by Shari Low
‘What can I get you?’ the waitress asked, as chirpy as ever, picking up my previous cup and giving the table a quick wipe.
‘Just a coffee please,’ I answered, grateful that she made no mention of the fact that I’d already been there, right before I’d sprinted across the road to accost my target. Thankfully, Pete didn’t notice it.
‘Skinny cappuccino,’ Pete added. A pang so strong I almost gasped. Every time we were out together and Pete ordered that, Dee would howl with laughter and tease him for his metrosexual ways. Breathe. Breathe. I tried to fight down the tsunami of desperation and loss. I needed her here so badly. Breathe. Breathe.
Cheery waitress backed off, her blonde ponytail swinging behind her.
‘Look, Jen, I’m sorry…’ He paused, and I didn’t rush to fill the silence. Let him struggle with this until he found a way to explain what had happened. Didn’t he owe me that, at least? ‘I should have called. Or come to see you. I know I’ve been totally shit.’
No arguments from me – just surprise that an articulate guy I’d spent half my life with, a man I’d plan to stay with until the end of time, was now struggling to string a sentence together. This was surreal. Completely bizarre.
I couldn’t help pitching in. I had so many questions and judging by his current level of eloquence, I couldn’t see him volunteering the answers.
‘Where are you living?’
‘I’m staying with Mike from the office. He had a spare room he was renting out. West end. I’ll text you the address… so you can send on any mail.’
I saw the tiny muscle in the side of his jaw throb and I knew he was hating every minute of this. He didn’t want to see me. Wow. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but somehow, when the thought landed, it was like I’d been emotionally tasered.
‘Have you been there the whole time?’ I tried to keep it level and controlled. I wanted to reach over and touch his face. Or slap it. I wanted to hold his hand. Or break it. Most of all, I wanted to roll back time to just a few months ago, when we were happy and normal and in love, and I woke up every morning curled into his body and then kissed him when he opened his eyes. He’d touch my face, and smile, and I’d think how lucky we were.
Were. Past tense. I’d slipped so far into the past, it took his reply to jolt me back to where we were now.
‘Pretty much. I went to Lanzarote for a couple of weeks. Club La Santa,’ he said.
Of course. I should have known. It was a sports resort that he visited at least once a year, usually in the winter, because it was the closest place that was pretty much guaranteed weather good enough to cycle, swim and run until his heart was content. A few times I’d gone with him, a couple of times Dee and Luke tagged along too. Luke and I would lie in the shade drinking Sangria, while our athlete partners hiked up a hill or did a ten-mile jog before lunch, for fun.
‘With Arya?’ I don’t know where that came from, but from his astounded response, I was relieved to see I was off the mark.
‘No, of course not. On my own. Just need some time to think.’
I bit my tongue. He needed time to think, but he hadn’t pitched up at our door the minute he landed back on Scottish soil, so it was fairly obvious his thoughts didn’t extend to missing me and wanting me back.
‘And what conclusions did you come to?’
He was given a couple of moments extra to think about it because cheery waitress arrived back with our coffees. We fell silent until she’d retreated.
‘Jen, I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I know my timing was crap, and I didn’t mean it to happen like that, but come on, you must have known things had been heading that way for a while?’
This was like talking to a stranger, one who was describing a situation that I absolutely didn’t recognise.
‘I didn’t.’ I replied, honestly.
‘Really?’ His turn for surprise.
‘I mean, I knew things weren’t great and you seemed a bit… distracted… but I just assumed you were going through a fed up phase. I asked you so many times if something was wrong and you always said everything was OK. What was I supposed to take from that? How was I supposed to know that “I’m OK” actually meant, “I’m unhappy in this relationship and I plan to bail out at the first opportune moment? Or the pretty crappiest moment ever, as it turned out.”
I must have raised my voice because the couple who’d just sat down at the corner table a few feet away both turned at the same time to look at us. Bugger.
Pete didn’t notice. He just took a sip of his skinny bloody cappuccino and put the mug back on the table before he spoke again. ‘I just didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’ Jesus. This was like having a conversation where the other person was speaking a completely different language and you didn’t know what they were saying but you had a fair idea they were trying to ask for the nearest exit.
He sighed. ‘Tell you that I didn’t want to be with you anymore.’
Wow. Just wow. I mean, he was stating the obvious but wow, it hurt.
It took me a moment to recover. ‘Why?’
He was just staring at the froth on his cappuccino now. ‘So many reasons.’
Ouch. Really? And I’d spotted none of them.
He went on, ‘Come on, Jen, we’d been together since we were fifteen…’ Once more, I noticed the past tense. ‘That’s half our lives. And it wasn’t working anymore. We’d lost that spark and we were in a rut. It was all so mundane, and predictable…’
I thought it was familiar and wonderful.
‘…and boring. We were totally stagnating, Jen. Didn’t you see that?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
If he heard the words I’d managed to squeeze out, he didn’t acknowledge them. It was as if he’d warmed up to his subject all of a sudden and had found his voice.
