Читать книгу Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues - Trisha Ashley - Страница 11

My sister Rosina, who died of diphtheria as a toddler, had black curly hair and dark eyes like Father and me, and though she didn’t grow up enough to tell, I expect she’d have been a bit on the short side, too. Tansy now is very much what I was at her age, so clearly the darker Bright genes are reasserting themselves, just like they said in a telly programme I watched, when they were going on about that monk.

No, I don’t mean Rasputin, lovey – he was a Russkie. It was Mendel, and he worked something out about genes by looking at his pet rabbits.

Middlemoss Living Archive

Recordings: Nancy Bright.

There were no parking spaces near Justin’s flat, so I had to leave the Mini round the corner and hope to move it closer when I loaded my things up next day.

Justin seemed pleased to see me, sweeping me off my feet and giving me a big hug and kiss, and then he pretended he hadn’t forgotten it was the anniversary of our engagement when I mentioned it. He said he’d booked a table at our favourite local Greek restaurant already, which I expect he had once he knew I was going to be home that night, because we often went there on a Saturday anyway.

‘And since you’ve had things out with your mother, we can celebrate being rid of one financial burden, too,’ I suggested.

‘Yes … she’s gone a bit quiet since I wrote to her explaining, but I’m sure she’ll realise why I can’t carry on helping her out to such an extent when she’s thought it over,’ he said optimistically. ‘But you mustn’t even hint that you knew about me lending her money, Tansy – promise?’

‘Of course I won’t. Not that I’ll ever get the opportunity anyway,’ I said, because Mummy Dearest always puts the phone down without speaking if I answered it and she never visited the flat when I was there.

In fact, it had been lovely to come back and not find all my belongings in the boxroom! Justin had tidied things away a bit, so no brightly coloured pipe-cleaner monkeys swung from any of the shelves or light fittings, but it was a definite improvement.

This flat had always been his rather than ours, so setting up home together somewhere else would, I thought, be so much better. I could assert my love of colour a bit more and Justin would just have to get used to it.

When I went into the kitchen to make coffee, I thought how little of me there was in this flat even when Justin’s mother hadn’t been here hiding any sign of my existence. Most of my belongings and the majority of my shoe ornament and vintage wedding shoe collections were stored in my bedroom in Sticklepond.

I was dreamily conjuring up a mental picture of a little country cottage in the Home Counties somewhere, roses round the door and maybe a baby buggy in the hall, when the doorbell pealed, breaking my reverie.

I put another cup on the coffee tray in case we had a visitor and took it through into the living room – just in time to hear the unmistakable high-pitched voice of my stepsister Rae exclaiming furiously from the direction of the hall.

‘Justin, you bastard! I’ve only just got your message because I’ve been away – and if you think I’m going to let you shirk your responsibilities and cut my maintenance payments just so you can swan off and marry Tansy, you’ve got another think coming!’

I stopped dead, ice trickling down my spine, and then carefully put the tray on the table.

‘Quiet!’ hissed Justin urgently. ‘Are you mad, coming round here like this?’

‘Oh, come on, Daddy told me that Tansy’s up in Lancashire with the old bat, so you don’t get rid of me that easily.’

She must have barged past him because suddenly she was in the room. She caught sight of me, frozen to the spot, and her jaw dropped.

‘The “old bat” was well enough to leave overnight,’ I said evenly, in a voice that didn’t sound in the least like my own. ‘What did you mean, Rae, about Justin paying you maintenance money?’

Justin, who’d followed her into the room, flushed angrily. ‘It’s nothing, Tansy. You misheard,’ he said quickly. ‘I’d loaned your sister some money and told her I needed it back, that’s all.’

‘As well as your mother? Have you taken up moneylending as a sideline?’ I suggested acidly, while my mind whirled and computed and came up with an almost unbelievably horrible possibility …

‘No – actually, I only lent money to Rae; Mother’s got plenty of her own. But I didn’t like to tell you, because I know you two don’t really get on.’

I suppose doctors often have to think on their feet, but it wasn’t good enough to fool me. Anyway, both their faces gave the game away. Justin looked angry and guilty in equal measure, while Rae looked guarded and slightly worried, creases sharply pointing downwards on her usually smooth forehead.

‘Whoever’s been doing your Botox, I’d ask for your money back,’ I told her.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Tansy, but it’s true about Justin giving me a loan, when I got into a financial scrape,’ she said quickly, backing him up. ‘I couldn’t ask Daddy because you know what he’s like – thinks we should stand on our own two feet and earn anything above the allowance he gives us. He’d be furious if he knew how much I’d got into debt. But now Justin’s suddenly demanded it back without warning, because you two are finally getting married.’

‘That’s not going to wash – do you think I’m stupid? Rae, you said “maintenance” and that Justin was trying to shirk his responsibilities. What responsibilities?’

Rae threw herself down on the cream leather sofa and sighed. ‘Well, it was worth a try, but I can see that the game’s up. The truth is, Tansy, that we had a teensy weensy little affair a few years ago.’

‘How many years ago?’ I demanded. ‘You’d never met until you came back over here to live after your divorce and I was engaged to Justin by then!’

‘That’s right, it was just after I came back.’

My head and my heart struggled to take this in. That first year after I’d got engaged to Justin, the time I remembered as full of sunshine, love, happiness and promise for the future, had in reality been just a sham …

‘Tansy, I can explain,’ Justin said desperately. ‘I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t an affair, just a mad impulse, and it was always you I loved.’

‘But you said you didn’t even like her!’

‘I don’t. In fact, I think I hate her. I don’t know what got into me.’

‘I think I can guess,’ I said. ‘But Rae, how could you do that with my fiancé?’

She shrugged. ‘Justin was so indifferent to me when we met, making him change his mind was too much of a challenge to resist.’

