Chapter 12
TWELVE
JANE
Against the odds, I do actually sleep remarkably well. It’s so peaceful here, no passing traffic or trucks making deliveries at the Tesco. I don’t mind all of that suburban noise, I’m used to it, but the depth of the silence out here is something else.
Still, I didn’t expect the peace of the environment to have any effect on my sleep patterns.
I was in turmoil, staggering up to my room like a zombie, closing the door behind me and wondering if I needed to barricade it.
Which was stupid – Rory was hardly likely to barge in, he seemed quite cosy with his whisky bottle.
Anyway, why would he be interested in me?
I’m not the gorgeous young girl he fell in love with any more. Far from it.
I think I was just edgy and unsettled, and that translated into feeling threatened. I’d told myself I was okay. That I was safe, here in this huge room in this big house. With Rory bloody Callaghan.
I’d distracted myself by investigating the room.
I’d barely registered it earlier. High ceilings, a vast bay window.
A love seat, upholstered in rich green velvet, complete with spectacular views down to the moonlit bay.
It’s a massive space, like Beth’s, and I wondered why a single man needs a house this big.
Not, I remind myself, that I know he’s single – why would I assume that?
He could be married to a supermodel, or have a harem for all I know. It’s none of my business, anyway.
For once, having work to do was useful – focusing on emails and spreadsheets and the boring minutiae of my job actually helped to subdue the hornet’s nest of my mind.
I’d finally passed out at about two in the morning, which isn’t unusual for this so-called holiday.
But the sleep I did get was lovely – deep and restful and free of the dreams that I expected to torture me.
If not for my phone ringing incessantly just after seven, I probably would have stayed in the land of nod.
I open my eyes and smack my hand around, trying to locate it, before realising I’m not at home and my phone isn’t on my bedside cabinet.
In fact there isn’t a bedside cabinet, just a small antique table, on the other side to where I’d slept.
I sit up, groggy and confused, feeling absolutely fine until I’m not. Until I remember everything that happened the night before. Until I remember that I am here in Rory’s house, and that between us we opened up the world’s biggest can of worms.
I rub my face with my hands, and don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Both seem appropriate. I should feel better about it all now I know he didn’t betray me. I should feel like a weight has been lifted, a burden removed – that my heart can heal.
Except I don’t feel like that, not at all.
I still went through all those years of pain, of half-hearted living, of trying to build new relationships when I never really got over the first one.
All of those emotions, the rawness and the bitterness and the sting of that life-altering rejection, still live inside me – but now I know I need to evict them.
I need to reframe everything that happened to me, and that is hard.
The choices I’ve made since, the way I’ve connected with others, was all affected by the underlying conviction that Rory decided I wasn’t good enough for him.
Even as I berated myself for it, I knew it was true.
Rory abandoning me caused such structural damage that I don’t think my foundations were ever the same again – and the immediate aftermath of it all, those terrible weeks in France, dug away at me even more.
So much happened, and none of it was good. It wasn’t just him I lost.
I groan as the phone starts to ring again, and snatch it up from the pillow next to me.
I see John Marshall’s name on the screen, and my groan turns to a snarl.
It is barely past seven a.m., and I am on leave – why the hell is my boss calling me?
Why couldn’t he at least wait until business hours, if he’s going to pester me while I’m on holiday?
I know why – it’s because John is a workaholic himself, and starts his office days no later than six.
Anybody who does otherwise is labelled as lazy, and the whole culture of the place works on this toxic belief that we all have to be available at all times.
I’m sick of it. And being here in Bonnie Bay, seeing Moira at the Bookshop at the Edge of the World, a workplace where people actually seem happy and relaxed, has only highlighted that.
Also, I think maybe the people I’m actually mad at – my parents, his parents, Rory himself still, unfairly – are either out of bounds or six feet under.
It’s frustrating, and I start to understand a little better why Beth lashes out at me when other aspects of her life are imploding.
I might not be a teenager, but I am externalising my pain.
I snatch up the phone, and snap: ‘What?’ I fight back the urge to immediately apologise – he is my boss, after all. But he is also annoying, and really genuinely honestly, a horrible human being.