‘Didn’t you ever wonder if there was something else out there for us? If we’d settled too soon? If there was more to life than just staying in the same jobs, living in the same house, doing the same things over and over…’
I flipped from wanting answers to not being able to listen to any more of this.
‘No,’ I objected. ‘You make it sound like we had some terrible, tedious life, but we didn’t, Pete. Yes, so we’d been together since we were fifteen and I get that relationships that start that young don’t usually last the course, but I just thought we were lucky. Found the right one. And I thought we’d move house, keep doing new things, going new places, I thought we’d do it all together. I thought the next step for us was kids and we’d grow and change, but we’d last a lifetime. I really did. You used to say that’s what you wanted too.’
He did. This wasn’t all on me. To the couple at the nearby table, the waiting staff and everyone else that was trying to pretend that they were not listening, it would seem that I had totally misjudged our whole relationship. Hell, even I was beginning to think that was the case. I needed to remind him, to show that this hadn’t been a one-way deal.
‘Pete, only last year when we were in Florida you said you wanted to bring our kids there. We picked out names, remember? And yes, it was all a joke, and we would never have actually called them Epcot and Pluto, but don’t tell me there wasn’t a grain of reality in all that…’
‘There was!’ he said, defensively.
‘So what changed? How did we go from that to this? When did you start feeling…’
‘Trapped,’ he added, helpfully.
‘Trapped? Pete, we were in love! It wasn’t a bloody siege situation.’
He took another sip of his coffee and then fell silent again.
I struggled for words, still completely bewildered by the whole thing. There had to be more. Something else. You didn’t just go from loving someone so much you spent fifteen years together and picked out Disney-themed names for your children, to feeling like you had to escape their clutches. There had to be something else he wasn’t telling me. Was he ill? Did he have some kind of life-threateni
ng condition? Had he won the lottery and didn’t want to split the cash? Had he embezzled money and he was just waiting to get caught? Or was I clutching at wild theories because the truth was something far more obvious…
‘Is there someone else?’
‘No.’ Everyone else in the shop would absolutely believe the denial. It had been quick. It had been unequivocally firm. But I saw it. There it was. The flicker of his eyes to the right. The little vein in the side of his jaw, beating even more rapidly than before. The coffee cup lifted to his mouth to distract from the thing he didn’t want me to see. He was lying. I knew he was lying.
‘Arya?’ I probed, ignoring what he’d said. I realised I’d already asked but in every good cop show interrogation they return to the same questions over and over in the hope of tripping up the offender. The chummy scene I’d witnessed earlier was evidence for the prosecution. “It’s Arya,’ I declared, having convinced myself in approximately three seconds.
He put the cup down again. ‘Jen, there’s no one else.’ Lie number two. I could feel it.
Behind the counter, cheery waitress had even stopped pretending to be wiping her tray with a cloth, completely entranced by the conversation.
‘I haven’t been seeing anyone.’ Lie number three.
Something crumbled inside me. That was it. Despite his denials, I knew I’d got it right. Someone else. In truth, it didn’t actually matter who it was. It could be Arya. It could be someone at the gym. It could be cheery flipping waitress. All that mattered was that he’d felt enough for someone else to walk away from me. And much as I wanted to tell him we’d get through this, that we could still make it work, I’d be wasting my breath.
I wasn’t even sure I meant it. I still loved him, of that there was no doubt. Despite what he’d done, I still couldn’t imagine a future that he wasn’t in. But none of that was enough, because although he was sitting in front of me, he was gone. Out of my life. Disconnected from us.
Not once had he asked me how I was. How I was coping without Dee. How Luke was, or Val or Don. The people we’d been around, who were like family to us for the last fifteen years. He hadn’t said a single thing about our lives together, other than to tell me the reasons it wasn’t right.
I’d no idea how that could happen, how a steel door could just snap down and cut off a whole existence, blocking out every relationship that had been there before, but it had.
‘I’ll stay at Mike’s for a while, and we can sort out the house when you’re ready. I don’t mind if you want to sell it or buy me out. Whatever’s best for you.’
Best for me? None of this was best for me. It was distinctly not bloody best for me. I hadn’t even thought about the house. My house. I’d loved it. It was the only one I’d ever owned, but in truth, I could no longer walk up the front path without seeing Dee lying there, leaving us. In the days before the funeral I’d considered selling it, but I’d thought it would be a joint thing, Pete and I picking out somewhere new, somewhere to start a new chapter together. Since then, I’d been too stunned by his leaving to give it a second thought. Until now. He wasn’t coming back. He’d never live in that house again.
‘So that’s it?’ I whispered. ‘It’s just over?’
‘It is.’
Chapter 15
Val
Every nerve in my body shot to the surface of my skin and Josie put her hand on my arm, a safety precaution in case I opened the car door and bolted across the street. I couldn’t have done that even if I wanted to because I knew my trembling legs wouldn’t carry me.
The street light a few metres along the road illuminated the house and I focussed on the black-clad figure that was now locking the door, turning, walking down the path and…
It wasn’t him. The shape and height gave it away initially, but it was only when the figure reached the end of the path and opened the gate, that I could clearly see that it was a woman. His mother? An aunt? Older sister? Much older, I could see now, probably about my age.
