The Great Escape

by Charlotte Fallowfield

  ‘Hi, Georgie, nice to see you back. What are you after today?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve already chosen what I want. Do you have a pregnancy collection? I’d like to treat my friend to something sexy.’

  ‘Sexy?’ Abbie spluttered. ‘You can gift wrap a turd, try and pretty it up, but it’s still a turd. This,’ she gestured at her body, ‘isn’t sexy.’

  ‘You’re carrying your husband’s child,’ Jeanette reproached. ‘Trust me, there’s nothing sexier to a man. Come with me, I have a collection in mind that will be perfect.’

  ‘Told you,’ I said in a “so there” tone as we emerged thirty minutes later, both carrying bags.

  ‘If he laughs me out of the room, I’ll be having words with you,’ she warned, as we headed along Butcher Row back towards the main shopping street on Pride Hill.

  ‘If he laughs you out of the room, I’ll be hiring someone to take him out,’ I laughed. My laughter died on my lips and I inhaled sharply when I saw a woman over on the other side of Pride Hill with a dog. I grabbed Abbie and pushed her flush against the window of the jewellery shop on the corner, flattening myself against it at the same time.

  ‘What? My God, don’t scare me like that. While my bladder control is still relatively intact, I’m pretty sure my sphincter hasn’t recovered from all of those damn bears last year,’ Abbie huffed.

  ‘Sssshhhh,’ I shushed as I craned my neck to look at the woman. She was standing outside a book shop, talking on her phone.

  ‘Who are we hiding from?’ she asked, trying to see who I was looking at.

  ‘See that slim, attractive blonde?’ I whispered, carefully pointing her out.

  ‘The one with the dog? Yes, why? Who is she?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but that’s Bertie with her.’

  ‘What? Why would he be with a woman?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering,’ I admitted, a horrible sinking feeling seeping into every pore. ‘And she’s wearing a wedding ring. Oh God, Abbie. What if Charlie was right all along? What if Weston’s married and he splits his time between us? It would explain me never visiting him or knowing how to contact him other than through his mobile.’

  ‘You really believe that?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘He wouldn’t lie to me, he knows that’s my deal breaker. He wouldn’t, right? Oh God, what if he did? What if I’ve been duped again and he’s married?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re getting yourself all worked up over a woman with a dog that probably isn’t even Bertie. Lots of people have grey French bulldogs.’

  ‘It’s him, Abbie, I know it’s him.’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘Which is?’ I asked, then gasped as she yelled “Bertie” at the top of her lungs. We both shrank back against the wall, but not before I saw his little head whip around in our direction, his ears standing to attention.

  ‘Damn. I was hoping I was wrong, but it’s really him, isn’t it,’ she said, as we peeked around the corner again to see Bertie straining at his lead to try and come to me. ‘Maybe she’s the dog walker?’

  ‘He doesn’t use a dog walker.’

  ‘That’s what he told you,’ she scoffed.

  ‘I thought you were all about giving him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘I’m extremely hormonal right now, I wouldn’t trust anything I say. I lied earlier, my bladder’s not under control, and I’ve had to resort to wearing panty liners. What are you doing?’

  ‘Ringing Weston to ask him if Bertie’s with him right now,’ I replied. ‘If he says yes, then I know he’s lying. If he says no, then we need to get over there and find out what the hell is happening, as my boy doesn’t look happy with her at all.’ I poked my head around the corner to see the woman was still talking on her phone and laughing, but Bertie was still trying to come over, his muzzle pointed in our direction. She wound the lead tightly around her wrist to rein him in.

  ‘He’s not actually your boy,’ Abbie reminded me, as I hushed her and held my phone to my ear.

  ‘Georgie, is everything ok? I thought we were waiting until later to talk,’ Weston answered.

  ‘Is Bertie with you?’ I asked, watching the woman still talking on her phone. Well, at least she wasn’t talking to Weston, that was an excellent start.

  ‘Bertie? No, I’m still at work. He’s at home. Why would you ask that?’

  ‘Because unless you’re secretly married, he’s been dognapped and I’m about to bust the woman who took him.’

