Prologue

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story …”

Isak Dinsen

Present Day

“How was I to know you would come along and fu.k my life up?”

Scream 2014

That box had not seemed so difficult when it was put into the loft: a stretch on the chair, a quick shove. Getting it down though was turning out to be a different experience. Just bringing in the step ladder and taking those up fourteen measly stairs had been hard going. By the fourth stair she had to drag, rather than carry it up and by the last she found herself sitting down for five minutes to catch her breath. How stealthily one gets old: and now there was the prospect of a shaky ascent and the even shakier reaching up to negotiate.

At last she was on the top step and determinedly willed her knees to remain steady. The box was only a few inches from the edge but still, maybe a reach too far. Perhaps she should wait for Keith? His six-foot frame and long arms would have no trouble. For him it was just a puny cardboard box.

Although only a couple of feet long and maybe a foot high, the box was an awkward bulky shape without convenient cut out hand grips. Up close, she could see that little sharp mouse teeth had been feasting on it. Was that a distinct smell of rodent wafting from the open hatch? Maybe everything inside had been eaten, or could there be a snug nest full of baby mice she would disturb?

Was it worth it? Was it worth what suddenly seemed like a two-way risk to bring down that box? She paused and forced herself to consider the very serious question of whether she really wanted or needed to release a forgotten part of her life, conveniently shut away in the dark, for nearly two decades.

Her classical days and a grim tale of a box being opened sprang to mind. It was really a jar – but box or jar, the point was, that Pandora opened it and unwittingly released all the evils into the world.

The Past

Diary Entry

She in a bright blue dress,

stood in the doorway.

A flash of white in dark hair,

pleasantly asking a question.

I cracked a casual joke but

must confess, as the door closed,

I was seriously smitten!

Eve looked up and said, with (well I think so) a bit of a smug smile,

“Do you know who that is?”

“No. Should I?” I said, pretending to be only mildly curious.

“That’s Dian Wilson, our new boss!”

Seriously! Oh crap!

Part One
A Little Less than Love?

Chapter One
The Past

Grace

As Grace left with the dog she studiously avoided the distinctive single envelope that lay on the mat. The red-blue of its stripe plainly stating it must be from America and the extreme sloping right hand also plainly stating it was from Dian.

Once upon a time she would have picked it up in pleased anticipation and called out its arrival to Lecce. Once upon a time they would have read it together at the breakfast table and discussed their mutual friend’s luck in having the freedom to enjoy yet another exciting holiday destination. The jokes and quips inside would have been meant for the both of them: once upon a time.

Grace hurried out and away from it, whistling for Ruby to follow, doggie bags in one hand and the lead in the other. Quickly she crossed the road and made for the park, hardly slowing to allow for Ruby’s quota of sniffs and stops.

For a while she distractedly threw the ball and paced the large grassy circle until she gave up and slumped down onto the bench and considered the envelope and its unwelcome arrival into their lives. Should she ignore it, leave it where it was until Lecce found it when she left for work. Should she put it next to her cereal bowl, propped up against the tea pot as if nothing was out of the ordinary?

It was late November, the day was bright but cold, Grace shivered as she stood, zipping up her jacket and calling to Ruby who was busy investigating the overgrown shrubby area with a small terrier and an ancient Labrador. This was their morning routine; throw the ball, walk the circle, let Ruby investigate the shrubs with her friends, wave to Howard from two doors down and hurry home to Lecce and breakfast. A sharp stab of loss pierced as she imagined how the world might look without the happy and contented certainty of their together-forever life.

Grace took her time walking home continuing to worry over the possible significance of the sudden silences that had grown between them recently. Was Lecce still as happy and contented as she, and if not, why hadn’t she said anything. Was Dian still only their much loved mutual friend? How could over a decade of easy-going communication have dissolved so imperceptibly into dangerous no-go areas she was unwilling to cross; afraid to bring out into the open?

Reaching their door she delayed a few moments longer, taking off her gloves, unclipping Ruby’s lead and fishing in her cluttered pocket for the key, suddenly reluctant to step through and see whether the letter had remained where she had left it, was open on the table for her to read, or spirited away without a word.

