Love-40 Read online

  Once, near their beginning, they had planned to move away from here – away from the ties of childhood, teenage secrets, Estelle’s vague memory of her mother’s death. And yes … she passed by the flint walls of the church, glancing up at the stained-glass window depicting Jesus and the twelve disciples. Away even from Suzi too.

  But they never had. Slowly, she left the graveyard behind, crossed North Street and headed for the house she loosely called home. Liam said Suzi would never leave Pridehaven, but sometimes Estelle wondered if it was Liam who was attached by some invisible umbilical cord, to the town of his childhood. For here he was, now teaching in the very school he had attended himself, the school his father too had once taught in, running the youth club where he had once played table tennis, taking Sunday afternoon hikes in the woods to the west of the river Pride, where all three of them had once played, and where she and Liam had first … she closed her eyes. First touched one another’s naked bodies.

  Oh yes, she thought, as she slotted her key in the lock of the huge Victorian building that housed three flats, including the one right at the top that Liam had first fallen in love with as a student, there were a hell of a lot of memories in those woods.

  She took the stairs in twos; the first carpeted flight gave way to bare floorboard by the time she reached the garret, as Liam affectionately referred to it. He had rented it as soon as he left college and returned to Pridehaven to live, bought it as soon as his salary allowed him to. Estelle – who had stayed in Pridehaven while he did his teacher training, toyed with various career opportunities, ended up working as a clerical officer with the local water authority, where she’d progressed (though she sometimes wondered if that was the right word) into the customer complaints department – had moved in very soon after.

  She used her second key to let herself in.

  But it had remained Liam’s garret, she reminded herself as she dumped her rucksack in the hall and went through to the galley kitchen. It had always been his choice.

  There was some white wine in the fridge, a half-decent Bordeaux, so she poured herself a generous glass, wandered into the living room and surveyed its contents as if seeing it for the first time. If she left, she wanted it inscribed on her memory, just as it was at this moment.

  To one side was a chair in front of a pine table, whose surface was hidden by the papers, books, exercise jotters and pens of Liam Nichols, teacher and amateur poet. And if you swung the chair to the right, you would be facing a computer screen and keyboard; pencils, rubbers, elastic bands and Tippex spilling out of desk tidies – or un-tidies in Liam’s case. Above were bookshelves stacked with poetry, books on education, Socialist essays, child psychology, you name it …

  But Liam’s influence didn’t stop there. Estelle’s critical gaze roved on, committing it to memory. On the floor by an armchair was a tray containing the remains of his breakfast, the dregs of a strong Italian coffee in a brown mug, the flaky crumbs of a croissant and a dollop of strawberry jam. His videos were piled haphazardly by the TV, his cassettes and CDs dominated the shelf space above the hi-fi, a pair of his jeans sprawled across the sofa, waiting to be ironed. And most disturbing of all, a Fauve print on the far wall seemed to watch Estelle’s every move.

  This wasn’t home, Estelle thought to herself. This was Liam’s home. Why, she wondered, had she brought so little of herself to this place in so many years? Had she known, all the time, that she wouldn’t stay?

  Out of the window she could see the car park at the back, her own racing-green Mini Mayfair snug in the far corner. Liam had taken them to CG’s in his car. Estelle didn’t care – she had relished the walk home, needed the thinking time.

  CG’s … She took a few paces further into the room and sipped the Bordeaux. It wasn’t Amanda Lake she minded – the flirting, the deep intensity which Liam could so effortlessly turn on for anyone, from a child who’d written a beautiful poem to a socialite at the tennis club whom he really should despise. No, it was the childishness of it, Estelle thought, looking round the room from her new vantage point, feeling the coolness of the wine in her throat. The unquestionably self-centred aspect of Liam was what got to her. It was always his needs, and she, like Suzi, had always pandered to them.

  She drained her glass and placed it purposefully on Liam’s discarded breakfast tray. Always, she thought, but not any more.

  Chapter 3

  At 8.30 on the following cloudy but mild Monday morning as Suzi pulled her keys out of her bag to open up Secrets In The Attic, she glanced towards the mystery shop next door. The window was still covered with a dark blind and the lettering above was indecipherable, thanks to the tarpaulin tacked haphazardly over it. Kitchen gadgets? Candles and pot-pourri? Never mind, come nine o’clock, all would be revealed.

