Chapter 2
2
JOEL
The one o’clock announcement hadn’t gone down well with my team or anyone else at Claybridge Fresh Foods. I spent the rest of the shift fielding questions and hated that I couldn’t offer anything other than what Eloise and Jeremy had told me earlier – you know as much as I do .
Half an hour after the shift ended, my mood dipped even further as I pulled up to my house on the outskirts of Reddfield in East Yorkshire. Chez’s rusting old banger was on the drive and there were lights on in the house which could only mean one thing – he’d broken up with Lorna yet again, he needed a place to stay and had moved himself back into my place without asking me if it was okay to do so.
There were fourteen and a half years between me and my nineteen-year-old brother Chester, although I sometimes felt more like a parent than a brother to him, giving him a place to stay, feeding him and occasionally lending him some cash to tide him over to payday – money which never got repaid.
Our parents had sold the family home and emigrated to Portugal a couple of months before Chez’s seventeenth birthday, and he’d moved in with me at the time. Emigrating had always been their dream, but it had happened several years sooner than expected after Uncle Alvin collapsed at the restaurant – mild heart attack – and the brothers decided it was time to call it a day before Dad went the same way. The move had absolutely been the right thing for my parents as they’d both needed to slow down. The warmer climate was also so much kinder on Mum’s arthritis.
Chez had struggled with depression since hitting his teens and our parents would never have left if they’d thought he was still in a bad place, but a combination of leaving education, securing an apprenticeship as a car mechanic and professional treatment had had a positive impact on him. I could clearly see how his CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy – had helped move his mindset away from always focusing on the negatives and going on a downward spiral every time depression took hold.
The thing that didn’t help was Chez’s relationship with Lorna. She’d been his on-off girlfriend since they were fifteen and, despite four years together, she still struggled with his depression. When it was heightened, she took it personally, thinking Chez was in a bad mood with her. Her hot temper and speak-now-think-later approach had led to the end more times than I could remember, but they always gravitated back to each other. I wished they wouldn’t. I liked Lorna, but I worried for the toll that each break-up took on my brother and couldn’t help thinking they might be better off calling it a day once and for all.
I parked in front of the house and switched off the engine, but I stayed where I was. After the day I’d had, all I really wanted to do was take a hot shower, crack open a beer, heat up a casserole and sink onto the sofa in front of a film. But now Chez was back, so I’d need to be strong for him while he offloaded and sound positive and upbeat while I heaped on the reassurance when, right now, I didn’t feel any of those things.
In the porch, I picked up the post without glancing at it and stepped into the hall, cursing as I collided with several boxes dumped in the middle of the floor.
‘Chez!’ I called, keeping my tone light when I really wanted to shout at him for being so inconsiderate.
No answer. I picked my way through the bags and boxes and went into the lounge but there was no sign of him in there or the kitchen. Dumping the post on the kitchen worktop, I backtracked and stomped up the stairs towards the smallest bedroom which he used when he stayed with me. As I passed Imogen’s bedroom, my ears pricked up at a low groan. Heart pounding, thinking Chez must be hurt or ill, I pushed open the door. But my brother was far from hurt and clearly he hadn’t split up with Lorna. I dashed back onto the landing.
‘You have thirty seconds to get dressed and out of my daughter’s bedroom.’ The volume and tone could have left them in no doubt about how disgusted I was with them.
Lorna squealed, Chez swore and I slammed the door and ran down the stairs, absolutely seething. Imogen’s room? Imogen’s bed? How could they? It was such a betrayal of trust.
My teeth ground as I unloaded the dishwasher with a lot of clattering of pots and slamming of cupboard doors. What a mug I was for staying in my car trying to push aside my crap day, preparing myself to be there for my brother and whatever had gone wrong for him, when all the while he was doing that !
‘Lorna’s gone,’ Chez said, appearing in the kitchen doorway a little later wearing just his trunks and a T-shirt, his dark hair dishevelled.
‘Good.’
‘Sorry, bro.’ But he didn’t look sorry. He looked very pleased with himself, which inflamed me further.
‘I hate it when you call me that,’ I snapped, even though it didn’t really bother me.
Chez held his hands up in a surrender position. ‘Woah! Chill your beans.’
Being told to calm down had the opposite effect. ‘You think this is funny?’
‘I think your reaction’s funny. Your face is nearly purple.’
‘And you don’t think that’s justified? Using my bed would have been bad enough but using Imogen’s? That’s disgusting! Get upstairs, get her bed stripped and washed.’
