Chasing Clouds Read online

  “Carla,” Elodie corrected him, putting emphasis on the ‘L’ in Carla’s name. Tom waved this correction away and carried on as if she’d never said anything at all.

  “Then, when I do eventually get to come home you’re here, trying to make out like you’ve been so busy, but really all you’ve done is the stuff you’re meant to do anyway. What makes it even worse is that to top it off, you’re always asking for something.” Tom sighed when he saw the crestfallen look on her face. His expression softened and he reached out to take her hand. “Look, El, You’re right. I’m so completely fried with work, I barely have time to think at the moment.” Elodie looked down, feeling abashed. “I’m not knocking you, El,” Tom went on, “but you’re such a dreamer. I just don’t get why you’re always so keen to jump on a plane, it’s like you’re not happy and you want to escape. I’m just managing your expectations; it’s much better to keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds. What’s wrong with a staycation? England’s the best country in the world, shouldn’t we try and see a bit of that first?” He kissed her hand. The stubble of his short beard was scratchy against her skin so she pulled it away from him. “The bottom line is that I’ve got bigger and better things to save for and don’t you think that’s more important than a silly holiday?”

  He waggled his ring finger in the air and smiled smugly. Elodie grinned. He’d hinted at this before, usually when they’d been in a similar situation. It was Tom’s ‘get out of jail free’ card, her friends had said. But Elodie knew that that just wasn’t true. They were totally on that track, she just needed reminding of it sometimes. Elodie decided then and there that she’d make more of an effort from now on. It’d be worth it in the end, especially if it got her down the aisle! She tried to nod her agreement but found that she couldn’t.

  “Yes, England is beautiful, but there’s a lot more to the world than just this little island. We should see as much as we can and experience everything while we’re still young and don’t have any responsibilities,” she contested, trying once again to make Tom see her point of view.

  “You might not have any responsibilities, but I sure do. Experience what exactly? You tell me what it is exactly that you’re so desperate to do?” he said scathingly. He stopped short and looked her dead in the eye. Elodie didn’t want an argument but she was getting a bit tired of Tom and his stubborn ways.

  “Food, I want to taste real Indian food, I want to sunbathe on white sands, I want to feel the atmosphere in a bazaar in Morocco and more than anything, I want to wake up to something, anything, other than beeping car horns and ambulance sirens.” She took a deep breath; she could feel her cheeks flushing with annoyance. Tom noticed too and sat back down.

  “This is where your argument falls flat on its face, El. You want curry, go to Curry Mile. You want a tan, the sunbed shop is just down the road and the undercover market has all those types of stalls that Morocco has. And guess what, you don’t have to spend a shitload of money and sit on a cramped plane for hours to experience it all. Oh, and if you’re that bothered about the city noise, buy some earplugs.” He finished sharply, stuffing the final chunk of bread into his mouth and sauntering off to the bedroom.

  ‘Well, that escalated quickly.’ She thought to herself, staring at his half- eaten plate of salad. She knew she wouldn’t be in line for a Michelin star anytime soon but at least she’d tried. When was the last time Tom had made a meal for her? He was so quick to judge her lifestyle; just because she hadn’t really figured out what she wanted to do with her life and wasn’t in line for a promotion at a used car garage, that didn’t make him suddenly the most important person ever. Sometimes Tom could be so self- involved. Elodie stood there dumbstruck, wondering how on earth that had just happened. Maybe she should get a proper job and just be done with it. God knows it’d make Tom, and his parents, happy to see her in a nine- to- five; they always asked hopeful questions about her work aspirations and were always disappointed by the answers. She always felt a little ganged up on whenever they all hung out together. The truth was that Elodie had a lot she did want to do, she just didn’t quite know how to do it yet. But she was young and had her whole life ahead of her; she didn’t need to be stuck in a job she didn’t like to pay the bills right this second. Elodie decided that the best thing to do would be to go and talk to Tom properly and not let it dissolve into another heated row. She had only been trying to suggest something to cheer him up but once again Tom had misread her and flown off the handle. Now that she thought about it he’d always been like that. Tom was one of those people who didn’t like the boat rocking, a ‘just get on with it’ kind of guy. Elodie had admired that about him in the early days but now it seemed churlish and immature. How would they ever solve any real problems down the line if Tom resorted to name- calling and storming off? She pushed the bedroom door open a crack and peered inside. He was sat on the bed, wearing a blue striped short- sleeved shirt that Elodie had never seen before and a pair of smart dark blue jeans. She could smell the recent sprayings of his beloved aftershave, which hung heavily in the air.