  ‘Dognapped?’ Abbie and Weston exclaimed at the same time.

  ‘I’m standing on Pride Hill right now and some blonde woman has him on a lead while she chats on her phone. He’s not happy, Weston. He knows I’m nearby and he’s desperately trying to get to me.’

  ‘Oh God … shit. Georgie, I need you to–’

  ‘No,’ I gasped as she ended her call and bent down to pick him up. ‘She’s about to make a run for it with him, I’ve got to go and save him. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got him back, but you’d better ring the police as your house was obviously burgled.’

  ‘Georgie, wait, I need to–’ I cut him off and stuffed my phone in my bag.

  ‘Come on, you’re my back up,’ I said to Abbie as I grabbed her hand and started a determined march over to the stunning, but overly made-up woman who was swaying on the spot outside one of the shops.

  ‘Georgie, I have a really bad feeling about this,’ Abbie objected, as my phone started to ring again.

  ‘Me too. Look, there’s a policeman up there. Go and get him in case she tries to run.’

  ‘But it’s … it’s uphill,’ she complained, looking at the gradual incline of Pride Hill like it was Everest.

  ‘It’s about 100 yards. You’re pregnant, not disabled.’ I gave her a shove in his direction and quickened my pace towards the woman. Bertie started barking as soon as he saw me coming, a virtual grin on his little face as his tail wagged. ‘Ok, lady, the game is up, hand him over,’ I ordered.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Startled, she lifted her head to look at me and took a step back as I reached out to try and ruffle Bertie’s head to let him know everything was ok.

  ‘Bertie. Set him down on the floor, and no sudden movements. The police are on their way, you can take this up with them.’

  ‘Bertie?’ she stuttered, quickly looking over her shoulder like she was plotting an escape route.

  ‘Yes, the dog you’re holding. Dognapping is a serious offence, but I think if you hand him over without causing a scene, the police might show you some leniency.’

  ‘You’ve made a mistake, this isn’t … Bertie. This is my dog.’

  ‘Nice try. That’s Bertie, my boyfriend’s dog.’

  ‘No, he’s mine.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ I stated firmly, trying to stop myself from snatching an excited, wriggling Bertie out of her arms and ignoring my phone, which seemed to be playing a constant loop of Weston’s ringtone, Pump It by The Black Eyed Peas.

  ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘He’s mine and my husband’s and his name is Bouncer.’

  ‘You think I don’t know my own boyfriend’s dog when I see it? You’re putting up an excellent display of acting dumb, but that’s … wait a minute, what did you call him?’ I asked, something firing in the back of my brain as a well-built, good-looking man in jeans and a t-shirt approached us from the shop behind. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t place him at all.

  ‘Bouncer, his name is Bouncer. Steve, help me!’ she called, waving the man over.

  ‘Jane, what’s going on here?’ the guy asked, slipping his arm around the woman. I shook my head, trying to put two and two together, but coming up with five.

  ‘Oh, thank God, Steve, this woman is crazy. She’s accusing me of kidnapping her boyfriend’s dog,’ she cried hysterically. Her husband scanned me curiously, then took a sharp breath in through his teeth.

  ‘Oh God, a stunning redhead with blue eyes. You�
��re Georgie, aren’t you?’ he sighed, rubbing a hand over his lower mouth and showing off his toned biceps. I felt my chest rise and fall rapidly as I saw the same Army tattoo on his bicep that Weston had. Everything I’d assumed as I’d marched over here seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

  ‘Steve? Who is this woman?’ Jane demanded.

  ‘Is this the woman you’re accusing?’ came a gruff male voice from my right, and I risked a glance to see Abbie had dragged the uniformed officer down to meet us.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s her,’ panted Abbie. ‘She’s kidnapped my friend’s dog. Well, actually, her boyfriend’s dog. At least I think he’s her boyfriend, even she’s not sure until they have dinner tonight.’

  ‘Detective Argent, Mrs. Argent, I’m so sorry, but there seems to have been a misunderstanding. I had no idea the accused was you,’ the officer said, looking embarrassed.

  ‘Argent? Your name is Argent? And Bertie is called Bouncer? And you know my name? Will someone tell me what the hell is going on here?’ I shouted.

