It was Clara Maxwell at her worst and she knew it but how could she explain to Henry and these moving men that she had cried as she packed every box. Cried for her friendship with Judy and the loss of Giles and their dreams. Most of all she had cried with the shame of being the one they probably laughed at when they were in bed together rubbing feet.
Clara the loser, who sent her boyfriend to a golf trip with a container of cottage pie. God, she was so stupid, she thought now as she watched the men try and get her bed frame upstairs.
They contorted themselves like they were in Cirque du Soleil but they simply couldn’t get the sleigh bed up the tiny staircase.
‘Leave it outside,’ said Clara, aware this was costing her by the hour. ‘It won’t fit in the living room.’
She loved that bed so much. She had bought it at an antique auction, and the intricate wood embellishment made her happy, even though Giles said it was cumbersome.
His use of the word had made her angry. He was cumbersome, she thought unkindly, with his portly stomach and ladylike hips, which she knew he hated. She had never mentioned his womanly shape but now, filled with bitter thoughts, she wished she had said something to him.
The men took the mattress upstairs. Clara followed them and saw them throw it onto the floor and dust rose up like a fog descending.
‘The fog of doom,’ she said to herself.
‘All okay?’ asked Henry from behind her.
‘Besides me sleeping in a room that looks like I’m in workhouse in a Charles Dickens novel, it’s peachy,’ she said, trying to keep the quiver from her voice.
Since the discovery of the betrayal she had felt as though the world was off centre. Now she felt as though it was spinning into an abyss and she would soon meet a certain death.
‘I think I’m going to faint,’ she said but then she realised she had never fainted before, so she wasn’t sure if this was what it felt like but whatever it was, it made the room spin.
She was suddenly in Henry’s arms and he laid her down on the mattress.
‘It’s okay, you’re okay,’ he said.
‘Did I faint?’ she asked.
‘I think you had an NFE,’ he said with a smile, kneeling on the floor next to her.
‘Oh my God, what is that?’ Was she sick?
‘A near-fainting experience,’ said Henry.
Clara closed her eyes. ‘I am a pathetic woman. I’m Miss Havisham, living in my decrepit home, with dust and cobwebs as my aesthetic.’
Henry laughed. ‘No, you’re tired, you probably haven’t eaten and you need some breathing space, preferably without the dust.’
Clara sat up on the mattress, aware she was being comforted by a virtual stranger on his knees at her bedside. Her life was ridiculous.
Henry looked at her closely as he spoke, as though instructing a child. ‘Go into the village. There’s a nice little bakery there. Get some food and take a moment and I will sort the movers, okay?’
She nodded, grateful for someone else to have taken charge for a moment.
‘Okay, I will. If you don’t mind?’
Henry shook his head. ‘It’s fine, I promise.’
*
Clara drove into town to buy some supplies and try and take stock of her situation. Thankfully there was power and water at the cottage but that was it and she needed to clean the place. Henry was at the cottage with Pansy, working out his quote for the roof, and she had asked him to write a list of what else he thought needed to be done if the place was his.
She knew she should be excited but she felt sick at the thought of what was to come.
There was a small shop with overpriced cleaning items, which she begrudgingly bought as she heard her stomach rumble. She needed something to eat and she saw the drab bakery sign above a shop across the road.
Refusing to pay inflated prices at the shop run by a woman with a sour face, she put the cleaning supplies into the car and walked up to the bakery.
A bell over the door rang, signalling her arrival, and an older woman came to the counter and smiled. ‘Hello, dear, welcome to the Merryknowe Bakery and Tearooms. How can I help you? Would you like a cup of tea and something to eat?’
Clara looked around at the tearoom, which was empty except for an old woman who was looking at her like she had done something terrible and was about to be found out.
She had done something terrible. She’d bought that stupid cottage. Perhaps she would sit down and eat, as she felt like she could murder a cup of tea.
‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ she said, matching the woman’s formality. The woman had on a lot of makeup and had her blonde hair carefully set as though she had just been at the hairdresser. Her skin was brown – fake tanned brown – and she had rings on nearly every finger, and a white and silver knitted top with ropes of gold chains around her neck.
‘Rachel, come and see to this young lady and give her the best table,’ the woman called out into a doorway, presumably where the kitchen was.
‘That’s fine, I’ll take any table,’ said Clara.
A mousy girl came out of the back of the shop. She was the antithesis of the woman at the counter. Pale, in a dull dress and laced-up shoes and no makeup at all – but what made Clara gasp was the yellowing bruise on her face.
‘Hello, welcome to the Merryknowe Tearooms,’ said the young girl, then walked Clara to the corner table by the window.
‘This is my daughter Rachel – she will take care of you. I have to go to see Mrs Crawford at the post office and general store.’
Mrs Crawford must be the sour-faced woman who had just sold her an overpriced dustpan and brush.
The woman left as
