Cold Feet: The Lost Years Read online

  He did give people the chance to leave, but Karen stayed, more out of curiosity than anything else. Roberto told them all to focus on a beach that made them happy. Karen thought about the Valencian coast, where her mum Heather lived. The blue skies, azure water and white sands were as close to paradise as you could get. And as Roberto suggested that they walk barefoot in the sand, to feel the grains between her toes, hear the sounds of the birds in the sky, the waves crashing to the shore, she felt her eyes get heavier and heavier.

  Twenty minutes later, she woke up alongside her colleagues who all looked as dazed as she did.

  ‘Did you fall asleep?’ she hissed at Cassie.

  ‘Yes!’ Cassie wiped some dribble from the side of her mouth. And Karen found herself doing the same.

  Which made her giggle. What on earth had just gone on in here?

  He had a hypnotic voice, she’d give him that. And she felt energised after it. Maybe the management team should introduce it into their working week to get everyone over hump day Wednesday. Because today she was struggling. Her phone buzzed, alerting her to a text from Ramona.

  Bonjour. I need go out early today. You here by 6 latest, non?

  She was taking these French conversation classes so seriously. She was determined to surprise Jean-Luc when he came to visit with everything she’d learned. He did seem as enamoured with Ramona as she was with him.

  Maybe she should give Ramona the details of the hypnotist, to help her with her French. She quickly typed a text message back to Ramona, smiling as she imagined her face, trying to work it out.

  Je suis tout à toi à six heures

  She looked at her watch and felt the ever increasing tide of panic, when she saw it was 5 p.m. She’d need to leave in fifteen minutes to get home. And she had so much more to do. She’d have to bring work home with her to tackle once the children were asleep. She groaned as she remembered that she had to make something for the cake sale at Josh’s school the next day too. She’d promised him she’d do it herself, not just buy cakes.

  Without opening her diary she realised that she was going to miss her AA support group tonight. She’d promised herself she’d find the time to go back this week. Time. There was never enough. Karen texted her AA sponsor, Alex, to let her know she’d miss tonight’s group.

  She shook off Alex’s nagging voice in her head, who had warned her about getting complacent. What does she know anyhow? Karen told herself that she’d not really thought about pouring a drink this week. She’d been too busy.

  Liar!

  She flushed red, thinking about what happened, after everyone left the other night following Matthew’s fall. She’d searched the house, looking for alcohol. She didn’t care what. Ramona found her with her head in the laundry basket, a spot she’d often used to hide a bottle or two.

  Maybe she wasn’t as in control as she might like to think.

  Next week she’d 100 per cent make sure she got there.

  She quickly answered a few emails, then changed into her Skechers, ready to dash to the metro.

  To her surprise, when she arrived home with five minutes to spare, Adam was sitting at her kitchen table, doing a decent job of spoon-feeding three babies at once.

  ‘Surprise!’ he said when she walked in.

  ‘Hello, you.’ She walked over and kissed his cheek.

  ‘I let love’s young dream off to get a grip on her petit pois and tout le mondes!’ Adam said.

  Karen laughed, opening her arms wide, to embrace Josh, who said, ‘Hey, Mama.’

  She pulled him in tight. ‘You smell like tomato sauce!’

  ‘Uncle Adam made me dinner,’ Josh said.

  ‘Nuggets, chips and a dollop of sauce for the sir. My speciality,’ Adam said.

  ‘He made a face out of the nuggets and the ketchup was blood coming out of its nose. It was gross,’ Josh said, clearly delighted with it all.

  ‘Thank you for that,’ Karen said to Adam, taking over spoon-feeding Olivia and Ellie, while he continued doing aeroplane deliveries of mashed potatoes and vegetables to Matthew.

  ‘Rough day at the office?’ Adam asked.

  ‘It was unusual,’ Karen said. ‘But I’ve had worse.’ She leaned on to the back of the chair, placing her elbow on its back. And to her astonishment, she watched Adam do the same.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Adam asked when she started to laugh.

  She told him about Roberto while they finished feeding the children.

  ‘You could have some fun with that,’ Adam said.

