The Alone Alternative Read online

  Jessica is his closest neighbour, about fifty yards further down the lane in the direction of the village. Logic would suggest he pick her up on the way to the restaurant, but he considered this might make it look more like a date and told her that he had to collect some chicken feed first and would meet her there.

  The Retreat is Felicity’s old restaurant, a white-painted building located by the main road and known for its relaxed bistro style and cosmopolitan food. It is currently being run by a middle-aged couple from Hampshire. The Knotts have carried on Felicity’s tradition of catering for dietary requirements, but they no longer put the ingredients on the menus as she did, preferring customers to state their preferences and tolerances when they make their booking.

  Edward is shown to a table in the window by Kylie, his son James’s former girlfriend. She is now in her mid twenties and has developed her communication skills sufficiently to be ‘Front of House’. Indeed, she is very smartly dressed in a black tailored suit, far removed from the days when she waitressed for Felicity and had to be constantly reminded about too much flesh on display. She is now married to a local apple producer with whom she works in between shifts at the restaurant.

  The window table is conspicuous to passers-by but Edward decides not to make a fuss, aware of the adage that it is the people tucked away in corners that attract the most attention. He orders a glass of apple juice while he waits and catches up on emails and text messages via his mobile.

  Jessica is ten minutes late, by which time he is wondering – and hoping – that she is not going to turn up. When she arrives she appears flustered. He notes the effort she has made with her appearance: freshly coiffed, fashionably short, golden-blonde hair, a smart cocktail dress and high heels. But this is not unusual as both the witches take trouble over their grooming. ‘High maintenance’, he calls it. He’s not a fan. She is reasonably attractive, about ten years younger than him, hat-rack thin with cartoon curves and slightly popping eyes. He wonders, slightly curious, about silicone implants and an over-active thyroid. Harriet is convinced by the former. ‘You can tell by the unnatural bounce,’ she said. Edward had tried surreptitiously to see what she meant.

  ‘Olivia gave me a lift and she was late,’ says Jessica. ‘I could have walked, but not in these heels. Forgive me if I just nip to the Ladies to powder my nose.’

  She seems pleasant enough. To refer to her as a witch is perhaps unfair, as to him she has so far been very thoughtful. She is a widow, her husband having fallen down the stairs and broken his neck. He ran a private pest control business from a large shed shoehorned into their small back garden and Felicity had once used him to deal with some troublesome moles.

  At the funeral, an unfamiliar twenty-something redhead had turned up in dark glasses, crying copious amounts of tears. Jessica had apparently stared at her coldly, knowingly. Villagers looked on, perhaps hoping for some drama to gossip about in the post office. But Jessica turned away, shed some tears of her own and was comforted by friends. Olivia whittled out of her that the redhead had been the husband’s secretary in his former job in Exeter. She told Felicity that she suspected an affair – past or even ongoing. Felicity said to Edward, ‘I wonder if Jessica knew about her before Ray died? According to Olivia, he was often drunk and violent. Rotten on three accounts; a complete bastard. She’s better off without him.’

  After the appearance of the redhead at the funeral, and the murmurings that dead-husband Ray sometimes used Jessica as a punch bag, there was talk that his death might not have been an accident after all. Village gossip. Tittle-tattle. But no one raised concerns at the inquest. Jessica’s was all bug-eyed innocence and the verdict was ‘misadventure’.

  Edward and Jessica attract stares from a local family who are between courses. It is the first time he has been seen out in the village with another woman and there will be talk. As he has no ulterior motives, he isn’t particularly bothered.

  Over tomato bruschetta starters, they chat convivially enough about village matters and the economic crisis, leading into renewable energy, wind turbines, solar panels and Broadclyst’s planning regulations which are unusual in that they require permission from the Killerton Estate in addition to the local council.

  ‘This has saved me much Googling and many phone calls. I’m exceedingly grateful,’ says Jessica, flashing her bright white teeth.

