(2013) Four Widows Read online

  The sting of air-conditioned air almost knocked me off my feet when I entered the office building. Corset Magazine HQ, near Holyrood Park, was a slick tower building, great glass and elevators, where we shared space with businesses and high-end boutiques.

  Men marched purposefully, while women trotted through the main revolving doors on heels, clutching coffees, relieved to hit the ice-blast atmosphere. Not me, I shivered violently. Acute tiredness, I suppose.

  How did I get here, Holyrood, I reflected, pausing before I walked through the security turnstile to the lifts. Strong sunlight powered through 4,000 panels of glass, throwing large circles of light on the floor. I could have been standing in the headlights from an alien spaceship. Extraterrestrial abduction away from this life, now there’s a thought.

  London to Edinburgh happened faster than I could click my Pierre Hardy heels. I handed in my notice and four hours later received a call from the deputy editor on Edinburgh Tribune, a broadsheet affectionately known as ET, with weekend supplements, one of which was a style magazine about to get its own launch.

  He barely made time for polite introductions or even to confirm that I had indeed stepped down as Editor on 2Glam magazine before getting straight to the point: there was a job on Corset Magazine. Was I interested?

  I flew up to Edinburgh and back in the same day for the interview, which took place over lunch at the Balmoral Hotel on Princes Street. ET deputy editor Archie Shaw met me with an iron-fist handshake. Short and dense, he had grizzly bear facial hair to match his black flat-top cut, which didn’t move when he did. He got down to business without wasting words–there would be no conversation regarding my decision to swap London for Edinburgh because, as far as he was concerned, I didn’t have a personal life. The message was clear: it was all about the magazine and if I didn’t concur, I was out.

  By the time coffee was served, I was offered the job as two sugar cubes rolled into Shaw’s cup like dice: he was taking a gamble on me.

  We steamrolled through details, both in the mood for brisk business and keen to escape the thick quietness of the hotel dining room with its immaculate-set tables; napkins the size of pillow cases folded fiercely.

  The final details were tied up at the bar where I confirmed I would accept the position as Editor on Corset Magazine. It was the fastest most effective interview I’d ever had and an indication of what the job would be like: head-down hard work.

  Shaw assured me that I had a dream team waiting for me. From him, I took this to be praise indeed because Shaw didn’t look like a man forthcoming with a compliment.

  “The Boy will look after you,” he said.

  “The Boy?”

  “Jim. Thinks he’s a rock god but he’s got it.”

  The interview ended there. Shaw left with a final fierce handshake. I watched him, furry figure darting through the opulent entrance of the grand old hotel and wasn’t sure what to think but sincerely hoped I had it.

  Shaking away the memories, I made it up to my office to find the team was waiting, keen to see how the Elvis James interview had gone. There was a huge level of expectation, especially since Elvis had worked behind closed doors for 15 years, never once making a personal appearance at his own shows.

  I shook my head as I walked to my desk.

  Jim threw down his pen. “Shit, man.”

  I sighed and flung myself into my chair, feeling the sedative effects of gin mixed with wine.

  Jim Williams, “The Boy,” aforementioned by Archie Shaw, worked as showbiz editor on the newspaper and was my deputy on Corset. When we were first introduced I blurted out, “Oh no!” I’d meant to think this but an inappropriate vocal tic took over.

  Breezing over embarrassment with a firm handshake to crush bones, I said it was great to meet him while thinking, must relocate this one. I set Tom Ford standards in an office: suit up or ship out. And, no, a wetsuit didn’t count. Jim by contrast had the surfer look going on–solid-trunk neck, Tony Hawk T-shirt and jeans falling off his backside to show off, dear God, designer underpants. It was a look more at home skateboarding on the South Bank than an editorial office. To complete the stereotype, when he wasn’t working or scratching an unshaven chin, he was singing with his band, Malt. They had a decent fan following on YouTube, apparently.

  “Seriously? No Elvis.” Jim scooted his chair towards me.

