Now and Then Friends (21 page)

Rachel listened to the door close upstairs—just short of a slam—and then Nathan's predictable sleepy cry, quickly silenced by Meghan.

Rachel let out a long breath, sagging against the counter. There was so much she didn't understand or even know about her sister, and she felt her ignorance keenly now. Meghan was right; Rachel had never felt she could count on her. She'd never tried, and Meghan had most certainly never offered to step up and go the extra distance for the sake of the family. She worked her nights at the pub, did the minimum work at home Rachel asked of her, and spent the rest of her time watching telly or going out.

What on earth was going to happen when their mother returned from the hospital? Mr. Greaves had made it clear that Janice would need much more care than she had before. She could never be left alone in the house, and she'd have to go to rehab several times a week, driven by either her or Meghan, which meant a reshuffling of her cleaning jobs.

And what about Meghan? Her sister might be lazy and unreliable, but at least she was there. If Meghan took off, who could stay home with Janice?

The sound of her mobile ringing brought Rachel out of her grim reflections. She didn't recognize the number, but she answered it anyway. Someone who called at eleven o'clock at night either was drunk or had an emergency.

“Hello?”

“Rachel?” The cultured male voice didn't register with her for a
moment, and then he clarified with a touch of impatience, “It's Andrew. Andrew West.”

“Is Claire all right?”

“And you think I baby her?” he returned with a touch of amusement.

“I can't imagine why else you'd be calling me,” Rachel answered. “Especially so late at night.”

“Is it that late?” Andrew sounded surprised.

“It's after eleven.”

“Oh, sorry. I was working from home and I didn't realize the time. Were you in bed?”

The question, ridiculously, made Rachel's cheeks warm. “No. I was just in the kitchen reading Meghan the riot act, as usual.”

“As usual?” Andrew repeated, and Rachel surprised herself by explaining.

“We always fight. I don't think she does enough to help out, and she thinks I'm being sanctimonious.” She gave a little laugh. “You probably agree with her.”

“I think you have a great many demands on you,” Andrew answered. “Besides, I'm hardly one to talk about being sanctimonious.”

“Wait. Did you just make a joke?” Rachel dared to tease.

“No, actually, I was simply stating a fact. I'm aware of how I come across, especially with Claire.”

She walked into the sitting room and sank onto the sofa, distantly noticing the empty crisp packets and soda cans on the coffee table. “So if you're aware, do you think you'll back off for a bit? With Claire?”

“I'll try. Claire asked me to, so I suppose I should respect her wishes.”

“Good.”

“Have you seen her lately? Is she all right?”

“This is you backing off, is it?” Rachel returned dryly. “And no, I haven't seen her since last Sunday. I've been a little busy.”

“Of course. I'm sorry. How's your mother?”

“Still in hospital. We're not sure yet what the long-term prognosis is going to be.”

“That must be difficult.”

“It is, but to be honest, it's a bit of a relief not to have her at home.” Rachel gave a guilty laugh. “I suppose that makes me sound awful.”

“No, just human. It can be exhausting, always looking after someone.”

Like he looked after Claire? Rachel didn't ask. She hadn't spared too much thought for Claire, although she had a niggling sense of guilt that she hadn't been friendly enough when Claire had brought over a meal. She was trying to help, maybe even to make amends, and Rachel knew she wasn't meeting her halfway. But she couldn't add yet another person to her life who needed her to care for them.

“So what do you think?”

“Sorry. What?” Andrew had been talking and Rachel hadn't heard a word he'd said.

“I was asking if you'd like to come to Manchester,” Andrew told her, his tone turning overtly patient.

“Come to Manchester? What on earth for?”

“You really didn't hear anything I said, did you?” Andrew said, and Rachel couldn't tell if he sounded amused or exasperated. “I was inviting you to visit, Rachel.”

“Visit . . .” She was still coming up blank.

“Me. There's a new photography exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery, which just reopened. I thought you might like to see it. With me.”

“Why would you think that?” Rachel blurted.

Andrew gave a dry laugh. “This conversation is a little more ego bruising than I would have liked.”

“Oh. You mean . . . Do you mean . . . ?” Rachel's mind spun as she stammered out her reply. “Do you mean visit you, as in a
date
?”

Silence. “It could be a date, if you wanted it to be.”

