‘Have you set a date?’ I asked Sarah after we’d made it through the crowd of well-wishers and hugged her and Nick.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it will be a long engagement, though, because I’m far too impatient to wait for long now that I’ve finally met The One. I know we’ve always discussed this, but I have to make it official. Elise Karen Dawson, will you do me the honour of being my bridesmaid?’
I beamed. ‘Of course I will. Thank you.’ I hugged her again. ‘I’m assuming Clare will be a bridesmaid too?’
Sarah’s smile faded. Perhaps I needed to work on my enthusiasm when saying Clare’s name.
‘Yes. And Nick’s sister, Callie. Can I trust you and Clare to play nicely?’
‘It’s never me who starts it.’
‘Elise!’
‘I promise to play nicely and collaborate with her on all things bridesmaid-ish.’
‘Sarah! Congratulations!’ More well-wishers appeared.
I lightly touched Sarah’s arm. ‘I’ll leave you to it for now, but I want more details. Are you free tomorrow or later in the week? I need to know the contents of that speech.’
She laughed. ‘We’re going out for a family engagement meal tomorrow so maybe Monday or Tuesday?’
‘I’ll ring you,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe we’re finally going to plan your wedding for real.’
‘I know! I was beginning to think it would never happen, but Nick was definitely worth the wait.’
I hugged her again then walked back towards our table with Stevie. As I was about to take my seat, a strong wave of nausea swept over me. Excusing myself, I dashed for the ladies. Another wave hit me as I pushed open the cubicle door. I sank to the floor, stomach heaving, face burning. When the feeling finally subsided, I slowly pulled myself up and sat down on the toilet seat, dabbing my sweaty face with some tissue paper. There was a sickness bug going round school. I hoped I hadn’t contracted it – I really didn’t have time to be sick.
After splashing some cold water on my face, I headed back to Stevie. My stomach sank when I saw who’d joined him. I spotted the legs first: long, tanned and devoid of any cuts or blemishes. Killer heels. Low cut fitted navy dress. Immaculate blonde bob. Great. I glanced towards the exit. It was tempting to leave, but my bag was on the table next to her drink. I had no choice but to face an altercation with Ireland’s bitchiest export.
Stevie spotted me and stood up, reaching out a hand towards my arm. ‘Are you okay? You look really pale.’
I tried to avoid Clare’s gaze as I reached across the table for my bag. ‘That headache’s got worse and I feel really sick now so I am going to have to bail after all. Would you make sure Kay gets my present?’ I indicated the gift bag by the table.
‘Of course. Are you okay to drive?’
I nodded. ‘It’s not far. And thankfully I have a doctor at home to look after me.’
‘Feeling sick?’ Clare asked. ‘Aw, how sweet. Will the perfect couple be expecting their first perfect child?’
I looked into her mischievous green eyes and scowled. ‘I’m not pregnant, Clare. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Are you sure? You look like you may have gained a few pounds in that dress.’
‘It’s a maxi dress. It’s meant to be big. And yes, I’m absolutely sure.’ Because you had to actually have sex to get pregnant, and that’s something I hadn’t had for a very, very long time.
3
I slowly steered my beloved lime green Beetle, Bertie, across Whitsborough Bay towards home, hoping that a slow, steady drive would keep the nausea at bay. If I had to stop to throw up by the side of the road, I was bound to be spotted by one of my students who’d instantly share a snap of me mid-vomit on Instagram.
Think positive thoughts instead. I pictured Sarah’s radiant beam and, despite the nausea, couldn’t help but smile at her news. Hopefully Gary wouldn’t be too late home from his session with Rob so I could tell him about the proposal. He’d love it that, like us, they’d got engaged on South Bay beach. Despite the current blip, we’d had a great marriage so hopefully it was a good omen for them.
‘Tonight’s nineties’ party classic comes from March 1994. Take it away Robbie…’ announced the DJ on the local radio station, Bay Radio.