  “No Elvis.”

  “I thought he was… cured.”

  “Me too.”

  “Did he reschedule?”

  “Just cancelled.”

  “You okay?” He looked at me slumped in my chair.

  “Me? Uh huh. I’m thinking I might have a back-up plan.” I thought about Suzanne. “New designer.”

  “Hats?”

  “No. Working on her own label. I think she has about 12 dresses. Obsessive blogger–writes shoereview.me.”

  “Do we need a back-up plan for our back-up plan?”

  “Perhaps. I haven’t seen the designs.”

  Jim raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t seen anything.”

  “Actually, yes. The dress she was wearing. Think edgier Erdem and lots of lace.”

  “Must have been some dress. What’s her name?”

  “Suzanne Holmes. The label is Gracie Gold–ring any bells?”

  “None whatsoever. You met at the Art Bar?”

  “Yes, and a few others.” I told him about Cece and Kate. “We have dead husbands in common.”

  “This is the part where I freak out?”

  “Knock yourself out, rock star.”

  Chapter Five

  Surgeon, Soldier, Superhero

  To go to dinner or not to go. It was too tempting to phone the restaurant and make my excuses. I was well-practised in the art of cancellation. Then I had visions of Cecelia Lee sashaying down the street with her pendulum-swinging walk, flattening security guards on the front desk with her charm, bulldozing on.

  She would find me.

  I would go.

  What’s more, I needed to speak to Suzanne and proposition her properly about featuring her designs in Corset. Follow up on the hunch.

  It is work, I told myself, rolling a cold water bottle back and forth across my forehead, exhausted. Meeting the girls had unlocked and released Harrison; brought him back to me with memories I had tried to suffocate.

  I close my eyes. He appears in 3D Technicolor on the other side of the desk. In the office hush, I hear his voice, telling me he wants to transfer from UCLH on Euston Road, London, to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

  “I need to do this,” he said, gripping my hand as though falling off a cable car.

  It was a 600km relocation.

  Considering what had happened at UCLH, I didn’t blame him and put it down to stress. I didn’t honestly think he was serious about the move. We were married. We lived and worked in London. This was our life.

  Truth was, Harrison had made up his mind; he was going whether I liked it or not and the decision left me shocked and hurt. So much for marital discussions.

  It rankled because it had been just six months since I was appointed Editor on 2Glam. I loved the job and was devastated at the thought of leaving. But, at the end of the day, I thought, it’s just a job. Marriage is everything. Yes?

  With hindsight, Harrison must have been surprised when I said I would go with him. Blinkered by him, I didn’t suspect trouble. I suppose I thought change happens, mostly when you least expect it. The hospital had taken over our lives latterly, separated us, but I was confident we could get over it; move on.

  “I understand that you have your career here,” he said, staring into his beer when we met in the pub after his shift. “You’ve worked so hard to get to the top. I don’t want you to think I’d ever take this away from you. I’m so proud of you.”

  He sounded like someone from a career advisory service going over my job options.

  I wasn’t taking him seriously at this point. “Then don’t leave the hospital.”

  “I want t
o. I want to start over without people judging me or questioning my work.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. The hospital has given you its full support.”

  “I want to go.”

  “Give it six months. Give it enough time to prove that you are leaving on your terms. Don’t let anyone think you were forced out.”

  “Lori, please. I need to go.” His face showed spidery hairline cracks I’d never noticed before. “I’ll fly back whenever I can. There will be—”

  I cut him short with guillotine quickness. “I don’t want a long-distance relationship. We find it difficult enough to see each other between shifts and we live in the same house.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m coming with you.” There it was–declaration of love at bob-sleigh speed. Heart ruling head as usual.

  “The magazine?”

  “Do you honestly think I would choose work over love?” I said, realising the moment the words were out that it sounded like a bitter accusation. “I couldn’t be here without you,” I added to soften the blow.

