Authors: Anouska Knight
I watched James lean in towards Phil, closer than was advisable. She’d been waiting for a chance to let rip but she was listening to him, albeit reluctantly.
‘Amy?’ Adrian called.
Rohan Bywater’s eyes narrowed under darker serious brows. Adrian had adopted a more serious expression too.
‘Sorry?’
‘Monday,’ Adrian repeated. ‘You’ll be starting at the mill on Monday.’ I nodded.
‘It’s good of you to accommodate me so quickly,’ Bywater said, glancing out towards James and Phil. ‘I don’t want to take up any more of Miss Alwood’s time now, though, I’m sure she has other challenges to deal with before we get started next week.’ A knot began to form in my stomach. Rohan Bywater set me on edge, but I still owed him a grovelling apology. Something else to dread on an ever-growing list.
‘She is a busy girl,’ Adrian agreed. ‘We can finish up here, Amy. You get on if you wish.’ Bywater got up from his chair to shake my hand before I left. I didn’t look at him at all now. I left the boardroom to the sound of Adrian asking whether or not Bywater was a rugby man, while I traded one anxiety for another.
*
‘What’s going on?’ I asked James, acutely aware of two things. The first, he had promised to give me space at work, and the second, Sadie was watching the show.
‘Anna just called. She wants to make an appointment to come over, to the house.’
‘What did you say?’ I yelped. ‘We can’t see her yet!’ Social workers were like bloodhounds. She’d know. She’d smell it on us – relationship failure.
‘I told her that we’re away until next week, to buy us some time. I didn’t know what to say, Ame, so she’s suggested
calling us the week after. I thought she might ring your phone too so I just wanted to make sure we had our stories straight before you dropped us in it.’ Phil huffed accusingly. James turned his back to her, shutting her out. I could feel myself getting more flustered at the thought of Anna just turning up. ‘We need to sort ourselves out, Ame,’ he warned, ‘or we’re gonna be stuffed.’
I didn’t mean to, but the sensation was suddenly there, choking me.
‘Amy, please. Don’t get upset,’ James said, closing in on me.
‘That’s
your
sodding fault,’ Phil snapped at him. I turned away from them, mortified that this might happen here.
Don’t you dare
, I warned myself, grappling to keep my cool.
‘I’m fine, James. Please,’ I snipped, pinching the tension over my nose. ‘I just need to get back to work.’ Because work was going to be just bloody marvellous from Monday onwards.
Keeping my back to the office, to James and Sadie and the rest of them, I stood there like the complete loser I felt, considering all the ways in which my life had so abruptly become this big, ugly catalogue of disasters. I’d thought that I could just press on, one awkwardness at a time, until all the pieces fit again, but I couldn’t even make a day without something falling apart in my hands.
If I’d been under any illusion that I could somehow
dupe the rest of the world around me – my boss, my mother, the social worker – into thinking that everything was just hunky dory, it all evaporated into thin air when I saw Rohan Bywater watching me through the boardroom blinds.
‘T
HIS IS SUCH
a bad idea,’ I groaned, hiding behind my sunglasses as Phil cruised down the lane towards Briddleton Mill.
‘Be cool, Ame. This has got to be better than sharing the office with Glitter Knickers and The Snake.’
‘Don’t call him that, Phil. He’s trying.’ I should’ve just let it go. Of all the names she’d bestowed upon James over the last fortnight, The Snake sounded like a term of endearment.
Phil went to say something then changed her mind. She tried again. ‘How are you feeling about playing happy families next week?’ she asked. ‘I thought you said these social workers could sniff out a nervous smoker if the wind’s in the right direction?’
‘They can,’ I said, watching the hedgerows zip past us. ‘We’ll just have to get through it without her picking up on any tension.’ Maybe taking up smoking would help.
Phil eyed our surroundings. ‘You do know, Ame, you’re like the worst liar I’ve ever met, right? You start messing with your earrings, then your neck gets redder—’
‘Thanks, Phil! I won’t be on my own. I’ll let James do the talking.’ Luckily for us, James wasn’t too bad at lying, by all accounts.
