Susannah pushed away her plate with an air of resignation. ‘OK, fair enough. So I’m a spoilt bitch. I’ve got a wonderful life and I should be grateful for it. Let’s just say I’m going through some sort of mid-life crisis and leave it at that.’ She stood up and tucked her bag under her arm. ‘Look, I don’t know about you, Molly, but I must get back to the office. I need all the Flexi I can muster for that funeral I’m going to tomorrow.’
She began to hurry away, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid hearing Molly mutter to herself: ‘Mid-life crisis my giddy aunt!’ Her tone implied that life for most people was a whole series of crises – real ones. And that Susannah didn’t know she was born.
Not a single red light. Not one tail-back of traffic. Susannah’s Peugeot hummed homeward that evening on virtual auto-pilot, leaving her too much time to think. Time to think about uncomfortable things like whether Molly was right about not apologising: should she apologise to Paul, or he to her? He had practically asked to have something thrown at him, after all.
The gears clashed from fifth to second as she changed down for the Sainsbury’s roundabout. Why should she be the one to climb down? Where had his support been when she needed it? All he had done was belittle her efforts. But then, wasn’t that what he had always done?
Her thoughts flew back to their early days together, when Simon was just a toddler and Katy no more than an infant. Paul had risen hardly any distance up the civil service ladder by then and they’d had to watch every penny he earned.
Mothers who went out to work had still been the exception rather than the rule in those days, and Susannah had never been exceptional. What could she do anyway? Jobs for the less than well qualified had been scarce and not extravagantly paid. Anything she earned would have been swallowed up in childcare costs.
She had tried to help out at home as best she could. There were the children’s clothes she’d run up from market remnants and tried to sell; the teddy bears she’d made with bells in their ears one Christmas; the rag dolls that it had been hard to get Katy to part with; lampshades; envelopes – everything you could think of.
But Paul had pooh-poohed the lot.
‘Don’t give up the day-job,’ he’d once told her, eyeing her almost-stagnant production line of headless bodies …
Susannah’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Maybe he’d meant it as a joke, but it had hurt then and it hurt now.
It had hurt last night when he’d joked about the teapot stand, which was why she had suddenly exploded. Resentment had been building up for years. Oh, she’d give anything to wipe that superior expression from his face, have him look up to her for a change, with pride and – and respect. But she couldn’t see that happening in a million years. Unless she had some success.
Success. In Paul’s book that meant making money. So that was the answer, wasn’t it? She would have to make some money, even though they were no longer greatly in need of it. It was the only measure of success that Paul and the rest of the world recognised.
And it wasn’t all pie in the sky, when you thought about it. Other women had done it before – made fortunes by making things – especially in the eighties. You could hardly pick up a magazine at one time without reading how so-and-so had begun by mixing pots of cream or make-up in their kitchen, or printing lengths of cloth in the spare room, and they’d ended up running empires. So why shouldn’t she do something similar? Of course it would mean having to suck up to that nauseating Reg Watts in the craft shop once more, but nothing ventured nothing gained, as the saying goes. Yes, that’s what she would do: she would hurry home right now, collect one of the other teapot stands … and sell it!
Harvey Webb prised himself from the warm leather interior of his Mercedes, set his face against the wind, and threw the door shut behind him. The discreet ‘clunk’ of the lock usually pleased him inordinately, only right now it hardly registered; his mind was on other things. How infuriating that he’d forgotten to get Julia something for her birthday in town!
He’d already bought her the main present – a garnet and pearl bracelet – but she liked to have lots of little things to unwrap. And the last thing he wanted right now was to disappoint Julia.
Oh, if only he had thought of it sooner. He could have scooped up armfuls of suitable tat in Bath, but all that talk with Jerry and Adam had put it right out of his head.
Or maybe too much lager had, he conceded, looking up and down the deserted village street, although to tell the truth he always seemed to be forgetting things lately. It wasn’t as if he had much to think about either. Bugger all, in fact. But these days it seemed that the more time he had to think – and the less he had to think about – the more forgetful he became. That was what redundancy did for you.
Turning up the collar of his trenchcoat he began to pick his way across the sodden grass verge in search of somewhere that might sell gifts, but all he could see ahead of him was a knitting wool shop with ugly yellow film stuck over its window and a bakery that had sold its last crumb. Unless … yes, he was sure he remembered correctly: across the green there was a craft shop of sorts. He’d spotted it the day he and Julia had moved into the Old Dairy and she’d sent him out to find milk.
And was that the biggest mistake they’d ever made, he wondered for the hundredth time as he pushed on the plate-glass door of Heyford Handy Crafts: moving out to a village, when all they’d ever known was the town?
‘It’s so, so pretty here,’ Julia had said when she’d first set eyes on the place, dancing up and down the narrow streets in unsuitably high heels, and he couldn’t help but admit that it was. Then. Hard to resist in mid-summer was the chocolate-box setting of Upper Heyford with its big round duck pond, its fourteenth-century church, its thatched public house and matching cottages – all grouped pleasingly round the obligatory patch of green.
But it wasn’t so pretty now. Harvey shivered. No, not in November. Gone were all the flowers that had spilled freely from countless basket arrangements; gone were the tables outside the Golden Fleece. The trees were naked, the grass clogged with leaves. It looked downright dismal under heavy grey skies, and he sighed, longing for spring to come round, as he elbowed his way into the shop.
Reg Watts leaned forward on his heavy arms and leered at Susannah on the other side of the counter.
‘Well, Mrs Harding,’ he said above the jangle of the old-fashioned bell, ‘what have you brought me this time? Dried flowers? Corn dollies? Or something I can actually sell?’
‘You did manage to sell some of my flower arrangements, Reg,’ Susannah replied with icy politeness. She glanced in the newcomer’s direction, annoyed at the untimely intrusion. This was the last thing she wanted: an audience to witness her battle with Reg Watts.
The man, she noticed, had strolled to the far corner of the shop and was pretending to examine china mugs. But somehow she just knew he was listening to every word.
‘Yes, I know I sold a few of your things,’ Reg moaned, taking a mangled handkerchief from his pocket and arranging it in a pad. Judging by his nasal twang he had a very bad cold indeed. ‘But everyone’s doing dried flowers these days,’ he went on, elaborately wiping his nose. ‘They’re all going to classes to find out how it’s done. The only thing they come in