Which was a complete nonanswer. “What do you want it to be?”
Rachel asked. She had no idea what she wanted. She'd never thought of Andrew West that way, had never even considered it, not really.

“I asked you to visit, didn't I?” Andrew returned. “You can come up and down in a day, or you can sleep on my sofa if you prefer.”

Rachel wasn't prepared for the fluttery feeling in her stomach at that suggestion. A day out, away from Hartley-by-the-Sea, from housecleaning, from all the demands and stresses of her life. An actual date.

“Rachel? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Sorry. I'm just . . . I wasn't expecting this.”

“I kind of got that.”

She laughed then, a lightness she hadn't experienced in a long time buoying her spirits. “I haven't been to Manchester in years.”

“So now may be a good time.”

And then reality set her down with a thud. “Actually, it isn't. With Mum in hospital . . .”

“That's partly why I thought of it. She's taken care of, isn't she? Surely you can spare a Saturday.”

Rachel thought of Meghan and Nathan and Lily, all of them needing her in their different ways. But maybe they didn't need her as much as she thought they did. Maybe they could manage for just one day. Maybe their world wouldn't come unglued if she wasn't there to hold it all together. “All right,” she said, feeling heady with the recklessness of it. “But just for the day.”

“All right, then,” Andrew answered, and he sounded pleased, which made a goofy smile spread over Rachel's face. “I'll meet you at the station on Saturday.”

They made a few more arrangements before disconnecting the call, and then Rachel sat there in the silence of the sitting room, her phone held in her hand, the smile still on her face.

Things had changed. Shifted just a little, but Claire noticed. The tension that had existed between her and Dan while they worked had eased. It wasn't gone completely, and they were hardly palling around, but things felt gentler somehow. Friendlier.

Dan had given her more responsibility at the shop, and now he took Bunny out for a walk every day for an hour or so while Claire manned the till. He'd even suggested he train her to be a postal assistant, so she could work the post office as well as the shop counter.

“I'm just getting the hang of the Lotto cards,” Claire had joked. “Are you really going to trust me with stamps?”

“There's a lot more to running the post office than stamping a few letters,” Dan had answered shortly. So they definitely weren't palling around, but it was enough. It was good.

Other parts of her life had started to bloom and grow too; she'd had coffee with Abby down at the beach café a couple of times, and they'd taken to power-walking along the coast several evenings a week, while Mary, Abby's grandmother, watched Noah. It had started as simply a way to get some exercise, but Claire thought they both enjoyed the conversation. Abby had returned to Hartley-by-the-Sea less than a year ago and felt almost as much of an offcomer as Claire did.

“If you leave here, no matter for how long, it's not the same as
staying,” she said as they descended from the coastal path to the beach on the far end of the village. The tide was out, and the beach was a lovely long stretch of wet sand that glimmered under the evening sunlight, the rocks smoothed to shining darkness. Claire breathed in the salty, sea-damp air, every part of her reveling in the purity of the moment.

“Why did you leave?” she asked Abby.

“University. I went to Leeds to study medieval literature. Not the most useful of subjects.”

“I studied art history, so I'm not one to talk.”

“No. Well. Coming back has been harder than I expected, especially with Noah.”

“Noah's dad . . . ?” Claire ventured to ask, and Abby's expression closed up.

“He died when Noah was a baby. Motorcycle accident.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry—”

“I'm not sure he would have stayed around, if he'd lived,” Abby answered with a shrug. She sounded diffident, but Claire recognized the slump of her shoulders, how sorrow weighed on her like a mantle. “But coming back to a place like Hartley-by-the-Sea with a kid in tow has its challenges.”

“There are a few single mums around though, aren't there? Rachel's sister Meghan . . .”

“Yes, I'm not alone there. But it's still not easy.”

“And will you stay? Keep running the beach café?” Abby had already told her that she'd taken over the café when her grandmother had had a heart attack six months ago.

“Probably,” Abby answered with a rueful laugh. “I'll probably still be here thirty years from now, slinging toasted sandwiches and trying to make the espresso machine work. Well, it could be worse.”

“You've done a lot with the café, from what I've heard. Lucy's art on the walls . . .” Claire had admired a watercolor of a field of buttercups, with a single baleful sheep in the distance.

