Chapter 27
Bonnie walked back into the shop to jokey comments such as ‘Remind us not to mess with you,’ and the man who wanted to buy the clock asked her if she was all right. She answered that she was, but behind the smile, she wasn’t really. When the clock had been bought and the shop had emptied of customers, Bonnie tried to ring Lew’s mobile from the office phone but he didn’t answer. She copied the number into her own mobile so that she could text him an explanation, but deleted it. If that really was his wife, and the chances were that she was, he’d want to hear her version of events first anyway and he would be more likely to believe it, especially as the dark-haired woman was sure to substantiate what she said. On the off-chance that he didn’t sack Bonnie on the spot, she could tell him her side of things and hope he accepted that she’d acted in the only way she could. Both of the women had been very angry and Bonnie was only glad she hadn’t had to manhandle Lew’s wife out of the shop. Her rib hurt where the dark-haired woman had rammed her elbow into her side. It felt so sore she was worried it could be broken.
She hadn’t heard from Lew by the time she shut up shop and her anxiety levels were sky-high. What if he did sack her? She’d be back to having no job again and no contact with all her trader friends. And more importantly, all the plans she was setting in place for a new, happy, Stephenless life would blow away like the flossy seeds of a dandelion clock in the wind.
A fat tear rolled down her cheek as she slumped to the chair in the office and held her head in her hands. That woman had put her in an impossible dilemma – damned if she did let her at the till, damned if she didn’t. Charlotte, if it was her, might have ruined everything just for the fifty-pound float that had been in it. Just like last time, her escape had been thwarted at the final hurdle.
Bonnie had been married nine years when she eventually plucked up the courage to leave Stephen. Her marriage was dry dust, her days were colourless and there was barely any interaction between them. Surely he couldn’t be happy either?
She made a nice dinner – his favourite – pork loin, broad beans, chantenay carrots, roast potatoes, hoping it would set an amiable scene. They were adults, they could talk through this reasonably. After all, there was no one more sensible than Stephen. She wouldn’t ask for very much from the divorce, far less than the law would say she was entitled to. She just wanted enough to rent a small place until she was on her feet. He would agree to that, she was sure, as long as it was put in writing so he could feel secure that she wouldn’t renege on any deal they agreed to. Bonnie had pored over the right way to open this discussion for days; it was a knotted ball of wool with no suitable beginning, so the only way was to take hold of it, break it and make a start to it.
‘Stephen, I need to talk to you,’ she said as he sipped a post-prandial cup of tea.
Maybe there was something in her tone that intimated what was coming because he visibly stiffened, put down his mug and made to stand.
‘I need to dig out the hyacinth bulbs and wrap them in newspaper for next year. They won’t do it themselves.’
‘Please, Stephen, just sit for a moment.’ He relented, back ramrod straight. She saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall on a gulp before he spoke.
‘What is it, Bonita?’
Now it was Bonnie’s turn to swallow. She felt as if she had planned to dive off a platform but only now, when she looked down, could she see it was much higher than she had first thought and the water below had the suspicious shadows of rocks in it.
‘Stephen, I think we should separate. I think that . . .’
She had imagined he would listen to her in stony silence, that her words would sink in and swirl around until they formed a digestible shape. Then he would nod when he realised that she was giving him the opportunity to let her go easily, cleanly without biting greedy holes into his financial safety net. She had thought that he would then instigate the disassembling of their marriage fairly and without drama. She could not have been more wrong.
‘Separate, separate?’ Stephen bellowed, springing to his feet, his face suffusing with blood. ‘What madness are you spouting? We are married and we are not going to separate. Why would we separate?’
‘Stephen, we have nothing in common, we don’t even share a bedroom, there’s no love . . .’
‘Love?’ He pushed his face into hers and screamed the word. ‘Love, sex . . . that’s what you had with him, isn’t it, and where did that bloody get you? An idiot bastard depressive who led you a merry dance, didn’t he? DIDN’T HE? Look, you’ve made me swear. I don’t swear and you are making me do it.’
