The Subsequent Wife Read online

  So my new priority was to find work. But I had another problem. Or more truthfully, a whole collection of problems. I had no qualifications and now I had no references either. As I trudged back along the streets and through the rain to the terraced house, I wondered what my future was, how I was going to manage. Mr Micawber’s belief was that ‘something will turn up’. Yeah. I had that belief too, except in my case whatever came along would be all bad. Even the things that started off good turned sour. The apple falls off the tree only to rot on the ground.

  I fretted and worried for two days, sitting in my room and staring out across the valley. As though I was going to find inspiration there. Then I went to the Job Centre in Hanley. The ginger-haired woman, shapeless and somewhere in her forties, looked me up and down. ‘So you just walked out of your job as a healthcare assistant?’

  I nodded and wasn’t going to confide in her the reason why.

  She sniffed. ‘So what sort of work are you looking for?’

  ‘I don’t want to work in an old folks’ home,’ I said and looked at the floor. There were scuff marks where people must have sat, wanting a job and kicking the floor when one wasn’t forthcoming. At least nothing that anyone who had a choice would want.

  But, of course, I didn’t have a choice, did I? It was a job or back living on the streets.

  ‘What skills do you have?’

  I could have answered honestly or dishonestly. I chose the middle road. ‘I’m hard-working and honest.’

  She waited.

  ‘Do you have basic maths and English?’

  I was insulted. I wanted to say, my English teacher wanted me to go to university. But what did that mean? Nothing.

  I just nodded.

  After filling in lots of forms online, I left feeling even more dejected.

  And then for once in my life, Mr Micawber was right. Something did turn up.

  And the nicest thing of all? It resulted from an almost single, certainly isolated instance of my kind heart. Hah!? Actually, more to do with the boredom of sitting in a small, cold (no heating in the day) room, watching my life trickle down the plughole. I didn’t want to go back on the streets and neither did I want to return to The Stephanie Wright Home for the Bewildered, even if they would have me. But unless I paid my rent in two weeks’ time, I would be out on my ear. I hadn’t told Jason and Jodi I didn’t have a job any more. When I hadn’t headed off for work I’d just said I was owed some holiday.

  So … back to the ‘good turn’.

  One of my mates, Bethan Standish, was pregnant and feeling sick all the time. Not just in the morning but all day long. And, to be honest, far from ‘blooming’, she looked bloody awful. White, peaky, depressed. Her kid’s dad wasn’t bothered. So long as he had a few pints inside him he wasn’t bothered about anything. So I took her to see her GP who was in the health centre in Tunstall. There was a bit of a wait as she didn’t have an appointment and I got bored and fidgety just hanging around. Besides, it wasn’t me wanting to see the doctor, so I went for a little wander round the shops then walked around the corner. And what did I spy but a huge fibreglass model – something tall, long and green. Very green, almost iridescent.

  The Green Banana Storage Facility. The banana fibreglass model was six feet high at least. There was no mistaking its logo. Huge metal gates stood open to a yard, an office to the left and some roller shutter doors at the front and both sides. It looked industrial and somehow exciting. Different from a care home. A couple of vans and lorries were parked up, cars too, and people, mainly men, were loading and unloading stuff. It looked busy and interesting and industrial. I watched for a while, intrigued and curious. What, I wondered, did people store in here? As I stood in the entrance, a skinny woman came out to have a fag and she grinned at me. Simple as that. Instead of someone telling me to fuck off or farting in my face or asking me, with a sour face, what skills or qualifications I had, she actually smiled at me. A proper, warm, welcoming smile. And I don’t see many of those. She even raised her free hand in greeting and looked friendly, which made me very bold. I also admired the fact that she was dressed in a red leather biker jacket, skintight black leather trousers, high-heeled black leather boots and gold chandelier earrings. Her hair was a tumble of black curls. She was a stunning picture.