Abby smiled. “Yes, Lucy's art is brilliant. And I'd love to do more of that. Add local books, have mini exhibitions . . .” She trailed off with a sigh. “Right now it's all I can do to keep the place running, never mind make improvements.”

“Maybe when Noah starts school . . .”

“Yes. Maybe.” Abby turned her curious gaze on Claire. “What about you? Are you going to be stacking tins forever?”

“I hope not. Dan's mentioned training me to be a postal assistant.” She had a rather ridiculous desire to get behind that Plexiglas counter to weigh and stamp letters.

“You know what I mean, though. You're not going to work in a shop for the rest of your life?”

“Why not?” Claire challenged. “Everyone has this idea that I'm too good or too smart to work in a shop, but plenty of people do, and I actually enjoy it. Why shouldn't I work there forever?”

Abby laughed and shook her head. “I don't have an answer for that one.”

Of course eight hours of doing inventory in the tiny, airless storeroom the next day made Claire reconsider her declaration. Dan had been in a particularly surly mood, snapping at her and finding fault with everything she did. It was as if the last few weeks of friendliness hadn't happened.

“That's me finished,” she announced as soon as it hit four o'clock. She'd been finding semiplausible excuses to stay at the shop a little later each day, simply because she enjoyed it. Today, however, she practically ripped off her apron and made for the door.

“See you tomorrow, then,” Dan said. He was restacking packs of cigarettes, his back to her, and he didn't turn around as he spoke.

Claire hesitated, one hand on the door. “Dan . . . you're all right, aren't you?”

His big shoulders stiffened, but he didn't turn around. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you've been biting my head off all day?” Claire suggested.

“You were slow,” Dan answered. “And I'm fine.”

Claire stared at his back, as hard and broad as a brick wall, and with a sigh she opened the door. “All right, then. Bye.”

She started down the street towards the beach road and Four Gables, facing the prospect of an evening alone, when she abruptly turned around and headed back up it instead. She might not be able to breach Dan's black mood, but there was someone else she needed to talk to.

Claire hadn't seen Rachel since she'd been in her kitchen, and she'd been semi-avoiding her to avoid any more awkwardness. But a week and a half on and she knew she needed to own a few of her mistakes.

She stood in front of Rachel's house just as she had ten days before, minus the macaroni. And once again she wondered if she was making a mistake, and if Rachel was going to go ballistic on her again.

“Oh. You.” Rachel opened the door to her cautious knock and then stood there, unsmiling.

“Your greetings always make me feel so welcome,” Claire returned dryly. “Yes, it's me. I wondered if you fancied going out for a drink.”

“A drink?” Rachel's gaze narrowed. “It's a bit early, isn't it?”

“Nearly dinnertime,” Claire replied. “Besides, it's Friday and I just got off work.”

“Aren't you a teetotaler now?”

“In theory. But since I've decided I don't actually have a drinking problem, I think I can have a glass of wine with a friend.” She held her breath, bracing herself for Rachel's setdown.

A steely glint had come into Rachel's eyes, and her jaw looked tight. She looked completely stressed, now that Claire looked at her properly. Shadows under her eyes, her shoulders practically up by her ears, her features seeming blurred with fatigue. “All right then,” Rachel said, and yanked her coat from the peg. “If you're buying.”

“I am.” She stepped outside, closing the door behind her, and Claire
couldn't keep from asking, “Do you need to check in with anyone? Lily? Or Meghan?”

“No, why should I?” Rachel returned. She sounded rebellious and sulky, like a child playing truant. Then she took her phone out of her pocket. “I'll text Lily.”

They walked in silence down to the Hangman's Noose; it was a golden afternoon, the sky a pale blue, the air still holding the day's warmth. A few commuters were trickling from the train station, but otherwise the street was peaceful and quiet.

The Hangman's Noose was nearly empty at four o'clock in the afternoon; a few farmers were huddled with their pints of bitter by the fireplace, although the grate was swept clean of ashes. Rob Telford was behind the bar, polishing glasses, and he raised his eyebrows in eloquent surprise as they came into the dim, low-ceilinged room.

“What can I get you two ladies?”

“A bottle of red,” Claire said firmly, and Rachel shot her a bemused look.

“A whole bottle? Really?”

“Why not? It's cheaper, anyway, than two or three glasses.”

