Chapter 26
Somewhere between the dressing-less green salad and grilled chicken, and the berry compote and clotted cream (hold the cream), I decided I needed some air.
Dad had gone outside to vape and Richard was having his ear talked off by Mum, so I muttered something about the ‘ladies’ and left the conservatory.
In the pub itself I ignored the signs for the toilets and found a rear door propped open into the gardens.
It was just a bit of grassy bank out of view of the conservatory, with a falling-down drystone wall to stop people going into the canal.
I stumbled over the lush, wet grass and leant my hands on the crumbling stone.
If I hadn’t left my bag at the table, I’d have called Emma.
As it was, I only had the willows and nettles for company.
After a few deep breaths of cidery autumn air, I opened my eyes and looked down at the slow, green water.
Suddenly, all I wanted to do was talk to Cooper.
‘It’s okay… it’s all going to be okay…’ I told myself softly.
‘You sound like me on my wedding day.’
‘Jesus! Dad!’ I whirled around and gaped at him, where he was leaning against the wall of the pub. ‘What are you doing back here?’
‘Same thing as you, I think. Trying to get my head around what my other half’s thinking.’ He shook his head and tucked his vape back into the too-tight jacket of his suit. ‘God love her, but your mum is a mystery to me sometimes. Like when she ordered that bloody sofa… and today.’
‘I don’t know what you…’ I trailed off at his look. Dad wasn’t the most emotionally articulate person but he knew when he was being blatantly lied to.
Dad tramped over the grass and came to stand by me.
Together we looked out over the canal and the woodland beyond.
A rabbit hopped through the undergrowth and I thought about how wonderfully simple its life must be – munching grass and sleeping in a nice warm burrow.
Sure, there was the ever-present danger of being hit by a car or eaten by a fox but that had to be better than relationship drama, doing laundry and paying taxes for the rest of my life.
‘She wants you to be happy,’ Dad sighed, and I tore my eyes away from the rabbit to look his way.
‘I know. I just don’t think she really knows what that would look like. I’m not that sure any more either.’
We stood in silence for a moment. I knew Dad wasn’t about to go delving any deeper.
He wasn’t one to invite emotional upset into his life.
But he was giving me a moment away from the table, from Mum and Richard and all their expectations.
I appreciated that. He knew something was up, he just didn’t really know how to ask or talk to me about it.
That didn’t mean, however, that I wasn’t going to ask him about stuff.
‘Dad?’ I asked, with the drawn-out cadence that still felt second nature, after years of begging for lifts, twenty quid to go shopping, or the last Celebration in the box.
‘Hmm?’
‘When you and Mum were first going out…’
‘There you are!’
We turned as one and I tried not to look as annoyed and disappointed as I felt to see Richard striding over the lawn towards us. He was smiling, but he looked a little stressed. Probably from being left alone with Mum for several minutes without a buffer.
‘They’ve brought out the desserts and I’ve got champagne to open,’ Richard said, threading his arm through mine.
There went my chance of speaking to Dad.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scurry gratefully back towards the pub.
He’d clearly sensed the weight of my unasked question and was glad to have escaped it. For now.
I smiled at Richard and let him steer me back inside.
I kept that smile up through my fruit compote and champagne, the drive home and all that evening.
All while Richard talked over ‘our’ plans for the future, the properties he wanted to bid on at an upcoming auction and all the ways we could save money on renovations.
When he finally ran out of steam – it was early evening and I was making us falafel wraps for a light dinner – I set down my spatula and took a deep breath. We were alone and there was no chance of him ganging up on me with Mum to steamroll my objections. It was time to talk it out.
‘Rich… I’m really glad you’re excited about the business and I think you’re going to be great at it,’ I began.
‘We will be.’ Richard wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed the back of my neck.
I winced. ‘Right… the thing is I’m just not sure it will be a “we” thing, at least not for a while.
’ I felt Richard tense up against me and knew he was taken aback.
So I hurriedly continued. ‘The shop hasn’t been doing great, but it’s also not on the verge of closure.
Things are actually turning around – we’re selling out of the crochet starter kits and we have an event planned.
The online store’s gaining some traction…
we’re still not there yet but there’s no timeline on when or if we might close and, before we did, I’d want to be sure I’d tried everything possible to keep it going.
For Emma, and for Lou. She knew this was my dream and she’d want me to give it my all. Not have one foot out the door.’
Richard peeled himself away from me and circled the island. When we came face to face his expression was incredulous.
‘Why am I just hearing about this now?’ he asked, eyes wide.
‘I didn’t really have a chance before…’ I began, but he interrupted, eyebrows shooting up in exaggerated surprise.
‘But you said yes?’ He let out a breathy laugh of disbelief. ‘I took you and your parents out for hundreds of pounds’ worth of lunch to celebrate the fact that we were going into business together – now you want to tell everyone that it was a mistake?’
‘I think maybe we should have talked about it before the lunch—’
He groaned like I was being annoying on purpose and I was surprised at how angry that made me and how quickly.
