Chapter 15
fifteen
. . .
Six Weeks Later
jed
The alarm on my phone sounds, and I roll over, nestling into the warmth of the sheets. For a moment, everything is okay, and then I remember. I sink back against the pillows, groaning. “Shit.”
I’m at my flat in my bedroom. Everything is neat and tidy, the furnishings pristine and expensive. And it feels completely wrong. It’s empty without the scent of him in my bed and the sound of him singing to himself in the kitchen with his sweet, off-key voice.
I scrub my hands over my eyes. Everything has been wrong since he left. I miss him. I keep telling myself it’s for the best, that he will be happy in Germany and find someone else to lo?—
I break that thought off. It still has the power to send me into a panic. Artie will find someone who will love everything about him—his gentleness, his sharp intelligence, and his shy sweetness. And I’ll be his older friend, someone he’ll share details with over an occasional meal and then carelessly leave and return to his real life. And I’ll return to emptiness.
Maybe I should get a dog. I reach for my phone and then pull back. I can’t get a dog. Artie is allergic.
“What are you thinking? Are you actually a sad twat, Jed Walker?” I say out loud. It echoes in the stillness of the flat, and I already know the answer.
I’m spending a fortune flying to see him every week. I’ll be able to buy a small country with my air miles soon, and the British Airways staff know me by my first name. They think it’s terribly romantic that I visit my husband weekly. If they knew the truth, they’d be a lot less starry-eyed.
So why am I doing it? The answer lies somewhere in the way he looks in the winter light—soft and warm and glowing, and the way, for an hour, my whole life lights up like he’s switched on a lamp inside me. But I don’t examine my reasons further than that. Instead, I plod along, stuck on the notion that if I can’t have him at home and in my life, I will have a little bit of him once a week.
“We’re friends,” I say and grimace. Even I know that’s not the truth. Well, not the sole truth anyway.
The phone ringing distracts me from my hamster-on-a-wheel thoughts.
Picking it up, I groan when I see the caller. “Hi, Ma.”
“Oh, you are alive, then.”
“Oh dear.”
“I haven’t seen you in six weeks. I was wondering whether aliens had abducted you.”
“Or I was busy. No need to break out the galactic probes just yet.”
“Cheeky. Well, it’s fortunate I’ve finally got hold of you.”
“Why?” I ask warily.
“Because I’m cooking Sunday dinner, and your arse has an appointment with the chair at my table. I’m sure you’re not too busy for that.”
There’s a challenge that I have no intention of taking up. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“And Artie? Will he be coming? My friends in the book club were cooing over his photo last week. I think I’ve won the most handsome son-in-law competition very easily.”
I swallow hard. “No, he can’t make it, Ma.”
There’s a long silence, and then she clucks. “Just you then, love. See you at one.”
I end the call, throw my phone down on the bed, and scrub my eyes again. “If at first you practise to deceive,” I quote, then give up and go to grab a shower.
A couple of hours later, I let myself into my mum’s house. It’s warm inside and does not smell of Sunday dinner. “Ma?” I shout.
“In the kitchen.”
I walk into the room and groan. “Oh fuck .”
My mother and brother are sitting at the table, arms folded. My mum looks determined, which never bodes well, but my brother’s eyes are twinkling.
“This is an intervention,” he announces grandly, and then winces when my mum pinches him.
“That was my line, Adam.”
He rolls his eyes. “Come on. This is Jed. I’ve been waiting for years to say that. I had dreams of saving him from press gangs and pirates.”
“Really?” I ask.
He considers that and then shakes his head. “It’s hard to be abducted by pirates when you’re always in the office.”
“I do get out, you know,” I say mildly. “And where is my roast beef?”
My mum waves a careless hand. “I’ll make you a sandwich afterwards.”
“After what?” I sigh and slide into my seat. It cradles my bum as if it were made for me. “Go ahead,” I say, gesturing. “Let’s get it out of the way.”
My mum tuts. “What a way to describe a family chat.”
“Hang on,” my brother says. He puffs his chest out and waves his fingers at his head. “Line, please.”
Sighing, I say, “Jed, we are concerned.”
He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. Jed, the family is concerned, and we come together as a family to celebrate family love and family concern. I know I don’t exaggerate when I say that the family is worried.”
