Follow a Star, page 9
From being impatient to get to sea, she now dreaded the prospect of being out of sight of land. Even the hustle and bustle of the busy shipping traffic and dodging seafarers going about their business, delivering cargo and passengers in and out of ports, seemed preferable now to the desolate expanse of the cold North Sea which lay ahead with its ghostly forts and shifting sands.
At least she still had Bill. Or, more accurately, hadn’t had Bill. No wonder she could feel his appalled gaze sliding over her every so often. Probably checking that she was keeping her distance and not about to make another exhibition of herself by jumping all over him. How right he’d been right to warn her about the intensity of small-space living. Clearly that explained her sudden attraction to him.
May scrutinised him as carefully as steering would allow. Great lungfuls of sea air and adrenaline from their near miss must have affected her circulation and pumped her blood straight to her erogenous zones. Good job she wasn’t one of those monkeys with the red bottoms or she might still have some trouble sitting down. Imagine, if Bill hadn’t put up some resistance, she might have thrown him to the deck and impaled herself on him. What a rude thought! What was it about steering that seemed to set her subconscious running wild and free? Was it the somewhat meditative nature of watching the bow of the boat nose through mile upon mile of undulating waves which allowed her imagination to conjure up such lurid imagery?
Surely it couldn’t be anything to do with Bill? She stole another look at the unruly red hair ruffling in the breeze while he went innocently about the boat’s business and tried to dismiss the thought. Perhaps all that sea air would have made any man seem attractive. Yet she’d never felt that way about Aiden. Possibly, she had to admit, because she was always a bit too anxious about pleasing him. Especially in bed, where she always felt her lack of experience let her down. Now, when she’d suddenly seen the attraction of no-holds-barred, swing-from-the-grab-rails sex, Bill wouldn’t play – which was right and proper and better for both of them, she told herself quickly. Fancying Bill was a complete aberration; that rough and ready red-haired look couldn’t have been more of a contrast to Aiden who was so good-looking she always felt quite plain in comparison.
Looking back, her relationship with Aiden was so one-sided it was little wonder she felt so insecure and inhibited. Other women sensed it too, forever elbowing her out of the way after a gig to get closer to him. And who could blame them? He really was jaw-droppingly handsome, so it was hardly surprising she’d been unable to keep him.
‘Why the long face?’ Bill said, catching her off guard.
One, two, three. Damn, she could feel her nose going red. If only she could cry prettily, like Demi Moore in Ghost, all sparkly eyed and dewy. Even worse was the fact the more she tried to stop the more she ran with snot and slobber. Bill, to his great credit, was not repulsed, but calmly found her a handkerchief then fixed the helm and backed the sails to slow the boat’s progress. Once it was almost at a standstill, he sat her down and went off to put the kettle on, returning a bit later with a mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit. She couldn’t remember Aiden ever bringing her a cup of tea.
‘There’s sugar in it too,’ he said, to explain the plastic spoon. ‘So give it a stir and drink it, it’ll do you good.’
Nor was Aiden ever that thoughtful.
‘Now, what’s all this about?’ said Bill.
Or so concerned about her feelings. May inhaled slowly. Spilling the story of her love life – ha! – on the ocean waves with no other vessel in sight and only the hiss of the breaking bow wave and the high-pitched mewing of passing seagulls to break the silence was more therapeutic than she could ever have believed. She had friends who spent good money paying people to listen to them. She should at least offer to buy Bill a Chinese takeaway when they struck land for all the money he’d saved her in counselling fees. Not only was he thoughtful and solicitous, he was such a good listener that he’d barely opened his mouth, except to prompt her here and there or to take a sip of his own tea.