  ‘Watch it, or I might have you doing all sorts!’ Karen joked.

  Once the children were fed, they placed the three babies into the big playpen so that they could play safely together.

  ‘Look at him. Sure he’s delighted with himself, right in the middle of the two ladies,’ Adam said.

  Matthew sat between Olivia and Ellie who were taking it in turns to kiss him.

  ‘Do you think we’re seeing a flash into their future?’ Karen asked.

  ‘David would kill him!’ Adam laughed. ‘But look at it this way. At least they’ll have each other to ask as dates for their graduations. Not that I think your girls will ever be stuck. Little beauties, both of them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Karen replied. ‘Gosh, I remember my graduation. What a palaver! I invited this guy, who was totally gorgeous—’

  ‘Natch,’ Adam replied.

  ‘But a total flake. He did warn me when I asked him to be my date, that he didn’t do formal. I told him I didn’t care,’ Karen said.

  ‘Don’t tell me he didn’t turn up?’

  ‘No. He came all right,’ Karen said and put her hand up when Adam sniggered. ‘Stop! It was very innocent I’ll have you know! He arrived an hour late, missing the pre-graduation drinks reception Mummy had organised.’

  ‘That was deliberate, I’d say.’ Adam remembered going to a fair few graduations in his day and the meeting of overly doting parents was the most horrendous part of it all.

  ‘There he was, long, curly hair, wet from the shower, in his stockinged feet . . .’

  ‘Where were his shoes?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Oh, he had them with him, but he was running late, so was kind of getting ready in the car, when he beeped the horn outside my parents’ house.’

  ‘The chancer!’

  ‘He was wearing a long, thin, black leather tie. And black jeans,’ Karen said.

  ‘Well, he was technically wearing a black tie.’

  ‘I thought he looked incredible.’

  ‘So did you have a good time?’

  ‘The best!’ Karen said. ‘We snuck in some drinks under my dress.’ They’d got quite drunk that night. Was that the start of her reliance on alcohol? Maybe.

  ‘I remember going to this girl’s graduation when I was seventeen. And it was only when I called to her house to collect her, that I realised I’d shagged her older sister too,’ Adam said.

  Karen gasped. ‘You’re making that up!’

  ‘Afraid I’m not. It was only when I saw them together, I realised why I thought my date looked so familiar.’ Adam laughed. ‘Neither sister was impressed when they worked it out.’

  ‘Oh, those were the days,’ Karen said.

  ‘They were. Sit down and relax. I’ve dinner sorted for us too,’ Adam said.

  ‘Nuggets and chips?’

  ‘In a way. But we have the most glorious of all nuggets, the biggest nugget of them all, the mighty chicken Kiev!’ Adam said. ‘I called into the supermarket and grabbed a stick-it-in-the-oven-dinner. But I’m sure it will be grand. Ready in twenty.’

  ‘It’s a treat having someone cook for me. Right, seeing as you’ve got this all in hand, I’m going to have a quick shower. That’s if you are okay to watch over the kids?’

  He shooed her away to the stairs.

  Adam cleared away the kids’ plates and laid the table. The Kievs, roasted vegetables and potatoes au gratin, were all in the oven, heating through.

  He pe
rsuaded Josh to go up to his bedroom to retrieve his jammies, then he helped him get ready for bed. ‘Will we have a go at changing your sisters, to give your mum a little break?’ Josh ran away, having none of it.

  Twenty minutes later, Karen came down to find the children ready for bed and in the playpen. He was plating up their food.

  ‘This smells delicious,’ Karen said. ‘You’ve been busy!’

  ‘It’s all about how you place it in the oven. Great skill needed to get it in the most optimum spot, you know.’

  As they ate, he filled in Karen in on the goings on at Pete and Jenny’s. They were still dancing around each other, polite but distant. A disaster about to happen.

  He noticed Karen kept glazing over, every now and then, as he spoke. Wherever she was, it wasn’t with him.

  ‘So I said to Pete, let’s head to Wales, find a cult, wrap sheets around ourselves and sing folk songs,’ Adam threw in.

  Karen looked up at him. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Just checking you were paying attention. You looked like you were fading out on me a bit there.’

