Inside the hall, he could hear the DJ winding down the evening.
“It's almost time to wrap things up. Hope you've had a good time. I know I certainly have! So, grab that guy or girl you fancied in school and give them one last dance.”
Ed smiled to himself, recalling a time, oh so long ago, when the last dance of the evening was the most important; the one that signalled that it was serious, that this was the person you were walking home. How many times had he had this dance played out in his head?
As the music began, Ed walked held out his hand to Jules.
She looked up at him and smiled. Slowly, she allowed him to pull her to her feet and take her in his arm
She didn’t know where the road was going to take her but she felt sure that Ed would be part of it. As she laid her head on his shoulder and breathed in the scent of his cologne, she permitted herself one small, hopeful smile.
THE END
About the Author:
Born and raised in Dover, Lisa began writing in her bedroom, hunched over a portable typewriter. As a teenager, inspiration came from life around her; her mates, her music and Dover. Many, many years later, with life, children, and the general business of being a grown-up having taken her away from that world, it was back to Dover as the inspiration for her debut novel, Since You’ve Been Gone.
Also by Lisa Dyer:
Since You’ve Been Gone published by Crooked Cat Books, 2013 and available to buy from Amazon
To find out more about the author please visit: www.lisadyerauthor.com
A preview of Since You’ve Been Gone is available on the next page.
Since You’ve Been Gone
Lisa Dyer
Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Dyer
Cover Artwork by Sweet Lana
Design by Crooked Cat
Editor: Christine McPherson
All rights reserved.
Since You’ve Been Gone: 978-1-909841-29-1 No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Publishing except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
First Red Line Edition, Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd. 2013
In the beginning...
…there was Hal and Abigail and they should have lived happily ever after… everything in their story shouted that to the world. Hal’s mother knew it. Their friends had no doubt about it.
Hal and Abigail were the perfect pair. Having grown up together from infancy, there were no secrets, no hidden agendas; just love. All that was missing were the church bells and the first flat with the second-hand furniture and the gas fire that didn’t work, and even that would be okay because they’d cuddle up in bed to keep warm until summer.
Then Hal blew it all wide open by getting a conditional offer to study at Cambridge – in the Department of Veterinarian Medicine.
To be honest, it was a total shock to everyone, but most of all to Abigail. She had supported his idea to apply, but had secretly thought that he would be out of his depth and have second thoughts. He didn’t.
It was all he thought about and planned for. He locked himself away in his bedroom to study, and suddenly two people, who had been inseparable from the first moment they had met, were wrenched apart. Hal’s mother, Diana clucked about nothing else; anybody would think he was marrying into royalty. Anyone foolish enough to ask, ‘How’s the family, Di?’ soon found themselves wishing they’d kept their mouths shut.
Hal and Abigail limped through the spring, and dragged themselves into the summer. His hard work paid off and he attained the required grades then received positive confirmation that, come the autumn, he would be going up to Cambridge.
There was one last night, camped down at the Bay, Hal on his guitar and the old crowd avoiding talking about what was happening, as if by doing so it may go away.
And that was it. The beginning of the end of Hal Bartlett and Abigail Markham. Except, for Abigail it was the start of something new, something so big, so life changing – and its outcome would resonate down the years…
Chapter One
Dover, Kent: 1998
The envelope had sat on the dresser for days and still Abigail could not pluck up the courage to post it. She swore to Ferret that she would: cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. The fact that Ferret had even trusted her to carry out his wishes was laughable. Abigail and Ferret (or David, to give him his proper name) had been friends since infants’ school and, in truth, he’d never been the brightest bulb in the box so she’d easily conned him into believing that nothing was further from her mind.
The delay had bought her time to think and to plan, and in the end, she’d re-written the envelope, changed the address slightly, omitted the fact that it was going to a veterinarian practice and left out the postcode – that should cause the sorting office a problem or two. That way, she reasoned to herself, she hadn’t technically lied to anyone. The fact that the recipient didn’t get it would lead them to assume he’d declined the invitation and had better things to do, so that was fine.
