Chapter 12
Peter
By late Saturday morning, Mandy is still in my cottage.
She has not said she is staying.
She has not said she is leaving either.
Breakfast is over. The plates are stacked beside the sink, the toast has been judged “legally concerning”, and Mandy is standing in my kitchen wearing one of my jumpers with the sleeves pulled over her hands.
I try not to look too pleased about any of that.
I fail.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“That was not a nothing look.”
“I was wondering whether to replace the toaster.”
“Growth.”
“I said wondering.”
“Less growth.”
She picks up her mug and leans against the worktop as if she does this all the time. As if she wakes up in my bed, steals my clothes, insults my appliances and drinks tea in my kitchen every Saturday.
The thought should not make me as happy as it does.
“What do you usually do on a Saturday?” she asks.
“Avoid DIY. Consider laundry. Sometimes achieve neither.”
“Ambitious.”
“What about you?”
“Admin. Washing. Farmers’ market if I can be bothered.”
“You don’t cook.”
“That does not stop me eating apples and raw carrots like a woman with an extremely low-effort health plan.”
“I respect the system.”
“It has kept me alive so far.”
“For a doctor, your standards are worrying.”
“My patients get the good advice. I get caffeine and supermarket hummus.”
Her mouth twitches.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
There is a question sitting between us. What now? Not in the enormous life-altering sense, although that one is hovering somewhere nearby being unhelpful. Just what now, this morning, in this cottage, after breakfast.
Mandy looks towards the sitting room. “Do you have television?”
“I am wounded.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I have smart TV, if you must know.”
“Good. Let’s stream some Homes Under the Hammer?”
“It is like you know my soul.”
“No one wants to know your soul before midday.”
“Harsh.”
She shrugs with a grin.
So we watch Homes Under the Hammer.
No discussion. No plan. No awkward negotiation of whether this counts as domestic. I turn on the telly, she folds herself into one corner of the sofa, and I sit at the other end with enough space between us to satisfy whatever rule she thinks we are still obeying.
It lasts eight minutes.
Then she tucks her feet under the blanket.
By the second property, her feet are against my thigh.
By the third, she is arguing with a man from Kent who has bought a terraced house with rising damp and described it as “full of potential”.
“That wall is green,” she says.
“He seems optimistic.”
“He seems delusional.”
“Estate agents call that vision.”
“Doctors call that mould.”
I laugh, and she smiles without looking at me.
That is the dangerous part.
Not the sex. Not her turning up in the rain. Not even the way she admitted she needed me and then tried to stuff the words back into a safer shape.
This.
Her on my sofa. My jumper on her body. Rain sliding down the windows. Her outrage over damp plaster and bad renovation budgets. The ease of it.
Ordinary life, quietly making its case.
Halfway through the episode, she stands.
“Just going to the loo.”
“Top of the stairs.”
“I remember.”
Of course she does.
My brain, traitorous little bastard, immediately does something with that.
When she comes back down, she stops in the sitting room doorway.
The change in her is small. A tightness around her mouth. One hand resting at her stomach before she drops it.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
Then she grimaces.
“No.”
I sit up a little. “No?”
“I have started my period.”
“Oh.”
I stop there because every sentence that presents itself sounds either too casual, too concerned or like something a man says shortly before a woman decides he should live outdoors.
Mandy watches me watching her.
“It was not due until Monday,” she says.
“Right.”
“Which you obviously did not need to know.”
“I am not taking notes.”
“Good.”
A pause.
“Although you did look briefly as if you might.”
“I was deciding what facial expression was safest.”
Her mouth twitches. “And you chose startled bank manager?”
“It is my most reliable setting.”
That gets a small laugh, but it does not quite clear the awkwardness. She folds her arms, then unfolds them, one hand brushing her stomach before she drops it.
“I do not have anything with me.”
“No problem. What do you need?”
She looks at me for a second, as if checking whether I am about to become useless.
“Sanitary towels,” she says. “With wings.”
“Wings,” I reply like I know what that means.
“Not tampons.”
“Not tampons.”
“Tampons give me contact dermatitis.”
The minute the words are out, she closes her eyes.
For a long second, she says nothing.
“Wonderful,” she says eventually. “Excellent. I have been in your house less than twenty-four hours and have already said the words contact dermatitis in relation to my vagina.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
Hard.
“That was useful information,” I say.
Her eyes open. “Do not be kind. It makes it worse.”
“I was not being kind. I was being practical.”
“You look like a man trying very hard not to react.”
“I am succeeding.”
“You are not.”
“I am succeeding internally.”
Her mouth twitches despite herself.
