Same Time Next Week

Chapter 59

One month later

‘I have no idea what state I’d be in if it wasn’t for this club,’ said Mel, as they wrapped up another Tuesday. It was always too soon, however much they overran on their allotted time. ‘It gives me a place to just talk through things, put my head in order. Would I have stayed with Steve if I hadn’t met you lot?’

‘To be fair,’ said Sky, claiming another of Ray’s cookies, ‘I think you’ve got the postman to give all the credit to for that.’

‘Do you ever hear from him, Mel?’ asked Amanda.

‘Naw,’ replied Mel. ‘I wish I’d bump into him. I deleted his number on my phone, which was the right thing to do because I’ve been tempted too many times to… see how he was.’ She didn’t know if he and Chloe had got back together. She presumed so, seeing as he’d never got in touch either. But wherever he was and whoever he was with, she hoped he was happy.

‘Is Steve still at his mother’s?’

‘For now, yes. Did I tell you that I saw her in Sainsbury’s and she walked past me as if I was invisible. Everything will be my fault. She’d blame me for the Falklands War if she could. I don’t think she ever forgave me for having a faulty womb and not giving her grandchildren. Damaged goods.’

‘Oh, Mel,’ Sky gasped. ‘Then you’re well shot of the lot of them.’

‘I’m packing up my things. Steve’s going to buy me out. He asked if I wanted the house but I don’t, so he’s having it.’

‘I hope he’s being fair,’ said Amanda.

‘Very, actually. We’ve managed to save ourselves a few bob with the solicitor and work out an amicable split. He did ask me at the weekend if I still wanted to go through with it.’

‘Oh my god, Mel,’ said Sky, open-mouthed. ‘And you said…?’

‘Do you really have to ask?’ Mel tutted. She’d been as open-mouthed as Sky when he’d said it. But she was no one’s plan B.

‘I want to start again, I’m only fifty-four, it’s the new fifty-three.’ She laughed and they laughed with her. ‘I’m going to have a music room in my next place.’

‘We’re coming to your first gig, you know,’ said Amanda.

‘That would be good, because I’m worried no one’s going to turn up to watch a whole load of menopausal women banging out rock music, even if it is for a good cause.’

‘I am going to distribute the flyers everywhere,’ said Astrid, picking up some from the batch that Mel had brought with her. ‘May I also say, you look very hot on them.’

‘I don’t look too shoddy, do I?’ said Mel with a grin. ‘Thank the god of photoshop.’

‘I can’t see much change between this and that,’ replied Astrid, flicking her finger from the flyer to Mel in person. ‘See what I did there.’

Astrid could easily imagine Mel on stage. She oozed confidence these days, flicking her red hair over her shoulder like a supermodel. She didn’t look like the same person now as the one she’d been when they’d first met. Astrid wasn’t the only one either who wished she’d bump into the postman again and be injected with his joy syringe. They were still laughing about the lie she’d told her husband about having SLUT in raised lettering on her bum. She deserved better. They all deserved the best.

‘Have you heard any more about your dad, Sky?’ Mel asked her.

‘No, it’s all under wraps now, a big police investigation is going on.’ She’d had a visit from a retired policeman who’d wanted to tell her to her face that he had never believed her father was involved, but was always convinced that Sutton was the man they were looking for. He’d been waiting for it to come out for fifteen years. And he hadn’t been alone in his suspicions.

‘What about the press? Have they been in touch yet?’ Amanda bet they had, sniffing around what was going to be a huge story.

‘Oh yes. I’ve been told not to talk yet, but trust me, I will be making sure that every rotten story about my dad over the years is overwritten with the truth.’

She smiled and her friends smiled back at her. No one mentioned it for fear of embarrassing her but Sky had colour in her cheeks, they were flush with life and happiness. This wonderful knight of hers had done a magnificent repair job on her. Probably his best to date.

‘I’m presuming Angel Sutton hasn’t been back in the shop this past month?’ asked Erin.

‘Funnily enough, no.’

‘Same time next week then, ladies?’ Amanda enquired of them.

‘Same time next week,’ Mel stuck up her thumb.

‘Definitely,’ Erin nodded.

‘Of course,’ said Astrid, as if it could be in any doubt.

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ replied Sky.

Erin caught up with Sky outside.

‘I know I’ve said it before but I really couldn’t be happier for you and Bon,’ she said. She’d always listened to Bon’s advice and, for once, he had listened to her and he’d been right to.

‘Thank you,’ said Sky awkwardly, because she still felt odd talking to Bon’s ex-wife about them, even though Erin had been genuinely delighted for them from the off. Sky had told her before she’d said anything to the others as a matter of courtesy. Erin had shrieked and hugged her but it didn’t make it any less weird. ‘It’s a bit of a funny situation, isn’t it?’

