Page 6 of Rivers of Ink
“Xander hated the fact you wouldn’t talk to him,” said Isobel.
Callan stopped in his tracks.
“Said it was hard to keep on working with you when you clearly despised him.”
“It wasn’t him I hated,” said Callan, his voice barely above a whisper.
The night he’d discovered his brother and girlfriend together was burned into his brain. He’d been due to work late, staying on way beyond closing time to finish off a piece for one of his regulars, something that would have taken hours. At the last minute, the client had cancelled, and Callan had closed up as usual and headed back to his flat. When he had first entered, he heard music—not that it was an unusual thing, he and Isobel played songs all the time—it was music more akin to the stuff his brother liked, harder-edged than Callan’s preferred genre. Next, he heard voices and laughter coming from the bedroom. Despite every fibre of his body telling him not to, he headed into the room. The sight of Xander and Isobel tangled naked together on his bed—their bed—clearly in the throes of passion, made him feel physically sick. It was Isobel who had seen him first, squealing and pulling a sheet around her, as if Callan hadn’t seen her nude about a million times before. There had been protestations from the pair of them that it was a one off, nothing had ever happened before, and it wouldn’t happen again. Callan didn’t miss the look in Xander’s eyes, the one that said he’d finally gotten one over on his big brother. Callan instinctively knew it had been going on for some time. So, he turned and left. He went back to The Unbound Soul and slept on the couch upstairs, not for the first time, and waited for the two of them to show up for work the next morning.
When they arrived, hand in hand, Callan knew he wouldn’t be able to handle working with them both. Xander was his brother and had some financial involvement in the business. Isobel had to be the casualty. He gave her a month’s pay in lieu of notice and told her to pack her stuff. She had to be gone by the time he got home that night.
Since then, his relationship with Xander had been fractured, and they barely said a civil word to each other. Three months after Callan found them together, Xander had gone out on his bike to see Isobel in her new place out of town. The weather was horrendous, wet and stormy with gale force winds. Xander had over-cooked it on one of the bends on the country lane and piled straight into a tree at over fifty miles an hour. He died on the side of the road.
“It’s not my fault,” said Isobel. Her voice was thick with emotion. “It was an accident.”
“If he hadn’t been going to see you, he wouldn’t have been out in that weather,” Callan choked back. “You should never have started seeing him behind my back.”
Isobel hung her head, having the decency to look at least a little guilty.
Drew stepped in. “Look, now isn’t the time for recriminations and blame. We should be celebrating Xander's life.”
Callan glared at his father. “Celebrating the fact he was a liar, and she was a cheat?” He stabbed a finger into Isobel’s chest as he spoke. “Not likely. I’m out of here.”
He sought out Aidy and Wren. “I need to go. Can I get a lift?”
“Sure, where to?”
The Unbound Soul was always Callan’s sanctuary, and he asked to be dropped off there. He made sure that theclosedsign was still up and headed upstairs to the little office. Opening the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, he grabbed the bottle of whisky that he kept there for emergencies. He took a huge swig straight from the bottle and felt it burn a path down his chest, then took another right away; the pain felt good. A hollow laugh ripped from his lips as he raised the bottle to the sky.
“To you, little bro, wherever you are.”
4
In the less-than-forty-eight-hours since Aidy Brown from The Unbound Soul had contacted her and asked her to come in for an interview, Alicia changed her mind about the job at least a hundred times. Looking after reception and marketing for a barber and tattoo studio was a far cry from what she thought she ought to be doing by now. If she thought about the people in her year at university, they were probably Directors or Vice Presidents of Marketing Departments by now, not scraping a living from temp jobs and holiday cover on little more than minimum wage. As Nell kept reminding her, if she wanted to pay the rent it was better than nothing. She hoped it wasn’t another of her bad decisions.
It had also been a difficult decision to choose an outfit. Based on what little she knew of the business—despite Nell’s nagging that she really should have checked out their website—she’d gone with a short, flowered dress and cute, strappy heels that picked out one of the colours in the material. She had left her hair loose and flowing and applied bright make-up.
“Jeez, Ali, are you going on a date?”
Nell, her sole cheerleader, was again working from home in order to supervise the outfit and the aftermath of the interview.
“What? No, obviously.”
“Then why do you look like you are?” Nell stood up and pulled Alicia back into the bedroom.
She riffled through Alicia’s closet and pulled out a pair of skinny chocolate-brown trousers, a plain black top, and a fitted back suit jacket. “Now put those on.” Nell pushed the pile of clothes into Alicia’s arms and disappeared.
Alicia did as she was told and got changed into the outfit Nell had selected. Immediately, she relaxed, feeling much more comfortable. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror on the back of the door, the garish make-up looked exactly that. Grabbing a cleansing wipe from the pack on the table, she scrubbed her face and replaced the bright colours with muted browns and a nude lipstick.
“Much better,” said Nell, as she came back into the room. “These boots will go perfectly, and I think you should put your hair up.” She handed Alicia a pair of spike heeled black ankle boots—which Alicia recognised as hers, she wondered where they had got to. “You’ll kill them looking like this.”
“Not sure that would go down well in the interview.” Alicia quickly wound her dark hair into a loose bun and stuck pins in it to secure the style. She pulled a few strands out and let them trail around her face.
“You’d better get going, you don’t want to be late,” said Nell. “Knock ‘em dead!” She gave Alicia a hug. “Gotta get back to the emails otherwise people will start to get suspicious.” And she left the room.
Alicia took a final look in the mirror. She looked—and felt—good. Good enough to totally nail the interview. She grabbed her handbag and headed out the door.
It took her less than fifteen minutes to walk to Fosse Arcade where The Unbound Soul was situated. The arcade was full of interesting independent shops. The ones that stood out for Alicia were a jewellery shop, a cute little bookshop-slash-coffee-shop, several clothes boutiques, and a deli. If she did end up working there, she certainly wouldn’t get bored in her lunch hour. She spotted The Unbound Soul at the end of the arcade, the logo covering most of the windows. From what Alicia could see, there were wooden floors, vintage barber chairs, and a couple of squishy leather sofas. It looked like a chilled out, sociable place to be.
