After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

needing anyone, while you’re sitting there living off a man. A man you don’t even bloody well deserve!’

Wordlessly, Tara swept up her bag and stormed out.

Charley sank onto the sofa, clutched a cushion for comfort and cried her heart out.

Tara drove home and was still fuming when she got in. Slamming the back door, she headed straight to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine – a large glass. Her hand was shaking so violently that the neck of the bottle knocked against the glass. Baz wandered into the room and gently took the bottle out of her hand.

‘What’s happened?’

She took a big gulp of wine before she replied. ‘Sodding Charley, that’s what!’

Baz looked completely taken aback. He guided her into the living room and onto the sofa, switched the television off, and sat down beside her. ‘What’s she done?’

‘She turned the damn shop down.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Said she wasn’t ready to commit to it… or something. What actually happened was she chickened out.’ Tara swallowed some more wine. ‘I knew this was going to happen. The minute she took that pub job I just knew she’d just… settle for it and get stuck there. In a crap job.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t see it like that. Don’t her parents run a pub?’

‘That’s not the point!’

Baz looked baffled.

‘The point is,’ Tara said, ‘she’s a really bright woman. And she’s wasted enough of her life stuck in a dead-end job she didn’t even like. She only took it for Josh’s sake, for crying out loud! And now she has the chance to do what she wants, and run her own business, and she won’t take it.’

‘It’s stressful running your own business,’ said Baz carefully, ‘Maybe she doesn’t want that.’

Tara shot him a look. ‘It was your decision to set up on your own. I didn’t make you.’

‘I didn’t say you did,’ said Baz, sidestepping neatly. ‘But look at it from her point of view. She’s got a lot to risk. It’s tough for a woman on her own. Tough for anyone on their own,’ he corrected himself.

‘I know exactly how tough it is for a woman on her own!’ snapped Tara. ‘I was brought up by a single mum, and she supported me as well as herself. Charley doesn’t even have anyone dependent on her. She’s free to do what she wants.’

‘She is doing what she wants,’ Baz pointed out mildly. ‘Keeping a steady job and protecting her home.’

Tara rolled her eyes. Baz was obviously not going to see it from her point of view, so she finished her wine and changed the subject. ‘Is Monnie asleep?’

‘I think so.’

‘You think? You didn’t even bother to check?’ She stomped off upstairs, furious with her husband, not because he hadn’t checked on their daughter, but because she wanted to be right and he’d made her realise that she wasn’t. And because, at that moment, it was far easier, and preferable, to be angry with him, and angry with Charley, than admit to herself that she was wrong.

Driven by the need to bolt from what was threatening to be an excruciating scene in Charley’s flat, Pam had blindly fled to her car. She had started the engine before realising she had no idea where to go. For a few indecisive moments she sat by the kerbside with the engine running, wondering what to do. It would be too awkward to drop in on any of her friends unannounced, especially since she hadn’t seen any of their husbands since she’d left Geoff, and she really wasn’t ready to have the uncomfortable and challenging conversations which would inevitably ensue.

So, since it was still light on a balmy July evening, on the spur of the moment, Pam drove to a garage and bought a bunch of flowers before going to Josh’s grave. She visited the village churchyard regularly and had come to enjoy and be comforted by the changing of the seasons – life’s cycle endlessly turning and regenerating itself. At this time of year, the lingering evening sun slanting through the trees and onto the old church brought out the warm gold of the stone walls, and even managed to lift the sombre hues of the headstones. The haunting solos of blackbirds and robins floated in the air, but other than that, it was silent and peaceful in the churchyard.

As she walked back along the winding gravel path, round the headstones towards where Josh was buried, Pam noticed a small stone teddy bear, on what was obviously a child’s grave, which had fallen over on its side. The headstone informed her that the teddy was for Hannah, who had died aged seven.

Seven, thought Pam, and her throat tightened on behalf of the little girl’s parents. She’d had over thirty years with Josh. At least I had him long enough to watch him grow up, she thought. She’d always known, as all mothers do, that she wouldn’t be gifted the care and custody of her children forever, but only for a short time, until the boys grew up and left home or until they found someone they’d rather spend the rest of their lives with. But Pam had never even begun to consider that, devastatingly, her allotted time with Josh would be cruelly cut so short. She stood the little bear back up on its feet on the grave.

‘There you go, Hannah,’ she said tenderly. ‘Sleep tight, sweetheart.’

The flowers on Josh’s grave were still fairly fresh, so Pam didn’t throw them out, but merely added the new ones she’d brought, interspersing the fresh, bright purple asters between the pink and white carnations already in the vase. Then she sat on the cool grass, hugging her knees. Over these last few years she’d found it easier to talk to her son, easier to cope with the one-sided conversation, by pretending they were both in the kitchen at home. In her mind’s eye, she could see him sitting on the work surface, in a T-shirt and torn