  Although she switched on the lights as she went in, the contents of their own shop continued to look dark and cryptic, a Victorian chest competing for space with a wash-stand and an ebony vanity unit; a tall bookcase; Suzi’s favourite grandfather clock.

  ‘The dark allure of the past,’ Estelle had said, in mock-Gothic tones, when they’d chosen a Victorian burgundy and cream paint for the interior of the shop. ‘That’s what we’re selling.’

  But now, as she re-arranged the window display to fill the gap created by Saturday’s shock sale of a black and white 60s dinner service that was, according to Estelle, just ‘developing its value’, Suzi wondered if they’d got it right. Did people still want to buy-in to the past? Wouldn’t most of them rather tour Habitat or Ikea for a taste of today?

  ‘No sign of life from next door then?’ Estelle flipped the ‘open’ sign as she came in. She and Liam lived only a few minutes’ walk away, but she looked exhausted, her auburn hair tied into a long plait that fell forward over one shoulder, her pale face devoid of both make-up and smile.

  Oh dear. No high spots on the horizon in the relationship department then. ‘Not a flicker,’ Suzi told her.

  ‘Any post?’

  ‘I’m avoiding opening it.’ Suzi had spotted the familiar longhand scrawl favoured by their landlord. There was also however, a typewritten window envelope that looked boring enough to be instantly binnable.

  Not so. ‘Oh God.’ It was from the council, suggesting that arrangements be made to pay the next Council Tax bill by ten instalments – starting next month. Helpfully, it provided the figure required, along with a direct debit mandate to complete.

  At the sight of this figure – three figures, to be precise – Suzi repressed the gnaw of anxiety that she was experiencing far too often these days. Think good karma, her yoga instructor had once told her. But sometimes all she could think was bills.

  They did a swap, Suzi holding their landlord’s letter gingerly between forefinger and thumb (bad karma might be contagious). The tone was firm rather than unfriendly, she felt, though he too had taken it upon himself to suggest payments by instalments. Large payments.

  ‘We need customers,’ Estelle pronounced.

  She wasn’t joking. Suzi looked around the shop once more. Dingy as Pridehaven’s fishing museum – and nobody was queuing to get in there. Secrets In The Attic might have the allure of the past, but it clearly wasn’t alluring enough. ‘It needs a face-lift,’ she said.

  Estelle nodded. ‘It needs a make-over.’

  ‘It needs a total transformation.’ Good grief, when she’d sold that dinner service the other day she’d been tempted to crack open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. She’d held her breath as the customer ummmed and aahed, mmmd and errrd, not relaxing until the cash was safely tucked in the till and the customer out of the door.

  Something had to change, and it had to change quickly. They’d only just begun, so surely it wasn’t too late for the shop to be saved? But what had to change? Suzi wondered. And how?

  * * *

  Liam had been invited into the headmaster’s study for a brief chat before morning assembly. This was not an occasion for joy.

  As Tony Andrews hit ram
bling monotone, Liam tried not to switch off. He had wanted a window of half an hour for classroom preparations; the requirements of literacy and numeracy and all the rest of the – crap, thought Liam, privately – curriculum now dictated by governmental busybodies, meant that every minute counted in school.

  It bugged him that there was no time any more for re-arranging classroom furniture for a spot of drama, devising an off the cuff spontaneous word-play exercise just for the hell of it, or batting on about what Roger McGough and Brian Patten had done for poetry, and why the hell weren’t they better appreciated?

  Though Liam still did these things. He couldn’t help it. He glanced across at the head’s tidy in-tray, clear desk, comfortable squishy leather chair. Yeah, well. He hated to be dictated to, wouldn’t be dictated to, he thought now, looking down at the floor and realising that one sock was black, the other royal blue.