She wasn't being deceitful... okay, she was being deceitful, but it really was in everyone's best interest for Hal Bartlett not to attend his 15th anniversary school reunion. The more she thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded. Abi brightened... but still didn't put the invite into her bag for posting.
“Rory! Come on, time’s getting on!” she shouted into thin air, in the hope that the sound would drift up to her son in his bedroom, as she rummaged through the fridge for a packet of pre-cut apples to put in her son’s lunchbox. “Rory!”
Abigail Markham had been a striking-looking girl, with her elfin face and large expressive eyes. The look had reached it apogee when she’d persuaded her sister to give her a Chelsea haircut, beloved of skingirls back in 1980, and the fringe and feathers served to accentuate her features. Now the eyes were dulled by the trials of life but somewhere, inside, the vestiges remained. She just needed a break and the chance to shine again.
She glanced around the shabby kitchen in search of inspiration for the lunchbox, and her gaze fell on her blue work bib scrunched up in the basket of dirty laundry that seemed to permanently live by the washing machine. Her eyes drifted upwards to the sight of the dirty dishes from last night; dried-on baked beans and tomato sauce. She winced and mentally chastised herself for her laziness.
“Totally undomesticated” is how she liked to describe herself in the lighter moments of self-justification, but the bottom line was she couldn't be bothered. Life was a long round of working, cleaning and falling asleep exhausted in front of the telly. Some days she just let it all hang out. Who was going to see it anyway? Only those who knew and understood, and as for the rest… well, they didn’t matter.
“Rory, I said now! I'm going to be late for work.” It was just the daily battle cry in her house. A bit of co-operation all round wouldn’t go amiss. Like telling her that someone, i.e. her eldest, had taken the last packet of apples so she could restock. She found a lone packet of dried fruit in the cupboard next to the fridge and tossed that into the lunchbox before hurriedly scrawling “fruit” on the chalkboard that hung on the wall. The list was getting longer and she briefly panicked about when she was going to find the time to nip to the supermarket.
She often wondered how two sentient beings could move around a shared space and not notice what needed to be done. Ellie, at least, could pick up a few things for her but she never offered, and Abi was sick of asking. In her darker moments of introspection, she looked back on her life and felt keenly the sense that she had lost her way. If someone had asked her back in 1983 how she saw her life in fifteen years, she wouldn’t, for a million years, have offered up her current situation. Some things, though, she was pretty sure about; she knew s
he’d be doing the same job, hanging out with the same crowd, but as for the rest…
Abi shook herself out of it. That was a road well-travelled – usually after a frustrating day when the world conspired to give her more shit than she could handle – in the deep, dark parts of the night when the kids were asleep and the television held no escape, and it led to a dead end. The decisions she had made back then were hers and hers alone; she was the one that had to deal with the consequences of being headstrong and not a little wrapped-up in the drama and heroics of it all. Her life wasn’t a complete train wreck, more of a slight derailment. Trouble was, no-one seemed to have the means to get it back on track. Least of all Abigail.
Seven-year-old Rory, his shirt half-hanging out of the back of his trousers, raced into the kitchen followed by his constant companion, Darcy the terrier, who danced around Rory’s feet and yelped when he got accidentally stepped on. Abigail scolded the hapless creature and Rory soothed, dropping to his knees to fuss Darcy, and kiss him on the nose. The dog wagged his tail furiously and rolled over, and so another distraction began as the two played on the floor until Abigail hauled Rory up, dusted him down, and shooed Darcy out into the hall.
Rory grabbed his book bag off the back of the kitchen chair and ran after the excitable pet. Abigail attempted, as he whizzed past, to grab the shirt tail and tuck it back into the waistband, but failed and only elicited a howl of protest and a forceful, “Get off” as he wriggled free and fled.
