The first week Michelle had felt rather invaded by the way Rory kicked off his shoes and flattened her cushions and didn’t fold the pages in the papers back the way they had been, but the room had seemed empty when she’d finally straightened it out again. She liked the way he didn’t talk much and left exactly when he said he would.
‘Aaah,’ said Rory, prising off one trainer with the toe of the other as he unfolded the Business section of the Sunday Times and sank onto the sofa. ‘What an idiot.’
She left him spreading out the papers over the floor and watched from the kitchen while the kettle boiled.
When he thought she couldn’t see, Rory talked under his breath to Tavish – she could see his lips moving – but quietly enough for her not to hear. Tavish seemed to be listening to him; his black ears were pricked, and his stumpy tail was wagging slowly from side to side, feathering the long hairs of his coat.
How ridiculous is that, thought Michelle, amused. As if I can’t tell how soppy he is about that dog from the way he always comes back combed.
‘Why is that dog so neat?’ she called through. ‘Have you been grooming him?’
‘No! Well, just a bit. I took him up to see Mr Quentin this afternoon.’
‘Didn’t he find it upsetting?’ she asked. ‘Seeing his old dog with someone else?’
‘Nope, they both had a lovely time. Everyone patted Tavish and talked about their own ratty little bastard that loved children and only killed black cats. I’ve got instructions for Anna to take him along next time she reads to them.’
‘Lovely.’ Michelle dropped the teabags into the pot and made a mental note to go with her. Maybe with a knee-blanket for Mr Quentin. No harm in getting him on side with the linens.
‘You should come up too,’ said Rory, reading her mind with unnerving casualness. ‘Don’t you have a favourite novel you could be sharing with them?’
‘No. And don’t you start. Anna’s been on at me to do one of those reading cards for the bookshop.’
‘And why haven’t you?’
‘Because I don’t have time.’ Michelle opened and shut her cupboards, looking for the right plate to put the biscuits on. ‘I’m already thinking about Christmas.’
‘Get out of here. It’s barely summer.’ Rory had wandered in while her back was turned. ‘What’s this?’
Michelle glanced over her shoulder to see Rory flicking through her mood board folder for the new shop, with pages ripped from style magazines, and the catalogues and order forms from various companies.
‘Bedlinen,’ she said. ‘My winter project.’
‘Looks like nice stuff.’ He flicked through some more. ‘Warm.’
‘It is,’ she said. She wasn’t sure what she felt about Rory passing opinions on bedrooms. Presumably his was quite bare, monk-like with shelves of literary fiction and a bottle of water by the bed. Was he a sheets and blankets man? Or a duvet lover? The door had been shut the day she’d nosed round his flat with Rachel and Anna, and now she wished she’d peeked in.
‘It’s gorgeous, especially the quilts. They’re real heirloom pieces.’ She felt more confident talking about her shop idea; even her dad had thought it was a smart move. ‘It’s a known fact that when times are tough, people cut back on going out and spend a bit more on their homes instead. Nesting is the next big thing. People always need somewhere to sleep, and women love their bedrooms.’
Rory gave her a quizzical look. ‘It’s very . . . neat.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, I mean, it’s very demure, all these cushions on the bed. And pretty virginal lace pillows. It’s not exactly sexy, is it? For a bedroom. I can’t imagine this being the scene of any crimes of passion.’ He pointed at the perfect, cloud-like cocoon on the page. ‘It’d take you ten minutes just to get the throw pillows out of the way before you could ravish anyone.’
Michelle stared at him. The mental image of Rory throwing cushions to the floor and tumbling his woman on the bed, struggling to undo buttons and zips, was a troubling one. She’d never pictured him that way, but he was speaking as if crimes of passion were a feature of his life.
He has a son, she reminded herself.
‘But what would I know,’ he went on, seeing her face. ‘I’m not your target customer.’
‘No.’ Michelle swallowed. That was her bedroom he was talking about. She had eight pillows, and no crimes of passion, by choice. ‘Anyway, I’ve been doing a bit of market research on my customer base, and lots of people round here get those catalogues for The White Company and Cologne and Cotton, but . . .’ She rubbed her fingers together, as if she was touching the finest Egyptian cotton. ‘But half the pleasure is feeling the sheets, and you can’t do that with a catalogue, can you?’
