The Visitors(16)

Holly ferreted in her pocket for her headphones and turned on her music in a futile attempt to blast away the unwelcome musings. She looked down at her iPod and was reminded that Aunt Susan had bought it for her eighteenth birthday, only a few months earlier.

She felt a stab of remorse then, wondering if maybe she’d been a bit hard on her aunt before she left the house.

Holly was forced to admit that, despite her weak will when it came to her husband, her aunt had a good heart. After all, she hadn’t had to take her niece in and give her a roof over her head. She had been estranged from Holly’s mother, Julie, for several years before Julie’s untimely death.

It wasn’t Aunt Susan’s fault her husband was a perv. They’d married very young, as evidenced by the single photograph on the mantelpiece. Keith had actually been skinnier than her aunt in those days, but he’d still had the same creepy eyes.

But Aunt Susan had let him get away with his crude comments. She had always found a reason to leave the room as he sat openly ogling Holly’s legs in the early days, when she’d still, na?vely, worn a short skirt in his presence.

No, she concluded, as she stared out of the coach window into the failing light. She shouldn’t feel bad. Aunt Susan had known what Keith was like and had clearly made the decision to put up with it.

That had been her choice, no one else’s. She shouldn’t have expected Holly to do the same.





Chapter Twelve





Holly





Holly grasped the handle of Cora’s back door and pushed down, but the door was locked.

As she ferreted in her handbag for the spare keys Cora had given her, she found herself hoping beyond reasonable hope that the older woman was out.

Although Cora had evidently become accustomed to spending long stretches in the house without seeing another soul, she’d also told Holly that every few days she forced herself to head into town. She’d stop at the coffee shop on the corner, she said, and then pick up a few bags of shopping before grabbing a cab home.

Holly supposed that today must be one of those days.

She twisted the key in the lock and stepped inside. As she’d hoped, the house was silent. She could even hear the loud tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway, Cora’s pride and joy that had been passed down by her mother’s side of the family.

She closed the door behind her and dumped her bag and keys on the kitchen counter. There, she found a note from Cora.

Popped to supermarket. Back soon x

She felt her shoulders relax a little, and the thumping headache that had developed on the bus journey back from town receded just a touch.

After surviving virtually a full day of Cora’s incessant reminiscing the day before, Holly had thought that she might actually scream if she had to accompany her on one more minute’s meandering down ruddy memory lane.

If she was a decent person, she probably wouldn’t entertain such unkind thoughts. But you couldn’t stop thoughts dead just because they were selfish, could you? If anything, if you didn’t acknowledge them, they’d probably grow stronger.

Holly was overjoyed that Cora had taken her in so readily, but that didn’t mean she had to sacrifice her sanity every single minute of the day from here on in. Or maybe it did. She wasn’t really in a position to be fussy right now.

She poured herself a small glass of orange juice and sat at the scuffed wooden table for a few minutes, allowing the silence around her to trickle soothingly into her bruised ears.

There had been so much noise in town today. Holly had done the rounds of three busy recruitment agencies with their mostly indifferent staff. Her suspicions had been correct. There really weren’t that many decent job vacancies around currently, certainly not for unskilled staff or with training provided.

Once she had explained in the first two appointments that she didn’t possess a university degree or hold a sheaf of impressive qualifications in her non-existent portfolio, she saw their already sparse enthusiasm fade away before her eyes.

It had taken all her resolve not to give up.

When she had entered the third and final agency, Office Cherubs, she was met at the door by a woman with dry brown hair, over-tanned skin and rabbit-like teeth.

‘I’m Karen, recruitment consultant,’ she said, extending a hand together with her self-important title. ‘You must be Holly?’

Holly smiled and nodded, relieved that she wasn’t going to be treated as a pariah this time. She felt hot after rushing across town to get to the building at exactly two p.m., her appointment time.

Karen led her to a quiet corner in the large open-plan office. Various people sat at desks dotted here and there, but nobody showed any interest in her.

Holly sat down and gratefully accepted the glass of water offered to her. She felt dead on her feet.

They had an informal chat and she was relieved that the woman seemed to accept her brief account of work experience without too many searching questions.

‘I think you’d be perfect for a vacancy we’ve just had in literally fifteen minutes ago,’ Karen said brightly. ‘Sales assistant for an upmarket shop in the centre of town. I could send you over for interview first thing tomorrow if you can email me your references before we close up today. How’s that sound?’

‘Sounds great,’ Holly nodded, trying to ignore the voice in her head that was starting to panic a little. ‘I can email them when I get home, if that’s OK?’