So I’ll sit John Dean down, buy him a speciality latte, and tell him thanks but no thanks. It will feel fantastic. If I have the courage I’ll also tell him, calmly and without bitterness, how much he hurt me, how much he hurt us both. And, that although I will accept him in our daughter’s life if he manages to stick around this time, I don’t want him in mine anymore. Not even as a handyman. There’s only room for two men in my life right now, and even though one of them is in prison and the other is barely speaking to me, I know that they both deserve my full attention from now on.
***
‘Paul, can I have a word with you. It’s quite important.’
Paul sighed and gestured for Loretta to take a seat. ‘What’s up?’ he said, closing down his computer screen.
‘Could we maybe talk somewhere a little more private?’ she asked.
‘Not really, Loretta. Isn’t it to do with work?’
‘Oh, it is, yes. In a way.’ She turned and looked around the office surreptitiously. ‘It’s about Stella,’ she hissed. ‘There’s something you should know.’
Oh, great, Paul thought, this is all I need. He said nothing, not sure where she was going but hoping she’d get it over with soon.
‘Well, anyway,’ she carried on. ‘I’ve noticed that you and Stella have been getting, let’s say, kind of close lately.’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your –’
‘No, no!’ she said quickly. ‘It’s none of my business. Of course not. It’s just that, well, I like to think of you as a friend as well as a boss, Paul, and as such I think you deserve to know what’s going on behind your back.’
He was interested now, he couldn’t help himself. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘It happened last night,’ Loretta whispered. ‘I had to pop up to the shops for something after work and I went past that café where Stella works part-time now. I have been thinking that it’s interfering with her work here and doesn’t show much commitment to the job but… anyway, that’s not the point, really.’
Get to it then, thought Paul. Please.
‘So I was passing the café and I thought I might pop in as it was open late so I went up to the door but it was locked. I thought, that’s weird! The lights were on in the back there and I could see people inside, sitting at a table drinking coffee. That is,’ she paused for effect, ‘I could see two people.’
‘And?’ Paul prompted, fearing what was coming next.
‘It was Stella. With a man. I hate to tell you this, Paul, as I know you have feelings for her, but they looked very close.’
‘How close?’
‘She was holding his hand.’ Loretta thought for a moment. ‘And she stroked his head at one point. He seemed quite emotional. So did she, to be honest.’
‘You watched them for a while?’
‘Not really, no,’ she said defensively. ‘I just happened to be passing, just glanced in. But it was long enough to see, if you know what I mean.’
Paul thought he knew exactly what she meant. ‘It’s OK, Loretta. I’m not having a go at you. I just wondered if you got a good look at him.’
‘Dark hair, kind of tousled, brown eyes, handsome in that rugged way some women go for.’ Loretta recited the details flawlessly. ‘About six foot, well built, wearing a bright blue shirt and faded jeans.’ The picture she painted was one Paul could see all too clearly; he’d been looking at the man himself only two days ago. John fucking Dean.
‘Did they leave together?’ he asked wearily.
‘Yes,’ Loretta said, adding, ‘I wasn’t spying on them, you understand. I just happened to see.’ She shifted forwards in her chair. ‘Would you like to go for a drink or something to talk about it? You must be quite upset.’
Upset enough to kill someone. ‘No, thanks,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks, Loretta.’ He stood up, indicating he would really like it if she left now. She took the hint.
‘OK, well, like I said, it’s just that I care – I mean, we all care about you.’
‘Yeah.’ Paul sat down again, images of Stella and her ex filling his mind. He couldn’t believe it – not after what she’d told him. What kind of a game was she playing?
After she’d brought him lunch yesterday, Paul had started to feel a bit guilty for balling her out about being late, and about giving her the cold shoulder at the barbeque. It was hardly her fault if her mother had invited the ex, was it? It was typical of John Dean to be trying to ingratiate himself with Stella’s mum by doing her garden for nothing, but that was hardly Stella’s responsibility. Paul knew he’d been out of order, ignoring her like that, and he knew her well enough to realise that was probably what was behind her getting so drunk and tearful. He’d behaved like an idiot. She didn’t deserve that.
