Chapter 18
I ignored the article. Of course I did. The alternative was to open the chat and read it and then Mum would know I’d done so. Better to just ignore it. That was how we dealt with everything as a family. I’d learned from the best.
My vow to have a normal work day was being sorely tested very early on.
Fortunately, we had a steady flow of customers for once – apparently, there was a coffee morning at the church hall and it had brought in a lot of foot traffic.
People were coming in looking for supplies for their harvest display contributions.
We sold quite a lot of the cheaper acrylic yarns, pompom makers, buttons in autumnal shapes and even a fairly expensive set of ergonomic crochet hooks.
Things were looking up. I still hadn’t had time to get anything done regarding our brainstormed ideas, aside from asking Emma to arrange for her coven to visit.
The whole ‘Richard and his squeaky-bummed floozy’ thing had really ruined my time management.
Even Maeve came by, having supplied cakes and biscuits to the coffee morning. She stopped by with her Sholley packed with leftover shortbread petticoat tails and gossip. Today she was in baby-blue, from her trainers to her bobble hat, one I’d made for her on a whim several months ago.
‘I asked around about that dog you posted on the local group – no luck unfortunately,’ she said, when I brought her out a cup of tea. She was going through a stack of felt rectangles, hoping to make faux pastries for the display. ‘Such a lovely boy though – where is he now?’
‘Oh, Cooper’s taking care of him,’ Emma chirped up as she restocked the baby-weight yarn basket. ‘The guy living on the boat up by the viaduct?’
‘You know him?’ Maeve looked intrigued. ‘What does he look like? I’ve only heard stories from Margaret at the charity shop and you know what she’s like. Basically called him a drifter and said he keeps bringing rubbish in for her to get rid of.’
A defence of Cooper was automatically on my lips. ‘Not rubbish, he’s clearing out a load of royal wedding stuff, Charles and Diana. Some people collect that – it’s not exactly worthless. And he donated cash too – forty quid.’
Maeve raised an eyebrow. ‘How do you know?’
‘She’s been on the boat,’ Emma said breezily. ‘And you’d know him if you saw him. He’s sporting some very nice jumpers,’ she added, giving me a look that sparkled with a shared joke. My face felt hot – God why did I have to go and form a one-woman fan club for the man?
‘Oh! I have seen him.’ Maeve’s crinkled cheeks pinkened.
‘He came in to buy bread and I caught him looking at the iced biscuits – the nice ones I just put out for autumn. I hadn’t seen him before so I asked if he had any plans because sometimes, you know, you can upsell people if they’ve got a party coming up or something.
He just said he might have someone pop in for tea and the biscuits would probably be nice. ’
I felt my skin tingle. Someone in for tea. Was that… me? Was Cooper expecting to see me again soon? But Maeve hadn’t said anything about when he’d come in. It had probably been days ago if he hadn’t brought the dog with him.
‘Did he buy any?’ I asked, resolutely not looking at Emma.
‘Eight,’ Maeve said proudly, setting her chosen felt aside for purchase. ‘Served him right before I left for the coffee morning. He was very polite, and he said he liked my hat.’
Today. ‘And he didn’t have the dog with him?’
Maeve frowned. ‘I’m not sure. Most people tie theirs to the handrail by the front door, but some use the cage round that tree on the little patch of grass.
I can’t see round there from the counter.
So do you know if he’s planning on moving on soon?
Only I know Margaret and a few others are on to the council about him and he must have permission to be there but you know what it’s like when people start their little campaigns.
If he has to leave, will he pass the dog on to you? ’
‘I’m… not sure,’ I said, unexpectedly unsettled by the thought that Cooper might just vanish.
I’d been reassuring myself with that thought not too long ago but hearing it from someone else made it seem more real.
The idea that I might never get to joke back and forth with him again left me feeling a bit sad and grey.
‘I can put some posters up in the shop if you get some printed up – I know everything tends to be online these days but not everyone is, you know?’ Maeve said. ‘I’d hate to think of some poor pensioner missing their best friend and not knowing that he’s being taken care of.’