  I smiled back and held up my hand in a vague returning wave then spoke. ‘Hi.’ I walked up to her. Now I don’t smoke myself but I can manage a few drags when offered one. And that’s what happened then. Friendly as anything, she offered me a fag. And I accepted. We’d bonded. She looked round the place with the sort of pride mums extend to their firstborn. ‘Not a bad set-up, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I said, disliking the taste of the tobacco but reluctant to chuck away this sign of friendship. ‘It looks good to me.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I looked carefully at her. She was about … I’m not good at ages. Maybe forty? She was one of those women who look much older than their age. Smoked a lot. She had really bad teeth, chipped and irregular, nicotine stained with plenty of fillings. It was her one main flaw. She was also quite wrinkled. Very suntanned with her long black hair, which I now realized was dyed. It was too dull, too black. I decided then that she could be a Traveller, which gave her a sort of romance – in my eyes at least.

  ‘Me and my old man,’ she said then, flicking her ash into the raised flower bed. ‘We set it all up between us, you know. Saw a gap in the market. Nothing else like this round here.’

  ‘Gosh,’ I said, acting more impressed than I really was and dragging up a word I hadn’t used for a while. ‘Quite the entrepreneurs.’ I glanced at the tall green object.

  She nodded proudly, then drew out another fag. ‘We are that,’ she said. ‘It was a patch of derelict land. Long time ago it was an old potbank. We cleaned up the site and …’ she waved her hand around, wanting me to take it all in, ‘this is the result.’

  She sucked in a welcome and necessary lungful of smoke. ‘Making quite a bit of money we are,’ she said. ‘Never realized there was so much dosh in …’ She waved long red vampire’s fingernails, ‘storage facilities.’

  ‘Really?’ I tried to sound well impressed. And interested. ‘What sort of stuff—’ I never got to finish.

  ‘Oh. Anything people just don’t want to get rid of. Hang on to their stuff, you know.’ She puffed out her scrawny chest. ‘Dead relatives’ house contents, businesses that haven’t got room, stuff while houses are being done up or when people are decorating or have sold up.’ She gave me what I would soon learn was one of her ‘little philosophies’. ‘Our business,’ she said, waving her fag in my direction, ‘depends on people not liking to chuck stuff away. Worried that at some later date they’ll regret it. Course we’ve had to work twenty-four seven.’ She looked at me then, black eyes suddenly sharp and shrewd. ‘Six days a week.’ She took another hard drag on her cigarette. ‘It’s been tough. But now – well the money rolls in. Month on month.’ I liked the sound of that. Money rolling in, month on month.

  She stubbed her cigarette out between two purple pansies and burst out laughing. ‘Reminds me of our holiday in the Caribbean. We were going to call it The Pink Banana,’ she said, rocking with the joke. ‘But we thought the logo might cause offence.’

  I laughed with her, looking at the huge model, its colour a lurid shade of lime. ‘I prefer The Green Banana,’ I said, and she looked pleased, scrutinizing me with a stare.

  Which was replaced by a grimace. ‘Never realized it was so much work though. Long hours. A real tie. Always here, you know. Forget I’ve got a home sometimes.’

  Which gave me an idea. I imitated her action with my cigarette. I figured if it was OK for her to chuck her fag into the pansies then it was OK for me too. Then I jumped in with both feet.

  ‘I bet you’d like some time off. A holiday, maybe. The Costa del Sol?’

  She looked at me hard then. Stared right through me. It felt like she was stripping me back to the bone like an X-ray ma
chine. She said nothing for a moment but I could tell she was thinking this one through quite carefully. Then, ‘Are you after a job?’

  ‘Could be,’ I said carelessly. It doesn’t do to sound too desperate.

  She scrutinized me a bit more then: ‘Can you work a computer?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I answered casually. ‘Course I can.’ I drew my smartphone out of my jeans back pocket and wafted it in front of her eyes.

  She skewered me with her stare then. ‘Are you honest?’

  I answered that question by giving her my warmest smile and simply nodding – slowly – to give it gravitas. Another half-forgotten word dragged into service.

  ‘We–ell,’ she started. ‘It can be quite boring here.’

  I lifted my eyebrows indicating, And I care? Truth was, I can cope with boredom better than most. I have books. And a smartphone.