“You’re overusing the word family more than Prince Harry in an interview.”
“Shit.”
We grin at each other, and my mum smiles. She gets up and pats my head before trotting over to the kettle. “Tea,” she says. “And then talk.”
“At what point will you warm up the thumbscrews?”
“They’re baking at the moment,” my brother says cheerfully. “Got to get them at the burning point. I also want to let you know that I’ve sharpened the pliers, so your fingernails come out smoothly. No shoddy tools for the princess that you are.”
I laugh. It feels rusty and unused, but my mum smiles at me approvingly. She sets the tea down in front of me and takes her seat again.
She gives me an innocent smile that instantly makes me wary. “I popped by your house to see Artie yesterday.”
I choke on the sip I just took. “Really?” I say as my brother helpfully thumps me on the back. I shove him off. “Is there any need to hit me so hard I cough up a lung?”
He considers that. “Probably?”
“Enough,” my mum says, and we both subside. “It came as a bit of a surprise when I spoke to Carla.”
“Who?”
“Your neighbour.” She rolls her eyes. “You should really try and make friends more, Jed. You were always such an insular boy.”
“As opposed to me,” my brother says, winking at me. “Isn’t that true, Ma?”
“Well, I could never get a word out of Jed. I didn’t have that problem with you. The trouble was making it a sensible word.”
I raise my middle finger at him as he chuckles, but my mum returns doggedly to the subject.
“I know Carla. She’s in my chess club.”
“I didn’t know you played chess.”
“I’m learning. It helps to be strategic when I’m dealing with numpties like you and your brother.” I stare at her, and she raises an eyebrow. “Well? I’d love to know why your husband is in Germany, and I’ve only just heard about it?”
I lick my lips. “He took a job there.”
She raises her eyebrows. “And that’s it? That’s the best you could come up with? I could have done that myself and still had time to make a batch of biscuits.”
“I wish you had,” I mutter.
She reaches out and grabs the biscuit tin, pushing it towards me. “You’ve lost weight,” she says, her eyes warm with the ever-present love and concern she can’t hide.
I grab one of her homemade shortbreads but can’t face it, so I settle for crumbling it on my plate. They’re both watching me when I look up.
I groan. “Okay, but you have to swear that whatever I say here doesn’t leave this room. I’m serious.” I point at my brother. “You can’t even tell Mei.”
“Really?”
“I know you have chronically loose lips.” I take a deep breath. “I was never really married to Artie.”
“You had a ceremony,” my mum says, her face creased in confusion.
“Well, yes, we are actually married, but we did it because Artie’s stepmother left him his family home on the condition that he be married and live there for six months.” I stop talking and my mum just sips her tea. “Ma?”
She sets her mug down. “That Laura. What a cow she was.”
I gape at her. “You knew her?”
She shrugs. “She was in my bridge club.”
“But you don’t play bridge.”
“I do now. Well, of a sort. My partner is Mr Hampson, and he’s terrible at overcalling and?—”
“Ma,” I interrupt. My eyes widen at her serene countenance. “Oh my god . You already knew?”
She gives me a smile. “Laura did like to talk about her stepson. We all felt terribly sorry for the poor boy to be saddled with her. She liked a drop of red wine or a couple of bottles, and then she’d tell me and Martha Henshaw all about what she’d done with her will. I told Martha I didn’t want to talk to Laura again, and she agreed.”
“When did you guess?” I say hoarsely.
“Almost immediately. You and Artie weren’t terribly good at getting your stories completely straight, dear.” She tuts. “It’s a good job you became a policeman, because you’d never have made a good criminal.”
I slump in my chair, feeling like I’ve just been punched. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
An enigmatic expression crosses her face. “I wanted to see it play out.”
“See what play out? We’re not at the test match.”
She just shrugs and says, “And I presume he has the house now?”
“Yes.” I clear my throat.
“So, he’s gone to Germany, and you let him?”
I gaze at my brother helplessly, but he doesn’t interrupt. Typical. The one time in our lives it might have been welcome, and Adam just sits there staring at me like he’s at the theatre.
“I couldn’t actually have stopped him.” I swallow. “We wanted different things from our marriage.” I pause. “I just want him to be happy,” I say quietly. “More than anything, he has to be happy.”
