The One That Got Away (26 page)

After lunch I come back into the kitchen to get some water, the Prosecco having done little to settle me, funnily enough.
I’m glugging from my glass over the sink when I hear a sudden ‘Hello’ behind me. I turn round to see Mum has somehow magically
appeared from nowhere and is calmly folding a tea towel. I really don’t know how she does it. Was she waiting for me in the
fridge?

She eyes me steadily. ‘Not feeling too good?’

‘I’m OK,’ I try a smile. ‘Just a bit thirsty.’

She walks over to the drawer, opens it and puts the tea towel in. ‘What did you get up to last night, anything fun?’

I got pissed at home and for the second weekend running had sex with Dan that I don’t entirely remember. Which is, Mum, becoming
something of a theme for me, you’ll be pleased to know …

‘Just a quiet one, nothing dramatic.’

‘What did Dan get you?’ She closes the drawer.

‘A massage voucher.’

‘That’s nice,’ Mum says. ‘You
have
been working very hard over the last couple of weeks.’ Her face is fixed in a composed expression. ‘We’ve hardly heard a
peep from you.’

‘Well, like you said, things have been busy.’

‘I understand,’ she says, almost too generously, and moves over to the cupboard and gets two mugs out. ‘Tea?’

‘No thank you,’ I say, slightly annoyed at her tone. ‘Mum, it’s not like I’ve been staying away on purpose.’

‘Oh I’m not saying you’ve done it
consciously
,’ she says quickly.

And just like that, I lose it. It’s a tiny, stupid comment that isn’t even an accusation. It’s so meaningless, so comparatively
insignificant it’s untrue – like sticking a pin in brickwork – but she fires straight to the bull’s eye in the way only a
family member can – or maybe she doesn’t at all. Maybe I’ve just been so stressed out and on the edge I can only let myself
lose it with someone
I feel really safe with, someone who will always be there, no matter what I’ve done.

‘What exactly is that supposed to mean?’ I explode. ‘I’m consciously, unconsciously doing WHAT exactly? I’m just trying to
get on with my fucking life! Why is that so difficult for other people to understand?
I’m doing the best I can
.’

Mum looks slightly stunned at my reaction.

‘No, come on then!’ I challenge hotly, putting my hands on my hips. ‘Say it. Just say what you’ve got to say. Tell me what
you really think, because clearly something’s frying your arse. What have I done now? I’m such a disappointment to everyone,
I really am.’ As I’m saying it, I know how unfair I’m being to her, that she doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about, why
I’m so angry.
I
don’t even know why I’m saying all this.

Silently, she lets the words linger, like a puff of poisonous spores floating in the air that she doesn’t want to breathe
in.

‘The only thing I’m disappointed in is the way you’re behaving right now,’ she says eventually, her voice maddeningly measured.
‘You don’t have to speak to me like that, it’s very rude.’

She puts the mugs back in the cupboard and walks out of the kitchen.

I burst into tears, but not noisy, attention-seeking ones. It’s more a bubbling up of frightened grief that somehow just sort
of floods up from within me and pours from somewhere so deep, it scares me. I don’t actually realise
my Dad has come into the room until I feel his hand on my shoulder, gently turning me to face him.

‘Molly?’

I wipe my eyes quickly. ‘I’ve just had words with Mum.’ I suddenly feel extremely tired, like I want to curl up on the sofa
by the dogs’ baskets and sleep for a thousand years, or wake up in time for tea and discover I don’t have to deal with anything
grown-up after all …

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Tears flood my eyes again and I shake my head, still looking down at the floor. I wish that I had not let myself get to a
point where I was unable to look after myself in that hotel. I wish it with all my heart. I am so ashamed of what I’ve done,
and so frightened. I just want all of this to go away, but I can’t see a way out. I feel trapped, like the walls are slowly
closing in on me, like it’s just a matter of time …

‘Well,’ Dad says, ‘OK. You know where I am if you change your mind. I’ll tell the others you’re on the phone and you’ll be
through in a minute, all right? Give you a moment to gather your thoughts.’

And he disappears off into the other room.

Dan and I watch a DVD in bed before we go to sleep. We’ve turned the light off and had a nice hug, and it’s a relief to find
I’m sleepy. But I jolt awake what feels like moments later. When I check the clock however, it’s actually quarter to one in
the morning. I get up to
go to the bathroom, creeping around carefully in the dark because I don’t want to wake Dan up.

