One Step Too Far (10 page)

“What’ve you been up to babe?” asks Angel and I tell her about my day, trying to make it sound interesting, but I feel timid, self-conscious with everyone here.

“So today was my rest day, tomorrow I need to start looking for a job,” I say at the end, embarrassed to be the centre of attention.

“What is eet you do, Keetty Cat?” asks Dolores with a killer smile.

I have this all worked out, I even did my CV in secret back in Chorlton, before I left, although I hadn’t printed it out – I hadn’t known my new address or phone number then, obviously.

“I’m a receptionist,” I say. “I used to work in a law firm, but I fancy a change now, something a bit more exciting hopefully.”

“Dolores is a receptionist, aren’t you babe?” says Angel. I look at Dolores in her tight sexy clothes and she's bubbly and sunny-natured and I can’t remember now why I thought reception work would be a good job for me. Something to do with it being easy to pick up (surely), not having to think too much, not making myself conspicuous. Not being found.

“Sure I am. I loooove it, ees dee best job in dee world – HA HA HA.”

I wonder how good a receptionist Dolores actually is, with her hard-to-understand accent and idiosyncratic command of the English language. Still, she’s warm and fun and she looks good, and I’m aware that I don’t really have the look of a receptionist, I lack that kind of glamour. My interview outfit is formal, lawyerish, I don’t wear much make-up, and I have no jewellery any more, not a single piece, not since I left my wedding ring in the station toilets at Crewe.

The swarthy boy moves from the stove and gets two bowls from the draining board, I really hope for his sake Bev did as she promised and cleaned up properly from the shoe incident earlier. He dollops foul-smelling ladlefuls of greeny-brown stew into the bowls. He gets two forks from the drawer and two glasses from a cupboard, he fills the glasses with water from the tap, he puts the forks in his back jeans pocket, prongs pointing upwards and outwards, places one bowl on his right arm, waiter style, pinches the two glasses between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, so his long dirty nails go in the water, and finally takes the second bowl of stew with his free right hand. He walks tentatively across the kitchen and hooks his right foot round the door and pulls it towards him, to open it, and stew slops on the floor which he swipes at with his trainer. By the time he’s done all that I think he would've been quicker to have taken the bowls and come back for the water and the forks, and I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere but I can’t think what it is. The last song finishes, a loud crashy number I hadn’t heard before (I think the iPod must be on shuffle or else it’s a very eclectic playlist) and then “You are the sunshine of my life,” comes on, and when Stevie Wonder sings the second line my eyes fill up and Angel notices so I immediately look down into my hands, to where my ring used to be.

“How you gonna get job, darleeng?” asks Dolores, and I pull myself together and tell her I’m planning on registering with a temp agency to see what comes up. Dolores tells me to go to one her friend runs, just behind Shaftesbury Avenue, which specialises in jobs in media companies. She says to ask for Raquel and say that I know her, Dolores, and although I’m grateful I wonder if saying that is a good idea. She gets up off the chair, bends down and kisses Angel on both cheeks, twice, pulls Jerome to his feet by his shirt, says, “Bye bye – you tell Raquel dee great Dolores sent you – HA HA HA,” and totters off on her heels, her big sexy bottom swaying behind her. Jerome follows meekly, like a giant puppy on a string, and I hear them leave the house, and I presume they’re off to Dolores’s place in Enfield, wherever that is.

