The Big Five O

‘Morning Ma’am!’ A young man in a dark brown boiler suit, with the orange Sternhouse logo, jumped down from one of the cabs and saluted her smartly as she walked towards the main doors. Fay grinned. ‘Good morning, Toby.’

She crossed the small carpeted space with its four chairs, coffee table and water cooler, and through the door at the back. As she walked through the drivers’ room, shaking her head at the discarded cups and day-old newspapers, a stocky man in his fifties looked up from a computer screen in the corner.

‘How we doing, Len?’ Fay kept going into her own office, propping the door open for him to follow. He rose and strolled after her, a blue folder under his arm.

‘The Waldron Road woman has booked. But she wants to go on the 21st now. Which is tricky because we’ve got three other big ones the day before and her packing’s going to take a day on its own.’

Fay threw her jacket on the hat stand in the corner of her office and flicked the switch on the coffee machine. ‘Get some more bodies in from the casuals list.’

‘I already have.’

Fay nodded as Len continued. ‘We’ll have to put Toby and Will on her job – can’t trust that to just anyone – have you seen how much china she’s got?’

‘I did the quote didn’t I? Speaking of which, I’ve got three more to do this morning. I hope Elaine’s on time for a change.’

‘It was only one morning,’ Len’s tone was mild. ‘Her grandson was off school and her daughter had to get to work.’

Fay snorted. ‘Elaine needs to get to work! There are a stack of invoices to go out as well.’

‘It’s not even quarter to nine yet.’

‘Hmmm. Want one of these?’ Fay slotted a pod into the machine and pressed the button, apparently intent on the dark stream of espresso that began to trickle into her cup.

‘Yeah go on then.’ Len sat down in her other office chair. ‘How’s your mum?’

‘Still away with the fairies.’

‘But OK? Being looked after.’

‘She still thinks she’s staying in a hotel but she’s almost stopped asking when she’s going home. Says the food is mostly OK but they can’t cook liver. Wants me to have a word …’ Fay gave a sudden shout of laughter. ‘I would but offal hasn’t once been on the menu!’

‘Ah,’ said Len, affection in his voice. ‘I liked your mum. Jean was a good woman. Your dad was devoted to her.’

‘I don’t know why – she was never off his back. Always bloody creating about something.’

Len raised his eyebrows and gave a small smile. Fay removed her cup and put another in its place. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I only create when it’s justified.’

Len smiled again. ‘That was just her way. She was kind to me. Sent round casseroles when both the kids were born.’

‘I know – you’ve told me before. Are you angling for me to make you one or something?’

‘Can’t imagine you cooking anything like that.’

‘Well, you’d be surprised.’ She laughed again. ‘I’ll buy you a pint and a pie next week.’

‘By the time we’re the other side of this lot, we’ll need it. And talking of kids–’ Len pulled a large pink envelope from the folder. ‘For Matthew and Lisa. We’ve had a whip round for flowers and a toy for the baby. Just waiting for you to sign now.’

Fay fished in her handbag and then held out a twenty-pound note. She didn’t look at the cover of the card, just opened it and signed her name briskly in the bottom left-hand corner, before pushing it all back towards Len.

‘Having kids costs a fortune these days,’ Len said conversationally. ‘And Matt has shaped up good. He’s well past his probation period and I was thinking–’

‘How much?’

‘Another couple of grand a year – bring him in line with the other younger ones now he’s trained.’

‘I’ll get Elaine onto it with the next payroll. Now what have we got in the pipeline to pay for all this?’

By the time the older woman arrived, Fay had been through the next week’s job sheets with Len and he’d disappeared to round up the lads he needed for a relocation to Hemel Hempstead. Through the window, Fay watched him cross the yard.

She’d been twenty-seven when she’d been called back from her teaching job in Spain because her father had collapsed with a heart attack. Len had been thirty-three then but he’d worked with her Dad since he was sixteen and knew what to do. She thought back gratefully to how he’d taught her the ropes in those awful early months, made sure the younger men showed her respect, came in early and stayed late even when his wife was kicking off, quietly supporting her as she threw herself into running and later expanding the business.