Leaving the sandwich uneaten, Paul had dragged Stella into the staffroom, locked the door behind them, and demanded to know if she intended to go back to her ex or not.
Stella was stunned. And clearly horrified. ‘No,’ she’d told him sincerely, ‘not in a million years. Not if he was the last man on earth. Not if someone paid me a billion pounds. No. No. No.’
And Paul had believed her. He had also shown his true feelings by asking the question. Once the shock had worn off, Stella had given him a very knowing look.
‘There’s someone else I care about,’ she’d said softly. ‘Someone very special.’ And Paul had felt his insides do somersaults. He loved this woman. He believed she cared for him too. If John Dean really wasn’t a threat then there was nothing standing in their way…
But now this! Not four hours later she had been cosying up to her ex like they were the only two people in the world. After everything she’d said. Paul simply couldn’t believe she had lied to him like that. What on earth was she up to?
Chapter 22
Milton Keynes could be quite a depressing place at night. Especially when you were driving around it aimlessly, trying to figure out what was going on in the head of the woman you were in love with. Perhaps it was the fact that there never seemed to be much traffic – a boon when you were trying to get from A to B in a hurry but creating a strangely isolated atmosphere at other times.
Paul wouldn’t live anywhere else, though. He’d watched this city grow, literally, from a sprawl of random housing estates to a vibrant, desirable place to be. And from an estate agent’s point of view it was like nowhere else on earth. It was his friend, comforting him with its long, wide dual carriageways and parks and lakes around every corner.
Usually it comforted him, that was. Tonight he couldn’t find the comfort anywhere: not at Willen Lake, where he went running most mornings, not from the top of the H5, with the whole of the city spread out below him like neon artwork. Not even driving past the mirrored train station; seeing his car reflected again and again usually made him at least smile. After hours of driving and thinking and driving some more, Paul turned onto the V4 and headed for Crownhill.
He’d been considering all that had happened to Stella in the last two months. And he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t blame her for being a bit confused. He knew better than anyone how much she had loved John Dean – he’d been the one to help her put her life back together after the bastard dumped her.
He also knew that having a child together gave two people a certain bond, one that couldn’t be easily ignored. What woman wouldn’t at least give some consideration to taking her daughter’s father back? Paul wondered what Sharon would do if circumstances were different and he had pursued her the way John Dean was pursuing Stella. Wouldn’t she think about it seriously, giving Hannah unfettered access to her real father? Paul liked to think maybe she would, and this went some way to helping him understand Stella’s dilemma.
But the one thing he couldn’t get over was the sense of betrayal. The fact was, she’d lied to him. He had asked her outright and Stella had told him a categorical no. She wasn’t interested. She wouldn’t go back to John Dean if he was the last man on earth.
So he’d asked her out to dinner, a proper date he thought, candlelit restaurant, sharing each other’s food. But she was busy, she said. Lipsy had asked her to go shopping for maternity clothes. How could he argue with that? And how, he thought now as he turned into Chaplin Grove and parked his car across from her house, how could she use her own daughter as an excuse to fob him off while she went to meet the man she’d just denounced? It was beyond Paul’s comprehension. He needed answers and he was determined to get them.
Paul studied Stella’s house for signs of life. There was a light on in an upstairs window but he wasn’t sure if it was hers or Lipsy’s. The rest of the houses in the close were in darkness, even though it was only a little after eleven o’clock. He caught some movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to get a better view. There was someone creeping out of Joshua’s house – a woman. So, he definitely wasn’t gay then. Paul had had his doubts.
Not only was there a woman creeping out of Joshua’s house in the middle of the night but she was also half-naked – the top half to be exact. Strategically placed hands were doing nothing to hide the fact that she was clad only in a bra and jeans. Was this a date gone horribly wrong? Paul tried not to laugh. It was cruel, but the way his own love life had been going lately he found the idea that he wasn’t the only one strangely comforting.
As the woman made her way gingerly down Joshua’s path Paul slumped in his seat, hoping she wouldn’t see him as she passed – he didn’t want to compound her embarrassment. But she didn’t turn his way. Instead she did a quick sidestep to the left and promptly ran up Stella’s own, identical path. Paul strained his eyes in the darkness to see who she was. Too tall to be Bonnie. Too big to be Lipsy. It was only when she opened her own front door and the light from her own recently decorated hallway spilled out into the night that he saw her face clearly. Perfectly clearly. Stella gave a last furtive glance across the close then shut her front door behind her.
