Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bets surveyed the front garden. The peonies were just past full bloom, their bright pink petals scattered like confetti along the edge of the path, and the lush green grass needed mowing.
She would ask George to cut the little lawn while she was away.
The thought triggered a memory, Jack bare-chested in cut-off denim shorts last summer, doing the lawn and then tipping mown grass all over her when she’d teased him that he wasn’t doing the job properly.
She could recall his husky voice sometime later, after he’d removed every last blade of grass from her skin, asking if he’d done the job properly.
She caught her lip in her teeth. One thing they’d always had was fun. She straightened her back and turned her mind to more pressing matters. Doris would babysit her houseplants but – Bets wilted just a little as she opened the front door – the biggest problem was Tiggy.
Who could she ask to look after her for four weeks? Ella and Devon had a holiday booked in a month’s time and they’d already asked Audrey and Geoffrey to have Dexter and Tess.
‘Bets,’ a voice called before she could close the front door, and, as if she’d conjured her up, there was Audrey tripping up the front path.
‘Hi, Audrey.’
‘I just wanted to congratulate you. How exciting,’ said Audrey, her face wreathed with a big smile.
‘Thank you,’ said Bets grinning back. ‘It is exciting.’ And terrifying.
‘I’m so pleased for you. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve already got someone in mind to take over the flower show and the ball.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Bets, who hadn’t even got that far in her thinking.
‘And I’ve got the perfect solution for looking after the house and dog sitting.’ Now Audrey’s face bore a distinctly smug expression.
‘You have?’
‘Yes. Jack can move in while you’re away and he can have Tiggy. It’s the perfect solution.’
‘Jack?’
‘Yes.’
Bets couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before … but she wasn’t sure. However, Audrey ploughed on in her usual bulldozer roll-over-every-objection manner.
‘It’s the perfect solution for all concerned. Especially me. He’s eating us out of house and home at the moment and I want my sewing room back. And I’m fed up with seeing his mopey face every morning.’
‘Mopey face?’ Why did she have to home in on that?
‘Oh, yes,’ said Audrey, her eyes dancing with mischief. ‘He’s miserable without you.’
Bets’ heart did an unidentifiable triple loop in her chest. ‘He is?’ she asked, trying to keep her face indifferent.
Audrey gave her a kind smile. ‘Of course he is, although I don’t think he’s worked it out yet.’
Bets hardened herself. Of course she missed Jack but she’d reinvented herself.
But things might be different, whispered a little voice.
Like they were when you went to bed with him.
When he’d worshipped your body. That was very different.
And a one-off. She had an amazing opportunity ahead of her.
She and Jack were over. There was no going back now.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Audrey said.
‘Me?’ said Bets.
‘Yes, you. You’ve not whinged or whined. You picked yourself up, did something different and created an incredible new adventure for yourself. Not many people do that. You’re a very special young woman.’
Tears pricked Bets’ eyes. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say.’
‘Hmmph.’ Audrey scrunched up her face. ‘I won’t be so lovely when you’ve gone and I’ve got no one to bully into selling raffle tickets. No one is ever as good at it as you. Ella doesn’t have the same relentless sales patter. I think most people give in and buy one to get you off their doorstep.’
Bets laughed. ‘I think you must be a direct descendant of Machiavelli.’
‘Ooh, I’d love to have a bit of Latin blood in me. I’d really love to have another go at Flamenco. All that stamping with attitude. I did enjoy it. I must get Manuel back to give us another lesson.’ She flung up her arms in a passable Spanish line. ‘What do you think?’
Bets giggled. ‘I think I’m really going to miss you.’
For a moment Audrey looked as if she might say something, her face softening, but then she said, ‘Nonsense, it’s only four weeks. It will fly by before you know it. Now, did you want my cousin Nigel to take a look at the contract for you? He works for an acting agency in Birmingham.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Yes, it was just unexpected. I… That would be amazing,’ said Bets. ‘It’s like having a fairy godmother.’
‘I know,’ said Audrey, her face dimpling with another smile that reminded Bets so much of Jack.
Except she wasn’t going to miss Jack. Or rather she wouldn’t miss seeing him every day, wouldn’t miss the internal battle not to succumb to his smile.
Wouldn’t miss the empty space beside her in bed which had seemed so much emptier since they slept together.
It took some effort to swallow the hard lump in her throat. She wasn’t going to miss him at all. Or— Oh, she was heating up already, thinking about him sleeping in her bed while she was away.
‘Is there anything else we can help with?’
‘Not yet. It’s all a bit of a blur at the moment. I’ve got the contract, though, I could email that to you. I’m a bit nervous about signing my life away.’
‘Don’t you worry, Nigel will look out for you. I’ll make sure of it, although he’s not my cousin for nothing. You think I’m an organising, interfering harpy, you should meet Nigel. He’s terrifying.’
* * *
‘I can’t believe you’re going to be a TV star,’ said Ella raising her glass of prosecco.
They were sitting in the cottage Ella rented from her godmother, Magda. It was Friday evening, and they’d had takeaway Chinese and were already halfway into a bottle of fizz.
‘I’m not – I’m going to be a glorified extra,’ said Bets, taking a sip of the cold wine, trying to play things down.
Inside she was bursting with excitement and trepidation, although she couldn’t tell anyone about the latter, they were all so excited for her.
