An Autumn Crush (35 page)

‘Floz, you got drunk. We’ve all done it.’

‘I was sick, wasn’t I?’ she cringed. Yes,
you were
, said some irritating little swine of a voice in her head.
He was holding your hair back whilst you were throwing
up over the bathroom floor, REMEMBER?

‘A bit.’ Guy held up his hands in a gesture of ‘so what’.

Remember sitting on his knee? taunted the voice. Bet you can’t remember what you said to him, you dirty bitch.

‘Was I saying anything?’ said Floz, hands still pressed over her eyes.

‘Only “bleurghh”.’

God, did that make it better or worse?

‘Floz, you got drunk, you cried, you were sick,’ said Guy, sounding not unlike Julius Caesar. ‘I gave you some water so you would have less of a headache and put you to bed.
End of story. You didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you count the topless dancing.’

Floz’s eyes enlarged to saucers.

Guy held out his hands. ‘No, sorry, wrong thing to say. Just trying to lighten you up a bit. Honestly. You didn’t do any dancing at all. Sorry.’

‘Did I ring you?’ Surely she didn’t. Why would she ring
him
?

‘No,
I rang you
to see if you were okay. After all that . . . Nick business.’

Ask him why you’re wearing that shirt
, said the evil voice within.

Did she have her old bra on? The comfy white one that she threw in with any colour wash? Had he seen it?

‘Look, I’ll go and make you some tea.’ Guy stretched out the stiffness in every part of his body which spending a whole night being crunched in that tiny chair had caused.

‘No, it’s okay. You’ve done enough for me.’

‘I insist.’

‘No, please.’

‘Floz, pretend I’m Juliet who doesn’t take no for an answer, okay?’

Floz sighed then nodded slowly in agreement. She waited until he had half-limped out of the room before stepping out of bed. Or stepping off a roundabout, which is how it felt. She didn’t
need the mirror to tell her how dreadful she must look. But, being a self-torturing bint, she stole a glance at herself. Surprise! No black circles, amazing! Or any make-up at all. Her fringe was
stuck up at an alarming angle, mind, and there were nice bags under a lovely cyclamen-pink pair of eyes. All set off beautifully by the hideous psychedelic shirt, which she kept forgetting to put
into the charity bag. But relief and joy flooded her as she noticed how drunkenly buttoned up it was – she must have done it herself.

She tiptoed out with an armful of fresh clothes to the bathroom and had a shower. She felt a bit wobbly and slightly queasy, seeing as she had nothing at all in her stomach. A splash of water
and bit of make-up later, she felt almost human.

Guy was frying bacon. Her sick-empty stomach responded to the smoky smell with a primal growl.

‘You look a bit less lime-green in the cheeks.’ He smiled at her and pulled out the chair underneath the table, where he had set a place for her, complete with mug of tea. His eyes
were grey and twinkly and his face so much more handsome for not glowering at her. ‘Sit,’ he commanded. ‘Now eat.’

He placed a sizzling sandwich in front of her. Floz couldn’t remember a man ever making her breakfast before. Nick had promised that when he came over, he was going to cook her a real
Canadian hunter’s breakfast.
Nick, who didn’t exist
.

Guy had trimmed all the fat off the bacon, she noticed. She hated fat. He’d somehow known that and acted on it. He didn’t seem like the same Guy who wouldn’t let her in the
flat. Then she twigged.
That’s when they were looking at your computer
.

And it was Guy who had trawled through the net and found out the truth behind Nick/Chas for her. And looked out for her last night. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t like her,
would he? How could she have got everything so very wrong? Before she knew it, tears were falling faster than she could wipe them away.

Floz bit down on the sandwich to stifle the sob more than to satisfy her hunger. Guy heard her sniffing behind him but busied himself cutting bread for his own sandwich and humming. She knew he
was pretending not to hear to save her a little dignity.

‘Thank you for finding out about – you know,’ she said quietly. ‘I half-wish you hadn’t though. It would have been better to carry on believing he was real than
hear the truth.’

Guy took his bacon sandwich over to the table and sat down.

‘Floz, there are some very flawed people out there. Hanging onto that image of a perfect man who never existed would have affected your life too much. No one in the future would have lived
up to the fantasy.’

