The Silver Locket

‘Katy!’ Her mum’s screech wasn’t a good start to the day. Katy had been hoping for a nice long lie-in. She hated Valentine’s Day and her plan had been to sleep through as much of it as possible.

‘Fix it then! You’re the tap expert,’ Katy’s mum wailed when her daughter made it to the kitchen, still fumbling with the belt of her dressing gown and her toes curling on the cold, tiled floor.

Katy frowned at the water gushing from the kitchen cold tap. She couldn’t believe another tap had broken. She’d replaced a washer on one in the downstairs cloakroom only last week, and last month she’d had to do the same in the bathroom. Both times with her mum leaning over her shoulder watching every move she made and suggesting they ring her plumber who was apparently ‘lovely’.

Perhaps she should have tried harder to find somewhere else to live after Mike left her. But her heart hadn’t really been in it so moving back home with Mum had seemed the easiest option.

She sighed and knelt down to turn the water supply off under the sink. The sooner she sorted the problem, the sooner she could get back to her nice warm bed.

‘It was just like the other taps,’ Katy said when she’d fixed it. Nothing wrong with the washer itself, it had just come a bit loose. But I’ve replaced it anyway. And now I’m going back to bed.

Katy was just tucking the quilt under her chin when her mum screeched again.

‘I have no idea why it’s still leaking,’ Katy said when she arrived back in the kitchen, slippers on this time.

‘We’ll have to call my plumber,’ her mum said.

‘Hold on. Give me a few minutes to think before you rush to call somebody who might be lovely but will charge you a fortune,’ Katy said, whizzing her silver heart-shaped locket backwards and forwards along its chain. But she wasn’t sure what else she could do.

‘The chain will snap if you keep doing that,’ her mum told her.

‘I suspect I’ll snap first,’ Katy muttered under her breath. Now was probably not the time to admit this was the third chain the locket had hung on thanks to her habit of doing the whizzing backwards and forwards thing when she was stressed.

‘Well?’ her mum asked after several minutes of silence.

‘Call your plumber,’ Katy said tetchily. She was too awake to go back to bed now. But at least she wasn’t in the office where she’d have had to plaster on a fake smile when bouquets of Valentine’s flowers arrived for the other girls.

Mike, Katy’s soon to be exhusband, had never sent flowers to her office. He’d never even bought her flowers. She had always joked about how it didn’t bother her, but it always had if she was being honest. It had bothered her like a lot of things about Mike had. It was why she was back living with her mum after nine years of marriage.

At the thought of Mike, Katy whizzed her locket backwards and forwards even more aggressively.

‘Why don’t you go for a shower? And your hair could do with a wash. I’ll make us that nice cup of tea?’ Her mum said.

‘Or I could isolate the tap and go for a walk,’ Katy said.

‘Isolate yourself you mean,’ her mum snapped as Katy ducked her head into the cupboard under the sink.

She wasn’t going to admit it, but having a shower and washing her hair made Katy feel a bit less stressed. But when she went back into her bedroom, her comfortable jogging pants weren’t over the back of the chair where she had left them last night. Her stress levels soared again as she recognised her mum’s handiwork; she’d complained yesterday that Katy’s jogging pants were beginning to smell.

So, she pulled on jeans and

KATY FROWNED AT THE WATER GUSHING FROM THE COLD TAP

a clean T-shirt and sat at her old glass-topped dressing table to dry her hair, before lifting the silver locket from the shiny surface and fastening it around her neck.

How many times have I done this? She wondered. How many days is it since the first man I really loved handed this necklace to me on the only Valentine’s Day I have enjoyed? Almost twelve years... she did a quick mental calculation… over four thousand days. She only took it off to shower and had even worn it on her wedding day; making a lastminute swap for the planned pearls the woman in the wedding dress shop said were perfect for the sweetheart neckline of her duchess satin and lace dress.

Perhaps that had been an omen? Perhaps if she hadn’t left the pearls in their velvet-lined box, things between her and Mike would have turned out differently? She’d give anything to go back to the day she had unwrapped the locket from the pink tissue paper tied with silver ribbon; to have the chance to make different life choices.

‘Where are you going?’ Katy’s mum demanded when she wandered into the kitchen with her coat on.

‘For that walk I mentioned,’ Katy replied. Her mum didn’t need to know she’d had a sudden urge to sit on the bench outside the village hall disco where, hands shaking, he’d put the pink tissue wrapped box in her hand. She thought it might help her decide what to do next with her life.

‘But the plumber will be here soon.’

‘It’s not like you need a chaperone, Mum. You told me he’s lovely. In fact, you told me more than once.’

‘He is but… Ow…’ Katy’s mum winced. ‘Ooh. My back’s playing up again, love. Do me a favour and hang the washing out before you go. There’s a lovely breeze, shame to miss the drying opportunity.’

When the washing, including Katy’s jogging pants, was dancing on the line, Katy went back inside where her mum was hunched on a chair at the kitchen table.

‘Need any painkillers for your back?’

‘No thanks, love,’ her mum said. ‘I’ll be fine if I sit here for a few minutes.’

‘OK. I’ll get that on my way out,’ Katy said as the doorbell rang.

But when she opened the front door, there he was, standing on her mum’s doorstep. Greg, the first man she had really loved. Her hand went straight to the locket he gave her all those years ago.

‘Hello, Katy. It’s been a long time,’ Greg said, looking surprised to see her. ‘Believe there’s a problem with a tap?’

‘Thought you were going for a walk,’ Katy’s mum said when her daughter followed Greg into the kitchen.

‘Too cold,’ Katy said, slipping her coat off. She smiled at Greg and when he smiled back, Katy wondered if today might be the second Valentine’s Day she enjoyed. In fact, she was so busy gazing into Greg’s blue eyes she didn’t notice her mum’s sore back appeared to have vanished.

Katy’s mum smiled too. And she slipped out to the garage to put back the wrench she’d been using to loosen all of those tap washers.

THE CHAIN WILL SNAP IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT!