Chapter 2: Started in the Gutter, Now We're Here
"Do I look okay?" Michelle fussed, straightening her dress in front of the full length mirror secured to the wall of the hotel room. She watched as Vicky approached her from behind, wrapping her arms around her waist and resting her chin on her shoulder; admiring her girlfriend's reflection.
"You look beautiful." She assured her, confidently, brushing a careful kiss across Michelle's cheek.
"God, I must seem so needy…" Michelle fretted, fumbling to apply another coat of gloss to her lips. She couldn't help the nervous energy that was building inside her. She just wanted everything to go well.
"No, you don't. You're bound to be nervous going back there again, especially with Doctor Evil round the corner." Vicky watched as Michelle's face fell; her eyes searching Vicky for support. "Oh god, you weren't even thinking about him, were you? Me and my big mouth!"
Vicky pulled Michelle into her arms, one hand supporting the back of her head and the other making comforting circles around her back.
"No, you're right. He's a massive part of it. I mean, what if he decides he wants to go through with suing me? All the money we've saved up, everything we've worked towards. What would we have left?"
Vicky slipped her fingers between Michelle's, caressing her thumb across the back of her hand.
"We'd have each other."
The sincerity behind Vicky's eyes sent Michelle's heart fluttering. She was right. After Robert had died and Ray had cheated her out of the Bistro, Michelle had felt as though she had nothing left. She was at rock bottom; sleeping in her parents' spare room, spending hour after hour staring at the wall. It wasn't until Vicky had insisted on visiting three days later that she'd even spoken to anyone.
"Michelle, love, can I come in?" Helen Connor's shrill voice bled through the gap between the door and the carpet of the bedroom, causing Michelle to close her eyes and draw in a sharp breath.
"I've still not finished the coffee you brought up earlier." She croaked out, eyeing the full mug of cold coffee resting on the bedside table and hoping that was all her mother wanted her for.
The sound of the wooden door creaking open sent Michelle's eyes rolling. She remained laid on her side, legs curled up with the duvet tucked beneath her chin, refusing to acknowledge her mother's now overbearing presence inside the room.
"Sweetheart, you have a visitor." Helen said, carefully, hoping to invoke some kind of response. When Michelle failed to reply, she turned to the guest in question, an apologetic look on her face.
"I'm sorry, I don't think she's up to seeing anyone."
"Helen- do you mind if I call you Helen?"
Helen mulled over the question and opened her mouth to respond before being promptly cut off.
"With the greatest of respect, Helen, I'm not going to take no for an answer." Vicky responded. She stepped past the hostess and into the florally decorated bedroom of the cottage. "She'll speak to me, don't you panic. And I'd love a brew, if you're making."
It was more of a demand than a request, but Vicky wasn't in the mood for messing around. Somewhat taken aback by her houseguest's questionable manners, Helen turned on her heels, closing the door carefully behind her.
Vicky stood in silence for a few moments, taking in the room before her. It was everything she'd expected to see from a Connor family home. The room was settled into the eaves of the cottage, the ceiling supported by great wooden beams; the dark wood exposed. One wall bore flowery wallpaper in soft pinks and yellows, which matched perfectly with the magnolia paint that coated the others. Beneath the sash window, the criss-cross pattern of its panes casting odd shaped shadows across the room, stood an ornate dolls house, which Vicky could only assume had been Michelle's as a child.
She looked like a child now, tucked beneath the covers with her back to the door. Vicky cleared her throat in an attempt to remind her she was still there.
"I said I wasn't up to seeing anyone." She sniffed. Vicky raised an eyebrow.
"No, Michelle, that's what your mother said." She pointed out, refusing to be beaten. "I'm not going anywhere, so you may as well talk to me." Vicky folded her arms across her chest and sunk into one hip, waiting for a response. She sighed at the silence that followed. "Well, if you're going to be like that, I may as well make myself comfy."
Slipping off her boots, Vicky climbed onto the opposite side of the bed, settling herself against the pillows. As the bed dipped beside her, Michelle turned over, knotting her brow at the woman's audacity.
"Do you mind?" She huffed, finally addressing her face to face. Vicky looked down at the sorry state of her; watery eyes and cracked lips; the perfect picture of a grieving woman. Without thinking, she reached out and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I figured you needed a friend." Vicky said, quietly, interlacing her fingers and resting them across her stomach. "The baby is with his grand-daddy, so that gives me four hours to kill and, if truth be told, Michelle, I figured that I could use a friend and all."
Michelle offered a weary smile, carefully pushing herself up against the pillows a little further.
"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I can talk for Ireland, me. But you know that anyway, don't you? I just thought that if I were tucked away, alone, in a room that looked like a shrine my parents had designed in order to cling onto the last of my childhood, I'd want some distraction."
Michelle let out a short laugh, shaking her head at the insults Vicky had shot at her mother.
"I mean, the dolls house, really? That's like the biggest cliché ever. I bet, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I bet you were wearing a dress with a massive bow on it when you opened it weren't you?"
Michelle's lips remained tightly shut, but the corners of her mouth began to creep up slightly.
"See, I knew it! My god, Michelle, you're a walking cliché."
"You do realise I was raised in the 80s and not the 17th Century, don't you?" Michelle frowned, unable to contain her wit. "I don't think they even made dresses with bows on them then."
"Then you need to tell your mother to bring some of that 80s pizzazz in here. It's quite depressing, Michelle. No wonder you're halfway along the road to looking like Miss Havisham."
Michelle scoffed. "There's no way you even know who she is."
"Are you suggesting that because I grew up on a Council estate, I can't have read Dickens?" Vicky teased, imitating the poshest English accent she could muster up. She paused to glance at Michelle, who was still laying quietly beside her.
