Got You Back (20 page)

The sense of freedom those few short hours gave her was immense. She felt as if she was getting her life back, preparing for when she was soon to be single again. And if James didn't like it that she would rather spend time drinking with her new friends than rushing home to see him, well, sod him. She no longer cared what he thought. On a couple of occasions he had suggested that he could drive over to Lincoln and join them in the pub, but that was the last thing she wanted. These were her friends, it was her social life and she didn't want to share it.

He had been hurt and confused and once, when he'd had a few drinks, he had had the cheek to ask if there were any men in their little after-college drinking group.

She had wanted to say, ‘We're not all like you. Not everything's about sex,’ but instead she had bitten her tongue and reassured him sweetly that the only men present were gay or astonishingly unattractive. ‘You wouldn't like them,’ she had said, of her new friends, by way of explanation. ‘They're all very spiritual people, New Age. You'd get into an argument straight away.’

For the first couple of weeks James had taken himself down to the local pub for his dinner and a couple of pints, but lately whenever she'd got home he was sitting on the sofa resentfully, like a grumpy toddler. She had decided to ignore it, to breeze around as if everything was fine. It was unbelievably hypocritical of him to begrudge her one independent night out a week when he was living a whole double life.

Through her new friends — some of whom already practised complementary skills and others of whom were novices in the world of alternative therapies — Katie had acquired several new clients and had taken to visiting them in their homes with her portable massage table, rather than expecting them to travel to her. It meant longer days and less free time but she was starting to feel that this was actually a good way of making a living. She could support herself comfortably if this kept up. People would pay handsomely for someone to treat them in the comfort and privacy of their own home, even in the countryside, and she was able to almost double her prices. Even taking into account the petrol and her travelling time, she was doing well. People who worked were willing to pay a small bonus for a visit in the evenings and at weekends, and soon her Sunday and Monday nights were
filled with appointments and James was starting to complain that he never saw her at all.

Just when she had started to think she might stop treating Owen — she was beginning to feel that he was taking her for a ride, despite his recent progress, and the days of her seeing any clients for free were most definitely over — he turned up one morning with three manky ten-pound notes in an envelope and explained to her that he had got a new job and was able to start paying her back. ‘It's only in the hospital, as a porter, but I'm earning, that's the point.’

Katie was overwhelmed. ‘Owen, that's great. That's such a positive step. I'm really pleased for you. And you wait, other good things will follow. They always do.’

‘I'm going to pay you back. It'll only be a bit a week but I'll do it. Eventually,’ he laughed.

In fact, he had come straight from work to tell her he would no longer be able to keep his Wednesday-morning appointments. It was a luxury he simply couldn't afford any more and he was no longer prepared to keep taking something for nothing. He owed it all to her, he said, this new change of outlook. Maybe, once he had paid off his debt to her and saved up some money, she would rethink his invitation to take her out to dinner. Katie, delighted though she was by the proof that what she did could make a difference, had no intention of saying yes. The last thing she needed was to hook up with another man, especially one whose insecurities and failings she already knew intimately.

‘You really don't have to,’ she said now, politely. ‘But it's very kind of you to ask.’

Owen flushed red. ‘I didn't mean like a date or anything. The invitation's for both of you, you and James,’ he stuttered.

‘Honestly, Owen, save your money. Thank you, though. It's a really lovely thought.’ She kissed him on the cheek as if to signal that their chat was over. ‘Good luck,’ she said, ‘with everything.’

Sally O'Connell's uncle, Paul Goddard, had always had an amiable working relationship with the local vet. He found James to be reliable and prompt, even when called out in an emergency. There was no doubting his sensitivity and compassion when it came to handling animals but with none of the sentimentality that Paul had no time for. If you were a farmer you had to believe your livestock were a commodity. Treat them well, by all means — a happy cow was a healthy cow after all, and healthy cows produced superior milk, in Paul's mind — but remember that they were, above all, your livelihood.

He had always sent round a bottle of whisky for James on Christmas Eve, in appreciation of his services and because they came cheap due to the arrangement they had whereby Paul would pay James in cash. This had always seemed like a sensible way to do business to Paul: there were no losers, both parties came away up and, besides, everybody did it. He barely even gave it a second thought.

When the man from the Inland Revenue turned up at his front door one afternoon and started asking questions, Paul's first instinct was to deny everything. After all, if he didn't admit to it and neither did James then no one
would ever be able to prove them wrong. Then he remembered the look on his niece's tear-stained face the night before, when she had told him about her visit from her old boss and the accusations he had thrown her way, and suddenly he didn't feel like protecting this man.

‘It's easier for me to pay him in cash,’ he found himself saying to the suited man with the clipboard. ‘That way I know exactly where I am. I don't like bank accounts,’ he added, playing the role of simple farmer to perfection. In fact, Paul not only had a healthy bank balance but also an ISA, which he topped up once a year. Since he'd turned the farm organic, things had really started to look up financially.

‘What he does with it then is his business, isn't that right? Whether he tells you lot about it or not, well, that's nothing to do with me.’

The man had thanked him for his time and his candid answers and had gone off happy. That'll teach the fucker, Paul thought. Sally had always been his favourite niece.

By the time James got back to London on Wednesday afternoon he felt like he wanted to go into the bedroom, close the curtains, crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head and never come out again. He was feeling besieged, run ragged by trying to keep the surgery going without a receptionist and sure they were losing custom. He had heard on the grapevine that when one of Paul Goddard's cows had calved in the middle of the night Paul had called in a vet from the next village over. James, who had had his phone turned on as always, waiting for Paul's call,
which he knew was imminent, had been both bemused and hurt in equal measures.

