Home > Liars(6)

Liars(6)
Author: Anita Waller

For the rest of the evening, Nell could only watch as Mike sweet-talked his way into her best friend’s life, which going by the way Wendy was behaving, wouldn’t take too much hard work. In the end, Nell threw in the towel, uncomfortable in the extreme, the proverbial gooseberry, so she made her excuses and left the lovebirds to it.

 

As she lay in bed that night, Nell was tormented by many things, the past mainly. Her aunt’s uncaring words, the feel of those roaming fingers, that niggle of uncertainty that maybe she was being naive. In the present, she saw her best friend’s pink cheeks and bright eyes as Mike lavished her with attention, and there was a nagging portent of doom, a strange sense of inevitability, a changing tide perhaps. But whatever it was, by morning, Nell had decided to keep her reservations to herself and observe quietly from the sidelines.

Mike would deny it, she knew that, and Wendy would be hurt and torn. Wendy’s parents would stick the boot in too because they’d always looked down their noses at Nell. She was the bastard daughter of the woman who drowned in the canal, full of drink and drugs, the toddler nobody really wanted, who probably wouldn’t make much of her life and had annoyingly attached herself to their precious daughter. It still hurt, deep down, that stain that marked Nell, through no fault of her own. At school it was like they expected her to fail, and with little guidance or a decent role model, Nell had only herself to rely on, and Wendy. If she had applied herself, Nell knew she was a worthy match for Wendy in the brains department but instead, she sought adventure and an escape.

Where Mike was concerned, Nell was fighting a losing battle because he was a wily adversary, especially when you threw love into the mix. He did his best to drive an invisible wedge between Nell and Wendy, any way he could, in case she spilled the beans; that much was obvious. Within months he had won the heart of Wendy, game, set, and match. It was to be a short engagement and they quickly set a date. Wendy’s parents were thrilled, unlike Nell who felt sad but knowing how much her friend longed for a white wedding and fairy-tale honeymoon, who was she to deny her that, to ruin it all?

One thing Nell did know was that as soon as she’d done her duty on Wendy’s big day, and no doubt caught the bouquet that would be launched in her direction, it was time to go. There was no place for her in Sheffield, not really, not anymore.

 

Attempting to shake off the past and her maudlin thoughts, Nell placed the letter in her bag along with her camera and fastened her boots. After Nell’s doubts, it seemed that Wendy had made a good match, she was happy and that’s what mattered.

Maybe that night in the beer garden was down to a randy pissed-up bloke fancying his chances, or maybe not. Mike still gave Nell the creeps and try as she might, nothing Wendy could do or say would alter that fact. It still rankled that nobody ever spoke about his first wife, it was forbidden, and he acted like she vanished, the memory of her erased, her name never spoken. Weird, just weird.

And what the hell was that about the pay packet? Perhaps it was a middle-class trend, giving your wife an envelope at the end of the week for services rendered. Surely Wendy could see the deeper connotations of that. Nell should have put money on Wendy leaving her job because she could see from a mile off that Mike hated her working at the factory, albeit in the offices.

But Wendy said she was happy, she had everything. It was there in black and white. Nell took the letter out of her bag and pondered on its contents. Would her comments about Wendy’s stay-at-home lifestyle appear condescending or quarrelsome? Perhaps she should rewrite that page, just in case, but then again Wendy had questioned her love life and hinted she was being flighty, so it was only fair that Nell had her say where domesticity was concerned.

It had pissed Nell off that Wendy let Mike read her letters, but it made her giggle thinking of her comment about him playing old man bowls, he wouldn’t like that. And she had said hello to him too, so Nell had the moral high ground, sort of.

‘Sod it,’ Nell said as she pushed the letter inside her bag and called for Molly to hurry up otherwise the posh lot would starve to death.

It had done Nell good taking a quick trip down memory lane because it reminded her of why she’d left in the first place. No matter how much she secretly yearned for Wendy, and fish and chips, Nell had to keep moving forward, no going back. She could do this. She could face the unknown, endure early starts and manage on her meagre wages. She could even deal with a smattering of homesickness. What she couldn’t bear was the thought of anything bad happening to Wendy.

All Nell could do was hope and pray she was wrong about creepy Mike. Unfortunately, much as it pained Nell to accept it, Wendy had made her bed, and as the old saying went, she’d have to lie in it.

 

 

5

 

 

Wendy applied her make-up carefully, emphasising the blue of her eyes with the smoky blue eyeshadow and a touch of mascara. She had a follow-up doctor’s appointment, then she intended heading into town and treating herself to some new clothes.

A recent twenty-first birthday gift from her parents had been money to get whatever she wanted, and even Mike had drawn the line at taking it off her. She leaned forward to add a little more mascara. He had been making noises about them starting a family, but she wasn’t ready. She hadn’t said no, that would have had repercussions, but she had remembered words of wisdom from Nell about the contraceptive pill.

She had blithely skipped off to the doctor for a prescription, but he had insisted on sending off a pregnancy test as she was a married woman. She had protested, wanting the tablets immediately, but he had been firm.

‘If I gave you these, Mrs Summers, and you had already conceived, it could damage your baby. I won’t take that risk. It only takes a week for the results to come back, so make an appointment for next Tuesday please, and then as soon as you’ve had your next period you can start taking them.’

And finally the day was here. Her ten o’clock appointment would change her life until she felt she was ready for a baby, and with her period due any day, she could start taking the tablets almost immediately. And this would be something else to tell Nell in her next letter!

I took your advice, my lovely friend, she thought with a smile. And if she could keep it hidden from Mike, she could simply tell him every month that she wasn’t pregnant, but they would keep trying.

 

The surgery was full and after giving her name to the receptionist, Wendy sat. Twenty minutes later it was obvious the doctors had a backlog, and she glanced at her watch. She needed to be home by two at the latest in order to prepare Mike’s evening meal. Luckily, it was only the two of them that evening, but it still required thoughtful preparation. She would have to cut short her shopping trip…

‘Wendy Summers.’

She stood, smiled at the unsmiling receptionist, and headed for the door marked Dr Charlesworth. Wendy knocked, and pressed down on the handle.

 

Wendy knew her face had drained of colour. ‘But I don’t understand… I haven’t missed a period!’

‘Are you sure?’ The doctor was treating her gently. It was clear from her reaction that it wasn’t welcome news.

‘Look,’ she said, opened her handbag and took out her small diary.

‘I’m due to start my period tomorrow, that’s what that little red dot is, and I’m so regular I can almost time it to the hour.’ She swung the diary around to show him. ‘So if we take it back four weeks, you’ll see that little red dot with a black circle around it.’

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