He made her wince with the volume of his words, the stream of obscenities that poured from his lips, and then he seized hold of her arm, tight, his fingers digging in her flesh. ‘Shall I pour pills down my neck that turn me into a zombie? Shall I fuck around and break your heart? Shall I disappear and leave you to go out of your mind with worry? Is that the sort of relationship you want again, you silly, silly girl?’
Bonnie wrenched her arm away from his hold and saw the imprint of white fingermarks. She opened her mouth to remonstrate, but he was in full flow.
‘I picked up the pieces of you when that . . . mental patient had brutalised your spirit and when you needed someone to help look after your father. You had nothing, you were a mess, you needed my help and I gave it to you and so you’ll stay. You owe me.’
‘I owe you?’ Bonnie threw the words back at him, indignation rising like a surfer’s wave inside her. ‘I don’t owe you anyth—’
‘After what you did? You expect me to stay silent about it? Oh yes, that’s shut you up, hasn’t it? I have protected my wife. If you aren’t my wife any more, then I have to tell and you will be punished. Everyone will know the truth about “sweet little Bonnie”, won’t they? You’ll be a pariah.’
Bonnie paled before his eyes.
‘You will not leave and that is an end to it. You owe me,’ he said again. And Bonnie knew that she would stay because what she had done had bound her to him forever, if that’s what he wanted to happen.
Bonnie lifted her coat down from the peg and put it on, ready to finish what might be her last shift ever. Lew had probably spoken to Charlotte by now. She had no doubt Charlotte would put her own twist on the truth and he would believe her, because she was his wife. She would be sacked and what then? Stephen would be ready with a barrelful of ‘I told you so’s, indignity heaped on indignity. How could she leave him without a job to fund her new life? Her hope was being crushed under the weight of the day. She was fooling herself anyway with these daft plans because Stephen would never let her go, not even if she had a million pounds in the bank.
She was just locking up the office when the phone inside it rang. Quickly as she could, she opened the door, ran inside and snatched up the receiver. Her hand was shaking as she held it against her ear. Lew’s voice poured out of it.
‘Bonnie? What on earth has been going on?’
Her heart didn’t know whether to stop or race. His voice was distant, fuzzy, he was ringing from the car.
‘Lew, I had no idea . . . I am so sorry . . . I . . .’ The words tumbled out in a jumbled mess.
‘Bonnie, Bonnie . . . just . . . just calm down.’
‘Sorry . . . I . . . sorry.’
‘Bonnie. Shh. Now start from the beginning.’ His voice, calm and soothing but more importantly, not angry.
‘Two ladies came into the shop around lunchtime. One said that she was your wife and wanted to take money out of the till. I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know if it really was her or not . . .’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ he interrupted her, irritation in his voice, but she knew it wasn’t aimed at her.
‘What if it hadn’t been your wife and I let them walk off with all the money? What if I’d given her the benefit of the doubt and you were angry with me . . . I just didn’t know what to do so I did what I thought was right . . .’
‘Bonnie, stop panicking,’ said Lew, hearing the distress in her voice and he wished he were there to put his hands firmly on her arms and look into her eyes so she would believe him when he said, ‘You did absolutely the right thing. I am so sorry you were put in that position.’
Bonnie didn’t realise how much tension she was holding in her shoulders until they dropped in relief.
‘Really?’
‘Yes of course, really. I have no idea what my wife was thinking of.’
The big question. ‘You aren’t going to sack me then?’
‘No, not at all.’ He laughed that she’d asked that. ‘Why would I sack you? I rang to make sure you were okay.’
The relief was insurmountable. ‘I’m fine,’ she managed, her insistence belied by the wobbly croak in her voice. ‘I love this job so much, I was so worried . . .’
‘I know, I thought you might be but you have absolutely nothing to be worried about. I’ll see you tomorrow. And again, I apologise.’ He could visualise her pale and anxious face and it angered him to think what Charlotte and Regina must have put her through.
‘Thank you, and yes, see you tomorrow.’
Bonnie put down the phone, sat heavily onto the chair and burst into a flurry of relieved tears. She stayed there for a few minutes until they passed, breathing deeply to steady herself. She couldn’t even let herself think what her life would have been like had she been cut off from the lovely job and the special man she worked for who had just become even more wonderful in her eyes in the past few minutes. If that were possible.