It’s just me and Angel left in the kitchen now. Angel sees my face and knows not to venture anywhere painful. She yawns. “Ugh, I need a night off,” she says. “I’m wrecked.” She pours herself a vodka tonic and offers me one too, and I wish I’d thought to buy a bottle at the supermarket, I can’t keep drinking hers. I don’t really want one, but I say yes and then offer her one of my ready meals and she says yes too, so I put a lasagne and a cannelloni in the oven and I get out a bag of green salad. I go to the sink and look in the cupboard underneath and it smells of damp, but I find some bleach and I empty the sink of dirty crockery and cutlery and pour neat bleach in the sink and wipe all around. I rinse the sink, then do it all again and then I fill it with hot soapy water and I wash the rest of the plates that were already washed and stacked haphazardly on the draining board. Angel watches me, but seems to think I’m just a clean freak and so I tell her about Bev and the dog shit and we both laugh until we can’t breathe in the hot sickly air. My hands feel tight and dry from the bleach and I lick my finger-tips to moisten them, which is a revolting habit that I thought I’d stopped. I have another vodka and eventually confess my worries about my clothes for tomorrow, and Angel says to come with her and she takes me upstairs and although I can’t borrow her clothes, I’m so much bigger than her, she lends me a silver belt and bag and a black and silver skeleton print scarf that transform my black shift dress. Angel goes to get ready for work and I can think of nothing else to do now but lie down on my bed. These are the worst times, alone in my room, worrying about how Ben and Charlie are, whether I’ve done the right thing after all, but it’s too late now, I’ve left them, I can’t go back. I try instead to prepare mentally for tomorrow; I lie still in the half-light and force my thoughts away from the past towards the future – along tangling telephone wires, through beeping fax machines, across expanding internal directories. I crowd out old memories with wanton switchboardery, until at last sleep comes.

14

Emily found out later that the house had been built in 1877 for a gentleman’s mistress, the great love of his life. The story went that she'd adored the view from there, and so he'd made her throw a stone down towards the sea, and where it landed he built the house, even though it was an engineering nightmare. It was situated in the depth of the trees, completely hidden except from offshore, and if you looked from out there in the waves it appeared to cling to the cliff, almost desperately, as though it might fall off. It didn’t feel like it was even in England, the vista was serene and expansive, just yellow-green trees and flat blue sea, Mediterranean perhaps. Ben and Emily had found it that first New Year, when to escape the sniping at Frances and Andrew’s house (after all, Caroline was still living there), they’d packed up his car and headed south to the Devon coast, trusting that where they ended up was where they were meant to be. As they drove along the coast through little dead towns, past winter-sad hotels, Emily was losing her nerve – maybe they’d been mad to not find somewhere decent in advance, especially as it was their first New Year’s Eve together, she didn’t want it to be a disaster. She was about to suggest that maybe they’d be better off heading inland and finding themselves a little country pub – they were usually packed on New Year’s Eve, she'd said, that might be a fun place to see in the new year – when Ben wound the car up a steep tree-covered lane, zigzagging away from the sea, and as they rounded the last turn they saw an old-fashioned sign: Shutters Lodge, Accommodation, Evening Meals.

“Shall we try in there?” said Ben. Emily nodded, doubtful, and he turned the car into the gate and followed a driveway, up into the trees, for what seemed like forever, but eventually it opened into a clearing and there stood a vast old country house: perfect, ethereal, as if it had been magicked there. Ben parked the car and they got out. There was no-one around. There was no obvious entrance, it didn’t even seem like it was a hotel, maybe the sign on the road was old or something. The air was sharp and freezing and Emily huddled into her cardigan. It was four o’clock and the sky was high and hungry, eating up the last of the winter light. They walked towards the far end of the house, and entered a stone portico, feeling like intruders. There was no bell, so after a few fruitless knocks Emily tried turning the bronze ring on the giant oak front door. It creaked open and a gush of warm air came towards them.

“Hell-o!” called Emily. As they were about to give up, they finally heard footsteps and a proper old butler appeared from nowhere and ushered them into the warmth as if he'd been expecting them, and he served them tea and fruit cake by the fire in the great hall, and that's how they found the place where they would one day get married.

That first New Year's Eve was in every way but one the best Emily had ever spent. She normally hated the forced jollity of the occasion, and she'd long ago given up going to the local pub with her old school-friends where people thought that just because it was New Year’s Eve it was OK to ram their tongue down your throat. The previous year she’d spent it at home in her flat with Maria from work and a couple of other girls, and they'd cooked a huge meal and watched Jools Holland and Out of Africa which happened to be on the telly, and as far as Emily was concerned that had been perfect – no trouble getting home, no yobbish behaviour, no Caroline prowling around being drunk and obnoxious. She hadn't even felt obliged to invite her sister – Caroline wouldn’t have dreamt of doing something so boring, and anyway she’d gone clubbing in London.

