trying to keep my hope alive but in my head, Chloe was this sort of Cleopatra and why would he have left that to come back to me? My heart was hanging on but my brain was saying, Mel, as if . Pat told me to concentrate on my feelings, what I was going through. I’ve been doing a lot of that over the past days. When Steve told me that he couldn’t help what was happening to him and could I please wait so he could make up his mind… I think at that point I realised he had no respect for me at all. When he turned up on Saturday and I found myself going through the motions, getting a takeaway, sitting watching TV, going to bed with him, it didn’t feel right at all. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like I’d buried a dead dog and the next minute it had turned up on my doorstep, and so I’d put its food out and pulled its bed out of the bin and all the while I’m thinking that something is very wrong here.’

‘And the postman?’ asked Sky, the question to which they all wanted to know the answer.

Mel smiled, because she always did now when she thought of him.

‘I haven’t heard anything more from him and I doubt I will. Maybe he let her back in. Some people just cross your path for a little while, don’t they, like a small temporary gift, not meant to be kept. And his gift to me was that he made me realise I deserve, at the very least, respect in a relationship, and to be valued, and to be able to trust. And foreplay, I should have loads of that.’

She laughed at the round of applause that erupted.

‘You’ll be okay, Mel. You can do all the emotions in front of us all when you need to.’ Astrid leaned over, squeezed her shoulder.

‘I can help you with any divorce paperwork,’ Erin said to her and that reminded her: ‘Talking of which…’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a folder. ‘I have something for you, Amanda. I’ve asked around and I’ve emailed just about everyone I know, and they’ve asked around and I’ve collected a load of suggestions that women of our age might find beneficial in the workplace. Some are taking the piss, obviously, but ninety per cent of what’s been written makes good sense.’

That triggered reminders for the others. Sky had made notes to bring for Amanda; Mel had been asking around, too; and Astrid had a few suggestions for women who might be feeling anxious and scared about their advancing age and concerned that the clock was ticking, so maybe now they needed the encouragement to realise some unfulfilled ambitions. ‘Maybe not as drastic as buying a cracker factory, but then again… if the kappe fits.’

Was it any wonder that Amanda broke down then, a mixture of sad and happy tears and all sorts in between?