Take That’s ‘Everything Changes’ began to play. Immediately, I was back in our bedroom the night before, having that awful baby conversation with Gary. He’d said those exact words: ‘everything changes’. What had he meant? Had he been telling the truth when he’d said he didn’t want a baby at all, or had he been telling the truth when he’d adjusted that to not wanting a baby yet? Please let it be the latter.
By the time I pulled into our estate ten minutes later, I’d made my mind up to sit down with Gary and talk. Really talk. I wouldn’t get angry. I wouldn’t get frustrated. I wouldn’t plead. I’d listen to what he had to say and, if he wanted to wait a couple more years before starting a family, I’d respect and accept his decision. Babies were hard work so the timing had to be absolutely right for both parents.
He’d been right last night when he said I was being childish by moaning that my younger sister was pregnant before me. Had I really voiced that? No wonder he’d been angry with me. Well, we’d have no more anger, and we’d have no more distance. We needed to spend some quality time together, just the two of us. Lately, we always seemed to be out with friends or family. The last few times we’d been out alone, we’d bumped into Stevie and Rob and had ended up spending the evening in their company instead. They were great fun, but Gary and I really needed some alone time to bring the romance and passion back into our relationship.
If I needed to pare back my extra-curricular responsibilities at school to do that, then so be it. The EGO Programme meant a lot to me, but my husband, my marriage and my future family meant a heck of a lot more. A little time and attention and we’d be back on track.
However, if Gary had changed his mind and didn’t want a baby at all… Oh my goodness. I couldn’t bear to think about that possibility.
As I rounded the corner onto Abbey Drive, relief flowed through me to see the Lexus back on the drive. Having a doctor for a husband certainly had its advantages when illness called.
‘Gary? I’m home,’ I called, kicking off my ballet pumps and placing them, my bag and my jacket on the bottom stair.
Met with silence, I headed for the large kitchen/diner at the back of the house to get myself a glass of water and to see if Gary was in there. It was deserted. The distinctive smell of pepperoni pizza hung in the air making me gag. It wasn’t the nicest smell at the best of times, but for a vegetarian with a churning stomach…
Glancing at the clock above the sink, I frowned. It couldn’t have been a very long training session if he’d had time to heat up a pizza and eat it too. I opened a cupboard and took out a glass. Hang on a minute…
My heart thumped faster and my stomach knotted as I slowly turned round to look at the dining table again. Two plates. Two wine glasses. And he knew I wasn’t going to be back until late. No, Gary! Please! I’d have assumed that Rob had come back for pizza if it wasn’t for one more item on the table: candles.
Placing the glass down on the worktop, I drifted slowly down the hall and up the stairs, feeling as though I was in a dream… or perhaps a nightmare depending on what I found upstairs. Or, rather, whom I found.
I could hear the shower – the one in the main bathroom. The fact that he was using the large wet-room style shower rather than the single shower in our en-suite added to my feeling of foreboding. I held my breath as I tiptoed tentatively down the corridor towards the bathroom, pulse racing.
He wasn’t alone. Every fibre of my being told me so. A deep groan emitting from the bathroom confirmed it. How could he? In our home. In our shower.
I hesitated outside my office door, staring at the closed bathroom door at the end of the corridor. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to catch him with her?
Another groan curled my toes and sent shivers down my spine. I took another two paces forward then stopped again. Should I wait until they were finished? Sit on our bed and confront them? Wait downstairs with a cup of tea and the TV on to drown out the sound?
But I had to know. Five paces… four… three… two… one… Was I really sure? There’d be no going back once I’d seen them together. I wouldn’t be able to un-see that vision. But a little hopeful voice inside me said, ‘What if he’s alone and you’re just imagining things? There may not be another woman in there, you know. He loves you.’ I hoped beyond hope that the little voice was right.
Swallowing hard, I reached out with a shaky hand to twist the knob and push the door open. Was the little voice right?
The little voice was right. There wasn’t another woman in there. My feet felt like they were encased in cement and my arms felt like lead weights hanging by my sides, threatening to pull me to the ground. ‘Run!’ screamed the voice in my head. But my body wouldn’t obey.
It was Rob who saw me first. ‘Shit! Elise!’ He let go of my husband.