He had barely seen Katie in the evenings because of all her new work, and her little cottage had started to feel like a prison, no longer a place where two people were content to ignore the fact that it was tiny and poky because they were so happy to be playing house together. It struck him now as a ridiculous place for a man of his age to be living. If you stood in the living room and turned round you could touch all four walls. Was this what he had worked hard for all his adult life? To live in a Wendy house with a woman who was hardly ever there?

And then, of course, there was this business with Sally and the Inland Revenue and the planning department. Plus the fact that Malcolm and Simon hardly seemed to be talking to him any more. When he had tried to confide in Katie about his worries she had blithely told him that everything happened for a reason, it would all work out for the best in the end, and he had found himself cutting the conversation short. What was the point in talking to someone who was only ever going to tell you what they thought you wanted to hear?

London, by contrast, held no terrors. He could do his job and then spend quiet evenings with Stephanie and Finn. He could relax and not feel as if everyone was out to get him. He could just be at home. When he first walked through the door at five past four — he no longer bothered to stop off on his journey down, he just wanted to get to Belsize Park as early as he could — and smelt the familiar smell, a mixture of coffee and polish and Finn's particular small boy odour that mixed shampoo and
guinea pigs and trainers, he felt a lump come into his throat. This was his real life. This was his family.

Finn came bowling out to meet him, full of stories of school and David and his friends, and things that James, away half the week and, he thought now, absent in his head much of the time when he was physically there, couldn't make head or tail of but the details of which made him laugh. His son had a great sense of drama when he was telling a story.

He had found Stephanie in the kitchen and, as she turned to greet him, he was struck by the distance that had sprung up between them. When they had first come down to London she would throw herself into his arms whenever he walked through the door on a Wednesday evening and then, on Saturday nights when they were curled up in bed, she would cry about the fact that he had to leave again the next day. It had got on his nerves at the time. He so resented the fact that he had been forced into this dual existence that he had been sceptical about her tears — if she cared that much then surely she would give up her work again and move back to Lincolnshire. Now, as she smiled coolly and asked politely how his journey had been, he felt he would have given anything for an indication that she was happy to see him.

She looked beautiful, he thought with a jolt. Well, he had always known she was stunning physically, but in the past few years Katie's earthy softness had seemed so much more arousing than Stephanie's willowy angles. Katie's need for protection had drawn him in whereas Stephanie's independence had pushed him away. He went to hug her and felt her stiffen for a split second before
she relaxed and, half-heartedly, patted him on the back. A wave of utter misery swept over him and he squeezed her tighter, burying his head in the silkiness of her hair. She allowed him to stay there for a second before she gently pushed him away and turned back to the vegetables she was chopping.

‘Finn, come and sit down and do your homework,’ she called, effectively cutting short any moment of intimacy they might have had.

29

With the BAFTAs only a few days away Stephanie hadn't really been putting the effort into planning James's party that she should have. She had sent out the invitations, and received mostly acceptances, and had hired the caterers — a Japanese firm who would come to your house with their bags of big scary knives and prepare sashimi in the kitchen while the guests stood around, admiring their skill — but that was about it. She decided to phone Katie to see how her preparations were coming along. At least, that was the pretext for her call. In reality, she was starting to worry about Katie. James had told her that Sally had tipped off the planning department about the extension he had had built at the back of the surgery but she had her suspicions. Katie seemed to have had some kind of epiphany since they had first met and agreed on their plans. As if she was transforming from a sweet, hurt woman into some kind of vengeful crusader. Stephanie, who knew that the whole idea of their taking revenge had come from her, was now afraid that she had created a monster she couldn't contain.

Katie answered on the second ring. Her voice, Stephanie thought, sounded as sweet and unthreatening as ever.

‘Stephanie, hi, how's it going?’

‘Good,’ Stephanie said. ‘I just wondered where you were, you know, with the party and stuff.’

Katie told her about the decorations she had planned for the village hall, the yards of white muslin that would transform the inside into a kind of Bedouin tent and the white tablecloths and crockery offset by the green foliage of the white lilies she had selected. It all sounded a bit like a wedding, Stephanie thought, hardly James's taste at all. She realized she had stopped listening when she suddenly heard Katie laugh and say, ‘Mind you, I doubt he'll have any friends left to invite by then.’

‘What do you mean?’ Stephanie said.

So, Katie told her the full story about Sally and her uncle Paul, and how, now, James had got to have a meeting with the Inland Revenue to explain himself and would probably be facing a fine or, at the very least, would have to pay what he owed. And how he had gone to see Sam McNeil to ask if, in her capacity at the planning department, she could give him some advice as to how to handle the retrospective permission for the extension and how she had gone ballistic and accused him of trying to get her to pull some strings for him and get him some kind of special treatment. And how even Simon and Malcolm were barely speaking to James now and several of the surgery's customers had chosen to move their business to the vets in the next village over. And Stephanie listened to it all and found that she was starting to feel sorry for him, despite everything he had done to her.

‘How did the planning people find out about the extension?’ she asked, knowing what the answer would be.

‘I told them,’ Katie said, sounding like a two-year-old who thought she was about to be congratulated for going
to the toilet on the laminate instead of the carpet. ‘Anonymously, of course.’

Stephanie sighed. ‘I thought we'd agreed not to do anything without discussing it first,’ she said lamely.

‘I know. I did try to ring you. It's funny, though, isn't it?’

‘It's just that we don't want to blow everything before the party. Isn't that the point?’ Stephanie said, although she no longer felt her heart was in this plan at all.

‘Well, he deserves it,’ Katie said, with venom. ‘And he's so arrogant, he'll never think it's anything to do with me. So what if a few people don't come to his party? He'll still get what he deserves.’

‘Maybe we should forget the whole thing,’ Stephanie said. ‘We've given him a few things to worry about. We should just dump him and move on.’