Actually, May thought, feeling the first prickles of unease, it was about time Bill did say something. Having just disgorged the last two years of her life to him she expected him to make some comment. Okay, she’d omitted to tell him the bit most people were interested in, but still. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her after all? Maybe all that time he’d been mentally counting the nautical miles waiting for her to shut up? Maybe he was even asleep? May checked to see if his eyelids were open. He was staring into his empty cup with such a look of distaste that May had a quick look to see if one of them hadn’t washed up properly and he’d found something unpleasant lurking at the bottom.
When he eventually met her gaze May was shocked by how angry he looked. The controlled, silent fury was more intense than any outward expression would have been, and for a terrible moment May was afraid that he was angry with her.
‘I know it’s naïve but at first, I felt it was romantic, having someone there to take care of me,’ she said, trying to excuse herself.
‘That’s not taking care,’ Bill growled, ‘that’s taking control.’
‘He’d promised to be there for me. And I was flattered that he was so interested in me he wanted to accompany me on even the most mundane trips. He told me that nothing was more important than being with me. He wanted to know who my friends were, what they did, he asked about my social networks …’ She shook her head. ‘I was secretly delighted at how jealous he was when an ex-boyfriend, a teenage romance, purely innocent, flirted with me online. I had to sever contact with him which I felt uneasy about, but it seemed a small sacrifice to keep Aiden happy.’
She shrugged, ashamed of how meekly she’d gone along with his demands.
Bill’s face was like thunder, but then he seemed to pull himself together. He reached out and briefly touched her face in a gesture of compassion.
‘I don’t understand why it took you so long to break away,’ he said gently.
May smiled regretfully. ‘I asked myself the same question so many times. I guess I just couldn’t bear the thought of him being on his own.’
Bill’s hand came down on the coaming so hard that even a seagull, deciding whether or not to land on the rear safety rail, squawked and jumped. ‘May! You don’t owe him a damn thing.’
She took the plastic spoon out of her mug and started fiddling with it. Bill was wrong about that, but she’d gone on about herself for quite long enough now.
‘It’s the way I left,’ she admitted. ‘I shouldn’t have done it like that, it was cowardly. But I was afraid that if I didn’t just pack up, he’d find a way to make me stay. I should have phoned him to warn him that I moved out or at least got someone to make sure he was all right. I mean, I know he’s alive and kicking, but he has very few real friends.’
‘Oh you do surprise me,’ Bill said with surprising force. He leant forward. ‘May, do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘Ask away,’ she replied, shrugging nervously.
‘Are you quite sure that you’re completely over him?’
‘Quite.’ The plastic spoon she’d been holding snapped in half, making her jump. They both looked at the two pieces and Bill gave a funny little smile.
‘Well,’ he said sadly. ‘Maybe you need more time to think about that one.’
In Ebbesham Cathy Starling was up early since Rick, against the doctor’s better judgement, had left the house before seven to go to work. Since she was awake, she’d use the opportunity to gather her thoughts before meeting Toby at the shop. May was supposed to be in Little Spitmarsh very shortly. Should she ring to prepare her for what might be coming, Cathy wondered, or should she let events take their course? On balance, Cathy was in favour of the second option. May might not be best pleased if she knew, although in time, she’d hopefully appreciate that Cathy’s intervention was for her own good.
Staring at one of Toby’s mood boards, Cathy tried to ignore the pricking of her conscience and stifle the tendrils of guilt wrapping themselves round her heart. During their last phone conversation, it hadn’t escaped her notice that her daughter sounded lighter and freer than she had in months. Until then, Cathy had been convinced she was having a breakdown, but now she wondered if all May had really needed was a break. Whatever the case, May couldn’t afford to drift for much longer; someone had to take charge.
Jazz was the new black, according to Toby who banished her Music for Meditation from the shop. Cathy, beginning to question her actions, tried it now, turning up the volume to let Miles Davis fill the air while she waited to feel calmer. Then her phone started ringing.
‘Toby? I was just thinking about you, listen – can you hear that?’
But instead of getting warm approval, she heard a nervous cough. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple explanation, but I thought I’d tell you in case there’s a problem.’
