The Impulse Purchase, page 4
‘How do you know so much about the Stone Roses?’
‘My dad,’ she explained. ‘I’ve got all his playlists. Seventies, eighties, nineties . . . We talked about music all the time.’
‘The nineties were the best,’ Gaz told her, though they hadn’t done him any favours. He was a drinker, she knew, because he’d been very open about his problem. He’d also had drug problems in the past.
‘It was easier to kick the drugs,’ he said. ‘The booze is the tricky one. It’s everywhere.’ He gave her a lopsided smile. He had light blue eyes and dark eyebrows, freckles that made him seem younger than his years – about forty, Rose reckoned – and a full mouth. He looked thinner than usual, his face a little pinched, his cheekbones sharp. ‘But with the booze, you know . . . Sometimes you think I’ll just have a can, take the edge off. And before you know it, you’re all over the place.’ His face clouded over. ‘I can’t handle it. And I know I can’t. So why do I do it? Shell’s kicked me out again.’
‘Where are you sleeping?’
‘Mate’s sofa. But I can’t kip there for ever.’ He picked up his fork and Rose could see his hand was shaking. Was it from last night’s excess or because he needed another drink? He saw her looking. ‘I always shake,’ he said. ‘I’ve done too much. Too much partying.’
He put his fork down again. He’d barely eaten anything.
‘Aren’t you going to finish your food? Not eating makes me hanxious. You know, hungry and anxious.’
‘I don’t feel too good,’ he admitted. ‘It’s nice, though. Everyone likes your cooking best.’
She laughed at that, and was touched by his compliment. She didn’t feel she could push him to finish. He was looking down at the table, shaking even more. As if he’d got a chill or a fever.
‘Where are you staying tonight?’ She was worried about him ending up on the street.
‘Aaron says I can use the pod.’
Aaron had built a pod in the car park for emergency shelter. You could only stay there one night, then you had to wait another week before you could come back. But it was dry and warm, with a toilet and a basin.
‘Cool. Do you want to take some food away with you? I’ve got some bread. I can make you some cheese sandwiches?’
He looked puzzled, as if he was wondering why she could be bothered with him. Even though he was much older than she was, she felt a strong need to look out for him.
‘It’s my daughter’s birthday today,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘That’s nice . . . isn’t it?’
Gaz had come to fatherhood relatively late. His girlfriend, Shell, had talked him into having a baby, against his better judgement. Gaz was more aware of his problems than anyone. Shell had been over-optimistic and had misjudged his ability to lead a quieter life and be a responsible adult. There was no doubt he loved his daughter, but his demons were more than he could manage. Now, he was trapped in a cycle of being on the straight and narrow, falling off the wagon and being kicked out of the house by an exasperated Shell.
His face was bleak. ‘I haven’t even got the cash to get her something. What kind of a useless dad is that?’
Rose looked down at the table. It was one of Aaron’s strictest rules, for the staff not to give out any money. It was too easy to be taken in by a sob story, and the cash could then be misused.
‘She wants a plushy unicorn. It’s only twenty quid but I don’t have it. I’m supposed to be seeing her later but how can I turn up with nothing?’ His face twisted, and Rose realised he was going to cry. ‘Why am I such a loser? Why can’t I get it together? I love them both so much and I let them down. Every time.’
‘You can get help. You know that. Talk to Aaron.’
Gaz’s eyes flickered over to Aaron, joshing in the corner with a cluster of younger lads who clearly looked up to him. Rose could see him thinking that Aaron was everything he was not. He crumpled in front of her, his head drooping.
‘I guess this is rock bottom. Not even having the money to get your daughter a birthday present.’
Rose thought of Gertie, and her bed at home, smothered in more cuddly toys than any child needed. She looked over at Aaron, hearing his warning words in her head. And she looked at Gaz and saw the face of a man humiliated by his own weakness.
‘I’m not supposed to give you money,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But come and get some food off me in the kitchen before you leave.’
