‘Pete’s last words to his dad were that he thought more about his koi carp than us. He told me when he got settled he’d send for me and I’d to go over there.’
Maureen dabbed at the tears that flowed slow, fat and consistently down her cheeks.
‘And did he ever send for you?’ asked Lou softly.
Maureen nodded. ‘Aye, he sent for me, lass.’
‘Why didn’t you go?’
And leave that revolting bastard.
‘Jack said I’d to make a choice. Him or Peter. I couldn’t have both.’
‘No!’ said Lou incredulously, although she didn’t know why that surprised her. There was meanness behind Jack’s eyes, for all his loud matey laughing and back-slapping camaraderie.
‘There were always choices with Jack–him or my sister, him or Peter, him or my friend Bren, and, fool that I am, I picked Jack every time because I loved him and I couldn’t bear to lose him. He doesn’t know I’ve got this picture of Charlotte. Don’t tell him, Lou, will you? He won’t let me contact our Pete again and it’s the only thing I’ve got of her.’
Let?
Lou’s body stiffened and she gave the corpulent, jocular Jack a hard stare. How on earth did a woman get into a state where a man was ‘letting’ her? And putting her in the position of making her choose between those she loved and him.
Maureen’s thin hand fell onto Lou’s and she said in a way that sounded more like a warning than a statement, ‘It wasn’t all his fault. I didn’t stop it happening.’
‘
Why
didn’t you?’ Lou asked. She wanted to go much further and demand:
Why didn’t you stand up and fight your corner? Why didn’t you leave him? Why didn’t you go to your son and start a new life? Why did you let go of all you had been?
Maureen looked up at Lou with eyes that had nothing behind them but tears and alcohol.
‘I just left it too late,’ she said.
‘Come on, you drunken old mare!’ said Jack, bursting into their conversation, laughing and pulling Maureen to her feet, a little too roughly for Lou’s liking. Behind him, a droopy-eyed Phil looked as if he was about to say something similar to Lou, but the withering look she cast him put paid to that.
Lou followed the man in the massive sheepskin coat and the woman in the little mouse-grey fur jacket out to the taxi, and a thought flickered into her drink-fuzzy brain–but was just out of reach to be caught and examined. It hid instead in a quiet place in her head and would pay another visit, for longer next time.
Back at home, Phil was waiting for Lou with two glasses and the chilled bottle of fake champagne when she came out of the cloakroom toilet. She was annoyed, he could tell, but Lou was so easy to play. She was incapable of staying pissed off with him for any longer than five minutes. She’d be upstairs and in that little black number being fiddled about with in no time after a few flattering choice words, that much he would have staked his life on.
‘Fancy trying out your birthday present?’ he said, swivelling his hips, knowing her smile was on its way out and just needed a little coaxing to the surface.
‘You want an omelette at this time of night?’ Lou answered glibly.
Phil swaggered over to her and pressed his groin against her, crooning seductively, ‘Don’t be silly, babe, you know exactly what I mean.’
But Lou surprised him by stepping out of the closing cage of his arms.
‘Not tonight, thank you, Phil,’ she said wearily, and then she turned away from him and headed up the stairs towards the much-needed comfort of her old pair of pink impenetrable flannelette pyjamas.
For as long as he could remember in his marriage, the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs had been Phil’s gentle Sunday-morning alarm. Ironically, it was his senses in shock from the defiance in custom that now sparked him awake. He relieved himself, slipped on his robe and moccasins and padded downstairs to the kitchen to find out what was going on. There he found Lou, sitting on the floor like a desert island in a sea of books taken down from the giant antique bookcase they had against the wall in there. There was evidence that she had intended his breakfast at least–the pans were on the hob and the eggs and bacon out on the work surface, but her present absorption had assumed importance over tending to his needs, which would have been extra grounds for sulking, had she been responsive enough to notice.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
His voice jolted her momentarily from her concentration, although trance seemed a more appropriate word.
‘Clearing the bookshelves,’ she said, returning to some big black file she was reading.