They exchange a look of relief that I pretend I don’t see, and then my mum gets to her feet. “Well, that’s good, then.”
I blink. “You’re not going to try and persuade me to get him back?”
She widens her eyes innocently. “What would be the point? You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?”
“Well, er, yes. Yes, of course,” I say more forcefully. “I’ve totally made my mind up. He’ll be happy in Germany, and probably… He’ll probably meet someone there.”
“That’s lovely, then.” She claps her hands. “While you’re here, can you help your brother? A fence panel has fallen down and cracked. I’ve bought a new one, but I need you to put it in.”
“Not another one?”
“It’s the wind, dear, and Mrs Frederick’s dog keeps getting in the garden. It’s peed all up my tulip bulbs.”
She vanishes into the lounge, and I hear the TV come on. I turn to Adam, who’s watching me with a smile on his face.
“What just happened?”
He shrugs. “I really don’t know.” He jumps to his feet. “Ready?”
I look outside, where it’s blowing a gale. The clouds are heavy and dark with rain. “Not really.”
He claps me on the back. “That’s the spirit.”
We grab our coats and our boots from the laundry room and edge into the garden. The wind hits us, and we stagger slightly.
“Remind me why we’re doing this in a gale-force wind,” I say grimly.
“It’s to get us back for the time we set fire to the tree house.”
I shake my head and look at the sky worriedly. “I hope the weather improves, or they’ll cancel flights.”
“Going somewhere?” he asks innocently.
I glare at him. “To Germany to see Artie,” I say with as much dignity as I can manage.
“That’s nice.”
He falls silent until I say in a provoked voice, “Nothing to say, then?”
“Nothing at all,” he says serenely. “It’s nice that you’re still friends.”
“Yes, friends are very good,” I say too forcefully.
He grabs the old fence panel and, swearing, we manage to manoeuvre it out of its slot before sliding the new panel in. I step back, sweating as the wind jostles me.
“It needs painting,” I say.
“I’ll do it when we’ve got a clear day. You know she’s going to want to pay a trip to Homebase and pick a new colour.”
I look at the current purple panels. “Hope it’s better than this. It looks like Prince’s bedroom.”
I grab the old panel, take it down the garden to add to the bonfire pile, and then pause to look at the house. The windows are golden jewels in the dark afternoon and a Christmas tree twinkles merrily in the lounge window. It’s funny, but no matter how many years go by, you never stop seeing your parents’ house as home. This old place has witnessed many sad moments in our family history, but for every one of them, there are a thousand more good memories too. I suppose that’s what Artie was trying to tell me about Mick.
I push the thought of him away with difficulty and after a few moments, I walk back to where Adam’s opened the shed. He gestures at me furtively.
I stare at him. “Why do you look like an old man who’s about to offer me a Werther’s Original if I sit on his lap?”
“Gross,” he says, grimacing. “I’d have at least sprung for a Ferraro Rocher.”
“Well, I am worth it.”
“Thank you, Mister L’Oréal. Come inside the shed. I’ve got some whisky.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
We edge into the shed and grab the camp chairs from the corner. It’s warm and dry in here and smells faintly of creosote. I chuckle as we bang into each other. “We’re a lot bigger than when this was our den.”
“Yours,” he says, retrieving a bottle of whisky from the old cupboard under the sink. “I was only there on sufferance to stop me reporting you to Ma. It was mainly you and Ellis Read.”
“I wonder what happened to him?”
“Prison for fraud.”
“Good grief.” I consider that. “He always thought he was better at maths than reality suggested.”
He starts to laugh and after a second, I join him. When we calm down, I hold out my hand, and he gives me the whisky. I take a sip from the bottle, feeling it burn down to my chest. “God, that’s good.”
“No need to sound surprised. I’m very much a connoisseur when it comes to hiding alcohol from Ma.”
We pass the bottle back and forth, taking turns sipping it and watching as rain starts to fall. It’s light at first, but within minutes, it becomes a deluge, obscuring our view of the house like a watercolour painting. In the shed, it’s warm and cosy.
Eventually, my brother stirs. “I saw Samantha the other day.”
“Really? Where?”
“Mei dragged me to Harvey Nicks, and she was there. She’s so lovely.”
I smile at the thought of Mick’s mum. “She is. I haven’t been down to Sussex for a while. It would have been too complicated to talk about Artie.”