“With wings,” she says, recovering some dignity by force. “And not pantyliners. Actual pads.”
“With wings. Actual pads. No tampons.”
“Good. We shall now never speak of this again.”
I pick up my keys from the side table. “Anything else?”
She hesitates.
Not long, but long enough.
“Mandy.”
“Extra absorbent,” she says, briskly. “Not the enormous night-time ones unless there is no choice, but not the tiny, useless ones either.”
“Extra absorbent, but not mattress-sized.”
Her mouth twitches. “That is alarmingly accurate.”
“I am learning.”
“Ibuprofen too, please.”
“Ibuprofen.”
“And...” She stops.
I wait.
She rolls her eyes at herself. “If they sell cheap knickers, get those too.”
“Plain?”
Her eyes open wider. “Obviously plain.”
“I was checking.”
“Were you planning on novelty ones?”
“I was not planning any part of this.”
“Black if they have them. Or whatever. Nothing lace. Nothing with a cartoon character on the front.”
“I will avoid cartoons.”
“And do not get anything that says something on the waistband.”
“What would it say?”
“I do not know. Love. Angel. Juicy. Something awful.”
“I am now frightened of the underwear aisle.”
“Good. Fear will keep you alert.”
I put my coat on. “Right.”
I take one step towards the hall, then stop.
She is standing near the sofa, still too pale, still trying to look as if this is merely a minor logistical inconvenience and not a deeply annoying bodily ambush.
I go back.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“That is never true.”
“No.”
I bend and kiss her.
Just once. Soft. No heat behind it, not because I do not want it, but because this is not that kind of moment. It is a kiss before going to the shop. A Saturday kiss. An ordinary one.
Which makes it dangerous in an entirely different way.
When I lift my head, she looks slightly startled.
Then her mouth curves. “You are very committed to this errand.”
“I take instructions well.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I take yours well.”
“Debatable.”
I smile and leave before I say something too honest.
I am halfway down the hallway when she calls after me.
“Size twelve.”
I stop with my hand on the front door.
“Sorry?”
“Knickers,” she says from the living room. “Size twelve.”
I look back.
She has turned scarlet.
“Right,” I say.
I open the door. “Size twelve. No cartoons. No slogans. Fear will keep me alert.”
“Good.”
The rain has softened into mist by the time I get to the car.
I briefly consider the chemist, then picture the tiny high-street shelves and Mandy’s last instruction about plain knickers. No. That is not a village chemist errand. That is a Sainsbury’s errand.
I drive towards the big supermarket between St Claire and Settle, telling myself this is a perfectly normal thing to do on a Saturday.
Which it is.
Technically.
Inside, the supermarket is bright, busy and impersonal enough to make me feel safer than I deserve.
I find the sanitary towels first and spend longer than is dignified reading packets.
There are wings, which is encouraging. There are also enough variations to suggest the entire aisle has been designed as an exam I have not revised for.
I choose two options that look most likely to meet the brief, add ibuprofen, then head to the underwear section with the fixed expression of a man trying not to look like he has wandered into the wrong chapter of his own life.
The knickers are easier.
Three-pack. Black. Plain. Size twelve. No slogans. No cartoon characters. No terrifying declarations of mood.
I put them in the basket with more relief than underwear has any right to inspire.
On the way to the tills, I pass the chocolate.
I stop.
Then I add a bar of dark chocolate to the basket.
A few steps later, I add Maltesers too.
Then fruit pastilles, because by this point the basket already has a theme, and apparently that theme is panic with sugar.
I am almost at the self-checkout when I hear my name.
“Peter?”
Of course.
I turn.
Alexandra stands by the greeting cards, holding a packet of envelopes and a bottle of fabric conditioner. Her eyes move to my basket.
Then stay there.
For too long.
“Lexi,” I say.
“Peter.”
The supermarket carries on around us. Trolleys rattle. A child complains about bananas. Somewhere behind me, a self-checkout announces an unexpected item in the bagging area with the confidence of a machine that has never known shame.
Alexandra walks closer.
Her eyebrows lift.
“That,” she says, “is a very specific shop.”
“It is.”
“Are you going to explain it?”
“I was hoping not.”
“Interesting.”
“Not very.”
She looks into the basket again. “Sanitary towels, ibuprofen, chocolate, sweets and women’s underwear.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds odd.”
“It is odd.”
“It is practical.”
“For whom?”
A sensible man would have prepared for this possibility. A sensible man would have chosen a small, believable lie and stuck to it.
I, unfortunately, am me.
“A guest,” I say.
Alexandra blinks. “A guest?”
“Yes.”
“What guest?”