The Peas and Carrots Series Boxset 1, page 39
part #1 of Peas and Carrots Series
‘Then it’ll be even better that you’ve got an extra pair of hands, won’t it?’
‘Well … I suppose …’
‘It’s fine,’ Yvette waved. ‘You don’t need to babysit me. I’m perfectly fine. And don’t worry, I won’t get in your way either,’ she said to Suzy, then turning to Eric she said, ‘but perhaps you could wait for me to get dressed and run me down to the centre? I thought I might spend the day trawling the charity shops, now that I’m unemployed and all. No more Karen Millen for me.’
‘Mum—’
‘And don’t worry about Abi. I can pick Abi up from her friend’s house.’
‘Mum, you really don’t—’
‘Tsk. Let an old woman feel like she’s useful, will you? Particularly when she ruined your romantic weekend away.’
‘That’s so terrible. I can’t imagine how she’s feeling. When Quentin and I—’ Fleur stopped mid-sentence. ‘Let’s just say it was very difficult for both parties. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. No matter how difficult it might seem.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And it’s such a shame you had to cancel your weekend.’
Eric sighed.
‘I know, but Suzy didn’t feel like she’d be able to focus if she was away. I understand.’
Another sigh was building in his lungs. Fleur caught it just in time.
‘On the plus side, you’ve managed to get all this done,’ she said.
Suzy had been right. Two pairs of hands were definitely better than one when it came to laying down carpet between the rows, and Eric had been impressed in Fleur’s willingness to get her hands dirty. In exchange for her time spent kneeling on the ground with her hands between his potato plants, he had offered to help her finish off the chicken run.
‘I think they’re getting a little restless in there,’ she confessed as a stream of squawking rattled the windows on Norman’s red shed. ‘And there was a very near miss between one of them and a pick axe. The sooner it gets finished the better.’
‘Shouldn’t take too long,’ Eric said.
Not too long turned out to be the best part of three hours. While Eric admired Fleur’s commitment to using all recycled material, trying to fashion a serviceable door out of battered timbers and offcuts from an old steel drum was more of a health risk than he had bargained for. Particularly given the peculiarity of the run shape so far.
‘Measuring it just seemed too fastidious,’ Fleur confessed as Eric attempted to join two pieces of two by four, set at a seventy-degree angle. ‘I prefer to go with how I feel.’
Eric swallowed back his retort and soldiered on through the morning.
‘Oh, it looks marvellous,’ Fleur said flinging her arms around him when he finally presented a fully functioning chicken coop. Despite only being involved in the penultimate stage of the construction, Eric was impressed with his handiwork, in particular, his addition of the sliding hatch feature for easy access to the eggs.
‘The girls are going to love it,’ Fleur said, pawing at a wonky joint. ‘Do you think I can move them in now?’
‘Hold on, you’re not done yet,’ he said. ‘You need to set your ground first. Lay chicken wire.’
‘What, under the whole thing?’
‘You could do. Or you might want to just put a trench around it. That should work as well.’
Fleur’s eyes narrowed sceptically.
‘You seem to know an awful lot about this?’
‘I’ve done a bit of research,’ Eric said.
‘I guess that makes you my go to man on chickens,’ she said, then reached up on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek.
When Suzy met Eric at the front door to the house, he knew it wasn’t good. He had left Fleur searching for the best way to lay chicken wire and driven home, grabbing a few items for a late lunch en route. As he climbed out the car, hands laden with cloth bags, he was greeted by his wife, thin lips pursed and eyes flitting nervously.
‘What is it?’ Eric said. ‘Is everything okay? Where’s your mum?’
Suzy stepped forwards and took his hand.
‘Okay, so you’re not allowed to freak out.’
Eric stepped back, the words enough to send his pulse into overdrive. ‘What? What is it? What has she done?’
‘This is just part of the healing process, that’s all,’ Suzy said trying once again to take Eric’s hand.
Eric pushed past his wife and into the hallway.
‘What has she done?’
‘Eric—’ said Suzy as she followed him into the house.
‘Yvette! Yvette! If you’ve got—’
‘Daddy! Abi appeared at the top of the stairs, an iPad in one hand a large pair of scissors in the other. ‘Do you want to see what I’m making?’
‘Not right now, honey. Do you know where your grandmother is?’
Abi’s expression crinkled briefly before cracking into a wide grin.
‘She’s in the garden, dancing.’
‘She is?’
