Chapter 8
Cherry
In the Scotland of Cherry’s memories, warm and sunny days like today took on a starring role, the rainy ones sheltering in the wings. Why was it she could only remember pleasant weather from the past yet a mixture of good and bad memories?
Still, she was grateful for the sunshine. And the walking sunshine in six-foot-four human form had gone to work. Something about getting back into the swing and giving her some space.
‘Feel free to make dinner if you like,’ he’d said, unaware of the implications of that suggestion.
‘There’s a handy wee shop on the high street until I can get to the supermarket in Campbeltown.
But don’t engage the wifies working there with any chat about us, please, or it’ll be over town in five seconds flat. ’
Now, Cherry nursed a coffee at the window as she watched soft summer waves roll gently towards the Kinshore sands partly shielded by the mounds of grassy dunes.
Sunlight danced on the expanse of stiller waters, glimmering all the way to the horizon.
Her old life was out there somewhere. The shuffling of cards replaced by the rush of the ocean, the artificial casino lights swapped for Scottish sunshine, and a poker player in transit now in a very small Scottish village.
Don’t get used to it. You’re not staying.
Where was she going, though? The touring circuit was unappealing, but would settling in her old home of Edinburgh be any better? All her friends there were on the mummy circuit. What circuit was Cherry on?
The one for childless female poker players the wrong side of thirty-five that no one else is on.
Cherry’s female poker contemporaries were either disappearing to start families or young enough not to have to think about it.
It was a lonely place to be. A friend to whom she could relate would be so welcome.
She emailed the CEO of a charity poker tournament company with a list of potential players for the tournament. Sean’s brother, Jamie, was happy for the distillery to host the event, so that took care of a venue.
Like dust before a tornado, a name swirled in her mind, and her finger circled over his number in her phone.
It was a gift having an ex-boyfriend as famous as this one, but Campbell Duff, Scot and Hollywood movie star, was not someone Cherry needed to reunite with.
Then again, his attendance would be such a draw for the tournament. For charity. For Sean.
She could message and ask him right now.
But if she saw Campbell, she wouldn’t be able to resist asking him questions about the past that, given her current predicament, bore too much weight. She and Campbell had only been together for eighteen months ten years ago, but they hadn’t been without their ups and downs.
Maybe tomorrow.
There was one other thing Cherry didn’t want to do. But she knew she had to.
Annul the marriage.
Start loading the caravans to take the Cherry circus out of town.
Turning her attention to the page she’d skimmed over the previous day, she learned that there was no such thing as a marriage annulment in Scotland, only the voiding of said union.
The grounds for this were not applicable to her and Sean; they were both of legal age, both had consented to the marriage and, as far as she knew, there were no hidden diseases or gender transitions.
And she definitely wasn’t pregnant by someone else.
There was only one criterion on which they could ask a court to declare their marriage void. That they had not yet consummated it.
Thank God they’d managed somehow not to sleep together. The struggle of restraint might have saved them a bunch of time, and the hassle and expense of divorce.
Although, how would anyone know if they’d slept together or not?
Because you stand in a room with the man and it’s like the place is on fire. Any judge would see the electrical surge between you both and assume you’ve done the deed.
Would it be better to actually sleep together and get rid of some of that sexual tension?
Cherry laughed out loud at her own idea.
The stupidest she’d ever had. Sex with Sean would not be like a coffee shop loyalty card – do it five times, get it out of your system and claim your gift of a voided marriage.
Sex with Sean would lead to a serious addiction far worse than caffeine.
One she would not be able to walk away from, in either the short or long term.
With the chemistry between them and the goods his Butler DNA granted him, there was a fair chance she’d be unable to stand up for quite a few days afterwards, let alone walk away.
She downloaded and printed off the annulment form, dread drifting in like sea fret as she leafed through the sheets. How did people do this after ten, twenty years of marriage? She’d been married a few days, and reading these pages threw up a mess of regret, fear and sadness.
Nonetheless, she found a pen and filled in all the fields. Checked the fees. Ugh! But she could afford it. She left the forms by the printer in the far corner of the lounge for Sean to check over.
After a brisk walk along the beachfront, Cherry was warm enough to tie her cardigan around her waist. Now in skinny jeans and a low-cut vest top, accessorised with a baseball cap and sunglasses, she possibly suited the poker table more than a wee Scottish village.
Kinshore was a criss-cross of quaint thoroughfares and smaller cobbled laneways.
The main street was lined with the usual Scottish village fare of grocer, baker, butcher, coffee shop, charity shops and a smattering of independents, but there was something different about this place.
A tangible character. A warmth from more than the sunshine.
People smiled and said hello as if they’d known her all their life.
As if she belonged here.
Imagine.
Sean had said he’d be home at five-ish – plenty time to get some groceries in and make something basic. Her cooking was nothing to write home about, but she could throw together some ingredients into the resemblance of a meal. If it was truly awful, she’d buy him a takeaway.
Cherry found the small grocery store Sean had mentioned. She would grab stuff for a simple pasta dish – within her limited cooking range.
Tinny pop music filtered through the shop’s speakers. Behind the counter, two middle-aged ladies were masquerading as hard-working employees whilst swapping gossip. These must be the ‘wifies’ Sean had mentioned. The first win was that they appeared not to notice as Cherry strolled in.
Up the first aisle of the store she moved, stopping to examine the pasta sauce. Tomato and basil or tomato and garlic – how to choose? Maybe some olives would brighten things up.