I don’t know what makes me do it, but as I’m about to get back into bed, I pause and tiptoe over to the window. Holding my
breath I move the curtain the merest whisper so I can see through the gap down into the street below.

It’s tipping down, raindrops are both bouncing off and dripping from the two glowing street lights. The top of the hedge which
divides our little terrace of cottages from the street and lines the small drive, is bathed in their rather eerie orange fluorescent
light, but everything else is cast in varying degrees of shadow, or simply hidden away completely in the dark … everything
is very still.

I can’t see any sign of life at all, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there.

When six in the afternoon hits the following day, it feels like the moment of dead air before an explosion. Leo is waiting
for me to call him, or text him – and I’ve done neither. What is he going to do? Will he roar up to the house, jump out of
the car, march up the drive? Even though my work phone is switched off, I can’t relax as the minutes tick past. I struggle
to watch TV with Dan like nothing is wrong, can barely eat tea, climb into bed and lie there rigidly waiting for the doorbell
to ring, the hammering on the front door to start …

But nothing happens.

Dan leaves for work on Tuesday morning and I hurry out of the house shortly after him. I don’t actually have to leave for
my first meeting until ten, but there is no way I’m staying in the house on my own. Sick with fear, I only
switch my work BlackBerry on once I’m in the car and drive practically holding my breath, waiting for it to update.

But again – nothing. What’s he playing at?

I stop en route for a coffee, as I’m running so early, and it actually helps just to sit in a strange cafe where no one knows
me, or cares what I’m doing, what I’m thinking about. I switch off both phones – and have an hour of space. I don’t come to
any conclusions, no way out suddenly occurs to me, and neither do I think this is somehow all going to magically resolve itself.
If anything I purposefully blank my mind and concentrate only on reading the paper, because what else can I do?

Oddly, I feel calmer as I leave and get back in the car. And when I arrive at the GP’s surgery I find myself thinking that
perhaps I will call Leo, say that I will meet him, try to deal with this like adults. We used to live together! Surely we
can discuss this, somehow …

I walk into the waiting room feeling strangely detached from everything around me, and automatically adopt my wide professional
smile as I approach the reception desk. I could call him once I’m done here. ‘Hello!’ I say warmly, as if my sanity is not
in fact teetering on the brink and everything is
just fine
. ‘I’m Molly Greene from MediComma. I’ve a meeting with the practice manager.’

‘Hello,’ says the slightly hassled receptionist, juggling phones. ‘I’ll let her know you’re here. Would you like to take a
seat with your colleague?’

‘My colleague?’ I reply in confusion, as she motions behind me.

I turn, somehow expecting Pearce as that’s the only logical explanation, but the blood drains away from my face.

Leo stands up, dressed in an immaculate suit, holding a laptop bag. ‘Hello!’ he looks completely relaxed. ‘Mary?’ he looks
over my shoulder at the receptionist and flashes her a dazzling smile, ‘could you just give us a minute before you buzz Jenny?
I just have to bring Molly up to speed on something.’

‘Of course,’ she says instantly.

‘You’re a doll, thanks!’ he replies, eyes twinkling as he reaches for my arm and begins to guide me to a quieter corner of
the waiting room. ‘Don’t say anything,’ he says softly, still smiling away. ‘She’s totally bought it – just play along.’

‘How did you—’ I peter out, horrified.

A flash of impatience passes over his face. ‘I phoned MediComma, told them I was your husband, there was a family emergency
and I couldn’t get hold of you, did they happen to know where you were so I could contact you? They said you’d be here – and
here you are.’ He looks almost smug for a moment but then his expression falls away. ‘So what happened to my phonecall yesterday?’

‘Leo, listen …’

‘No, I think you should listen,’ he says equably. ‘I love you – you know that, and I’ve been happy to keep the grand expansive
gestures going, as that seems to be what you want.’ It occurs to me that he’s really quite liking
this audacious version of himself, ‘but this “quest” is getting a bit boring now. All of it – this’ – he motions around him
– ‘proves I’m serious. No more games now, Molly. Time’s up. As of this afternoon I’m out of the country with work for a week.
While I’m gone, decide how you want to play it. If you want to tell Dan yourself – tell him. Otherwise I’m going to sort it
when I come back, OK?’ He looks at me impassively. ‘I’ll be in touch unless I hear from you first. Be good BG. I know you’re
going to do the right thing.’

