Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
A llie was missing Will and not just because she had reached a sticky point in her manuscript and was hoping a date with him might just unstick her. She actually really missed him. Like one might miss a boyfriend, not that Allie would know because she had never truly missed Dominic when he wasn’t around. Of course, when they first started dating, she was pleased when she saw him, enjoyed spending time with him. But she didn’t crave him in the alarming way she was beginning to crave Will. Or maybe she was really craving those words on the page that Will’s presence seemed to encourage because since he had been gone she had managed to write only a handful of words, and if she was being honest, most of these were filler.
She knew he was only away for a couple of weeks. It was something to do with work but she hadn’t pressed him for details. Ever since she had found out who he really was, she had avoided asking him anything about his catering and restaurant company, terrified that she might accidentally splurge out her true identity, or reveal she knew his true identity. Or in any case something incriminating which would make him think twice about the motivations of this girl he was seeing.
Not that they had discussed exactly what they were to each other. Were they dating? Was this casual? Will had suggested that he wasn’t seeing anyone else, and she certainly wasn’t, but they’d never defined this, never had the exclusivity conversation, let alone the boyfriend/girlfriend one. Allie hadn’t had either of these with Dominic, they had just sort of drifted into a relationship, which was probably where they had gone wrong. If Allie had had to meaningfully commit to Dominic, perhaps they wouldn’t have lasted beyond the first month. Allie sighed – thinking of Dominic always seemed to make her do that. And she remembered that she still hadn’t replied to his message asking if they could meet up. Yet another item for her list of things to feel slightly guilty about.
Allie leaned back in her chair and fiddled with her phone. She took it off do not disturb in the hope that Will might have messaged but he hadn’t. Neither had Jess, which was annoying because Allie was hoping Jess might have changed her mind and decided that Allie was one hundred per cent right in not telling Will about who she was and that she knew Martin. Not just knew Martin, but was working with Martin, helping him with his manuscript and in exchange mining the depths of Martin’s marriage with Angie for inspiration for her novel. She cringed at the thought. Emboldened by Tessa’s words she was beginning to sense that what she had written so far was good, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was really worth it. And what Will would say when he found out and whether she wanted to risk losing him just so she didn’t have to lose face (and cash) in front of Jake Matthews.
Ugh. Jake Matthews. Tessa had been remarkably quiet since their last meeting. Allie had been hoping that something might have shifted and she would wake up one morning to a long, heartfelt voice note from Tessa confessing all the evils that Jake had committed. But so far, all Allie had got was a curt email thanking her for coming in and asking when Tessa could expect the next part of her manuscript. And Allie couldn’t give her an answer, at least not a truthful one. So she had avoided responding , which was becoming a theme in her life.
Going back to her messages, she pulled the latest one up from Martin. It had been two days since he had last messaged her, and she still hadn’t replied. He’d asked when she wanted to meet that week, and as Allie hadn’t yet written anything worthwhile since the last time they saw each other she hadn’t felt like replying.
Her phone sprang into life with a new message from Martin.
Are you ignoring me?
Allie grimaced. She didn’t want to be honest, because that would involve telling Martin exactly what was going on. But she could go for a version of the truth.
Yes.
Oh. Should I be worried?
No, it’s my problem not yours.
And then she followed up with the confession.
I haven’t been able to write anything the last few days.
Allie sat and watched the three blue dots appear and disappear. She waited for Martin’s response, rocking her chair back and forth as she did so. She sat forward, nudged her phone again. The dots were still there. She picked up her tea from earlier on and took a sip. It was cold and fairly disgusting. She thought about putting the kettle back on. Still nothing from Martin; the dots were appearing and disappearing as before, so he must be writing half a novel in response. She hoped it might be something she could steal inspiration from for her own. She took a swig from her water bottle to wash out the taste of the tea and stared out into her garden. A robin on the table stared back at her judgementally. She looked away, knowing that it was not a logical response to believe the bird was shaming her for her lack of creativity and drive. Again, she picked up her phone, watching the dots appear and disappear. And then nothing; they disappeared and didn’t come back. Allie let out a stifled scream. Bloody Martin.
When she was supposed to be writing and couldn’t, Allie liked to pretend she found solace in walking, as it seemed like the kind of thing an author would do. She’d stick in her earbuds, put whatever was trending on Spotify, or a podcast she liked listening to, and walk. It normally didn’t last long, she’d run out of steam three roads over or she’d suddenly have an urgent thought that she felt compelled to hurry home and commit to paper before it disappeared entirely. She stared morosely out of the window where the rain was now falling steadily and decided she couldn’t face a walk in this weather. So she did the other thing that often worked, or at least gave her a break from the feelings of inadequacy; she went into her bedroom, lay down on her bed and took a nap.
* * *
When Allie woke she initially couldn’t work out whether she’d been asleep for a few minutes or a few hours. She groaned and rolled over on the bed to reach her phone, which was chirping away and had woken her. She looked at the time and was pleased to see that it was only mid afternoon, so she still had time in which to turn things around and not end the day feeling she had achieved nothing.
Martin’s name was flashing on her phone and she remembered that she had been waiting for his response to her earlier cry for help.
‘Allie?’ he asked as soon as she answered the call.
‘Yes?’ She couldn’t muster more enthusiasm than this and she wasn’t quite ready to forgive him for not replying sooner.