‘Never!’
When she didn’t engage, the effect on him was tantamount to a smack. He knew only too well the power of indifference. It was his own personal favourite weapon. Not that he was worried she wouldn’t be back to her old Lou self in no time. OK, she was still annoyed about last night so she was having a womanly moment, but Lou knew he was a businessman first and foremost, and last night he and Jack had got a lot of important talking done. Anyway, it wasn’t as if it had been her twenty-first or her fortieth; it was only an ordinary birthday, for God’s sake. Thirty-six wasn’t exactly an ‘open up the Dom Perignon’ landmark.
‘Er, I thought instead of the usual that we might try out your birthday present? The other one?’ He was careful to say
we.
‘Yes, I’ll sort it in a minute. I’ve run out of black pudding, though.’
It occurred to him that she wasn’t listening.
‘It’s OK, I’ll have peas instead,’ he tested.
‘No worries,’ she replied.
Lou hadn’t planned to clear out the books. She had gone down, automaton-style, to cook Phil’s Sunday breakfast, but what she saw when she first opened the door was the last remaining vestige of disorder in the kitchen–the bookshelves. On the bottom shelf there was a stack of holiday brochures. She thumbed through them, and pictures of Venetian canals and pretty hotels taunted her from the pages. The hot Italian sun beamed out from the photographs and she could almost smell the coffee in the street café scenes. The next shelf up was full of her
Midnight Moon romance collection, telling stories of the sort of fiery passion that could only exist in works of fiction, and a box full of instruction manuals and guarantees for appliances, most of which she no longer had. On the other shelves were all her many cookery books and the files of recipes she had collected over many years. Her regular-as-clockwork routine was totally overridden by an undeniable compulsion to tackle this job first. It simply couldn’t wait. Phil’s breakfast, for once, could.
She stripped all of the books from the shelves and piled them up around her on the floor. She ripped out pages of the tried, tested and rejected recipes and started to refile those with a big fat tick into mains and desserts–so many lovely desserts. She had quite forgotten the
Casa Nostra
file was there amongst them.
Casa Nostra.
The name set off a flare in her head and in its temporary light she glimpsed all the associated memories lying there covered in dust. The premises they’d found to convert, the furnishings they had planned, the excitement when the bank manager agreed to the loan, and how they’d jumped up and down in his office hugging each other (and hugging him as well, Lou remembered, with both a cringe and a smile).
Casa Nostra
was just a working title. They hadn’t ever found the name that would have been just
right
, but whatever it was going to be finally called, would be a coffee-house like no other. It was going to bring a little Italy to their corner of Yorkshire, with proper fortifying coffee to wash down the most extravagant, indulgent cakes in the world. They were going to name their fare after people like de Niro and Pacino and Sinatra–and Marco Pierre White, of course. It was to be the start of their empire that couldn’t fail
because they
knew
that, together, they were an indomitable force.
Deb’s big rounded handwriting was scribbled everywhere.
Lou–what do you think of this for a pud of the week?
Lou–let’s make it our aim to de-naff Black Forest Gâteau
.
Lou–let’s make the biggest pudding in the world and call it a Brando. What should it be I wonder?
Lou–followed this recipe to the letter and it tasted like shite
.
They had been touching the dream, until the day when she had found Deb on the doorstep in a dreadful state and five minutes later, Lou’s world had fallen apart. Her agony had been unbearable, but Deb’s had been too.
Lou, I’ve got something awful to tell you
…
It was a terrible responsibility to shoulder.
Phil’s having an affair. I’ve seen them together.
Yet Deb nursed her through the heartbreak with patience and selflessness. Then Phil came back and made her choose. And Lou had chosen him.
Lou made Phil a smaller than usual fried breakfast and she hadn’t used her new omelette-maker, he noted.
‘One egg?’ he questioned, struggling to keep the petulance out of his voice.
‘We’ll be at my mother’s eating lunch in two and a half hours,’ explained Lou.
Phil groaned. ‘Oh, flaming Norah–I forgot about that. Can’t I give it a miss?’
