Chapter Ten
Aiden, unsurprisingly, grew jumpier the closer they got to home.
Shifting in his seat, he coughed to clear his throat and rubbed his hands on his trousers as he exhaled from cheeks filled with air.
His nerves were a little contagious and as Enya parked in Mablethorpe Road, she felt anxiety flutter in her veins.
‘Holly’s probably in the back garden. I’ve cooked supper. But we don’t have to eat, of course not, whatever you think best.’
She ran her hand over her forehead, feeling ridiculously concerned over the salmon that wouldn’t keep.
Not that it mattered, any of it, not in the face of the sledgehammer that was about to come down on them all.
She stared at Jenny’s front door, doubting they’d feel like dancing to ABBA and eating tiramisu once the news was out.
Her lovely friend. How she wished, wished this was not about to be brought to her door.
‘Right.’
He stared at the house, swallowing hard.
She could only imagine the level of dread he was experiencing, knowing the daunting task that lay ahead.
It wasn’t as if he could take his time over it either, not with only four weeks to go until his wedding.
A fact that still sounded like a bad joke, her sympathy for him a little curtailed when she remembered it, in recognition that it was a mess of his own making.
There was also the smallest possibility that he might see Holly and change his mind.
It would be fickle of him, yes, hard for her to navigate, yet still preferable.
It was Holly’s squeal that focused her attention. Enya felt her stomach drop to her boots.
The young woman ran out of the front door and yanked at the door handle of the car. Aiden climbed out and caught his girlfriend ex-girlfriend, as she launched herself at him and wrapped her legs around him. ‘I missed you! I missed you so much!’
Enya looked down the street, then at the dashboard, anywhere other than at the young couple, as Holly covered Aiden’s face with kisses and held him tight.
She turned at the sound of a beeping horn. Phil – Holly’s dad, Jonathan’s old golfing partner and her next-door neighbour but one – sat in his car, beaming at the reunion.
‘Put her down, son! You don’t know where she’s been! Welcome home, mate! Looking forward to a bit of “Dancing Queen” later, Ens?’ He now addressed her directly and she lifted her hand in a limp-wristed wave of acknowledgement.
Phil yelled, Holly laughed, and Aiden stared at the man as Holly climbed down, holding his arm, beaming as if she’d won something glorious.
‘He’s home!’ Holly shouted, jumping up and down on the spot.
‘I can see that!’ Phil tutted, eyes smiling, before he parked further along the road. Enya felt her insides shrink and sank down into the driver’s seat.
She wondered if this was what it would feel like from now on in the street that was her haven; this discomfort that verged on excruciating.
She wiped her face and tucked her hair behind her ears.
Her heart broke for Holly, whose only crime was loving Aiden a little too much.
Yet it was also full of worry for Aiden, who she could see was about to jump, trusting of the fall.
It was a moment, among many others, when she wished with her whole heart that Jonathan was here to help navigate what lay ahead.
As Phil made his way along the pavement, arriving to slap Aiden on the back and receive a kiss from his daughter, Enya took the opportunity to creep from the car, smile her greeting as best she could, and slip inside her house.
She actively avoided the man who would regularly pop in for a cup of tea, a sandwich or toast, seemingly always hungry.
It might have been cowardly, but she felt quite unable to witness the affection Phil displayed towards her son, equally did not under any circumstances want to be around for the conversation Aiden was set to have with Holly.
And crucially, she couldn’t stand the deceit of perpetuating a grand reunion complete with freshly baked blondies and excited details shared of a redecorated bedroom.
It felt much easier to hide in the kitchen.
She put the radio on, hoping the chatter of Radio 4 might be enough to divert her from the fact that she thought she might throw up.
‘I honestly don’t know what to think, Jonathan, don’t know what to make of it all!’ She breathed deeply. ‘God only knows how Jenny and Phil are going to react. What do I say to them?’
She ran her fingers through her hair at the prospect, but knew that it was really nothing to do with her or them; it was all about Aiden and Holly and how Holly was going to react to Aiden and Iris.
It sounded alien in her thoughts. Iris, and Aiden .
.. Aiden and Iris... nope. It was going to take some getting used to.
It became clear after ten minutes that the duo was not coming back into the house, a fact for which she felt nothing but sweet relief.