‘I can make some on the work laptop – right, Tabitha?’ Emma asked. ‘Get them printed at the library?’
‘Good idea.’ I managed a smile, still disturbed by the idea of a Cooper-less future. I had no right to be as bothered as I was. I knew that. It didn’t help with the twisting in my chest.
Maeve left for the bakery after buying her felt and a fancy William Morris pincushion (it felt like a pity purchase but I wasn’t turning those down these days). Emma went to the back to make a poster and I swept biscuit crumbs off the counter and straightened up the shelves.
‘Finished!’ Emma called through, and then appeared in the doorway. ‘Go have a look, I’ll man the till for a bit.’
It wasn’t as if she had to, there was no one in at the moment.
It seemed our early ‘rush’ had died off entirely.
I went into the break area to look at the laptop.
The poster looked very smart, although there wasn’t much information on it.
Just the picture of the dog, the fact he’d been found on the towpath and was safe, plus my phone number and email at the bottom.
It amused me to see that Emma had deployed some 2000s ICT lessons WordArt on it. It was very cute.
I was about to pop back out and tell Emma it looked great and she could raid the petty cash for printing money, when I heard a familiar voice through the bead curtain. Richard’s voice.
I didn’t even hesitate, just plastered myself to the wall out of view of the door, like a red laser dot had appeared on my chest. I was actually holding my breath, which felt embarrassing in the extreme.
But there was no way I wanted to see Richard right now, or ever again if I could help it.
Was this going to be my life now? Hiding from Richard like I was playing a lifelong, professional game of hide-and-seek?
‘She’s not here at the moment,’ Emma was saying – bless her, she knew exactly what to do. I was going to make her employee of the month. ‘But you can leave them and I’ll make sure she gets them when she’s back.’
I heard the distinctive plasticky rattle of cellophane against the counter, accompanied by the rustle of tissue paper.
Flowers. He’d brought me a bouquet of some sort.
Well, not ‘some sort’ – it would be Richard’s go-to arrangement.
He always went for a dozen roses (colour dependent on occasion – red for valentine’s, pink on anniversaries, yellow on birthdays) with gypsophila and eucalyptus.
A combination that I’d thought endearingly classic and vintage.
Just then, however, it felt annoyingly predictable.
I wondered what colour roses he’d picked for ‘sorry I shagged someone else on the sofa’.
Hopefully, blue – because they were as improbable as his chances of getting back with me.
‘Where is she?’ Richard asked, actually sounding kind of sad.
‘Just out for a bit.’ I was glad Emma hadn’t said the café or somewhere he could conceivably chase me down. ‘I don’t know when she’ll be back… sorry.’
‘… is she out with him – her new bloke?’ Richard asked snippily.
My sympathy evaporated. He obviously didn’t believe me about Cooper – the hypocrite!
But there was also a tiny glimmer of vindictive satisfaction.
Ha! Now he was getting a little taste of his own medicine – imagining me moving on with someone else.
Of course, then I thought about myself and Cooper…
moving on, and had to purse my lips together to contain the squeak of pure shock at my own imaginings.
‘I don’t think she has one of those.’ I could imagine Emma crossing her arms sternly, not giving anything away, and was immensely thankful that she was my friend. She’d make a pretty scary enemy.
‘She was washing his clothes the other day. Gave me some cock-and-bull story about falling in the canal and borrowing them to come home in.’ Richard was obviously not letting go of his suspicions, and whatever humility his drunken state had left him with was apparently wearing thin. ‘She moved on pretty quick.’
Un-be-lievable. The hot, flustered feeling brought on by imagining myself ‘moving on’ with Cooper (in my head we were now lying in his bed on the narrowboat, cosy and post-coital) was replaced by the urge to burst out through the curtain and slap Richard’s idiotic face.
How DARE he judge me and the speed at which I may or may not be getting over him?
He had cheated on me! Right in front of my eyes!