‘Yes, she’s with all her friends.’
‘Her friends?’
Eric’s pulse did a peculiar double take as if it wasn’t sure whether this was good news or not. As he turned to move, Suzy caught hold of his hand.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said.
It was then that Eric noticed the sound reverberating its way through the walls of the house. Something between a chant and a song – rhythmic and vocal, but not words as such. At least not ones that he knew.
‘The back garden?’ he said, slipping out of Suzy’s grip and moving with increasing pace through the house.
‘This is not a big deal,’ Suzy called after him. ‘This is not a big deal.’
When he reached the kitchen, he stopped. The bags containing his lunch dropped from his grasp as he looked through the window into the back garden. His jaw hung open, and judging from the deafening silence that engulfed him, his heart had decided to stop beating altogether.
When he finally did find his voice again, it was croaky and hoarse and felt entirely disconnected from his body.
‘This is a big deal,’ he said to his wife who now stood next to him. ‘This is a very, very big deal.’
Chapter 17
ERIC HAD LOST count of the number of times the three of them had sat in silence around the kitchen table. Had he known the prominence that this particular piece of furniture was to have in his day-to-day life, he would have probably put more effort into varnishing it, or at least made some attempt to sand away six-year-old Abi’s scribblings. Now, he deemed, it probably seemed a better idea to burn it. The thought of fire threw his mind back to the vision in the garden.
‘She can’t stay,’ he said. ‘Not now. This is the final straw.’
‘Eric—’
‘Why on earth would you do that?’ Eric implored, speaking directly to his mother-in-law. ‘Why on earth would anyone?’
‘Eric,’ Yvette said, in a slow voice that seemed to imitate TVs first lady of the psychic, Mystic Meg, best known for her newspaper horoscopes and segments on the National Lottery Show. ‘There is so much hostility in your voice. Come now. I hardly think I’m the one who needs to apologise for this situation.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Why, no.’
‘You do realise—’
‘I was not the one who—’
‘Mum!’
Smug satisfaction rose through Eric as his mother-in-law received her – albeit lax – scolding. He bit his tongue and avoided giving an unwanted jibe. It was going to be tough, though. He was definitely in the right on this one. Definitely.
Abi had been sent to her room with the bribe that she could watch cat videos on YouTube, although several times, Eric had noticed a small and distinctly human-shaped shadow moving in the hallway. Cat videos were exciting, he reasoned, but nowhere near as exciting as listening to your grandmother explain why she was dancing naked with a bunch of strangers in your back garden, or hearing your father trying to justify running into the garden screaming, while swinging frying pans madly at a load of naked pensioners.
On the plus side, Eric had been allowed a two o’clock gin and Yvette was now dressed, although she appeared to have found the matching twin to one of Lydia’s batik Indian bedspreads. The bedspread-cum-dress, which was wrapped around her waist and then swept across her shoulder, emanated the same unusual aroma as her daughter’s original. Paired with an enormous beaded necklace and a threadbare jumper, she looked like she was on day release from a Woodstock Festival re-enactment troupe.
‘Mum, I’m sure you can understand why Eric was a little bit upset.’
‘We were merely giving thanks to mother nature.’
‘Is that what you call it?’
Yvette’s eyes flashed. ‘The fright you gave everyone. Really. You could have caused some permanent damage.’
‘That was the idea. It was half one in the afternoon. And you were naked!’
‘I didn’t realise you were so ashamed of the human form, Eric.’
‘Mum—’
Eric knew she was goading him. He knew it, but still felt himself rising to it.
‘You know all the neighbours saw, don’t you? You know there’s probably going to be a police report about this?’ said Eric.
‘Please. We’ve done no harm.’
‘Don’t please me.’
‘We were—’ Yvette tried.
‘We?’ Eric slammed his fist against the table. ‘Who exactly are we? Where did they all come from? Did they give you the keys to the local loony bin?’
Yvette stiffened.
‘They,’ she caught her rise in tone and lowered it to the more equable alternative, ‘are my coven.’
Eric coughed into his gin. The sudden output of alcohol caused a burning in his nostrils that spread upwards to his eyes causing them to tingle, then water, then stream.
‘Are you okay?’ Suzy asked.
‘I’m going to the pub,’ Eric said as he scraped back his chair and stood up.
Suzy frowned.