  “I’m off out,” Tom said, sensing her presence behind him. “Pat and Al are meeting me for a drink,” he finished flatly. He stood up, brogues in hand, and walked straight past her as if she were no more than a breath of air. Elodie shuddered; that was not the first time that evening he’d done that.

  “But, what about…?” Elodie trailed off. What was the point? When Tom was in this type of mood maybe it was best for him to go out, see his friends and blow off some steam. After all, it was Elodie who had told him he was stressed and needed to relax. She could hardly keep him prisoner in his own home.

  “OK, babe, have a good time.” She turned around just as the door shut behind him, the loud clunk of the lock faded and she was left in silence.

  Elodie scraped the remains of their dinner into a Tupperware container and placed it in the fridge before pouring herself a glass of wine. She felt hollow and thought a liberal amount of rosé wine would help dissipate the still palpable tension.

  Elodie padded into the bathroom and began to draw herself a bath. On her way she noticed Tom’s dirty clothes from earlier strewn on the floor in the order he had taken them off. She bent down, gathered them up and popped them in the washing basket beside her dresser.

  “See, it’s not that hard is it?” she muttered to herself.

  It was a hard balance to strike: she was expected to do everything around the house whilst Tom, quite frankly, behaved like an overgrown toddler. She tried not to be reductionist about everything, she knew Tom paid pretty much all the bills, the flat was in his name and his responsibility but she paid her share of the rent and did most of the shopping; as far as she could see most of everything they shared was fifty- fifty, so surely the housework should be too? Elodie could understand it if that’s what she had chosen to do, if she’d made a decision that this was what she wanted to do. But she hadn’t. She wanted a bit of fair treatment, for him to understand that life wasn’t difficult and stressful just for him.

  She undressed herself slowly, her mind still lingering on all the things she’d wished she’d said before Tom left. Sometimes she felt as though she were talking to a brick wall. As she sank into the tub she exhaled deeply. There was one thing that really stuck in her craw about the whole situation. She realised that this was the fourth time Tom had used the excuse of saving for a ring to quiet her. She didn’t think that Tom was lying about wanting to marry her; she now thought that it was just a convenient way to excuse his own behaviour whilst vilifying hers.

  Chapter 2

  “Will you stop doing that and help write the specials on the chalkboard? Your writing’s way nicer than mine,” Steph pleaded as Carla took yet another picture of herself, this time sat in the large bay window, legs in the air and winking at the camera.

  “Of course it is,” Carla answered dramatically, “I’m a creative,” she chuckled
. “Look, I’m sure El will help when she gets here and my feet are killing me,” Carla contested. She turned her phone around and snapped a picture of Steph in defiance. Seeing her stern face Carla added hastily, “Besides, you owe me big time! Don’t you forget who opened up the last few days so you could spend all weekend in bed with Andy!” Carla was only half- joking. She’d taken on all of Steph’s shifts in order for Steph to spend some quality time with her boyfriend Andy. Steph hardly ever got to see him as his career in the army meant that he was barely at home.

  Steph rolled her eyes and tried again to write the words ‘carrot cake’ in a curly script that was neat enough to satisfy her own exacting standards.