‘But don’t tell my mother. She’s beside herself with pride.
I think her only slight disappointment is that it’s not Coronation Street, her favourite soap. ’
‘Have you had your script yet?’ asked Ella, sounding knowledgeable.
‘Yes,’ said Bets, more confidently than she felt when she thought about that stack of white paper sitting on her coffee table in the lounge.
As soon as it arrived, she’d started to read it but stopped quickly, too terrified of her ignorance to continue.
Although the script laid the story out in neat double-spaced black sentences, with useful stage directions, she couldn’t get her head around how it would all work.
Where to go on her first day? How would she know what page of the script they were on?
How would she know where to go? Would they rehearse?
Jenny had promised her a schedule but that hadn’t arrived yet.
‘And have you learned your lines?’
‘Not yet,’ said Bets. ‘But they’re not difficult. “Yes, Mr Blake.” “Don’t worry, sir. Mr Blake will look after Tibbles.” “It’s behind the carbolic soap.” That sort of thing.’
‘It’s exciting, though. Being on a television set. The whole village is buzzing with it.’
Bets laughed. ‘I know. I’ve had a couple of kids on their way to primary school ask for my autograph and then I was mobbed. It was hilarious.’
‘So what’s the deal?’ asked Ella.
‘I go up next Saturday on the train from Kings Cross, up to Leeds, and then I have to change and I’ll be met at the station in Harrogate by a driver.’
‘A driver? Get you.’
‘That’s down to Cousin Nigel. He was brilliant, dealing with the contract. I wouldn’t have had a clue but, thanks to him, I’m getting all my travel expenses paid and he insisted there would be someone to pick me up when I arrive and take me back to the station when I leave.’
‘Good old Cousin Nigel,’ said Ella, widening her eyes dramatically. ‘Do you think there are any more Ashcroft relations I need to know about? I thought Audrey was one of a kind.’
Bets sniggered. ‘Oh, there are more. You haven’t met Audrey’s sister, Ava?’
‘No,’ said Ella, with an apprehensive glance at Bets, who pinched her lips together to stop herself laughing.
‘She’s interesting. I’m sure you’ll meet her eventually.’
‘Great, I can’t wait. Any others?’
‘A few,’ said Bets, teasing her. ‘There’s time to get out while the going’s good.’
Ella shook her head. ‘No, Devon’s worth it.’ She gave Bets a considering look. ‘And you stayed the course with Jack, they can’t be that bad.’
‘Jack was worth it,’ said Bets quietly. Ella laid a hand over hers and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.
‘I’m starting to wonder if … if … maybe I was to blame as well.’
Ella blinked in surprise. ‘To blame for what?’
‘For us breaking up.’
Without saying anything, Ella leaned forward and topped up her glass. She had that ability to sit and listen, leaving the silence for Bets to fill. Being with her was peaceful. Maybe they balanced each other out.
‘I think that maybe I stopped being an equal partner. I let Jack take the lead and I stopped participating. Stopped being me. I wasn’t contributing anything. I just followed where he led.’
Despite her frown Ella gave her an encouraging nod. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Jack tells this story about one of the times I went down to Bristol. He was in his first year. There was a gig we were going to, a whole crowd of us, but we got there and it was cancelled. So everyone was saying, “What should we do instead?”’ She laughed out loud at the memory.
‘There was a bingo hall across the road. They were horrified when I suggested going to play.’
‘Did you persuade them?’
‘Of course I did.’ Bets said cockily.
‘How?’
‘I bet two of them that I’d drink a pint down in one, in my underwear, in the middle of Millennium Square, if they didn’t enjoy themselves.’
Ella burst out laughing.
‘Needless to say, we all had a brilliant night out and it became the stuff of legend.’
But, somewhere along the way, she’d stopped being that person.
When Jack had made some new friends, she’d made herself quieter and more demure.
Wanting to impress them, to please Jack, until, on her visits, she’d become happy to trail in his wake, rather than suggest her own furrows to charge along.
‘I got boring and he got bored with me,’ said Bets in her quiet voice.
‘I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘I think we both lost sight of who we once were.’
‘Do you think you can go back?’
‘I think I can go back to being me … no, not back, forward. There’s a new me.
I want more from life. Doing the stand-up showed me that I can do more than I thought I was capable of …
like being in a TV show.’ She spread her hands wide in wonderment at the turn her life had taken.
‘Whether Jack wants the new me is another matter but the really big question is whether I want him.’
She dropped her head into her hands, a slight headache gnawing at her temples. ‘Sometimes I wonder if all this self-awareness is worth it. I’m sure I was better being oblivious. It’s all so bloody confusing.’
‘Now that I do understand. Why don’t you treat this next four weeks as a complete break from everything?
Go and enjoy yourself and clear your head.
When I came here, it was a temporary escape, but a complete change of scene gave me time to think, to escape from expectation.
That was the best thing. Not doing what everyone else thought I should. It gave me clarity.’
Bets lifted her head. ‘I’ve signed the contract now. I haven’t got much choice.’ She winked at Ella. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’
‘Who knows, you might be swept off your feet by some handsome actor.’
‘Mmph,’ Bets hmphed. ‘More likely to be swept off my feet by the goat in scene three episode two.’