Читать книгу Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists - Erin Knight - Страница 16

10

Cleo was in a foul mood.

Why couldn’t she feel more feisty, like one of those fiery women she’d watched on Mob Wives last night, snuggled up with Evie on her bed like sisters? She was supposed to wake up this morning and crack on. But here she was, a little bit teary and disjointed.

‘Early menopause?’ her mum had suggested down the phone line.

‘Early dementia, Mother?’ Cleo had replied.

She’d felt it as soon as she’d woken up this morning, before she’d even realised Sam hadn’t made it up from the sofa all night again. At first, it had been Evie who’d popped into her head, making sense of the unsettled feeling brewing in her stomach. In the shower, it had been Sam. The angry cracks in his knuckles, bleeding and sore and never afforded the chance to heal. The resignation in his shoulders as he made his flask each morning.

Cleo had swallowed two aspirin and her mother’s advice and counted her blessings. Sam was a pain in the neck. Fact. But he loved his family. Bigger fact. Evie needed to think more, but she was open and honest when she got it wrong. And Harry. Harry had finished his paper round then made Evie breakfast this morning, which she’d left because she was off carbs now, but still, they must be doing something right in Harry at least, mustn’t they? He was still easy. Easy H.

‘Whatever’s bothering you, Ma, bet it won’t matter next week,’ Harry had offered, ducking through the door with Evie’s toast in his mouth.

He was right, it probably wouldn’t. It was silly, this sense of foreboding Cleo was experiencing. Children were going hungry in other countries. In this country! There were worse things than name-calling. She’d told herself these things on the drive along the harbour into work this morning. And still her worries hadn’t thinned any. And then the gulls had crapped all over the Mini right there in front of her as she’d opened up. And the bread delivery guy had forgotten her ciabattas. Then there’d been the hideous invoice waiting on Coast’s doormat, this quarter’s rates due again already.

She sighed, tied a clean blue barista’s apron behind her back and pressed her nose to the inside of the store window. In the distance, beyond the last whitewashed cottages of the harbour and The Village, where a tribe of surfers already convened, sand dunes rolled down to the edge of the bay, marking the last spot on the horizon where the sun bled out each night. This view would be the envy of the town at dusk. She could picture it so vividly. Warm evening air, lanterns hanging over the terrace, gentle music against a backdrop of breaking surf. Why couldn’t Sam see it too?

She rolled her cheeks against the cold glass, peering up the high street. Pomme du Port had new outside furniture. Minimalist, beautiful, expensive. Cleo scowled. What was French for bollocks? Maybe Evie knew. Elodie Inman-Holt definitely would. Elodie was on for an A* in French, Juliette had been boasting about it last week over a skinny latte and brand new Birkenstock handbag.

She pushed herself past the boxes cluttering up her route, yanked her hair back into a tighter ponytail and followed the smell of baking almond croissants back into the café. She hated that the bread was a cheat, another reason to extend: more oven space. She reached the back of the sweeping wooden counter, yanked on a few shiny chrome levers and began running the filters through on the coffee station. She tapped a finger on the machine while it gargled and bleeped. Bloody momsters. Boycott? Seriously? Lorna was bat-shit crazy.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. A full load of coffee grounds dropped from her hands exploding across the floor. ‘Shit!’

‘Sorry!’

The fidgety young woman on the other side of the counter winced. Cleo gritted her teeth ‘Sorry. Pardon my French . . .’

The woman blinked at her. ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump, look at the mess I’ve caused. Here, I’ll pay for that.’

Cleo batted a hand at the air while the girl fished for her purse. ‘It’s fine . . . just don’t boycott the place for my filthy language.’ The girl stopped fishing and tucked loose blonde curls behind one ear. There was something timid about her, like a little bird startled.

‘Don’t worry, really, I’ve heard plenty of filthy language in the workplace, and that wasn’t filthy.’

Cleo fumbled with the coffee filters. ‘Where do you work? Building site? Footy stadium?’

‘Did work . . . just a high school. These ears are pretty much immune now.’

‘You worked in a high school? Ugh, poor you. I have two teenagers. Sometimes I literally have to put my fingers inside my ears. Right inside,’ she said, jabbing her fingers towards her ears. That was half true; only Evie’s mouth had ever been threatened with a bar of soap.

‘The staff were worse than the students.’ The girl smiled and held out a long, slender arm. Her sleeve buttons clattered against one of the serviette dispensers. ‘I’m Isobel.’

Customers didn’t usually offer handshakes. She was about to ask for a job. ‘Hi. I’m Cleo.’ Isobel’s hand felt ever-soslightly smaller than Evie’s, which Cleo had sneakily held for much of Mob Wives last night, trying to channel her inner lioness directly into her daughter. ‘Welcome to Fallenbay, famed for pirate legends, Paralympians and potty-mouthed women. First visit?’

