It's 10:30 and the day is overcast. There's light drizzle, the kind that sticks to your skin, and the wind is damp and cloying. There's probably a storm coming soon and the villagers anticipate it from inside their homes, children gazing at the smoky clouds in wonderment and awe.
Ste's outside. Ever since Amy kicked him out - and quite rightly, too - he's been wandering the streets. He doesn't have anywhere to go, anyone to rely on, any place to visit. He's got his tracksuit and a large rucksack. To his name, he has three tracksuits, a toothbrush and paste, some deodorant, a towel and a bottle of shower gel. He's got no money left because the £10 he did have was blown on food and water in the past two days. He's been showering at the local gym, sneaking into the locker rooms without anyone noticing he hasn't paid his way.
He misses his kids; he misses Leah bribing him into playing dolls with her puppy eyes and pout; he misses Lucas babbling and spitting up milk onto his shoulder; he misses making breakfast for them and knowing the words to the theme song of Fireman Sam because it's always, always on in the morning.
He misses his family.
The sky rumbles above him and there's a flash of light over the earth, followed by a deafening crack, and then the heavens open up and its waters come crashing down, the light drizzle transforming into an unforgiving, torrential storm. Grumbling, Ste makes his way into the local restaurant that Tony used to own. He wonders where Tony is these days, and if he's doing well. There's also a hint of resentment there, because if Tony hadn't upped and left then Ste would probably have somewhere to stay right now. Still, he hopes Tony is doing okay. He knows he'll be doing better than Ste himself is.
The new owners are nice enough, Ste knows. He's had a couple of conversations with the manager, a bubbly personality with golden hair, the curliest curls Ste's ever seen. Her outfits are a little... out there, to say the least. It suits her, though, she makes it work. Ste knows that her name is Cheryl, that she's Irish, that she has a husband called Nate and they're trying for a baby, and that her brother owns the new nightclub. He hasn't met her brother yet, nor has he seen him around. He just knows that he's Irish, just from a different part of the country, and according to Cheryl he's a little on the wrong side of the law. Ste can relate. The only difference is that Cheryl still loves and accepts her brother; Amy abandoned Ste.
Rationally, he knows that she did it for the safety of their kids. Irrationally, he resents her for turning her back on him when he was just trying to keep food on the table.
He sits at a table in the back, clothes completely drenched and his hair glued to his forehead. He silently observes the customers, wondering if he could get away with eating someone else's leftovers or maybe take any tips they may leave before a worker sees them. He does feel a little bad for considering the option, because Cheryl is lovely and Ste likes her. They've built something of a friendship over the past couple of weeks. But he's got to eat somehow, and he knows Cheryl is more than well off. She's got a flashy apartment on the nicer end of the village, as she calls it (Ste's never seen this nicer end of the village but he doesn't doubt her for a second), and her brother brings in a lot of money from the nightclub. If that wasn't an indicator, then the sleek black Audi he's seen her getting out of before now certainly is. It's not hers, but it's definitely her brother's. She told him so, and she also told him about how she can't drive.
Just as he's about to get up and snatch some food from the table in front of him, Cheryl comes bouncing over to him with a bright smile on her face. Her curls bob on her shoulders and today she's wearing a flowery blouse with some very light blue skinny jeans, pink heels on her feet. He's a mixture of irritated and pleased to see her. He hasn't seen her in a week.
"Hey Ste, love!" She beams, flunking into the seat on the other side of the booth to him. He smiles at her, her natural flamboyance and happiness a little intoxicating and instantly putting him in a better mood.
"'eya, Cheryl," He says, accepting her over-the-table hug.
"Oh, love, you're soaked. Why aren't you in the house with your Amy?" She asks. Ste bites his lip and frowns, remembering why he's here in the first place.
"We're sort of not together any more... and she kicked me out," He sighs, shrugging. Cheryl, bless her soul, looks downright offended, as if the concept of someone throwing Ste out is alien to her and the thought of someone not loving him any more actually hurts her.
"Oh, Ste, this won't do! Where have you been staying?"
"On the street," He replies. Cheryl's gasp is loud and her expression speaks volumes.
"No, this won't do at all. This is outrageous. Ste, you're staying with me," Cheryl says, matter of fact. Ste flails in his seat, taken aback.
"I- what? Seriously?"