  Betty’s Book Café, where Elodie, Carla and Steph all worked, had come into existence the year after Steph had been born. It belonged to her long- suffering mother, who had worked extremely hard to make the place a success. Betty had wanted to combine her two favourite pastimes, reading and eating cake. Roll on twenty- four years and the café was a roaring success: it was a hub for the local community and even at quieter times always had a plethora of customers coming to peruse the books and order a latte, grab a slice of cake, or both. Betty had dreamt of opening a café since she was a little girl and Steph now dreamt of running it, a dream that was soon to become a reality. Betty had sat her daughter down only a few weeks ago and told her that even though she loved every second of running the café, baking the cakes and making friends with the customers, she was getting ready to hand it all over and retire. She’d been getting more tired of late and had suffered with migraines as a result of her continued busy workload. She figured that there was more to life than just work. Betty lived above the café in a little flat that she shared with her daughter. The place was cramped and Betty longed for a place of her own in the countryside. She planned on retiring at the end of the year and had asked if Steph would take over when she did. Steph had of course accepted the challenge and although sorry to see her mother step aside knew that it would make her happy to move on to somewhere new. Betty was, after all a country girl at heart. Steph wasn’t fazed by the idea of running her own business; she’d worked in the café for such a long time and knew it like the back of her hand. She was a quietly confident individual and prided herself on her sense of maturity and understated poise. Mother and daughter were like chalk and cheese, Steph was a tall, slender woman, with a quiet but strong demeanour and a sensitive, sometimes stoic disposition. Her mother, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. What Betty lacked in height she made up for in volume: she was a gregarious individual with a contagious laugh that could be heard at one end of the street from the other. She was a petite, full- figured woman who more often than not was apron- clad and covered in flour. Mother and daughter shared only two traits, their fiercely loyal nature and their fiercely fiery red hair.

  All the cakes and sweet treats at Betty’s Book Café were homemade and the abundance of books lining the shelves in old- fashioned oak cases meant that her customers stayed longer than at any other places nearby. Elodie had loved the café from the moment she had set foot in it. She had been traipsing the city, CV in hand, looking for a job. Her ‘can do’ attitude had impressed some employers but not enough for any to actually offer her a job. She had visited the café on a whim and, looking back, was extremely glad that she did. Each new customer was given a bookmark with their name on: they could choose any book they liked to enjoy with their cakes and coffees. When they were done they simply needed to mark their page with the bookmark they had been given and place the book back on the shelf, ready for the next customer. Many of the books had several bookmarks in at the same time. At the end of each day, the shelves would be rearranged so that the next day’s customers could find their book easily. The café had a very homely feel to it: cosy armchairs and sofas were carefully placed around, meaning that customers were right in the mix of things but had a sense of privacy as well. Mismatched coffee tables were scattered about and the old wooden floor was covered in a selection of deeply coloured rugs. The walls were covered with various chalkboards, each one encased in a different frame. On them were displayed the numerous types of cakes available, house specials and a few inspirational and funny quotes that Betty tried to live by – her favourite being, ‘No matter the question, cake is always the answer.’

  Steph stepped back from the chalkboard, a look of disdain etched on her face. She was even less happy with this attempt than with the previous three.

  “Carla! I’m putting my foot down, phone away, please! I don’t pay you to keep your Instagram fans happy,” Steph said hotly. She opened her mouth to issue an instruction but Carla jumped in.

  “Just call them Insta- fans, babe, it’s much cooler. And it’s not you that pays me, it’s your mum,” Carla replied, looking up just in time to see Steph rolling her eyes. “Besides, I’m also checking my spare room app. Bloody Dora’s moved out and my dad insists I have a flatmate, he thinks it’s a waste having that room just sitting there doing nothing and to be honest, even with him paying half the rent I’d struggle to manage the rest by myself. So far I’ve had three applicants: all men, all pervs.”

  Carla laughed. Despite being the same age Carla and Steph couldn’t have been more different. Steph still had the same phone she’d had when they’d met several years ago and didn’t have any social media accounts, she just didn’t see the point. Anyone she wanted to know about her life already did. If she were being completely, maybe brutally, honest, she really didn’t care about what the girl who sat behind her in Maths during Year Nine was up to nowadays, anyway.