Then the sound of a car engine. Sidling into the sitting room, she peeped out of the sash window, beneath her bespoke Roman blinds in grass-green and raspberry stripes, just in time to see her son in her little Audi perfect a three-point turn and drive out of the cul-de-sac.
Phil was nowhere to be seen. Holly was in the passenger seat, but she couldn’t see their faces.
Had Aiden told her already? Or had he indeed taken one look at the gorgeous girl and changed his mind?
And then what would Enya do with the knowledge? What would Mr and Mrs Sutherland do?
It was bizarre and confusing how utterly complicated the whole situation felt in such a short space of time, and to think she’d spent the day fretting over supper and keeping the kitchen floor spotless.
‘Sweet Jesus! What a day!’ She decided to break with convention and poured herself a glass of the chilled rosé. Never one to drink alone, but if ever an occasion called for it...
Standing in the kitchen, she watched the sun set behind the old red-brick wall at the foot of the garden, noting how the bright-blue sky dropped a shade or two to take on an almost lavender haze, and the trees, as if startled by the change in temperature, shivered in the early evening breeze.
Her stomach felt as if it were shredded.
There was certainly no temptation to dive into the salmon en croute that now sat congealing on top of the range, or indeed the prawn cocktail that she had so fussed over.
With her phone in her hand, Enya tried to compose a text to Jenny, but was paralysed by doubt.
To reveal the news if her friend was as yet unaware would be awful.
To inform her unnecessarily, if Aiden had changed his mind, worse; how would she ever explain that?
But worse still, the prospect of not mentioning it at all, making some quip about their planned night ahead, as if nothing was amiss, if Jenny did know.
It was a minefield. Placing her phone on the countertop, she decided it was better to wait it out.
She took deep breaths, trying to quash the rising sense of panic, drank the cold rosé and cleaned the sink, fed Pickle, stacked the dishwasher, folded laundry into drawers, and in need of further distraction, revisited the mini crossword that she and Jonathan liked to finish as they ate supper.
Her heart constantly jumped as she imagined Holly’s face, as Aiden broke her heart.
‘Five down, twelve letters, unable to alleviate, often sadness ,’ she read the clue aloud and studied the letters she already had.
‘I, something, something O, something, something O...’ She tapped the puzzle with the tip of her retractable pencil, her mind, much like the little squares she so desperately wanted to fill, blank.
The front doorbell rang. Had Aiden forgotten his key?
But it was not Aiden on the step. It was Phil, and this time there was no air of joviality, no jolly humour or laughter, no quip about tiramisu.
No hungry man in search of a snack. His eyes were small, lips thin, his face scarlet, he looked angry.
It was everything she had feared and more.
‘Where is he?’ This his greeting, his jaw tense as he rocked on his heels, his shoulder twitching, hands balled into fists.
Her heart jumped now for different reasons, she was scared. ‘I don’t...’
‘Don’t give me that, where is he, Enya?’ Uninvited, he stepped into the hallway and called loudly up the stairs, ‘You can run, you little prick, but you can’t hide!’
‘Phil, for God’s sake! I’ve told you – he’s not here!’
His chest heaved and he breathed through his nose; it was frightening to be alone and this close to someone this angry, the man completely unrecognisable as the one she had encountered in the street earlier.
‘Do you know what’s going on? Have you heard what he’s gone and done?’
‘I know the outline, the—’
‘Course you do!’ He narrowed his eyes at her and took a step forward. It was at once accusatory and unpredictable.
‘You need to calm down, you can’t come into my home and talk to me like this, we’re neighbours, Phil, we’ve been friends for a very long time.’
He ignored her and she felt the ripple of anger dilute the fear in her veins, knowing without doubt that if Jonathan were here, Phil would not dream of talking to her like this or intimidating her with his bulk inside her own home.
His behaviour was also an indicator of what Jenny might be feeling, this thought more than she could handle.
She felt tears prickle the back of her eyes.
Jenny was her best friend, her very best friend. And Phil had been Jonathan’s.
‘I don’t need to do anything. I’ve just had my little girl on the phone and she’s,’ he looked away and gathered himself, his voice breaking, ‘she’s distraught, her mother’s with her. We can’t leave her alone. And I want a word with that son of yours.’
