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‘I really am sorry I didn’t tell you,’ I say, quietly, running the risk of ruining the moment. ‘If it’s any consolation I didn’t tell anybody.’
‘Not even Willow, or Katie?’
‘Not even. And then today, at Laura’s bash, it all kind of came tumbling out. It was a race against time to get here and tell you myself before one of them told one of the menfolk, and you found out by accident and ended up hating me.’
‘I could never hate you, Auburn, you pillock,’ he says, sounding as romantic as it’s possible to sound with a sentence involving the word ‘pillock’.
‘You might say that now,’ I reply, semi-serious, ‘but you should give me some time on that front … Anyway, I am sorry. It was all so long ago, and feels a bit like a dream sequence or a flashback in a film. Like something that happened to a different person – my crazy alter-ego or my evil twin sister.’
He laughs, and twines his fingers into my hair, and I feel him holding strands of it up so the sun can fall through it. He’s fascinated with my hair, the weirdo.
‘I suppose it does perhaps lead us on to the bigger conversation, though, doesn’t it?’ he says. I feel him tensing ever so slightly beneath my palms – so subtle I barely notice it, but in Finn world a major event. He’s usually Mr Cucumber.
Of course, I get what he means, but I don’t have to like it – even if he is right.
‘Does it have to?’ I ask, sounding like a teenaged girl whining about doing homework when she wants to watch Love Island. ‘I like things just the way they are. You, me, naked, in bed on a work day. That’s pretty perfect.’
‘It is,’ he agrees, turning my face up so we’re looking into each other’s eyes. ‘Pretty perfect. And it’s not like I’m going to go all demanding on you – I know this is new. I know we’re both taking baby steps, that we both have our issues. But it’s also not … casual, is it?’
I remember my panic earlier, when I thought I was losing him. I remember how I smile whenever I hear his name. I remember the fact that this man blows my mind in bed. No, this isn’t casual – but I’m not quite sure what it is, either.
‘No,’ I reply, stroking his face, running my finger over the bump in his nose and kissing its tip. ‘Not casual. I really like you, Finn. I’m happy when I’m with you – even when you have clothes on. But my life is … complicated. Actually, that’s a cop-out – it’s not my life, it’s me that’s complicated. I’m a work in progress, but I can’t promise I’ll ever be simple.’
‘The fact that you’ve told me you’re married to another man kind of tipped me off to that – as has knowing you for the last few months. What makes you think I want simple, anyway? Maybe I like complicated. Maybe I’d be bored if you were straightforward. Maybe I’m an emotional masochist who likes getting involved with savage redheads.’
I think about it, and shrug. Maybe he is. Or maybe he’ll reach the point where I drive him mad enough for him to jump back into his longboat, and sail across the North Sea to escape my savagery.
‘You’re not simple either,’ I say, prodding him in the ribs. Offence is the best form of defence. ‘You do this whole cool, inscrutable Nordic thing, and you might fool everyone else – but I know there’s more to you. You’re not just saunas and A-Ha.’
‘They were Norwegian, you philistine,’ he replies in mock horror. Of course I knew that – but I enjoy winding him up a bit.
‘All the same to me. Anyway … as for the bigger conversation, I suppose my half of it goes something like this: I like you. I don’t want this to end. And if I think about it all too deeply, I’ll do my usual thing of tying myself up in knots and convincing myself there’s a disaster looming on the horizon. So, can we carry on getting to know each other, and feeling our way through this?’
He runs a hand down my side, over my hip, and onto my naked backside, which he squeezes.
‘Like this?’ he asks.
‘Well, it’s not quite what I meant, but I’m not complaining.’
He leaves his hand there, and kisses the top of my head.
‘Yes,’ he says, after a few moments. ‘We can carry on doing that. I like getting to know you. It’s fun. But I didn’t like getting a shock like that one, so could we avoid that in future please? I don’t mind you being complicated, Auburn – but I do mind being kept in the dark. As long as we’re honest with each other, I think we’ll be all right.’
I throw one leg over his hips in lieu of replying, because I found that last statement a bit scary. I mean, it’s not like I go around lying all the time … no, actually, I do. I’m renowned for my tremendous fib-telling capacity. But that’s just jokey stuff, like claiming I couldn’t buy a round in because I’d left my wallet in the ladies’ loos at Hogwarts – stuff nobody believes anyway.
