Single (ARC)

by K. L. Slater

He sighed and took another gulp of whiskey.

  There was nothing he could do about it now; what was done was done. It was all about damage limitation from this point forward, and that was where he continued to focus his efforts.

  Things had been quieter lately, and he could but hope and pray that Opal was losing interest and would leave him alone. He would never give in, and maybe, at long last, she had finally accepted that.

  Tonight, while he’d been out, for the first time in a very long time he hadn’t thought about Opal Vardy at all. He’d been too enchanted with getting to know Darcy.

  It was early days. Just about as early as it could be, after just one date. But it felt right. She felt right.

  Every day in his job, George had to make life-changing decisions, often on the hoof. Choosing the correct course of action in a split second, sometimes under tremendous pressure, with a patient’s life in the balance.

  His everyday life, in comparison, was – usually – full of easy decisions, made easier by the fact that he was determined to follow his gut feeling from now on.

  Darcy Hilton was funny, quietly beautiful and had an endearing self-deprecating quality that he found adorable. Maybe, just maybe, he’d found a keeper this time.

  He knew he would tell her about Opal. If they were to start a relationship, he’d have no choice in the matter, but the time had to be right.

  In the meantime, he had one very important job to do.

  He must make sure Opal Vardy stayed out of the picture and didn’t scare Darcy off.

  Sixteen

  When I get home, I pour myself a weak gin and tonic and sit in the living room with a chillout playlist on and just one lamp lit.

  This feels very different to last night, when I couldn’t go to bed because my head was full of Daniela Frost and her return to Nottingham. It’s easy to see from the check-in locations of her online photographs that she’s been living in Manchester. Why couldn’t she just stay there? Why has she suddenly got a burning desire to come back here, to magnify all our pain again and, according to Steph, make us effectively homeless?

  Before I spoke to Steph in the café when I was out with George, my head felt clear, my thoughts positive and for the first time in a long time, I felt like the old me again. A woman who once thought she deserved to be happy.

  Sometimes, it feels like misery follows me around. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact I’m an only child and both my parents died before I reached my late twenties.

  They had me late in life. They’d tried for a baby for years and finally gave up, accepting it would never happen. Mum was forty when she fell pregnant and Dad was ten years older than her.

  Mum went first, a heart attack. And Dad… well, he just seemed to lose the will to live after she’d gone. His death certificate said it was complications caused by the lung disease that had plagued him since his thirties. In my opinion, it was a broken heart.

  I’ve always dreamed of building myself a happy life. Sadly, it hasn’t gone to plan so far. It sounds ridiculous, but when I look in George Mortimer’s eyes, I see the possibility of a bright future there.

  When George asked me to go for food, I texted Brenda and asked if the boys could stay over, and she was fine about it. George texted his housekeeper… imagine that! Sounds all Downton Abbey.

  After our meal, he insisted on waiting with me outside until my Uber arrived. We skipped dessert, but before coffee, we arranged to meet again on Tuesday evening. Just for drinks, as George is working until quite late, but I’m already looking forward to it.

  It would’ve been such a lovely evening if Steph hadn’t wrecked it with her news about the house. I don’t blame her, of course. I’m grateful she’s tipped me off but… I don’t know, just as things were looking up, this happens.

  I know only too well that the worst thing I can do is to start catastrophising about finding somewhere else to live. I mean, it certainly is a catastrophe that Daniela has quite obviously made a conscious decision to trample on our lives but I know how to talk myself down now.

  There are hundreds of places to rent around here and I know Brenda and Leonard wouldn’t see us on the street. In fact, they’d probably jump at the chance of having us live there a while so they see the boys every day and night.

  But I’ve fought so long and hard for my independence and the right to care for my sons myself, it would be a definite step back for me to let that happen.

  I glance at my phone. It’s still limping along but there’s what looks like a big grey tear down the middle of the screen now, making it really hard to read anything without squinting. I’ll have to see if I can get it repaired at some point.