“Would she be cross you’d got remarried?”
“God, no,” I say, startled. “She always said I should. Said I was meant for marriage.”
“Well, she’s not wrong.”
I take another sip from the bottle. “Not really.”
I hear the rustle of his clothes as he turns to me. “What does that mean?”
The whisky blazes a track into my stomach, which I blame for my following words. “I was thinking of leaving Mick before he died.”
“ What ?”
I wince. “Keep your voice down.”
“You were thinking of leaving him? Why? Had you fallen out of love with him?” He pauses. “Did he do something?”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because much as I loved Mick, he was a vast proponent of doing now and paying for it later.”
To my surprise, I chuckle. “God, he really was.” I shake my head, still smiling. “He did everything with my full knowledge. Mick might have been naughty, but he was never a liar.”
There’s a moment of silence. “So why leave him, then, if you weren’t in the dark? And I presume we’re talking men?” He hesitates. “Either that or bank robbery. I wouldn’t have put anything past him.”
I laugh. “Neither would I. God, he lived life so well. Better than anyone I’ve ever met. Almost as if he knew.” I hesitate, but the whisky has my tongue, and for some reason, it’s easy to talk about this now. It no longer carries the pain or guilt that has edged my memories for so long. “He had other men, but I knew about that.” I lick my lips and admit the truth finally. “I think he’d have got bored of marriage, eventually. He always wanted more.”
“But he’d never have got tired of you ,” he says firmly. I turn to look at him, and he nods. “He loved you so much, Jed. He’d never have been finished with you. Even if the marriage was over, he’d have wanted you in his life.”
“But I was done at the time,” I say slowly. I take another sip. “I felt old. I couldn’t live at his pace.”
“A twenty-something on acid would have struggled.”
I shake my head, smiling. “Maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with it in the end. Maybe we’d have worked things out. I’ll never know because the accident happened, and I’ve felt guilty ever since for even thinking about it.” His eyes are full of concern, and I hand him the bottle. “But I’ve had time to think about it over the last six weeks, and I know that even if I had left him, we would still have been friends. He never held a grudge.” I laugh. “He couldn’t stay angry for more than ten minutes, and then he’d be bored and want to have a chat. We would never have left each other’s lives.” I sigh. “I did love him very much.”
“Of course you did. I liked him immensely.” He takes a sip of the bottle and hands it back to me. “So, is that why you’re still seeing Artie?”
I stiffen. “What do you mean?”
“Are you staying friends with him now he’s moved on?”
My hand tightens on the bottle, and I know he’s noticed. Not much gets past Adam. “Yes, of course,” I say thickly. “Why else? I would like to be in… in his life,” I finish roughly.
“Of course,” he says, his voice cheerful. “I’m glad you’re not feeling guilty about anything. There’s no need for that.” He looks determinedly at the rain.
“I think… I think I’m ready to move on from Mick,” I say with difficulty, waiting for a lightning bolt to strike or a laughing ghost with sparkling eyes to appear. But nothing happens, and the rain continues to fall.
“I think you already have.”
I stare at him, and because he’s being so infuriating, I shove him off his chair. The fact that he lands in a puddle only improves the moment.
The flat is empty and dark when I get home, and I quickly light lamps and start a fire. It crackles cheerily as I move into the bedroom and grab my overnight bag. It’s constantly on the chair in the room, waiting for me to go to Germany.
I grab a change of clothes, my toiletries and laptop, and pack quickly, my movements efficient, as it’s something I’ve done so often. My chest tightens with anticipation. The only time I feel truly alive now is when I’m about to see him again.
His fingerprints are all over my life. I can’t hear something funny without wanting to share it with him, and somehow, things aren’t as amusing without him. I turn around a hundred times a day to tell him something, and I ache for him in my bed at night, longing to feel his skin against mine and inhale the scent of his hair.
My new PA is efficient and nice, but he isn’t Artie. This is undoubtedly the reason why I’ve kept his employment temporary. Nobody can fill Artie’s space.
The rest of the office misses him, too. Artie simply announced he was taking up a job offer that was too good to turn down, and we were doing long-distance for a while. We didn’t say anything about a split. I refuse to address it until it’s a definite certainty, and when my thoughts intrude with the idea of breaking things off for good, they steal my breath with pain.