Now she could run it herself with one hand tied behind her back. But she wouldn’t want to – she was glad Len was there to oversee the daily detail, work out the rotas, get the lorries serviced and make it all happen. He was a brilliant right-hand man, good at knowing instinctively who to employ, who to let go, not afraid to disagree with her if he thought she’d got it wrong. She’d tried to look out for him too, since his divorce, often taking him to the pub on a Friday – feigning polite interest in the pictures of his grandchildren even though–

Fay gazed at her computer screen open on an excel sheet. Elaine was tapping away in the adjoining room, her back to Fay, everyone else was out on jobs.

She hadn’t looked for days. It had been better since she’d banned herself from using the computer at home. Left her laptop at the office. And taken the app off her phone.

Fay’s eyes locked on the icon in the bottom left hand corner of her screen. She’d sworn she wasn’t going to do this any more. She hesitated, then almost robotically she double-clicked. Went through the usual motions till there it was. The mop of dark hair thrown back, the laughing face, squinting in the sun – if it were her, Fay, she’d have been wearing sunglasses. And in her arms … Fay felt the familiar tightness in her chest, she was holding herself rigidly as if by keeping very still, she’d feel nothing. She breathed out slowly, looking at the golden-haired toddler, clutching the pink plastic spade. There were no new pictures. Nothing had changed.

She’d told Len she was trying to create a proper demarcation between work and leisure. He’d been approving – said she worked too hard, that the business was flourishing and everything was under control. She should have proper days off …

He didn’t know she left the laptop here, to save her from herself.

Chapter 5

Sherie pushed open her front door, dumping her case on the polished hall floor and walking rapidly to the foot of the stairs.

‘I’m home! Where are you?’

Her heart quickened as she heard a small thump and his feet coming across the floor above her. ‘Come and see me!’

She waited while he trotted down the stairs, then she knelt down and swept Marquis into her arms, burying her face in the back of his neck. ‘You gorgeous thing – my beautiful boy – I’ve missed you so much!’

‘Well here I am.’ She straightened. Her neighbour, Nate, was standing in the doorway of her sitting room, in jeans and bare feet. She flushed. ‘Oh, I was–’

He grinned. ‘It’s OK, I didn’t think you were referring to me!’

Sherie smiled too. ‘Has he been OK?’

‘He’s been fine. We’ve been watching TV like you said. Last night he enjoyed Pointless, got a bit restless during the news and went upstairs for a kip as soon as EastEnders started …’

Sherie laughed, still hugging the silver tabby. ‘Thank you so much. I am so grateful.’

She picked up her handbag from the floor where she’d dropped it, and began to pull out her wallet. ‘How many hours –’

Nate frowned. ‘I don’t want paying. I like being here with the old chap.’ He looked around him. ‘Who wouldn’t enjoy hanging out in a place like this? The light down here is amazing with those windows on all sides – quite different from upstairs.’

‘I must give you something. It made all the difference knowing you were looking after him. I missed him but I didn’t worry.’

Nate shrugged. ‘Take me for a drink sometime.’ He hesitated. ‘Now even? I’m ready for a beer. Once you’ve unpacked. We could go over the road. We could eat there?’ He stopped as she said nothing. ‘Sorry, bad idea – you’re probably exhausted.’

Sherie shook her head as Marquis wriggled in her arms. ‘It’s not that. I am really tired but that’s not the problem – I’ve got to meet my friends in Green’s. Sorry. We’re–’

‘Oh sure – well over the weekend or something.’

She groaned, lowering the cat onto the shiny floorboards. ‘I’ve got my mother staying.’

Nate turned away, bending over to retrieve his battered leather mules from the corner of the hall. But not before she caught sight of the disappointment on his face.

‘Nate, we will go for a drink as soon as my mother’s gone – seriously, I’d really like to.’ He was pushing his feet into the shoes, feeling in his jeans pocket for his keys. The last of the day’s sun coming through the glass panels of the front door, lit up his blonde curls like a halo.

Sherie bent and stroked Marquis who was still rubbing himself round her legs, purring. ‘Hey come on, let’s have a quick drink now before I have to get ready. I’ve got some lager or wine? Or how about a G&T?’

‘I don’t want to hold you up.’

‘You won’t be. I’m shattered – the gin will perk me up. And I want to hear all about how Marquis has been and the new painting …’

She walked ahead of him down the hall into her kitchen. ‘Any more domestics from next door?’