‘No.’ Eric was firm in his tone. ‘I will take a lot of things. Really. I will. Vegan fudge, piercing holes in my daughter’s ears, I’m even coming to terms with shagging the plumber in my newly fitted bathroom only twenty-four hours ago. But naked dancing in the back garden in broad daylight. No, I need a beer, I’m afraid. I need a very large beer.’
Ignoring Suzy’s pleading looks, Eric grabbed his coat and headed straight out of the door.
He had messaged Hank on the way down, and by the time he reached the pub a cold pint was waiting on the corner table.
‘Jerry’s at choir practice,’ Hank said, slipping a crisp off the table for Scout. ‘I’m guessing this has something to do with the wicca weirdos doing a sans clothes samba in your back garden?’
Eric gulped back a third of his pint without breaking for a breath.
‘You’ve heard already?’
‘Oh, everyone’s heard,’ replied Hank.
‘How? It was less than an hour ago.’
Hank shrugged.
‘Village life, I suppose. I have to say I particularly liked the part when you started swinging the frying pan at the fella with a hearing aid.’
‘What?’ gasped Eric. ‘You mean there’s a video?’
‘Four hundred and fifty hits already.’ Hank passed him his phone.
After five seconds Eric handed it back.
‘Well, at least they missed the bit where I fell over the washing line.’
‘That’s on another clip.’
Eric polished off the rest of his beer.
‘You just need to have a little patience,’ said Hank when they were securely into their third pint. ‘It can’t be easy for her.’
‘I am being patient. I am. But this isn’t normal.’
‘What do you want her to do, get herself a Tinder account or go speed dating? She’s an old woman.’
‘Then she should start behaving like one.’
Hank shook his head and tutted. It was the type of tut Eric had regularly heard from his father, or more recently from Norman. It was the type of tut that someone was only allowed to administer when they were a minimum of fifteen years older than the person with whom they were conversing. Eric wanted to be old just so he could use that tut. He would use it a lot.
‘It’s not like getting divorced when you’re young. Or like your generation that does it more often than laundry. She’s invested her whole life in someone. She probably doesn’t even know who she is without him. You say they worked together too?’
Eric grunted into his beer.
‘Well exactly. God, I could imagine it would be easier for her had he died. At least then she wouldn’t feel so abandoned.’
‘I suppose,’ Eric admitted.
‘Can you imagine feeling so alone? The person you trust more than anyone in the world deserts you. Without any warning.’
‘But … but … jumping over sticks naked—’
Eric was clutching at straws and he could feel it.
‘Oh, tosh. Thank God you weren’t around when I was young. You couldn’t go for a walk along the river without seeing some old codger’s todger while he prayed to this that or the other. Free spirits they used to call it then.’
An uncomfortable twisting was wrapping its way around Eric’s insides. He redirected his attention to Scout.
‘How’s Suzy doing?’ Hank asked.
‘Suzy?’
‘Well, it can’t be easy for her, can it? I mean, I know she’s not a kid, but no one wants to see their parents go through something like this.’
Eric’s eyes fixed on Scout as he racked his mind. Had he asked Suzy how she was feeling? He must have done. He couldn’t remember explicitly as such, but he would have asked her. He was sure he would have. Despite his internal reassuring dialogue, the churning in Eric’s stomach intensified.
‘She’s okay. She’s tough,’ he said, finally lifting his hand from Scout. Hank raised an eyebrow.
‘You know what,’ Eric said, rising to his feet and downing the rest of his pint. ‘I should probably be getting back.’
‘Just have a bit of patience,’ Hank said again. ‘You’ve got a good family there. Trust me. The kooky ones are the ones you want to keep hold of.’
Eric took out his wallet, dropped a twenty on the table and gave Scout a rough farewell. ‘That should cover me,’ he said.
‘See you tomorrow at the plot?’
‘Maybe,’ Eric said as he opened the front door and exposed the pub to the freezing Burlam air. ‘Maybe.’
Whether it was the beer, or thoughts of his wife spurring him on, Eric raced home almost fast enough to stop his fingers numbing. Once there, he flung open the door and unsuccessfully threw his jacket onto the hook.
Suzy was in the dining room again. The mountain of paper had doubled in size. It was only after several loud raps on the door that she looked up from her pile. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes. When she didn’t speak, Eric stepped inside.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said.
Suzy looked at the mountain in front of her and shook her head.
‘I shouldn’t. It’ll send me straight to sleep.’
‘Can I get you something to eat then? Are you hungry?’
Suzy straightened her back and put her pen down on the desk. Her eyes lingered on Eric just long enough to make him squirm.
