Page 94 of Loving Netta Wilde

Doogie got up and took the tray off him. ‘I’ll take it. Come and join us.’

‘I don’t want to intrude.’ He cut a pathetic figure in Will’s track pants and T-shirt. They were hanging off him. Good job he was seeing a doctor tomorrow.

‘Park your arse down there.’ Claire pointed to the armchair Doogie had just left.

‘We’re looking at the stuff you brought over from yours,’ explained Netta.

Claire pulled out a record. It was a single. ‘Close to Me’. Netta had known which one it was as soon as Claire began to read the writing on the sleeve. ‘Netta. Our first dance together.’

It was obvious she’d already reached the bottom of the message, even though she hadn’t read it out. ‘That’s sweet.’ She slipped the record back in the box and picked up another one. Claire had always loathed Colin but it seemed even she didn’t have the heart to put the boot in anymore.

Colin accepted a beer from Doogie and was putting on a good show, but she could sense him faltering. He met her gaze and in her mind’s eye, she saw the rest of the message without needing to look at the sleeve:

Love you always,

Colin xxxx

52

TALK OF LOVE AND FORGIVENESS

Being a Tuesday, Netta would normally be at the foodbank, but she was having the day off to take Colin to a doctor. She could have left the job to one of the others, but it was something she felt she had to do herself. They’d come to the one Clive had recommended. Colin hadn’t wanted to go to his own in case he bumped into someone he didn’t want to see. Arianne mostly, but there was also the possibility of Adam and Jude, his neighbours. Netta had never liked them, so she was happy to bring him across town. Besides, a private doctor was easier to get an appointment with.

Colin had been in there for absolutely ages, and she’d exhausted the waiting room’s ample selection of magazines. There were, after all, only so many ways you could be told wide-legged pants were the new skinny jeans, and red lipstick was the new red lipstick. She’d even read an article about air fryers now that it seemed she was stuck with one. It was hilarious really when she thought about Doogie’s legacy for her. Two doomed love affairs, one lost baby, a litter of pups and an air fryer. Well if nothing else, at least she’d be able to make nice chips.

She checked the clock and wondered, not for the first time, what they were up to in there. She avoided looking at the receptionist because there were also only so many ways you could say that no you did not require another latte and Danish. You didn’t get this at your local GP. A leaflet on cystitis and a working toilet was as much as you could expect there, if you were lucky. But you got what you paid for, she supposed. If you could afford to spend money on this kind of treatment all the time, you’d want to feel like you were in a spa. She wondered how Colin was paying for it. Perhaps he still had money squirreled away somewhere. His ill-gotten gains from when he’d pretended to be a penniless artist and made her pay for everything. He probably built up a tidy nest egg then. She hoped Arianne didn’t know about it because he was going to need it when they got him back home.

Colin came out of the doctor’s room at last. She met him halfway but had to wait until they were back in the car before he gave her the details. ‘The doctor thinks I’m undernourished and depressed. She’s arranging other tests to rule out anything else. I have some supplements to help build me back up. I refused medication for the depression and said I didn’t want a therapist.’

‘How did she take that?’

‘She didn’t have much choice. I told her I’m managing just fine with Geraldine’s help.’

‘Fair enough. How do you think you’ll get on when you don’t see so much of Mum?’

‘When you move me back into my own house, you mean? Doogie told me the plan. I’ve discussed it with Geraldine. When the time comes, she’ll come to me, or I’ll go to her. She said she’ll be around for as long as I need her.’

Wow. Sometimes Netta wondered if her mother wasn’t some kind of superhero in disguise. Or maybe a saint. She had to be one or both of those things considering how much work shewas putting into helping a man she had such a massive grudge against.

Colin asked if they could stop somewhere for a walk. ‘I feel like I’ve been cooped up inside for too long. I could do with stretching my legs.’

She took him to Edgbaston Reservoir. She hadn’t been here since her mum was coming to the end of her therapy. It seemed appropriate somehow.

‘I’m sorry about the record last night,’ she said when they’d been walking for a while. ‘I forgot it was in there.’

‘That’s okay. At least Claire had the decency not to finish reading it out. That would have been embarrassing.’

‘Would it have been so embarrassing though? We all write stupid declarations when we’re young.’ She was thinking about a book she’d bought Doogie when he was still very much her Heathcliff. It wasWuthering Heights, naturally. She’d written something cringeworthy on the inside of it.From one outsider to another, if she remembered correctly.

‘It wasn’t stupid. At least, I didn’t think it was at the time. Did you?’ he said.

‘No, I thought it was cute.’

‘I’ll settle for cute. Tell me something, truthfully. Did you love me at all?’

‘Yes, I did.’ If he’d asked her six years ago, or even six months ago, she’d have said no. But pain has a habit of warping your memories. For too long she could only think of the man he’d become. Lately, she’d remembered the shy, nerdy boy who wrote his undying love on a record sleeve. And yes, she had loved him. Not in the same way she’d loved Doogie then. Not in the same way she loved Frank now. But she’d loved him all the same.

‘I loved you so much,’ he said.

---