  ‘No need for raised voices,’ the officer warned as I heard the woman asking her husband the exact same question. ‘I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for why you think Detective Argent and his wife have stolen your dog.’

  ‘There is,’ stated the man firmly. ‘I’m so sorry to do this, Georgie. Believe it or not, Weston was going to come clean with you when he saw you tonight.’

  ‘Ok, someone better sing like a canary, as I have no idea what’s going on here. You know Weston, and this isn’t Bertie? Because up close and personal, he sure looks like him. Look, look, he even reacts to the name Bertie. I’m so confused right now,’ uttered Abbie, echoing my feelings as my stomach contents started to swirl violently.

  ‘Officer Bradbury,’ stated Detective Argent slowly and calmly, ‘this is my dog Bouncer, but this redhead here knows him as Bertie. My brother was trying to impress her and pretended Bouncer was his, but panicked and called him a completely different name. He’s been borrowing him on and off for over a year while he dated her to keep up the pretence.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, shaking my head. ‘No, he wouldn’t lie to me, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘That’s why he kept offering to have him?’ Mrs. Argent gasped. ‘God, for someone so intelligent, he can be so stupid sometimes.’

  ‘So, let me get this clear,’ said Officer Bradbury slowly, repeating verbatim what I’d just heard, and I reached out to grasp the edge of the black waste bin next to me as my legs started to shake.

  ‘He really lied to me?’ I asked quietly, looking up at his brother.

  ‘He said your date in Mexico didn’t go very well, and he wasn’t sure if you were that into him when you didn’t return his voice message, so he asked if he could borrow Bouncer as an ice-breaker, something to help him convince you to give him another shot. But you were so enamoured with him, Bouncer I mean, that he didn’t have the heart to admit the truth and the lie snowballed.’

  ‘It’s been a year, a whole year,’ I cried, fighting the nausea that was clawing its way up from my stomach, inch by painful inch. ‘That’s not a snowball, that’s an avalanche. So all the times he left me, he was returning Bertie … God,’ I grated out, clutching my head as I shook it. ‘I can’t even begin to think of him as Bouncer now. So, he was taking him back to you, then driving home to Tibberton?’

  ‘Tibberton?’ exclaimed Mrs. Argent. ‘We live in Tibberton, Weston lives in Canterbury.’

  ‘Jane,’ groaned Weston’s brother, as Abbie and the police officer played eyeball tennis between us all.

  ‘Well, how was I supposed to know? You didn’t exactly involve me in this stupid web of lies or I’d have slapped you both around the back of the head and reminded you that honesty is always the best policy. Poor Georgie, are you ok?’ Jane asked, reaching out to squeeze my arm.

  ‘No, no, I’m not.’ I was far from ok. In fact, I felt on the verge of passing out, vomiting, and bursting into inconsolable tears all at the same time, while someone banged a mallet on my throbbing temples.

  ‘What other stupid lies has he told her?’ Jane asked Steve.

  ‘Stop, stop, I can’t take anymore,’ I whispered, covering my mouth with my hands as I started to retch.

  ‘Jesus,’ Abbie muttered. ‘Is he even a personal trainer, or single? Or has he lied about that too?’

  ‘Well, he’s not single as he’s dating Georgie, or at least I hope he still is, as he’s crazy about her. But no, he hasn’t lied about anything other than Bouncer and where he lives. He is a personal trainer, just in Canterbury, not locally,’ came Steve’s voice as I lost the first of several battles I was waging and threw up in the bin. No wonder he rarely stayed the night, was always tired after I insisted on an early start, or rushed off at three p.m. each Sunday. Instead of a forty-minute drive, he had a five-hour one. Each way. I threw up again, the acid burning the back of my throat as tears of sheer hurt and frustration started to pour down my cheeks. I’d been clear. I’d been perfectly clear that lies and secrets were unacceptable to me. How could he have done this to me?

  ‘Oh, Georgie,’ Abbie cried as she rushed over to hold my hair back for me and rubbed my back.