Diary Entry

There was an airmail letter from Dian this morning. It was addressed to me. I was more than surprised. I was excited, overwhelmed and guilty. I stuffed it in my work bag and rushed off early. I must have read it a hundred thousand times but, as usual; I don’t know what she means. She’s on holiday with her husband but would rather sit next to me? I bet he wouldn’t be a bit impressed! What is she really thinking? What does she want?

Oh! I adore that woman (unfortunately!)

Excerpt from Letter

Harvard Yard

Mass.

I thought of you all the way up the M4 – all the fields had blond crew cuts – but these had wood pigeons nitpicking! I also thought of you all the way to America. If we had been together, what laughs and jolly japes!

That thought was so strong I felt almost willing to perch on the boniest knee of the oldest pensioner if the airline would only put me on a return flight! Of course, preconditioning (common sense?) kicked in and I did no such thing. Would do no such thing!

Chapter Two
The Past

Lecce & Dian

When Lecce had bought the cards she had thought of them as a bit of a joke or a half joke anyway. When she had posted them she told herself the same thing. It was all part and parcel of their flirty friendship and meant no more, and no less. At the same time she had chosen a particularly overly sentimental and expensive one for Grace.

As she stood on the doorstep poised ready to rap on the brass knocker of Dian’s town-house a vague self-loathing swept dimly across her conscience, almost squashing the excited anticipation she had experienced all morning since the call. Grace’s face had not shown pleasure at the card but had registered a subtle glimpse of hurt before she had smiled her thanks and handed across a beautifully self-painted portrait of two love birds inside a heart with their phrase: together-forever carefully inscribed in gold pen beneath.

She glanced up at the second floor window and back across to the safety of her car. There was still time to leave, to rush back to work and call Dian with an excuse. Irresolute, she had quietly lowered the knocker and half turned before she heard the sharp tap of heels on tiles and the swing of a heavy door being opened.

“Welcome!” Dian took her hands and air kissed both her cheeks, “I was listening out for you – and here you are – how lovely!”

Lecce mutely followed Dian up the two flights, ridiculously in awe of candy stripped regency wallpaper and the ornate banister. This was her first invitation to the place Dian had always described as her “pied-a-terre” that only the “favoured few may enter.” She had a sudden longing for her own homely two by two, terraced cosily between Barbara on the one side and old Arthur and Nesta on the other.

The apartment door was already open. Lecce had an unexpected glimpse of their reflections in a long elegant dress mirror that stood just inside on the left. For some obscure reason her eye was drawn down to their feet; her trainers, Dian’s court shoes. It was this incongruous difference in footwear that made her wonder, not for the first time, what she and this stylish, sophisticated, much older and much married woman, thought they were doing: this place, this woman, were so out of her league!

Diary Entry

Oh dear! Dian and her house are so grand – and oh dear! I am so common.

I’m sure she almost kissed me in the hallway. Unprepared I did an embarrassing bunny-hop back step. In the dining room were those old-fashioned Babycham glasses with fake pink champagne and glace cherries on sticks. We chinked glasses and again she went to kiss me but I was already knocking back the pseudo-champagne as if it were the real thing! (plank).

A bit later we began a rock n roll dance to Roy Orbison on an incredibly worn, but handsome Persian rug. We danced so naturally, so in sync, but all too soon it was interrupted by the telephone. It was Rose asking me to come back to work as the Greek 0-level parents were wreaking havoc outside the exam room again!

As I reluctantly left, she handed me a lovely card with two women on the front cover and inside, a touching poem where she had added: “She holds the woman in the flowered robe like an Oscar newly-won.”

Oh I adore that woman … what am I going to do?

The Past

Excerpt from Letter

Nirja

Spain

My star! My love! My joy!

You are the thin blue line; the silver between the sky and the sea! I could weep to leave you so soon after just a few loving nights.

Alas, married duty calls, and we are here in Nerja for the next ten days. Be sure I carried you in my heart (ah, if only in my luggage!). And be sure that I will write, and write and write and try and phone when prudent.

Soon I will have shredded the calendar and will fly home to you on B.A.’s wing ..ed chariot!

Meanwhile, here is the key to my hearth and house. Make yourself as much at home there as you already are in my heart.