Emily and Ben had dinner in the hotel and the food was fancy in a self-conscious, second rate way, all oddly cut carrots and balsamic dribbles across over-cooked lamb, but it didn’t matter, the restaurant was wood-panelled and charming and the wine was good. She and Ben just talked and talked, it seemed they would never run out of things to say, sharing childhood anecdotes, laughing at how they’d met, it was as if they were never tired of going over it. Emily loved that Ben was the first person she felt able to confide in about her family, knowing he didn’t judge her, or them, realising that before she’d met him she’d spent her whole life feeling lonely, although she hadn’t even realised it at the time. It was insane when she thought about it, twins weren’t meant to be lonely.

“...and so just as I got there," Emily was saying. “Caroline slammed the glass door and I went headlong through it, like it was made of paper, like at the end of It’s a Knockout or something. And then my dad started chasing Caroline round the dining room table, and he couldn’t even catch her, and my mum was just shrieking like a mad woman, and all the while I was quietly bleeding to death,” and she started to giggle and then Ben was laughing too and although he’d asked her before about the scar on her knee, she hadn’t told him the truth at the time, but she hadn’t been sure why. It wasn’t like Caroline had been trying to kill her or anything.

“I think I’m glad I’m an only child,” said Ben. “The worst thing that happened to me at that age was when my spout fell off while I was doing “I’m a teapot” during assembly. I’ve never got over the humiliation.”

Emily looked at Ben and she wondered again how different his life growing up must have been, with his kindly older parents who had showered him with love, and no-one to torment him.

“Was it odd not having siblings?” she asked. “I think I’d have had to watch Eastenders if I’d been an only child, my life would have been so boring without Caroline.”

“No, not really. I had my cousins just down the road so I’d spend loads of time with them, and we had our dog of course.” He paused. “It’s odd though, I’ve never felt so
complete
as I’ve felt since I met you. I don’t mean it in any weird way, like you’re my sister or anything,” and they mock-grimaced at each other. “But from the minute we met I felt like I knew you, even though you weren’t particularly friendly at first…”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I was so terrified at the thought of jumping out of a plane... I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to do it, I bloody hate flying
and
heights – Dave must've caught me at a weak moment. I should never have done it.”

“Yes, you should,” Ben said, and she smiled at him. He carried on. “I don’t know why, but you just made me feel so aware of myself in a way that no-one else ever has.” His eyes narrowed. “Particularly about the boil on my neck.”

Emily laughed. “Sorry, but it was unavoidable from where I was sitting. I thought it was going to spit at me.”

“I wish it had, you rude cow,” he said, and took her hand across the table.

“Have you finished, madam?” said the waiter, who although smart in his waistcoat seemed too frail and ancient to still be of this life, let alone be working. There didn’t seem to be anyone young who worked here, the whole place felt from another time somehow. He picked up the plates and his hands were doddery and Emily and Ben smiled small smiles at each other, and Emily found her eyes filling with tears for some reason.

“Let’s go for a walk later,” Ben said then, urgently. “It’s such a beautiful night.”

“It’s dark, we’ll kill ourselves up here,” Emily said.

“No, we won’t, there’s the most enormous full moon, let’s go up on the cliffs for midnight. It’ll be good.”

Emily looked at her boyfriend in the Christmassy glow and wondered how she could have thought he was a geek before, he was
gorgeous
. She loved his passion, his enthusiasm for life, the depth in his eyes, loyal like a dog, and she knew, just knew, sat there in that moment in a hotel in Devon, that she would never let him go, not ever.

They had wrapped up warm: Emily had put on every item of clothing she had with her under her coat, it was so freezing outside. They had to beg the butler for a key, the door was locked at this time of night, and although he’d obviously thought them mad he gave it to them, a big single old-fashioned one, like for a prison, and as they ran down the drive, half-drunk already and with three-quarters of a bottle of red stuffed inside Ben’s coat, they felt like naughty children running away from boarding school. Ben had been right – the moon was peerless, like it had been cut out with God’s own scissors into a perfect circle of luminescence, just for them. They walked up to the cliff where the wind was still, and the water was calm beneath them, and the earth rather than the sea seemed to be moving, in and out gently, as if it were snoozing.