  That’s my excuse for not reading Steph’s texts anyway and I’ve ignored another two calls from her. I can’t cope with the drama tonight and I don’t want my lovely time with George completely tainted.

  I plan to ask Brenda if she’ll have the boys overnight on Tuesday again. It’s nothing new; she and Leonard are both retired, and they often take them for a night’s sleepover midweek and drop them off at school the next morning. I’ll then be there at the end of the day to bring them home.

  Failing that, if Brenda and Leonard happen to have one of their bridge nights organised, then Steph and Dave always jump at an opportunity to have the boys over.

  ‘Dave’s like a kid himself. Any excuse to get the PS4 out,’ Steph often jokes.

  Although George and I got on famously tonight, I have no intention of sharing the fact that I’ve been on a proper date with anyone yet. After all, even though it felt as if George was keen, it might still come to nothing.

  It will be strange keeping the fact that I’m seeing someone from them. Steph and Brenda are integral to my life. When I was recovering from the breakdown, I got into the habit of running everything past them, confiding in them, taking note of their advice.

  Once I’d started to feel better and more capable, I tried to back off a bit and make my own decisions. They’ve never said as much but I’ve always had the feeling they don’t like it, don’t take kindly to being held at arm’s length. Even now, it often feels like it’s a battle to keep completely in charge of myself and the boys.

  But there’s no ambiguity when it comes to a new relationship. Both Steph and Brenda have made it abundantly clear that dating shouldn’t be an option yet.

  ‘It’s far too soon,’ Brenda is fond of reminding me, although Joel has been gone for four years now.

  It actually feels quite nice to keep a little secret to myself. Secret is what it feels like, anyway.

  I finish the G&T and am debating whether to have another when something catches my eye outside. I squint and shuffle to the edge of the seat cushion, leaning forward to get a better look.

  Over the past year, I’ve noticed my eyes are definitely getting worse for both distance and close-up work, and I keep meaning to go for an eye test. But it’s not too bad yet and I can enlarge the font on my Kindle so easily, I figured it’s not worth investing in reading glasses.

  It’s dark out there. Anyone would struggle to see.

  I put down my empty glass, turn off the table lamp and pad over to the window. There it is, movement again. Then, as my eyes become accustomed to the dark, I see there’s a large shadow on the wall behind the lamp post.

  I feel a dull ache in my belly.

  Is someone out there watching me?

  One day I’ll make you pay. I promise you that.

  It was the last thing Daniela Frost said to me before she left town after Joel died.

  But we were Joel’s family, me and the boys. She was nothing more than a distraction to him.

  The shape moves, morphs into something else… a black bin bag fluttering in the light breeze. Now I can see that the edge of it is trapped inside a dark grey wheelie bin.

  I breathe out. So much for a sinister crouching figure.

  Get a grip, woman, I scold myself.

  I decide to give another drink a miss, and after checking t
hat I’ve locked both the front and back doors, I go upstairs to bed.

  * * *

  I wake about 2 a.m.

  I used to sleep really well until Joel died but I don’t think I’ve slept through the night since.

  I always feel tired when I go to bed and drop off to sleep OK, but then I wake in the early hours and often lie awake for ages afterwards, sometimes not getting back to sleep at all before the morning alarm sounds.

  I visit the bathroom, and then, without really thinking about it, I pick up my phone and open up Facebook.

  As I wait for Daniela’s profile page to load, I silently berate myself. I had a little blip at the hospital on Saturday, but I refrained from logging in at all on Sunday.

  Still, I don’t close it down, and my screen fills with photographs of her. There’s been no new post since the brunch one on Saturday, but hey, it seems I’m in the mood for a bit of self-torture, and so I take another look.

  I use my fingers to expand close-ups of her teeth, her eyes, her flawless skin.

  The voice in my head begins its endless criticism.

  She’s pretty much perfect.

