The Bunk Up (The Village People Book 1) (21 page)

I’ve already overstayed my welcome and I’ve only been here overnight. Firstly, Kathy was not amused to find a soiled dolly in the kitchen sink along with her best crockery. Miranda of course, quite truthfully, said I’d told her to wash the shit
-
encrusted doll. Kathy has thrown out every single piece of Denby and says I owe her a new set when I get on my feet.

As I watch Kathy fly around the house after the kids while I sit like a fourth, I realise today is the day I’m going back to Marcus. It’s a roof over my head and a dream I can make work. It’s time to go home. I ignore the flash of cottage that comes to mind as I think of the word ‘home’. I made my bed, as they say. It’s time to lie in it, even if the image of Frazer lying beside me won’t shift from my bloody head!

“You’re here. Oh my God, you’ve come home.” Marcus throws his arms around me and covers me in slobbery kisses. “I’m so sorry, Daise, for everything I did. I panicked because things had got so serious between us. Take it as my final fling
,
okay?”

“Yes, okay. I had a final fling too, so we’re even.”

Marcus backs away, his eyes wider than his waistline has become. “Pardon?”

“While I was in Beydon. I met someone else. Had a bit of fun. So we’re even. Let’s forget about the past few months and get back to normal.”

His eye twitches and he chews on his lip. “Erm, okay.”

Folding my arms over my chest, I narrow my eyes. “Is this going to be a problem? Because I don’t think you’re in a position to look shocked that I’ve also had a fling
.
”

“No. No. It’s just….” Marcus starts to cry. “It had only ever been me, Daisy. That’s how it should have been, forever. I’m so sorry I pushed you to endure another man.”

Endure?

“Anyway. You’re back
,
and soon, after an adjustment period, we’ll be back to our usual selves and you can remember what real lovemaking is like. First of all, though, wait there.”

Marcus runs upstairs. For a brief moment I turn to the door and consider running back out of it. Then I hear footfall on the stairs. The moment has passed and I look back at Marcus, noticing his belly wobbling as he runs. Looks like he ate those Twixes after all. Then he’s down on bended knee and holding out THE RING. The one from my dream box. The Tiffany solitaire I had bookmarked on my computer. The ring I had shown him in passing any time I could. He bought it. It’s in front of me.

“Daisy Harlow. Will you marry me?”

He made the effort. He bought me my dream ring. Everything’s going to be okay.

“Yes.”

He places the ring on my finger. It’s a little too large and spins around.

“You just have to pop into the branch for it to be refitted when you get chance.”

He kisses me. His kiss isn’t soft and dreamy, it’s wet and a little too noisy. I try very hard not to picture another man.

***

A few days later and it’s like I never left. My belongings are returned from Kathy’s and back in the house. All I’m missing are the items I took to Beydon. Although my dream wedding box is still there, it doesn’t matter because most of it is in my mind. Marcus bought me a selection of bridal magazines and told me he doesn’t want to wait. I’d wanted to get married in church but he’d booked us a date at the Register Office for a fortnight’s time, saying now we’re back together he never wants to let me go. He gave me a cheque to cover everything we need to buy, but reminded me that it’s only one day and not to go too mad. He cancelled the Slimming Universe group for that day so we can use the room for the reception. He told his members they can come along and he’ll set up some separate plates with food they can eat, but they can only have a slice of wedding cake or a glass of wine, not both.

I messaged my mum but haven’t heard from her, so she’s probably travelling in a strange place with no internet. Kathy’s trying to be pleased for me, but I can see she thinks I’m making a terrible mistake. She’d come round a bit when I asked her if Miranda would be my bridesmaid.

I needed an impartial friend to chat to. It was time to visit Mrs H.

Except when I arrived at her home, she wasn’t there. Nor was she there the next few times I went to see her. Where was she? She didn’t answer her phone either. Getting worried
,
I began ringing around the local hospitals, but they’d had no-one answering her description admitted.

Finally, a neighbour came out to complain about my banging on her door.

“She’s gone away
,
so can you quit it?” says a scruffy-faced woman with a fag hanging out the side of her mouth.

“Do you know where she’s gone?” I ask.

“Said she was going to see her son.”

“Ah, okay.” I nod and walk away.

She’s gone to see Nigel in Australia then. I wonder how long for? She might miss my wedding.

I walk back home and carry on making my plans.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Frazer

The woman at the table looks different to how I remembered her. Older. Her hair is in a brown tight curled perm. She attempts to smile at me
,
revealing two missing front teeth.

“Please take a seat, Frazer. We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about
,
” I snarl
,
and turn away.

“I’m not going anywhere, Frazer. Not this time.” She stands up. “All my life I’ve been damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’m going to fucking speak and you’re going to fucking listen.”

She looks as shocked at the expletives leaving her mouth as I do.

Stunned, I sit down.

“Your father, Frazer, was the love of my life.” Her voice kind of whistles through her teeth as she speaks.

“So why didn’t you leave and be with him?”

She takes a deep breath. “I was already married with a baby boy. Your father and I should never have happened. But what can I say? Love conquered all of my common sense.”

“I know it would have been difficult to leave your other son behind, but you did it with me. Why didn’t you choose the man you loved?”

“Because I felt I had to fulfil my duty. I’d made a contract, in sickness and in health. My husband had emphysema. He quickly deteriorated to the point where we had to have oxygen around the house. He became a prisoner in our home.” She stares off out of the window, lost in her thoughts. “He became very embittered. Frustrated. Can’t say I blame him. Who wants to be stuck inside four walls all day? He needed me.”