‘Sorry, Eric,’ she said eventually. ‘Is there something you wanted? Just I’m really busy, and if you’ve come to hav—’
‘No, no,’
‘Then would you—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eric blurted out, falling onto his knees by her chair. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Suzy stiffened in surprise, and she let out a deep sigh.
‘You don’t have to be sorry for anything,’ she said.
‘I do. I’ve made you come here and uproot your life, and I haven’t been supportive—’
‘Eric—’
‘Please, let me finish. I haven’t been supportive. I mean, I’ve tried to be, but I haven’t tried that hard. Not really. I mean Paris was a stupid idea—’
‘It wasn’t—’
‘And I didn’t even think about the strain on you, having your mum here. I just assumed you were fine.’
‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.’
‘But are you sure? If something was wrong, really wrong, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Eric, what are you on about?’
‘I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me. I know I’m useless and I don’t ask you if you’re okay enough, but I don’t want you to wake up one morning and feel like you and Abi are better off without me.’
‘Eric …’ Suzy’s eyes glistened.
‘I love you so much,’ he said.
‘I know.’
Still in a kneeling position, Eric wrapped his arms around his wife.
‘I’ll be better,’ he said. ‘And if you want Yvette to live here, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ve been talking about getting the garage converted since we bought the place.’
‘Eric—’
‘I just don’t want—’
Suzy lifted his head up so that his eyes met hers.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.
Eric took a deep inhalation of relief, which he followed with another shorter sniff and then a third. A smoky, but not unpleasant aroma was wafting about him. He sniffed again.
‘Can you smell that?’
Suzy’s lips twitched.
‘What the hell is she doing now?’ Eric said.
Chapter 18
MONDAY MORNING AND the house still smelt of incense. Suzy was already locked away in her study, with a do not disturb sign on the door by the time Eric rose, and downstairs Abi was tucking into a bowl of Cheerios at the kitchen table. Yvette sat next to her, tying flowers around a piece of wire. Incense sticks were now burning in the kitchen too, making the air smell like a blend between a Chinese medicine shop and a tub of vapour rub.
‘Why aren’t you dressed?’ Eric said to Abi, as she spooned cereal into her mouth.
‘Granny says I don’t have to go to school today. She said I can go to her lessons instead.’
‘Well … I suppose …’
‘It’s fine,’ Yvette waved. ‘You don’t need to babysit me. I’m perfectly fine. And don’t worry, I won’t get in your way either,’ she said to Suzy, then turning to Eric she said, ‘but perhaps you could wait for me to get dressed and run me down to the centre? I thought I might spend the day trawling the charity shops, now that I’m unemployed and all. No more Karen Millen for me.’
‘Mum—’
‘And don’t worry about Abi. I can pick Abi up from her friend’s house.’
‘Mum, you really don’t—’
‘Tsk. Let an old woman feel like she’s useful, will you? Particularly when she ruined your romantic weekend away.’
‘That’s so terrible. I can’t imagine how she’s feeling. When Quentin and I—’ Fleur stopped mid-sentence. ‘Let’s just say it was very difficult for both parties. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. No matter how difficult it might seem.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And it’s such a shame you had to cancel your weekend.’
Eric sighed.
‘I know, but Suzy didn’t feel like she’d be able to focus if she was away. I understand.’
Another sigh was building in his lungs. Fleur caught it just in time.
‘On the plus side, you’ve managed to get all this done,’ she said.
Suzy had been right. Two pairs of hands were definitely better than one when it came to laying down carpet between the rows, and Eric had been impressed in Fleur’s willingness to get her hands dirty. In exchange for her time spent kneeling on the ground with her hands between his potato plants, he had offered to help her finish off the chicken run.
‘I think they’re getting a little restless in there,’ she confessed as a stream of squawking rattled the windows on Norman’s red shed. ‘And there was a very near miss between one of them and a pick axe. The sooner it gets finished the better.’
‘Shouldn’t take too long,’ Eric said.
Not too long turned out to be the best part of three hours. While Eric admired Fleur’s commitment to using all recycled material, trying to fashion a serviceable door out of battered timbers and offcuts from an old steel drum was more of a health risk than he had bargained for. Particularly given the peculiarity of the run shape so far.
‘Measuring it just seemed too fastidious,’ Fleur confessed as Eric attempted to join two pieces of two by four, set at a seventy-degree angle. ‘I prefer to go with how I feel.’