***
Tuesday 31
st
July, 11.25pm
I can’t believe that this tiny seahorse-baby is making me feel so crap. I hope it’s not this vindictive when it grows up. I’m knackered, nobody understands how knackered. Rob keeps wanting to go here and do this or nip off there and see such and such and I keep telling him – I’m knackered, babe. It’s as much as I can do to get dressed in the morning. Some days I don’t even manage that!
Rob’s been such a pain in the arse since the barbeque on Sunday. Just because I had a little teeny-weeny drink of lager. You’d think I’d taken a baseball bat to my own stomach the way he carried on. And mum didn’t help, getting leathered like that – Rob obviously thought she was some kind of alcoholic and that it runs in the family. I’m telling you – if he doesn’t back off soon …
Lipsy threw her pen across the room and watched it bounce harmlessly off her new Ikea wardrobe. It seemed like every time she wrote in her diary these days she ended up working herself into a frenzy. Gone were the days when it had been a fun thing to do, a slice of a life which had felt like it was going somewhere. Now she just moaned about sickness and feeling fat and her bloody boyfriend.
Calm Blue Ocean, she recited to herself. Calm Blue Ocean. She’d seen it in a film, someone using this mantra to keep themselves calm. As much as she moaned about being pregnant she didn’t want anything to go wrong with the baby so she knew she had to try and stay calm. Which, with her current problems, was not easy.
As if to prove her case the front door slammed, making the whole house shake. Nice one, Mum. Burning it down wasn’t enough, now you want to knock it down. Could the house take any more abuse? Lipsy ran to the top of the stairs in time to hear someone banging on the door. Her mother was standing in the hallway, a horrified expression on her face.
‘Mum! Why are you only wearing your bra?’
Her mum glared up at her and shook her head mutely, pointing at the door and making throat cutting gestures across her neck.
‘What? Who is it?’
‘Paul,’ she hissed.
Lipsy slowly made her way downstairs, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
‘I thought you were going over to Joshua’s?’ she said when she reached the bottom, lowering her voice when her mum shushed her. ‘You said he had a business proposition for you or something. Where’s your blouse? Did Paul do that? And why’s he banging on the door? Let him in.’ But when Lipsy moved towards the door, her mother grabbed her arm and wrenched her back.
‘Don’t let him in,’ she pleaded.
‘Has he hurt you? If he’s hurt you…’
Lots of head shaking.
‘But you are avoiding him?’
Nodding now.
‘Why?’ Lipsy thought for a moment then clamped her hands to her head.
‘Mum! For goodness sake. Please tell me you didn’t come out of Joshua’s dressed like that.’ More nodding, some crying. ‘I don’t even want to know why! And Paul saw you? And now he’s very angry?’ That much was pretty obvious from the banging and shouting outside. ‘You have to let him in, Mum. He’s not going away. Wait there.’
Lipsy ran upstairs, huffing with the effort. She grabbed a jumper from the pile on her mum’s bed and raced back down. ‘Here. Put this on first. Honestly, Mum, I’m really not up to this. I am pregnant you know.’
While her mother shrugged herself into the jumper, Lipsy opened the door. Paul stood in front of her, his arm raised to strike again. He dropped it as soon as he saw Lipsy.
‘God, Lipsy. I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?’
This was so stupid that Lipsy almost laughed. He must have woken the whole of Crownhill by now. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. Come in.’ She moved aside to give him access to her mortified mother. Then she stood back to watch.
‘Paul!’ Her mum stepped forward, holding out her hands as if to ward off the inevitable. ‘Paul, I can explain. It’s not what you think …’
Now why, thought Lipsy, do people always say that? In soaps and films when caught in a compromising position, people always say, ‘It’s not what you think,’ instead of just explaining what the hell it actually is. And Lipsy was at least as curious as Paul to hear the explanation of why her mother had gone out to see their neighbour fully dressed and come home two hours later minus half her clothes. This should be good.