‘You can if you want, but you’ll have to make your own lunch,’ came the reply.
‘OK, I’ll go,’ said Phil, like a small child reluctantly being dragged by his mam to the supermarket. Phil loved
his food and would have been the size of a pregnant elephant if he didn’t burn it off with long runs. He had noticed the creep of middle-age already around his waistline recently and would have to add a few more miles to his routine soon. Settling for a half-breakfast wouldn’t do him any harm for once, he decided.
‘Er, I’ve been thinking about holidays,’ he said, after swallowing the last mouthful of egg. Lou wasn’t on best-friend terms with him yet, that was clear, so this just might turn her round. ‘Fancy going somewhere different this year?’
Lou looked up from her lake of books.
‘What, like Italy?’ she said with a gulp, her heart already revving up the thumps in anticipation.
‘No, I don’t fancy Italy,’ said Phil.
‘Why not Italy?’ said Lou. She feared that ‘somewhere different’ might mean a caravan in somewhere bland like Blegthorpe-on-Sea.
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Phil, you’ve never been!’
‘Put it this way then: I
won’t
like it.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s full of Italians for a start.’
‘Precisely,’ said Lou. ‘And fantastic Italian architecture…’
‘Boring churches, you mean.’
‘The Colisseum isn’t a church,’ said Lou, fighting back the exasperation that was spiralling up inside her. ‘Neither is the Circus Maximus or the Forum or Pompeii.’
Places she so wanted to see. Places Miss Ramsay had brought to life for her in school Latin lessons.
‘I hated Latin at school,’ said Phil. ‘And I’ve seen
Hadrian’s Wall. What a bloody thrilling day out that wasn’t!’
‘OK then,’ said Lou, trying a tack tailored to his likes, ‘what about the wonderful food and the beautiful wines?’
‘I hate pizza and I’m not that bothered about wine.’
‘Sunshine, Phil, Italy is bursting with sunshine!’ Lou half-screamed. She knew she had him here. Phil worshipped at the altar of Apollo.
‘Yeah, but it’s Italian sun, it’s different. I was thinking about Torremolinos. I’ve seen a five-star that you’d love, Lou.’
Lou knew she couldn’t fight the illogical with logic. It was like raising Excalibur to slice fog. Strength of argument meant nothing–not that she was equipped to win any battle of wills with Phil. His voice faded to white noise in the background as he blah-blahed on about a holiday he had probably already booked. It would be, as usual, a very nice hotel, five-star, the one he wanted in the area he wanted. They always holidayed where and how Phil wanted. They always did everything the way Phil wanted, come to think about it. Lou slid the brochures with their promise of a different sun into a carrier bag to take out to the skip. There was no point in keeping them. She would only ever go there in her dreams.
At a quarter to ten, whilst Phil was engrossed in the sports pages of the
Sunday World
in the conservatory, the skip wagon reversed into their drive.
‘Good morning,’ said Lou breezily, coming out to meet it. It was such a crisp day, refreshingly chilly, and as
bright and beautiful as the hymn. There were still one or two snowdrops lingering in the flower borders, but purple crocuses and daffodils with their trumpets as orange as fresh egg-yolks had pushed through for their turn in the limelight. ‘And good morning to you, Clooney.’
Clooney started play-biting Lou’s hand, until Tom shouted at him to stop.
‘He’s not hurting me,’ said Lou, getting a dog biscuit out of her pocket.
‘You’re spoiling him,’ said Tom. ‘He’ll not want to come home.’
‘I’d have him in a shot,’ said Lou.
Tom coughed. ‘I was just wondering if you’d like to go…’ He was talking at the same time as Lou added, ‘But my husband is allergic to pet hair. Oh, I’m sorry, you were saying?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Tom quickly, whilst giving the back of his neck a hard rub and muttering to himself: ‘Oh well, that’s that then. What a shame.’
‘Oh, don’t feel too sorry for him–he doesn’t like dogs anyway. It hasn’t exactly affected the quality of his life, not having a pet.’