‘Jane. Finally. I need to talk to you about the Wayman meeting next week. I need you to oversee the catering, as well as manage the IT for the presentation. You know I never understand all that button-pushing nonsense.’
‘I won’t be there, John. I’ll still be on leave.’
A pause, then: ‘Oh. Well, I need you – can’t you just come in for the day?’
‘No, I can’t. I’m in Scotland, and I’m not coming all the way back to London just because you never learned which buttons to press. It’s not rocket science, and anyway, Vivian can help you.’
Vivian is his long-suffering PA, a woman with a neat line in sarcasm and a never-ending wardrobe of pencil skirts. She’s the closest thing I have to a proper friend there, and she’d laugh her perfectly shaped bum off if she could hear me talking to John like this.
‘I’d really rather it was you, Jane. I think I must insist.’
I am now externalising my pain so much I think I might scream at him.
Instead I reply: ‘You can’t insist, John.
I have three weeks’ annual leave held over, you know.
HR keep on at me about taking it. I think I might just stay here – and while I have you, please stop sending me work while I’m away. I’m feeling very… stressed.’
I know how much he hates people who claim to be stressed.
He thinks anxiety is fictional and wellness is the work of the devil.
But he was also recently successfully sued by a former employee for imposing unreasonable demands, and I suspect he’s been fully briefed on what he can and cannot get away with these days.
‘I’m also feeling anxious,’ I add for good measure.
He is silent for a while, and I can imagine the disgusted look on his face.
I know I may well regret this, but right now it feels satisfying – to finally assert myself.
To at last say no. I have never been adept at saying no, and while it’s made me useful at work, it’s also been part of the reason I’m so bloody miserable.
I’ve let myself get eaten alive by this job, and maybe part of me even welcomed it – it made me feel useful as Beth got older and needed me less.
It made me feel valuable in a life where I often struggled to see my own worth.
Enough is enough though. If everything that has underpinned that lack of confidence was based on the lie that Rory’s parents and mine told, then maybe I can change – maybe I can rebuild. It won’t be easy, but if I don’t start with the basics, I don’t stand a chance.
‘I see,’ John finally responds. I think he’d been waiting for me to crumble and backtrack, but this is the new me – and the world can just feck off right now. ‘Well, I’m sorry you feel like that. We’ll discuss it when you’re back in the office.’
With that, he hangs up. I immediately start to tremble a little, the shock of my own defiance finally sinking in. I basically just told the chief exec of the company I work for to go stuff himself. It feels liberating, but also completely terrifying.
I quickly get up, and mooch around gathering my toiletries.
No point lying in bed worrying about it.
It’s done now. I head to the bathroom to do my ablutions, taking the world’s quickest shower.
I usually just wrap a towel around myself and wander around until I’m dry, but not today.
Not with the risk of bumping into Rory. I harbour no schoolgirl fantasies about us getting back together, but I also don’t want him to see my wobbly bits.
It is fascinating, though, seeing his stuff – sniffing his shampoo, seeing his razor, smiling at the basket of shells and pebbles on the windowsill.
Even in here, there are things of beauty.
Me not included, I think, grimacing as I catch myself in the mirror.
Dressed, I pop my head into Beth’s room. She is asleep, but rouses when I sit on the end of the bed and poke her. ‘I’m going into the village,’ I tell her. ‘Want to come?’
‘No. Bugger off.’
I’d fully expected this, but it still makes me laugh when she tries to kick me off the bed. Hah. Nice try – I’m way too hefty. ‘I’ll bring the car back up later,’ I say. ‘And then we can decide what we’re going to do.’
Her head emerges from the sheets, hair ruffled, eyes gunked up. Still beautiful.
‘I want to stay here,’ she says firmly. ‘We said we would, and it’s a dick move to change your mind now.’
A dick move. Right. Of course, she knows nothing about what’s going on beneath the surface, and now is not the time to tell her. I have no idea if Rory and I can navigate our way through this maze, and until I do I will not commit to staying.
‘I guess I must be a dick then,’ I say lightly. ‘See you later – I’ve got my phone if you need me. If you leave the house, be careful.’
‘Why? Do you think I’ll get kidnapped?’
‘I live in hope. Behave yourself, okay?’