She blinked at the sensuous way she was rubbing her fingers together and stopped.
‘Indeed you can’t.’ Rory turned the page and examined the lambswool blankets. ‘And how much of Home Sweet Home are you going to devote to this boudoir-ware?’
‘I think bedlinen like this deserves a whole shop of its own, don’t you?’
‘A whole shop! Blimey.’ Rory looked up. ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’
‘Well, by the time you’ve made up a bed or two and put in some shelving for the blankets . . . You need a bit of space. You have to recreate a whole bedroom that the customer wants to buy.’ Michelle poured the tea and ignored Tavish, who was begging for a biscuit by her side. ‘Have you been feeding him from the table again?’
‘No, your honour.’
‘How come he’s giving me a paw?’
Rory looked up and tsked at Tavish. ‘I have no idea. He must have learned it somewhere else. So what have you got your eye on? That old betting shop on the corner that’s closing down? Is it like Monopoly – when you’ve got three shops you can build a hotel on one of them?’
She furrowed her brow at him, surprised he was being so dense. ‘Keep up, Rory. It’s going to be next door. The bookshop.’
‘The bookshop?’ Rory stopped pouring his tea.
‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ said Michelle. ‘You knew all along that’s what I wanted to do – wasn’t that why you told me I should take in Tavish, to try to persuade Mr Quentin to let me change the shop sooner?’
‘That’s not really why you took in Tavish,’ said Rory in a reprimanding, posh Scottish voice. ‘You took in Tavish because you didn’t want to see a poor old dog out in the cold. You did it out of the goodness of your heart.’
‘That’s not why you told me to take him.’ She opened her mouth in an O of surprise. ‘Don’t try to pretend that you weren’t the one who came up with the cunning plan.’
Rory sipped his tea, then put the mug down very deliberately. When he spoke, his tone was measured, and reasonable, and Michelle knew that behind it, he was annoyed. ‘I thought the bookshop was going so well we’d persuaded you to keep it open.’
We’d persuaded you. We. The book people versus Philistine Michelle.
‘I’m going to keep some of the books,’ she said, irritated. ‘It’s going to be called A Book at Bedtime, and there’ll be . . .’ She edited in her head, not wanting to lie outright. ‘There’ll still be some books. Just not as many. I mean, going well’s a bit different from making a profit. Going well for that bookshop is not actually making a crippling loss.’
‘If you count loss and profit purely in financial terms.’
‘I do. I’m running a business, not some kind of social outreach project for middle-class readers.’
Rory hadn’t raised his voice, or even sounded particularly disapproving, but Michelle felt more defensive than if he’d yelled at her. Harvey hadn’t been a yeller either.
‘You don’t think that it’s doing more for you than just turning a profit?’
‘In what way?’
‘You’ve got a new customer base. You’ve got a community-enhancing moral high ground. You’re supporting cultural activities in the area with the au
thor visits and the book clubs and children’s reading groups. Doesn’t that enhance your brand in general? Doesn’t that rub off on Home Sweet Home?’
‘Maybe.’ Michelle reached for a biscuit and snapped it in half. ‘Those are Anna’s projects, though.’ He knew that, she knew that.
She felt a splinter of resentment pierce her warm mood. Rory was part of Anna’s Reading Aloud gang now and even Owen had started doing book reviews, under gentle pressure from Becca. Even Kelsey had done one. But it was her that was paying the bills, keeping the money moving around.
‘Oh, you love that shop, admit it,’ said Rory, changing tack. ‘It’s a success story, and that’s as much down to you as it is to Anna.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘It is. The way you’ve decorated it, brought it to life. The colours. The . . . stuff in it.’ He frowned and reached for a third biscuit. ‘I can’t put my finger on it, because, as I said, I’m a bloke. I just know that I liked it before, when Mr Quentin had it, but I never lingered. Not like people linger now. They linger for hours. They meet there.’
Michelle stared into her coffee, suddenly colder inside. It wasn’t the compliment she’d been hoping for, although, rationally, she had no idea what compliment she had wanted. ‘That’s not me, that’s Anna.’