  At the time I liberally spread positive spin over the situation, ignoring whispered warnings inside my head: my husband was leaving London whether I liked it or not. And soon I would be lost in a haunted wilderness; using machete moves to clear a path.

  Decision done. Harrison made more of an effort. Edinburgh was sold to me on the basis that it had an international airport, castle, Harvey Nichols, and home thereabouts to Christopher Kane.

  There was no doubt the place had an abundance of charm and character. Discovering it over the raucous festive season got us off to a good start. It wasn’t such a geographical upheaval for Harrison because he had studied in Edinburgh 20 years ago. He was returning, whereas it was new to me.

  When I told him that I had accepted the position on Corset Magazine he seemed taken aback; startled at the speed at which I had nailed a new job. In truth, I was too.

  I’m guessing that when we drove up the M6 to Scotland’s capital he had his doubts about his reinvention. International airport and castle perhaps but while the place was big enough to get lost in, it wasn’t big enough for him to disappear. Cece was right; ain’t such a big city after all.

  To give him his credit, though, Harrison made the most of his new post and got down to business–not difficult considering when he was in the operating room it didn’t make a blind bit of difference where he was in the world. He was relentless. Soldier, surgeon, superhero, once you start saving the world, it is almost impossible to stop.

  My father had the same drive, more so; couldn’t live outside the operating room. When he retired at 67, depression started to leave marks on him like damp. We could see black patches on his humour and enthusiasm. He floundered without the lack of routine despite my mother’s efforts to fix schedules for them: people to see, places to do, cruises to go.

  The harder she worked at their itinerary, the bleaker he became. Drifting further and further from the elite surgeons’ club was the worst thing to ever happen to him. Within five months of officially hanging up his stethoscope, he dropped dead after breakfast.

  It was no different for Harrison–take away his consuming career and he faltered. Life in the operating room was living in the spotlight: the praise, the fans, even the failures.

  I knew I had made the right decision but that’s not to say there weren’t moments of melancholic regret over trading London in for Edinburgh, despite my mother’s best efforts to “whoop me up,” as my sister would say.

  Married life is about compromise. And, in our case, relocation. So I quit my job, put furniture into storage, rented out our first-floor flat in Barnsbury and packed suitcases and shoe boxes without facing up to worst fears: we were not leaving London, we were running away.

  Harrison made arrangements with his best friend fellow-doctor Ralph Brown for us to rent Ralph’s apartment while he was elsewhere in the world. We slotted into the new life without stopping to shop for fixtures and fittings–suspiciously quick I can confirm.

  Ralph and Harrison had been friends for 20 years since meeting at Edinburgh Medical School. “Bastard’s brilliant at whatever he does: property, keyhole surgery, hip replacements and is also a trustafarian. No idea of the word debt unless it concerns the medical aid budget in a third world country. Now he is off to Ghana to work on an HIV-AIDS programme despite having his father’s millions to fall back on,” said Harrison affectionately.

  Harrison championed his friend’s show-home apartment with its flawless finishes. It was an incredible space with Sistine-high ceilings and tremendous amounts of natural light flooding through huge alcove windows. The light sealed the deal.

  “The bathroom’s too good to be true,” I said.

  Harrison seemed pleased at my reaction.

  It was good: freestanding bath and bright-white ceramic accessories, sink, handleless drawers and floating wall-hung units with a walk-in shower, which took up the same space as our entire bathroom in London. The floor was bright expensive marble blue.

  Another arresting feature was the Caesar-size bed finished in white leather and positioned low to the floor, a grand design. Its vastness threw up issues, though. I never felt more alone sleeping in it even with Harrison next to me–acres of space and more than just 700-threat count cotton between us.

  In keeping with a surgeon’s taste, the kitchen had an antibacterial theme: immaculate white marble counters and units punctuated with occasional chrome. I could picture Ralph perched on a bar stool performing an intricate hip replacement on one of the work surfaces. Harrison, on the other hand, seemed more taken with the front door and its fingerprint technology to gain access; if someone wanted to break into this place, he or she would need to cut off the resident’s finger. Or put a gun to my back.