‘More’s the pity,’ she muttered, looking out of her window. I could hear the cogs in Phil’s head turning over. ‘You know, there are worse things than being on your own, Ame. You shouldn’t be scared of it. Once you’ve tasted the heady flavours of freedom again, you’ll like them. I know you will.’
‘I never said that I was leaving him, Phil.’
‘No, you didn’t. But you will. He’s not right for you, Ame. Honestly, I’m not sure that he ever was.’
I wasn’t getting into this. The longest relationship Phil had ever had was with her favourite shade of lipstick. I didn’t respond, but Phil carried on undeterred.
‘First, you’ll fall apart. That’s a given,’ she said, tilting her head to me. ‘Then you’ll think that the world is over because you’re like your mum, and you can’t realise all the plans you made with James in mind. Then you’ll come round to the idea that, actually, you used to be pretty kick-ass –
no offence
– the kind of girl who doesn’t need to pin all her dreams on another human being, because you’re more than capable of going out there and grabbing them by the balls yourself.’
I looked at her, incredulous that she could be so hard-faced.
‘What?’ she whimpered.
I loved her bones, every last acerbic, un-pc one of them,
but I was not taking relationship advice from Philippa Penrose. We were about as different as we could be on that score. Phil would say that she was independent, but actually she just liked it too much out there, in the game. Phil didn’t lust after motherhood or marriage and there was a freedom for her in that, which, damn it, I envied. I used to think that as soon as the right guy, with the right body and the right salary, came along, Phil was as good as cooked, but she was showing no signs of slowing down and I wasn’t sure that there was a man on the planet who could reel her in now.
‘You’ll get back on your feet,’ she continued, ‘get yourself your own car. Then you’ll start looking at finding a place of your own, your own furniture instead of all that artsy glass shit The Snake likes, and then you’ll be all set. You know what comes after your own place, right?’ she asked, feeding the wheel through her hands as she made the left onto the lane.
‘Gin? Cats? Pot Noodles for one?’ I asked huffily.
Phil’s mobile began buzzing from the back seat. She ignored it. ‘Shagging. That’s what comes next, Ame. Good, raw, noisy shagging that gets your heart pumping and your toes curling.’
I was beginning to will away this car journey. Arriving at the mill was actually starting to look like the rosier option.
‘Probably
the
last thing on my mind right now, Phil.’ James had said that it had been the last thing on my
mind for months. Probably more months than I’d realised. There was a time we couldn’t leave each other alone long enough to eat regularly.
‘Then you need to get back in the saddle, hon. Plenty more fish, and all that.’
Nope, I was wrong. Sex wasn’t the last thing on my mind. The prospect of ever sitting at a bar making small talk with a stranger was the last thing on my mind. ‘And how does that go, Phil? Meeting new
fish
. Remind me.’
Phil glanced over at me suspiciously. ‘Drinks, conversation …
fun
.’ She said
fun
as if she was teaching me how to pronounce a foreign word.
‘Fun,’ I mimicked. ‘Sorry, but I’m out of practice.’
‘It’s just dating, Ame. It hasn’t changed much since the last time you did it. Think of it as riding a bike. You meet a guy, have a few drinks, tell him a bit about yourself …’
‘Ha! Oh yes, Phil … I can just imagine how much fun that would be.
Hi, my name’s Amy, I’m twenty-nine, I’m a Pisces and five years ago I had a hysterectomy. Were you planning on ever having children of your own? Mine’s a voddy and diet coke
.’
Phil wriggled back into her shoulders a little. ‘Wow. It really has been a while since you last rode that bike.’
‘The last time I rode
that bike
, Phil, it had more working parts.’
Her eyebrows rose above the rim of her glasses. ‘Maybe forget the conversation, just keep it to drinks and fun,’ she said sarcastically.
‘And what would be the point of that, Phil? It would have to come up at some stage.’
‘On a first date?’ she questioned. ‘Jeez, couldn’t you just aim for the usual tonsil tennis and awkward dancing?’