‘I mean… less quickly than you, right?’ Emma said sweetly. I punched the air in silent approval. Yes! Get him, girl! ‘Besides I’m sure Tabitha’s not looking to start washing some other man’s clothes for him. She’s probably looking for an adult.’
The chilly silence was so intense that I half expected fog to start rolling in through the bead curtain.
Emma had never exactly been warm with Richard but now she was treating him like a stranger at the bus stop who’d just flashed her and then offered her a pocket-temperature Dairylea Triangle.
It was amazing and awful. I wished I’d recorded it, to be honest. I felt like the time in uni when I’d drunk five Redbulls in a one-hour seminar.
I was practically vibrating with energy, and also slightly nauseous.
‘Just give her the flowers… please,’ Richard muttered. God, he sounded annoyed. Good.
I heard him walk across the shop, shoes rapping on the vinyl floor. The bell jingled and then rattled aggressively as he slammed the door. There was a moment of silence.
‘He’s gone,’ Emma said redundantly. There was a rustle as she picked up the flowers and, a moment later, she came through to the back with them.
White roses. Weirdly funereal, but appropriate given he’d killed our relationship completely dead.
Though the residual feelings of loss, anger and shame were still churning in my stomach, like an unfortunate late-night kebab.
‘You can take those, if you like,’ I said. ‘Or bin them, I don’t really mind.’
‘Maybe your mum might like them?’ Emma asked. ‘It’d be a good excuse to pop round and talk.’
I pulled a face. ‘I don’t really feel like doing that right now. Thanks for dealing with him, though.’
‘No problem. I’ll go to the library now, shall I? Get those posters printed?’
Emma took some change from petty cash and left me to it. I stuck the flowers precariously into a mug so they wouldn’t die before I could work out what to do with them. They were innocent in all this after all. They hadn’t asked to be bought by a knob.
Sitting in the back room, looking at those flowers, I thought of the article Mum had sent me. Okay, so it was poorly timed and borderline offensive that she was only worried about my declining fertility but, at the same time, didn’t she have a point?
Starting again with someone else would take a few years.
I’d have to find a good guy – and it had taken several years of dates that went nowhere before I even found Richard.
The chemistry hadn’t been instantaneous but he’d been polite, attractive and not welded to a PlayStation or the sofa.
I’d thought he was mature and thoughtful.
Maybe I’d been looking for the wrong things.
Unbidden, I thought of Cooper half-smiling at my Dolly CD.
No, a future was not built on liking the same naff music. Or books.
So there was finding someone suitable, then dating, becoming official, moving in together, discussing marriage, all those little steps to take before the patter of tiny feet.
I wanted to do things properly – if anything, Richard cheating had made me firmer in that belief.
I imagined having had a baby with him a year or so ago.
I’d be stuck right now, not even a chance of spousal support.
No, marriage first, baby after. That was the plan.
But I was running out of time to make that plan work.
Are you sure? Mum had asked. Well, that was the thing, wasn’t it?
I was sure, most of the time. When I was with Emma or at the shop, it felt easy to imagine a Richard-less future.
But around Mum or in the flat by myself, struggling to find somewhere to live now that I was starting over, I began to have my doubts.
Richard was many things, but I’d been with him for three years, and I knew him.
Right up until he’d cheated on me, I thought he was husband material.
Father material. Even now, I was looking at the flowers and wondering if I was being too hasty.
He was playing his part in the apology dance, so maybe I was being rash in not doing my bit.
Like an adult. The word sat heavy as a toad in my gut.
A boring adult, who did things because they were rational and expected and responsible.
Even if that meant setting happiness aside to settle for… Richard.
But the memory of what I’d walked in on was still with me.
I couldn’t forgive cheating. There were probably those out there who could but I wasn’t one of them and, if anyone I knew decided to get back with their partner in a similar situation, I didn’t know how I’d feel about them.
At best I’d maybe pity them, at worst I’d be disgusted.
No, I decided. Even if it was a mistake to start over now. Even if I missed the boat on having kids and getting married, as my mum was clearly afraid I would. It wasn’t worth how I’d feel about myself if I took Richard back. That was the end of it.