Page 1 of The Woman in the Middle
Prologue
Twenty-four years ago
Shay Corrigan stepped out of the limousine, holding on to her father’s hand. The photographer freeze-framed the moment for the family album.
‘Nice big smiles.’
The father of the bride did his best but the sight of his wife idling at the bottom of the church steps in her flowery hat was making that difficult because he knew why she was there and he’d warned her not to be. Not that Roberta Corrigan would be in the least bit cowed by her husband’s disapproval, or be swayed from her mission by the bridesmaids, Tanya and Lesley, giggling as she held her hand up in front of the photographer’s lens and said, ‘And you can put that away for five minutes.’
‘Roberta—’
‘Be quiet, Harry, I want a word with my daughter.’
‘Our daughter,’ he corrected her. ‘And you should be in church dabbing your eyes and showing off your frock after what it cost.’
‘Mu-um,’appealed Shay as her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her far enough away from everyone else to give them some privacy.
‘Shay.’ Roberta looked her daughter square in the eye. ‘I have to ask you, do you want to do this? Because we can get right back in this limousine now and go home, no questions asked. Your father can tell everyone it’s off. Forget the expense, forget the cake, the flowers, forget everything. You can move back in with us. Now, are you quite certain, is this really what you want?’
Shay had thought at first it was a joke, but her mother had her deadly serious face on.
‘Of course I want to marry Bruce,’ she replied. ‘Why would you pick now to ask me this?’
‘Because your father said I shouldn’t, so I held off,’ said Roberta. ‘But it’s been going round and round in my head like a circling crow and it won’t go away, and you should never deny a mother’s intuition. So I’m asking you before it’s too late, do you want to marry this man? Have you thought it through? Do you love him?’
‘Yes, yes and yes,’ replied Shay, without a pause, without letting thought have a chance to answer before her mouth did. She did love Bruce. She had wanted to and she had managed it. She stuck out a defiant chin. ‘I’m old enough to know what I’m doing, Mum. So go and sit in the pew and let me get on with it.’ Then she pulled her veil hurriedly over her face because she didn’t want her mother staring into her eyes again, finding that shadow of doubt there that she’d forced into the ‘wedding nerves’ box in her head, even though it didn’t belong there and was fighting its way out.
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ said her mother, resignedly. Shehelped adjust her daughter’s veil so it was aisle-perfect. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too. Now go sit.’
Her mother turned, went into the church and Shay let go the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.
‘Ready to be a wife?’ asked her dad, holding out his crooked arm.
‘Yep, I’m ready,’ Shay answered him. Ready to be a wife and hopefully soon a mother. Not that she’d fall into the trap of ever letting any child take over her life; she wouldn’t be Roberta mark II and have her identity buried under all her various personas: wife, mother, daughter. When a child came along, it would have to fit around her, not the other way round. She wouldn’t sacrifice herself at the altar of family. And she wouldneverlose her sense of self for anyone.
Falling
Sometimes we need to fall to find out where we stand
ANON
Chapter 1
For as long as she could remember, Shay Bastable had felt like the equivalent of a sandwich filling which had got more and more compressed over the years until her once fresh and jaunty ingredients had been squashed into a pâté by the two fat slices of bread at either side of her. She didn’t resent her life, that was just how itwas.Her presence was there to be central in order to hold the sandwich unit together – to glue, to serve, to bind. But she did feel somewhat relieved at the outer slices relaxing their press upon her over the past year. Her twenty-three-year-old son Sunny had left the family home nine months ago to live with his fiancée Karoline, and her daughter had packed up and moved out to flat-share with her best friend six months later. Shay had expected her back within twenty-four hours but nope, there was silence on that front – and with Courtney, no news was good news. She hadn’t cried when Courtney had left home, but she’d sobbed buckets when Sunny had, cried until the salt had made her cheeks red and raw. Not because she loved her son any more than her daughter, but because he waseasierto love. He’d been hard work, as all kids are, but his sweet,easy disposition, his affection had been enough reward to sweep away the fatigue. Twenty-two-year-old Courtney was mercury personified, a shape-shifter. Her beliefs, hair, fashion, likes and dislikes changed with the wind and Shay had stopped trying to figure her out and had to stand back and let her find her place because – as she herself had once thought – parents knew nothing. They had grown out of the ways of the present world and were no longer in touch with it, their accrued wisdom of little value. Two very different children who had been raised exactly the same way and yet had turned out polar opposites. Shay knew, of course, that children were not the sum of their mothers’ and fathers’ influences, because she and her elder sister Paula had been brought up in the same household, yet apart from the equivalent number of limbs and head, there weren’t a lot of other similarities between them.
Shay’s parents had divorced only five years ago, in their seventies. Roberta Corrigan had settled well into single life, although she kept her (relative) independence thanks only to the amount of scaffolding her younger daughter supplied to hold it in place. Shay went to visit her mother every day: sometimes she’d bob up in the morning, but she was always there at teatime to cook her a meal, sort out her tablets for the following day and ensure she was warm and safe for the night. There was more and more memory slippage going on, but the doctor had said that as long as Roberta was remembering the important things like turning off hobs and locking doors, not to be too troubled by the fact that she couldn’t remember who the prime minister was or her twelve times table. Plus she had wonderful neighbours who kept an eye out for each other. Their Neighbourhood Watch made the SAS look like a bunch of amateurs.
Shay pulled up outside her mother’s house and noticed that building work had commenced next door. It had been expected, of course, why else would there have been a huge orange skip parked on their drive for the past two rain-sodden weeks? Odd couple, her mum’s neighbours. Middle-aged and reclusive, they stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs from the sociable, elderly residents of Merriment Close. The close had always lived up to its name; it had been a happy cul-de-sac of ten bungalows; an outer circle of dwellings around an inner round of green which the pensioners themselves maintained to an impeccable standard. Then last year Doris at 1A had died and her daughter had sold the bungalow to the dour Drew and Ann Balls who did not wish to engage with their neighbours on any level. Christmas cards to them had not been reciprocated, hellos in passing not returned, invitation to join the residents’ association ignored.
When Shay walked into the house it was to find her mother standing at the window, eyes glued to the skip as if trying to outstare it in a competition in the hope it would melt away in defeat. She had been strangely fascinated by it since it landed without being able to explain why, but it had obviously triggered something in her cloudy mind.
‘What are they doing, do you think? All afternoon, they’ve been flinging bricks in that… orange thing. What’s it called?’
‘It’s a skip, Mum. And I suspect they’ll be having some building work done which is why people usually hire them. They’ll fill it and then it will be gone, out of your way forever. Now, is there anything you fancy for tea?’
‘You’ll be able to see it from space, that thing,’ said Roberta, ignoring the tea question. ‘I can see it every time I look through the window, all shouty and orange.’