Tom looked confused by what she had just said, but before Lou could retrack on the conversation, Clooney barked and distracted them. He’d found a rubber ball under the hedge.
‘Drop it. It’s not yours!’ said Tom.
‘It isn’t anyone’s. I don’t know where it’s come from,’ said Lou, and held out her hand for Clooney to bring it to her. She played fetch with him on the lawn whilst Tom lowered the skip off his wagon.
‘You’re keen, I’ll give you that,’ said Tom, looking at the bags of rubbish piled by the wheelie-bin awaiting his arrival. ‘Maybe you should have got one of the bigger-size skips.’
‘The mini-skip will be fine. I can’t have that much more stuff,’ said Lou. ‘I’ll have filled this today so you could pick it up tomorrow if you can. Do you know,’ she went on, ‘I would never have imagined that clearing out a few old carpets and stuff could make me feel so…’ She hunted for the word but couldn’t find it, so gestured joy with enthusiastic hands instead.
‘You’re not the first to tell me that,’ said Tom, nodding with understanding. ‘Some say it’s better than therapy. I might change my name to “Tom Broom, Waste Therapist” and charge double. Not that any price increase would matter too much to someone who prints her own money.’
Lou smiled a smile that mirrored his.
‘I bet that was a nice little cracket in its time,’ Tom commented, pointing to the small crude rectangular stool there amongst the pile of stuff which was covered with the palest coat of sparkly frost. ‘A really handy piece to have around.’
‘It was, and just the right size for sitting on or standing on to reach things, as I invariably have to,’ said Lou with a little tut. ‘I must confess I still feel a bit guilty throwing it away, but it’s so battered now.’
‘It still looks pretty solid to me, despite the knocks. It must feel like you are giving up an old friend,’ said Tom, reaching for the stool and brushing at it with the heel of his hand. ‘It’s harder than it looks sometimes to let things go, even if they are old and useless. Things
gather emotions to them so that people often feel they are throwing so much more away than an old vase that their granny gave them.’ He smiled and Lou gulped. This big man standing in front of her in his overalls sounded almost as if he was reciting poetry. ‘It’s amazing how attached some people can get to old rubbish, but they’ve lived with it for so long it’s become the norm. And throwing it away is too scary and doesn’t feature as an option.’
A picture of Maureen drifted into her mind and Lou nodded.
‘That’s very true, Tom.’
His head gave a little jerk when she said his name. She hoped she wasn’t being too presumptuous. Lou liked to use people’s names where she could, and calling him ‘Mr Broom’ sounded stupid. As if he was her headmaster or something.
‘Be careful you don’t overdo it,’ he said, with that little twinkle in his eye. ‘Those bags look heavy.’
He had stubble this morning. She wondered fleetingly what it might feel like rubbing against her chin, or elsewhere. Enough of that, Lou Winter, she reprimanded herself. Still it was an interesting thought that left behind quite a quivery sensation in its wake.
She quickly got out the money from her back packet. It was embarrassingly warm, nearly steaming as it hit the cold air, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice, but of course he did.
‘Hot off the press, is it?’ he said to her horror. She felt her cheeks heating up too, but attempted to laugh it off.
‘Yes. Be careful, the ink’s not quite dry yet.’
He grinned. Stubble and grins. Lou went even hotter.
‘Anyway, thanks. Just give us a ring when you want it picked up. Come on, Clooney, we’ve got kids to take to the park.’
A bucket of water hit Lou’s heart and extinguished the smiley feelings that were hopping about in there. Of course someone like him would be married with children, she said to herself. Why should that be such a shock to her? Anyway, what was any of it to do with her? What difference did it make? Why was she suddenly upset to learn that he was married with children? Lou didn’t know. Her head was all over the place this morning. It was as if someone had stuck a big wooden spoon in it and was stirring around.
When Tom’s wagon drove off Lou rolled up her sleeves to start, but the sight of that faithful old stool on the heap of rubbish brought a sudden rush of tears to her eyes.