That stuff doesn’t matter. But the bigger stuff – like the fact that I’m secretly married, and why the marriage went horribly wrong, and big lost chunks of my life that I’m ashamed of and never talk about – matters. Not telling him might not technically be lying, but I can’t imagine he’d see it that way.
I need to woman up, and make some changes.
Chapter 5
Laura is half-sitting, half-lying, all groaning, on the couch in the Budbury Pharmacy. The shop opened last year, and scarily I’m the person in charge. That fact never ceases to amaze me. I even have keys to a big cupboard full of some seriously heavy-duty drugs – not that we have much call for it in our village.
My average customer tends to need the odd asthma inhaler or some diabetes meds or antibiotics. Nobody’s breaking bad, and most of my regulars are in fairly decent health. That might not be good for business, but it’s definitely good for morale.
To make things work, we also sell a lot of extra stuff – toiletries and gifts and suncare and baby things and my personal favourite, the sugary whistle pops that you can both suck on and make music with. Multi-tasking at its finest.
Sometimes we’re super busy – by Budbury standards – and sometimes we’re not. Today is definitely a ‘not’ day. Katie is off at her son Saul’s school for a parent–teacher thing, and I’ve been bored all day. That’s never good for me, being bored – I tend to start planning world domination, or smoke sixty fags, or bite my nails down to my knuckles.
I was delighted when Laura wobbled her big round self into the store, as soon as I’d determined that she wasn’t here because of any health problems. She’s doing well, Laura, cooking two whole human beings in her tummy – but she is an older mum, and she was already a teensy bit overweight (in the way of all good cooks), and twins is always a shade more complicated.
She waved off my questions about her health, and slumped down onto the sofa, huffing and puffing and muttering something about how I should get a crane installed to help pregnant ladies get around.
The sofa is quite low, so I see her point. It’s also bright red velvet, designed in the shape of a giant pair of lips – a gift from Cherie Moon when we opened up.
I get busy making Laura some tea – herbal – and some coffee – black and strong – for me, and join her, pulling up the stool so I can sit across from her rather than next to her, in case she spreads even further and squashes me.
‘I had nowhere else to go,’ she says dramatically. ‘Becca’s working. Zoe’s working. The kids are in school and I get a bit worried about being all the way out in the cottages on my own. What a wuss.’
She’s not a wuss. Laura, her partner Matt, and her two kids Lizzie and Nate live in a big house at The Rockery, Cherie’s holiday-let complex a few miles out of the village. Laura’s not keen on driving at the moment, which I can understand as she’s already starting to struggle to fit her belly behind the steering column.
‘That’s not being a wuss,’ I say, sipping my coffee. ‘That’s being sensible. Did Matt bring you in to work this morning?’
‘He did – but they kicked me out, Auburn – can you believe it? Kicked out of the Comfort Food Café! That’s got to be a first!’
‘It might be – but I’m sure they had their reasons. Were you behaving yourself?’
She’s been under strict instructions not to do too much, and to concentrate on the baby-growing business. I can only imagine how boring that must be, and she’s not adapting well.
‘Yes … no … a bit? But I’m allowed to be there in the mornings, we all agreed that! I’m allowed to bake the bread and make the cakes and get the sandwiches ready – it’s not like it’s hard!’
‘Speak for yourself,’ I reply, remembering the time I tried to microwave a ready meal in a tin foil container and blew the machine up. One of my more impressive culinary adventures.
‘So why did they kick you out, then?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t you supposed to help with the kitchen work, get them set up for lunch, and then … chillax?’
She looks a little sheepish, and strokes the rounded mound of her tummy as she pulls an aggrieved face.
‘Well. Yes. But there were a lot of people in because the weather’s nice. And the tables needed clearing. And then the coffee machine broke again and needed fixing. And …’
‘And you started waddling around like a very slow blue-arsed fly, waiting on, cleaning up, and carrying bin bags full of rubbish around?’
‘Kind of,’ she admits quietly. ‘A bit.’
‘Well, there you have it – mystery solved. You do realise they’re only being like this because they care about you, don’t you? There are worse crimes.’