After a moment, he followed her, perching on a stool at her breakfast bar as she opened the fridge. ‘She was crying outside on Saturday night,’ he told her. ‘I asked her if she was OK but she’d clearly had a few and then he came down so I left them to it.’

The beautiful old flint house was divided into four apartments of various sizes. Sherie owned one of the larger ones – a two-bedroom maisonette taking up half of the first two floors. The other half was occupied by the Wilsons. He worked in the city and left at five each morning for the hi-speed train, she was apparently some sort of designer who worked from home. She seemed, however, to spend a lot of her day wandering about the shared gardens with a coffee mug in her hand, which Sherie strongly suspected sometimes contained vodka.

Nate, artist and lecturer, rented a one bedroom flat on the third floor above Sherie. Something she’d only discovered when he’d dropped a card through her door, inviting her to his students’ end of year show because he’d heard from one of the Wilsons she was an art buyer.

She hadn’t been able to get to Canterbury that evening but she’d made a point of seeking out Nate, hoping if she were honest, he might turn out to be fifty, cultured and distinguished-looking instead of a slightly scruffy, bohemian and young-looking thirty-two who could easily be mistaken for a student himself.

But he had immediately endeared himself to her over his appreciation of her gorgeous Marquis, exclaiming over his unusual markings and later presenting her with a sketch of the cat attempting to catch a bumble bee down by the lilac bushes. This was now expensively framed in her sitting room, opposite her favourite small sofa near the French doors onto the garden. Nate had said more than once he would also like to paint her.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked now, dropping ice into two long glasses.

‘Slowly. I’ve had loads of assessments to do but I’ll get it finished by Easter now we’ve broken up.’

‘I can’t wait to see it – you know how much I love your work.’

‘You can come up when it’s done.’

‘Did you sell the other one?’

‘Not yet. I’m keeping it back for the show in the Old Town – did I tell you about that?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Sherie measured out gin, and sliced lemons, squeezing a little of the juice into the cold spirit before adding the segments to the glass, listening as he told her about the exhibition of local artists with the theme of seaside that was being put on just along the coast in a small gallery that was the latest addition to the arty quarter of Margate.

She smiled at Nate. ‘I’ll be tempted to buy it if nobody else does – I love those bold colours.’

‘Will you come to the preview?’ He smiled back. ‘Warm wine, bendy crisps – you know.’

‘Yes, of course. If I’m here. What sort of tonic do you want? I’ve got light, ordinary or elderflower–’

‘How posh!’

She laughed. ‘My friends would tell you I’m just fussy.’

She used a long decorative glass stirrer on both drinks. ‘There you go. Tell me that isn’t the best gin and tonic you’ve had this week!’

He sipped. ‘I think it’s the best I’ve had ever. Down!’ He added as Marquis sprang onto the surface and poked a paw at the other half of the lemon.

‘How did you do that?’ Sherie asked, as the cat jumped meekly back to the floor. ‘He never takes any notice of me.’

‘He knows you don’t mean it.’

‘You’re right.’

As Marquis jumped back up further down the counter, she reached out and cuddled him to her. She knew she would never get tired of the warmth of his thick soft fur, the little chirruping noise he made when he ran towards her. ‘I love him so much,’ she said. ‘I woke up in my hotel room and it felt all wrong because he wasn’t on my feet.’

‘He’s the most indulged cat I’ve ever met.’ Nate took another swallow of gin and grinned at her. ‘I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw that row of little pots of home-cooked this and finely-shredded that – all with his own little labels on.’ He grinned again. ‘Just in case he gets confused.’

‘He really doesn’t like cat food.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘No, honestly. I’ve tried all the different brands – including the expensive stuff. He’ll eat the biscuits but he just cries if I give him anything else. It has to be fresh chicken or ground steak or tuna in spring water.’

Nate shook his head. ‘He eats better than I do. He is funny though,’ he went on. ‘He loves that remote-control mouse, doesn’t he? We must have played with that for half an hour. Before I tucked him up with his cocoa and read him a bed time story, of course. Sprinkled a little lavender oil on his cushion so he’d have soothing dreams, reminded him to clean his teeth and pop his cashmere bed socks on …’

Sherie laughed loudly. The gin had relaxed her and she felt warm and mellow sitting here with Nate in the last of the fading light. She crossed the room and put the under-cupboard lighting on, adjusting the overhead spotlights so they weren’t too bright.