My mouth falls open in shock as he gives my arm another light squeeze, turns and saunters out with a cheery wave and a ‘Thanks,
Mary! She’s on her own now, so be nice to her!’

‘Molly, you have to call the police,’ Joss says immediately when I finally get hold of her at about six. ‘This is fucked up.’

‘And say what? “I’m being stalked by someone who’s out of the country right now” … they’ll laugh in my face!’

‘He’s bullshitting. Give me his number. If he’s genuinely abroad his mobile will have that different ring tone won’t it?’

I hesitate. ‘You’d have to hide your number – and promise me you’ll hang up if he answers, won’t you? Don’t yell at him, or
say anything to antagonise him, please.’

She calls me back moments later, sounding defeated. ‘He
is
abroad. It did two rings and I rung off. Molly, I mean it, you really have to tell someone about this …’

‘No!’ I insist as cold fear rinses through me, ‘and you can’t either – you promised.’

‘But—’

‘You promised!’

‘OK, OK—’ she says uneasily, as she tries to keep me calm.

He’s not bluffing. And he’s given me one week.

The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday peel away quickly as I try to keep working and acting like nothing is
wrong, burying my head in the sand one moment, and then the next being gripped by the panic of imagining sitting Dan down
and coming clean, telling him what’s happened and begging him to forgive me. Leo does not send me a single message, he goes
completely silent, which on the one hand, allows me to pretend that this isn’t really happening, but on the other, is oppressively
ominous.

Friday arrives and I’m sat in the pub after work with my other colleagues feeling spaced-out and numb, while thinking, ‘Should
I go home and tell Dan tonight?’

I have three days left now. That’s all.

Pearce is busy telling Sandra and me about the GP who insisted on helping him change a flat tyre on his car earlier in the
day. ‘She actually slapped the boot of the Golf like it was a horse once we’d got the wheel on and said briskly “She’ll be
no trouble now.” She was
brilliant
!’ he grins, emptying the dregs of a packet of crisps into his mouth and managing to get the crumbs all over his front. ‘What
a woman!’

‘Dirty fat lezza more like,’ Sandra says crossly, taking a sip of her Bacardi and coke.

Pearce stares at her. ‘Because she knows how to change a tyre?’

‘That’s not normal, Pearce,’ Sandra shudders distastefully. ‘Trust me.’

‘My mum knows how to wire a plug,’ Pearce looks at her meditatively. ‘Does that make her, a lesbian too?’

‘Wouldn’t know – haven’t bloody met her, have I?’ Sandra fires back acidly.

I won’t be able to bear it if they start a row, I really won’t. Luckily, Bec calls and gives me an excuse to get up and leave
love’s young dream to it.

‘OK, so I’m a bit out of practice,’ she says down the phone, ‘but suppose you were going on a third date with a man you’d
met on the internet – who
is
really nice, and you laughed loads with, and you like quite a lot – would you be worrying about what pants you’re going to
wear to dinner with him tonight, just in case?’

‘No!’ I say automatically. ‘I’d be thinking, great start, this bodes well but I only met him a week ago and if he really likes
me, he’ll wait as long as it takes.’

‘Phew,’ she says, relieved. ‘Thanks. Just checking – love you.’ And she hangs up.

I’m walking back to the table when Joss rings. ‘No developments then? You OK? Can you even talk right now?’ she says quickly.

I can, but I find that I don’t want to. ‘Not really.’

‘Understood,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow instead.’

‘What are you up to tonight?’ I ask, attempting some normality.

‘I’ve got a date,’ she says uncertainly.

‘Same bloke?’

‘Yup.’

‘That’s nice, Joss.’

‘Last Saturday,’ she hesitates, ‘we stayed up talking literally all night. I told him about Mum, Dad – and well, everything.’

Bloody hell. I try not to react to that, I don’t want to scare the horses. ‘You never said …’

‘You’ve got more than enough going on,’ she says quickly. ‘But guess what? On Monday he bought a bottle of perfume into work
for me just because I happened to mention I’d dropped mine and it broke everywhere. That was nice, wasn’t it?’