"I insist," She fixes him with a stern nod. "Come on, grab your back and I'll take you to my apartment now. Brendan won't be able to pick us up, but the walk isn't that long. About three quarters of an hour." Ste looks at her in bewilderment, but nods and obeys her. He grabs his bag and slings it on his shoulders, following her like a lost puppy. Cheryl is an honourable woman, he decides. Brave and kind, in her actions and her words. She has to be brave to allow someone like Ste to stay in her home, surely. He was kicked out for being a low-level thug with anger problems. Surely she knows his past, or has suspicions. It's a topic they alluded in previous conversations, not to mention the scuffle she caught him in on the street but two weeks ago.
Still, he's more grateful for her offer than he's ever been for anything in his life, except the birth of his kids.
"Is Brendan your brother?" He asks and she nods. "Why is the walk three quarters of an hour? I thought you were only on the other end of the village, this place is small." Cheryl laughs softly and shakes her head.
"Ste, my dear boy. This village is larger than you think. You live in the central part of the village and most people consider that alone to be the entire village, but there's outskirts with nice fields around them. Our apartment block is alongside another next to some woodlands with a nice bar in it. Brendan did look into living in the centre of the village, but he's always been more interested in living somewhere with greenery and less people. Besides, no offence but the outskirts are nicer than the inner village."
"None taken," Ste nods, "I'll be the first to admit that Hollyoaks isn't exactly beautiful."
"It has its merits," Cheryl shrugs nonchalantly, "Besides, it's a step up from the streets. That's where my brother was living, before I found him again. Our da' is..." She hesitates, and Ste wonders if there's a similar back story to her relationship with her father as there is with he and his step father, "Well," she says, "he's dead now. And good riddance. But that's a different story for, hopefully, not another day."
"My step dad was a bastard, too," He decides on telling her, "Smacked me about a bit, din'e. But he ain't dead, sadly. Ain't seen him in a few years though, not since our Leah was a baby." Cheryl gives him a smile, not of sympathy or pity but one of sad understanding. He appreciates that.
They walk through some winding streets and through an alleyway, before coming to a line of wooden fencing that surrounds a small field that Ste had no idea existed. He doesn't know how long they've been walking and talking for, but he figures they must be just over halfway because he's never been here before and this seems to be one of the fields Cheryl mentioned, with a circle of tall trees in the middle of it. It's weird, now that he thinks of it, that he's been so enclosed within the central part of the village that he never had a clue that there was more village beyond his central area. You can walk from one end to the other in around or under ten minutes. He didn't know that it carried on for at least two miles beyond that from either end 'til now. He just thought it was empty between Hollyoaks and the next town.
They cross a bridge that has a fast-flowing river beneath it, and he stops to simply watch it for a few moments. Cheryl stops beside him with a smile on her face, finding something endearing about his childlike awe.
"You haven't been anywhere much, have you? Outside the centre of HO, huh," She muses and he shakes his head, no.
"I went to Blackpool as a kid once, me and me mum, just us, when Terry weren't around to tell her what to do. We went to the beach and we 'ad fish n' chips then ice cream. The weather wasn't the best but we still paddled in the sea; it was the best day of me life. It was, really, the only time mum showed me any sort of love. She always told me how I were a mistake that was ruining her life, but I weren't the one who got her pregnant was I? Still, I always blamed myself 'cause that's how she made me feel," He sighs and leans against the bridge, resting his chin on his forearms.
"And I take it Amy helped you, did she?" Cheryl asks. He nods with a small smile.
"She had every right to kick me out. I'm messed up, me. I seriously don't blame you if you wanna take back your decision n' send me back, 'cause I was proper horrible to her. At first at least, anyway. I got some help with the anger stuff, but we didn't have much money and I can't get a job 'cause of me record so I did a bit of dodgy stuff. That's why she kicked me out, 'cause I broke her promise and it could've put the kids in danger. I don't blame her, me. I still love her. Anyway, I think I might love her a bit differently now. Not like I used to, but like a friend. I'd wanna be friends still if she'd let me."
"I thought it'd only been a couple of days since you two broke up, and from the sounds of it you were childhood sweethearts, problems or not. And you have kids together. How can you be over her?" Cheryl asks, leaning next to him. Ste smiles softly at her, resigned, before he looks out at the river again.
"I think it's been coming for a while, to be honest. We hadn't been... y'know... together... like, together, in a couple of months. Kissing her felt like kissing a sister, almost. I started kissing her cheek more than her lips n' stuff like that, y'know? She deserves someone who can love her the way I used to, without the violence." He feels Cheryl's arm wrap around his shoulders in some sort of a side hug and he laughs a bit at the feel of her lips pressing to his temple in a hard kiss.