‘Sorry, Toby – I’m not with you.’
She heard him clear his throat.
‘No, I know you’re not. That’s why I’m ringing. I’m outside Soul Survivor. I got here a bit early as the traffic was lighter than I expected. The thing is, there were men working on the place when I arrived.’
Ricky! What had he done now?
‘Locksmiths, I think. And there’s a notice in the window announcing the shop’s closed due to unforeseen circumstances.’
By the end of the day, Cathy’s disbelief had given way to numb acceptance. She fingered the solicitors’ letter that had arrived by recorded delivery and sent her into an impotent rage, knowing that no matter how many times she read it the same message would jump out at her. Aiden had hung her out to dry.
She’d spent hours ringing round trying to come up with ready cash, anything to save her skin. ‘Yes,’ she got tired of saying, ‘the business was struggling, but what small business didn’t struggle?’ But unless Aiden had a change of heart, everything she’d worked so hard for was over. And by the time she’d told Rick what she’d done that might not be the only thing.
The sun was hot on the back of the house so she moved round and sat in the open patio doors that led off the living-cum-dining room and lit a last cigarette as her dreams went up in smoke. Where the walls met the door frame, a wavy seam of lilac paint which a couple of hastily slapped-on coats of more recent jade emulsion hadn’t quite covered reminded her of the excitement of buying their first family home. It had, of course, required complete modernisation which was how they’d been able to afford it, but there was a garden for the girls to play in and more space than they knew what to do with after their tiny flat.
‘We’ll just paint over this Anaglypta for now and lose the beige. I’ll strip it all off later,’ Rick had promised. ‘What colour do you fancy?’
So they’d made the room their own with lilac paint, but somehow they’d never got round to stripping off the old paper, nor so many of the fiddly little jobs that were easy to postpone. Cathy turned away and stared at the overgrown apple tree which had also promised far more than it delivered. Sharp, mottled fruit which fell in a rotten mulch before you could blink. A thumping bass from the house backing on to their garden told her that school was over for the day. The little girls next-door-but-one were pounding their trampoline and shrieking with laughter and the inane banter of a banal early evening game show warbling through the walls from her neighbour’s TV coalesced in an unholy suburban cacophony that dropped abruptly from her conscious hearing as a key turned in the front door.
‘Cath? What are you doing home? Don’t you feel well?’
Rick touched a hand to her shoulder and crouched down beside her.
Chapter Eleven
How had everything unravelled like this? Cathy shook her head and choked back the tears. She’d never been the kind of woman who used crying as a weapon so there was no point in making herself feel even worse by trying it now. All she could do was explain why she’d acted as she had.
‘Aiden came round to the shop as soon as he realised May had packed a bag,’ she began. ‘When she told us she needed to get away from everything, I didn’t realise that included him as well. He was beside himself, Rick. I mean, imagine how he must have felt walking in after a business trip to find she’d left without telling him. It was like when …’ She stopped and pulled herself together. ‘I’ve got to say I felt a bit sorry for him.’
She glanced towards him, knowing that he wouldn’t have a shred of sympathy for the younger man. Why would he when he didn’t know how it felt to be isolated, to have to pick your way barefoot over the broken glass of your love life? What else could she have done in the circumstances, with Aiden standing there choking back tears, other than help?
‘He was really concerned,’ she continued, desperate to make him understand how it felt to be caught between a rock and hard place, ‘not for himself, although I could see how hurt he was, but for May. He said he was doing his best to guard her interests but that any goodwill towards her would quickly evaporate unless he could speak to her and agree a way forward.’
‘What’s he been doing for the last four weeks, then?’ Rick asked. ‘It’s been a month since May backed out of doing the gig at the festival. Didn’t he tell us he was taking care of everything? Weren’t we supposed to leave it all to him?’
‘We’ve got to be a bit careful, Rick. He pointed out that, in theory, she’d breached her contract, that she was liable to pay him a percentage of her future earnings. Think of what that will mean.’