‘It’s you too, dumbo. You make it happen, as they say on television programmes. Look, you could easily find another shop on the cheap.’ Rory took another biscuit and Michelle moved the plate away. ‘The high street’s full of charity shops, waiting for proper leaseholders. I could put my ear to the ground for you.’
‘I can’t afford another shop.’
‘Doesn’t that depend on the rent?’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘I’m a tough negotiator. For special clients.’
Michelle shook her head. Stubbornness had crept over her now, entrenching her in whatever position she’d taken when it started. She didn’t even let herself acknowledge the favour he was offering her. ‘No, Rory, I’ve made a plan. I like to stick to plans.’
‘Don’t all the best business tycoons just go with the flow?’
‘They pretend to. They’ve really got four or five different contingency plans. All watertight. You should know that, you’re a solicitor.’
Rory looked at her as if he was weighing up whether to say something or not. Then he spoke. ‘So, when?’
‘When what?’
‘When are you planning to tell Anna her bookshop’s closing?’
‘I thought it was my bookshop.’
‘Your bookshop, then. Our bookshop. I speak on behalf of the middle-class readership of Longhampton.’
‘Don’t guilt trip me.’ Michelle refused to meet his eye. ‘I’m monitoring sales. If they dip beneath a reasonable operating level then I’ll have no choice but to pull the plug. I thought I’d introduce a few lines in the autumn like the blankets and maybe they’ll shore up some profits. But between you and me, I’ll be very surprised if it goes the whole year. Which is all I agreed to in the first place.’
‘Fine.’ Rory pushed his chair back. ‘Mind if I read the paper?’
The topic was clearly closed.
‘Fine,’ said Michelle, equally clipped. ‘I’ll bring the tea over.’
Rory made himself comfortable in the big chair and Michelle sat, knees together, on the sofa, flicking through the supplements without seeing much. Every so often Rory read something out and she made a grumpy noise, but after a few minutes, weariness crept over her, and she swung her feet up.
‘I’m not going to sleep,’ she said. ‘I’m just closing my eyes. Don’t let Tavish on the sofa, because I will know.’
‘No problem,’ said Rory.
Michelle sank her head into the feather cushions and let her body relax. Swan’s Row was peaceful in a way no other house had ever been; no sirens, no cars, just faint birdsong and the hum of her dishwasher. And the huff and puff of Rory reading the paper.
‘Ha ha ha!’ he said. ‘Listen to this. It’s a restaurant review of a place in Islington. “We spent so long listening to the waiter describing the organic life cycle of what was on our plates that my lamb had matured into mutton before I was allowed to prod it with my fork.”’
‘That’s very good,’ she murmured, fighting off sleep.
Rory carried on reading and Michelle couldn’t be bothered to tell him to stop. It was surprisingly soothing, listening to his voice rise and fall. Scottish accents were rather soporific, she thought, as the images danced and retreated in her mind, and the birdsong twittered in the garden.
When Michelle woke up it was dark, and someone was snoring. She also had a chenille throw draped over her.
‘What time is it? Rory?’ She sat up quickly and pushed away the throw.
Rory had gone, leaving only a trail of messy paper, a half-eaten packet of biscuits from the kitchen that he’d evidently helped himself to, and dents in the chair where he hadn’t bothered to replump the cushions. He had, though, drawn the curtains and covered her with the throw that had been carefully arranged on the other chair.
Michelle wrinkled her nose. The throw was actually quite scratchy. She’d never noticed that before. And Tavish had clambered up onto the sofa next to her and was snoring in triumph.
‘Why can’t men see mess?’ she said aloud, but she couldn’t ignore the unsettling feeling that despite the mess, something had gone from the room. For a yearning second, she wished it hadn’t.
She turned on the soft table lamps and began to tidy up.
‘You’re very quiet,’ said Phil as they turned onto the motorway, heading back from the airport.
‘Lots to think about,’ said Anna shortly.
The sense of déjà vu wasn’t a pleasant one. The last time he’d said that, they’d been at the start of a nice fresh year. Full of possibilities. Now, it felt as if everything had gone into reverse. Well, reverse for her. Not for anyone else.