‘I do … yes, I realise that … but … God, I’m so bored, Auburn. And I feel so bloody useless all the time! Matt never says it, but I know he’s always worried about me. The kids mainly laugh at me, which is fair enough as they’re teenagers and their mum has turned into an airship. And now Willow and Cherie and even Edie are always keeping an eye on me, making sure I don’t do anything too strenuous … I mean, Edie? She’s a ninety-three-year-old woman for goodness’ sake, and even she’s more active than I am!’
I can’t come up with an argument to counter that. I’d feel exactly the same, if Mother Nature was ever deluded enough to throw a pregnancy in my direction. I’d go crazy having to sit still and behave myself all the time. I pass her a Whistle Pop in consolation and sisterhood, and she’s halfway through unwrapping it when she lobs it ferociously across the room. It’s at that point that I remember – bad pharmacist alert – that she’s also been told to keep an eye on her blood sugar level because of the risk of gestational diabetes.
‘I can’t even eat a bloody lollipop!’ she yells, her eyes swimming with tears. She swipes them away angrily, frustrated with herself, with the pregnancy, and possibly with the whole wide world.
I stand up and head towards our simply stunning selection of diabetic treats. By stunning, I mean two varieties of boiled sweets. I choose a raspberry-flavoured one, and pass the bag to Laura.
‘Sugar-free,’ I say wisely. ‘But don’t have too many or it’ll give you the trots.’ It’s that kind of gem that I went to college for.
She gratefully accepts the sweets, and pops one in her mouth. It might only be fake sugar, but it does seem to calm her down a bit. We sit in silence for a few moments, and then finally she laughs out loud.
‘I’m sorry!’ she says, chortling around the words. ‘I shouldn’t have taken it out on you – and I shouldn’t moan. I’m really lucky and I’m really happy, most of the time. After David – Lizzie and Nate’s dad – died, I never thought I’d be happy again. Then I moved here and the kids settled and I started working at the café, and met Matt and all the wonderful people here … and now I’m going to be a mum again. I’m so very, very lucky, and I shouldn’t whinge about it …’
‘That’s okay,’ I reply, opening a fake sweet for myself to keep her company. ‘Speaking as a trained and qualified health-care professional, I’m confident in the diagnosis of the fact that you’re human. Humans aren’t perfect. You can come here and blow off steam any time you like. It’ll be like Vegas – we’ll never speak of it outside the sacred walls of the Budbury Pharmacy.’
She nods, and reaches out over her stomach to pat my knee in thanks.
‘I’m grateful. Thank you, Auburn. I think I’m mainly just a bit sick of myself, to be honest. I have babies on the way, and the wedding, and so much is changing and happening around me, while I’m forced to sit still and be a good little pregnant girl. I’m thrilled I’m getting married, but I am starting to wonder what possessed us to do it before the twins arrived … anyway. Enough. I’m bored with it all. Please, please, please – talk to me about something that isn’t related to my uterus or my wedding!’
I suck the sweet into one corner of my mouth, and ponder that one.
‘World politics?’ I suggest. ‘The economic crisis in Asia?’
‘Is there an economic crisis in Asia?’
‘I have no idea. Probably. Football? Brexit? Prince Harry and Meghan Markle?’
She goes a little bit gooey-eyed at the last one, and I remember how much she’d cried during the wedding service. Cherie rigged up a big screen at the café, and we all drank Pimms and ate cucumber sandwiches and oohed and aahed at the stars and the frocks.
‘Well, I do love to chat about those two,’ she confesses, ‘and of course I’m fascinated by global economics. But … no. Tell me about you. What’s going on with you? How’s Lynnie? How are things with Finn? He’s delicious …’
She gazes off into the middle distance, and lapses into what I can only assume is some kind of trance-like state inspired by the sheer beauty of my boyfriend. Not that her Matt is any slouch – he’s gorgeous in a young Harrison Ford kind of way, and I’ve seen them snogging up a storm on the dancefloor before now.
‘Is it … you know, good? The private stuff?’
She blushes as she asks this, and the very fact that she calls it ‘private stuff’ but goes ahead and asks anyway is very typical Laura behaviour. Her nosiness overrides her better judgement, bless her. She’s probably not feeling at her most agile or sexy or attractive right now, and a bit of vicarious pleasure never did any of us any harm.
