The Switch(81)

‘I’m not with Ethan out of gratitude !’ I exclaim.

‘All right. Well, good.’ Arnold gives me another squeeze of the shoulder. ‘I just think you deserve a man who treats you right, that’s all.’

‘I liked you better when you were a hermit,’ I tell him, eyes narrowed.

He grins, then his smile drops. We’ve both heard the same thing.

‘Don’t you fucking dare!’

It’s Cliff. I push through the crowd, now, into the field, where Betsy and Cliff are facing one another like two cowboys waiting to draw. In fact, Betsy’s already drawn – but it’s not a gun in her hand, it’s a television remote.

‘I’m sick of it! You hear me! I’m sick of it!’ She brings both hands to the remote as if she’s about to snap it in two, and Cliff roars with rage.

Cliff looks pretty much exactly how I expected him to look. Red-faced, stocky, with sports socks and shorts on and a filthy sweatshirt stretched across his beer belly, he is in perfect contrast to neat little Betsy with her neckerchief and her pink cropped jacket. Only, of the two of them, I think Betsy genuinely looks the toughest right now.

‘Cliff Harris,’ she says, voice quiet and deadly. ‘I. Deserve. Better.’

And, with what I can only conclude is the superhuman strength of a woman who has put up with a lot of shit for a very long time, she snaps the TV remote in two.

Cliff comes towards her then, but Arnold and I are moving, and we’re quicker than he is, and we’ve got him by the arms before he can reach Betsy.

‘I want you out of that house by the end of the week, do you hear me?’ Betsy calls across the field.

Cliff roars obscenities, awful things, so bad it makes me gasp. Arnold hauls him backwards, and gestures Basil over to help.

‘We’ve got this,’ Arnold says to me. I give him a nod. I’m needed elsewhere.

Betsy crumples into my arms as soon as I reach her. ‘Come on,’ I say, leading her away. I shoot a glare at the crowd around the entrance to the field and the bystanders scatter embarrassedly, letting us through. ‘You were brilliant,’ I tell Betsy.

She tries to turn around. ‘Oh, I … I …’

I grip her arm. ‘Now all we need to do is find you somewhere to stay. OK?’ I chew the inside of my cheek. Clearwater Cottage is too close. She needs to get away for a week, until we’ve managed to clear Cliff out.

Penelope and Nicola are waiting by the car. Their eyes widen as Betsy and I stumble over, arm in arm. I help Betsy into the passenger seat, and by the time she’s all strapped in, an idea has formed.

‘Nicola,’ I say quietly, once I’ve closed the car door. ‘Betsy’s given her husband a week to find somewhere else to live.’

Nicola’s face softens. She glances at Betsy, mute in the front seat. She still has two pieces of remote control in her hands; she’s clutching them tightly.

‘Aye, she has, has she?’

‘Do you think …’

‘She can stay with me as long as she needs,’ Nicola says.

‘Are you sure? I know it’s a lot for me to ask.’

‘If a woman needs a place to stay, and I’ve got a bed to offer, then, well. That’s that.’

Nicola is already opening the rear passenger door. I move to help her in, on autopilot.

‘Let’s get you back to my house, eh, love,’ she says to Betsy as she settles. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, we can have a nice hot cuppa, then I’ll do us fish pie for tea.’

It takes all my effort not to cry as I take the keys from a very worried-looking Penelope and sit myself down in the driver’s seat. These people. There’s such a fierceness to them, such a lovingness. When I got here, I thought their lives were small and silly, but I was wrong. They’re some of the biggest people I know.





28


Eileen


The communal space is a whirlwind of activity. Fitz ducks just as Martha tosses Aurora a stack of napkins. Rupert catches the end of the tablecloth Letitia is spreading just in time to lay it flat. Yaz signs for the food delivery one-handed, Vanessa in the crook of her other arm. It’s Yaz and Martha’s first time back in the throng, after a few weeks of quality time as a family, and I must say they’ve hit the ground running. Not that I’d expect anything less.

We had hoped to give the Silver Shoreditchers a hot meal, but it got ever so complicated with allergies and the like, so for now it’ll just be buffet snacks. Luckily I got to the supermarket order before Fitz pressed the ‘Buy’ button, because almost everything on there would have been quite the challenge for anyone with missing teeth or new dentures. Now there are much smaller piles of carrot sticks and crisps, and much larger piles of soft sausage rolls and quiche squares.

I fish out my mobile phone. Tod should be here any moment with the tour bus for picking up our Silver Shoreditchers; I’m expecting him to call when he’s outside. And Howard said he’d get here right for the start time, too, so he’s not far away either. I pat my hair nervously – Martha has pinned it all up, and it looks very smart, but I worry it’s a bit much.

I have two messages. The first is from Bee:

I’m stuck here with a client and I’m going to have to miss the launch event. I’m so SO sorry. I feel terrible.