"Ste, you're a diamond. No matter what you've done in the past. Now, c'mon. Let's get to the apartment, because I don't know about you but my nipples feel like they're about to freeze off," Cheryl says, causing Ste to snort with laughter. They spend the rest of the walk in companionable silence as Ste takes in the dirt paths and the long grass, the daises and the weeds and the little wells of rippling water, the smell of leaves in the rain.
Cheryl pushes open a gate and suddenly they're out of the sections of field they'd walked through and in a sort of grove, with a couple of apartment blocks on one end and a few houses lining the sides of the street. They're posh yet cosy, in a weird but nevertheless beautiful sort of way. The houses are made of rust-coloured bricks or have a Tudor design, with large windows and little pots of flowers lining the outer-sills. They have front gardens, too.
The blocks of flats aren't large, about six floors each, and there seems to be about 3 apartment houses in each row. They'll be pretty spacious inside, Ste imagines, and they're certainly for the folk with more than a few copper pennies in their pockets. There's large lawns in front of the two apartment blocks that lead behind into the woodlands. It's nice, Ste thinks; lovely, even, if that was a word he used.
"Are you sure Brendan won't mind me staying, Cheryl?" Ste asks warily, eyeing the main door to the flats as they approach it. Cheryl titters and gives him a small smirk.
"Who cares what he thinks? You're my guest and that's how it'll be staying," She says, with a less than innocent glint in her eyes, "Besides, I'm his baby sister. I get what I want." Ste tries not to find that statement a little bratty, knowing that Cheryl is only joking.
Like predicted, Cheryl's place is more than a little flash. The walls are a royal shade of purple and in the centre of the living room there are two leather sofas right-angled around a plush rug with a dark mahogany coffee table. There's a large TV on the wall above, and the mantle above the fireplace holds host to a vase of roses and various personal items like car keys and pictures of Cheryl and who must be her husband.
There's a photo on the end of two children, one with blonde curls and one with ruffled dark hair. It must be Cheryl and her brother, Ste decides. Cheryl looks about nine, he'd guess, and Brendan looks about twelve. Cheryl is smiling brightly, dimples and everything, but it's Brendan who catches Ste's eye. His face is sullen, lips pressed in a tight line, icy blue eyes dull with something that seems a lot like resignation, and he looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else. The picture doesn't meet the other end of the frame, and there's a clear jagged line where the picture has been ripped. Now Ste looks closer, he can see a large, wrinkled hand on Brendan's shoulder. Ste would put money on that being their dad.
He's torn away from his inspection when Cheryl leads him into the kitchen, showing him the large fridge, fully-stocked, and the sleek silver gas oven. It's your average kitchen, as far as possessions go, except that everything is more costly than Ste would ever dream of affording. There's four bedrooms, Cheryl tells him, so he can have an actual bed. There's a loud bang followed by an Irish-sounding growl of "shit" and Cheryl rolls her eyes.
"Brendan's in his room. He probably won't join us for dinner," She sighs, like it's to be expected.
"I thought you were close with your brother," Ste frowned, puzzled. Cheryl takes his hand and leads him to his new bedroom, for however long he'll be staying.
"He's emotionally stunted, to say the least. We're close when we're in the same room. Otherwise, he keeps to himself," She explains, opening the door and ushering Ste through. He takes in his new room with a wide open mouth, slack-jawed in shock. He's never stayed in a room so spacious or comfortable or expensive before. There's a queen-sized bed in the middle of the wall, its headboard against the window frame, and a wardrobe in the corner. The carpet is thick enough to sink your toes into, and it's a shade of grey that matches the bedsheets. The walls are lustrous black and white, and everything is a stark contrast to the rest of the house with its purple, white and cream themed paints.
"Whoa, this is great," He whistles lowly under his breath and Cheryl laughs.
"You think so? Personally, I think it's far too impersonal and minimalist, which is exactly why I didn't let Brendan do my room. His room is similar to this, to be honest. In fact, I think it's actually colder than this one," Cheryl tuts, shaking her head with her hands on her hips as she looks around at the design of the bedroom, like it's her first time seeing it as well. There's a glass computer desk on another wall next to a bookshelf, and Ste thinks it's pretty damn cool.
"No, I love it, me, it's great. Thanks for this Cheryl, so much, really, it's more than I deserve."
"Oh, love," Cheryl gushes, wrapping her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug, "Me and you are gonna be like two peas in a pod, Ste."