“I needed you!” I shout. I sit back in my chair, surprised at myself.

“Do you think I don’t know that, Frazer?” She stares down at the table and then back up at me. “But do you really think I could leave Nigel with a dying man? Or leave a dying man on his own?”

She is right but it doesn’t stop it hurting.

“There hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t wondered what you were doing. I knew you’d be fine with your father. He was an amazing man. Then when I found out he’d passed on, well
,
people in Beydon kept me up to date with your comings and goings.” She puts a hand on mine. “I don’t know a lot about your life, Frazer, but I’ve done my best to try and keep up.”

I snatch my hand away. “Done your best? You don’t fucking know me at all. You’re right. I did have the best father ever. But do you know what? I wasn’t the best son and for that I blame you. Do you get that?”

“Frazer.”

“Do you have any idea of the grief I gave him? Being wild, getting in trouble at school? It wasn’t until he found an acting class for me to blow off steam in and act out in that I began to settle down. By then he’d found out he had a bad heart. I probably did that. All the stress I put him under. I killed my father.”

It’s the thing I’d always thought and kept to myself
,
and now in a small cottage in Beydon
,
the truth had finally come out.

Then I do something I’ve never done before in my life. I put my head in my hands at that table and I cry while my mother sits and watches me.

“You didn’t kill your father, Frazer. That’s not how problems with hearts work. Did he still smoke?”

I nod.

“Eat fish and chips more than once a week still?”

“At least three times.”

“Still love cake?”

I nod again. “Every day.”

“Did he ever start exercising?”

“Only if you count raising his arm up to put his pint glass to his lips.”

“Well
,
there you go
,
then. I think it’s far more likely that his lifestyle was the cause of his heart problems, don’t you?”

“But I must have put strain on him with my behaviour.”

“Frazer. Your brother ran away at thirteen when I told him he couldn’t dye his hair pink. He did the same at fourteen when I told him his new earring looked stupid. It was a peacock feather
,
for God’s sake. That time he was gone for two days and we found him squatting in next door’s shed after the waft of weed came out. He always said it was the artist in him. It wasn’t. It was him growing up, trying to work out his identity in the world. We put pressure on him and to please us he trained as an accountant. Then he moved to Australia where he could give in to the artist side of himself.” She sighs. “You think you’re doing your best for your children but you’re only ever making it up as you go along. We made him miserable. He didn’t want to be an accountant. That’s what we wanted for him. A nice sensible job. So he left. We actually drove him away to the other side of the world. Do you know what I do now?”

I shake my head.

“I save up and send him my toenails.”

I scrunch up my face in disgust. I can’t have heard right. “What?”

“I post him my toenails. It costs a fortune sending my disgusting nails to the other side of the world. But that’s all he asks of me, so I answer him. I do what he wants now, which is not to see me, or hear from me, but to use my toenails in those ridiculous sculptures of his. You were probably better off being the one without me as a mother, Frazer, because I messed up the one I stayed with.”

Now it’s my mother’s turn to put her head in her hands. My heart aches for her. It shouldn’t after everything but I can’t help feeling sorry for her. From what I know, Nigel is a prize ass
,
anyway, and I’m sure no mother could be proud of a son who wears brown corduroys and a feather fucking earring while he sticks toenail clippings to bits of cardboard – all at the same time.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask her.

As olive branches go, it’s a very small one, but it’s there. I’m not offering her a biscuit
,
though.

“Thank you. I really would. This talking is making my throat dry.”

I nod and walk over to the counter to make a drink. While I’m there, I make a decision. Probably the most grown-up one I’ve made in a long time. I’m going to listen to what she has to say and I’m going to ask her all the questions I can. Then I can decide whether or not to tell her to get the fuck out of my/her house.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Daisy

If I’m staying in Chesterfield, I need a job. Marcus keeps going on about us saving up for a new house and moving out of the area. I realise we’ll need a larger house in time for when we start thinking about children, but Marcus wants to move now. He says he doesn’t like us staying in the place where he made his “mistake”.

He’s also been begging me to make the stew I left for him when I went to Beydon, saying it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, so today I’ve made him a batch and added the dog food. I’m not sure I’ve entirely forgiven him yet for the Belinda thing.

I take myself off around the local charity shops
,
looking for a pair of wedding shoes. I thought they could be my ‘something old’. While I don’t find shoes
,
I do come across a couple of dining chairs which would have looked fantastic done up in the cottage at Beydon. In the mood for a bit of painting, I buy them and carry one home, before returning for the other one. Marcus has us both wearing fitness wristbands as he says we need to slim down for the wedding. He’s taken to measuring out the portions of our food. I’m missing the cafe’s cakes something chronic.

I spend the afternoon sanding down the chairs in preparation. While I’m at it
,
I empty and drag our sideboard outside. I’m going to vintage up the house. If I can’t go back to Beydon, I’ll bring Beydon to the house.

I hear Marcus’ car pull up at seven. I’m still in the back garden where I’ve almost finished priming the furniture. Wiping dirt and sweat from my face
,
I take myself back inside to the kitchen where I begin to wash the paint from my hands.

“Ooh
,
in the kitchen where I like to see my woman,” says Marcus, coming up behind me and kissing my neck. “Ugh, you stink of paint.”