7

  Her heart sank.

  No, she didn’t want the truth.

  What, that he didn’t love her; that he’d probably never loved her?

  Of course she didn’t want to hear that.

  The man was a fool.

  She looked at him, imploringly.

  It was an expression he would, undoubtedly, recognise. She’d traditionally used it on him whenever she intended to scoff the last chocolate bar or biscuit in the house and she wanted him to somehow make it his fault that she had no confectionery-related willpower.

  ‘I know you never loved me. That’s obvious’.

  ‘Anthea, if I hadn’t loved you, do you really think I’d have divorced you? I mean, if I’d hated you that much, don’t you think I’d have been desperate to stay married to you, just so I could really, really make you miserable?!’

  Anthea thought about that.

  Perhaps she was coming down with something, because his words actually made perfect sense.

  For once.

  He’d given her what she thought she’d wanted. He’d let his own father represent her and soundly beat him. She’d taken the house and most of his future earnings. It’d been a terribly uneven share of the spoils, despite her protestations.

  Michael had gone for the filial jugular almost completely independently.

  She intensely disliked that man.

  So did Humphrey.

  That was nice, in a way: it was so rare that they’d ever agreed on anything.

  His father had completely ruined her life and – she’d assumed – he’d done an even more thorough job of destroying Humphrey’s.

  Yet, her her ex-husband looked happier than she’d seen him in a long time.

  Drugs, could he have been on drugs?

  Or was it even worse than that: was he really just happy to have finally escaped her?

  She would’ve believed that quite easily.

  But what was he doing there then, if that was the case?

  She couldn’t even ask him any of those questions. Not without drawing attention to the dreadful way she’d treated him.

  Not just her though.

  That sod Michael, too.

  8

  ‘Have you seen your dad recently?’

  Humphrey shook his head.

  The nomenclature was all wrong.

  Michael had never – ever – behaved as a ‘dad’ and he was utterly undeserving of that title.

  In fact, he could remember being the victim of one of Michael’s most severe bare arse beltings because of that very subject.

  No, not a victim. That belittled his own contribution to things.

  A participant: that was a much better word.

  The reason for the initial confrontation had been absurd.

  Humphrey had called his father ‘sir’.

  That was usually enough to annoy him on a very minor level but – on that particular day – there’d been some kind of traffic jam between his chambers and his driveway and Michael had been looking to take his frustrations out on somebody.

  It ought to have been somebody down at the clubhouse really, because that was where he’d been planning on going.

  Until Humphrey had called him ‘sir’.

  He’d only just managed to make his father hear it too, before the front door slammed.

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  That really was a bit of luck.

  The apple tree had looked nice through the window of the study, he remembered that very clearly. Concentrating on it always seemed to help to distract him from the incredible pain of having a leather belt connecting with his backside.

  Although, that particular leathering had been in no way inevitable.

  Right up until the moment when the first blow had landed, Humphrey could have called a halt to the entire episode.

  All he had to do was use the word ‘dad’.

  And there’d been still further opportunities to stop proceedings after that because – after each stroke of that belt – Michael had said to him, in steadily increasing volume:

  ‘Call me “Dad” and I’ll stop’.

  And yet, every time, Humphrey had refused.

  Lord only knew why, because the pain had been indescribable.

  He’d been nearly deafened by his father’s shrieking too.

  This – mutually abusive – stalemate had continued, until his father had grown too hoarse to carry on.

  Whereupon he had stormed from the house and headed – somewhat belatedly, to the clubhouse.

  Humphrey had won, there was no question about that. The irony of the entire situation had been totally lost on his father, he was fairly certain of that too.

  The man was as far removed from being a ‘dad’ as it was surely possible to be.

  Anthea didn’t even know the half of it.

  ‘No. No, I haven’t seen my “dad” recently.’

  That wasn’t a lie, not according to the phraseology of the original enquiry.

  It had completely stopped the current conversation though, which was unfortunate.

  9

  So, he wasn’t going to help her get on to the subject of the divorce then?

  Yes, that was typical.

  She desperately wanted to know if he was all right and how he was coping. That flat he was living in was horrendous, she happened to know that for a fact.

  She wanted to know much more though.

  Like whether he missed her.

  Sandra had told her he probably didn’t.

  In fact she’d said practically nothing else on their way back from confronting Humphrey, earlier on.

  Bloody Sandra, she of the perfect bloody husband and the perfect bloody lifestyle.