Lew walked through the front door of his house more annoyed than he could remember feeling for a long time. Although he tried not to let things get to him, this one he wouldn’t fight against. It would spill over and rightly so. He’d rung Charlotte as soon as his phone was charged, to find out why he’d had thirteen missed calls from her, expecting a dire emergency. He’d had to end the call and tell her he’d speak to her at home because his stress levels were spiked listening to her ridiculous narrative and he didn’t want to have a second heart-attack whilst negotiating twisty country roads.
Charlotte was sitting at the kitchen table filing a nail when he entered the kitchen. She momentarily stopped, looked up at him, then resumed filing.
‘If you don’t sack her, then I’ll leave you,’ she said, calmly, menacingly.
‘Will you really, Charlotte? Will you really pack up all your designer gear into your Louis Vuitton cases and head off to the nearest B and B?’ Lew countered confidently.
She threw down the file onto the table. ‘I’ve only just had these done and I broke two corners off picking my phone up from your floor,’ she said, waggling her left hand.
He ignored that. ‘Whatever possessed you to walk into the shop and try and take money out of the till?’ he said, pushing back the dark waves of his hair with an exasperated comb of fingers. ‘You knew I wouldn’t be there.’
‘If you’d bothered to answer either of your phones when I originally rang you, we wouldn’t have had any of this.’
Lew held his hands up. ‘I will apologise for that. I left my number one phone in the house and didn’t realise my work phone was out of charge.’
Charlotte leapt on the opportunity for blame. ‘What if there had been an emergency? What if I’d fallen down the stairs or something?’
‘Luckily you didn’t,’ Lew replied.
‘I could have though. You always answer the number one phone. Until today, when I really needed you to answer it.’
‘Look, Charlotte, we are both alive and well, thank the Lord, but what you did today was out of order. And no, I will not sack the woman for not opening my till and giving out money to anyone who says they are my wife.’
‘But I AM your fucking wife,’ Charlotte screamed at him.
‘How would Bonnie know that?’
‘She would have done if you’d picked up your bloody phone and told her I was!’
Lew looked at her and for a moment saw Regina, not Charlotte. He decided the time had come to say something about that.
‘Can I tell you something that might hurt you?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘You’re spending so much time with Regina lately that you’re turning into her.’
‘I suppose you’d rather I were like Gemma then,’ snarled Charlotte. ‘Nice little Gem-Gems who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’
‘I’d rather you were like Charlotte Harley actually,’ replied Lew. ‘The lovely girl I married.’
Charlotte rose angrily from the chair, pushing it back with her legs. ‘Oh, so I’m not nice now, is that it? Not as nice as Bonnie who calls you Lew.’ She screwed up her face and put on a pathetic little girl voice. ‘No, I’m not letting you have Lew’s money. He wouldn’t like it.’
Lew stared at her scrunched-up features and for a moment time seemed to freeze and he thought, I don’t know my wife any more.
More than once recently he had wondered if the Charlotte of old had been replaced by an alien. Or was the Charlotte of old always going to evolve into this one? Was it his fault for indulging his wife so much through guilt at working away that his sweet and pretty Charlotte had turned into Regina mark II? Had she been bored and unhappy after packing in her job to take up the role of a housewife? Then again, as he remembered, she hadn’t needed much persuading to become a lady of leisure. She’d dropped her job in the shop faster than you could say P45.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Lew, turning to leave, needing to get out of this space and take a shower to wash away a day that had slid from a wonderful time buying in Newark to surreal madness.
‘You might not think it’s ridiculous when the police come,’ said Charlotte, crossing her arms smugly across her chest.
Lew halted by the door. ‘Police? What do you mean, the police?’
‘Assault,’ said Charlotte, smirking. ‘Your precious Bonnie assaulted Regina. Dragged her out of the shop. I bet she didn’t tell you that, did she?’
Having seen Regina in full dangerous harpy mode, this revelation nailed Lew’s attention. He hadn’t realised there had been a physical battle as well. Bonnie was bound to have come off worst faced with Regina’s talons, and he wouldn’t put it past her bringing her teeth into action either.
‘What happened?’ asked Lew.