‘Thanks. How did you know I’m just visiting?’

Cleo nodded to the leather armchairs in the window. ‘Tourists tend to find a place they like fairly quickly and stick with it. Settlers shop around, get to know the area. Who are you holidaying with?’

Isobel repositioned her bag strap. ‘More of a break-for-one type situation.’

‘Good for you! I’ve always fancied that. Buggering off somewhere, finding myself.’ Her interest spiked, she could smell a broken heart. There was a man in this picture somewhere, probably being punished for not trying hard enough. She was going to punish Sam one day too. Shake him up a bit. Wake up the sexy, red-blooded Alpha she’d fallen in love with. But not before he’d fixed the plumbing in Evie’s en-suite. ‘Are you here for long?’

Isobel’s jaw tensed. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any flapjack left? It was insanely good yesterday. I’m sure you’ve sold out.’

Definitely a broken heart. ‘Sure. Can I get you a coffee with that? First customer of the day who lets a “shit” fly over their head gets their first cup on the house. Shop rules.’

‘Thanks. Could I be really cheeky and make it a tea? Sorry, I get morning headaches; limiting caffeine’s supposed to help.’

‘No problem, pot of tea coming up.’ Cleo set to work. Isobel slipped her bag over her head and perched on one of the wooden bar stools. ‘Sleep, that’s what kicks my headaches off,’ said Cleo. ‘A dreadful night’s sleep.’ Specifically, lying awake, thinking of ways to throttle nasty little Facebookers and neurotic earth mothers without the feds finding out. The feds? The bloody feds? Good God, one episode of Mob Wives and she was turning into a moll.

Isobel sat straight as a bookend at the counter. She reminded Cleo of Evie a little. Pretty round face, wide intelligent eyes. Something vulnerable in there too.

‘Sleep? That would make sense. There’s a dog, next door to my holiday cottage. A big one. Started barking at the milkman at five-thirty this morning. He was still going strong when I left.’

A yapping dog Cleo could cope with. It was a yapping mother she’d had to suffer. Well, she hoped Lorna felt better after her little outburst. One day she might not have the luxury of someone to fire off at, one day she might be stacked against a virtual menace, an Aeron Mycock, hurting her little girl over the internet where she couldn’t wring his scrawny neck.

Isobel smiled at the wrong moment, and it was as if a defunct switch was thrown inside Cleo’s emotional control centre, the feelings rushing from nowhere. Oh God, was she about to . . . no . . . Oh God, no . . .

Too late.

The first release of tears eked from Cleo’s face. Isobel, bemused, was already rising to her feet. Stop sobbing, you fool! What was wrong with her? No wonder Evie was such a drama queen. Cleo had passed it on like a defective gene, and there she was blaming Sam’s lot for Evie’s puppy fat.

Isobel stood hands flattened on the counter. ‘Do you need anything?’

It was such an odd response, it threw Cleo off track. Was she a counsellor? Or maybe she meant drugs? Yes, Isobel thought she was a complete fruit-loop, the sort of woman who needed to drop a Diazepam to see a pot of tea through to fruition without a meltdown. Isobel pulled at the serviette dispenser. ‘Tissue?’

Cleo stole a few breaths. She took the serviette with the little slate blue C for Coast printed subtly in each corner and wiped her face. She’d agonised over how many Cs to have on the serviettes, the sizing, the shade of blue . . .

‘Rough morning?’ Isobel asked.

Rough? It had been a little rough, now it was officially bottom-clenchingly bad. ‘Sorry. Not what you wanted for breakfast, profanity and crying. How embarrassing!’ Phew, no wobble in her voice. ‘I’m not usually a crier.’ Why was she crying again? Was it Lorna’s newly burning hatred for her? The furniture outside Pomme du Port? No, it was an amalgamation of things, a pile of silliness topped off by some horrid little snot calling her daughter names. A foul, hurtful, utterly uncalled-for name. Evie had shown her a screen-shot of the comment left beneath one of her million pouty selfies. Fat cow, he’d called her – not just fat, although that was obviously the part Evie found most offensive, the fat part. Personally Cleo would rather be called a fat cow than a stupid woman, for argument’s sake, but Evie was fifteen so Cleo went with it, cheerily playing the whole thing down while inside her guts had twisted for both the fat and the cow that little shit had labelled her baby girl.

She tucked her tissue into her apron and straightened her shoulders. ‘Aren’t people rotten, Isobel?’ she smiled. ‘Cruel, just for the thrill of it?’ Just for the sport. She set a pot of milk beside the cup and saucer. Isobel looked away. She suddenly seemed older than Cleo had first pegged her. A good ten years older than Evie, maybe.

‘Yes, Cleo,’ said Isobel. ‘People can be very cruel indeed. Usually when they think there’ll be no consequences.’