Eric swallowed back his retort and soldiered on through the morning.
‘Oh, it looks marvellous,’ Fleur said flinging her arms around him when he finally presented a fully functioning chicken coop. Despite only being involved in the penultimate stage of the construction, Eric was impressed with his handiwork, in particular, his addition of the sliding hatch feature for easy access to the eggs.
‘The girls are going to love it,’ Fleur said, pawing at a wonky joint. ‘Do you think I can move them in now?’
‘Hold on, you’re not done yet,’ he said. ‘You need to set your ground first. Lay chicken wire.’
‘What, under the whole thing?’
‘You could do. Or you might want to just put a trench around it. That should work as well.’
Fleur’s eyes narrowed sceptically.
‘You seem to know an awful lot about this?’
‘I’ve done a bit of research,’ Eric said.
‘I guess that makes you my go to man on chickens,’ she said, then reached up on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek.
When Suzy met Eric at the front door to the house, he knew it wasn’t good. He had left Fleur searching for the best way to lay chicken wire and driven home, grabbing a few items for a late lunch en route. As he climbed out the car, hands laden with cloth bags, he was greeted by his wife, thin lips pursed and eyes flitting nervously.
‘What is it?’ Eric said. ‘Is everything okay? Where’s your mum?’
Suzy stepped forwards and took his hand.
‘Okay, so you’re not allowed to freak out.’
Eric stepped back, the words enough to send his pulse into overdrive. ‘What? What is it? What has she done?’
‘This is just part of the healing process, that’s all,’ Suzy said trying once again to take Eric’s hand.
Eric pushed past his wife and into the hallway.
‘What has she done?’
‘Eric—’ said Suzy as she followed him into the house.
‘Yvette! Yvette! If you’ve got—’
‘Daddy! Abi appeared at the top of the stairs, an iPad in one hand a large pair of scissors in the other. ‘Do you want to see what I’m making?’
‘Not right now, honey. Do you know where your grandmother is?’
Abi’s expression crinkled briefly before cracking into a wide grin.
‘She’s in the garden, dancing.’
‘She is?’
‘Yes, she’s with all her friends.’
‘Her friends?’
Eric’s pulse did a peculiar double take as if it wasn’t sure whether this was good news or not. As he turned to move, Suzy caught hold of his hand.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said.
It was then that Eric noticed the sound reverberating its way through the walls of the house. Something between a chant and a song – rhythmic and vocal, but not words as such. At least not ones that he knew.
‘The back garden?’ he said, slipping out of Suzy’s grip and moving with increasing pace through the house.
‘This is not a big deal,’ Suzy called after him. ‘This is not a big deal.’
When he reached the kitchen, he stopped. The bags containing his lunch dropped from his grasp as he looked through the window into the back garden. His jaw hung open, and judging from the deafening silence that engulfed him, his heart had decided to stop beating altogether.
When he finally did find his voice again, it was croaky and hoarse and felt entirely disconnected from his body.
‘This is a big deal,’ he said to his wife who now stood next to him. ‘This is a very, very big deal.’
Chapter 17
ERIC HAD LOST count of the number of times the three of them had sat in silence around the kitchen table. Had he known the prominence that this particular piece of furniture was to have in his day-to-day life, he would have probably put more effort into varnishing it, or at least made some attempt to sand away six-year-old Abi’s scribblings. Now, he deemed, it probably seemed a better idea to burn it. The thought of fire threw his mind back to the vision in the garden.
‘She can’t stay,’ he said. ‘Not now. This is the final straw.’
‘Eric—’
‘Why on earth would you do that?’ Eric implored, speaking directly to his mother-in-law. ‘Why on earth would anyone?’
‘Eric,’ Yvette said, in a slow voice that seemed to imitate TVs first lady of the psychic, Mystic Meg, best known for her newspaper horoscopes and segments on the National Lottery Show. ‘There is so much hostility in your voice. Come now. I hardly think I’m the one who needs to apologise for this situation.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Why, no.’
‘You do realise—’
‘I was not the one who—’
‘Mum!’
Smug satisfaction rose through Eric as his mother-in-law received her – albeit lax – scolding. He bit his tongue and avoided giving an unwanted jibe. It was going to be tough, though. He was definitely in the right on this one. Definitely.