  No wonder Joel found her so attractive. You couldn’t compete with that.

  Her life looks amazing, so why has she decided to barge back into mine?

  I close Facebook and force myself to replace my phone on the bedside table.

  George and I had such a good time tonight; it really felt like we were getting on well. It’s early days, I know that, but do I dare to imagine – to hope – that this could be a fresh start for me and the boys?

  He’s handsome, kind, generous – everything I thought I’d never get again.

  I felt so good about myself a few hours ago, and now… now it’s business as usual, and I find myself wondering how I ever believed that someone as good-looking and successful as George Mortimer could possibly be interested in somebody as ordinary as me.

  Could I really fit into George’s world?

  In that split second, I make a deal with myself.

  I’ll give it everything I have. For once, I’ll try and convince myself I can be happy again.

  All I have to do is really believe it.

  Seventeen

  The next week seems to fly by.

  I contact the company who manage my tenancy.

  ‘We can’t discuss the sale of a property with the tenant due to data protection laws,’ the receptionist says snootily when I ask if they have a buyer. ‘You’ll be informed in due course of any changes as per your tenancy agreement.’

  Steph came round one evening with a bottle of wine after the boys had gone to bed. ‘To cheer you up,’ she announced.

  ‘It’s going to take more than a couple of glasses of that to come anywhere close.’ I grudgingly accepted a glass but all I really wanted was to be alone.

  ‘You’ve been quiet this week,’ she says. ‘Is everything OK? You coping all right with the boys?’

  It’s so irritating when she constantly checks up on me like this. Always presuming the worst, too.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been working on setting a few more yoga classes up in the area. But maybe I’m wasting my time, I might not be living around here for much longer.’

  ‘You don’t know for certain Daniela knows you live in that house,’ Steph said. ‘It could just be a horrible coincidence.’

  ‘You’re right, it could,’ I say peevishly. ‘But I reckon about a million to one it’s not.’

  Of all the streets and houses in Nottingham, Daniela has picked ours. She’s obviously back to cause as much trouble as she can for me.

  At least my plan for Brenda and Leonard to look after the boys comes off perfectly, and George drives us to a lovely traditional pub out in rural Leicestershire.

  We share a ploughman’s platter and a bottle of wine and talk about our kids and how they’re coping without their respective parents. I barely think about my problems closer to home.

  ‘Romy doesn’t mention her mum; she was just a baby when Lucy died,’ George confides. ‘But I always feel she has this… I don’t know, this sense of sadness about her, somehow.’

  ‘A sadness, at six years old?’ I say, feeling a prickle of sadness for little Romy.

  ‘We had twins, you see,’ George explains. ‘Identical twins. But Romy’s sister died within a week of her birth.’

  My hand flies to my mouth. ‘Oh no! That’s desperately sad. Do you think subconsciously she misses her sister on some level then?’

  ‘As a physician it would be easy to discount the stuff people say about twins and their “shared mind”, a sort of extrasensory perception they’re meant to possess. But as her father, I have to admit she acts sometimes like she knows something is missing.’

  He tops up our glasses with the excellent New Zealand Sauvignon the bartender recommended.

  ‘What about the boys? Do they miss their dad?’

  ‘Kane, not really. He was so young, like Romy. But Harrison, definitely, yes. He keeps Joel’s photograph on his bedside table and kisses it every night before he goes to sleep. Joel was a really great dad…’ My words tail off. A great dad, but the crappiest husband imaginable, as it turned out.

  Before I realise I’ve decided to, I tell George how Joel died.

  ‘It was cruel and quick in the end.’ I stare down at my plate. ‘There was a time when we believed he’d beat his illness, but in the end, it wasn’t to be.’

  George tips his head and looks at me. ‘I don’t want to make you feel sad, Darcy. We don’t have to talk about this stuff.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. It’s not that I feel sad; it’s… well, it’s complicated.’ I swallow a gulp of wine. ‘A conversation for another day, I think.’

