LITMIR.BIZ

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       Chapter 8

      “God, I’m sorry, Roz.”

      Vick calls first thing. I imagine Reg beating his Tom-Tom drums the previous evening while relieving Vick of half a ton of spaghetti. For a slim guy, he packs away a lot of food – another source of conflict between Tom and me, due to the strain on the household budget. All the time, I remember with a thud, Tom was funding a drug habit and possibly preparing to run. What else is hidden?

      “Yeah,” I say, masking the effect of the previous twenty-four hours. Every room, stick of furniture in the house yells cold and empty.

      “Think Tom’s gone off with that woman on Facebook?”

      “Who knows?” Who cares? Who am I kidding? If I don’t give a damn, why did I phone him first thing this morning? Same result: Not switched on. Not listening. Not answering. God, I hate being ignored, but this is intolerable. I’m owed answers.

      “What are you going to do about it?”

      “Nothing.” I squeak not a word about the Welsh connection, drugs or smoking.

      “Roz, do you– ”

      “Sorry, Vick, I need to get moving. Don’t want to be late for work.”

      I’m never short or moody with Vick, or anyone for that matter. In reality I have bags of time, but if I don’t get up and soon I’ll draw the covers over my head and stay there. Obsessively, I trawl the past. Again.

      Surely, he wouldn’t leave without a goodbye? Surely, he will come back at some point if only to reclaim his things? Or am I wildly optimistic, some might say delusional?

      When I told Vick that I would not act, I was dishonest. That phone call Tom took after I left for the second time yesterday proved a game-changer. This thought bugs me.

      One moment, I seethe with anger. Another, I want to howl. I have no desire to make Tom change his mind (I do, but don’t admit it aloud). I certainly won’t stalk him but I need to understand his reasons for leaving. Living together as we have for so long, I demand an explanation, even if it means that he loves someone else – the bloody cheat.

      I shower and dress, skip breakfast and beat Elliott to the office, which rates as a first. He lumbers in and I expect to see, at the least, a flicker of surprise and pleasure in his eyes. He doesn’t even ask for coffee. He utters five words and they don’t start with ‘Good morning.’

      “Meeting at nine. Tell Helen.”

      He avoids my gaze and his face is a shambles of shadows, creases and lines. His clothes are rumpled and I suspect he had a bad a night, like me, but for very different reasons. I think back to the meeting yesterday. Perhaps the rumours are true.

      I’m right. It takes Elliott two minutes to deliver the news, eighteen to justify the publisher’s decision. Straight away, I deduce that Elliott secured a deal for himself that allows his only members of salaried staff, bar the girl who answers the phones, to be shoved out into the cold. Helen’s field of expertise is narrower than mine and she recently took out a mortgage. Her face falls into a portrait of stunned disbelief. Normally, I’d sigh, accept it for what it is and resign myself to looking for gainful employment. It might even trigger a panicky phone call to Mum. I have stockpiled a little money, but my big savings plan is now officially screwed. If Reg weren’t off to LA I could charge him rent. On a monetary level, it’s a bummer, yet with a spring in my stride I embrace the freedom to get to the bottom of Tom’s vanishing act. I’m determined he is not going to get away with it, as if what we had meant nothing.

      Helen flings herself out through the door, muttering about tribunals and back pay, leaving me with Elliott. I say nothing. Elliott fidgets. Sweat sheens his brow and moistens his eyebrows. He seems fleshier than ever. To be honest, he doesn’t look healthy.

      “I’m sorry, Rosamund. I’ll give you a great reference, of course.”

      “Thank you.”

      “What will you do?”

      I respond with a dry smile. “You know, Elliott, you’re the second person to ask me that this morning.”

      I don’t reveal that I have a plan that does not include a job search, catching up on domestic chores or hacking through the wilderness that passes for my garden. Shock and anger is replaced with a demand for truth. I do not fess up that the thought of never seeing Tom again cripples me. No man should hold that power.

      I pack up my stuff and head back home to where my car, a clapped-out Ford Fiesta is parked on the street, the only advantage being it’s re-sprayed canary yellow. You’d be blind not to see me coming.

      According to the blurb, the Argo Homes sales office opens at 10.30 a.m., giving me plenty of time to get there. Setting my sat nav, I follow A roads all the way to Ledbury, through and on to Holmer, a residential suburb that also plays host to an ugly-looking steel stockyard.

      Banners flying in the chill breeze denote the development and I hang a left off a roundabout, following signs for the site and sales office, before finally pulling off another roundabout and swinging into a visitor car park. With diggers, cranes, dumper-trucks and forklifts, it’s a swarm of rattle and hum and bone-jarring activity.

      Climbing out of the car, new homes in varying states of assembly eyeball me and convey a sense of how massive the development actually is. There are literally hundreds of shiny rooftops.

      The sales office is set at the end of a row of three show homes with majestic- sounding names that infer, as a homeowner, you too will scale the social ladder of life should you be smart enough to purchase a ‘Kingston’, for example. Fat chance.

      Inside, a large desk around which three women, wearing simple navy shift dresses, discuss business of the day. An entire wall is dedicated to an artist’s impression of each house model, together with descriptions and floor plans. A large site diagram sits astride another wall, under which lounges a large squashy sofa. One section of the room is reserved for floor coverings and kitchen finishes, the choice so dazzling it would make most would-be buyers giddy, if not downright confused. By contrast, sensible yellow hard hats, boots and high-viz jackets hang on hooks near the entrance, a stark reminder that this is about dirt and bricks, pipes and drains and the labour required to amalgamate the lot.

      The squeak and bubble of conversation comes to a halt. Three smiles greet me as I stride through a blizzard of dry, oxygen-sapping heat. I have no problem in identifying Stephanie Charteris. We could pass for each other in the right light. If Stephanie spots a similarity in our looks, she keeps it to herself. The youngest and possibly most junior of the three, she is first to engage me with a pleasant “Can I help you?” The others scatter to another part of the office that sits behind a dome of glass, in which there’s a desk, a water filter and drinks machine.

      I return the smile. “Could I view the show homes?” I slide my eyes towards the door on the other side, beyond which a paved path leads to three houses.

      ‘”’Course you can.” She’s sprightly and ‘can do’. I hesitate, thinking that she will take me on a guided tour, but this isn’t the way it works, apparently. “Through there.” She indicates with a hand that wears a single wedding band.

      My chest expands and contracts. Lightheaded, I fake a smile and wander through. How to engage Stephanie in conversation without involving the others?

      I go through the motions and enter the first house, slip on a pair of overshoes, and pad around inside. My first impression is one of space. It smells squeaky-clean fresh and new. Carpet springs beneath my shoes and the kitchen diner, with its shiny laminate floor, is a triumph of modern design. Most of all, there is no damp, no suggestion of mould; a little-discussed, if common, problem with many older houses in Cheltenham. Having always rated the average new-build as a thin-skinned sterile excuse for a home, I’m prepared to modify my opinion. Throughout the viewing, I reason and observe

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