‘Life is a funny situation, Sky, it’s messy and complicated but sometimes things turn out just as they should,’ said Erin. ‘I moved on a long time ago from Bon. And I’m in the right place now. Well, so far, so good. And I am no longer using the name Mrs van der Meer anywhere, by the way. I’ve changed everything officially, so if Bon pops the question you’ll be the only one on the scene.’

Sky chuckled, at the same time dismissing it with, ‘He won’t.’

‘Oh, he will,’ said Erin. There was nothing surer. And she would be the first to congratulate them.

The diner had emptied when Amanda took the last of the coffee pots through. They’d all drunk far too much of it, none of them would sleep tonight.

‘I would love to sit in with you sometime,’ said Ray. ‘What do you all find to laugh about so much?’

‘Oh, just life,’ said Amanda, because laughter took the sting out of hurty knees and hurty hearts – and hurty brothers. Bradley had been in touch with her twice in the past month, via his dodgy solicitor mate, Johnny. The first letter accused her of stealing from him because the tin had been promised to him by their mother and he was going to sue her. And Amanda had wished him luck because she knew he had the tin, she’d got a video of him finding it under the floorboard. Goodbye. The contents, however, were a different matter; no one had asked her to hand over those. And goodness me, the price gold fetched these days. Her dad really had been able to look after her in the end.

The second letter stated that Bradley and his wife were severing all contact with her forthwith and demanded she give him their mother’s ashes. They were already in the sea in Blackpool, where Ingrid and Arnold had honeymooned, Amanda thought she’d have liked that. Luckily, she had kept the emptied urn, not really knowing what to do with it. She’d filled it up with ashes from her woodburning stove and threw in some chicken bones for good measure before dropping the consignment off on Bradley’s doorstep. She wished she had a camera trained on him for when he took that lid off. The Tuesday club had split their sides when she’d told them this. It nearly topped the brick in the biscuit tin, but not quite.

‘How have you been?’ asked Ray tenderly in his gorgeous southern drawl. ‘I’ve kind of left you alone, I knew you had a lot going on.’

‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘Really.’ She still had some things going on because she had a solicitor of her own looking at her mother’s financial situation. It would be too costly to pursue too far really but she knew that it would send Bradley’s bowels into spasm when a solicitor’s letter from her side popped through his letter box, asking for further information.

According to Dolly, who had turned into the bastard child of Agatha Christie and Arthur Scargill because she’d become obsessed by what Bradley had done and was determined to see him suitably punished, he wasn’t having too good a time of things. People from the coffee shop had picketed outside both Big Baps shops with placards saying various things on the theme of Bradley being a thief who cheated his own mother out of her house and savings to buy the shops and their Mr-and-Mrs matching teeth. And that the poor old lady had died from the stress, because there was always someone who liked to add a bit extra to make a story extra spicy. Some of the staff had walked out because they didn’t want to work for someone like that, and Bradley and Kerry had been forced to roll up their sleeves and make the sandwiches themselves. Except they had no customers to serve either, because people didn’t want to buy their snap from mother-abusers and they often had a lot of paint and eggs to clear up from their windows in the mornings.

Dolly had also heard that both Bradley’s and Kerry’s teeth were giving them a lot of gyp. It appeared that the cheap Turkish dentist had sold them turkeys.

‘When are you coming to work for me, then?’ said Ray.

‘I’ll be made redundant in the next couple of months, then I’m going to weigh up my options,’ she replied.

‘Am I one of those options?’ he asked.

If only he meant it in a different way from making cakes for him, she thought. Ray Morning – he was so well-named, Texan rays of bright morning sun brought to Barnsley. He made her smile every time she saw him, he turned on a warm light inside her heart.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’

‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot,’ he said.

That came from left field and she wasn’t sure what he meant.

‘Have you? Why?’

‘You see…’ He edged a little closer, forcing her to take a step back. ‘I give you free dessert whenever you want, I give you a room to hold your club in, I make cookies for you and bring in coffee, I cooked you dinner, I massaged your neck when you said you were in pain. I gave you my phone number in case you needed me and… I don’t know how many more hints I have to give you before you get the message. I really thought that English women did nuance.’

Her back was against the counter, she couldn’t go any further.

His eyes were locked onto hers, gorgeous blue eyes that weren’t saying to her that what he most wanted from her was to make some buns for his customers to take away.

‘May I…?’ he asked, edging closer still.

Was he really asking what she thought he was asking?

It turns out that he was.