With a sigh and clutching a carrier bag full of other invites, her bib and her bag, Abigail herded the whirlwind down the hall to the front door where she stopped briefly at the foot of the stairs to shout her other child out of her bed.
“Ellie, you've got school in one hour. Shift it!”
Abigail steered Rory out of the front door and slammed it behind them.
There was a pause and the house fell quiet for a few seconds. Ellie, tall and slim with long brown hair, thumped down the stairs still half asleep in her oversized Ramones t-shirt and cotton shorts. She stumbled into the kitchen and surveyed the mess; her clear hazel eyes finally fell on the single envelope. For a brief second she considered whether or not to run after her mother, but apathy got the better of her and she headed back upstairs where she collapsed onto the bed and snoozed for another half an hour.
Fortunately, in direct contrast to Abigail’s chaos management morning regime, Ellie had her routine down to a fine art. She left the house awake and presentable in her school uniform and Doc Martens, and she did think to be helpful and post the lonely letter. It was the start of a train of events that had the potential to change all of their lives forever.
A Greasy Spoon Cafe, somewhere in Oxfordshire: 1998
Hal stared at Michael’s grease-laden full English breakfast with a small hint of disgust and a slight fear that someone would tell his screamingly posh mother-in-law he had frequented such a diner, filled as it was with builders and passing truckers in for their morning cuppa and bacon butties. This was his grubby little secret.
Now in his early thirties, Hal had long ago finished his metamorphosis from teenage rock god to boring, not-quite middle-aged man. He’d long given over his drainpipe jeans with the turn-ups and the brothel creepers, all anti-establishment kicking and screaming and dreams of playing Wembley Stadium, and was now the epitome of respectable upper-middle class with a town house, expensive car, and holidays on private estates in the Caribbean.
It didn’t suit him, if he was being honest, which he wasn’t. Hal Bartlett hadn’t been honest about who he was for a long time. His brown hair, which had once sported a number two and occasionally – in a tribute to his idol, Joe Strummer – a longer clump of hair which he styled into a rockabilly quiff, was still short but in a boring, middle-aged, middle-class way. He had a youthful face, which was awkward rather than handsome, and he permanently looked languid due to his hooded hazel eyes. But he still had a certain something about him which could have carried off a slightly funkier look.
His beloved Levi red tabs had long since been replaced by workaday cords. The only hint of what had been was a tell-tale dent in his left ear, the mark of a closed-up hole which had once sported a sleeper earring, and on his left forearm an unfortunate self-inflicted, upside-down Indian ink tattoo that bore the faded legend ‘AM’. Julienne had insisted he get it removed somehow, but he’d always managed to avoid doing so. His punishment for disobeying orders was that he had to wear long sleeves at all times, even on holiday. It was a price he was willing to pay, and it was one of the many reasons his marriage was now on the rocks.
The waitress walked past, her hands full with dirty dishes. Michael tapped her with the side of his forearm.
“‘Ey,” he said, chewing on his food as he spoke. “Any chance of some bread and butter?”
The waitress nodded.
“Cheers, lass.” He gave her a saucy wink. She smiled, half pleased at the attention, and walked away. Michael observed her arse and gave it his own private seal of approval with a quick raise of his eyebrows.
Michael Bayliss, Hal’s associate, was going into his mid-thirties still kicking and screaming and in complete denial that he was no longer the babe magnet his mind had always supposed him to be. He sported his thick, wiry, dirty blond hair tied back into a knot at the nape of his neck, and his clothes gave off a certain air of beach bum-gone-straight. They usually consisted of faded Levi 501s worn just a little too long, so they bunched fashionably around the top of his Vans. His white cotton shirts were always worn loose, and he accompanied the look with ethnic wool bracelets and necklaces.
A charmer with a ready smile, Michael had a thick Yorkshire accent. And he made no effort to modulate it for the soft Southern ears of the matriarchs whose precious cats and dogs he ministered to in the veterinary practice he and Hal co-owned. Michael prided himself on his down-to-earth attitude and strict adherence to the Northern mantra of calling a spade a spade. He never denied his past. If people didn’t like him, he reasoned, they could sod off.