‘It’s false advertising, Phil! I think a guy has a right to know
before
he starts shelling out for drinks that his
bun
will never rise in my
oven!
I mean, it’s kind of a big deal when you’re shopping for a sodding life partner.’
My voice was climbing, but the set of Phil’s lips instantly made me regret opening mine.
‘Not every bloke you meet is going to want kids, Ame,’ she said calmly.
‘I want kids, Phil! I want them!
Okay
? And at some point in the next couple of weeks,
The Snake
and I are going to be told how, and maybe even when, that’s going to happen! And unless I catch him and Sadie at it in the boardroom again, I don’t want to hear about the perks of singledom, or dating or sodding
bikes
, all right?’
I didn’t look at what she was doing with her lips now. Welding them shut, hopefully. The car fell into silence for a few minutes until a familiar ringtone cut through the awkwardness between us.
‘Your phone’s ringing again,’ I huffed, looking out to where the hedgerows grew steadily less kempt as the lane became the mill’s private track.
‘Ugh, it’ll be Adrian again. I told him I was detouring to the doc’s. He’ll be wondering how long
women’s problems
take to sort out, the impatient git.’
Light-years, was the answer to that one.
‘You didn’t have to run me in, Phil,’ I said, trying to melt some of the ice in my voice.
‘Are you kidding?’ She smiled. ‘I want another look at that body. I’ve had my fingers crossed all morning Hotbuns isn’t dressed when we arrive.’
Hotbuns?
Nicknames were the highest accolade Phil bestowed upon any man.
Rohan Bywater’s name came crashing into my mind like a raging bull. I looked for a distraction in the scenery whipping past but my brain was suddenly hijacked with unpleasant thoughts of seeing him again, the sickening reminder of the apology I owed him already sending me withering lower into my seat. I don’t know why I glanced at Phil then, she wasn’t exactly the jollying type. I thought about pleading with her to make an emergency stop while I dreamt up a brilliant excuse not to show, but there was a new energy about her – something excitable and ever-so-slightly sadistic – betrayed by the corner of her mouth and the smile it held there. Phil had ring-side seats and couldn’t wait for the show to start. I looked back outside and immediately wanted to sink lower still. We were here.
The morning sun blazed into the clearing ahead, sending the far row of birches into a flickering wall of lime-green leaves. The sweeping barrier of green seemed to be defending the mill from something – the rest of the world, maybe. Despite my mood, I realised again that the
photos didn’t do the setting justice. Adrian was right, this place was going to look impressive in the company portfolio.
Phil pulled into a spot next to the VW vans. ‘Right then. Let’s go find Handsome.’ She grinned. Reluctantly, I emerged from the passenger side. Phil slammed her door closed and pulled her Anna Wintour sunglasses down her nose. ‘Damn, he’s got the bod and the house. If he’s a lucky boy, he might get to see what I’ve got,’ she purred, before gazing across the water to the ramshackle hut on the bank of the millpond. Two men were balanced precariously on its roof, hammering. The darker of the two looked over at us, exchanged words with his shirtless friend and resumed hammering.
Phil smiled like a predator across the water. ‘Heart and toes, honey, heart and toes.’
I took a deep breath and collected my laptop and bag from the back of Phil’s car.
‘Come on,’ I huffed softly. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
I
LOOKED RELUCTANTLY
across the millpond towards the long silvered shed and remembered seeing it marked
Boathouse
on the plans. The light glittered on the water beside it, playfully disappearing and reappearing on the surface like one of the whack-a-mole games we used to play in the arcade at Jackson’s Park.
Phil was practically skipping her way towards the mill. She was right – technically Rohan Bywater was keeping me out of the office, which was no small mercy. Trouble was, Rohan Bywater wasn’t your average client. I’d tasted first hand his idea of funny and could only imagine what lay in store while I was working here. Honestly, the thought of having to deal with another person in my day-to-day who wasn’t all they seemed was exhausting. I didn’t need it. What I did need, on the other hand, was my job. Like it or not, Bywater had saved my skin with Adrian when anyone else would’ve had my ass.