  She frowned. ‘It’s very variable. Some days people are coming and going all the time. Others – well – nothing.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see strong, muscled, working men shifting heavy stuff, shouting to one another.

  I looked back at her. It would do. At least it was better than The Stephanie Wright Care Home. I wanted to know what the wages were but she hadn’t got there yet.

  ‘Are you happy to work here alone, in the dark, Saturdays too? It can be quite lonely. And you’ll have to lock up after you? It’s quite a responsibility.’

  I nodded still tucking the question away: How much?

  She drew in a deep breath. ‘I’ll have to ask Andrew, my partner, see if he’s happy for me to take you on.’

  I nodded my agreement and mentally crossed my fingers that she didn’t ask for references.

  She held out her hand and her face cracked into another wide smile, sending her wrinkles folding into her face. ‘I’m Scarlet.’ I didn’t dare risk, O’Hara? She’d probably heard it before. ‘Come back,’ she said, ‘this evening at six o’clock, and we’ll have a chat.’

  I liked the sound of this.

  She paused before reiterating. ‘We work long hours. Weekends too. And it can be quite spooky here.’ She giggled. ‘Even I find that.’

  ‘I don’t mind spooky.’ What do you pay?

  ‘There’s usually the two of us here but if Andrew has to work away and I need a day off you could be here on your own.’ She was still sounding dubious. ‘A lot.’

  ‘I’m OK with that.’

  She still wasn’t convinced. ‘We’ll have to have a trial period.’

  ‘Yeah. Course.’ I was a bit concerned she seemed to be back-pedalling.

  And then the sweetener came. ‘But if you suit we can afford to pay you well over the minimum wage. And if you’re reliable there’s bonuses too. We’re not mean,’ she said. ‘And there’s just the two of us.’

  I tried another smile that was meant to say, companionably, Just the three of us now.

  I came out of there walking on air. This was surely better than working for minimum wage at The Stephanie Wright Care Home – even if it was for ‘gentlefolk’. Their farts smell the same as anyone else’s.

  I went back to the doctor’s surgery to find Bethan looking a bit happier. The doctor had given her advice but no tablets.

  ‘Stop smoking, eat dry toast in the morning and don’t touch alcohol,’ she recited like a catechism. Then added, ‘He said it would wear off in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ I said, summoning up every available ounce of cheerfulness.

  Her good mood didn’t last. Her face darkened. ‘And that was all he said,’ she related angrily, practically steaming with indignation. ‘Warned me that Thalidomide was given for pregnancy sickness and did I want to give my child bud limbs. Course I bloody well don’t.’ She stamped on ahead.

  Wisely I didn’t comment further, instead piping up with my own bit of news. ‘I have an interview for a job this evening so you’ll have to go back to Stockton Brook on your own.’

  ‘Charming,’ she said, really fed up now ‘Thanks a bunch. Some people are soooo selfish.’ And she stalked off. But don’t worry. I have seen her since. We’ve made up and seven months later she had a gorgeous little girl called Charlotte.

  With no bud limbs but perfect, chubby little legs and arms.

  Her partner, Neil, left her just after the birth.

  I had a few hours to kill before my interview so I went for a coffee in the town then wandered around the clothes shops, knowing I couldn’t afford any of it – even the stuff in the charity shops looked out of my price range. I was tempted to nick a smart blue dress but resisted. Even Scarlet wasn’t going to tolerate me with a court case hanging over my head. I wanted to get a job, get out there, into what I saw as the real world, the business community. I wanted to meet people, do something else with my life. I returned to The Green Banana Storage Facility.

  Andrew turned out to be a slight guy, a bit weedy, younger-looking than Scarlet and with none of her fiery character. He was dressed in scruffy, loose-fitting jeans with a rip through the knees and a grey sweatshirt with a paint stain on. His trainers had seen better days too. I felt my face drop. He didn’t exactly look prosperous. But, on the plus side, he had nice brown eyes and a quiet, polite voice with hardly a trace of an accent. When he spoke he reminded me of Helen McCormick, my lovely English teacher. There was something – not posh, but refined – in the way he spoke. He had a nice face too. Kind. Gentle. He shook my hand and invited me through the double doors into a light square office, painted white, sparsely furnished with a desk, a phone and a computer, overlooked by a bank of CCTV screens. No colour, just black and white or rather grey.