  ‘Well, it seems like this has been a huge misunderstanding. I take it I’m not needed anymore?’ Officer Bradbury asked, sounding how I felt, like he wanted to be anywhere but here right now. I shook my head as Abbie pulled a tissue out of my bag and blotted my mouth. I stood back up, my legs feeling like Weston’s favourite rice noodles after they’d soaked in boiling water, and shook my head in disbelief. All the warning signs had been there, how had I missed them? Again?

  I could hear everyone talking to me at once, but too fast and too many words for me to pick any out of the air and try and string them together into something coherent. Abbie’s concerned face was swimming in and out of my field of vision, blocked by the fat tears that wouldn’t stop coming, as the shame that I’d been deceived so easily again tore me apart. How was I supposed to trust a man ever again? The only sound I could hear was Weston’s ringtone blaring incessantly from my bag. I pulled it out, hurled it on the floor, and stamped on it repeatedly until the ringing stopped and only the sound of my sobs remained. Abbie gathered me in her arms as I fell to pieces, the muffled noise of raised voices arguing in the background not making any sense to me right now.

  Nothing made sense. Everything right now was senseless.

  ‘Where are we?’ I croaked, my voice hoarse from throwing up and crying so hard. My eyes were so swollen, I could barely see through them.

  ‘Nearly home,’ Abbie said as she drove. ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He messaged me. He’s on his way here. Obviously it will take him a while as he’s so much further away than we thought. Do you want to see him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall I get Miller to have a word with him and send him packing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you hearing me right now? You’re saying no to everything. I think you’re in some kind of catatonic state.’

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘So what are we going to do? He’ll turn up and we need a plan. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you want, Georgie.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want,’ I whispered, digging the heels of my palms into my eye sockets to try to halt the blinding pain I was feeling in my head. ‘I love him. I hate him. I want to see him to hear why he did this to me, to us, but I never want to see him again.’

  ‘Ok, that solves it,’ Abbie said as she pulled into her drive. ‘I know exactly what we’re going to do, as I’ve been there. Stay in the car, I’ll be about fifteen minutes.’

  I nodded as I stared vacantly out of the window. The only thing I was feeling right now was sick, empty, and disappointed. And hurt. Yes, there was a whole lot of hurt wrapped up in there somewhere too. I blinked as the car door opened and I heard Miller’s voice.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Georgie. He’s an idiot and I’ll
definitely be telling him what I think of him. Here, give me your hands. I made an ice pack in a plastic bag. Hold it over your eyes for twenty minutes and it will help with the swelling and headache. I’ve put both of your cases in the trunk and Abbie’s got some water and snacks to keep you going until you get there, ok?’

  ‘Cases? Get where?’ I mumbled as he kissed my temple.

  ‘Charlie packed your case for you and Abbie’s taking you up to your parents’ cottage in Dolphin Bay. Some quality girl time while you clear your head and decide what you want to do. I won’t tell him where you are. Just promise me you’ll look after my girl while she looks after you. I’ll be worrying about her and the baby.’

  ‘You’re letting her take me away?’ I removed the ice pack and tried to search for his face through my squinting, puffy eyes.

  ‘You helped her when she needed to clear her head and make a decision about me, Georgie, so she’s returning the favour. And look at us now. A year later and we’re married, with a baby on the way. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to decide what path you really want to take to climb back out of the hole you’ve found yourself in. I don’t agree with what he did, but I believe he did it for the right reasons and is already regretting that. Don’t give up on him, because I have a feeling he’s not going to give up on you.’

  ‘He should. I have seriously bad taste in men,’ I muttered.

  ‘You have a brave and generous heart. I know what it takes to open yourself to love when all you’ve known is rejection. Right, here’s Abbie. Give me a minute to say goodbye to her and you can be off.’ He kissed me again and I whispered a lame “Thanks,” then leaned back and closed and covered my eyes again.

  Right now, I didn’t feel brave or generous at all. I was running, and I was pretty sure that doing that and ignoring Weston was going to stress him out. And when he got stressed, he suffered. Terribly. How was knowingly putting him through that generous? I knew it wasn’t. But I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. If only Bertie had been able to talk, he could have spared us all of this heartache. I laughed and stifled another sob at the word heartache. Heartache implied you had one to start with.