Page 41 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
But I don’t get to finish that sentence, because he moves across the room, so swift and light on his feet that I’m astonished by it, and slaps me across the cheek. Afterwards, we stand a couple of feet apart, him breathing heavily and me trying not to fall apart.
How is it possible that just three days ago we were standing in a cold church, promising to love each other forever, and now we are here, in the kitchen, and I am holding my face where the imprint of his hand is forming? It’s a line he hasn’t crossed before, but now that he has, it’s like I can see that perhaps it was always heading in this direction. Had I known? Had I beenaware of the type of man he was and married him anyway? I am a fool.
‘Shell, I…’
I don’t rescue him. What can he possibly say? In the past, when he has hurt me with words, he’s been reluctant to apologise, to step down. He’s good at twisting the things he said, and the things I said, to make it seem as if we were equally at fault. But this is clear-cut, something he can’t possibly deny. Isn’t it?
‘I’m going out,’ he says.
And it’s the last thing I expected, so by the time I’m ready to say anything, to ask him where, he’s already gone. I don’t make the pasta; I’ve lost my appetite. I stand in the kitchen, going over the small steps that led me to this place. Where was it that I went so wrong? When I feel strong enough, I go into the bathroom to look at my face. It’s a bit red, but I can cover that. I can finish my shift. And I do, just like my mother before me. I use concealer and powder, the way I learned from sitting next to her in front of her dressing table. And I go back down and act as if I’m the blissful newlywed that my customers think I should be.
‘Where’s David gone?’ Dee asks. ‘He came through with a face like thunder just after you’d gone on your break.’
I haven’t prepared a lie, so I fumble for one. End up saying that we needed some things from Tesco, and I can see that Dee doesn’t believe it. Dee knows how David can be. A week before the wedding, she took hold of both of my hands and asked me if I was absolutely sure I was doing the right thing. But she doesn’t know about this, about the slap. If she knew about this, she would be upstairs with me right now, instructing me to pack a bag. And to hell with the fact that we’ve only just got married, to hell with what people will think. To Dee, it’s black and white.
He comes back as I’m closing up. He’s been drinking. It strikes me as funny, in a way, that I run a pub and we live aboveit and he’s gone elsewhere to drink. I tell Dee to go home, and she looks at me and then at David, trying to work out what is going on between us, and because she doesn’t know, she agrees to go.
‘Tomorrow,’ she says, one hand up in a wave as she opens the door we’ve just closed on the last customers.
‘Tomorrow,’ I say.
And then she’s gone, and it’s just the two of us, and I am determined I won’t speak first. I carry on with what I was doing, wiping and sweeping and clearing, and I turn at the sound of him crying.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, reaching forward and taking the cloth from my hands before holding them in his. ‘I’m so sorry, Shelley. I don’t know what happened. I promise you, I’ll never let it happen again.’
Tears prick at my eyes. ‘I didn’t know whether you were coming back.’
He holds me at arm’s length, shock on his face. ‘Shelley, I adore you. And we’re married. I don’t take that lightly. Of course I was coming back.’
For the first time since I took over the pub, I go upstairs without finishing the clearing up. I’m weary. He follows me, and we get ready for bed without saying much. I think about my mum, and Mick, about me and Granny Rose cuddled up in a single bed with a faded pink cover, listening. I have ended up in the exact place I didn’t want to be, and I don’t know how. Once we’re in bed, David reaches for my hand and then kisses me. Not a leading kiss, but a heartfelt one.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispers in the dark. ‘Please forgive me. I will never, ever do anything like that again.’
And when I wake up the next morning, there are flowers in a vase on the kitchen side, and he is making pancakes.
23
NOW
I’m not expecting to see Matt again so soon. He comes to the side of my bed, asks if I fancy some company.
‘Isn’t it Saturday?’ I ask.
‘It is.’ He nods, slowly.
‘When do you ever take a break?’
He doesn’t answer that. I notice that he’s holding something in his hands, some booklets or brochures.
‘What’s that?’
He looks down, as if he’s completely forgotten he’s holding them. ‘Oh, I thought, well, you mentioned that you’re interested in travelling, and obviously you can’t really do that at the moment, but I thought we could take a look and maybe plan a trip for you to take when you’re back on your feet.’
It’s a stack of holiday brochures, from a travel agent, like the ones I used to cut up and stick into scrapbooks as a child. And the idea of him doing this, actually going into a shop and asking for these, for me, is a little overwhelming.
‘We’ve got a bit of everything here,’ he says. ‘Beach holidays in Spain and Greece, European city breaks, safaris in South Africa. Where would you like to start?’
It’s then that he looks at me and sees that my eyes are full of tears, threatening to spill.