  He nods. ‘For my part, I never saw it coming either. I knew Lucy had been depressed after the death of Romy’s twin. It was only to be expected. We got her professional help, though, and when I had to go back to work, her parents were supportive of her, so she was never alone with the baby for long.’

  He falls quiet, thinking back. I wait in silence for him to continue.

  ‘One day while I was at work, I got a call from Lucy’s dad. They’d found her in the garage of the family’s holiday property in North Yorkshire. She’d taken her own life.’

  A shiver travels from the back of my head to the bottom of my spine.

  ‘How awful.’ I feel truly drained when I hear this. And I thought I had it bad! Poor woman, and poor, poor Romy. ‘What about your family in all this? Were you supported?’

  ‘My father retired to Portugal fifteen years ago. I’ve been out to visit him a couple of times but… I’m not sure he really wants me there, to be honest. He’s in his late eighties now, but he was never the affectionate sort. Mum died when I was young.’ He says it quickly, as if he wants the words out and done with. I sense it’s best not to probe him for more details. Then he reaches for my hand. ‘We’ve both been through it, Darcy. But let’s not dwell on the past now; let’s look to our future, our children’s future.’

  I smile and nod, taken aback by him referencing a shared future so early on.

  When we get back into the car, ready for the drive home, George turns in his seat, cups my face and we share a long, lingering kiss.

  His lips are soft and caress mine with the utmost care and respect. His discreet sandalwood scent and the warmth of his body so close to mine send me into free fall.

  When we finally move apart, all I can think about is when I’ll see him again.

  * * *

  On Wednesday afternoon, Lady Luck is on my side, as another opportunity seems to fall effortlessly into place.

  Steph calls to ask if she and Dave can take the boys bowling on Friday evening.

  ‘They can stay over at ours if that’s OK; it’ll give you a bit of peace if you want it, what with all your new classes.’

  ‘That’s perfect, thanks, Steph. The boys will love it.’

  A large room has become available for rent at a village hall just a
couple of miles away and I’ve been busy drafting flyers for a couple of new midweek yoga classes. It’s not an ideal environment for a relaxing, calm session, as the facilities are shared with a playgroup and their battalion of toys are stacked around the walls, but it will do for now. And the classes are already two thirds full on pre-bookings, so the extra income will come in handy.

  I’m feeling better about myself. It might be early days, but I’m already eating better, and my mood has improved tenfold.

  If only Daniela Frost would do one, life would be pretty much perfect right now.

  ‘Cool. Me and Uncle Dave can play Call of Duty,’ Harrison boasts when I tell them of Steph’s offer. He bites back his words when he realises what he’s said.

  ‘That game is rated age eighteen and over, isn’t it?’ I frown.

  Harrison shrugs. ‘I’m not a baby. It’s fine, Mum, everyone in my class plays it. Everyone knows the violence isn’t real.’ He throws his brother a sly glance. ‘Auntie Steph says Kane’s far too young to play it, though.’

  ‘I don’t care, I’ll play Fortnite,’ Kane says tartly, folding his arms. ‘Better than all that blood and guts and brains and—’

  ‘That’s enough, thank you!’ I wrinkle my nose.

  I keep reading about the addiction problems with games like Fortnite too, though. The boys haven’t got a PlayStation at home, just a Nintendo Switch each, but Harrison hardly uses his as he says it’s for little kids.

  I know I’m going to have to look at getting him something a bit more sophisticated, probably for Christmas. He’s growing up so fast and I don’t want him to feel left out when his mates have all got the latest gaming paraphernalia. It’s so tricky to find a good balance.

  I decide I should speak to Steph about what they’re exposed to at her house, though. She’s a super-cool auntie but she doesn’t have any kids of her own, although it’s not through lack of trying. She’s been trying to get pregnant as a device to force Dave to finally settle down. They’ve been together for ten years now, but according to Steph, Dave has ‘unresolved issues’.