My world was rocking, shifting onto a different axis, and things were clicking into place with the sound of deadlocks slamming shut. ‘So, this maintenance you mentioned …?’

‘Justin’s paying for the result of his little mistake,’ Rae said silkily. ‘Charlie.’

‘Charlie is Justin’s?’

Now my suspicion was finally confirmed, I felt truly sick.

‘He certainly is – and it’s only right he should support his son, isn’t it?’

‘And the rest,’ Justin said bitterly. ‘You wanted extra to keep your mouth shut about who Charlie’s father was and you’ve got increasingly greedy.’

‘It’s not greed – it’s necessity. Charlie needed a nanny, and then private nursery school wasn’t cheap …’

‘And he’s at private pre-prep school now, isn’t he?’ I said slowly. ‘No wonder you were always moaning about economy and saving money, Justin, and stopped talking about us getting married and starting a family. You already had one!’

‘No, Tansy, it’s not like that –’ he began, coming towards me with the evident intention of taking me in his arms.

I backed away. ‘Don’t you come near me! Everything – every single thing I thought we had together – has been one big lie, practically from the moment Rae came back to the UK!’

Rae stood up and slung her Mulberry satchel over one thin, angular shoulder. ‘I’ll be off and leave you two to kiss and make up,’ she said. ‘But don’t think you can stop paying for Charlie now that Tansy knows, Justin, because if you do I’ll take you to court for maintenance.’

‘Just get out, Rae,’ I said. ‘I never want to see you again.’

‘How many years have you been saying that?’ She sauntered elegantly to the door and turned. ‘Ever since you turned up in our midst like a little, ugly dark goblin, and Daddy insisted we treat you as a sister. As if!’

Then she slammed the door behind her, leaving a silence you could cut with a knife.

Justin attempted to justify himself and talk me round, but there were no words that could get him out of this fix. He might look like a big, guilty schoolboy, but this was slightly more serious than who scrumped all the apples out of the orchard, so saying it was me he’d loved all the time, and he’d let Rae bleed him dry so she didn’t tell me what he’d done, just wasn’t good enough.

‘I was doing it to protect you – us!’

‘If you hadn’t slept with her in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to,’ I pointed out. ‘And because she had Charlie, you put off marrying me and starting a family all this time … right to the point where it might even be too late for me to have a baby!’

I didn’t see how I could ever forgive either of them for that.

‘I’m sure it isn’t too late, Tansy darling. Look, I know I’ve been stupid, but now that you know – if you can forgive me – there’s nothing to stop us. I don’t need to pay her through the nose any more and everything’s changed.’

‘It has – changed irrevocably,’ I said. ‘I thought you were the only man immune to my stepsisters – the only one who truly loved me.’ Despite myself, my voice wobbled a little.

‘I do,’ he insisted.

‘Justin, I’m not sure you even know the meaning of the word, but even if you do, then you don’t love me the way I am, or you wouldn’t keep going on about my weight, and the way I dress and the things I say, as if I’m suddenly not good enough – just like Mummy Dearest always tells you.’

‘Leave Mummy out of this. She’d love to see me married.’

‘Yes, to anyone except me!’

At this inopportune moment the phone on the table between us rang.

‘Answer it, why don’t you? It’s bound to be Mummy Dearest herself!’ I said bitterly.

He snatched it up and from his side of the conversation I’d clearly guessed right.

‘Mummy, can I call you back? This is a really bad time and – no, of course I care that you’re having a heart attack! Listen, Mummy, don’t –’ He paused and I could hear high-pitched and imperative quacking coming from the receiver. ‘Yes, all right, I’m on my way,’ he said resignedly, and put down the phone.

‘Summoned to Tunbridge?’

‘She’s feeling really ill. I’m sure it’s nothing but indigestion as usual, but I’d better go. I’ll be back later tonight and then we can talk things through.’

‘I don’t think we’ve anything further to discuss, Justin!’

‘Look, I know you’re upset –’

‘That’s the understatement of the year!’

‘But you must understand it was just a moment of madness – weakness, vanity – call it what you like.’ He ventured one of his persuasive, glowing smiles, the one most women found irresistible. ‘I’ve been a fool, but I don’t want to lose you, darling, and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. I’ll ring you when I know what time I’m coming back.’

‘Don’t bother!’ I said tersely, then locked myself into the boxroom and cried until I heard him leave the flat. When I went out again, the place seemed even colder and emptier than ever and I felt much the same. I was shivering, though that was probably just with shock.

I washed my swollen red eyes with cold water, then went round the flat collecting everything that was mine and stowing it all away in whatever bags, boxes and suitcases I could find. Then I brought the Mini round to a handy space near the front door and packed as much as I could into it. I suppose it was lucky I’d always stored most of my stuff up in Lancashire in my old bedroom, as if subconsciously I’d known my stay here was temporary.

Only my little drawing desk and a couple of large portfolios remained, and I left those in the boxroom, with a note asking him not to let his mother throw them out until I’d got Timmy to come round with his camper van to pick them up for me.

I took one last look round at the sterile rooms, which resembled a minimalist stage set without all my brightly coloured bits and pieces, and then I was off – straight back north like a homing pigeon.

I could have stayed the night with Timmy and Joe, though they’re the other side of London, but I didn’t think of that until I was well on the way to Sticklepond, when it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t just turn up early – it would be a shock to Aunt Nan – so I stopped at a motel chain for the night. I was in no fit state to drive any further that night anyway, really, because I don’t think I’d stopped crying since Justin had left the flat and everything just kept playing over and over in my mind.

Justin texted me on my mobile several times, presumably after he returned and found me gone, but I deleted his messages unread. There wasn’t anything he could say that could make this better.