Gaz looked mortified she might think he was begging. ‘That’s not what I meant.’ He looked down at his lap. His fingers were twisting round each other. He was shaking more than ever. ‘I don’t want to get you in trouble.’
What would her dad do? Rose wondered. She thought Frank would probably give Gaz the benefit of the doubt. It was a risk. Her head said no, but her heart shouted louder. Twenty quid for a plush unicorn. How could that hurt?
‘No one will know,’ she said. ‘No one will find out.’
5
An hour’s swim at the Lido usually cleared Cherry’s head and focused her. But today the water did nothing to wash away her anxiety. She powered up and down, doing sixty lengths, then dried herself, got dressed again, and jumped back in the car. Now she was heading out of Avonminster, over the suspension bridge, compass pointing to the south-west.
She had crept out of bed at six thirty, sunlight streaming through the slats on the white wooden venetian blinds as she pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt, tied up her hair and slipped on her sneakers. It wasn’t unusual for her to leave the house before Mike surfaced – she liked to get to the Lido and get her swim done as early as she could – but she was particularly careful not to wake him this morning. He was face down in his pillow, dead to the world.
Downstairs, there’d been no evidence that nearly a hundred people had partied here the day before, except for the rows of shining glasses waiting to be put back in their boxes now they were dry, and the congratulatory cards lined up on the island. Cherry had taken the tablecloths and napkins out of the washing machine and soon they were whirling round the dryer.
In the drawing room, Mike’s guardian angel was propped up against the wall. Cherry looked at it in distaste, tempted to put a foot right through the canvas. Or to take the whole thing up to the suspension bridge and drop it over the edge. How satisfying it would be, to watch it drop down into the water below and watch Anneka’s handiwork dissolve in the river, the colours floating away downstream.
She remembered her promise to herself. To be serene. And dignified. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door, anxious to be gone before Mike came down the stairs and began to exclaim about what a wonderful day it had been. She needed a plan before she saw him again.
Now she was whizzing down the M5, sliding down through the Mendips to her childhood home, deep in the heart of Somerset. Once, she had been eager to escape the tiny, sleepy village where you couldn’t do anything without everyone knowing, especially if you were the local doctor’s daughter. Now, the very air seemed to whisper her name as she drove through the small market town of Honisham, passing the landmarks of her youth. The sprawling secondary school was still there – she hadn’t got into the grammar school, and could still feel her disappointment the day the results had been announced. Her mother had comforted her. ‘Not everyone is academic, darling. You will flourish, whatever you do. The important thing is to take any opportunities that come your way. And follow your heart. You have a big heart, Cherry. It will serve you well.’
Cherry took some solace from her mother’s words, and in the end she hadn’t much cared about failing her eleven-plus, as long as she could carry on helping to muck out the fat brown ponies at the local riding stables every weekend. She couldn’t see beyond the joy of a day spent grooming, eating a ham sandwich and a Club biscuit sitting on the fence of the ménage, turning them out into the field at the end of the afternoon.
Of course, by fourteen, the appeal of their soft muzzles and gleaming flanks came second – the secondary modern had something much more exciting to offer. Something that wouldn’t have been available at the girls-only grammar. Skinny-hipped, foul-mouthed, warm-handed, the boys of Honisham woke something inside her. They were as hot and weak as the coffee at the Golden Egg where they congregated.
She smiled at the memory. More than fifty years later, the town hadn’t changed a great deal. Even Boots was where it always had been. She’d bought her first lipstick there: a pale frosted pink that had tasted chemically sweet and made her lips look even more bee-stung. Everything had changed the summer she started wearing it. Everyone stared at Cherry Nicholson, some with disapproval, some envy, and some naked lust.
Less than two miles further on, she left the main road and was plunged deep into countryside, the lanes becoming more and more narrow until she reached the black-and-white sign announcing Rushbrook.