  Teaching was an art, in his view, a vocation that he had entered because it seemed important to communicate knowledge, to encourage self-growth. Some might call that a precious attitude, (would Estelle? He realised with a dart of shock that he wasn’t sure) but those things mattered. What seemed far less important … he nodded vaguely at whatever point the headmaster might be making … was reaching certain goalposts at certain times, denying his pupils’ individuality in favour of the right NCT results, foregoing games, poetry and drama because they were (according to that governmental busybody anyway) less crucial to his kids’ development.

  Crap, thought Liam again, watching Tony Andrews’ mouth. The head had a hairy, unattractive moustache that twitched as he spoke, sharp bristles clinging to the moist, pink lips.

  ‘So what do you think, Liam?’ Tony asked. ‘Will you do it?’

  More demands, Liam thought, groping desperately for whatever words had passed him by. He looked out of the window as though the view of the children’s wild area – getting wilder year by year as thistles and nettles swamped the meadow flowers and the pond scummed over – might remind him. He loved this school – with its small playground complete with hopscotch squares and netball posts and even smaller field. Its look was old-fashioned – diamond-paned windows like that of the head’s study, wooden panelling, magnolia walls. But all that was part of what made it a tradition.

  ‘Knowing your feelings for drama,’ the head said helpfully.

  ‘A play?’ Liam tried to make this into a kind of I’m-considering-the-matter question.

  Tony Andrews nodded with enthusiasm. ‘The play is a crucial event on the school calendar.’ He twiddled the hairs on his moustache and Liam looked away. ‘Shakespeare perhaps?’

  Liam made a quick calculation. ‘End of summer term?’ he asked.

  ‘Exactly.’ The moist lips stretched into a grin that revealed stained teeth and a piece of cereal lodged between two of them. Liam wondered what Tony’s wife was like. He’d spoken to her at school functions, but she was one of those women who could very easily put any kind of intimacy on hold. ‘Parents expect it, as you know,’ the head went on.

  ‘All rehearsals out of school hours, I suppose?’ Liam was trying to sound unenthusiastic, certain he should milk this request and get something out of it for himself, other than applause and recognition if it turned out successful. But he’d already warmed to the theme. Shakespeare? An open air production – all the rage. Though perhaps a bit dodgy in this climate. But Romeo and Juliet was as relevant today as it had ever been. And it could be cut, simplified and adapted sufficiently for the kids to make a stab at it. Why the hell not? If Baz Luhrmann could make a film with Leonardo di Caprio as a Romeo guaranteed to cause a flutter amongst the hormones of every female adolescent in the land, then he could do something for the eleven- and twelve-year-old pre-pubescents. They’d be facing the Bard soon enough in secondary school – do them good to get a foretaste of what they were in for.

  ‘No other way, old chap.’ The head looked pointedly at his watch. ‘And, as I’ve already said, no one else could make a half-decent job of it.’

  Liam knew it was flattery of the most manipulative kind, but as he had with Amanda Lake yesterday, he enjoyed it anyway. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, jumping to his feet and moving quickly from the room. Did he have any spare socks in his desk drawer, he wondered.

  Estelle wouldn’t like the idea of the play. She would say, less time for us, and her beautiful brown eyes would grow big and sad … Damn it. Liam pushed her from his mind. She should understand. There was more to life than love. He had a career, he had commitments. He didn’t for one moment believe that she would leave him, though she had told him yesterday morning and again in the evening that she planned to.

  Liam negotiated the narrow corridor decorated with Impressionist prints that provided an inkling to the passing stranger of certain aspects of the middle school syllabus. She wouldn’t leave him because they were a couple, intertwined, interdependent, tied one to the other.

  But still doing their own thing. Liam practically bounded up the stairs as he thought of the play. That was what kept a relationship healthy, wasn’t it? Dependence and independence in equal doses. Well, roughly equal anyway.

  Quite where Suzi or Amanda Lake entered the equation, Liam didn’t have time to consider at this point. There was a classroom to re-arrange, a register to be done and a motley crowd of kids to be supervised during morning assembly. The rest could wait.

  * * *

  Estelle was restless. Suzi watched her pick up a water pitcher, trace the willow pattern on its side with a fingertip, put it back on the table. She frowned, paced the shop, went to put the kettle on.