Dx

P.S. The longest nights are those without you.

Diary Entry

What a love letter! It was tucked inside a very striking note card by someone called Georgia O’Keeffe. I looked her up and apparently, her flower paintings are really erotic art! Well, it just looks like a rather beautiful painting of a flower to me! Anyway, I love that letter.

It feels so strange, after three whole years of wishing to have my prize. My newly-won Oscar! Such a romantic letter is a far-cry from the almost business-like dinner at her place last Wednesday (will I ever forget!) I don’t remember discussing the terms and conditions of an affair before! Looks like she’s still the boss! Do all married women broker deals before they get into bed?

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t romantic! Oh, it was! We had finished our dinner and were sitting in her window seat, our knees just touching. It was already dark and the bare bones of all those tall, neatly spaced street trees were rather ghostly silhouettes under the lamp lights. It is such an old, quiet street that I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if a coach and four had suddenly trotted out of the foggy gloom, lantern swinging, like something out of Dickens!

We were both rather self-conscious, I think, and we were mostly silent. I could hear the clock in her hall tick in time to my pulse (or so it felt!). At last she took my hands and said very seriously, “Your poem seemed to hint that you would like me to kiss you. Shall I kiss you?”

It was only then that I realised that for all our friendship and flirting, I hardly knew this rather handsome and glamorous older woman. Left to me, I think I would have hesitated forever, and we would be sitting there even now!

How strange and enchanting it is to be kissed and kiss for the first time. I never thought about it before, but it is rather like an act of faith, of truth, or an oath perhaps: a hope that these lips and your lips will always be kind. It was such a deep and long and lovely kiss and of course everything else was easy after that.

Would Dian mind if I write that her breasts are the most youthful and beautiful I have probably ever had the privilege to see and yes, to touch? I heard myself exclaim, “Oh, they are just lovely, how lovely they are!” And she laughed, and replied, rather proudly, “Yes, they aren’t bad now let’s take off your shirt!”

Oh dear! This is just my old diary but I dare not write anymore, I mustn’t kiss and tell, but what a sexy lady! Surely it can’t be “wedded bliss” that has made her so enthusiastic, joyful and fun! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was me!

Later I asked her why she had never left her husband officially and she said, “Because he doesn’t deserve it.” Well if someone doesn’t make you happy, and you prefer to live on your own for more than half the week, doesn’t that mean they do deserve it? But I didn’t say that, did I? No, of course not! I just wanted more kissing and more of everything else and to forget there was anything complicated coming our way!

But of course, there is, and it will! After all, she is on holiday with her husband. And I shall have to talk to Grace as soon as she’s back from London. Well, like Scarlet O’Hara, “I’ll think about that tomorrow”.

Chapter Three
The Past

Grace

Grace never understood why it was always here, in this uninspiring substation that the Paddington to Cardiff always chose to interrupt its journey. For a moment the train stood stationary but optimistic, still chugging noisily, before the squealing brakes shut down completely and hissed into a silent halt.

She looked up from her magazine and out at the familiar untidy and dispirited hedgerows just behind the wire fencing. The moody February sky with its grey looming clouds threatened rain, lots of it: or perhaps sleet. It was cold enough. Even without this stop there was over two hours to go and by the time she arrived it would be dark.

Momentarily, this station, this tedious journey, this weather, threatened to overwhelm. She had longed for and dreaded her return; from the moment she had boarded the train to London, during the long days with Maeve and Bobby who had valiantly tried everything to lift her mood and since Lecce had finally called this morning.

Her promise to cook a vegetarian lasagne had not reassured. Instead it brought to mind the fleeting bitter pain of the extravagant valentine’s card and now the possible reason behind this gesture. The old Lecce would have hopped across to the Chinese takeaway and picked up a supermarket bottle of red. That was the Lecce she wanted to go home to.

The ticket collector had asked twice before Grace registered his presence at her elbow. Numbly, and with a polite watery smile, she handed over her ticket before slipping it back into her wallet. She tried not to picture the photograph she always kept inside: Ruby red dog with the three cats underneath her protective and sagging stomach, the irrepressible beauty of their June garden and Lecce sprawled and grinning like a Cheshire cat on their faded and tatty garden furniture.