‘Are you OK? I got your message and I was typing out a reply, but our therapist told me I needed to turn my phone off and be more present if we were ever going to make any progress, or words to that effect.’
‘You’re in therapy?’ Allie tried and failed to hide the note of utter surprise in her voice. She couldn’t imagine Martin willingly signing up for therapy.
‘Angie insisted,’ he replied, somewhat bleakly.
Of course, she did. That made much more sense now.
‘She said that if I was serious about saving our marriage then it was going to take more than an extended trip down memory lane and that I was going to have to put in the hard work and agree to go to therapy with her so that we could discuss the intimate details of our lives with a complete stranger. Again, I paraphrase.’
‘Not a fan of therapy then?’ Allie was smiling already. Martin was infuriating at times, opinionated, obstinate and completely stuck in the past. But he also had an uncanny knack of making Allie laugh, just when she was least expecting to.
Martin harrumphed. ‘I mean I’m sure it’s all very well, but I just don’t know what talking to a stranger is going to do to help.’
‘Like with me?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply.
‘Just that I’m a stranger, you’ve been telling me your life story and don’t you think it’s been helping a little bit?’
‘With my writing! This is completely different.’
Allie wasn’t sure that it was, but decided that Martin was obviously in one of his moods and perhaps now wasn’t the time to tell him he was wrong. She could park this with all of the other things she planned to tell people at the right time. Like telling Martin that she was seeing his son, and really hoped to be ‘seeing’ a whole lot more of him. Allie went all hot and shivery; half fantasizing about Will, and half terrified of not having confessed to either Will or Martin. She cleared her throat to dislodge the feelings of awkwardness and guilt that seemed to be uncomfortably lodged there.
‘Anyway, well done for going,’ she said in what she hoped wouldn’t come across as a patronising tone. ‘I think it’s great you’re agreeing to do this with Angie.’
There was silence from Martin which suggested that Allie had failed to strike the right note and he was quietly seething at her words. Eventually he spoke.
‘So, what’s going on with you?’
Allie considered this and decided that if she was going to tell either Martin or Will about the other one, she should probably tell Will first, so now wasn’t the time for complete honesty.
‘I’m stuck again, can’t write. I’ve barely written a word since we last met.’
‘Oh.’
Allie waited, hoping that Martin might have more to offer than this.
‘So, the dating thing isn’t going so well then?’
Back in the before, when Allie didn’t know that the hot waiter she had started developing a thing for was Martin’s son, it hadn’t seemed such a big deal to tell Martin that she was seeing someone. Martin had been rather excited by the news and so she had tried to downplay this with the result that Martin had come away with the impression that Allie was merely using the nameless man in question to get her rocks off and as literary inspiration for her writing. In hindsight, Allie recognised that it was less than ideal that Martin had this opinion of the man Allie was seeing because the man Allie was seeing was Martin’s son. And, although she had no first-hand experience, she presumed that most fathers wouldn’t take kindly to their sons being used in such a way. Especially as Martin had now indicated on more than one occasion that he believed his son (Will/Liam) to be seeing someone, and that his son (Liam/Will) seemed really rather keen on this mystery person, (Allie.) Sometimes, Allie was pleased to actually be so invested in this scenario that she could (kind of) keep up with what was going on and who was what to whom, because she wasn’t sure she could manage to keep tabs on the subterfuge if she was merely a bystander. But mostly she just wished that Martin and Will could miraculously become unrelated so that she didn’t have to expend so much emotional bandwidth thinking about the whole mess.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Doesn’t sound it.’
‘He’s away at the moment,’ Allie said through gritted teeth and then immediately regretted giving Martin even this tiny insight into things with Will.
‘Ah … not getting your inspiration right now?’
Allie rolled her eyes, not that Martin would appreciate this. ‘Martin, that sounds lascivious.’
‘Ah,’ repeated Martin, the intonation in his voice changing completely. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t what I intended.’
‘It’s fine, just … let’s not discuss my love life, OK? I’m not sure it’s helping.’
There was a long silence.
‘Hmm.’ Martin sounded thoughtful. ‘What are you doing right now?’
‘Right now?’ Allie sounded startled. ‘Honestly? I’ve just woken up from a nap.’
She could hear Martin chuckling on the end of the line. ‘That’s what I do too when I can’t write.’
‘Really? Well, that makes me feel better. I mean I sometimes go walking, but it was raining, and I thought getting wet would just compound my misery.’
‘It’s cleared up now though, hasn’t it?’
Allie peered through her shutters and agreed that yes, it had, and that it looked like it was turning out to be a nice evening after all. Bloody typical.
‘How long does it take you to get to St James’s Park?’
‘Why?’ Allie was immediately suspicious, she never liked to answer a question unless she knew where it was leading.
‘Half an hour?’
‘More like an hour,’ she agreed grudgingly.
‘Meet me on the corner of Horse Guards and Birdcage Walk in an hour.’
‘Why?’ she asked again.
‘We’re going walking,’ Martin said and put the phone down leaving Allie sitting on her bed, staring at her phone and wondering, not for the first time, whether this was all worth it. But she had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be and if she stayed in her flat she would probably drive herself crazy staring at her computer. And anyway, maybe she could message Jess and see if she was out in town tonight and arrange to meet her for a drink after meeting Martin. She quickly tapped out a message to Jess and went to get her things together and to see just how crazy her hair looked after she had slept on it for half the afternoon.