Page 24 of The Midnight Bakery
Beth rubbed the back of her neck. She had the beginnings of a headache and that was where they always started. Too much tension just at the wrong end of her day. She needed to change the subject.
‘I was worried aboutyou. I’m glad that whatever was ailing you last night seems to have fizzled out. Maybe you were just more tired than usual.’
Jack nodded, picking up the newspaper from the table and glancing at it idly.
‘What was the problem with the spare anyway?’
‘I dunno. It was flat as well, we did look.’ It wasn’t an outright lie. She picked up her mug and carried it to the sink, pouring away the remains of her coffee. ‘I’ll never sleep if I drink this.’ Her thoughts were already racing ahead to all the things there were still left to do. Jack might be out of bed, but he was far from ready for the day. Plus, there was washing to put on the line, another load to go in the machine and now the car to sort out as well.
‘I can shower later if you want to get your head down,’ said Jack, as if reading her mind. She could feel his eyes on her, assessing what he saw. ‘You look tired,’ he added. ‘Bad shift?’
Beth shrugged. ‘The usual. I think I’m just hormonal.’ She attempted a smile. ‘Well, more hormonal than usual.’ She was making light of things, but it hadn’t been a particularly easy shift – too much chatter about the redundancies which inevitably pulled everyone down. Beth was just as worried as any of her colleagues, but there were always one or two who did nothing but moan and she tried to avoid them as much as she could. No one could change the situation, but you could change the way you coped with it. The bottomless pit of doom, Lisa called it, and Beth agreed with her – it was far too easy to get dragged in.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘if you don’t mind showering later, I might turn in. I’ll just give the garage a call and get Clive to sort the tyre for us.’
‘I can do that,’ replied Jack. ‘You get off to bed.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Shall I wake you at two? Bit later than usual?’
She grinned. ‘With a coffee?’
‘Always.’
She was halfway across the room when he spoke again.
‘Beth…?’
She turned at the change of tone in his voice.
‘Was the spare tyre still the same one from the last time you had a flat? Because that was over a year ago.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Beth decided to brazen it out. ‘I kept meaning to get it done, and like the stupid idiot I am, it slipped my mind. I won’t do that again.’
‘I just worry about you…’ replied Jack, studying her face. ‘You were lucky today that Tam was around to help.’
‘I know,’ she said lightly. ‘But we’ll get it sorted.’ She smiled and came forward to kiss him. ‘Thanks for doing that. And could you ask Clive if he’ll invoice us, rather than pay upfront? I’ll settle it when I get paid.’
This time she was almost at the door when she heard Jack sigh. A loud, very audible sigh that was designed to get her attention.
‘Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me…?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Beth, turning back around. ‘Whydoyou get the feeling there’s something I’m not telling you?’ She grinned at her teasing of him, just to show it was well meant. But then she sobered. ‘I’m not, you know, it’s just the same old crap. An unexpected bill we really can’t afford, so we’ll jiggle a bit, like we always do.’
But Beth’s attempts at deflection weren’t going to work. Not today.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Jack. ‘Pretend it isn’t important. It isn’t funny and it isn’t the truth either. I know what we have in the bank, and there’s enough to cover a new tyre, for goodness’ sake. There’s also enough for the odd taxi. I’m also damn sure your not replacing the spare was deliberate because you’re avery organised person, Beth, you don’t forget stuff like that.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You took a calculated risk hoping it wouldn’t backfire, except that today it did, didn’t it? I could have waited the extra half hour it would have taken you to walk to the station and get a taxi.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘When a simple phone call would have established you didn’t need to be. So, what’s really going on here, Beth? I know we don’t have much to spare, but we’re doing okay.’
The pain in Beth’s neck had now moved to settle over one eye. And she knew from experience it was a headache she wouldn’t be able to outrun.
‘I might not have a job next month,’ she replied, hunching her shoulders up to her ears. She released them, stretching out the muscles as best she could. The pain was about to get a whole lot worse. ‘But chances are I will, and if I worried myself to death every time the hospital went through another round of redundancies, I’d be…well, I’d be dead.’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I refuse to do it, Jack. It’s a hard enough job without living your life wound up like a coiled spring. Lisa’s told me it’s very unlikely I’ll be one of the ones to go, and I trust her. She’s in with senior management and shewillget to have her say. So, let’s just see what happens, shall we? I’ll worry about the sky falling in when it lands on my head.’
‘See, you’re doing it again. Making light of things. Even the language you use is designed to sound ridiculous so it’s easier for you to pretend it doesn’t matter, or that it’s never going to happen.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘And what’s worse is that you do it to hide stuff from me, thinking I won’t see through your sleight of hand.’
Beth’s mouth dropped open. ‘I do not.’
‘You do. You hide things from me all the time. And don’t look at me like that…as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.You think I won’t cope, so you never reveal anything that might provoke an emotion. God forbid. Just keep Jack on an even keel. Well, let me explain something to you – real life carries on just the same whether you can use your legs or not. There’s good…there’s stuff which rumbles along the middle…and then there’s stuff which has the potential to be monumentally shit and, at the very least, deserves an emotional response. This is one of those times, Beth. So don’t fall into the trap of thinking that my brain is as useless as the rest of my body. I canthinkperfectly well.’
