How to Win Back Your Husband. Vivien Hampshire

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      ‘Ha! Toy boy, indeed!’ The old lady winked at him. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

      ‘It’s looking nasty out there,’ he said, switching to a safer topic of conversation as he counted out the few crumpled notes she was paying in to her great-granddaughter’s savings account. Well, you can’t go far wrong with talking about the weather, can you? ‘Could be a storm brewing.’

      The morning passed in much the same way. A steady stream of customers in soggy coats and hats, him counting notes and weighing coins, them remarking on the rain. Just idle chat. By lunchtime, boredom was setting in with a vengeance. His headache was refusing to clear. ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ he said, closing and locking his till and pulling down the blind, the moment the clock hit twelve.

      ‘You all right?’ Sandra whispered. She was giving him one of her looks. A mixture of colleague curiosity and motherly concern. Next to her, Gina, who was just opening her till to cover for him during his break, nodded in sympathy. They all knew at the bank, about Nicci, about his divorce, but it was pretty clear nobody actually knew what to say, so they chose to say nothing. Like he was a hopeless case, or a lost cause. He worried sometimes that Sandra, with her over-large bosom and wobbly marshmallow arms, was about to engulf him in some sort of smothering hug. He could see she was itching to, but so far she seemed to have resisted the urge.

      ‘Fine. Honestly, I’m fine. I just need some air. I’ll be back in plenty of time. I know you need to get off early.’ Sandra had booked the afternoon off to go and watch one of her kids in a school play. He couldn’t remember which one. Which kid, or which play. He should have paid more attention, but asking her again would prove that he hadn’t, so it was probably best to leave it.

      As he stepped out into the rain he could still feel her watching him. Without turning round he knew she would be shaking her head and sighing, the way she always did.

      ***

      The Cosy Kettle was not the greatest coffee shop in the world but it was the nearest, and it was cheaper and friendlier than the big chains. A strong Americano, a sandwich and some time to himself were just what the doctor ordered. He picked up one of the newspapers left lying about for customers to read, and was just shoving his change in his pocket when someone called out to him.

      ‘Oooh, hello, young Mark.’

      Just what he could have done without. Someone who recognised him and was going to want him to talk. Why couldn’t people leave him alone? He turned round, coffee cup in hand, and came face-to-face with Mrs Baker, sitting alone at a small table in the window, clutching a half-eaten scone in one of her stick-like hands and waving across at him with the other. For her, with her beaming wrinkly smile, he would definitely make an exception.

      ‘Mrs Baker! Fancy seeing you in here. And you’re calling me Mark. What happened to Mr Ross?’

      ‘Oh, that’s as may be in the bank, my duck. But now we’re out of there, those rules don’t apply, do they?’

      ‘No, er, I suppose not. Can I get you another one of those? Tea, is it?’ He pointed to her empty cup. ‘Um…Gladys?’

      ‘I won’t say no, seeing as it’s you. Then come and sit down here with me and tell me all about it.’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘Whatever it is that’s troubling you. I haven’t seen a sad face like that since the war started. And look how that turned out. Everything was fine in the end though, wasn’t it? We won that. And we even beat the buggers in the World Cup, didn’t we? So, whatever it is, it’s not worth worrying over it. Or maybe it’s a she?’

      Mark couldn’t help laughing at the way her extraordinary train of thoughts just seemed to tumble willy-nilly out of her mouth. ‘There’s nothing troubling me, Mrs Baker. I mean Gladys!’ He bought her another tea and placed it on the plastic-covered table in front of her, collected the sandwich that had just been delivered from the kitchen, and sat down. ‘And, believe me, there is no she. There is definitely no she. Or not any more, anyway.’

      ‘Well, there should be. A good-looking young man like you. They must be queuing up at your door. I know I would be, if I was twenty years younger!’ She winked and laid a hand on his wrist. ‘Well, more like fifty, if I’m honest, but a girl can dream…’

      He had come in wanting nothing more than to be left alone, but there was something quite infectious about the old lady’s twinkling eyes and girlish giggle. She was surprisingly good company, and much more interesting than anything he might have found in the newspaper he had quickly abandoned beside him.

      Before he knew what was happening he was telling her all about growing up in a tower block with lifts constantly out of action, and his dad’s cigarette smoke hanging over them all and staining the ceilings yellow, how his lungs had been saved by his yearning for the outdoor life and his lifelong love of football. And she was reminiscing about her own childhood in the East End before and during the war – by all accounts an idyllically happy one, despite the bombs and the rubble and the lack of decent food – and about her grandchildren, all eight of them, and her new great-grandchild, Penelope. Time flew by and his mind didn’t stray in a Nicci direction, not even once.

      By the time he left, with an unexpected smile on his face, it was already five past one and he had to run all the way back. Sandra was just pulling the blind down over her till. She made a point of looking closely at her watch as he burst back in through the doors, then hurriedly pulled on her mac and grabbed her bag.

      ‘Enjoy the play,’ Mark called after her, but she had already gone.

      ***

      It was Wednesday already and, although Nicci kept insisting she wasn’t interested, Jilly kept insisting that she’d never know until she tried, so they were looking at evening classes. Jilly had spread the thick glossy brochure out on her kitchen table and used their coffee mugs to pin it down at the corners. ‘There must be something here…’ she said.

      ‘But most of them have already started. Weeks ago. Look, the term dates are like school, starting in September. We’re well into November already. If we joined something now, we’d never catch up.’

      ‘Oh, Nic, don’t be such a defeatist. That might matter if we were going to do a GCSE or something, but I wasn’t really thinking educational. We only want one of the fun courses, don’t we? Turn up, enjoy, go home again. No homework or exams or anything like that. What about line dancing? Or yoga? Yes, let’s try some yoga. All you have to do is lie on the floor and copy what the teacher’s doing up at the front. We could manage that, surely? I bet it would be good for all that stress of yours too.’

      ‘I am not stressed!’

      ‘You could’ve fooled me. You’ve got tension written all over you. Your muscles must be as tight as violin strings. I could probably play a tune on them, if I actually knew how to play a violin. Now, there’s a thought…’

      ‘No. I do not want to learn to play the violin, or the piano, or a pair of bloody castanets for that matter.’

      ‘Oh, hello, Nicola.’ Jilly’s husband Richard thumped into the kitchen through the back door, clattered his briefcase down on the tiled floor and pulled off his tie, then bent to give Jilly a kiss on the top of her head. ‘God, I’m bushed.’ He picked up Jilly’s coffee mug, peered inside, muttered something about too much milk, and drained it dry. And, with no mug to hold it down, the open СКАЧАТЬ