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‘Then we must make sure we get away as soon as we can. I don’t mind if it’s a bit lumpy out there,’ she assured him, ‘so let’s make sure everything’s ready so we can cast off at first light.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, surprising her by taking one of her hands in his, ‘and I’m sorry if I spoilt your fun just now, but I think you’ll thank me for it in due course.’

‘Let’s just drop the subject, shall we?’ she said shakily. Coming so close to being unmasked by Thunder was unnerving; if he shared his discovery with the world, she’d be hunted down for sure. The sooner they got away, the better, and it would certainly make the rest of the voyage easier if she could maintain the status quo with Bill until they went their separate ways. Better a row about the washing than the battle she had yet to face about her washed-up career. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood for cooking. Let’s find somewhere to eat this evening. And just to show that there are no hard feelings, you can pay.’

‘What?’

She gave him a watery smile. ‘It’s the least you can do, but don’t worry, I’m not expecting dinner at the Ritz. If I was any good as a gold-digger, Bill, I wouldn’t be standing here with you. A curry will do fine.’

In Soul
Survivor, Cathy was more relieved than she would admit that her eldest daughter was safe, well and happy. At least she could forget her immediate worries about May pitching about in a little boat somewhere at sea with a complete stranger. May had always been the reliable one in the family, her feet firmly on the ground even when her career was at its height. When she’d taken off like that, Cathy had to admit, it felt like a slap in the face to everyone who’d supported her through some early setbacks. She made another phone call to share the good news then sat back and relaxed. Now she could press on with her plans for the shop’s most successful incarnation ever.

With perfect timing, the interior designer she’d called in to give her some initial thoughts and a quote for the rest of the work arrived just as she’d finished her calls. Vintage with edge, she already decided, hoping he would help her realise her vision. None of that pastel cupcake crap. She was impatient to see what he’d come up with.

‘Think
Marine
– à la Edgar Degas – with the understated hues of pearl and dove,’ he was urging while she frowned at a colour chart with what seemed to be fifty shades of battleship grey.

Cathy tried screwing up her eyes, wondering if it was Toby’s training which helped him see the aesthetic qualities in such a depressing palette. She might have gained a little financial wriggle room, but refitting the shop was stretching the budget, so she had to be confident she was investing for success. Staring at these all day was liable to make her feel as if she’d been incarcerated in the asylum wing of a cold war prison. Rick would go bonkers too, if he knew what she was doing. As disloyal as she felt not asking him and his mates to do the shop, she knew it would always be the last job on his list. And once he was presented with a fait accompli, surely he wouldn’t be anything other than impressed?

An unexpected lump came into her throat at the thought of achieving something to make her family proud. What if ‘mum’s old shop’ became achingly cool? She could imagine the press coverage, her and her daughters, reporters asking if they were sisters. Everyone would sit up and take notice of her yet. Feeling cheered up at the thought, she silently intoned her favourite Buddhist chant and visualised her plans coming together.

‘An eye-catching display at the front of the store is essential,’ Toby was saying.

Really? And she was paying an extortionate hourly rate to be told the bleeding obvious?

‘And you’ll need to position the counter to steer customers in an anti-clockwise direction.’

‘Some kind of ley line thing?’ she wondered and saw his eyebrows shoot up.

‘It encourages them to spend more,’ he explained, looking piqued when her mobile phone interrupted them.

‘Soul Survivor,’ she said in her shop voice, ‘how may I help you?’

‘Eh?’ said her husband. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve actually got a customer?’

‘May I call you back, Richard?’

Toby looked at her approvingly, eager for her complete attention and at that rate she’d ensure he’d got it. ‘I’m going to show you a statement wallpaper you’ll adore,’ he confided in a loud whisper, tapping on the top of one his mood boards.

‘Cath?’ Rick persisted. ‘Stop messing about, will you?’

‘I haven’t got time to chat,’ she hissed.

‘For fuck’s sake, Cath, I don’t want a bleedin’ chat – I’m in A & E and I thought you just might like to know!’

‘Jesus, Rick!’

Toby’s eyebrows rose above the mood board he was clutching to his chest.

‘What’s happened? Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, of course I’m all right; fit as butcher’s dog, me. I thought I’d just go for a ride in an ambulance for a laugh!’ Rick moaned with heavy sarcasm. ‘Listen, I’m fine, but I had a bit of brush with that chalet bungalow I’ve been working on. I came off the roof, see?’