Floz thought of Nick – tall, with just the right amount of lean muscle, gentlemanly and intelligent with a soft Canadian drawl. A character who had moulded himself over time to her ideal
spec. Guy was so terribly right. Chas Hanson had a nice voice, if his phone calls were anything to go by . . . but he was a much older man than he purported to be – and God knows what he
looked like. She didn’t know if the pictures he had sent her of himself were old ones or even of him at all. No wonder he took the relationship right up to the point of the possible meet
before he bailed out.

‘And how much would a trip to Canada have cost you? Not just in money, but in more wasted emotion?’

‘I feel such a fool,’ said Floz wearily. Her nerves felt like she had just disembarked from a very long and wild roller-coaster.

‘You’re not a fool,’ said Guy. His hand was so close to hers on the table. It was huge. She imagined Nick having hands like that – long fingers that stroked and held.
Nick Nick Nick
. ‘Floz, the most intelligent of people get drawn in by these weirdos. For the record, having seen the letters, I would bet anything that this guy cared for you. He knew
you were the genuine article and I think he got himself wrapped up in a fantasy that he so wanted to be real. I also think the death of his son totally screwed him up and he was trying to claw his
way back into the past. I . . .’

‘Please, no more,’ said Floz. She was so hideously embarrassed to think that anyone could have seen what was in her heart. Guy especially – the person most likely to think her
a total tit. She had poured out her heart in those letters, believing they were for Nick’s eyes only, and now loads of people had seen them. They all knew now that not even her own parents
loved her.

‘I had a friend once,’ began Guy. He couldn’t believe he had started to tell this story, but as he thought it would help Floz, he was prepared to go to that dark place again.
‘We only went out a couple of times before we split up. She wasn’t the type I usually go for, she was so small and fragile and I wanted to protect her, but boy was she hard work. She
was hooked on the drama of dysfunctional men treating her badly and she couldn’t cope with the fact that I respected her – so it ended. But we managed to stay friends. Her name was
Lacey. Lacey Robinson. We trained at the same cookery college.’

He stopped then, wondering if Floz wanted to hear this tale of damned misery, but she nodded at him to go on.

‘She was obsessive when she fell in love: that person became the centre of her being. It wasn’t healthy. The man would finish it – or disappear – then she’d turn to
me as the only friend in her life and cry on my shoulder. Then one day she hooked up with this Jamie bloke – on the net – who was “perfect”. He ticked every box. He was
the
Mr Right. He lived in Durham so they didn’t get to see each other that much, and that’s why it kept the flame alight. They’d meet in romantic restaurants for lunch
– never at his house, and she never stayed overnight. She was planning to leave her life here and go up there to live with him.

‘Then one day he just stopped contacting her. He wouldn’t answer his phone, texts, emails . . . She nearly went crazy, ripping herself to shreds trying to work out what she had done
to cause him to do that. So she drove up there. How the hell she didn’t crash I don’t know. He wouldn’t come out of the house, so she sat outside it for hours – then his
girlfriend arrived. Seems that Mr Loverman was really a Mr Love-rat, thriving on the excitement of reeling girls in and then cutting them loose when they got too close. He got off on the chase and
didn’t give a toss what heartache he caused in the process. Needless to say, Lacey was devastated. She rang me when she got home to tell me all about it, but she sounded all right, as if she
was handling it okay. She said that finding out the truth had released her from him and that she was fine. Totally fine. I shouldn’t have believed her, because she was never fine. But I was
working hard, and tired, and I didn’t check up on my hunch and drive over. That night she filled herself with pills and alcohol, slit her wrists and killed herself.’

‘Oh, Guy, surely you couldn’t blame yourself for that?’

‘I could have saved her if I’d gone over,’ said Guy, coughing down the rising emotion in his throat. ‘I still dream about the pain she must have suffered, killing herself
like that. I went off the rails a bit, to be honest. Steve has babysat me, wrestled bottles of vodka off me and put me to bed more times than I care to remember. Trust me, Floz, you can’t
drown your sorrows because they’re bloody Gold Medallist Olympic swimmers, and no one knows that better than me. I lost my job, got arrested for fighting, totally lost my way in the world.
Kenny Moulding might have taken his pound of flesh from me over the years, but he gave me a job when no one else would.’