Gary turned round. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, but he didn’t say a word. What could he say? ‘I thought you’d be out till late,’ or ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ or ‘Hi honey, do you want to pass us both a towel then how about we have a nice cup of tea and a chat about it?’
The water continued to cascade, filling the room with steam. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. It seemed as though time had stopped.
My gaze flicked from Gary to Rob to Gary again. Rob closed his eyes and hung his head. Gary slowly reached behind him and shut off the water with one hand while tugging his left earlobe with the other. Still nobody spoke. Nobody moved. It was as though the silence and stillness were a protective cloak keeping us from facing what was happening. Don’t move and don’t speak and we can pretend it’s a dream. But it wasn’t a dream. It was my worst nightmare and I had to get out.
‘Elise, I…’ Gary started.
I shook my head, then turned and fled. Stumbling along the corridor and down the stairs, I grabbed my jacket and bag from the bottom step and shoved my feet back into my ballet pumps.
My hands shook so much that I dropped my bag twice before I was able to fish the car keys out of it.
Reversing Bertie off the drive with a screech and turning to face down Abbey Drive, I glanced in my rear-view mirror to see the front door burst open and Gary dive out with a towel round his waist. He ran across the front lawn, shouting my name, but I pressed my foot harder onto the accelerator and turned up the volume on the radio to obliterate his cries. I pulled out of the estate and sped towards town.
My arms shook, jerking the steering wheel, then my legs followed suit. My head pounded, my heart thumped and my stomach churned.
A film of sweat covered my body and my mouth filled with saliva as I drove along the seafront. Oh shit! This time, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to be sick. I swallowed several times on the bile rising in my throat, knowing I had to find somewhere to stop, but this was absolutely not the place. Locals brushed shoulders with early-season tourists enjoying fish and chips, ice-creams and doughnuts. There was no way I could stop and vomit somewhere so public.
Grateful that the traffic lights were on green, I took deep breaths as I sped along the seafront, over the swing bridge and into the car park at Lighthouse Cove, unclicking the seatbelt as I did so. Without switching the engine off, I dived out of Bertie in the nick of time.
An elderly woman perched on the wall of the car park with a yappy Yorkshire Terrier under her arm stared at me then dashed across the road, muttering something about me being ‘a disgusting little bitch’. How very charitable of her. What if I’d been really ill and was on the verge of collapse?
My stomach heaved and I vomited again. Wiping my mouth with the back of my shaking hand, I waited a few moments to make sure there wasn’t going to be thirds, then slowly clambered back into Bertie, slumping back in the driver’s seat, still shaking.
A few minutes later, I reached forward and rummaged in the glove compartment until my hand wrapped round a packet of mints. I sucked on one while I slumped back in my seat again with my jacket draped across my shoulders, staring at the pink sky gradually fading into darkness, listening to the radio on low volume.
The car park I’d pulled into was the closest one to the patch of beach near the caves where Gary had proposed, where I liked to come and think. Ironically, at a time when I needed to do some really serious thinking, my mind was completely blank. The scene in the shower had been so shocking and unexpected that my brain couldn’t even begin to make sense of it. Had that really been my husband in the shower with another man? With Rob? I shook my head and closed my eyes, then swiftly opened them when all I could see was the two of them, hands all over each other. I shuddered.
Sometime later, a flash from my open handbag on the passenger seat drew my attention. It was my phone which I’d flicked to silent at the party when Kay stood up to speak. Six missed calls and five text messages, all from Gary. He'd obviously been in panic mode as they'd all been sent within half an hour.