Phil was almost at the water, keen to sniff out our host. The little pulses of nervousness in my diaphragm were beginning to group together.
It’s only short-term, Ame
. I
would keep my head down, get on with it –
not
obsess over the unfathomable reasons Rohan Bywater had come up with to commission me in the first place. I let my lungs fill with the cleansing freshness of waterside air and realised with startling clarity what it was that most troubled me about Rohan Bywater. He was unpredictable.
Unpredictable, uncontrolled, unplanned – these were not my favourite words.
Phil led us eagerly out onto the timber gangway overshooting the water. I counted twelve timber posts as I passed them, each crowned with its own brushed-steel lantern, brand new and modern, chosen by the previous owners before fate had struck and led them on another path away from this beautiful place.
‘Shit,’ Phil hissed. ‘I’ve only just bought these!’ she protested, twisting free her heel from where it had sandwiched itself between two of the deck timbers. I carried on, carefully picking my way to the end of the run without succumbing to the same fate. Once we’d made it to the less perilous gravelled ground on the other side of the mill, I could see that the half-naked man, the shaggy spectator, had already jumped down from the shed roof and was sashaying towards us. He was wearing some kind of cargo trousers and a bulging utility bet, which jostled awkwardly as he walked. Phil lifted her sunglasses just enough to share a disturbed look with me.
‘Is that circa ‘eighty-one headwear I spy?’ she murmured, hiding behind her glasses again. The plume
of mousy-brown fuzz emanating from either side of the shaggy one’s red headband did have a touch of the John McEnroes about it, while his pointy facial hair was more musketeer than sporting hero.
‘Ladies.’ The shaggy one smiled lazily. ‘I’m Carter. Welcome.’
‘Carter?’ I smiled politely. Carter nodded absently. Satisfied that acquaintances had been sufficiently met, he immediately set to giving Phil a brazen top-to-toe body-scan. Horrified that he would even think he had a shot at it, Phil’s face seemed to fold in on itself, her features contorting like a bad piece of origami you’d inevitably give up on because you hadn’t followed the instructions properly.
‘Down this way, are we?’ I asked, heading off an unpleasant incident.
Phil could spring like a spitting cobra, and it was unlikely Carter would be much of a match for her, even with the athletic prowess his headband might’ve projected back in ‘81. The three of us began walking towards the boathouse. Bywater was making his way awkwardly down off the roof of a second, lower shed I could now see nestled against the main part of the structure. He was directly in my eye-line as we followed the path of balding grass towards him. It felt invasive to watch him reposition himself carefully, to do with a series of calculated motions that which Carter had probably achieved with just one, foolhardy lunge. ‘Is this a boathouse?’ I
asked Carter, trying to distract myself from Bywater’s efforts.
Carter scratched at the thin wisps of hair on his honed chest. His was the first tidy body I’d ever seen that Phil had somehow resisted the urge to perv upon. ‘Er, yeah. Was. Workshop now. Well, will be when Ro clears all his stuff into the big house,’ he said, falling into line at Phil’s right side. Phil’s shoulders had come in together a little, in that stance old ladies assume when they suspect their handbag’s about to be snatched.
Bywater dusted off his hands on work-stained jeans as he steadily walked towards us. I fidgeted with the handle of my laptop-case. In preparation for this morning, I’d run through every wisecrack I could think of on the topic of my relationship with James, and my ineptitude with emails, and my flighty departure from Bywater and his bike ramps last week. Trying to somehow anticipate the trajectories of his jokes before he could roll them out and sting me with them. As we approached each other, I braced myself.
‘Morning,’ he said, rubbing the back of his wrist across his forehead. ‘Glad you could make it.’ I waited for the punchline, but it didn’t come. No grin. Just the perfectly pleasant whisper of a smile.
Phil stepped forward, reaching out a long, manicured hand. ‘Hello, again,’ she purred, ‘Philippa Penrose. I don’t think we were properly introduced, in the flesh.’ Bywater took her hand in his much larger, tanned grasp. Blue check suited the olive-skinned.