Abi had been sent to her room with the bribe that she could watch cat videos on YouTube, although several times, Eric had noticed a small and distinctly human-shaped shadow moving in the hallway. Cat videos were exciting, he reasoned, but nowhere near as exciting as listening to your grandmother explain why she was dancing naked with a bunch of strangers in your back garden, or hearing your father trying to justify running into the garden screaming, while swinging frying pans madly at a load of naked pensioners.
On the plus side, Eric had been allowed a two o’clock gin and Yvette was now dressed, although she appeared to have found the matching twin to one of Lydia’s batik Indian bedspreads. The bedspread-cum-dress, which was wrapped around her waist and then swept across her shoulder, emanated the same unusual aroma as her daughter’s original. Paired with an enormous beaded necklace and a threadbare jumper, she looked like she was on day release from a Woodstock Festival re-enactment troupe.
‘Mum, I’m sure you can understand why Eric was a little bit upset.’
‘We were merely giving thanks to mother nature.’
‘Is that what you call it?’
Yvette’s eyes flashed. ‘The fright you gave everyone. Really. You could have caused some permanent damage.’
‘That was the idea. It was half one in the afternoon. And you were naked!’
‘I didn’t realise you were so ashamed of the human form, Eric.’
‘Mum—’
Eric knew she was goading him. He knew it, but still felt himself rising to it.
‘You know all the neighbours saw, don’t you? You know there’s probably going to be a police report about this?’ said Eric.
‘Please. We’ve done no harm.’
‘Don’t please me.’
‘We were—’ Yvette tried.
‘We?’ Eric slammed his fist against the table. ‘Who exactly are we? Where did they all come from? Did they give you the keys to the local loony bin?’
Yvette stiffened.
‘They,’ she caught her rise in tone and lowered it to the more equable alternative, ‘are my coven.’
Eric coughed into his gin. The sudden output of alcohol caused a burning in his nostrils that spread upwards to his eyes causing them to tingle, then water, then stream.
‘Are you okay?’ Suzy asked.
‘I’m going to the pub,’ Eric said as he scraped back his chair and stood up.
Suzy frowned.
‘No.’ Eric was firm in his tone. ‘I will take a lot of things. Really. I will. Vegan fudge, piercing holes in my daughter’s ears, I’m even coming to terms with shagging the plumber in my newly fitted bathroom only twenty-four hours ago. But naked dancing in the back garden in broad daylight. No, I need a beer, I’m afraid. I need a very large beer.’
Ignoring Suzy’s pleading looks, Eric grabbed his coat and headed straight out of the door.
He had messaged Hank on the way down, and by the time he reached the pub a cold pint was waiting on the corner table.
‘Jerry’s at choir practice,’ Hank said, slipping a crisp off the table for Scout. ‘I’m guessing this has something to do with the wicca weirdos doing a sans clothes samba in your back garden?’
Eric gulped back a third of his pint without breaking for a breath.
‘You’ve heard already?’
‘Oh, everyone’s heard,’ replied Hank.
‘How? It was less than an hour ago.’
Hank shrugged.
‘Village life, I suppose. I have to say I particularly liked the part when you started swinging the frying pan at the fella with a hearing aid.’
‘What?’ gasped Eric. ‘You mean there’s a video?’
‘Four hundred and fifty hits already.’ Hank passed him his phone.
After five seconds Eric handed it back.
‘Well, at least they missed the bit where I fell over the washing line.’
‘That’s on another clip.’
Eric polished off the rest of his beer.
‘You just need to have a little patience,’ said Hank when they were securely into their third pint. ‘It can’t be easy for her.’
‘I am being patient. I am. But this isn’t normal.’
‘What do you want her to do, get herself a Tinder account or go speed dating? She’s an old woman.’
‘Then she should start behaving like one.’
Hank shook his head and tutted. It was the type of tut Eric had regularly heard from his father, or more recently from Norman. It was the type of tut that someone was only allowed to administer when they were a minimum of fifteen years older than the person with whom they were conversing. Eric wanted to be old just so he could use that tut. He would use it a lot.
‘It’s not like getting divorced when you’re young. Or like your generation that does it more often than laundry. She’s invested her whole life in someone. She probably doesn’t even know who she is without him. You say they worked together too?’
Eric grunted into his beer.
‘Well exactly. God, I could imagine it would be easier for her had he died. At least then she wouldn’t feel so abandoned.’
‘I suppose,’ Eric admitted.
‘Can you imagine feeling so alone? The person you trust more than anyone in the world deserts you. Without any warning.’