Only now, at long last, could they afford new furniture and even the barbeque Lecce had always pined for. They could have a long summer holiday somewhere hot, or a walking tour in Lake Garda. A stab of frustration and fear clutched at her heart and squeezed. Why now, when everything was looking so good was Lecce doing this to them?

Finally the train started up with a judder and began a slow crawl away from the station. As the engine picked up speed in earnest Grace thought perhaps it would be better if she stayed stranded and stalled in Didcot Parkway forever. She did not want to hear what she knew Lecce would have to say. Lecce, her Lecce, was no good at secrets, or lies, she would want to make a clean breast of it and find the kind of impossible compromise that just did not exist.

With a deep painful thud inside she thought of Dian. If only she could hate her with the kind of scorching jealousy she deserved: but she was too nice and too patently vulnerable for that. She brushed at her eyelids. Dian would never leave her husband and Lecce would soon tire of being a weekday mistress: if that was what she had already become.

Lecce and Grace

The animals were the first to hear Grace arrive. They ran rejoicing as a pack, to the front door, Ruby barking, the cats bristling with pleasure. Lecce joined them, hurriedly closing the kitchen on all its mess. Grace was truly soaked. Why would she never take a taxi, or at least an umbrella?

Lecce was conscious of fussing in the way she used to with the children. Dabbing Ineffectually at the wet shoulder length hair with her tea towel; until she felt Grace stiffen and move away.

Both women were only a little over five feet and for a brief moment their eyes met on the level and held until Lecce dropped her own, backing off in guilty confusion, babbling about her lacklustre efforts with dinner. Grace knew, that was obvious, and it was awful but also a relief. She was no good with secrets and always unsuccessful with lies.

“Well, you get yourself together and I’ll try to make sense of that blessed lasagne,” she said with a small contrite smile, “I’ll put the kettle on. You must be cold.”

For a while they managed small talk, pushing the burnt crispy topping of the meal to one side, neither eating much, both waiting for the other. Finally Lecce looked across at Grace, at the sweet face she knew so well but never tired of; the round blue eyes, the small button nose, and those endearing flat ears behind which her rarely combed hair was invariably tucked.

Grace set down her fork and folded her hands into her lap, head slightly to one side, her expression attentive. It was a pose that Lecce, shamefaced, recognised as the one she used with her clients, kind but vaguely impersonal, giving every appearance of a non-judgemental objectivity. Grace rarely shouted, hardly ever lost her temper and, Lecce thought hopefully, always forgave.

“I’m sorry, so very sorry Grace but I … but I …”Lecce grappled with the week- long confusion of her thoughts and continued in a rush, “ … it’s just … I just couldn’t resist … I know how stupid it is but I just couldn’t, can’t help myself.”

There was a long silence, so long, that Lecce became afraid that Grace would never answer, that she would be forced to find some other explanation, or to promise what she already knew she could not.

“No, it’s not that stupid,” Grace said finally with a shrug, “I can understand how charismatic and attractive Dian must seem to you, and how flattered you must feel,” she paused before adding, her voice rising ,” but what is stupid is for you to believe for one second that she will ever leave her husband. And what is more stupid is that you would give up all of this.”

She swept out an angry arm which seemed to encompass not just the room but their entire lives together; the piecemeal furniture they had painstakingly collected, the framed portraits of the children in different stages of growth and the animals that sat silent and staring at them in perplexity.

“For what – just sex or what … what … what!”

“I don’t know. I was married once,” Lecce faltered.

Grace’s tone of sudden vehemence surprised them both. It was accompanied by a dark red mottled flush that quickly began to cover her face and neck.

Even before Grace had jumped up, had pushed her half full plate onto the floor, and had run from the room screaming in panic,

“I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do! Tell me what to do!”

Lecce had grown more than a little afraid of where this might lead them. She sat staring down at her own inedible dinner and began to count the cost. How had she ever imagined that this could be negotiated into some kind of open relationship; see where it leads scenario without consequences or loss to either of them? To all of them: the children, her parents, the animals, and their happy home together.

