Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
I hadn’t thought ahead about how I would get back to Te Puke, but I didn’t care. I had my wallet and Eve’s stuffed cat (that I’d wiped three times) and the satisfaction that she would know it was me was enough to keep me going until the dirt track ended and the road began.
It had only taken Pip five minutes to drive to the orchards from Te Puke so it wasn’t like it would have taken me all day to get back. I remembered that I had to turn left, not right once I hit the road and then I pulled out my phone to text Niall.
It worked!
Great! Did you find your wallet?
Yes! And the stuffed cat – I’ve got it with me.
What stuffed cat?
She had a stuffed cat.
Why have you stolen a stuffed cat?
Long story.
I’m glad you got your wallet back.
Thanks, Niall, I wouldn’t have got in if you’d not helped.
It was the woodlouse, not me. I need to sleep. I’m working in a few hours.
Of course, sorry and thanks again x
You’re welcome.
* * *
So it turned out a five-minute drive actually took me an hour and five minutes to walk, and by the time I reached the giant kiwi fruit sign I was not in any fit state to see Jack. I could feel the wet on my back and armpits.
Una had texted me a couple of places I could stay, and with a stuffed cat in my bag and a whole heap of determination, I made my way to one of them – Sunshine Lodge – because it had the best name and the lady on the phone sounded the most welcoming.
Of course, I’d hoped that I’d be staying at Jack’s but either way I needed somewhere to wash and make myself look decent and put on my mustard dress that fanned out at the sides.
Sunshine Lodge was set back slightly off the road and lined by palm trees and a small front garden. It was quaint and clean (thank God) and the landlady (her name was Alina) was as friendly as her voice. I’d looked up her name when I got to my room; it meant light, which matched the lodge. My room was bright and breezy and I could hear the birds as they sang outside my window. It was tropical and beautiful and my mum would have loved it. And my dad would have too because there wasn’t a mole hump in sight.
I showered and dried my hair (Alina lent me her hairdryer) and pulled on my mustard dress and red glittery sandals that I’d packed last minute when I realised I’d only packed one pair of shoes. They were probably too dressy, but they were better than my clumpy trainers. I tied my hair in a high ponytail and applied the cherry-pink lipstick that Una had given to me before I’d left. My lips clashed with my sandals but I didn’t care – I felt sexy for the first time since I’d been in New Zealand. I didn’t stuff my bra with my socks (Jack could take me as I was or not at all – and what sort of man judged a woman on her breast size anyway?).
I was ready to go, I was ready to find Jack, I was ready to walk along the beach and watch the dolphins, to meet his family and enjoy a barbeque before the sun went down, when my phone rang and Una’s name flashed on the screen.
‘ Pearl?’ she said before I could say anything. She sounded flustered, like she was out of breath.
‘Una? Are you OK? Isn’t it six in the morning or something?’
‘It’s eight thirty.’
‘What’s wrong? Is everyone all right? Are my mum and dad all right?’ I asked, panicked.
‘They’re fine. We’re all fine. I need to tell you something,’ she said abruptly.
‘Oh God, you haven’t seen Shaun did everything again have you? You know you can’t trust him.’
‘No, well yes I have actually but it’s not that,’ Una said.
‘Honestly, I don’t know why you’re bothering with him, he’ll do it again.’
‘It’s not about Shaun, Pearl,’ Una said with a serious tone.
‘What is it then? Is it Maggie Ryan and Mr Keele?’ I laughed.
‘No.’
‘What then? Has someone else died?’
‘No.’
‘Una, I don’t have time for this, I’m about to meet Jack.’
‘Does he know you’re coming?’
‘No, of course he bloody doesn’t, I’m surprising him, remember?’
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t surprise him?’
‘Don’t meet him.’
‘What are you going on about? Why not?’
‘I saw Mr Dutson today. He was fixing my break lights,’ Una said.
‘At last,’ I sighed sarcastically, ignoring it, although I knew in my gut that something was wrong.