Sighing, I scrolled through the texts:
✉︎ From Gary
Where are you? Please call me
* * *
✉︎ From Gary
Are you OK? Please call me
* * *
✉︎ From Gary
Li, I’m so sorry. Never meant this to happen
* * *
✉︎ From Gary
Can we talk? Please come home so we can talk. Rob’s gone
* * *
✉︎ From Gary
I’m worried about you. I get that you may not want to talk yet, but please let me know you’re safe xx
I didn’t want to listen to his voice so ignored the voicemail messages. I couldn’t bring myself to text him either. Instead, I dropped the phone back in my bag and stared out into the darkness again. Was that it? Was it the end for us? Nearly sixteen years together and my husband was… What was he? Gay? Bi? Confused? It didn’t make sense. Gary loved me. He’d always loved me. So what was he doing with someone else? Especially another man! There’d never been anything to suggest he was attracted to men, had there? I clapped my hand over my mouth. Oh shit! No! Curtis couldn’t have got it right all those years ago. Could he?
4
Fourteen Years Ago
‘I don’t believe you.’ I shook my head at my new friend, Curtis, as we put our trays on a table and took a seat in the college canteen. ‘Surely it’s not possible.’
He pulled a shocked expression and dramatically thumped his heart. ‘Your words stab me right here, Red.’ His blue eyes widened and twinkled with tears. ‘Are you calling me a wee liar?’ Wow! Tears on tap? Impressive! He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d introduced himself as the biggest drama queen I’d ever meet.
‘I’m not calling you anything,’ I said. ‘I just don’t think it’s possible to tell someone’s gay just by looking at them.’
‘I’m not unique, you know,’ he said. ‘Scrub that. I am incredibly unique, Red, but my gift isn’t. It’s called a gaydar. Don’t tell me you’ve led such a sheltered life that you’ve never heard of a gaydar.’
I shrugged. ‘Sorry. I think you’re right about the sheltered life. I probably shouldn’t admit to such naivety, but you’re the first openly gay person I’ve ever met. Mind you, you’re the first Scottish person I’ve properly met too so I probably need to get out more.’
‘Sixteen and oh so innocent to the world around her.’ Curtis fluttered his eyelashes. ‘I may be the first openly gay person you’ve met, but I’ll bet you’ve met loads of us. You just haven’t realised it. In fact, they’ve probably not realised it themselves. At our age, some know and accept it, some don’t realise it yet, and some are very aware but are fighting their calling.’
Within a few hours of meeting Curtis, I’d known that I’d found a truly fabulous and fascinating frie
nd who was going to add a little colour to A Level history classes. After five years of familiar surroundings at my small comprehensive with Sarah by my side, starting at Whitsborough Bay Sixth Form with students from eight feeder schools had been pretty overwhelming. My heart had sunk when I’d looked down the list for my history class and realised I knew nobody. I’d loitered in the doorway before my first lesson that morning, clinging onto my bag and trying to assess whether any of the natives were friendly, when I felt a tug on my sleeve.
‘You simply have to make my day by sitting next to me so I can gaze at that fabulous red hair.’
I self-consciously grasped at my auburn curls as I looked into a pair of pleading eyes.
‘We gingers must stick together,’ he whispered, leading me to an empty pair of desks and indicating for me to sit down.
‘But your hair’s purple.’
‘I know. I’m a traitor to our kind. I could prove I’m ginger, but I’m hoping you won’t make me. It would embarrass the hell out of you and it wouldn’t do much for me. Girls aren’t exactly my thing. The purple’s temporary. I felt I needed to make a bold statement for my first week in a new college, new town, and new country.’
‘You’ve just moved here?’
‘At the weekend. Traumatic parental divorce and I’ve been dragged over the border so my mum can seek solace with her parents who retired here.’
‘Welcome to Whitsborough Bay,’ I said. ‘And welcome to the divorced parents club.’
‘You too?’
‘Last year and not a moment too soon, although my parents still live in the same house – just separate bedrooms – so it’s still like living in a war zone.’
He frowned. ‘Very strange. Clearly we have loads in common. Might as well do the formal intro thing before the lesson starts. Curtis Duncan McBride,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘I’m ginger and proud so don’t let the purple deceive you. I’m Scottish, but I think the accent gives it away. I’m gay, but you’ve probably guessed that. I’m a Virgo,’ he winked, ‘by star sign only… and I’m a vegetarian although I do eat fish and chicken. Oh, and I’m the biggest drama queen you’ll ever meet. What about you?’
Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove Page 3