Lecce realised with a sad certainty that this decade of blessed calm and tranquilly that Grace had gifted her had been smashed to pieces along with the plate and the contents that lay dripping and staining the new carpet, and it was all a mess entirely of her own making.

Yet, although her own heart was just as cracked, her own mind a fearful jumble of loss and confusion, she also had enough self-knowledge to realise that she was compelled to blunder on, unable to prevent her uncontrollable urge to rush into whatever chaos awaited and back to the arms of Dian.

Diary Entry

When Grace ran from the room I just didn’t know what to do either. So I ran out to Spar and bought a bottle of Merlot. After a couple of glasses she calmed down, we both sat and cried, for ages and ages. Later we crawled into the same bed and just lay there holding hands, flanked by the animals, who were sitting around in the open doorway like sentinels trying to prevent an impending doom!

The animals hated it and stood staring at us, (at me probably), cats pressed close to Ruby, wide eyed, their fur puffed and spiky.

This isn’t what I had meant to happen. What had I thought would happen? Oh, something much more impossibly easy and sophisticated I expect!

Mum and Dad are bewildered and I haven’t dared tell the kids. I haven’t even told Dian. She will be mortified, and want us all to talk about it, or throw me over straight away.

And now I have recorded my folly. I longed for romance, I longed for Dian, but getting what you long for can be pretty shitty for other people.

Chapter Four
Present Day

Lecce

It was still far too cold to spend long hours in the allotment. Why did Eliot insist that April is the cruellest month? This drab February had delivered nothing but unending rain, ceaseless wind and a bone-penetrating chill.

It was two o’clock: a quiet time. There was a soothing absence from the usual vigorous activity that generally included whining strimmers and the deeper growl of rotavators. The hammering and the sawing had been quieted by the cold and darkness of the day. There was no other sound but far off traffic and birdsong. She decided it was most likely the ever optimistic blackbird.

Lecce peered through the rain-streaked greenhouse windows. The lid of the bonfire bin had blown off again. She noticed how old it had become. One of the legs was missing and the whole thing was listing precariously; yet its red rust was oddly pleasing on such a colourless afternoon. Through the open door she caught the faint whiff of wood smoke and wondered if she should have a final farewell bonfire before replacing it with one of those new shiny metal ones with the smart chimney.

God knows it would be a good idea to burn that wretched diary. The first few of the entries had left her puzzled and uncomfortable. They seemed to carry an air of foreboding in their blue-lined pages. The tightly cramped writing was hardly recognisable as her own rounded, even hand.

It would be hard to burn those early letters though. Full of purple prose from one and something far more in your face from the other! Suddenly her heart was suffused with elated warmth. To have once been so loved, so admired, by two such very different and attractive women! How gratifying and amazingly incredible. Really, she knew herself to be only human, not “wonderful” or “shining” and not particularly “sexy”.

The sweet song of the blackbird stopped abruptly as did that warmth which was quickly replaced by a vague premonition that much of what followed was definitely not so wonderful or shining. What else was inside? Were there other letters other memories that would be painful if revealed? Why had she deliberately packed them away and left them out of sight and out of mind for so long?

***

The following afternoon Lecce decided to delay the read or burn decision and spend some time at the local gym instead. It was a new routine and one that had taken a big leap of faith. These days though, just getting into her training kit seemed to drop twenty years off. Maybe retirement was the new middle age!

She need not have worried that she would feel the outsider. Plenty of people of her generation were to be seen lifting weights, tackling rowing machines or simply just running and cycling as she did. This new obsession was not only giving her back a waistline but had also returned a former love: popular music.

As Lecce sat in the over-heated changing room, swallowing a bottle of water and preparing herself for vigorous exercise, she wondered vaguely why she had avoided the prospects of a new romance. Any passing interest on her part or the occasional overtures from others had been quickly repulsed. Somehow, she had become wary of listening to music and even more wary of involving herself with a stranger offering more than casual friendship.

Lecce stood up briskly, switching on her music, drowning out those uncomfortable thoughts. That muddle in the box; those postcards, poems and any other joyless insights were disturbing her carefully ordered life. It was better to burn the lot in her new bin: maybe tomorrow?