Chapter 11
Chris came back early from work and dropped his bag down by the door as usual, and Polly held herself back from saying anything.
It was a symbol that nothing had changed and never would. And when he asked her if she’d had a “Good day?” she replied that
it had been fine. There was no point in telling him that she was now unemployed because she’d flung a cup of coffee in her
boss’s face, and risk Chris lifting a line from the Jeremy Twatson book of sayings by asking her if she had PMS.
“Weather forecast is good for tomorrow,” Chris said, kicking off his work boots. She wouldn’t be picking them up and putting
them neatly with the other shoes again, and that thought came with a joyous spark of relief.
“Sunshine until about two,” he went on.
“Great.” Though it wouldn’t matter, she thought. The beige sack couldn’t look good in snow, rain, or a blistering heatwave.
“Cuppa?” Chris said, not waiting for her answer but getting two mugs out. Polly couldn’t remember the last time he’d put on
the kettle.
She looked at his back as he stood waiting for it to boil and she was hit by a wave of sadness from left field. She hoped
he wouldn’t be hurt. She hoped he’d miss her enough to realize his mistakes and not carry them forward to a new relationship.
His ego would be bruised and he’d have to learn how to operate a duster, but he’d live.
“You don’t take sugar, do you?” he asked.
After eight years he still wasn’t sure. That dried up any internal tears of sympathy for him fast. It was pathetic, their whole relationship had been pathetic, a disaster, and if she hadn’t put so much effort into trying to keep it from sinking, it would have drowned and died years before it had.
Her tea was watery with way too much milk in it when he brought it over to the table.
“Should be a good day, I’m looking forward to it,” said Chris. He blew out his cheeks. “Thirty years—can you imagine being
with someone for all that time?”
“It would be lovely to be with someone for all that time and still want to marry them all over again,” Polly replied.
“Some people just rub along in their own way, don’t they?”
“Yes,” she answered, wondering if he meant Camay and Ward, or did he think that’s what they were doing, rubbing along , living their separate lives under one roof and it was an adequate arrangement?
“Camay said your dress is nice,” Chris went on.
Polly didn’t say that it would be an ideal dress to wear if she tumbled out of a plane because she’d be assured of a safe
landing.
“So what are your plans for tonight then?” she asked him after a pretend sip of tea. It was awful, like milky witch pee.
“Couple of drinks with Jabba and a takeaway probably.” His shoulders rippled with a shiver. “It’s cold in here.” He got up
to switch on the central heating and give the rooms a blast of warmth. He must have been frozen solid to do such a thing.
He almost never had it on unless there were icicles hanging from the picture rails.
“We could do with a holiday, don’t you think? Somewhere hot like Greece or Italy.”
Polly swallowed. What had brought this on? Could some psychic part of him sense what was about to happen and had slammed into
reverse thrust?
“Remember that lovely Greek island we went to once, where the cats were all over the place and you were buying tins of tuna for them?” He laughed and Polly recalled that he didn’t laugh at the time.
He said she was barking. He’d moaned all the way through those ten days that it was too hot, too expensive, too full of schoolkids in the hotel pool, too many fish in the sea, too many towels reserving sunbeds, too many olives in his salad, too many Greeks.
“Yes,” she said, pushing out a polite smile.
“Anyway, I suppose I’d better get my stuff together,” said Chris, exiting his rose-colored memories with a loaded sigh, and
she wondered what it was loaded with.
Half an hour later he came down the stairs hefting a holdall with his suit carrier over his arm.
“Ward’s on his way to pick me up, so I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said, smiling at her, and she remembered when that smile
used to turn on a light inside her. “Break a leg.”
“Break a leg?” she questioned.
“Or whatever it is you’re supposed to say to bridesmaids,” he replied awkwardly.
She was sure it wasn’t that. “Hope you have a good time tonight.”
“Cheers.”
A car pipped outside. He stepped toward her and kissed her cheek and she smelled his aftershave, but it no longer did to her
what it used to, like his smile.
She followed the sound of the BMW driving off, and when it dissolved to nothing she let go of the breath she didn’t realize
she’d been hanging on to. It was all so close now, that “I’ve got something I need to tell you” moment, and even the thought
of it tasted bitter in her mouth. A feeling of dread overcame her. It was so much easier to comply with the devil you knew
than to stand up to him: The nearer it came, the scarier it felt. She went to the fridge and poured herself a very large glass
of chenin blanc. She wasn’t one to turn to alcohol hoping it would smooth out her life, because it hadn’t done her mother
much good, but at that moment, she wished it would have a go for her. She just needed to get on with things and not think
too hard.
She had some money in her savings account that would help greatly, but it wasn’t a fortune.
It should have been. When her mother died and Polly was going through her paperwork, she’d found that her uncle had left her a substantial sum, which her mother had “managed” since Polly had been a minor.
Polly never saw a penny of it; all she had to show for her relationship with Ed and Rina was the wedding ring threaded onto her necklace, and her sweet memories of them.
She gulped down half the wine and headed upstairs to pack.
She put as many suitcases and bags in her trunk as it would take.
The rest were stored neatly in her upstairs sitting room because it wasn’t very wise to leave a car on the street with boxes and bags in full view.
Everything of true importance was in her biggest handbag: money, phone, bank cards, passport, driving license, documents, her few bits of jewelry.
In the event of a dire emergency, if she had this bag with her, she could cut and go without anything else and survive.
When bedtime came, the only thing hanging in her wardrobe was the beige bridesmaid’s dress. She put her head on her pillow,
closed her eyes, and tried to power down by visualizing her near future. In forty-eight hours, her head would be on a pillow
in a little guesthouse by the sea. There would be a lot to sort for the longer term, of course: a new job, a new house, wherever
they might be. But for the next couple of weeks at least, she had sea air and the song of seagulls to look forward to.