‘You mustn’t blame yourself for her death,’ Floz repeated gently. ‘Some people are born with a self-destruct button, and once it is activated, there is nothing you can do
to override it.’

‘I wish I could believe that.’

Floz thought for a moment before speaking.

‘I know I’m right, Guy, because I knew someone once who was like that.’ She paused. ‘He had a wife and his own business and a nice house. Then . . .’
So many
dark days. So much going wrong. So much sadness.
‘His business started to fail. He needed to plough money into it to rescue it, but he didn’t have it and he couldn’t raise it.
So, when the banks rejected him, he turned to gambling, hoping for that one big win that would rescue him.’
He enjoyed the gambling. The excitement blotted out all the sadness
.

‘I’m presuming he didn’t get the win,’ said Guy.

‘Actually, in the beginning he was very lucky. Maybe if he hadn’t had that initial luck, things might have been different. Then that luck changed – but he was convinced that it
would come back, that his one big win was just around the corner. Guy, he ended up gambling away everything they had. His wife just couldn’t reach him. He’s one of the town drunks now.
One of the idiots who sits on the bench outside the public toilets with cheap cider and strong beer.’
That’s why I don’t go into town much, in case I see him. In case I see my
ex-husband
. ‘I used to look at those drunks and wonder how they got to that place in life, where they came from, what they once were. They weren’t born swigging from
cans.’

‘He didn’t kill himself though, Floz. There’s a difference.’

‘No, but he disappeared into himself, didn’t care about anyone but himself – and he is killing himself, only his method is a much slower one. No one could stop him, his button
was pressed and there was no turning back. His wife lost everything too, but she chose to carry on and survive. It’s very hard trying to protect someone who is hell-bent on harming
themselves. But they are locked in a world of one person and they throw away the key.’
And until recently I never appreciated that slope would be so easy to slide down
.

Guy’s hand closed over hers and he squeezed it. It was large and safe, she thought. Hers was small and chilled, he thought. There was a comfortable silence in the room, a sweet air of
calm.

Floz said in a humbled voice: ‘Please don’t tell Juliet or Steve about any of this.’ His hand was still on hers and she liked it. His thumb made a single tentative stroke
against her wrist.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Guy. ‘Our secret, eh?’

His eyes were kind and warm as a grey wolf’s coat. Floz realized then how Lacey could have found brief respite from her heartbreaks, being folded and held in his arms. She wanted them to
fold around her. She wanted to be held. She wanted to be held against the protective bulk of Guy Miller.

Then Juliet and Steve crashed into the flat and their hands sprang apart.

‘Hellooo, it’s only us. Ooooh . . .’ Juliet spotted Guy. ‘What are
you
doing here at this time?’ Her eyebrows rose.

‘Oy, nothing like that,’ said Guy. ‘I just popped in to see if . . .’ Oh bloody hell, he couldn’t think of a viable excuse why he was there alone with Floz at this
hour.

‘. . . if you were back,’ Floz jumped in. ‘Because Guy wanted to see Steve about . . . er . . . the suits for the wedding.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Guy, mouthing ‘thank you’ at Floz when Juliet turned to look at Steve.

‘I hope you’re not just going to go out and get something without coordinating with me,’ said Juliet, planting her hands firmly on her waist.

‘No,’ said Guy. ‘But suits in our size aren’t going to be easy to find off the peg, so I thought we’d better get cracking on some research sooner rather than
later.’

‘There’s that seamstress on Lamb Street.’

‘Seamstress?’ said Guy and Steve together.

‘If you let me finish,’ growled Juliet. ‘She’s married to a tailor and they turn stuff around really quickly. She stuck her neck out for women’s lib and got a Thai
husband.’

‘Good idea,’ said Steve. ‘Shall we take a drive out now whilst you’re here, Guy?’

‘Why not.’

Steve dropped Juliet’s suitcase and hurried Guy out.

‘Right, mate,’ he said. ‘What’s going on with you two then?’

Sometimes men were worse than women for gossip.

‘You all right?’ asked Juliet, as softly as she was able with her gruff smoky voice. ‘I was thinking about you.’

‘Yes, I’m good,’ said Floz, pouring Juliet a cup of tea from the pot. ‘Guy told me about Lacey.’