‘For her? Or for you?’ Rick asked bitterly.
Cathy clamped her hands between her thighs before she was tempted to reach out to him for comfort she didn’t deserve.
‘Us, don’t you mean,’ she replied, since it was partly his fault that it had even dawned on her that it was necessary to safeguard her own future. ‘I didn’t notice you protesting when she stepped in to pay the mortgage when we couldn’t. Listen, he told me May’s career was finished unless the matter was resolved. And, he seemed genuinely concerned for all of us.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah? So what gave you that impression?’
‘Well, you remember how apprehensive May was about her appearance at the new festival? Aiden stopped by Soul Survivor in April and admitted that the pressure was getting to both of them. He thought it would widen her potential fan base if she could reach out to an indie audience, but May wasn’t having it. She started seeing problems that weren’t there, like imagining he was running around with other women and generally doubting his advice.’
Rick shook his head.
Cathy pressed on. ‘Because May wasn’t listening to him, he asked me to have a word with her, just to encourage her along a bit.’
‘Hold on, Cath, he always told us to keep out of May’s business. Always said he was the expert. So where’s this going?’
‘He said at the time that he couldn’t help noticing that the shop needed a bit of work. He knew it was hard with you having to compete for jobs with younger blokes, so he offered a temporary holiday with the rent whilst I sorted myself and improved the shop to help us get back on our feet.’
‘How much do you owe him?’ Rick asked quietly.
Cathy took a deep breath. ‘When he came in this week, he reminded me that I was in debt to him to the tune of three month’s rent. He told me it wasn’t a problem because of us being May’s parents. He even acknowledged that although he hadn’t always seen eye to eye with us, he realised that May needed us as much as him.’
‘One big happy family, eh?’ Rick scoffed.
Now she had to admit how very stupid she’d been.
‘He promised me everything would change if she gave him another chance. And even though he’d lost a lot of money because of May’s stage fright, he said he was cool about the rent in the short term, provided the misunderstandings and problems didn’t drag on. He had an awful lot on his plate, Rick, and May had left him to pick up all the pieces. I thought it was only fair when I heard from her to let him know where she was and that she was all right.’
‘You did what?’ Rick’s face was white.
‘Yeah. I thought I was helping, but he’s thrown it all back in my face. I didn’t check the ins and outs of the new tenancy agreement as thoroughly as I should have when I took it over either. I assumed it would carry on as before – only with less hassle.’
She held up her hand. ‘I know, I know it was crazy of me to trust him. So, it turns out there was a forfeiture clause in the lease and because there’s no residential accommodation to complicate the issue he’s within his rights to change the locks, kick me out and take back what’s his.’
‘So that’s it – it’s all gone, has it?’
Cathy appealed to Rick’s back as he began pacing the room. ‘You know how determined he is, Rick. I was only trying to do the right thing.’
‘And look how he’s repaid you! Concerned about all of us, my arse! If he was that bloody concerned why would he pull the plug on the shop as soon as you told him where May was?’
She folded herself back into the sofa, not quite understanding how easily she’d allowed herself be taken in. ‘Nothing you can say, Rick, can make me feel worse than I do already. He seemed so plausible. Remember what a gentleman he was when we first met him? I used to think it was so romantic, the way he swept her off her feet with surprise weekends away,’ she said, thinking aloud.
‘No you didn’t,’ Rick said, spinning round and surveying her with disgust. ‘You were jealous. You couldn’t stand the fact that May was getting all the attention instead of you. No wonder Stevie saw the writing on the wall and got out before you could cut her down to size too. When did you become so resentful of your own daughters?’
‘Oh, don’t give me that, Rick.’ She got to her feet to face him. ‘You know exactly what knocked me for six. I wouldn’t even have thought of trying to build a little nest egg of my own before then. I’m not getting any younger and … after you did the dirty on me, I just thought …’