‘Think that’s his mum?’ Josie wondered, before answering her own question, aping my thoughts. ‘Must be. Too old to be a sister.’
Closing the gate behind her, the woman turned right and headed along the street, away from us, head down, walking fast. I had no idea what to do. I glanced back at the house. It was in complete darkness now so there was obviously no one home. I could stay and wait to see if he came back but he could be anywhere. Staying somewhere else. Out on the town. Back in jail. Dead. The last one slipped in. I hoped it was true.
‘What do we do now?’ Josie asked.
I started the engine. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am. You’ve indulged my madness long enough. Thanks Josie.’
She leaned over and squeezed my arm again, this time from a place of love as opposed to crime prevention. ‘You sure?’
‘Yep, let’s go home.’
‘Thank God. My arse is numb and I’m dying for a pee.’
I indicated and then waited until the car I could see in my wing mirror passed, before pulling out. The street was 30mph, speed bumps every few yards, so I took it slowly. Going home was the right thing to do, although I couldn’t deny I was curious.
‘You’ve got to wonder what she’s like though.’
‘Who?’
‘The woman. His mother. I mean, what kind of person raises a scumbag like that? How does that happen? Does she even care? Does she really give a flying toss about what he did to my girl?’
‘Don’t torture yourself, Val,’ Josie replied. I knew she was saying it for my own good but it didn’t make me feel any better.
‘I want to know what she’s like. I want to tell her how my Dee died, what our family has lost, what her son did and see her face when I do it, see if there’s even a hint of care.’
I stopped at the give way, my indicators flashing to signal that I was turning left, heading back towards Josie’s house. To the right, I could still see the woman, a few yards up ahead. I pressed the accelerator, went straight ahead.
Josie pointed out the error. ‘Pet, you were meant to turn left there.’
‘I know, but I just want to see where she goes.’
‘Oh bloody hell, Val. Come on, love. Did we not have a wee moment back there when we decided the madness was done for the night?’
‘We did, but I just need to see where she goes. Humour me, Josie.’
‘Unless I want to exit the car while it’s moving, I don’t have much bloody choice, do I? Christ almighty, this is turning into an episode of Cagney and Lacey. And I don’t remember one where Cagney ever peed her pants while chasing a suspect, so you’d better cut this out and get me to a loo pronto. My bladder isn’t what it used to be.’
‘She’s turning the corner,’ I said, ignoring Josie’s objections.
‘That takes you on to the main road just along from Tesco. There’s a load of bus stops there. She’s probably catching a bus and I tell you, Val Murray, I am not chasing public transport across Glasgow and neither are you. We’re going home, I’m making a dash for the loo, and then we’ll have a cup of tea and discuss all the reasons this can’t happen again.’
I was still ignoring her.
Wilkie’s mother walked past the first bus stop, then the second, then just before she got to the third, she cut down a path to the right and headed into Tesco. Bit late to be doing her shop, but fair enough. Maybe she worked shifts, or didn’t sleep, or was just nipping in to get something she needed for the morning.
Without even thinking it through, I indicated and swung round to the right, into the car park, just as she disappeared into the store.
‘Tell me we’re not going in after her, only I swear to God my bladder won’t stand up to sneaking down the frozen food aisle.’
‘We’re not following her,’ I said, archly.
Josie raised an eyebrow of doubt.
‘Didn’t you say you needed the loo? So here’s the nearest one. I’m not having you ruining
my seats. They’re genuine PVC,’ I told her, aware that she wasn’t convinced for a second.
‘And you’re just going to wait here for me?’ she asked, the question loaded with suspicion.
‘No, I’ll come in. Need to pick up a loaf for Don’s sandwiches tomorrow.’
‘I want you to know that I don’t believe a word of it, but my need to pee is greater than my need to call your bluff.’
She opened the door and half walked, half ran to the door, with me striding to keep up with her. What the hell were we like? Two women of vintage, on a stakeout, following people, and now stalking them in supermarkets. Or at least, one stalker, and one endlessly loyal pal caught up in the madness and along for moral support. I was really beginning to think I needed help. A sudden thought pinged into my head – under different circumstances, Dee would think this was hilarious. It was just the kind of thing she’d do and, if she was here, she’d be right with us, giggling somewhere between the kitchen rolls and the quilted Andrex.
Inside, the choices were a left turn for the café, a right turn to the tills and the toilets or straight ahead into the store. Josie immediately veered right to the loo and I just kept on going, through the fruit and veg section, up to the deli on the back wall. No sign of her. I turned right into the soft drinks aisle, nope nothing. I strode on, walking at a normal pace so that I didn’t look out of place. At the bottom of each aisle, I’d look along the length of the tills to make sure she wasn’t already checking out, but no sign of her.
The tinned veg and sauces aisle. Nothing.
Pet food. No sign.
Household goods, then dairy, then meats, fish, and, finally, frozen foods. Where the hell was she? How could she have just vanished into thin air? She had definitely come in here, I was sure of it.
It came to me like a lightning bolt. The toilets. She must have nipped in there first. Bloody hell, Josie could be washing her hands next to her right now.
