Chapter 12
Bridie breathed a sigh and decided he deserved to know the truth. ‘I left my fiancé.’
‘The guy you’ve been with for the last ten years?’
‘Yeah – I found out he was cheating on me.’
‘What a bastard.’
There were some sideways glances from the other customers seated nearby.
Bridie wasn’t surprised by his reaction. He’d always been very protective of her when they were teenage friends. Clearly, things hadn’t changed. She could see his hand curling into a fist.
It took her back to the times she and Jack had fallen out. They’d always made up quickly, but if she’d been upset, Oliver had always taken her side even though he was meant to be both their friends, and there had been times it had been her fault.
‘So, you’ve returned for a bit to stay with your parents.’
‘Yeah. I obviously couldn’t stay in our flat, and I haven’t got the money to rent on my own.
’ Bridie didn’t add that even if her income could have supported her to remain in London – she might have been lucky enough to find a room to rent in a flat or house share – she now didn’t have an income, and she’d just eaten into her last pay packet to buy treats for her dad’s new puppy.
She had the carrier bag by her feet and made a mental note not to forget it when she left.
She avoided eye contact with Oliver, feeling embarrassed that her life in London had imploded so dramatically, even though he didn’t appear to know all the details.
His hands fidgeted with the sugar sachets.
Oliver must have sensed that she didn’t want to talk about it.
He kindly filled the silence with light talk – things about Aldeburgh, shops that had opened on the high street, and those that had closed down, and local complaints about the council’s endless roadworks.
He told her he was still teaching at the secondary school.
‘I know. My niece mentioned recently that she wanted to join your drama club.’ Bridie suddenly put her hand to her mouth.
‘Is something wrong?’
Even though her parents were at home, she turned to face him, leaning forward so he could hear her voice just above a whisper. ‘It’s not really common knowledge that she’s joining your drama club.’
‘You mean not common knowledge when it comes to your parents.’
Bridie sat back in her chair, looking at him with a mixture of surprise and bemusement. ‘You remember.’
‘Of course I remember. The times you said you were coming to my house to do homework when you were really at the school drama club.’
She hadn’t told Layla, when she’d come up with the idea to say she was round at a friend’s house doing homework when she’d be at drama club instead, that that’s exactly what she had done herself.
‘What was with your parents not letting you pursue your dream of becoming as stage actress?’
Bridie shrugged. She’d wondered that herself over the years. ‘They’d always disliked theatre for some reason. I couldn’t very well say I was studying with Jack. They wouldn’t have believed me.’
‘What – the fact that you were with Jack, or the studying part?’
Bridie cocked her head to one side. ‘Really?’
‘Oh, right – the studying part.’
‘Of course, my parents would just have thought we were up to no good.’
‘I wish we’d got up to no good instead of studying.’
Bridie threw him a curious look. ‘Pardon?’
‘Oh, forget I said that.’
She couldn’t. She really did want to ask what he had meant.
Oliver said, ‘Hey, do you remember when drama class was cancelled, and we went out after school instead – you, me and Jack?’
Bridie nodded. Of course she remembered.
It was one of those rare occasions when Oliver’s mum had been having some respite care and he hadn’t to feel guilty about leaving one of his younger half-siblings at home looking after her.
Their dad had come to collect them for a sleepover, leaving Oliver on his own.
‘Do you remember where we went?’
‘Of course I remember. Back then I thought it was the most exciting night of our lives.’
Oliver grinned. ‘I’ll say. And probably the scariest.’
Bridie giggled. ‘I can’t believe we broke into the theatre.’
‘Like those urban explorers, going into abandoned buildings and putting it on YouTube. Although I wouldn’t exactly call it breaking and entering.’
‘Nah,’ agreed Bridie. ‘I remember that broken lock on the back door. It was kind of an open invitation to three teenagers with an evening to kill.’
They exchanged a smile.
‘Everyone’s talking about the theatre, of course,’ he said.
‘How come?’
‘Strange noises.’
Bridie frowned. ‘I didn’t hear anything when I stopped by earlier.’
‘Oh, you visited the theatre today?’
‘I just wanted to see if anything had changed.’
‘Afraid not. It’s falling into yet more disrepair. Some say the roof’s caving in, others that it’s haunted.’
Bridie smiled faintly. ‘It was always haunted – apparently.’
Oliver leaned forward in his seat. ‘Remember when we thought we heard Isobel Raine’s ghost?’
‘Isobel?’ Bridie immediately thought of something Reggie had said – remarkable how much you resemble someone I once knew. He’d said her name – Isobel.
‘She was on the stage, for a while. Then she just … disappeared,’ said Bridie, repeating what Reggie had said.
‘You remember too?’ Oliver asked.
She did now that Oliver had mentioned the haunted theatre, and the rumoured ghostly presence of a young woman by that name.
‘She disappeared in the middle of the last performance there, and then the theatre just closed down,’ said Oliver. ‘Then the rumour started that the place was haunted.’
Like Oliver, and the locals living in Aldeburgh, Bridie knew a little of the history of the theatre. She said, ‘I wonder how she died.’
‘Who said she did?’
‘But the theatre is haunted.’
‘Is it? Nobody found a body, did they?’
‘How do you know that they never found a body? We’re talking years ago. When did it close exactly, before reopening temporarily?’
‘Thirty-three years ago. That’s when she disappeared.’ Oliver added, ‘I enjoy doing a bit of amateur sleuthing in my spare time when I’ve got through marking homework and running the drama club.’
Bridie didn’t know where he’d find the time for a relationship in between his full-on job, after-school clubs, and amateur sleuthing. She wondered if that was the reason he was still single.
He chuckled. ‘We were fourteen. And terrified.’
‘Whatever possessed us to do it?’ She’d thought she’d seen something, albeit fleetingly. Perhaps it was just older teenagers who, unbeknown to the three of them, had already been in there.
They sipped their coffees, thinking back to their past. She noticed he hadn’t mentioned Jack. The three of them had been inseparable once.
‘You went inside again – in the theatre, I mean?’ Oliver asked.
‘Oh, no. I just stopped outside, then it began to rain. I met a lovely old man called Reggie who had stopped outside to reminisce. He gave me his umbrella.
‘Did you say Reggie?’
‘Yes. Do you know him?’ Bridie knew it was a small town, but everyone did not know everyone else. That would be impossible, especially with the influx of tourists too.
‘Oh, yes. He supplies the school with musical instruments, visits and tunes the piano, and also does a very, very generous discount for repairs too.’
‘That is kind of him.’
‘Isn’t it? Don’t you remember him from when we were younger? He runs a shop in Cobblers Yard.’
She nodded. She had realised she vaguely remembered Reggie once they’d got chatting. Cobblers Yard. The name brought a smile to her lips again.
Oliver caught her smiling.
‘Sometimes I miss our teenage years.’
‘Me too.’
‘You should go and visit the yard.’
Bridie wasn’t sure she really wanted to. She did have to return Reggie’s umbrella, but as he said, he often stopped outside the old theatre. She’d no doubt catch him there again.
She loved the yard, and hoped it was flourishing, but the picture she’d conjured up all these years later was quite the reverse.
She’d rather remember it as it had been when she was younger.
Then again, she wanted to buy her father a retirement gift.
She had thought it would be nice to revisit the yard and spend a bit of money there to support local businesses. ‘I think I will,’ she said.