  We sat down around the desk and Andrew got straight down to business. ‘Scarlet said you were after a job,’ he began, watching me carefully for my reaction. I felt there would be no pulling the wool over his eyes.

  I nodded.

  ‘So what work have you done before?’

  I said I’d ‘filled in time’ working in a care home, but at school I’d studied IT and English. Then, for some reason, I told him something I’d told no one. Not even Miss McCormick. ‘I was hoping to be a journalist,’ I said.

  He looked interested, almost impressed, but certainly not dismissive of my ridiculously lofty ambition. ‘Really?’

  I nodded, feeling pretty stupid now and wishing I hadn’t shared that. I had as much chance of fulfilling this dream as being selected to be the next woman on the moon. But Andrew was someone I instinctively felt I could trust. And I sensed sympathy.

  But he wasn’t going to leave it there. He half smiled and pinned me with a gaze. ‘If that’s your ambition, why haven’t you pursued your dream?’

  I find this sort of talk makes me uncomfortable. I have a stack of becauses …

  I have no money

  I flunked out of school

  I wouldn’t fit into a posh uni

  I’d stick out like a sore thumb

  And the real reason?

  Apart from that fact that I wouldn’t fit in with the really clever geeky sorts, the ones who speak with plums and greengages in their mouths and don’t come from damaged broken homes. Haven’t lived on the street for a while, washing and donning school uniform in public toilets. Cold and frightened at night, searching for somewhere warm, somewhere safe. And tired. Always tired.

  Truth? I was afraid. Some dreams are better left as dreams. Because then they can never disappoint.

  Scarlet was watching me with wide-open eyes and mouth, as though she could log into my thoughts. Andrew was still waiting for my response. I knew this job depended on my answer. And what I sensed was this. I needed to be honest. Not too honest. But they needed to be able to trust me.

  ‘I couldn’t afford it,’ I said simply. ‘What with tuition fees and—’

  Scarlet chipped in. ‘What about your mum and dad? Wouldn’t they have helped you out?’

  I closed my eyes against the memory of my parents. When I thought of them I heard screaming and anguish, brok
en glass and china, furniture breaking, material tearing, hiding, being frightened, believing it was somehow my fault though I never worked out how.

  Substituting. ‘Things weren’t great at home.’ Meaning Mum off with her new guy and dad – who knew where? Last I heard Thailand. ‘There was no chance of them funding me.’

  I wished I could leave it at that. I could have kicked myself.

  Why did I always feel ashamed saying this when it wasn’t my fault? It was theirs. Getting so bogged down in their own messy problems meant neither could help me with mine. They didn’t even notice me. And my younger brother, Josh, had been delighted to see me fall. He’d always been jealous of me because I had a brain and he didn’t. He was three years younger than me and he’d never got over the fact of having a clever big sister.

  I just shook my head.

  ‘Couldn’t you have been a …’ Scarlet looked at Andrew for inspiration.

  ‘Cub reporter,’ he supplied. Again, I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t have got near a job on a paper.’ I looked at the floor and omitted to mention my period of homelessness. Or the fact that I’d failed most my exams. That I was a disappointment.

  Scarlet and Andy did some of that silent eyebrow communication that couples do, tilting their heads to the side. I thought they’d send me out while they discussed me but they both nodded. And finally grinned, and Andrew put a friendly hand on my shoulder. He had a chip in one of his front teeth which gave him a vaguely roguish look and his hair, dark brown, was a little long and looked amateurishly cut with a fringe that flopped wonkily over one eye. ‘You can work the computers, Jennifer?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And the cash machine?’

  Again I nodded, hoping it wasn’t too complicated and thinking what I didn’t already know I’d soon learn.

  ‘Plus keep an eye on all these?’ He waved a hand in front of the bank of screens. ‘Yes,’ I said, watching a couple of fit blokes lifting a table in through the shutter doors as though it was an old Laurel and Hardy film, black and white, with no sound.