"I grew up on a Council estate and all, you know." She said quietly after a few minutes.
"You? No way." Vicky replied, only half joking. In all of their secret meetings, Michelle and Vicky had grown to know each other quite well, but until now Michelle had never let her barriers fall too far. The idea of her opening up to Vicky about her childhood had been unthinkable until fairly recently.
"Me. Johnny and Kate. Carla."
"Carla?" Vicky blurted, genuine surprise in her voice. Michelle nodded, slowly.
"Yep. We may come across as snobby cows but deep down we're both from the gutter."
"Council estates aren't the gutter, Michelle." Vicky assured her.
"They are when it's Brightwell."
"You and Carla are from Brightwell?" Vicky repeated. Michelle nodded.
"Don't sound too horrified." Michelle let out a light laugh, before sighing. "She was there when I got that dolls house. I was eight, she was nine. Mum and dad had saved up for ages to get it for me. I'd seen it in the window of the toy shop whenever we went into town. I kept badgering them for it. No girl on the estate had ever dreamed of owning something like that, so I knew it was a long shot. I unwrapped it at my birthday party- well, I say party, it was just me, my brothers and Carla. Anyway, I couldn't believe it. Dad had made all the furniture for it himself to save money, but I didn't care. It was the most perfect thing I'd ever owned."
Michelle glanced up towards Vicky, half expecting her to have drifted off. Instead, she was focused intently on Michelle.
"I asked Carla to play with it with me; gave her one of the little dolls and told her to keep it so we could play together whenever she came round. She seemed really upset about it and I couldn't understand why. Mum said it was because she was jealous. I don't know if you noticed but my mum is pretty hostile towards most of my friends…"
"You could say that…" Vicky laughed.
"Well, I realised later that, yeah, she was jealous. There was me, lording it over her that I had this amazing dolls house that no one else on the estate could afford because my parents cared enough to save up for it, and there she was, stuffing leftover buffet food into her coat pockets because her mum and step-dad were too busy going out scoring to think about feeding their kids."
Vicky watched as a delicate tear snaked down the bridge of Michelle's nose and landed on the pillow.
"It makes you wonder, doesn't it? If there are any decent people in this world? People that feed their kids. People that don't cheat. That don't lie. Don't try to manipulate or threaten. Don't try to frame people for crimes they didn't commit."
The tears were falling thick and fast from Michelle's eyes now and Vicky could no longer maintain the distance between them. She scooped her arm beneath Michelle's torso and pulled her close to her, shushing her and stroking her hair gently.
"Chelle, listen to me…" She whispered carefully, "What we did… It was a mistake. But we were hurt and upset. What Robert had done to us was unforgivable; especially after what Steve and Jed had done before. Spending all your time beating yourself up about it isn't going to help anything."
"I can't live with this, Vicky." Michelle cried, finally allowing her pent-up emotions to spill out.
"You have to, Michelle. We both do. Because there is no way I'm going to let this break us." Vicky sounded so determined and sure of herself that Michelle was convinced she'd already put the whole thing behind her.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see him lying there in hospital, dying. Knowing that he will never get to meet his son and that it's all my fault."
"It was both of our faults, Michelle. Let me share the burden…"
"It was my idea. You were just stupid enough to go along with it."
"I'll pretend you didn't say that. Whatever's happened, Michelle, we can't change it. It's not your fault he's dead. And even if we hadn't done all that stuff, and he'd walked into that hospital just in time, do you really think I'd have let him see Sonny? After everything he'd done?"
Michelle blinked several times, trying to uncloud her eyes from the layer of tears that had built up. She shook her head, finally admitting defeat and giving in to exhaustion. Vicky reached across to the bedside table, rolling her eyes at the floral tissue holder before plucking one out and folding it into a neat triangle. She brushed the edge gently beneath Michelle's bottom lashes, wiping away the salty residue. Now that her eyes were free of the thick black liner she normally adorned, Vicky was able to see the brown shade of her iris' all the more clearly as they held each other's gaze. Michelle couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so properly cared for.
"I'm sorry, I must look like such a mess…" She muttered. Vicky laughed softly.
"You're forgetting that you literally delivered my baby. You couldn't have caught me looking more of a mess if you'd tried."
"That's true." Michelle laughed lightly.
"You don't look a mess, anyway. You're the most glamorous woman I've ever met."
"I don't feel it right now…"
"Well, I have a proposition for you. You take today to pull yourself together and tomorrow night we get all glammed up and hit the town for New Year's Eve."
"I'm not sure I'm up for that, Vicky…" Michelle admitted. The prospect of leaving the house in the next week, let alone the next 24 hours seemed like an impossible task.
"Okay then. How about I come over here with a bottle of prosecco and some comfy PJ's? And don't even try to object, because I already know that Barry and Helen are heading over to cousin Tom's for the annual family party."
Lacking the energy to object, Michelle offered a weak smile.
"Fine." She sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Make sure you put clean PJ's on though, yeah? Tear stained is not a good look…"
Michelle couldn't help but smile at Vicky's attitude. So what if Ray came after her again? So what if he took everything away from them and left them back in the gutter? At least they'd be there together.
"Plus, it's been more than a year. If he'd wanted to sue you, he'd have done it by now." Vicky assured her. Michelle nodded, planting a confident smile on her face. It didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…"
"I'm always right." Vicky beamed, making her way towards the pram sat beside the door. "Come on then, lets head out before Mr here wakes up and screams the place down."
She held out her hand for Michelle to take, offering her a supportive smile. Michelle took it, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze.
"This is the beginning of the rest of our lives."