  “Can you please do your fancy curly writing for the signs now?” she sighed, holding out the chalk for Carla to take.

  Carla finally relented and popped the phone into her apron pocket. She took the chalk from Steph’s slender fingers and began to write the chalk signs, giggling to herself internally at Steph’s poor effort. She loved the girl to the moon and back but she really didn’t have a creative bone in her body. Carla noticed the time and frowned, her brow knitting together as far as the Botox would allow. The time read quarter past eight. The café would be open to the Great British Public in just fifteen minutes and there was still a fair bit to do.

  “Have you seen the time?” she called to Steph who was busy counting out change for the till, the clatter of coins almost masking Carla’s question.

  “Of course I have,” Steph answered distractedly, not wanting to lose count, “I’ll give her another ten and if she’s not here then I’ll give her a call.” She decanted the last of the copper coins into the till and headed into the back to check on how her mother was getting on with the cakes.

  Elodie grabbed her bag as she headed out the door for work. She couldn’t believe the bank holiday weekend was over already. She’d had a restless night’s sleep and had overslept. She’d laid awake for hours, sure she could hear Tom’s keys in the lock and straining for even the faintest sound to signal that he was home. As it turned out she needn’t have worried. He rolled in at two am, stinking of booze and cigarettes. Elodie couldn’t abide smoking and Tom knew this. He’d made no effort to be quiet as he drunkenly clattered around the bedroom. Elodie had turned on the light. He’d apologised for waking her; well, actually he’d slurred the apology and Elodie had muttered something about needing the bathroom anyway.

  Once in bed, Tom had tried to seduce her. She cringed away from the acrid smoky smell that preceded him and made an excuse about having a headache. He’d complained that she always had a headache nowadays and told her that he didn’t need her for a good time anyway. Elodie couldn’t believe it when she looked over and saw that he was scrolling through a porn site on his phone. She seethed, a war of embarrassment and anger raging within. He was being so utterly selfish and obviously didn’t care about her feelings at all. He’d left her high and dry after being a complete dick, he’d made her feel terrible and now he was going to pretend like she wasn’t even there while h
e drunkenly wanked himself to sleep. Elodie definitely did not see the funny side. She let out a low, irked sigh and squeezed her eyes shut. He simply had to take her hint and go to sleep.

  When the unmistakeable groans of an adult film started she’d decided that enough was enough. She had been about to order him to sleep on the sofa when she heard the unmistakable sound of his drunken snore. She glanced over again and saw him lying there, half- undressed with his phone lying on his chest. She took it from him, turned off the film and plugged it in to charge but not before setting an eight am alarm. He’d be late for work but at least he wouldn’t miss the day entirely.

  ‘What would he do without me?’ Elodie thought, unable to help herself from mothering him. She had spent the rest of the night on their sofa. Tom’s intoxicated snuffles were far from relaxing and as the night wore on their intensity increased. It was a little after three- thirty when she decided that that was it. Elodie whipped the covers back and marched into the living room, she grabbed her patchwork throw and settled herself on the sofa, drifting into a restless but at least quiet sleep.

  Forty minutes later and Elodie rounded the corner with the café in sight, her long brown ponytail swishing as she went. Her dark mood had lightened somewhat. It really was very hard to stay so thunderous when the weather outside was so sunny.

  She caught her reflection in a shop window and sighed. Elodie was average height, average weight and possessed average brown hair and average chestnut eyes. ‘Average looks to go with my average job in my average life,’ she pondered dolefully and feeling very sorry for herself.

  She smoothed down her T- shirt. There was no set uniform at Betty’s Book Café: the only thing that Betty insisted on was that they all wore their hair up, donned pretty spotted aprons and put on name badges. Elodie wasn’t a big makeup wearer, she preferred the natural look and besides, Tom thought that a lot of makeup was trashy. He’d often told her that less is more when it came to makeup, but more is more when it came to clothes. Today she had opted for a slick of mascara and some barely- there lip balm, which she felt was more than enough makeup for a day of pouring coffee and serving cake.