‘Phil, I told you, he’s not here,’ she repeated. ‘Look, this is nothing to do with me and nothing to do with you or Jen. It’s difficult, of course it is, but—’
‘Difficult?’ he spat. ‘You should hear her, you should see her.’ His bottom lip trembled.
‘I can’t stand to think of her so upset.’ She meant it, little Holly Hudson... She fought to contain her own tears.
Phil ran his palm over his face. ‘She’s broken, Enya. Absolutely broken.’
He seemed to calm a little and she was thankful.
‘I could fucking kill him,’ he spat through gritted teeth.
‘He’s my son,’ she reminded him. ‘Jonathan’s son.’
‘I know, I know. And that’s why we trusted him, why I trusted him. She can’t sit up, can’t speak. She’s like a rag doll, limp, and her eyes are closed, and she’s, she can hardly breathe.’ He let his chin fall to his chest.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ She spoke the truth, understanding his sentiment but first and foremost wanting to advocate for her only child.
‘I’m as shocked as you are. I’m trying to remember that they are young and things happen, and I know it’s hard but it’s far better they go through this now and not when they are forty or fifty, when life will already be kicking them in the face.
I don’t think he meant for any of this to happen.
Aiden’s not a bad man, you know this. He’s never played the field or treated Holly badly.
It sounds like he just met someone and fell for her and that’s that. ’
Phil lifted his head and stared at her. ‘What do you mean, he met someone? He’s met someone? He said he’d changed his mind, just like that,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘after all those years, just changed his bloody mind!’
‘I... I’m not sure, I...’ It hadn’t occurred to her that Aiden might not have told Holly the full story; she had assumed he would probably have given Holly the stark facts in the way he had her.
He raised his index finger and pointed it at her chest. ‘You better tell him to keep out of my way, this is not over! This is not over!’
Closing the front door behind him, she walked back to the kitchen and half sat, half fell on to a bar stool, the sense of rising panic almost overwhelming.
Her phone rang. It was Aiden.
‘Hello, love, where are you?’
‘Just, just driving around, Mum.’ He barely managed to get the words out, as distress made his speech stutter down the line. ‘I told her, I told, told her that it was...’ He broke away to cry some more.
‘It’s okay,’ she lied, ‘it’s okay, love, let it all out.’
‘I can’t . . . she was so . . . I feel terrible.’
‘I know, I know.’ She closed her eyes and spoke softly. ‘Come home. Come home and we can sit and chat. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘I will, I’m, I’m just going to take a minute and . . . and . . .’
His tears, though hard to hear, were also strangely reassuring.
Proof, as if it were needed, that he was aware of the hurt he had caused, acknowledging the betrayal of a wonderful girl like Holly.
His distress indicating that he had indeed been blindsided and not acted with ill intent.
Confirmation that they hadn’t raised a cold, indifferent rotter who could hurt a girl and feel nothing.
He was kind and knew that the human heart was a fragile thing and that to discard one meant breaking it as surely as if he had thrown out glass.
‘Just breathe, darling. It will all feel better in the morning. I promise.’
Not that she’d ever admit it, she felt ashamed, almost, that as her panic subsided, a soft glow of warmth replaced it at how much, in that instant, her boy needed her.
‘I’ll see you later. I need to tell you about Phil, he came over and I might have let slip that you’ve met someone.’
‘I see.’ His croaked response was hard to hear.
Enya went in the sitting room and sank down on to the sofa.
Here she would await her son’s return, while trying to order her own maelstrom of thoughts, and with one ear cocked for the sound of someone walking up the path.
She prayed Jenny might come and see her so they could start the slow walk back to peace, to find a way forward.
Conversely, she prayed that Phil would stay away, his behaviour had unnerved her.
It was horrid to feel this vulnerable, this on edge.
Jenny was an important part of her life, her routine; just the thought of not having her at the end of a phone was like a knife in her gut.
‘God, Jonathan, what a terrible evening. I can’t stand to think of Holly so upset, and Aiden sounded, don’t know how to describe it, he sounded...’
I.N.C.O.N.S.O.L.A.B.L.E . . . ah, yes, of course he did.