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The last thing she’d done before Juno arrived was take off her wedding ring. She always wore it, but she probably shouldn’t have it on in her profile photos. The skin on her finger was indented through years of wear. Anyone who looked closely would be able to see the ring’s conspicuous absence, which was why she was trying to hide her hands.
‘You don’t think you should wear something a bit more …’ Juno waved her hands about – ‘eye-catching?’
‘I want to look like me,’ said Helen. ‘Not a fake me.’
‘Hmmm.’ Juno eyed her thoughtfully, then wriggled out of the white biker jacket she was wearing and chucked it at her. ‘Try sticking that on.’
Helen shrugged on the jacket and it fitted perfectly. She pulled up the collar of her shirt, then put her hands in her pockets and smiled.
‘How do I look?’
‘Foxy!’ Juno was snapping away on her phone. ‘This is great. This is much more like it.’
She stopped for a moment, put her head to one side, then rummaged in her bag. She came over to Helen with a red lipstick and before she could protest, was putting it on her.
‘Not with my hair colour!’ protested Helen.
‘Shhh,’ said Juno. Then she put her hands in Helen’s hair and ruffled it up even more. ‘There. Now you look like you’ve just come out of your trailer after hot sex with Colin Farrell.’
Oh God. That wasn’t the look she was going for at all. That was the best way to get all kinds of inappropriate approaches. Helen cleared her throat, smoothed down her hair and tried to look wholesome.
‘No! You look like a Sunday school teacher.’
‘It’s fine. I’m sure what you’ve done is fine. Let’s stop.’ She couldn’t bear it a moment longer. As long as she had a couple of half-decent snaps, that would be enough.
‘Come on, then.’ Juno was obviously relieved. ‘Let’s go and get a drink.’
The Neptune stood on the end of the quay, built of white-washed stone, its name painted in black letters over the latticed windows and a mural of Neptune climbing up its side, bearded, crowned – and stark naked. There had been uproar when it had appeared overnight five years ago, like very posh graffiti. There had been letters of protest from more straight-laced members of the community, but people came to see it from miles around, so, all in all, Naked Neptune was good for the town, and Belle and Gloria, the landladies, were delighted. They’d recently moved down from Manchester to take over the pub, and many people suspected they’d set up the whole thing, but now it was history and no one cared.
The Neptune was always busy, for the food was renowned for its robust simplicity: mussels in cider or fish pie or scampi. Triple-cooked chips and peas on the side. Gloria made her famous tartare sauce fresh every morning – mayonnaise studded with gherkins, capers, tarragon, dill and parsley – and they got through bowls and bowls of it on a weekend.
Juno and Helen pushed through the crowds and made their way to the bar to order the Neptune’s signature Bloody Mary, a concoction of chilli-infused vodka, sherry, horseradish, celery salt and tomato juice that came with a fat prawn hanging off the rim of the glass.
Whenever she came in, Helen looked at the bar stool where William would have sat having his pint on his way home. Always just the one, which he savoured, and which he’d been having in here since he was fourteen and his own father brought him in. There was always a moment when she thought she might see him there, and he would turn, and his face would break into that gentle smile and he would nod to whoever was behind the bar to bring her a glass of white wine. But he never was.
Somehow over the years her body had absorbed the grief and it had become part of her. It was something she had got used to because she had to. It didn’t mean she was any less sad, or that she didn’t miss William as much, because she wished he was here every minute of the day. She had simply learned to live with the pain, as human beings did. Gradually other experiences layered themselves over the top of that terrible day, like emotional scar tissue covering up a wound, and she learned to be more than her grief, and not to let it define her. But it was hard to think of herself as anything other than William North’s widow.
‘Widow’ felt like such a final word, as if she had been buried with her husband, as if it was her fate to carry around her widowhood like the woman in the black hooded cape in the advert. She wanted to shake it off and become someone new. She had been without William almost as long as she had been with him, which seemed like a turning point. She would never forget him, or stop loving him with all her heart, but time was running out.
She wanted someone for herself. Someone who knew she preferred Sauvignon Blanc over Chardonnay. Someone who would catch her eye at a party, see she was bored and come to rescue her. Someone who would surprise her with tickets to go to see Tom Jones and book a lovely hotel so they didn’t have to face a long journey home afterwards. And someone she could spoil and look after and care for too, for Helen was a nurturer.
And then there was the obvious. Although it made her curl up a little inside to think about it, she missed physical intimacy. The little sparkles that zinged through you in anticipation. The pure heaven of being curled up in someone’s arms afterwards as your heart rate slowed down and you both drifted off to sleep. William had known her so well and had always been able to surprise her, tease her, take her breath away. Was there someone out there who could do that for her? Would she have the courage to reveal herself to another man after all this time?
If she didn’t try, she would never know.
While Juno got the drinks, Helen mingled amongst the regulars. She couldn’t move without being greeted by someone, for these were her people. Their people. The fishermen who faced the high seas every day to bring back the lobster, the brill, the turbot that graced the restaurant tables. The shop owners who met the wants and needs of the tourists who descended on the little town in summer. The ordinary folk – the hairdressers and cleaners and electricians with businesses that sometimes struggled in the off season but found new hope come spring.
No one knew the rhythm of life in a seaside town better than the Norths. Their maintenance company serviced most of the properties in Speedwell, for they had a crack team of workmen and labourers. Quite a few of them were in the pub now, and they all had the utmost respect for Helen, for they knew she was the quiet influence who made sure they were looked after and paid well, the one they turned to for sage advice and sympathy when things went wrong in their private lives. Illness, injury, money trouble, marriage problems.
‘Hey, Mrs N. Looking good.’ Jeff, their chief electrician, tweaked the sleeve of the biker jacket. ‘What’s all this?’
‘It’s Juno’s,’ laughed Helen. ‘How’s Nina?’
Jeff’s wife had recently had a knee operation.
‘She’s getting there. It’s going to take a while. I’ve promised to take her back a portion of Gloria’s mussels.’
‘If you need any more time off, just say.’