‘I wish I wasn’t going out,’ she said. ‘I’m bushed. I’d like another gin and a long bath and to snuggle up with my cat and hear what he’s been up to. How many birds he’s chased and what he thinks of your taste in TV.’

‘Do you have to go?’

He was echoing her own thoughts.

‘I’d better,’ she said reluctantly. ‘We’re having this party together – a sort of joint birthday thing.’ She avoided saying which one. ‘Charlotte is doing most of the organising and she’s bringing us all up to date with the menu choices and stuff. They already think I’m being a prima donna because I said it was all a bit pastry heavy, and they arranged it tonight especially so I’d be back – the others really wanted last night so if I cancel now–’

She swirled the ice in the bottom of her glass. ‘Fay gets fed up with me at the best of times, and even Roz who likes me the most – we went to school together – she won’t be impressed …’

She stopped at the look on Nate’s face, his expression of incomprehension mixed with pity, making her wish she’d said nothing. ‘Sorry I’m making them sound–’

‘Not all that kind,’ he finished for her. ‘Why do you hang out with them if they make you feel bad?’

‘They don’t really, I’m just tired and–’ She stopped. ‘I’m seeing things bleakly.’ She drained the last of her gin. ‘We have some fun times. They’re my best friends in actual fact. I like them and I need them.’ Sherie spoke firmly and then gave him a rueful smile. ‘And they’re all I’ve got.’

In the beginning she’d only had Roz. When she’d finally bowed to parental pressure and moved back here, her old school friend was the only one left she knew. Roz had met Charlotte a couple of years before when Becky and Amy had joined the same dance school and she had asked if she could bring Sherie to one of Charlotte’s parties.

Sherie remembered Charlotte’s big, noisy, crowded kitchen, the way Charlotte had thrown an arm around her – pressed a glass of champagne into her hand, introduced her loudly all around the room. ‘The more the merrier, here, Love,’ she’d said, adding ‘literally’ and going off into peals of laughter, and Sherie had been so touched and grateful she’d nearly cried.

‘So you’re glad now, aren’t you?’ Her mother, settled on Sherie’s sofa the following day in an annoying flowered frock and a droopy cardigan and clearly limbering up for the usual address, never passed up an opportunity to say ‘I told you so’. ‘If you hadn’t come back here, you wouldn’t have these new friends of yours and you wouldn’t have him–’ she pointed a finger at Marquis who was sprawled across Sherie’s lap. ‘You couldn’t have kept a cat in that poky flat.’

Sherie sighed. The poky flat had been a million-pound studio overlooking the Thames but there was no point debating it. Here, yes, she had big rooms, and high ceilings, and access to a beautiful garden and her beloved Marquis. He made it all worthwhile.

‘Mind you, I suppose you might have met someone up there.’ Her mother didn’t waste a chance to have a dig either. ‘But it’s not too late,’ she went on brightly. ‘Just because you’re too old to have children doesn’t mean you can’t find someone who’s on his second time around.’

‘Yes, thank you!’ Sherie remembered to try to slow her breath, to draw in oxygen in a way that inflated her belly not her anxious chest, to let it out unhurriedly through her nostrils, to repeat the mantra she’d been repeating since her mother arrived. She’ll be gone tomorrow. Tomorrow she will be gone …

‘And it’s so important you’re here to support Alison, especially with this move going on – she says you’re a very good auntie …’ Her mother’s tone had an air of faint surprise. ‘Strange how life goes, isn’t it? You were always the pretty one but Alison had the boys after her. And Luke couldn’t wait to marry her and start a family, could he? She was pregnant before they’d even got back from honeymoon.’

She was pregnant before they went, you silly cow. For a horrible moment Sherie thought she’d said it out loud. Her mother was still talking.

‘I know these young girls don’t bother getting married any more, but I still say it’s better for the children …’

Sherie recognised her father’s wisdom being repeated. ‘How IS Dad?’ she asked with a deliberate edge to her voice. ‘Still ruling the roost?’

‘He’s been very busy in the garden.’

‘If you moved here too, he could see more of his grandchildren.’

