Chapter 3 #2
I grab an overnight bag and start putting in enough clothes and toiletries to get me by until I can sort out the rest of my belongings.
I don’t want to stay at my parents’ but it’s a place to go.
Once Greg gives me half of the apartment money, I’ll be fine.
He won’t sell it. It’s too good for the location it’s in, so he has no choice but to buy me out.
That’ll be his dad’s money. The whole time I’m packing Greg doesn’t move.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands silently crying.
He’s not a bad person. He makes bad choices because it’s ingrained in him from his parents.
I want to give him a hug. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen him give a real shit about something in his life.
But I don’t. I tell him if he needs anything to let me know but otherwise that’s it. And I leave.
The fresh air hits my face and the enormity of everything hits with it.
I can feel every emotion all at once racing around my body.
But the biggest emotion of all is relief.
I can start to build myself back up, the person I am truly meant to be, without the influence of making others happy.
I can disappear from this world for the elite and breathe again.
For the first time in weeks, I feel genuine happiness.
Which is strange for someone who has just found out their fiancé has been banging the city bike.
I grab a taxi from outside and direct it to my parents.
It doesn’t take long to get there which doesn’t give me the time to really prepare myself for what I’m going to tell them, but part of me hopes they’ll have a little bit of pity for me, enough to let me stay for a few days and not talk to me about it.
I grab my bag out of the boot and walk up the stone steps to my parents’ Georgian townhouse.
They moved here after I had left for Oxford.
Five bedrooms and six bathrooms, for two people?
That’s why London has a housing crisis. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it very much feels like a statement rather than somewhere just to live.
I knock on the door, and I am greeted by Phoebe, the housekeeper.
We’ve always had housekeepers and au pairs, but I’ve always felt odd about someone doing something for me.
So, Phoebe probably feels relieved that her workload is about to be halved knowing I’ll be helping around the house while staying there.
“Miss Montgomery.” She looks surprised to see me when it’s not Christmas Day or someone’s birthday. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“Please call me Harri, Phoebe. Miss Montgomery is just too weird.” I shudder at the thought of being Miss Montgomery to someone and walk past her making sure to carry my own bags.
“Sorry, Harri, it’s habit.” She smiles, and her little plump cheeks smile with her.
“Where are my parents?” I ask, taking off my coat and hanging it on the coat rack past Phoebe’s arms where she is waiting to do that for me.
“Your mother is taking a Pilates class in the drawing room, and I believe your father is at the office.”
“Thanks, Phoebe.” I smile and head towards the drawing room.
I walk through the oak-floored corridor until I reach the drawing room.
Its mahogany bookcase walls and William Morris wallpaper make it look very cosy.
Odd for a Pilates lesson but she’s having the living room redone so must have settled for in there.
My mother is there, in her black leotard doing Pilates on a mat.
Her instructor is younger than me. She only hired him because he is young, Latino and, as she puts it, “something nice to look at”.
I stand in the doorway until she notices my presence.
“Harriet, what are you doing here? I’m in the middle of this lesson, darling. Why don’t you get Phoebe to make you a drink and you can wait for me in the garden room?”
The garden room is just a big conservatory, but God forbid we call it what it is.
“I broke up with Greg,” I say calmly.
My mother’s face turns a darker shade of pink and she gets up to her feet before turning to her instructor.
“Lorenzo, darling, let’s cut this class short today. You’ll be paid in full and I’ll see you next week.” She dismisses him with her hand.
Lorenzo nods at her and collects his stuff and leaves accordingly. He obviously knows to obey this woman as she probably pays him way too much. Although having to endure her flirting with him means he’s paid too little.
She smiles at him as he leaves, then drops all pretences and looks at me with concern. She gestures to the sofas in the room. “Now, Harriet, please sit.”
I walk into the room from the doorway and take a seat on one of the small brown leather sofas. My mother wipes her brow with a towel and sits opposite in a dark green leather armchair. She rings a bell, and Phoebe comes scurrying in.
“Phoebe, please can you bring me and Harriet a glass of champagne and then kindly shut the door? Oh and be a dear and wash this.” She hands Phoebe the towel and smiles politely. “There’s a good girl.”
Phoebe, without missing a beat, takes the towel, gets us two glasses of champagne from the bar cart in the room then shuts the door behind her.
“A bell, Mum? She’s not a dog. And the drinks were in the room. I would have got them! Or in fact you could have got them. Isn’t Pilates about fitness? If you actually got your own drinks more, maybe you wouldn’t need the classes.”
“What’s the point in paying for help if they don’t help?” She laughs to herself.