May suited Rushbrook. The verges were thick with cow parsley, the apple orchards laced with pink and white apple blossom, the air thick with honeyed pollen. The light was still soft, not yet the harsher glare of high summer, and the grass and the trees and the bushes rustled in a hesitant breeze which came and went like a deferential housemaid. Small cottages in colourful gardens eventually gave way to a cluster of larger houses reigned over by a church spire. The heart of the village. And in that heart, Wisteria House.
It was her last chance to say goodbye, and to do the idiot check, making sure there wasn’t a diamond ring stuck in a piece of soap in the downstairs loo, even though she knew there wasn’t. She and her brother Toby had done the final clean three weeks ago, after months of clearing, making sure every surface shone and every window gleamed. But today she would lock the front door for the very last time. The keys had been handed over to the estate agent ready to pass on to the new owners, except the one she had kept. The key she had had since childhood. The one she had used to let herself in when she came back from school or the stables, with the frayed bit of royal blue satin ribbon tied around the bow. The lock had never been changed. No doubt it would be when the new owners took possession, but that wasn’t until midday today.
She had to see inside one last time.
Cherry drove in through the stone pillars that marked the drive to the side of the house. The ‘For Sale’ sign was still by the wrought-iron front gate, ‘Sold Subject to Contract’ emblazoned across it. The Bannisters, a couple from London, were buying it; the lure of the nearby train station in Honisham, with a fast train to Paddington, had sealed the deal.
Set slightly back from the road, Wisteria House was square and solid and reassuring, the perfect home for the village doctor. The pale purple blooms that gave the house its name were at their very best. She could smell them as soon as she opened the car door, remembering the scent drifting up to her open bedroom window each spring, heralding summer.
She made her way along the path that led to the front door. It was flanked on either side by drifts of lavender mixed with red and white tulips. Later in summer there would be delphiniums and foxgloves and a carpet of erigeron; rambling roses and then statement dahlias in dark red and purple and orange. She came to a standstill before the front door. She remembered hugging her brother, and the two of them saying goodbye to the house.
It had been therapeutic, going through everything with Toby over the past few months. He had come down from York as often as he could to help her clear the house. They had shared so many memories, and made their peace with each other, all the little misunderstandings of youth cleared up, most of which had made them laugh. He’d finally admitted to scratching her Jefferson Airplane LP, even though he had sworn blind he hadn’t been near it at the time. Who else could it have been? She’d admitted to eating the last slice of his birthday cake that he had been saving, starving when she’d come back from mucking out and unable to resist the chocolate icing studded with Smarties that her mum had laid out in the shape of a T. She smiled at the memory. That cake had seemed so elaborate then. Cherry remembered Gertie’s most recent birthday cake: it had a tube of Smarties hovering over it, spilling its contents over the top and sides. An anti-gravity cake. Now everything had to be startlingly original, jaw-dropping and Instagrammable. Her heart ached for simplicity and innocent times. And for her mum’s embrace.
The day they had cleared the very last item from the house and declared the job done, she and Toby had supper together at The Swan, the local pub tucked into a bend in the river just up the road.
‘You know, the thing with Mum was that she was clever,’ Toby told her, spearing a chip with his fork. ‘Cleverer than Dad, I sometimes think. But she didn’t have the opportunity to use it. Fifty years later and she’d have been a rocket scientist. Do you think she was wasted, just being the doctor’s wife?’
Catherine had been training to be a nurse when she met the dashing medical student, Nigel Nicholson, just before the war.
‘No,’ said Cherry, emphatic. ‘She did a lot for this village and the people in it. Just because she didn’t have a career didn’t mean she didn’t matter.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that!’ said Toby hastily. ‘I just can’t help wondering what she would have done if she’d been born in a different time.’
‘She was happy,’ said Cherry. ‘And she made other people happy. Isn’t that what matters?’
‘I miss her so much,’ said Toby. ‘Even though I was at the other end of the country, I always knew she was there.’
‘I know,’ said Cherry, hugging her big brother. ‘We were so lucky to have her.’
Now, she took the precious key and unlocked the door, pushing it open for what would be the very last time.