Michael, on the whole, got away with it. He took no nonsense from anyone, but his ready smile and easy manner meant that the well-heeled ladies of the small market town where he and Hal had their practice, found him hard to resist. They were bored, kept women who had little to do but organise fundraisers for their latest charity de jour, meet for lunch, gossip and spend their husbands’ money. Michael was more than willing to assuage their angst over the health of their expensive pets, and occasionally provide a broad shoulder for the nervier ones to offload onto. The former was all money in the bank, and the latter meant that he never had to go without and he never had to commit.
“Thought you were taking up being veggie to impress that girl?” said Hal flatly.
Michael had forsworn meat about three months ago, when a vision of divine loveliness had wandered into the surgery clutching an injured pigeon. Sadly, the pigeon didn’t make it but, unsurprisingly, Michael did. Several times. In his flat above the surgery.
In order to continue the relationship, which had started out well with such dynamic sex, he’d given up meat. This had cost him dear, as he was an avowed carnivore, but she had been worth it. Sadly, he learned a tough lesson.
“Rowena? Nah, turned out, right, she weren't no veggie; she was one of them, whatdaya call ‘em? Aye, fruitarian. Yeah, one of them.”
Hal looked blank.
“She made that up to get rid of you.”
“No, no, it’s proper, like. I looked it up, yeah, and it’s right kosher, is that.” Michael loaded his fork with a bit of everything and crammed it into his mouth. “Surprised you’ve not heard on ‘em. Thought you Southerners were all into this faddy stuff.”
Egg yolk slopped into his close-cut beard. He didn’t wipe it away and its presence transfixed Hal for a moment, as he recalled a teacher he once had who habitually had remnants of pipe tobacco hanging out of his Rasputin-like beard, along with whatever the school canteen had foisted upon the unsuspecting pupils
that day.
The waitress delivered a slice of white bread, spread thickly with butter, and cut in half. Michael gave her a quick smile and carried on with his food.
“So, what is it?” asked Hal, who felt he should know and was slightly bemused that the word had never reached his vocabulary.
With a full mouth, and using his knife and fork to illustrate, Michael explained:
“Right, well, you know, like a veggie, yeah, don't eat meat, and vegans don’t eat meat and all animal by-products are ultimately theft? Well, turns out these fruitarians don’t pick stuff.”
Hal looked confused, as well he might. Michael regularly mangled the English language due to his whole-hearted endorsement of “keeping it regional”.
“True, aye,” continued Michael, as he shoved more food into his over-full mouth. “They only gather windfalls; you know, what the plant has given up naturally. And I said to meself, ‘Michael,’ I said, ‘life's too short to wait for a carrot to commit suicide.’ So, I dumped her.”
He continued to eat as Hal nibbled delicately on a piece of dried toast. Michael glanced up from his food and felt it was polite to ask, even if he knew the answer.
“What’s up with you? Got a face like a wet weekend.”
Hal threw the crust down onto the plate and shoved it away from him.
“Stupid pre-wedding dinner with Julienne's family and Verity’s future in-laws. Olivia’s driving me nuts.” And that was it, in a nutshell. Hal’s in-laws and the society wedding of the decade.
“Aye, ‘ey, rather you than me, mate.” Michael mopped his plate with his bread and butter. “What's the ma-in-law got her knickers in a twist about now?”
“I don’t know... doves... birds... I don’t know...”
Hal sighed and looked out of the window. He knew he was just a bit player in a larger production. Olivia, his mother-in-law, was determined to blow the family fortune to make the wedding of her youngest daughter – the spoilt Verity –the talk of the town. She’d shanghaied every wedding planner, florist, caterer, marquee owner, wine merchant and decorator within a forty-mile radius, and then had discarded them for not being able to live up to her unfeasibly high expectations, until she was sure she had assembled a crack team to deliver her vision.