‘Rohan.’ He smiled. ‘And you’ve obviously met Isaac Carter here.’
Carter sat his hands on his hips, showcasing the form that went with the name. ‘What a beautiful name, Philippa,’ Carter added, sweeping a rogue hair from his face. He unclipped a pocket on his belt, retrieved a liquorice stick and slipped it into his mouth. Already I found myself liking him.
I chewed my lip, biting down on a smile, glad that it was Phil, and not me, who would be the first subject of an awkward exchange today. The thought made me glance at Bywater. His eyes met mine, holding me there for a moment before I planted my sights safely on the cycle tracks near my shoes. ‘Liquorice, Philippa?’ Carter tried innocently.
‘No,’ Phil said bluntly, her lips settling into a hard line.
‘Shall we go up to the mill?’ Bywater asked, fighting his own smile. ‘I’ve set up somewhere for you to put your things, make a drink,’ he said, looking to me again. ‘Just for while you’re … doing your thing.’
I regarded him uncertainly. This was the fourth time I’d met with him, and on each occasion he’d thrown me. This time, hospitality seemed to be his chosen means.
‘That’s very kind of you, Rohan.’ Phil smiled sweetly. Someone’s phone began buzzing again. Phil turned to retrieve it from the bag slung over her shoulder, startling Carter who had been standing overly close to her. ‘Were you just
sniffing
me?’ she accused.
Carter slunk back a step like a reprimanded puppy. ‘Sorry,’ he said, waving the last inches of his liquorice. ‘You just … smell nice.’
‘Don’t,’ she said sharply, looking to her phone.
Bywater had given up trying not to smile. ‘Carter, why don’t you go and see if you can get those last few shingles on? I ran out of nails when you took the belt.’
Phil watched Carter trudge back towards the workshop before turning bee-like eyes back to me.
‘I’ve gotta get back. Adrian’s being an arse. He wants me over at the retail park, snagging. I told him to send one of the juniors but …’ She trailed off, losing interest in her own conversation. ‘You’re good, right?’ she said with a smile.
My brain was screaming,
No, Phil! I’m not! I am TOTALLY out of my comfort zone with this guy!
‘Yep. Course. Thanks for the ride.’
‘Maybe Rohan could drop you home when you’re finished? You’re only a quick drive away. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind seeing my very good friend home safely?’ she purred, reaching to shake his hand again. I didn’t need to see Phil’s eyes to know the delight they held at a second chance to touch him.
‘That’s okay,’ I blurted, considering how best to put the next bit. ‘I’ll get my mum to pick me up …’ My voice trailed off.
Groan
.
I knew the exasperation shielded by Phil’s glasses, but
she brightened with the opportunity to give Bywater a last departing smile. She threw a goodbye hand into the air and began sauntering back along the pond towards the mill.
Resigned to being left here, stranded, I turned to face my host. A small bump was beginning to form on the inside of my lip, punishment for nipping at it with anxious teeth.
‘Coffee?’ Rohan Bywater asked. He still hadn’t been anything but pleasant. That didn’t change the fact that I was all alone with him again, with only pleasantries to cling to.
‘Coffee would be great. Thanks.’
‘Tea for me,’ Carter called, shimmying back up onto the boathouse roof.
Bywater nodded towards the workshop. ‘I’ll make the drinks here, then we can go on up to the mill.’
He led me through a rickety timber doorway into a surprisingly well-ordered room, an operating theatre for bikes where walls hung with cycle parts and power tools and other things I couldn’t identify.
I ambled in, setting my things down on the corner of the workbench there, the only corner not dominated by piles of papers – sketches and scribbled annotation. On top of one of the piles, like some bizarre comedy paperweight, was a foot.
I tried not to stare, but it reminded me of those pretend Prince Charles ears you used to be able to buy from joke
shops. Flesh-coloured plastic things, hollowed out that they could sit over what you already had. I let Bywater distract my eyes, following him all the way to the small kitchenette at the far end of the boathouse. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he called, clanking spoons in cups. I concentrated on looking anywhere but at the foot.