6
‘I’m so sorry, Maggie, but you know what they’re like. The bloody Borgias. I’m the baby of the family. I have no say.’
Mario wasn’t looking Maggie in the eye. He was drumming his thumb on the edge of the table he was sitting on. Behind him were towering shelves of tinned plum tomatoes, the very brand she’d recommended they should sell online all those years ago. He still had a hint of Rome in his accent, but it was possible it was just an affectation, as he’d moved to England when he was ten, when his grandfather had started the business. Nevertheless, the music in his voice made everything he said sound much more enticing than it was.
Even today’s bad news.
‘Spit it out, Mario.’ Maggie crossed her arms, admiring his long jean-clad legs despite herself. He was not a baby, whatever he pretended. He was a forty-year-old, red-blooded male.
‘OK, Maggie. Here’s the thing. They’re going with a new PR company. They offered us a great deal. Two years at nearly half what you’re charging. I couldn’t persuade the others to stay with you.’
He shrugged as if to say what can I do.
Maggie frowned. The saving wouldn’t even cover his sister’s fillers.
‘At least tell me who have you gone with. Someone out of town? Not someone from London. No London company could charge so little.’
He wouldn’t answer.
‘Mario. Come on. You owe me that at least.’
‘The company name is RedHotStoneCold.’
Maggie shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard of them. I’ll google them, I guess, if you won’t tell me who’s behind it.’
Mario cleared his throat. ‘Stone,’ he said. ‘Stone is the clue.’
Maggie felt a cold chill. ‘No. You’ve got to be kidding me. Zara?’
He gave a tiny nod. ‘Apparently her pitch was great. She had a lot of good ideas. Sometimes a change is needed. A fresh eye. We are so grateful for everything you did.’
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. If it wasn’t for her, the business would be bankrupt by now. She had taken it from a scruffy backstreet importer selling dusty bags of pasta to a string of upmarket Italian destination delis rebranded as When in Rome, with a formidable online presence, four branches in Bath and Avonminster, with two more on the way. It was Mario’s mother and older sister who had taken her on. And who had obviously now decided she had outlived her usefulness.
Mario would not be sitting there in his expensive dark blue linen shirt if Maggie hadn’t helped them. They had been desperate by the time they had hired her; desperate to get some marketing advice for the business they had inherited, unable to decide whether to ditch it or revamp it. And now they were letting her go.
She couldn’t decide whose betrayal was worse. Theirs or Zara’s.
She looked again at Mario, who looked genuinely sorrowful. They had hit it off, the two of them, because he was more interested in the food than his sister or his mum, and that was Maggie’s passion too. She had kept him at a distance, slightly, because there was no doubt he was a temptation, with his dark tangle of curls, his soulful eyes and his impeccable knitwear. She didn’t trust either him or herself if they had gone for dinner, as he had suggested last Christmas. ‘An office party for two,’ he’d said, but with a self-deprecating twinkle that saved the invitation from being sleazy, even though she knew full well what dinner would lead to. But for a million different reasons she didn’t want to – not least because sleeping with clients was a terrible idea.
The one advantage of widowhood was men did tend to take no for an answer. They were scared of grief, so if you flagged it, they backed off. She let her eyes fill with tears as she thanked him but said no, and Mario had taken her refusal with respect. He was Italian. He understood the nuance of death.
‘They’re insane,’ she told him now. ‘Zara has no idea. No. Idea. She was a loose cannon when she worked for me. I was endlessly covering up her mistakes. She’s all fur coat and no knickers.’
‘Eh?’ Mario looked confused, struggling with the image.
Maggie rolled her eyes.
‘It means everything looks great on the surface but there’s nothing underneath. She is a spoilt little princess whose daddy has always picked up after her.’
Maggie knew she was laying it on a bit thick and exaggerating Zara’s shortcomings, but she was hurt.
Zara’s father would be behind this. Aiden Stone. The one friend of Frank’s she’d never really taken to; the captain of the five-a-side football team he played with, and his financial adviser.
