Chapter 5
CARRIE
It was gone midnight when Carrie, still shaking, pushed the front door closed behind her with her foot, in shock that they’d found out. She went into the lounge and collapsed onto the sagging sofa. Her clothes carried the spicy smell from the nightclub’s new scent machine.
She took out her phone and pressed dial.
Ariana didn’t pick up. Carrie bit on a fingernail.
Nor did Rae. Carrie leant back into the giant avocado plushie that her best friends had bought her, due to her love of guacamole.
She pulled it out from behind her back and hugged it tightly, wishing the whole night had been some April Fool’s joke.
But she wouldn’t cry. Carrie had to be strong, that’s what Mum would have said.
Music blared as Billy next door swung his car onto the drive.
His headlights lit up her dark lounge, like a detective’s torch.
An old song came on and boomed out, sung by an indie band, The Broken Agenda – a massive hit from the early noughties called ‘You Do You’.
It had made the band millions, yet they played small venues and steered clear of red carpets. Carrie had never understood that.
That song’s words – ‘You Do You’– echoing in her head, Carrie let out a long sigh.
Had the fake account blurred the lines between the real Carrie being genuine and not?
She pushed the green plushie away and put her phone to one side.
After flicking on the nearby lamp, Carrie reached for a pile of magazines underneath the nest of tables.
Eventually she found the old magazine she’d almost thrown out, tattered at the corners, with a circular stain from a mug of tea on the front.
She flicked through until that memorable article came into view.
A glimmer of hope lit up Carrie’s features as she read it again.
She sat up all night, in the lounge, drinking coffee and eating countless chicken nuggets, re-reading that unforgettable page of the old magazine with a photo of Madonna on the front.
Just as well she hadn’t got a cleaning job on today.
Even though Mum had gone, she still had two jobs.
The cost of living wasn’t going to stop increasing simply because Carrie Fletcher was on her own now.
She looked at her phone. It was six o’clock in the morning.
Twelve hours until her shift began at The Niterie.
The sun started to rise. Her stomach churned after last night.
Carrie shuddered at the memory and got up to draw the curtains.
She gripped the magazine again as dawn spring sunrays fell onto a certain page. What the man in the article had done…
Carrie couldn’t do the same. It was too drastic. Her life wasn’t that bad.
Or was it?
Carrie found cleaning therapeutic, Jez was a great boss at The Niterie and the regulars were more like friends.
Oh, the stories she could tell. People confided in her after too many drinks, when the loud music made them feel as if no one could really hear – affairs, Botox injections, debts…
It warmed her inside to see the relief on some of their faces, to have offloaded their secrets, even if to a stranger.
The banter was great between the staff too – reception, bar workers, security, the DJs.
Jez understood that life was expensive, and punters now questioned shelling out their precious wages for blistered heels and a hangover.
So the place upped its game and brought in affordable bar food, opening much earlier at six, for people who simply wanted after-work drinks or an early, affordable dinner out.
It was located up on Wellington Road. Stockport town centre was only a fifteen-minute walk away.
Shareable fishbowl cocktails were put on the menu, and the former second dance floor that used to play a different vibe was converted into a chillout room with streamed TV and hot drinks.
Jez relaxed the dress code too – ‘just a smidge’, as he’d say, but enough to tempt punters out midweek when they were too tired after work to get fully glammed up.
It was a really cool place to work. Carrie had designed the posters for the April Fool’s party last night.
She worked in the bar, but this last year had become more involved in promotions.
Jez had even insisted on paying for her to do a short course in marketing.
She knew why. He was trying to keep her busy since losing her mum.
Then there was her home, a rented one-bed mid-terrace, two rooms up, two rooms down, with dearest Boo. Boo! How could she have forgotten him? Normally the cat went out at night, but only until Carrie got home from work.
She jumped up and went into the kitchen.
Carrie opened the back door and, despite her downhearted mood, smiled as she endured the minute-long pity party Boo threw.
Finally the indignant meowing at having been kept out all night stopped, and Boo raised his head expectantly.
She stroked his ears and tipped food into his bowl before heading back to the lounge.
Eventually the cat came in and jumped on her lap, on the sofa. Purring resonated throughout the room.
At least someone liked her.
Pity parties weren’t just for cats.
Carrie and her friends were now into the second half of their twenties and they’d still go clubbing till all hours, sing karaoke, do charity pub crawls and watch Love Island together, though not so much lately.
Life was for laughing, the three of them believed – more so when adulthood did its best to snatch away joy, with its increasing energy bills, high food prices, and cancelling of favourite Netflix series. But despite all of this…
Carrie had wondered:
Is this it?
Cleaning toilets during the day and serving drinks at night? Struggling with rent? Spending holidays in the York that was oh-so-old and not remotely New? Always out-out and never in-in with someone special who was red hot between the sheets?
Was it a surprise that she’d tried to answer these questions by trying out a different life, even if it was only online?
‘I’ve been found out, Boo,’ she said, and her voice broke.
Her cheeks flushed over the times she’d wished Boo had been a pedigree breed and more suitable for her glamorous feed, instead of his white fur with a splodge of black around one eye.