As she was picking up a jar of sauce to see if there were any more exotic ingredients hidden within, conversation floated over the shelves, nearly causing the jar to slip from her hand.
‘Aye, so I hear Sean Butler got married after five minutes, to some woman he met at Callum’s wedding in New York. He’s clearly taken Jimmy’s death worse than any of us thought.’
All the muscles in Cherry’s neck tensed. Wow! News sure does travel on rails around here.
‘Aye, trauma does funny things to folk. Poor wee Sean. Although, he’s not that wee anymore. Still, I cannae help but think of him as wee.’
Poor wee Sean? What the…?
‘Aye, and poor Amanda. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate without having to worry about her son’s love life.’
Why would Sean’s mum need to worry about his love life?
Cherry gripped the pasta sauce jar so hard that it was at risk of nearly slipping again.
The sensible thing to do would be to return it to the shelf and leave before she heard something even more incendiary.
But her shoes appeared to be glued to the floor.
‘I’m giving it one month.’
Cherry’s nostrils flared. One month. The fucking cheek of it. They had agreed to at least two. These idiots talked about Sean as if they knew his mind better than he did. It wasn’t his fault that she had doubts about her own suitability as a wife.
‘The thing about Sean Butler is he doesn’t think things through,’ the sharper-voiced of the two women said.
‘He’s always had a weakness for the ladies who drop at his feet.
I mean, I cannae blame them, seeing as how he looks – the spit of his father when he was young – but he’d do well to recognise that he can hold out for the cream of the crop.
No need to drop to his knees for the first woman outside of Kinshore to bat her eyes at him. ’
Oh, right, so Sean couldn’t possibly have chosen the ‘cream of the crop’ for himself.
‘I heard she’s a poker player. How’s that going to work, with her away all the time in casinos?’
Had these women been talking to her mother?
‘Sean needs a good village girl to keep him right.’
Oh, does he now? She’d raise their good village girl.
Cherry chucked the pasta sauce into her basket, along with some spaghetti and a tub of antipasti from the chiller cabinet.
As she reached the top of the aisle, the chat moved onto Sean’s brothers – how none of them had chosen village girls, blah, blah.
Jesus, she didn’t blame them if this was what the village women were like. Wait until she reached the checkout. Yes, Sean had said not to engage them in conversation, but this…this had to be addressed.
Then, as she was passing the second aisle, Cherry spotted something that lit her neural pathways like an airport runway at night.
Something that would do most of the talking for her.
In one stride, her basket was lined up under the shelf, and she was pulling forward what must have been around thirty packets of condoms. This silly wee shop was about to be cleared of all its regular, ribbed, extra-large and extra-durable latex contraception.
Cherry strutted to the counter, where the women were still working their jaws, now onto Lorraine Kelly’s anti-ageing regime.
When they saw Cherry, their focus shifted.
Who was this provocatively dressed woman?
What was she doing in Kinshore? And why did her basket contain the incongruous mix of pasta ingredients and an excessive supply of condoms?
‘Afternoon!’ Cherry dropped her basket onto the counter.
‘Oh, good afternoon. Did you find everything you needed?’ One of the women, whose name badge said ‘Elaine’, flitted her attention back and forth between Cherry and her shopping.
‘Yes and no.’ Cherry seized this opportunity. ‘You don’t have any more of these, do you?’ She pointed to the contents of her basket.
‘Do you mean the…?’
‘The condoms, yes.’
‘No, I’m afraid everything you see is out.’
‘Ah, shame. You may think it’s a little excessive, but it’s my husband, you see.’ God, she loved that word. ‘He’s kind of…insatiable.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Elaine laughed with little conviction and began scanning the items in Cherry’s basket, handling the condoms as if they were used versions retrieved from the pavement.
Cherry thought it was hilarious how the women were more than happy to chat non-stop about someone else in public, but when that person’s wife did the same, suddenly awkwardness took hold.
‘Are you visiting Kinshore?’ the other woman, Shona, asked.
‘No, actually, I live here now. Just moved. Just married, in fact.’ Cherry met the woman’s eye and smiled with saccharine grace.
She watched the recognition hit. It was beautiful.
‘And you’re right,’ she added. ‘He’s not so wee. So I probably won’t need these.’ One packet at a time, she lifted the regular-sized condoms out of the basket, piling them into a phallic-shaped tower on the counter.
Elaine, now utterly perplexed, scanned through every box of extra-large, large and durable condoms, and packed them into a bag. The total price was eye-watering, but it was so worth it to see their faces almost collapse in on themselves.
After swiping her Visa card, Cherry peered at the women’s name badges as if she hadn’t already clocked who they were. ‘It was lovely to meet you…Elaine…Shona. I’ll tell Sean you were talking about… I mean, asking for him.’
And before they had time to reply, Cherry had spun away and left the shop.
In the street, she stopped and realised how intensely her heart was beating. The rush of reckless energy. Fuck! Some people thought life in a small town was boring, but who needed to visit the Taj Mahal or sleep with a Canadian Mountie for kicks when you could confront the local Scottish gossips?
Of course, she had completely gone against Sean’s request not to engage with them, and it was more than evident why he wanted to maintain the pretence of a flawless marriage.
She could imagine the speed of the tongues and the damage to his reputation if they knew the truth.
Well, she had protected him in that respect.
No way was she having people talk about her marriage like that. About her husband.
Soon to be ex.
Until that annulment comes through, he’s still my husband, and I will defend him as a wife should.
Whether Sean would be keen on everyone knowing that his defensive new wife had bought a truckload of condoms in a fit of pique was another issue altogether.