‘He doesn’t want the upheaval.’

No, it was OK for Sherie to be pushed, nagged and bludgeoned to move back to the town of her childhood – to be nearer to her sister when the youngest of her three nephews was diagnosed with slightly-impaired hearing, dyslexia and ADHD, but her father had managed to avoid following suit.

They were still in the cottage in Wye to which her father had wanted to retire for the walking opportunities, and from which he seldom travelled except to drive her mother to Thanet every third week and pick her up twenty-four hours later. One month she’d stay the night with Sherie, the following time the pleasure would fall to Alison. Her father would come in for a brief cup of tea when he collected her mother the following afternoon. If it had been Alison’s turn to participate in this joy he would have invited himself for Sunday lunch first.

‘What about what you want?’ Sherie enquired. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be back here where you could pop round to see Alison and the kids whenever you wanted? Do some babysitting? She could do with that. Why don’t you tell him?’

‘Your father doesn’t like–’

‘Everything is about what he doesn’t like.’

Her mother looked irritated. ‘Don’t start that again.’

Sherie couldn’t help it. ‘You eat what he wants to eat, watch what he wants to watch, you don’t drive because he wouldn’t let you, he decides how you spend the money–’

‘It’s called being married – you wouldn’t know about that.’

Sherie looked back at her mother and held her gaze. ‘It’s called coercive control – there was a very interesting programme on it the other day. You should listen to Woman’s Hour, Mum. You’d like it.’

‘You always have to try to outdo me, don’t you?’ Her mother had gone pink. ‘Show me how clever and educated you are with your history of art degree and your long words.’

Sherie was immediately, as always, washed over by rage and shame. This was also her father speaking – he had long regarded his eldest daughter as ‘above herself’ and a subversive influence. Her plainer, dumpier younger sister with her children and dutiful attentiveness to husband and offspring was a safer bet and he made no secret of who he preferred.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sherie said more softly. ‘But you really would like Woman’s Hour. They had Sheila Hancock on the other day.’

‘Your father doesn’t like the radio.’

Sherie kept her voice even. ‘Well have it on when he’s in another room. You said he spends all morning reading the paper and doing the crossword. Why don’t you listen in the kitchen? You’ve got that Roberts radio I bought you.’

Her mother’s mouth made that little twist it always did if anyone confronted her. ‘Why are you always trying to change me?’

‘I’m trying to help you have a happier life.’

‘Well try helping yourself – you’re the one who’s on her own.’

Her mother didn’t mean it unkindly, Sherie told herself as she stirred the ragù sauce she’d made specifically because her father did not approve of pasta. Evelyn genuinely thought she was the one better off because she was married and ‘secure’ – even if she was constricted in almost everything she did.

Sherie thought of the scorn with which Fay would view her mother. Sherie sometimes wished she could be like Fay – so sorted in her singleness; revelling in her one-night stands. Fay implied that all one needed to be content was sex from time to time and she didn’t seem to have any problem in getting it.

It wasn’t sex for Sherie – although that would no doubt be nice. She wanted to fall asleep at night in the curve of another’s body, to feel an arm tighten around her waist at dawn.

She wanted to feel the sort of love and devotion for a man she had only managed to sustain with Marquis. Though that wasn’t strictly true – she shuddered at the memory of the times when she had felt that devotion and it had been misplaced.

‘Too intense,’ Rick had admitted eventually, when he’d started to make excuses not to see her.

‘Didn’t know we were married,’ had been Phil’s response when she’d discovered another woman’s lingerie at the foot of his bed and dissolved into tears.

Scott, of whom she had once held such high hopes, had always been kind, even when he told her sadly, he couldn’t offer ‘that level of commitment’.

It had still broken her.

She didn’t want to think about all the men from her various dating sites who hadn’t even pretended to want anything more than sex. What was it about her? Was she too dull for meaningful conversation or a theatre trip? Too needy for someone to love her back? She’d tried being cool and aloof. They left even faster then …

After dinner, she put on a family drama because she knew her mother would like it, aware of the vague thump of Nate’s music upstairs, suddenly wishing she was in the pub with him instead. Nate would be easy to talk to – she wouldn’t have to choose her words, hopping across the subjects as if watching out for mines.

Her mother nodded as the credits went up.