That was why Mum had called him Boo, because his face looked startling.
But was there anything wrong with wanting to taste the finer things in life?
At school, she’d had to listen to the stories of other pupils going abroad on holiday to Spanish beaches, or skiing, or on cruises.
They’d talk about their family trips out for meals, the streaming services their parents subscribed to, the clothes shopping trips and fancy new phones…
Carrie never blamed Mum, but that didn’t lessen the sense of not fitting in, of not being enough.
Gently, she pushed Boo to one side.
‘Enough of this navel-gazing, as Mum would have said.’ She got up and went into the kitchen, threw the magazine into the bin and flexed her hands.
Everything had been fine until Ariana and Rae had found out.
She didn’t need to sell her life, for goodness’ sake.
Instead, Carrie went back into the lounge and went onto Instagram.
From the Carry Away account, she blocked both of them.
She kept them as friends of her private account, so hopefully they’d believe Carrie had simply deleted the fake one, and the two of them wouldn’t mention it again.
She didn’t see why she should end her fun – nor did she need anyone worrying about her.
Carrie was her mother’s daughter and was fine.
In fact, great! She was. Darcy got it. So did all her followers.
Mum had managed a difficult life. Carrie couldn’t let the mask down, couldn’t let her mother down; she mustn’t crack. Being a survivor felt like the most important link she had left to Mum, carrying on that strong Fletcher woman tradition, as if Carrie coping, by herself, were her mother’s legacy.
She went back into the lounge and her phone buzzed. Carrie yawned, picked it up and sat on the sofa again. Jez? This was early for him.
Hi Carrie,
I haven’t been able to sleep – Ariana and Rae are really concerned about you.
You know I’ve always thought of you as more than just an employee.
I had an enormous amount of respect for your mum.
She was one special lady. Your friends feel you’re struggling with her loss and that’s understandable, anyone would in your position.
Do you need some time off work? Want a chat? Anything, I’m here for you, gal.
Jez
‘How dare they!’ shouted Carrie to the room and threw down her phone.
Ariana and Rae had no right to talk to her boss about private stuff like that – even if it was Jez.
A tide of crimson rose up her neck. Had they told him about the fake account?
A sob escaped her lips. No, mustn’t cry, mustn’t.
Boo lifted his head and she leant down and buried her face in his fur.
A few moments later she resurfaced, her chest still heaving noisily. His purrs should have sounded reassuring, but they didn’t stop Carrie feeling as if she’d disappointed everyone – Ariana, Rae, her boss and… She hiccoughed. Mum.
Carrie just wanted it all to stop.
But what was ‘it’ exactly?
It had to be her life in Reddish where everyone was going to find out she was failing.
Carrie screwed up her eyes.
She wanted out.
Out of Reddish, out of the memories, out of trying so hard to be strong every minute of Every. Single. Day.
She opened her eyes and, flooded with adrenaline, jumped to her feet and went into the kitchen, hoicked the magazine out of the bin and returned to the lounge.
She waved it in the air. ‘You know what? I’m going to do it.
This is the answer. I can’t cope with my friends’ pity, and the loneliness that runs even deeper now that the people I’m closest to don’t understand me.
Mum’s dead, I haven’t got a partner; there are no ties for me here any more – apart from you, Boo, and I’m going to miss my closest companion, and I’m so very sorry, but I think I’ve got to do it.
’ Her voice welled with emotion. ‘This article came out on Mum’s birthday and sparked a huge idea I’ve tried to dismiss, but it makes complete sense now.
It feels like fate, as if… as if she’s sending me a message. ’
Carrie went to the window and spoke to the sky.
‘I love living here, Mum, despite the lack of a Starbucks, despite how visitors might call it simply a run-down pass-through between Gorton and Stockport. There are so many memories of you – our trips to Broadstone Mill Shopping Outlet, our walks around Reddish Vale Country Park; love the ducks there, it’s so lush.
And that tea-shop, just on from the station from where I live now, that serves amazing Eccles cakes.
We went there a few times and would laugh because they are listed on the menu as fly cemeteries.
This house I rent is like home now, even though its decor is more dazzling than the sun, with the burnt-orange kitchen tiles and dining room’s coral carpet. You’d have liked its uniqueness.
‘But none of this is enough any more.’ Her breath hitched.
‘Or I’m not. I don’t know which and I need to find out what’s causing this emptiness inside.
I’ve lost myself completely since you died.
With you and me together there were, at least, bursts of colour.
Now it’s as if I were living my life in black and white.
’ Her eyes pricked. ‘I don’t have any joy, deep down – that feeling that keeps you happy, whether you’re on your own or you’ve got no money.
The older I get, the less I sense that sparkle.
It’s as if I had this amazing pot of treasure when I was little that gave off glimpses of an exciting future.
But somehow, now, it’s empty or gone missing, and taken with it my dreams and hopes.
’ Carrie laid her hand on her heart. ‘And taken those dopamine hits that the fake account gives me, the hits that make me feel on top of the world. So…’ She lifted the magazine to the sky, standing just a little bit taller.
‘I’m going to get that treasure pot back by following this man’s example and selling my life. And to hell with what anyone thinks!’