‘He told me that Jack didn’t pay his bill when he left.’
‘Right, OK, and? I’m sure he’ll square up with him now he’s home. I know Mr Dutson is still in the dark ages, but Jack can transfer the money over you know.’ I felt guilty talking about Mr Dutson like that, given he was always so kind to me.
‘Pearl,’ Una lowered her voice, ‘he said that someone else phoned and paid for it over the phone.’
‘Right, there you go then,’ I said irritated.
‘A girl called Emily.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I felt my shoulders drop at the realisation that Una must have got her wires crossed and that there was nothing to worry about after all. ‘Emily is Jack’s sister.’ I reassured her. ‘I thought I told you that?’
There was a short silence but it was long enough to tell me that my first instincts were right. You know that split second when you know that something really bad is about to happen and it kind of stuns you like you’ve been shot, then you catch your breath and gasp for air before your heart beats like it’s on speed? (I’ve never taken speed, by the way, but that’s what I imagined it would be like). Well, it was like that.
Then—
‘He’s engaged, Pearl. To Emily,’ Una said and a second later, the bullet hit.
‘He’s … engaged to his sister?’
‘No, Pearl, Emily isn’t his sister, she’s his fiancée.’
There was more than a beat. There was a drum.
‘Pearl, are you OK?’
‘It can’t be true,’ I whispered.
‘It is.’
‘But Emily is his sister, she’s three years younger than him, she lives with him.’
‘He lied to you, Pearl. He lives with his fiancée, Emily.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m wearing my mustard dress.’
‘I’m so bloody angry at him.’
‘Do you think Mr Dutson might have got it wrong? You know his hearing isn’t that great?’ I desperately tried to hold on to something that I knew didn’t exist anymore. Like when someone’s dumping you and you know it’s coming, you know that things will never be the same again, that you will never be with them again, that they don’t want you, ever again. That moment between denial and acceptance? I was in that moment.
‘No,’ Una said softly. ‘I don’t think that.’
‘But he might have, he’s old now, he never hears me half the time,’ I clung on.
‘Pearl, he said that she told him they are getting married next year.’
‘Next year?’ I croaked.
‘Yes.’
‘She probably meant with her fiancée Jack,’ I said believing my own made up scenario. ‘Not Jack, her brother, it’s an easy thing to hear wrong. Especially if you’re Mr Dutson’s age, how old is he anyway, eighty?’
‘Jack’s engaged to Emily, Pearl,’ Una said more firmly.
‘But we were going to watch the dolphins.’ I stayed deluded, and slightly delirious, I might add, because why not be?
‘You don’t need Jack to watch the dolphins.’
‘But I wanted to watch them with Jack, after our barbeque and stroll along the beach.’
‘What a bastard,’ Una said more to herself than to me.
My head spun as the truth caught up, bit-by-bit-by-bit. Emily was Jack’s fiancée, not his sister. His lies swirled around my head and made me feel dizzy. The urge to come home pulled at every part of me, as I suddenly felt the distance, the thousands of miles between me and Una.
But then what? Who would I meet in Drangan? There was no one there remotely suited to me, I would end up just as Una had said I would – born and dead in Drangan, with a headstone to prove it.
I started to wish that I had been cut up into tiny pieces by Eve. At least then, there would be a better headstone: ‘ She died while on a quest for true love.’ No one would ever know the actual truth (that I died a desperate fool), apart from Una and Mr Dutson, of course.
I didn’t blame Una for not wanting to come to my funeral. I wouldn’t want to go to it either. What sort of an idiot flies to the other side of the world for someone who didn’t officially invite them? For someone they had only known for a long weekend? Me, that’s who. The anger came then; it flared up from my stomach to my chest, like a fireball out of control.
‘How do I find out where he lives?’ I asked with that same fire.
‘I could ask Mr Dutson for his address, she must have given it to him?’ Una said.
‘And then what?’ I said, my flame dwindling again.