  At a quarter to nine she took a deep breath, said she was going upstairs to sort out some stock. She returned almost immediately. ‘I want to move in,’ she said, folding her arms.

  ‘Move in?’ Suzi was putting a hopefully generous float of change into their till – acquired from an old sweet shop and still possessing its original pinggg. She paused. ‘In where?’

  ‘Upstairs.’ Estelle’s pale face was flushed, but otherwise she seemed calm. ‘As soon as I can clear it out.’

  Suzi’s mind switched gears. Things had never gone this far before. ‘Liam?’ she asked.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘Right.’ That wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but Suzi shut the till, not wanting to think about it, and especially not right now at just before 9 am on a Monday morning. Already there were enough people outside the shop next door to be called a crowd. Balloons had appeared, as if they’d magically floated from the sky, tables and chairs had been placed on the pavement in a forlorn attempt to create a café atmosphere, Suzi supposed, and Terry was perched like an overweight budgerigar on a ladder, taking the tarpaulin down, belly resting on one of the rungs.

  All this attention had to be good for business, Suzi thought. And any moment they’d find out what their neighbours would be selling. Sexy lingerie? (Terry looked the type). Pet food? She turned reluctantly back to Estelle. ‘What happened yesterday?’ she asked.

  Estelle let out a huge sigh. ‘I needed my car to go to that antique fair – you know?’

  Suzi knew, though yesterday, she’d clean forgotten. They’d agreed to take turns scouting around, researching the competition, looking for bargains, and Estelle had been allocated the fair in Dorchester. She nodded.

  ‘Liam decides to get up early, takes his car keys and my car out with him.’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘And doesn’t come back.’

  Suzi shook her head in sympathy. ‘So where’d he go?’

  ‘Into school.’ It seemed as if Estelle could hardly get the words out. ‘To watch a CRICKET MATCH.’ She flung her hands in the air. ‘Mobile switched off, wouldn’t you know. It was a miracle he managed to make it back in time for tennis. Although…’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘He bloody well would, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Right, OK, I see.’ She had a strong case, but Suzi still found herself looking for an escape route. ‘Why’d he take your car?’

  ‘His was out of p
etrol.’

  Ah. A different tack was needed. ‘But he adores you. You know he does.’

  ‘That’s not enough.’

  Suzi didn’t agree. It would be enough, she thought, for her, though she’d more or less given up on love – let alone adoration – having almost reached forty without falling into either of those states of heart and mind. ‘I know he’s infuriating,’ she agreed. ‘But Liam’s … well, Liam. He just can’t help throwing himself into every project one hundred per cent. He forgets things. He –’

  ‘He forgets who’s waiting for him at home.’

  ‘But if you love him…’ Suzi had sympathy – up to a point – but it was the picture of her brother’s hooded, dark eyes at the tennis club yesterday, that filled her mind. Not to mention the vision of a dilapidated Liam arriving on her doorstep sometime in the very near future looking for food, drink and t.l.c.

  She watched Terry rip at the tarpaulin. Some joker started a slow hand-clap and one of their neighbours’ wives (she hadn’t yet worked out which was which) appeared in the doorway wearing a crimson-lipsticked smile and clutching a tray of wilting vol-au-vents.

  ‘What about being happy?’ Estelle demanded.

  Suzi thought of Michael. Were they happy? They had fun, though yesterday he’d seemed a little uptight. Most of the time she enjoyed Michael, a bit like she enjoyed her animals and her plants and even the antique shop. But happy? ‘I dunno.’ She hadn’t really given it much thought. But was that a good sign – or a bad one?

  The two of them watched as the blind was slowly drawn from the window of the shop next door.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Estelle said.

  ‘Stan and Terry’s Bargain Basement?’ Suzi peered to look at the sign-writing. ‘Fabulous old furniture, silly prices?’ Under this lettering was scrawled, HOUSE CLEARANCES WANTED, EVERYTHING VALUED, COME AND VISIT THE FAIREST DEALERS IN TOWN. And a phone number. Fairest dealers in town? Good God. Suzi clutched Estelle’s arm. The shop next door was selling second-hand furniture. Stan and Terry were not rather sweet or rather odd. They were rivals.