He was the one who’d created this situation, not me.
‘Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise, would it?
I was trying to do something nice, Tabs – now you’re telling me I shouldn’t have bothered? ’
‘It was nice, and it was great to see Mum and Dad… but this is kind of a big decision and I think we should discuss it before one of us just unilaterally makes a decision—’
‘Isn’t that what you’re doing by saying “no”?’ Richard said, waspishly.
He’d cut me off again and I gritted my teeth in frustration.
Had it always been like this and I’d just not noticed before?
Richard talking over and across me, not listening, bulldozing me.
If he was hoping I’d back down or just go along with his plans, those days were over.
I was done being pushed down someone else’s path.
‘I’m not saying “no”,’ I sighed, frustrated and clinging to my last shreds of patience. ‘I’m saying… maybe, but not right now.’
‘What’s the difference? Sounds like a no to me.’ Richard shook his head and then reached for his keys and wallet on the counter.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked, stunned.
‘I’m about to dish up.’ The first time I’d even halfway stood up for myself and he was just going to storm out and not talk to me.
I thought we were meant to be doing this differently.
That he was meant to be the ‘new Richard’ and adult.
But he was acting like the same old selfish, childish man who’d cheated on me.
‘Stick it in the fridge, I’ll have it later.’ Richard was already up and on his way to the door, slipping his feet into his gym trainers. ‘Maybe I need some time to think too.’
He didn’t quite slam the door but I winced anyway at the abruptness of his exit. That had gone terribly, but I wasn’t willing to take the blame – he was the one who’d sprung this on me.
Irritated and monumentally fed up, I ate my falafel wrap in front of the TV and contemplated messaging Emma. In the end I sent a text just to say thanks for watching the shop and wishing her a good date for that evening. She messaged back fairly quickly.
How was lunch? Fancy a post-mortem at mine tomorrow? I’m in if you bring brekkie! :)
Honestly, that was the best thing I’d heard for a while.
I messaged back in the affirmative and we set a time.
With nothing much else to do except sit and be anxious about where Richard had gone and why, I got out some leftover yarn and started working on a much-used pattern for a winter hat.
The sort of thing I could make in my sleep.
It was the perfect distraction and I let the rhythm of the stitches and the burble of the TV slowly unwind the knots of tension in my shoulders.
I might be shit at relationships and possibly also at business but at least I could crochet a hat without even trying.
I had half a hat done before my eyes started to feel heavy. After making some waffle batter and sticking it in the fridge for tomorrow morning I did my night-time skincare routine and settled into bed to listen to a podcast.
It was weird sleeping in the main bedroom without Richard there.
It took me a while to fall asleep and, when I did, I had nightmares about stripping woodchip wallpaper while Richard lectured me about our ‘business values’ and a screaming baby swung off my leggings, while another sat on my shoulders, slapping the top of my head with its chubby fists.
I jerked awake in a cold sweat to hear someone moving around in the flat.
I tensed up but then realised it was Richard coming home.
I checked my phone and saw that it was two in the morning.
He’d been gone for hours and the local pubs closed at eleven.
Where had he spent the intervening three hours?
My stomach clenched. The first thought that entered my head was that he’d been with someone else. With her. The other woman.
Was that what I was always going to be afraid of, forever?
Richard staggered in through the bedroom door and snapped the overhead light on. I screwed up my face and could almost feel my pupils shrinking to pinpricks under the sixty-watt assault. Richard, discarding his clothes over the floor, didn’t seem to notice that I was awake.
‘Where’ve you been?’ I asked, scrambling to turn on my bedside lamp and then heading for the main light to switch it off. The blessed gloom was a relief for my eyeballs.
‘At the pub with the boys.’ Richard was struggling to remove his shoes and I saw that he’d tracked leaf mulch into the bedroom. Ugh!
‘They close at eleven, though.’
‘Yeah…’ he said slowly. ‘We had a few beers at Rob’s after.’
‘Right,’ I said, wishing I believed him. ‘Have you had water too?’
‘Hmm? Ah, no… can you get me some, babe?’ he whined, pulling off his shoe and handing it to me as if he was tipping me with it.
I got up and collected his other shoe, dumping them on my way to the kitchen. I came back with a pint glass of water and set it on the bedside table. Richard was already in bed, wrapped up in the bulk of our duvet.
‘There you go,’ I muttered.
‘Thanks…’ He didn’t open his eyes, already sounding half asleep. ‘Turn that bloody light off, will you?’
I got into bed and switched my lamp off.
Lying beside Richard as he started to snore, sweating yeasty beer into the sheets, I wondered how Mum had managed to trust Dad again.
If there was a point where she’d just had to make the conscious decision to take what he said at face value.
If that was the case, why couldn’t I do it?
Why was I wide awake and thinking about all the things Richard might have been out doing?
It was a sleepless hour and a half later when I remembered him telling me that Rob was away in Tenerife for two weeks. My heart thumped painfully and I knew then for sure that Richard was lying to me. Again.