‘Then you rock up there and give him shit! She might even be there. I bet she has no idea.’ Una tried to keep my fire alight but it was quickly burning out.
‘I just want to come home.’ I felt like Sally’s orphaned lamb that I rescued when I was a girl and bottle fed until it was strong enough to go out and venture into the fields again. The only difference is, I wasn’t ready to venture into anything.
‘You have to do this, Pearl. I’m going to call Mr Dutson now and ask for Jack's address. In fact, I’m going to tell him the whole story of what’s happened if that’s OK, then I know he’ll give it to me. Wait there. I’ll text you in a minute.’
So I stood outside Sunshine Lodge, in my mustard dress and red glittery sandals, wondering that if I clicked my heels three times would I magically be home.
Five minutes later, Una texted me back with Jack’s home address and I got a strange comfort that at least he hadn’t lied about living in Te Puke. At least that much had been true.
There was a part of me that still didn’t believe it. That still hoped that Una and Mr Dutson had got it wrong, somehow, like some sort of Chinese whisper, lost in translation. But deep down I knew they hadn’t. I knew it was true.
He’d stayed in my house, my bed, in my fucking vagina. I had actually believed Jack was single. That he had wanted me to come and see him. I had believed him because I was an idiot. I was more of an idiot than Una had been with Shaun did everything, because at least she had kept her wits about her. At least she knew he couldn’t be trusted.
* * *
It turned out that Jack’s house was only a fifteen-minute walk from Sunshine Lodge. There was a charity shop across the road, and I only noticed it because of the faceless mannequin that was in the window wearing a pearl necklace. I wondered if Jack had walked past the same one and thought of me?
I followed Una’s directions right to his doorstep. She’d sent a screenshot of the street map with CHOP OFF HIS TURBO COCK scribbled in red across the front and it momentarily brought a smile to my face, which faded when I thought about how stupid I’d been.
I was just a fling to Jack. No promises, no commitments, it was all just a load of lies, and I'd been gullible enough to believe them.
On the way there, my mum had sent me a message with a picture of my dad holding something black in his hand and never had I wanted to be at home with my parents and their moles and birds more than in that moment.
Love, your dad caught a mole. I saw the swallows! Hope you’re having a great time, missing you!
I held back my tears but only because I didn’t want Jack to see them and think they were for him. And I was all ready to confront him; I was ready to give him what for, when a beautiful woman pulled up outside his house.
She stood out because of her hair. It was perfect. It fell like a waterfall, a beautiful, honey-kissed waterfall that bathed in sunshine all day long. It landed on confident shoulders, effortlessly, and bounced as she strode across the drive. She wore a navy blazer with gold buttons and a white blouse that she’d tucked into her jeans. She must have been boiling but there wasn’t a sweat mark in sight. She finished it off with flat, tan buckled shoes that appeared casual, but she was anything but that.
She stopped when she saw me, a kind look in her beautiful blue eyes.
‘Are you lost?’ she asked, and I probably should have just told her there and then but I couldn’t bring myself to ruin her perfect life.
‘Sort of,’ I said because I was, sort of.
‘Where are you headed?’
Right here, I thought.
‘The beach,’ I said quickly.
‘You’re a little way out from the coast.’ She laughed and I noticed her perfect white teeth. ‘The nearest beach is Papamoa, about six kilometres away.’
‘Ah, OK, thanks,’ was all I managed.
‘Do you know where that is?’
‘Not really,’ I admitted.
‘Hold on, let me draw you a map.’
She disappeared and I stood outside Jack’s house in my mustard dress that fanned out at the sides. I could feel the sting of my sandals that had already started to rub my heels. I should have been inside that house with Jack not outside with blisters on my feet.
And the house? Well, the house had ocean blue windows didn’t it? Because she had to have my windows as well as Jack, didn’t she? I couldn’t see inside because they were tinted just enough to keep prying eyes like mine out. But I could see an enormous cream vase on a hall table because she, Emily, Jack’s fiancée, had left the door slightly open, like she was teasing me (but of course she wasn’t, because she didn’t have a clue who I was). Bright pink flowers spilled boldly out of it, and I imagined the whole house smelt of them – sickly sweet and perfect like her.