  She apologised, blaming tiredness., avoiding eye contact with him.

  Adam could tell she was lying. She’d been thinking of something else. Rachel? Could it be possible that she was getting visits from Rachel too, just like him?

  ‘Karen?’ He leaned in, touched her hand lightly. ‘Was that Rachel you were talking to, just then?’

  She looked at him in horror. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, does Rachel ever visit you here?’

  ‘As in her ghost?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Adam answered, then felt stupid for asking the question. It was obvious by the look on Karen’s face that she thought he was losing it.

  ‘Do you see Rachel’s ghost?’ Karen asked.

  Adam nodded slowly.

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Every few days, I suppose,’ Adam said.

  ‘And what happens when you see her?’

  ‘We chat. Mostly about Matthew, or us. It’s nice.’.

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Karen wished with all her might that she could have the same experience. If only Rachel would rock up here in her ghostly magnificence and ask her about her battle to avoid alcohol. Ask her about David and how confused she felt right now about him. Ask her about Robyn and how jealous she felt about her right now. Ask her about work and how stupid she felt during the hypnotism session.

  ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ Adam asked in a voice so quiet she almost didn’t hear him.

  She shook her head. She didn’t think he was any more mad than the rest of them. ‘I think you’re grieving.’

  ‘Do you believe that she’s visiting me?’ Adam asked.

  ‘I believe that you think so.’

  ‘I don’t want to analyse it. If I do and then she disappears, I’ve got nothing.’

  ‘You’ve got Matthew. And us.’

  He nodded. ‘But I want her too.’

  They sat in silence, neither of them able to find words.

  ‘I don’t know all her stories you see,’ Adam said. ‘I never got to learn everything about her. There wasn’t enough time.’

  That Karen understood. How many times had she said that phrase lately. Maybe she could help Adam. She scoured her brain, trying to remember a Rachel story that she felt he might not know. Something from their distant past.

  ‘Did Rachel ever tell you about the time we were in Los Angeles?’ Karen asked.

  ‘I knew you went on the big West tour. Didn’t you go to Vegas and do the Grand Canyon and all that too?’ Adam said.

  ‘We did. But did she tell you about the night we went looking for Brad Pitt?’ Karen asked.

  ‘No!’ Adam brightened up. ‘She always did have a glint in her eye whenever he came on the screen.’

  ‘Okay, well you have to remember that we were young. Twenty-four or five. We got cheap flights to Los Angeles and booked an even cheaper hotel. We weren’t having a good time, really, because we were in the middle of nowhere, with no car. So we decided to get the bus into Los Angeles, to the Sunset Strip. I wanted to go to the Viper Rooms. Johnny Depp was my particular crush,’ Karen said, with a wink.

  A yelp from Matthew halted the story for a moment. Adam played referee to Olivia and Ellie who were both fighting over a toy that he firmly held in his hand.

  He returned to the table once peace was resumed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We spent ages getting ready to go out. Chose our favourite outfits. We both had on these ridiculously short denim minis with cut-off biker tops. You know the kind?’

  Adam nodded and smiled. ‘I’m picturing it now. Very nice.’

  Karen laughed. ‘Well, we thought so anyway. I’m sure we looked like a right state. Off we went, on a bus, because we had hardly any money and with our little tourist map in hand, we rocked up to the Viper Rooms, cocky as you like.’

  ‘Did you get in?’ Adam said.

  ‘We might have, if we’d remembered to bring our ID. Over there, you’d don’t get served alcohol without it.’

  ‘Oh, you naive fools.’ Adam said.

  ‘I know. We never thought of bringing them with us. So off we had to walk, disgusted with our bad luck to look so young that ID was needed. Oh to have that problem now. We decided to walk for a bit down Sunset Strip. We hadn’t a clue really, what or where we were going.’

  ‘The innocence of the young.’

  ‘The stupidity you mean!’ Karen laughed. ‘Next thing we knew we heard the whoosh of blades coming behind us. And we were surrounded by these guys on roller blades, with hockey sticks in their arms.’