  ‘Felicity did virtually all the paperwork for us,’ says Edward, remembering her going behind his back to gain permissions without any thought to gauge his opinion.

  Then over main courses of pasta – he with seafood, she with ragout – Jessica tells Edward about her life in Exeter before she and her husband moved to Broadclyst. Apparently she had worked in the office where he had been one of the partners of a major pest control company in the city. ‘Once we married, Ray decided to branch out on his own. He said he didn’t want a working wife and that he had money enough for both of us. His parents had recently died and left him their house. All he wanted was a tidy home, meals on the table and guests entertained. If anything didn’t meet his exacting standards, he used to hit me.’

  Edward shakes his head, shocked. Hearing it directly from the victim is surprisingly powerful. He is at a loss what to say that would adequately describe his abhorrence.

  Jessica continues, ‘When the neighbours started asking questions about the noise, he said we must move to somewhere detached. That’s how we came to be here. I thought it would be a fresh start, but it didn’t change anything. Olivia used to say I should leave, but by then, what would I do? I had become attached to the lifestyle.’ She has a thick fringe under which she peers as she jabs her fork into her pasta and twirls it with skill.

  Edward makes sympathetic noises. He has never hit a woman and even when Felicity was at her worst, he never imagined turning violent. He doesn’t like to ask about the other woman at the funeral.

  ‘It’s lovely to be taken out by a man again,’ Jessica says. ‘And to find we have so much in common.’ She touches her neck with a glossy crimson nail.

  Edward is reminded of the events that led to his unfortunate night with Taryn. Taken out? Is that what she thinks this is? Perhaps Harriet is right. ‘It’s the least I can do after all the food you bring me.’ He wonders where her interpretation of the event might lead, and if he should take steps to quell her obvious interest.

  ‘I never went to university,’ she says, suddenly, out of the blue.

  Edward says, ‘University isn’t for everyone.’

  ‘It would have been for me,’ she says, bitterly. ‘I had the potential to do so much more. Then I married a fool and it’s too late now.’

  ‘It is never too late for education,’ says Edward. ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘I’d like to show them that I won’t be trampled on.’

  ‘Who’s “them”?’ says Edward.

  Jessica gives a weird little laugh and throws back her head. ‘All of them at school who barred the way. The teachers who said I wasn’t good enough, my dad for being discouraging, my husband who used my lack of a degree to wield his superiority and say that I was dim.’

  Edward is uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation. If this is what ‘Out’ out is going to be like, he would rather stay in. But no sooner is he wondering how to lighten the mood when she grins, laughs again, says, ‘Don’t mind me,’ and normality is resumed.

  Later, when he drives her back to her house on his way back to his, and she invites him in for coffee, he considers a range of excuses.

  She adds, ‘We’re both free. Both mature adults. We can do what we please.’ She drops her hand on his knee for a fleeting second.

  It is dark and he can’t see her expression. But he knows what this means. Interesting that underneath her quiet exterior, she is bold enough to take the initiative. She is quite sexy if you like lipstick and hairspray. In half an hour or so, after a few courteous preliminaries, he could be as colleague Conrad Vaughan might say, enjoying some action between
the sheets. But despite so much abstinence, and although his one night stand with Taryn has given him confidence that it is possible to enjoy another body without any emotional connection, he does not fancy Jessica. Nor does he want any complications in a community where word is likely to spread.

  ‘I can be discreet,’ she says, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Only Olivia knows I like you. She already thinks we have something going.’

  If this is meant to reassure him, it does the opposite. ‘Does she indeed?’

  ‘I denied it, of course. But she knows I visit you with meals sometimes.’

  Edward hasn’t considered that anyone else might be party to Jessica’s meals on heels service. If he wasn’t already disinclined to take up her offer, this knowledge would be sufficient for him to banish any thoughts of intimate progression.