I’ve noticed that Laura always appreciates a good-looking man. I mean, we all do – but with her it’s only window shopping. From what I’ve gathered, there have only been two men in her whole life, and both were marriage material. She’s the opposite of me – I’ve had lots of men in my life, and none of them have been marriage material. Even the one I married.
‘It is good, yes,’ I reply, before she can explode with embarrassment and make a mess all over the sofa. ‘A bit wowzers in fact. But it’s also good in the not private stuff. It’s good just hanging out with him too. And he … well, he puts up with me. What more could I want?’
‘Nothing!’ she replies enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely nothing! People take this for granted all the time – the way you can meet someone, and how exciting that is. Falling in love, and staying in love, growing together … they don’t seem to realise that it’s a kind of small miracle. So if that’s what you’ve found, Auburn, then grab hold of it as hard as you can – because life has a way of sneaking up on and messing things up when you least expect it.’
I know that’s what happened to Laura. David died after a fall off a ladder in their garden. A mundane death for the man who had been, until Matt, the love of her life. We’ve all seen my mum’s former self and former life smashed to pieces by illness. Zoe moved to Budbury with Martha because Martha’s mum, Zoe’s best friend, passed away from breast cancer. Life can, indeed, be a bastard.
I also know this, and am aware of how smooth things are at the moment. I have a job I enjoy, friends I love, family, good physical health despite my best efforts, and a wonderful man.
Because of the way my brain seems to be hard-wired, though, a list like that doesn’t make me count my blessings and do a little jig – it makes me anxious. The fact I have such a lot right now means there is a lot that can be taken away from me.
When I was younger, I used to keep diaries. I found them again when I moved home, hidden behind a piece of the skirting board I’d carved out of the bedroom wall. There was a pattern in those diaries, as well as a lot of Younger Self whinging. The pattern seemed to be that whenever I allowed myself to feel content, things went wrong.
Like, I was going out with Jason Llewellyn, after mooning over him for months. I was nervous and twitchy, convinced that he’d find some girl he liked better and break my heart. Then right after Valentine’s Day, when he gave me one of those lockets with one part of a love heart on them, I started to relax and plan our wedding.
Two days after that, I found him behind the bike sheds with his tongue down Lynette McCreedy’s throat. This was a pattern that repeated itself over and over again – about school, about friendships, about the bonkers state of my family. Every time I dared to let myself feel happy, something went wrong. I even had a name for it – ‘Diary Irony’.
I know now, as an adult, that it’s silly – but I can’t quite shake it off. I have too much. I don’t deserve it. Some disaster is looming on the horizon. And it’s kind of exhausting, feeling that way.
I realise that Laura is staring at me as I gaze into space, and drag myself back into the present.
‘I always feel like life is about to sneak up on me,’ I say quietly. ‘Which very often gets in the way of living it.’
She sucks her sweet, ponders this, and replies: ‘I know what you mean. If you have some bad stuff happen to you, it can be crippling. It makes you so anxious you lose your ability to breathe. I was like that, the first summer I was here. I was halfway back to Manchester, willing to give it all up – Budbury, the café, Matt – because I was so scared of giving it a go.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘My kids,’ she says, shrugging. ‘They were far more sensible than I was, and convinced me to turn the car around. Best decision I ever made, though I might not admit that when I’m on my way to the loo for the fiftieth time in a day. What are you worried about? Is it Finn?’
‘Kind of,’ I admit, nodding. ‘All of it, really. Living here, feeling so settled. Being back with my family, even though the circumstances aren’t ideal. And yes, Finn. You heard what I said in the café the other day, about being married …’
‘I think I vaguely remember something along those lines,’ she replies, smiling.
‘Well, it’s a complicated story, and not one I’m getting into now – but it’s stuff like that. Things I need to talk to people about, even though I don’t want to. For years I’ve lived alone, and none of it mattered. Now, I have people who matter to me – people who deserve some honesty.’
‘Surely it’s not that bad, though?’ she asks, eyebrows raised. ‘I mean, Finn doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would judge you, or walk away from this without good reason. He’s too … what’s the phrase? Emotionally intelligent! And if you switch roles with him, is there much he could tell you about his past that would upset you enough to finish things?’
