After the One by Cass Lester (novels for students .txt) 📗

wanted to forget the feeling of Josh’s skin against hers. She knew she would always, easily, be able to conjure up images of him, the way he’d looked at her, or something he’d said or done, but it was getting harder to remember his touch, his smell and the sound of his voice, and it alarmed her to think she might forget altogether one day.

‘Oh, this is too bloody hard!’ She put the flutes back into their wrappings, stood up and took herself off to the DIY store.

Grabbing a trolley, she ordered herself to think cheap and cheerful, with the emphasis on cheap. Naturally the shop had put the cheaper paints right at the back and she was forced to push her trolley through the shelves of gorgeous, eye-wateringly expensive paints. Studiously ignoring the to-die-for colours, she pushed on to the bargain corner.

Several large tubs of Rustic Red sat forlornly on a pallet labelled ‘Half Price’. Immediately deciding ‘Half Price’ was her new favourite colour, she slung a couple of pots in the trolley for the living room and then splashed out on some cheap, industrial-sized tubs of Zesty Yellow for the rest of the flat. Then she found some chic curtains and bedding with an abstract, autumnal leaf pattern for the spare room. She was almost tempted to put them in her room, except her room absolutely wasn’t part of the makeover, she reminded herself. Finally, she headed to the checkout and handed the cashier her credit card.

‘Don’t even tell me how much it is,’ she begged. ‘Just put it on the card.’

Within an hour she was cheerfully rollering the kitchen walls Zesty Yellow. It was an enormous improvement so, hugely encouraged, she decided to tackle the ceiling, using a chair to stand on. She’d barely begun when Baz arrived to fix the fence, and promptly gave her a bollocking.

‘That’s how people end up in A&E, and why God invented the stepladder!’

When she pointed out she didn’t actually possess a stepladder, he got one out of his van.

‘Hang on to it until you’re done,’ he told her.

She thanked him and offered him a coffee.

‘I’ll make it,’ he said, ‘You crack on.’ He made them both coffee and took his outside to get on with the fence.

You are a damn good man, thought Charley, and not for the first time, wished Tara appreciated him a bit more.

By the time he came in to tell her he was all finished, she’d moved on to the hall, but she had a crick in her neck and cramp in her painting hand. She was flagging, definitely flagging.

‘You’re doing a grand job!’ he told her.

She rolled her eyes. ‘I wish! Anyhow, how much do I owe you?’

‘I’ll send you an invoice,’ he said vaguely.

Charley looked him in the eye. ‘Don’t forget,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ he replied, but they both knew Tara would ensure the bill was ‘forgotten’.

It took Charley several, totally knackering days to paint the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen and the spare room. It didn’t help that every night she had to stop around five, scrub up and go to the pub to work. The blisters on her hands, the aches in her muscles and the fact that she could barely move her neck reminded her precisely why she and Josh had only ever painted the flat once. She never wanted to pick up a roller again, which was a shame, because she still had to tackle the living room.

Covering her blisters with plasters, and the furniture with dustsheets, she scooped up all the ornaments on the shelving unit, including her wedding photo, which momentarily stopped her in her tracks. Josh was beaming at her like a Cheshire cat who couldn’t believe he’d got the cream. He’d always been quick to smile, and perhaps it wasn’t surprising that nearly all the pictures she had of him had captured him with his trademark grin. The only difference was that in this photo, for once, he had managed to tame his unruly hair.

‘You are not going to recognise the living room by the time I’m done,’ she told him, but even she wasn’t prepared for the shock-and-awe effect of Rustic Red obliterating Magnolia. Charley rocked back on her heels and eyed the wall. ‘Rustic?’ More like ‘Drastic’. And then suddenly and rather irrationally, she felt she was being disloyal, as if she was eradicating the memory of Josh with every sweep of the roller – painting him out of her life. She told herself she was being ridiculous. ‘Anyhow, it’s too late to go back now,’ she told herself briskly. ‘You need the rent.’ So, flinging open the French doors to let the paint smell out and the fresh air in, she carried on, and by the end of the day the living room was completely transformed.

Going through to the kitchen, she dumped the roller into the sink, ran the cold tap, and started rinsing the paint out of it. An improbable quantity of dark red paint gushed out, as if it had been the weapon for a particularly bloody murder, while her red-splattered hands identified her as the killer. Naturally, just at that moment, her phone rang.

‘Calm. Me. Down,’ said Nisha’s voice tightly down the line.

‘What’s happened now?’ Charley sank anxiously onto a kitchen chair.

‘He’s demanding more money.’

Immediately grasping Nisha meant Jay, Charley replied, ‘I thought you settled all the finances in court when you got divorced.’

‘We did.’

‘Is he allowed to ask for more money now? Legally I mean.’

‘I don’t know. Possibly. Probably. He says he wants the other ten per cent.’

It was a statement which meant nothing to Charley, so Nisha went onto explain that Jay had been so keen to leave her and buy a flat with La Bimbo, he’d agreed to take forty per cent of their joint assets, instead of the usual fifty-fifty split, because that was all she could raise. Actually, as Nisha pointed out, it was pretty much what he would have ended up with anyway