  He cannot believe she should think him interested as even on the rare days when he does invite her in, he discourages her from staying long, always saying he has essays to mark or a paper to complete. It was somewhat against his better judgement to accept the invitation to join her for a meal at the Retreat.

  ‘It’s all a bit soon since Felicity,’ he says at last, trying to be kind, to let her down gently, when in fact he knows there is no necessary spark to take the relationship onto a long-term romantic plane. And given her demonstrations of insecurity, anything less would be unwise. Little does he know that this act of kindness is to cause him trouble further down the line.

  4

  Alone

  In the Beckenham cul-de-sac of Beechview Close, with its family-sized semis and mostly two-car occupants, Marianne hears the Saturday morning silence of singledom and switches on Radio 4 while she eats her toast. Despite the frequency with which Johnny went on walking trips at weekends, these are the times when she most notices she is alone. She misses the getting up together, the convivial breakfasting and sharing of plans.

  When Holly left for uni, it had been difficult, but not desperate. Empty-nesting was a challenge exacerbated by Marianne’s concurrent onset of peri-menopause and a rush of midlife worries. Her self-esteem was battered from erroneously thinking Johnny was having an affair with one of his colleagues. Her hormones were volatile and she obsessed like a teenager. When she reminisces about that time, she can’t believe her insecurity and jealousy. It could have wrecked their otherwise stable marriage.

  Now Holly is flat-sharing in Guildford, aged twenty-eight, fiercely single and working as a solicitor in a small firm. Since Johnny died, Marianne sometimes feels Holly is the one taking charge, constantly suggesting that her mother move to a smaller property. Marianne has resisted. ‘I’m not doing anything for at least a year,’ she told her, taking her own oft-given advice that any major trauma should not be followed too soon by other significant lifestyle changes such as job or home or relationship. But now that year is over she must consider her options.

  She doesn’t need to rattle around a three-bedroom house with a generous back garden. Much as she loves her outdoor space with fruit trees, vegetables and herbacious borders, thoughts about downshifting to a flat are beginning to merit consideration. She could even help Holly onto the property ladder with the proceeds. And if she does take early retirement – a persistent thought since her writing has taken a more structured direction – she could move anywhere in the country, back up to Cumbria, or even down to Guildford to be near her daughter. But Holly may not stay there, so she would then have given up her Beckenham life for nothing. She finds new friendships take time to mature. They are like trees, accumulating the annual rings of stability as the years go by. She may not have that time. It would be risky.

  She feeds her cat and herself and contemplates the day. It is still unseasonally warm and sunny and there are so many things she would have suggested if Johnny had still been alive. It is even warm enough for a spring picnic, but a picnic for one has a lonely echo.

  She wonders if being alone is her future. Fifty-five is an awkward age to think about romancing again, an age when people may or may not consider it is worth the effort. She thinks of all those she has known who have lost a husband in midlife. Most remain unmarried; most certainly live alone. And those who took a second chance sometimes had regrets after rushing in, snatching an opportunity, fearful of waiting and watching the years slip by. The womaniser, the secret drinker, the compulsive gambler, sometimes all three: a job lot of aggravation, a second chance into an abyss far worse than being on their own.

  Although she’s decided it’s time to move on, she doesn’t know where to start. Her book, Lydia, is now being printed and there is nothing she can do but wait. It has taken several years in its completion, juggling writing with her working week, a labour of love, of need, rather than a commercial enterprise. But once it was finished, she always wanted others to share.

  First she sent sample chapters and the required synopsis to a few publishers. They sent them back, sometimes with a standard letter, sometimes with personal words of encouragement. She became used to identifying the sound of the returning envelope as it flopped onto the mat. It was the sound of dashed hopes and shattered dreams. After a while she gave up and concentrated on writing a sequel. It was Edward who first suggested self-publishing. But he said it at a time when such a thing was still viewed with suspicion. Only in very recent years has the industry gathered respectability and momentum.