Toby was not best pleased to be informed, when Cathy ended the call, that she needed time to study his mood boards in different lights, but eventually let her persuade him to return later in the week. Rushing him out of the shop, she dashed round to the service entrance at the back of the shop where there was just room for her to park her Mini and fought her way into the gridlock of cars in the one-way system.

It was only when she was at the traffic lights in the town centre that she began to feel annoyed and wondered if she’d really needed to put everything on hold. It wasn’t the first time, by any means, that Rick had come a cropper. Most of the time it was his own fault for taking a stupid short cut, and he was still capable of using a phone, so he was conscious at least. Except, he wasn’t getting any younger; at pushing sixty he was too old to be rolling around on the ground, especially when he’d skied off the top of a house first.

Work was patchy enough these days. When her husband quoted for a job, some clients didn’t recognise the experience and maturity that came with age. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, took a deep breath and turned Primal Scream up loud. The poor old sod was probably more shaken than stirred. Most likely she’d find him sitting there forlornly hoping for some pretty young nurse to dress his wounds. Hah! He’d be lucky.

Cathy swore under her breath at the hospital car park rates that amounted to plain extortion. The longer they kept hanging around, the more money you had to part with – which was especially galling when you didn’t want to be there in the first place. Barging through the automatic doors of A & E and seeing no sign of her husband amongst the bruised, bleeding and bandaged masses, she marched up to reception.

‘Oh, you’ll probably find him waiting for an X-ray.’ The young male receptionist, looking to Cathy suspiciously like a schoolboy, smiled sympathetically. ‘Go through the double doors there and follow the signs.’

Cathy nodded her thanks. She’d begin by giving Rick a piece of her mind for wasting her time and then she’d make up for it by being nice to him.

‘By the way, he’s in a wheelchair,’ the receptionist added. ‘It’s just precautionary, so don’t be alarmed. Your daughter’s with him though, so at least he doesn’t have to wait for a porter.’

Cathy frowned as she pushed through the doors and prowled the corridors. Definitely not May. Stevie, then? But Stevie wouldn’t have got there from her uni in Brighton already, surely? Cathy shrugged, it had to be Stevie. Maybe she’d been up visiting her mate in Dorking? Cathy could see the lines of chairs that marked out the waiting area and searched the backs of heads for her younger daughter’s straight black hair. May, with her light brown waves, took after her dad, and there he was. Beside him, holding his hand and looking into his eyes with deep concern, was not Stevie but an attractive young woman Cathy had never met before.

‘Rick!’ she snarled, marching over.

‘Oh, hello love,’ he said, looking a bit flushed. ‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance, thanks for coming up.’

‘Here, do sit down,’ said the attractive young woman, patting Rick’s hand and standing up.

‘I’m not a geriatric,’ Cathy snapped, glaring at her.

‘This is Miss Edwards, my client,’ Rick said wearily.

‘Call me Bekah,’ said the young woman, returning Cathy’s gaze with a bit of a smirk.

Cathy narrowed her eyes back, noting every detail from the lustrous blonde locks, through the deceptively innocent jersey top in a witty Boden-print clinging to lovely young breasts and long slim legs in lemon skinny jeans.

‘I expect you’d like to go now,’ said Cathy.

‘Oh, I’m not in a hurry,’ the woman smiled sweetly, ‘but now that you’ve arrived at last, I don’t suppose Rick needs both of us to be here.’

‘Yeah, well thanks for looking after me,’ Rick said, fishing in his pocket and pulling a note out of his wallet. ‘Please take this and get yourself a cab home.’

‘Let me know how it goes, will you?’ she said, brushing the money aside. ‘You’ve frightened me enough today. I don’t want to lie awake tonight, tossing and turning and thinking of all the dreadful things that might have happened to you.’

To Cathy’s fury, the other woman leaned over and kissed her husband firmly, enveloping him in a cloud of scented blonde hair so Cathy couldn’t see exactly where the kiss had landed. With a little wave and a coquettish smile over her shoulder, she headed off, leaving every man in the waiting room craning his neck to watch her neat bottom in the tight lemon jeans bobbing off along the corridor.

‘Well?’ Cathy said, feeling more and more like a bitter lemon.

‘Oh, don’t give me all that again,’ Rick moaned. ‘We’re old enough to be her mum and dad. You should be grateful to her for coming in the ambulance with me. At least she was concerned about me, which is more than you seem to be.’