A sofa bed sat outstretched down near where Bywater was fixing the drinks. This place was probably most men’s dream hideaway, somewhere to play and tinker then kick back with a beer afterwards. James had never been much of a do-it-yourselfer. He paid for everything that was fix-able. Not that everything was. Everything else, he simply replaced.
I pushed James from my head, and wondered where the woman in this picture was. Bywater probably was every bit as attractive as Phil had so vocally pointed out. Some might even say that he was funny, too – when you weren’t the target of his humour. ‘How do you take it?’ he called. ‘Or I have chamomile, if you prefer tea?’
‘Chamomile?’ I smiled, the very word sat juxtaposed with all the metal and mechanics around us.
‘For Carter,’ he laughed, ‘he’s the only one who drinks girls’ drinks around here.’ Carter would have to move onto something stronger if he was going to start tussling with Phil. Protein shakes at least.
‘Coffee’s great, no sugar thanks.’
Bywater finished the drinks and carried them over to the workbench. ‘The milk’s full fat, is that okay? Most
girls I know like the watery stuff,’ he said, passing me mine.
‘Full fat’s fine, thanks.’ James would’ve had a heart attack at me drinking anything full fat.
‘Let me just give this to Cart.’
I smiled gingerly as he ducked back out of the doorway and disappeared around the boathouse wall. Smiles and thank-yous might not be a solid start, but they were a start. I watched the light on the water again and blew the hot aroma from my cup. With the coast clear, my eyes found their way straight back to that foot sitting conspicuously on the workbench. Looking at it felt similar to the time I’d accidentally opened our neighbour’s Ann Summers parcel – a privacy breached, never to be reinstated again.
Overhead, the hammering had stopped while Bywater and Carter discussed something in muffled voices. I turned and surveyed the rest of my surroundings. Behind me were more drawings outlining some sort of brace-like contraption alongside what looked to be two or three incomplete prototypes with strapping and Velcro and other plastic appendages. I didn’t have Bywater down as a fashion designer, so I reckoned them to be like everything else in here, bike-related.
Without straying too far from where Bywater had left me, I followed the drawings along the wall to a handful of pictures hung haphazardly there and leant in over the worktop for closer inspection. Most of the photos showed BMX bikers mid-air over ramps, much the same
as Bywater had set up in the field here. But these pictures hadn’t been taken at the mill. The ramps were higher, with crowds of spectators and the bright blare of relentless advertising on helmets and banners. I scanned through a second collection of photos, of Rohan and Carter and other men, sat jubilantly on their bikes with equally enthusiastic women hanging from their necks. Another showed Bywater and a pretty blonde – years earlier I could tell by the subtle differences in a person’s face. The blonde featured in three more pictures, larking around with Carter, another sat on Rohan’s shoulders on some sun-drenched desert rock, and then the last, holding a birthday cake for Rohan over his hospital bed. In all four photos she was pretty, but seemed less hopeful in this last picture, an expression he shared.
‘Shall we go up to the mill?’
The sound made me jump. I spun to face it, knocking a hot splash of my drink over my fingers. Under me, a streak of coffee had spattered over his work.
We both looked at the pools of brown liquid seeping into the drawing. ‘I can’t believe I’ve just done that,’ I blurted. Bywater watched me set down the offending mug and fish a tissue from my pocket so I could carefully begin dabbing the trail of brown droplets.
‘It’s okay, don’t worry about it, they’ll be messed up more than that before the day’s out,’ he tried, his voice smooth and steady. I continued to fuss, following the trail across the white papers until my tissue found its way to a
row of little brown toes. I’d got them with the coffee too, or course. Unsure of the etiquette involved in dry-wiping a person’s false foot, I delicately dabbed my tissue over the wet bits. Bywater watched, curiously. All noticeable spills suitably soaked up, I stuffed the soggy tissue back into my pocket, ignoring the burn in my cheeks as Bywater’s smile broadened. I looked everywhere except at him, settling instead on making that small bump on my inner lip just a little more pronounced.