Finn, of course, does have a past. A very messy relationship. Conflict with his parents. Screwing up his career aspirations because of all of that. It’s not like he arrived at my doorstep fresh out of the box, free from hang-ups. The difference is that he always seems very self-aware about it– he’s a much more evolved human being than me, I suppose.
‘You’re right,’ I say, eventually. ‘And none of this is his fault. I’m just a disaster area.’
‘I suspect he knows that already, Auburn. So, whatever it is, you should talk to him about it. And if there’s a problem, you should try and fix it. Show him that you’re serious about making things work.’
I wonder how I could do that. Maybe I could get him one of those love heart lockets. Or dress up like a French maid. Or write him a poem.
‘You could always,’ says Laura, interrupting my flow of thought, ‘do something practical.’
‘Like what?’ I ask.
‘Like get a divorce?’
Chapter 6
I’m not the best at being sensible, or doing paperwork, or generally behaving like a grown-up. Whatever elements of those things I do possess, I need to use for my work, and for my mum. For those two, I have to be good – I have to keep up to date on appointments, and qualifications, and news, and fill in forms, and respond to queries.
In my own life, though, there is something of a more relaxed attitude. Like I have no idea where my birth certificate is, and I don’t have a lawyer, and I’m not registered with a dentist, and I keep all my important papers crammed into a plastic carrier bag so old it’s starting to disintegrate. I’ve even let my passport expire – although I think that might be accidentally on purpose, to remove the temptation to ever do a runner.
None of this helps when attempting to navigate a tricky legal situation involving ending a marriage carried out in a foreign country. Luckily, what I do have is Tom – Willow’s boyf and the owner of Briarwood.
Tom is a tech geek, and it was him who tracked me and Van down last year so Willow could tell us about Lynnie’s situation. He’s quiet and shy until you know him, super clever, and absolutely 100 per cent the shizz when it comes to stuff like this.
With his help, I take the first steps towards doing something I should have done years ago – getting out of a long-dead marriage. He helps me find out what I need to do, and he sets me up with a solicitor to help me do it, and he basically stands over me until I’ve started the first raft of paperwork.
When it’s done – when those first tentative steps are taken – I feel really weird. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d buried the whole thing. I’d trained myself not to give it much head space – because, given half a chance, Seb and my time with him would sneak right into that head space, and take it over, like some evil alien virus in a space station lab.
Don’t get me wrong, I think about him every day. But I’ve developed the astonishing ability to derail that particular train of thought every single time it appears on the tracks. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so twitchy all the time – I’m never still, and I know it drives people mad. I’m always biting my nails or tapping my toes or smoking or waving my hands or moving around in some way.
It’s like I’m entirely made of nervous tics and mental self-defence mechanisms that allow me to function, and the way they show up to the outside world is through this constant jigging about.
After Tom has helped me, after I’m forced to re-engage with the whole thing, I feel some kind of strange meltdown going on inside me. It’s like all my internal organs and my brain start to liquefy. I can barely move, or think, or do anything other than lie on my bed in the cottage I share with Lynnie and Willow and Van, and stare at the ceiling.
I don’t suppose it helps that I’m staring at a ceiling I’m already familiar with, in the cottage where I spent most of my childhood. It’s like I’ve come full circle, and everything in between leaving here in my late teens and being back in my early thirties never happened. Like there’s this whole part of my life that I maybe dreamt, or imagined, or read in a book.
After almost an hour of tossing and turning and kicking the duvet and running a marathon while stationary, I glance at my phone, and see that it’s just after 8p.m. Not late enough to go to sleep, even if I was capable of shutting down my brain long enough for that to happen.
I chew my lip for a minute to fill in time, and allow myself a moment to rethink, before calling Finn. When he answers, I can hear whooping and cheering in the background.
‘What happened?’ I ask, genuinely interested. The boffins at Briarwood are working on all kinds of interesting projects. ‘Did they invent a new kind of jet engine? Cure for cancer? Phone that doesn’t let you dial when drunk?’
‘No,’ he replies, sounding amused. ‘They built a whack-a-mole where Star Wars characters pop up out of the holes. They’re busy smashing Darth Vader up with mallets.’