‘Sarah seemed sad the girls didn’t want to see her off,’ Phil went on. ‘But it’s not surprising, I guess.’
‘Sunday nights are busy for them.’ Normally Anna would have stayed at home to supervise homework and get ahead on the ironing, but something had snapped and she didn’t feel like it. Why be SuperStepMum when SuperMum had just left the building? It already felt too much like a competition she couldn’t win.
‘I know.’
More silence. More miles flashed by.
‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ said Phil.
‘For what?’
‘For this weekend. I know it’s been hard. The rows.’
‘I don’t mind the rows.’ She bit her lip. ‘What was hard was watching you and Sarah parenting in our house. Like I wasn’t there.’
He wiped a hand over his face. ‘It wasn’t like that. Sarah was trying really hard not to step on your toes. Lily asked her to read her the bedtime story. She’d have said no, if you’d asked.’
‘I’m not talking about that.’ But she was. She knew it sounded petulant, and she knew it was more to do with the crashing disappointment of realising she wasn’t pregnant, but there was no point trying to explain to Phil. He just didn’t get it.
More silence. More miles.
‘Is everything OK with Becca and, er, Jake?’ he asked.
‘Josh. And no, they’ve split up.’
‘Have they? When? She didn’t tell me. Well, maybe that’s not something you tell your dad.’
Anna felt a tiny glimmer of triumph that she knew something personal, something trustworthy.
‘I suppose this is the beginning of the unsuitable boyfriend stage,’ he sighed, and looked sad. ‘What else don’t I know?’
Anna considered keeping it to herself, but common sense told her it would only backfire. At least this way she could tell Becca he’d asked, rather than that she’d volunteered the information unbidden. ‘She’s going out with Michelle’s brother, Owen.’
Phil glanced across the car. ‘Haven’t met the guy. Is he nice? Should I be worried? How much like Michelle
is he? Scary?’
‘He’s . . . OK,’ said Anna.
‘OK?’ He looked worried. ‘But you’re keeping an eye on it?’
‘She’s allowed some privacy, Phil.’
‘Not until the chastity belt arrives . . . I’m joking. I’m glad she talks to you. Did she tell Sarah?’
‘I don’t know. Probably.’
Silence descended again, less tense this time, and the atmosphere had almost warmed back to normal when Phil turned onto the main road into Longhampton and said, ‘I’m really sorry you got your hopes up for nothing.’
It was the first time he’d acknowledged her tearful disappointment, and Anna’s throat tightened. She was expecting him to say, ‘Let’s try again,’ but he didn’t.
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ he went on. ‘It’s not a good time. We didn’t really talk about it enough, did we?’
Anna swung round, lost for words. We? We?
He took that as tacit agreement and squeezed her knee. ‘I’ve been thinking – why don’t you book a week somewhere really nice for us to go away when Sarah has the girls in the summer? Blow the budget. Somewhere second honeymoon-y, lots of cocktails by the pool, no slides.’
‘Somewhere grown-up,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Exactly!’
She stared ahead at the road, watching the familiar signposts of her daily life flash past. School, supermarket, hospital, town centre. Sucking her back in to the parenting routine.
They were going to have to talk about it. Very soon. But not tonight. Tonight, Anna couldn’t be sure what might come out of her mouth.
21
‘I’d like to tell you how the psychoanalytic subtext of Where The Wild Things Are spoke to me, but in reality, I just liked the pictures.’
Matt Dunn
It was ironic, Anna thought, that the massive stress of Chloe and Becca’s exams ended up being a good thing, in that they gave the whole family something to moan and wail about other than Sarah’s baby.
It also allowed her to adopt a slightly more pick-and-mix approach to her non-stop to-do list. Whatever had snapped in her during Sarah’s visit hadn’t reconnected when Sarah left, and although she’d re-read all Becca’s set texts so they could discuss them over dinner, and had agreed to Chloe’s special ‘brain food’ internet diet, Anna hadn’t bothered to shove the girls’ socks into individual sock pockets on the back of their bedroom doors as she normally did, or iron anything worn below the waist.