  We had three hectic months in Edinburgh together, including wonderfully riotous Hogmanay celebrations, before the accident in February. Now it was July.

  Harrison never moaned about the 60-mile drive from Edinburgh to Dundee, probably because he travelled when the world was either nodding off or starting to stir. Sometimes he didn’t come home between shifts, instead using hospital accommodation to catch up on sleep. “I could sleep on a fence post,” he used to joke, even crashing out on an operating table when he was confident no enthusiastic intern would start digging out his kidneys.

  I did wonder if a long-distance relationship would indeed have more effective, me in London and him in Edinburgh. We wouldn’t have seen less of each other, that’s for sure.

  Chapter Six

  Ribbons Restaurant, Grassmarket

  It was 8pm and the office was deserted; loneliness threatened. My temperature dropped and I cursed the air conditioning for exacerbating the problem. For once, I looked forward to the suffocating humidity outside to ease the deep-rooted chill inside me.

  I would go to Ribbons, I decided. Before I became a hypothermic casualty in this 27-storey building. I would eat lamb cutlets or whatever and be sociable. I used to do it in a past life. I could do it now.

  As it turned out, I would have a breakthrough moment; the first enjoyable evening in such a long time. It would also go down as the night I was first followed home.

  When I first whined about leaving London, my mother pointed out that while London was the edgier young starlet, Edinburgh was a grand old dame; absolutely charming. She was right, of course, but the place had a darker side too–medieval past with its ancient volcanoes as well as narrow winding streets where shadows congregated even on the brightest night. I was in the right place to flee from ghosts. Sleeplessness confirmed this. Spirits ran this town and I seemed to attract their attention; porous with grief and susceptible to terror.

  Fortunately, Ribbons was just a short walk from the office. I dipped off route to walk past the National Museum, the Victorian side spiked by scaffolding during its multimillion-pound makeover. Feeling slightly lightheaded from the wine earlier, I sank onto the steps, taking a moment, feeling almost
reassured by the building behind me–bricks backdating to 1871. In contrast, life was fragile and fleeting: here and gone in a flash.

  When I eventually reached Victoria Street, I couldn’t help but feel cheered at the sight of its colourful shop and restaurant exteriors painted pink, blues and yellows, while window baskets bloomed in a row. Ribbons, shoehorned between a boutique and an organic café painted in fishes called Carpucinno, glowed like a jewellery box with sapphire and pure spinel lights dotted up the steps to the main entrance. Once inside, I could see Cece twinkling too–big-ass diamonds in her ears.

  “Welcome! Our Suziness has worked wonders on the interiors,” Cece said, linking her arm through mine without a thought to personal space. “Ver-eee retro Yves Saint Laurent, don’t you think?” She winked at Suzanne.

  Suzanne flashed us an angelic smile. “She listens.”

  I looked around and noted orange and red ribbons stitched in vertical stripes down the back of cream chairs, solid walnut flooring and pale pink peonies on tables. Windows were dressed in red and orange striped curtains; a haute-couture look with hooked tiebacks and more ribbon falling to the floor.

  “First impression is good,” I said to Cece. “Very good.”

  “Uh huh, tell that to the angry mob.”

  Business wasn’t booming but there were a few diners tucking into food, and the atmosphere was mellow.

  She pointed in the direction of one of the window seats, and we walked towards waiting staff eager to push our chairs to the tables.

  It would turn out to be a talkative night. I even enjoyed the food, noting that I couldn’t remember the last time I sat down to a decent meal, used to eating snacks at my desk or circling the city at night in my car. Eating cereal bars, slugging soft drinks.

  Cece did considerable more swooshing, back and forth.

  “She is the only chef you’ll ever meet who doesn’t smell of onions,” Kate whispered to me. “That’s because she’s the executive chef.”