“A bottle it is,” Rob said, and took a bottle down from the rack behind the bar. “Cabernet Sauvignon do you?”

“That's fine,” Claire said, and took the bottle and paid.

They sat at a small table in the back of the near-empty pub, the open bottle and two wineglasses between them.

“So let the debauchery begin,” Rachel drawled, and Claire managed a laugh as she poured.

“What shall we toast to?” Rachel asked as she took her glass.

“To . . .” Friendship didn't seem quite right, and Claire couldn't think of anything else. “To new beginnings,” she finally said, and Rachel nodded and hefted her glass.

“To new beginnings.”

They both sipped their wine, the mood far more awkward than Claire had hoped. She'd asked Rachel out for a drink because she wanted to make amends, maybe even become friends again, but both possibilities seemed beyond her now.

“Right.” She put her wineglass down with a
clunk
, and Rachel stopped in midsip, eyebrows raised. “I want to say sorry for what happened with us in Year Six.” Rachel stared at her, her glass suspended halfway to her mouth, and resolutely Claire continued. “I should have said it before. I know it was my fault, at least initially, that we fell out. I should have spoken to you. I shouldn't have hidden behind those awful Wyndham girls.”

Rachel gazed at her for a moment and then shook her head. “I appreciate what you're doing, Claire, but this really is ancient history.”

“I know it happened a long time ago, but it still matters. And when you spoke to me about it, you seemed upset. . . .”

“If I've seemed upset it's because my mother has had a stroke,” Rachel cut in. “And my life feels like a trap that is closing in on me, because I'm never going to be doing anything other than cleaning toilets and taking care of my family for the rest of my life.” She broke off abruptly, pressing the heel of her hand to her eyes before she resolutely dropped it. “I'm not upset because you hurt my feelings when we were eleven. I'm not quite that pathetic.”

“I know that,” Claire said. “I don't think you're pathetic. If anyone's pathetic, it's me, for not being brave enough to keep the best friend I ever had.”

Rachel pressed her lips together, her eyes bright with what Claire thought might actually be tears. “I suppose I was the same. I was too proud to go and talk to you.” She took a quick, sharp breath. “I didn't want to be rejected.”

“I wouldn't have—”

“Are you sure about that? You stayed with those girls for the rest of Year Six. They came to your blasted birthday party.”

Claire closed her eyes briefly as a memory washed over her. “That was an absolutely wretched party. My mother arranged it all—”

“Including the invitations?”

Claire's mouth parted soundlessly as realization crept in. “You weren't invited . . . ?”

“No, but I hardly care now. It's not about that.” Rachel let out an impatient sigh. “It was a hard time in my life, that's all. My mother broke her back and my father was out of work, and I wanted—needed—someone I could count on.”

“Oh, Rachel.” Claire swallowed hard. “I should have been that person.” Rachel didn't answer. “I hate that I was so
weak
,” Claire said abruptly, her tone vehement. “I hate it. I've been so bloody weak my whole life, going where someone points, even to rehab!” She laughed, a choked sound, and shook her head. “You must despise me.
I
despise me.”

“I don't despise you,” Rachel said. “I can understand how you might have wanted to be popular.”

“It wasn't that. I've never wanted to be popular in my life.”

“No?” Rachel glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “What, then?”

“I wanted to please my mother. She wanted me to be friends with all the Wyndham girls. To be popular. But I never really felt like part of their group.”

“You looked like you were, from the outside,” Rachel said as she reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass of wine. “You looked like you were having a ball.”

“Did I really?” Claire shook her head. “Actually, I was miserable.” She paused and then continued starkly. “I think I've been unhappy most of my life.”

Rachel stared at her, nonplussed. “Oh?”

“I know you think I had the whole silver-spoon thing going on,” Claire continued stiltedly. It was hard to hold on to her conviction with Rachel looking so unimpressed. “And I know I've been lucky in a lot of ways. But . . .” She took a deep breath, wondering how she could explain
everything without seeming like she was asking for pity. Maybe she was. “I also know there's no excuse for dropping you as a friend. I do realize that.”

“I'm glad, and I get that you want to make up for all that,” Rachel said, “but there's really no need. I lost my temper the other day, but trust me, I have not been crying into my pillow every night, wondering what went wrong.”