There were three windows upstairs facing the immaculate front lawn, all with roman blinds that hung just low enough to tease rooms that I imagined to be filled with expensive furniture, mismatched in all the right ways. I shifted uncomfortably, aware that Jack could be inside or that he could turn up at any moment.
When Emily came out, she passed me a hand-drawn map scribbled on a piece of paper, with a shopping list titled ‘BBQ’ ticked off on the back. My eyes scanned over it: avocados, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, sausages, prawns, olives, bloody olives. But it wasn’t a list for us, no. It never was going to be was it? It was for them, a BBQ on the beach for Jack and Emily. Their names sounded like something out of a film, the perfect couple, living the perfect life. I felt sick.
‘Oh, the maps on the other side,’ Emily laughed lightly. And as I turned the list around, I stared at my bitten-down nails already knowing hers would be as perfect as her teeth. I caught a glimpse of her ring then – I think until then I still hoped that maybe Una and Mr Dutson might have got it wrong. That Jack might spring out from behind her and shout ‘surprise!’ A sick joke that Una had been in on that I would have forgiven in a heartbeat if it meant none of it was true. Only it wasn’t a joke and there was no surprise, only the awful one I was the star of.
The ring was as dainty and delicate and stunning as her and I suddenly felt like a frump in my mustard dress that fanned out at the sides. Close up, she was even more beautiful. I could see why Jack was going to marry her. I’d have married her too. I wondered where she worked, (I knew it wouldn’t be in a village shop) or if she counted woodlice on her drive, or stuffed socks in her bra (she definitely didn’t, by the way, her tits were massive).
I scrunched the map in the palm of my own sweaty hand, thanked her with a smile that made my insides twist, and then turned and left. And it wasn’t until I was out of sight that the tears came. They swirled like a giant wave that filled my body until I felt like I might explode. And then I did.
* * *
Did you see him?
I read Una’s text.
No, I saw her though.
OMG! Did you tell her?
No.
Why not?
I don’t know. She was so pretty, Una.
Pretty stupid if she’s marrying him.
I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.
It’s not your fault.
I slept with him.
Try and remember the good things.
Like what?
He had a turbo penis.
It was too big.
No penis can be too big.
That’s gross, and yes, they definitely can.
I wish you’d told her.
She was really nice.
She needs to know the truth.
Does she though?
You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?
Yes.
Well then. Jesus, what a sleazebag.
I knew that Una was right, that Jack was a sleazebag. That I was better off without him, that I had had a lucky escape, that it was Emily I should feel sorry for, not me, who knew the truth. I had escaped a life of lies, a life that was actually never going to be mine at all. The vision of them eating olives and prawns (I hate prawns) on the beach watching the sun go down together made my head hurt.
I stared across the road at the faceless mannequin that somehow looked like it was staring straight back at me.
Hello?
Una prompted.
That’s it!
What is?
I have to go. I’ll text you later.
* * *
It wasn’t expensive – ten dollars – because of course it wasn’t real. But when I came out of the charity shop moments later, I marched back to Jack’s house on nothing but adrenaline.
I had no idea if he was home, or if Emily could see me from her tinted windows, but I knew I had to do it quickly otherwise I might have talked myself out of it completely.
I bent down and pulled Eve’s stuffed cat out of my bag and then dug out the photograph of Jack kissing me that Una had taken in the Tally on quiz night.
I turned it around, took out my pen and started to write.
Thanks for the memories
This one’s for you
How’s your sister?
Liar, liar, pants on fire
Cheat
Kiss my pussy.
Then I looped the pearl necklace that wasn’t real around the stuffed cat’s neck, kissed it three times, propped the photo of Jack kissing me against it, and left it on his doorstep.