  ‘What?’ Adam exclaimed. And even though it was a story that had happened to the girls long before he knew them, his heart started to race, worried about what Karen was going to say next.

  ‘They were vigilantes.’

  ‘Roller blading vigilantes?’ Adam asked, looking doubtful.

  ‘Yes. As mad as that sounds, they were out and about to protect the citizens of Los Angeles. They warned us that we had wandered into a rough neighbourhood. Told us to grab a cab and get off the streets. Fast.’

  ‘No!’ Adam exclaimed.

  ‘Yes!’ Karen said. ‘Terrified, we clung to each other, tottering in our heels, which by then were cutting the feet off us, and we hailed the first yellow cab that went by. That’s how we met Sonny. We gave him the name of the hotel we were staying in and off we went.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. All’s well that ends well,’ Adam said.

  ‘Oh, that wasn’t the end of the story. We were in the cab for ages and I was getting a bit worried. We should have been at our hotel by then. And we seemed to be in an area that didn’t look that good. Prostitutes were lined up on all corners of the street, in twos, looking for their next john. Next minute, Sonny, our cab driver pulls up outside this hotel. It was called the same as ours, but most definitely wasn’t the one we were booked into. We told Sonny that, and he turned around to look at us, before saying, “So you girls are not ladies of the night?” ’

  ‘Ladies of the night?’ Adam repeated.

  Karen nodded, giggling. ‘We had strolled into hooker central on Sunset Strip. So he assumed we were hookers too, or, as he politely put it, ladies of the night! The hotel he brought us to was a regular place, renting out rooms by the hour.’

  ‘No way!’ Adam laughed.

  ‘Yep!’ Karen went on to tell him how Sonny was so mortified that he got their story wrong, he brought them on a tour of the city, even found them a really cool bar near their hotel that would serve them, without IDs.

  ‘You know, he refused to charge us a cent.’

  ‘What a gent,’ Adam said.

  ‘He was,’ Karen replied. ‘Only Rachel and I could end up getting mistaken for two hookers.’

  She started to laugh and Adam joined in and then the laughter changed, and Karen was crying so hard, snot was streaming from her nose.

  They sat at the table, chicken Kiev going cold and co
ngealed on their plates.

  ‘It’s pretty shit, isn’t it?’ Adam said.

  ‘Yes, it is, rather.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me that story.’

  ‘I’ve loads more. I’ll help you learn all her stories, I promise you,’ Karen said.

  ‘When does the easier start, do you think?’ Adam asked.

  Karen had no idea.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Anthony Worrall Thompson and the silent witness in the park

  Karen’s house, Didsbury, Manchester

  The house was quiet. It gave Karen the creeps. She ran to the living room and turned on the TV just to have sound fill the deafening silence.

  It had been a long time since Karen was on her own, completely, for a weekend. When she’d left her mother’s house all those years ago, she’d shared with friends, including Rachel at one point.

  Then she’d moved in with David before eventually marrying him. If he or the children weren’t here with her, Ramona usually was. But right now, Ramona was on the Eurostar, whizzing her way towards Paris for a weekend of romance with Jean-Luc. She had packed and repacked her suitcase three times, determined to have just the right capsule wardrobe for her romantic weekend.

  ‘He won’t care what you wear,’ Karen had said to her this morning before she left. ‘It’s what you won’t be wearing that will interest him more.’

  Ramona pretended to look shocked and said, ‘I a good girl. Who says I will show him what’s under clothes?’

  ‘You go enjoy yourself. Stay in bed for the weekend and only get up for croissant and coffee,’ Karen advised. ‘Life is too short, don’t waste it.’

  Ramona’s big brown eyes had filled up. ‘I know. I live life, I promise you.’

  She wondered how David and Robyn were getting on with the children. It hadn’t been a huge success the last time they were all at David’s. Piecing together comments from Josh, she understood that Robyn had struggled a bit.

  And that had cheered her right up. She wasn’t proud of the fact that this pleased her. But it did.

  Things had become complicated. She went from desperately missing David to celebrating his absence at the turn of the hour. And while she may or may not want to have him at home again, the thought of Robyn with her children didn’t sit well with her.