‘But … but … jumping over sticks naked—’
Eric was clutching at straws and he could feel it.
‘Oh, tosh. Thank God you weren’t around when I was young. You couldn’t go for a walk along the river without seeing some old codger’s todger while he prayed to this that or the other. Free spirits they used to call it then.’
An uncomfortable twisting was wrapping its way around Eric’s insides. He redirected his attention to Scout.
‘How’s Suzy doing?’ Hank asked.
‘Suzy?’
‘Well, it can’t be easy for her, can it? I mean, I know she’s not a kid, but no one wants to see their parents go through something like this.’
Eric’s eyes fixed on Scout as he racked his mind. Had he asked Suzy how she was feeling? He must have done. He couldn’t remember explicitly as such, but he would have asked her. He was sure he would have. Despite his internal reassuring dialogue, the churning in Eric’s stomach intensified.
‘She’s okay. She’s tough,’ he said, finally lifting his hand from Scout. Hank raised an eyebrow.
‘You know what,’ Eric said, rising to his feet and downing the rest of his pint. ‘I should probably be getting back.’
‘Just have a bit of patience,’ Hank said again. ‘You’ve got a good family there. Trust me. The kooky ones are the ones you want to keep hold of.’
Eric took out his wallet, dropped a twenty on the table and gave Scout a rough farewell. ‘That should cover me,’ he said.
‘See you tomorrow at the plot?’
‘Maybe,’ Eric said as he opened the front door and exposed the pub to the freezing Burlam air. ‘Maybe.’
Whether it was the beer, or thoughts of his wife spurring him on, Eric raced home almost fast enough to stop his fingers numbing. Once there, he flung open the door and unsuccessfully threw his jacket onto the hook.
Suzy was in the dining room again. The mountain of paper had doubled in size. It was only after several loud raps on the door that she looked up from her pile. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes. When she didn’t speak, Eric stepped inside.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said.
Suzy looked at the mountain in front of her and shook her head.
‘I shouldn’t. It’ll send me straight to sleep.’
‘Can I get you something to eat then? Are you hungry?’
Suzy straightened her back and put her pen down on the desk. Her eyes lingered on Eric just long enough to make him squirm.
‘Sorry, Eric,’ she said eventually. ‘Is there something you wanted? Just I’m really busy, and if you’ve come to hav—’
‘No, no,’
‘Then would you—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eric blurted out, falling onto his knees by her chair. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Suzy stiffened in surprise, and she let out a deep sigh.
‘You don’t have to be sorry for anything,’ she said.
‘I do. I’ve made you come here and uproot your life, and I haven’t been supportive—’
‘Eric—’
‘Please, let me finish. I haven’t been supportive. I mean, I’ve tried to be, but I haven’t tried that hard. Not really. I mean Paris was a stupid idea—’
‘It wasn’t—’
‘And I didn’t even think about the strain on you, having your mum here. I just assumed you were fine.’
‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.’
‘But are you sure? If something was wrong, really wrong, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Eric, what are you on about?’
‘I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me. I know I’m useless and I don’t ask you if you’re okay enough, but I don’t want you to wake up one morning and feel like you and Abi are better off without me.’
‘Eric …’ Suzy’s eyes glistened.
‘I love you so much,’ he said.
‘I know.’
Still in a kneeling position, Eric wrapped his arms around his wife.
‘I’ll be better,’ he said. ‘And if you want Yvette to live here, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ve been talking about getting the garage converted since we bought the place.’
‘Eric—’
‘I just don’t want—’
Suzy lifted his head up so that his eyes met hers.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.
Eric took a deep inhalation of relief, which he followed with another shorter sniff and then a third. A smoky, but not unpleasant aroma was wafting about him. He sniffed again.
‘Can you smell that?’
Suzy’s lips twitched.
‘What the hell is she doing now?’ Eric said.
Chapter 18
MONDAY MORNING AND the house still smelt of incense. Suzy was already locked away in her study, with a do not disturb sign on the door by the time Eric rose, and downstairs Abi was tucking into a bowl of Cheerios at the kitchen table. Yvette sat next to her, tying flowers around a piece of wire. Incense sticks were now burning in the kitchen too, making the air smell like a blend between a Chinese medicine shop and a tub of vapour rub.
‘Why aren’t you dressed?’ Eric said to Abi, as she spooned cereal into her mouth.
‘Granny says I don’t have to go to school today. She said I can go to her lessons instead.’