‘Your assistant grabbed her and pushed her violently out of the shop.’ Charlotte gave a dramatic nod, a gesture of ‘so there.’
‘What – she just grabbed her for no reason?’
‘Yes.’
Lew dry-laughed. ‘Yeah, of course she did.’
Charlotte gasped. ‘You’re actually defending her, against our friend? Against me?’
‘Come on Charlotte, I’ve seen Regina in action. What did she do that made Bonnie throw her out of the shop, because whatever it was, it wouldn’t have been “for no reason”? Did Regina wade in with her fists flying?’
‘Not . . . no . . . she . . .’
‘She what?’ Lew hurried an answer out of her. ‘She attacked Bonnie first, did she?’
‘Is that what she said? She is a lying cow because Regina hardly touched her . . .’
Lew’s jaw tightened. ‘Bonnie never said a word. Lucky guess.’
‘For God’s sake, she only caught her with her elbow as she tried to squeeze past to get to the till . . .’ Charlotte’s jaw clamped shut as she realised she wasn’t helping her case.
‘So, let me get this right,’ mused Lew. ‘Regina elbows Bonnie out of the way and makes a grab for the till and Bonnie stopped her?’
‘That’s not what I said,’ said Charlotte, gnawing on her lip.
‘That’s exactly what you said. I shall be checking with Bonnie tomorrow that she doesn’t want to press charges of assault. So you’d better tell Regina to back off. Was anyone else in the shop?’
‘I didn’t notice anyone,’ grumbled Charlotte under her breath, though he saw the side of her mouth twitch as it did when she was lying.
‘So, possible witnesses were in the shop who saw everything, were they?’
Charlotte shrugged like a recalcitrant teenager.
‘Charlotte, I will not be sacking Bonnie and I do not want you ever going into my shop and putting my staff in that position again. In fact it would be the decent thing for you to go there tomorrow and apologise.’
Charlotte let loose a bark of disbelieving laughter. ‘You are joking.’
‘No I am not. The poor woman thought she was going to lose her job for actually doing her job. She was worried sick,’ snapped Lew.
‘Good.’ Charlotte blew down her nose like a furious horse.
‘Not a nice feeling is it, Charlotte? I seem to recall you coming home in tears one night before we were married, when a woman you sold some make-up to tore a strip off you because she’d had an allergic reaction. Remember that?’
‘No,’ said Charlotte.
‘I do. In glorious technicolour. You thought you were going to get the sack because you’d told the woman you couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t have an allergic reaction but she bought it and did and then came storming into the shop asking for your head on the block. And your manager stood up for you.’
Charlotte shrugged and that brief half-smile appeared again, the one that told him she was evading the truth. She wasn’t even aware of it, but Lew was.
‘Well I am not apologising to a paid assistant,’ groused Charlotte, stamping down on that seepage of smile.
Lew had to stop his jaw from dropping open.
‘So people who work in shops are lesser beings, are they, Charlotte? Is that what you were when you worked in Debenhams?’ He pretended to think for a moment and placed a thoughtful finger up against his lip. ‘Yes, actually you might be right. Maybe I should sack her, then.’
Charlotte gave an open-mouthed sigh of relief.
‘Hallelujah. That’s the first sensible thing you’ve . . .’
But Lew hadn’t finished.
‘. . . and because I need an assistant, you can do the job. You’re experienced, you know how to sell things and it’s about time you worked for a living.’
A squeak came out of Charlotte’s throat, as if a mouse had become trapped there and made a cry for help.
‘How dare you. I clean this house so it’s nice for you to live in and come home to,’ she screamed.
‘Astrid cleans our house so it’s nice for me to live in,’ Lew screamed back. He gave a growl of frustration and realised he needed to get away from Charlotte before he really gave her both barrels. ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ and once again he turned in the direction of the door. And once again he stopped short of it as something came to him. A niggle that he needed the answer to.
‘Tell me, Charlotte. When you couldn’t get through to me on either phone, did it occur to you that the reason might be that I’d had an accident or been taken ill?’
‘Of course. That’s why I was so stressed.’
But there had been too much of a pause between the end of his question and the beginning of her answer for him to believe it.