‘Oh, come on, Joel! We didn’t even get to?—’
‘No details!’ I shouted. ‘Washing! Now!’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘I’m deadly serious! She’s staying tomorrow night so I want her bedding clean, dry and changed before then.’
‘Jeez,’ he muttered.
‘And get your crap shifted out the hall too. I nearly broke my neck tripping over it.’
Without another word, Chez left and I swore under my breath. Could have handled that a lot better. But I’d been so mad at him for demonstrating such a lack of respect, especially when the bed in his room was made up. It was as though they’d been unable to contain themselves and had tumbled into the first bedroom they’d reached. Or they’d done it deliberately, thinking it would be a thrill. I hated that I’d yelled as there were better ways of expressing displeasure and that was the road I usually walked. If I hadn’t had such a lousy day, I’d have been fuming and I’d have left Chez in no doubt as to how unimpressed I was, but I’d have delivered that message in a calm and considered way.
Chez reappeared with a bundle of bedding and shoved it in the washing machine. I could feel his anger radiating towards me which was rich after what he’d done.
‘Why are you here anyway?’ I asked. ‘I assumed you’d split up with Lorna but…’ There was no need to finish that sentence.
He set the machine away and straightened up, glaring at me. ‘Oh! So you’re interested now?’
‘Cut the sarcasm, Chez.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve fallen out with Harry.’
I hadn’t been expecting that. ‘Why?’
‘Because of Deana, the bi?—’
‘Chez!’ I cried. ‘Stop calling her that.’
‘Well, she is.’
Shortly after Mum and Dad emigrated, Chez had decided he didn’t want to live with me and moved in with his best mate. Harry’s parents had bought the flat when he was young and rented it out, always intending for their son to move into it when he was ready to leave home. Chez paid him a nominal rent and they shared the bills. A year on, Lorna and Harry’s girlfriend, Fern, had both moved in with the lads. I’d expected there to be tension but it worked surprisingly well, even when Chez and Lorna had one of their break-ups. Harry and Fern didn’t take sides, and Chez and Lorna took it in turns to move out so it was all reasonably amicable. But then Harry and Fern split up last year and, over the summer, Harry’s new girlfriend, Deana, who was four years older than the others, moved in. According to Chez, Deana was petty, unreasonable and completely took over, but Harry idolised her and went along with whatever she wanted. If that was true, I wasn’t surprised it had caused tension between the lads, but I’d never thought it would lead to them actually falling out.
‘I’m really sorry about you and Harry,’ I said, my voice gentle, ‘but that doesn’t excuse what you did just now. You and Lorna were bang out of order.’
He at least had the decency to look shamefaced about it. ‘Sorry. It won’t happen again.’
‘Damn right it won’t.’
‘So, erm… am I okay to stay here for a bit until Lorna and me find a place of our own?’
‘You’re looking for somewhere together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Just the two of you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And how will you afford the rent next time you split up?’
Chez glared at me, his jaw tight. ‘Who says we’re gonna split up?’
‘You always do.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he muttered, shoving past me and storming upstairs.
I sank back against the worktop with a sigh. That hadn’t gone well either, even if I’d only spoken the truth.
My eyes rested on the pile of post I’d dumped earlier and I flicked through it – pizza menu, credit card circular and… I ripped open the white linen envelope, removed the card and my heart sank as I scanned down the contents.
Save the Date
Nathan ‘Snowy’ Oakes & Zara Timmins
Saturday 16 October
Aversford Manor, East Yorkshire
Invitation to follow
I removed a spare pushpin from the cork noticeboard on the kitchen wall and stabbed it through the card, sighing as I pinned it alongside four other wedding invitations for this year and a save-the-date card for next. I hadn’t been to a wedding in years and now I was going to six in the space of fourteen months. Six! It seemed like everyone I knew had met someone special and was settling down while I remained hopelessly single.
Zara was a good friend of mine but, if we hadn’t both been so slow at acting on the attraction we felt towards each other when we first met, it might have become something more. Although even if it had, it probably wouldn’t have lasted because I couldn’t imagine anyone being more perfect for her than Snowy. Zara had once told me that she thought the pair of them had been destined to meet and, seeing them together over the past two years, I was inclined to agree. Was there someone out there who I was destined to meet? I hoped so. I was okay with being single most of the time but, on days like today, I missed returning home to a hug and some reassurance.