I take the paper flower from the bedside table and carefully put it into a small cardboard box. I bring one to Artie every week, obviously telling him with flowers what I can’t say with words. He hasn’t realised I’ve been conveying affection and yearning, probably because he’s failed to realise he’d married a Victorian gentlewoman. Today’s flower is a red rose, and it’s a bit of a mystery to me, as I’d intended to make a daffodil.
Ready for my eight o’clock flight in the morning, I wander back into the lounge. I contemplate ordering a takeaway, but, as usual, I’m not hungry. Tiredness heavy on my bones, I settle down on the sofa and switch the TV on. I don’t pay any attention to the screen, though. Instead, I look around the room. It’s a beautiful flat and has been my sanctuary ever since Mick died. Here, I could still feel him and be close to him.
I glance at his photo on the bookshelf—one of a few on display in the room—and take a deep breath, waiting for the familiar pang of loss to hit. I exhale slowly when it doesn’t come. I stand and walk towards the photo. I smile easily in response to Mick’s laughing face.
Still no pain.
Frowning, I run my fingertip over the shelf. I think I prefer the teal-painted shelving Artie had chosen for the lounge at home?—
The pang hits finally—hard and heavy—but it’s not the feeling of loss I expected.
Home…
I glance around again, walking towards the windows with the view I love. I still love the view, of course, but the carpet beneath my feet feels wrong and the walls around the panes are a boring white.
Should I redecorate? Do the work here that I’d lied about to Artie?
A hoarse laugh leaves my throat. If I did redecorate, I’d want Artie’s opinion on every choice.
The realisation comes to me in a flash and is startling in its vividness.
This flat is no longer my home, no longer my sanctuary—my safe and quiet place.
My home is my husband, who’s currently in Germany, no doubt enjoying himself tremendously with a wealth of German men who aren’t such twats as not to recognise what’s right under their noses.
My home is Artie. I lick my lips and sweat breaks out all over my body. And he’s my home because I’m in love with him.
I whirl, knocking against a table by the window with a clatter. One of my paper flowers—an early experiment of the peony variety—falls to the floor and I pick it up.
Of course, I’d made Artie a paper rose this week. My heart and hands recognised the symbol of true love before my mind caught up.
I stare blindly into the too-quiet lounge and finally admit the truth. It’s a truth I’ve been frantically denying for a lot longer than our fake marriage. I love Artie. And I love everything about him—his crooked smile that somehow contains more sunshine than any other, his long fingers that can either soothe or arouse me, his kindness and the simple joy he takes in life, refusing to indulge in self-pity. He makes me feel happy, alive, protective, and cherished.
And by some miracle, this beautiful young man actually loved me back. I knuckle my eyes. And in return for that gift, I rejected him and offered him a shitty friends-with-benefits arrangement. I have so much more to offer him—so much love. But am I too late?
I have only an hour a week to convince him of my love before he finds someone else.
“I know wherever you are, you are fucking laughing at me, Mick,” I grumble and then sigh. “And I know you’re furious that I’ve spent years mourning you. You’d have hated that with every fibre of your being.”
I remember a conversation we had years ago at the start of us. He’d been talking about his age and wanting me to move on quickly if he died before me. I’d laughed and dismissed it, not wanting to hear about him dying, but he’d been curiously insistent. “If you’re not inside a pretty boy by the time my memorial ends, I’ll fucking haunt you,” he’d threatened. We’d laughed, and I’d completely forgotten that conversation until now.
“You kept your word, then, you contrary wanker,” I say affectionately.
The fire gutters and for a wild second, I imagine I can smell his cologne—spicy and warm like him. “I will always love you,” I say quietly. “I don’t know whether we’d have lasted if we’d been given the chance. But I do know that I promise to think of you with a smile from now on, because that’s what you’d have wanted. You’d like Artie. You wouldn’t have understood our relationship in the slightest, but you’d have liked him.” I take a breath. “Bye, babe,” I whisper.
A peace steals over me that I haven’t felt in years. Maybe never.
I pace the room, seized by energy for the first time since Artie left. I’ve never got anywhere in life by backing down from a challenge. “I’m getting my husband back,” I say out loud and feel the touch of Mick’s approval.