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

Josh had loved her hair. He would wind her curls round his fingers as they sat snuggled up on the sofa watching TV.

‘Don’t ever cut it!’ he’d once begged, and she’d promised she wouldn’t. For her wedding she’d been more anxious about choosing her bridal hair than choosing her dress. Everyone had told her to wear it up, even the hairdresser, but she knew Josh loved it loose, so she’d asked the stylist to sweep the front pieces into a simple twist, and then dress the rest of her cascading dark curls with dozens of tiny white flowers.

Cutting her hair short would mean looking in the mirror every day and seeing a different version of herself, a Charley who Josh had never known.

Pam’s stylist was, rather tactlessly, inspecting the grey hairs on her client’s head. ‘Have you thought about having it coloured?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely not!’ exclaimed Pam, echoing Charley seconds before. ‘It’s taken me a lifetime to get those grey hairs! And besides, grey is the new blonde.’

The young beautician looked deeply offended at this thoroughly anarchic notion, and Charley had to bite her lip.

Since Charley had refused a new cut for her hair, her stylist was now concentrating on her make-up.

‘We all do the same make-up for years, but every now and then we all need to refresh ourselves and keep ourselves up to date. We just need to use something a little different,’ she said patronisingly.

‘Like Polyfilla?’ offered Pam, from the next chair. Charley laughed out loud, and the stylist nearly poked her in the eye with the mascara brush.

‘So, what’s brought on the desire for a “new you”?’ Pam’s stylist asked as she snipped away with the scissors.

‘I’m getting divorced.’

‘Oh, me, too!’

‘Been there. Done that. Twice, in fact,’ boasted Charley’s stylist. Then turning to Charley she asked, ‘How about you? You getting divorced, too?’

‘No,’ replied Charley steadily. Normally she would have gone on to explain that she was widowed, but then she would have had to explain that it was Pam’s son who’d died and then their two poor stylists would be acutely embarrassed and lost for words, so she merely said, ‘I’m not married.’

‘Lucky you!’ quipped the stylist.

Pam visibly winced and Charley felt sick. It was as if she’d denied Josh had ever existed, like she’d brushed him under a carpet, and in front of Pam. God, what would she think of her? She vowed to never lie about her status again, whether or not she was with Pam. She wasn’t ‘not married’, she was a widow, Josh’s widow, and she wasn’t ever going to deny that, or him, ever again. Her face burned, and her throat felt tight. She couldn’t even bring herself to look across to Pam.

Chapter Twenty-two

If the makeover wasn’t a complete success, it wasn’t a complete failure either. Charley’s new look boiled down to her applying some concealer, a bit of blush and a slightly shinier lip-gloss, but Pam’s bold gamine haircut really suited her. Although it didn’t make her look any younger, she hadn’t expected it to, or even wanted it to, but it did make her feel more youthful somehow, trendier. Catching sight of herself in a shop window as they left the salon, she stopped and beamed at her reflection. ‘I love the “new me”!’

Charley looped her arm through Pam’s. ‘You should! You look fab.’

‘How about a glass of fizz to celebrate?’

‘Why not!’

The women headed off, still arm in arm, to one of the dockside bars to sit outside in the early autumn sun and drink Prosecco. They chose a table overlooking the water and Charley went to get their drinks, leaving Pam gazing out over the harbour. The dull brown watery expanse was alive with people on paddle-boards and kayaks. Yellow water ferries chugged along and small dinghies ducked their way between the larger ships. The seagulls, the city’s constant soundtrack, noisily squabbled for scraps or keened mournfully as they arced their way across the open sky.

Charley returned with the drinks, and sat down opposite her mother-in-law. She raised her glass.

‘To the new Pam!’ They both laughed and clinked glasses.

Charley had only taken a couple of sips of her drink when her phone rang. She glanced down at the screen. As did Pam, although entirely involuntarily, but she could clearly see Tara identified as the caller. Not intending to pry, she immediately looked away. Charley rejected the call, turned the phone to silent, but left it on the table.

Feigning indifference, Pam looked at the boats sliding past them on the water. Frankly, she thought Charley was taking this spat with Tara too far. Life was too short to be petty or to bear a grudge against a close friend. But whatever she thought, it was nothing to do with her, and whilst she’d done her best to encourage Charley to make it up with Tara, she had failed. Then Tara called again, and again Charley ignored the call, letting it ring, silently, until Tara hung up.

Then Tara called again, and again…

Thoroughly exasperated, Pam was just about to snap, For crying out loud, Charley, don’t be so bloody stubborn and answer your damn phone! But Charley had already buckled, and picked up the call.

‘Hi Tara,’ she said tonelessly. Then there was a silence before she said, in a completely different voice, ‘Are you at home? I’m coming over.’

Pam immediately put down her glass. ‘Is she okay?’

‘I don’t know. No. She’s crying. I’ve got to go.’ Clearly flustered, Charley grabbed her bag.

‘You go on,’ Pam told her. ‘I’ll catch the bus back.’

Charley hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes! Go!’

Pausing only to nod gratefully at her mother-in-law, Charley turned on her heel, and ran all the way to her car.

The sight of Tara’s face, when she opened her front door, blotched and puffy, eyes red-raw from crying, sent a rush of cold fear slicing into Charley and twisted her stomach. ‘What’s happened?’ she demanded.

‘I found a lump,’ said Tara.

For a moment, all Charley could hear in her head was a