  ‘What are you doing here, Humphrey, what did you want?’

  ‘The same reason you came to see me I should think. I wanted to see if you were all right.’

  ‘Whether I am – or not – is none or your business. Not any more.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit more than that, I suppose. It’s my vanity, really. I suppose I wanted to know if you were missing me.’

  Good God, the barefaced cheek of him.

  Her, miss him?!

  ‘You must be sodding joking!’

  Damn it. That had been far too quick.

  Now he’d think she actually was missing him!

  Which she wasn’t, but that’s what he would think.

  Because he wasn’t the brightest, it had to be said.

  Why was he flicking through her Jeffrey Archers?

  He wasn’t thinking of buying one of them, was he?

  Christ, he really wasn’t the brightest.

  ‘Are you going to put this place back the way it was then? The way it was before I completely ruined your life, I mean.’

  That had been said in a ridiculously casual and cheerful way.

  Anthea could only marvel at his composure.

  Not to mention his bravery.

  She’d been aiming for something calm and collected like that herself; something that left no doubt that all feeling had died and that their relationship was thoroughly over.

  Typically though, she was so useless that she couldn’t even do that properly.

  No wonder he had divorced her.

  10

  He had definitely not been saying she was fat, no: he’d reassured her of that.

  Seventeen times, at the last count.

  And no, he definitely wasn’t married.

  No: no girlfriend either.

  Boyfriend?

  Did that enquiry have anything to do with the pink sling backs he had on his feet, perchance?

  They were very comfortable shoes, actually.

  Women’s shoes?

  Well, technically maybe. But if they looked good and made him feel good, then why not?

  She – presumably – had similar motives for wearing those great big Dr. Martens she had on her feet?

  No, he was most definitely not having a go at her, no.

  No, not at all.

  Quite the reverse actually; she looked very ‘Bananarama’.

  Very ‘Siobhan Fahey’.

  And goodness wasn’t it warm in there?

  11

  Reluctantly, she had offered him a cup of tea.

  They sat – in the deserted shop – amongst the ancient stock and the hopelessly dusty old shelves. Old stock on old shelves: that was a pathetically sad description of her own existence.

  Up to that point.

  Happily, one shelf wasn’t quite as dusty as the others, and that was the one which had, tentatively, just been vacated by its – almost permanent – resident since puberty, Anthea Mumble herself.

  Or, at least, she sincerely hoped it had been vacated.

  Not for ever, nothing like that; she wasn’t expecting miracles.

  But if she couldn’t convince a man like Humphrey to at least take her home and see how she looked against his wallpaper – even if he did subsequently bring her back and ask for a refund – then there really seemed to be no hope left for her whatsoever.

  She played that comment back – once – felt suitably ashamed of herself, and then condemned the entire thing to a padlocked cell in her memory.

  She really was pathetic.

  But he actually did seem to be interested in her, which made him even more pathetic than she was. She certainly wasn’t desperate. And she would hopefully never be desperate enough to want a relationship with anyone desperate enough to be reduced to wanting her.

  That seemed to very much settle things. She’d just have to get him out of there… which was going to be an awful lot easier said than done.

  She tried to avoid Humphrey’s eyes as she watched him drink his cup of tea.

  That had turned out to be a far from sensible plan, given that it had led her to focus on his hands instead.

  With no permission to do so – whatsoever – her mind began an intensive ‘Question and Answer’ session with various parts of her body, trying to establish a few ideas as to what those hands might best be employed to do.

  For some reason the bit just below her bellybutton seemed keen on monopolising all suggestions, to the extent that the chairman of the quiz almost lost control of the debate completely.

  Fortunately, this brief biological detour around Common Sense was brought to a merciful end by the appearance of a customer at her shop doorway.

  In every sense of every possible interpretation, that was one hell of a rare event. It’d been so long since she’d even come close to opening her till that her drawers would probably refuse to budge now, even with the prospect of a large wad coming their way. And as for her own doorway well, that had never been entered at all.

  She’d never been doorstepped; she’d never been canvassed and she’d never even taken in and given temporary refuge to any sort of package that was intended for some other doorway entirely.

  She may as well have had an ‘Abandon Hope’ sign tattooed across both knees.

  Yet – symbolically – she was going to have to open some doors now. First of all, to allow that weirdo in there to buy something.

  She watched Humphrey gently put down his tea-cup and, rather distractedly, went to unlock the shop door.

  Heavens, it was not the entrance she really wanted to throw wide open at that moment.