‘I didn’t know what to expect. I was worried, that’s all,’ she said, fumbling to balance her oversized bag. ‘What’s wrong, then?’

Rick sighed. ‘They want to take a look at this ankle and make sure I haven’t busted my head. Load of fuss about nothing. I landed in a clump of pampas grass which took most of the fall.’

Cathy stiffened. ‘Pampas grass? Isn’t that what people plant as a code sign to show they’re swingers?’

Rick snorted. ‘You think I’d swap you for Bekah Edwards? Do me a favour! I couldn’t keep up with that one. She’s what you call high-maintenance. You want to see some of the ideas she’s got for that place – smart lighting, climate control, fancy wet room, recycled glass tiles. She should have just pulled the lot down and started again.’ He shook his head, and Cathy, feeling a twinge of guilt, began to hope his head wasn’t busted instead of longing to bust it herself.

‘Besides,’ he said with a grin, ‘if I was going to trade you in, I’d swap you for something decent. A crate of Scotch or a new racing bike, maybe.’

‘Hmn, well you won’t be going out on the bike with a broken ankle. And the Scotch won’t help your head either.’

Rick reached across to squeeze her hand and as he did so knocked her open bag, and the colour chart with Toby’s business card stapled to it floated to the floor in front of them.

‘Remember what that lovely nurse told you,’ she reminded him when they were back home, hoping to distract him from any awkward conversation. ‘Rest, ice, compress, elevate. At least it’s only a badly sprained ankle. A couple of days and you’ll be back to normal – provided you don’t do anything silly.’

At this rate, she wouldn’t need any ice; the atmosphere was chilly enough.

‘Cathy, why didn’t you tell me about doing up the shop? No more secrets, we agreed,’ he said, wincing as he lowered himself on to a chair across the kitchen table from her. ‘Then you had the flaming nerve to storm into the hospital looking at me as if I’m the one doing something suspicious.’

So that’s why he was sulking. ‘I only wanted to prove that I could do something for myself,’ she said, blowing out an exasperated breath. She decided that attack was better than defence. ‘Besides, if I left it to you it’ll never get done, will it? I mean, look at the state of the house,’ she snorted, waving her hands at the dated kitchen units, the half-tiled walls, a wire hanging out above the cooker where a new hood was supposed to be. ‘Nothing’s finished!’

‘And why do you think that is?’ he said, banging his mug down. ‘It’s because when I come home, having worked my bollocks off, I’m too flipping tired to start here.’

‘Not too tired to go out on that stupid bike, though,’ Cathy couldn’t resist adding. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough worries with you flinging yourself off roofs without worrying about you getting hit by a bus as well?’

‘Well at least if I get knocked off the bike, you can console yourself with the insurance money. That ought to pay for a new kitchen
and
the shop refit.’

Cathy flinched. None of it mattered without Rick; he was the reason she was doing whatever she could to keep them afloat. He gave her a sad smile. ‘What’s got into you? The state of this place has never bothered you before. We always said it wasn’t about appearances. It was what we did together that mattered.’

‘It is,’ she insisted, comforted. ‘I’m sorry, Rick. Everyone else in this family gets a fuss made of them – you with your grateful customers, Stevie with her mates, May, well, we all know about May – and no one notices what I do. I just wanted you to be proud of what I’ve done.’

‘Yeah, but where’s all the dosh coming from, babe? Please don’t tell me you borrowed any money.’

A wash of betraying colour flooded her face as Rick looked up suspiciously.

‘Relax, Rick, will you? I’ve paid a small deposit and negotiated a temporary rent reduction.’

‘What? From that little shit! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’

‘Don’t be like that.’ Cathy sighed. Aiden stepping in at just the right time when the shop premises had unexpectedly come for sale had proved a sore point for Rick and festered like a wound ever since. Personally, she thought he ought to be grateful, otherwise she would have had to cut her losses and walk away from Soul Survivor. The previous landlord, who’d found herself overstretched during the recession, had been getting a little too greedy. ‘That’s just your pride talking. He’s only trying to help us out. I mean, what else is he going to do with the money? It’s not as if he’s short of a bob or two. Don’t worry, it’s all under control.’

After what she’d done today she was certain of it. One phone call, that’s all, just to keep everyone in the loop. What harm could a phone call do?