  She is anxious about the extent to which people will think it is autobiographical. Mostly it isn’t, but the stories of the bullying at the fictional Oakleigh House preparatory school in Cumbria are inspired by her own experiences at Brocklebank Hall.

  Inspired. That is the crux of it. Inspired. Not an exact one to one correspondence between actual events and those that lurk on the pages of Lydia, but there is a real Adam in the shape of Edward Harvey: the only boy in the class whom she remembers never being horrible to her. And there were actual teachers with some of the traits of her fictional ones and tiresome bullies who morphed into Barnaby Sproat and his gang.

  She developed the idea for the book soon after finding Edward on Friends Reunited at the end of 2001, but she didn’t tell him until after the first few chapters were written, until she realised it had the makings of a novel. The childhood story of Adam belonged to him, just as that of Maya was hers. Of course, his story was from her perspective and as such might be far from the truth. But there may have been something in the narrative that touched a nerve, and she needed his support and approval in order to be comfortable in completing it in case it was published. As to the crush that she had on him, she’d never confessed. No point in alarming him when there was no need. Maya had to have a crush on Adam to create a plot with sufficient romantic interest to drive the fiction forward. So she told him that.

  Edward Harvey … the real Lydia, where is he now? When he left Beechview Close for the last time, he said to her, ‘Do something with Lydia, it deserves to be read.’

  Marianne blocks the thought, easier now with the passage of time and more pressing losses along the way. She hasn’t written in her journal since he left, frightened of what she might reveal, not least unto herself.

  Since Johnny died, Marianne realises how she has neglected many of her oldest friends and failed to cultivate new ones. Grief sapped much of her energy. If she retires at the end of the academic year, in addition to writing she might at last have time for other pursuits and for developing her support system.

  Social networking has once again been her saviour and she is now a prolific tweeter. It is a useful platform from which to inform the world about her writing. Each time she tweets, she runs her words through a personal filter: What if it is read by one of my students? What if it is read by the Principal of the college? And if it passes both tests, it is let loose in the Twitterverse.

  When she started tweeting, she wondered if Edward was registered. There were a few Edward Harveys, mostly anonymous eggs, none with profile information that looked like they could be him. Not that she would tweet him directly or eve
n follow him, but she would be interested to know what he was doing, that he was still alive, still okay. After what happened to Johnny, nothing was certain. And the thought of him had made her pause and stare into empty space as she remembered the dark-haired boy in the classroom at Brocklebank Hall; the boy with the soft brown eyes and the razor-sharp brain; the boy she had never forgotten. Then she snapped back to the present. Too busy to tweet, she thought of him at the time. Always busy …

  She hasn’t looked since.

  5

  Tweeting Lydia

  The morning after the meeting with Jessica, Harriet gives Edward a disapproving look as they roam the huge kitchen, making their own breakfasts as they habitually do before leaving for work. ‘Anything to report?’ she asks. ‘Did the witch put a spell on you?’

  Harriet teaches science at a secondary school in Exeter. She leaves early to catch up with preparation before the queues form in the photocopying room. Edward has more flexibility, but generally prefers to be off soon after her so he can keep track of the rest of his archaeology department at the University of Devon. When he returned from his three years in London, he observed some unwelcome and sloppy time-keeping practices from two of the senior members of staff. He knows they are disillusioned with the modern trends in university education and are treading water until they can retire.

  ‘I told her it was all too soon since your mum,’ says Edward, multitasking cereal, toast and tea.

  ‘So she was under the impression it was a date. Told you! And now you’ve said that, she’ll think if she hangs around long enough, you’ll become interested. Anyway, enough of her, I have news too.’ Harriet sits down with her cereal and waves a spoon at him, an excited expression on her face. ‘I’ve found a person called Marianne Hayward on Twitter. She’s a psychology teacher in Beckenham and has a book called Lydia on the verges of publication. It’s got to be Fanclub.’