Chapter 50
The next morning Sabrina sat in Marielle’s lounge, an untouched mug of coffee in front of her. Teddy had wanted to be there
when she rang Will Barrett, and though he didn’t say so, if her folks were any less than ecstatic about her getting in contact,
he would do everything in his power to keep her here.
He noticed her hand was shaking when she tapped the number into Marielle’s phone, making a mistake the first time. She put
it on loudspeaker so Teddy and Marielle could hear.
The phone connected after two rings.
“Hello,” she said. “This is... Polly.” It sounded wrong, as if she were lying.
“Polly? Oh my God, Polly.” A male voice, familiar to her, a kind voice, thrown into shock. The young man she remembered. A
blur of questions: “Where are you? Are you okay? Where have you been?” Relief coursing down the line like a tidal wave.
Another voice now, older, less effusive but in the same state of disbelief.
“Polly, it’s Chris. We’ve been worried sick about you, love...”
Chris. She saw him in her head as if his voice had lifted him out of a fog. Tall, handsome, short sandy hair.
Teddy asked Sabrina if he might take over because she didn’t know what to say.
He introduced himself and delivered a potted history of the past weeks, that she’d been mugged and in hospital and that her memory was lost but was slowly returning.
He didn’t say that he was falling fast for her and that he had lately discovered he was at his happiest when she was around him.
“What do you mean her memory’s lost?” Chris asked, incredulity in his voice. “Polly, can’t you remember me? We’ve been together
over eight years.”
“Yes, of course, but there are a few gaps.” Which was putting it mildly.
“Can you remember why you took off?”
“No, I can’t remember that.”
“Can you remember the day you left?”
“I can’t remember that at all.” At the other end of the phone, Chris puffed out his cheeks.
Well, that’s handy. He wished he could forget it as well. “It was just a daft misunderstanding, love. We’ve been out of our heads with worry.
We drew a blank with every avenue we looked down trying to find you. We’d just started to up the ante.”
Will gave his father a look.
“It’ll be good to get home,” said Sabrina, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt.
“Aw, it’ll be smashing to have you home. You still on speaker? If so, can you give us an address, Mr. Bontempi?” Chris went
on. “We’ll be setting off soon as we can to pick her up. I can’t believe it. Thank you... so much for everything you’ve
done for her.”
Teddy looked at Sabrina and mouthed the words Is that what you want? to her. And she nodded and forced out a smile that she hoped would convince him it was.
Chris put down the phone. His first thought, though he wouldn’t even have admitted this to his son, was a palpable sense of relief that he wouldn’t have to go to the police station now, as they’d intended to that morning, and admit that his partner had gone missing six weeks ago and he’d just decided to report it.
He couldn’t have scripted this better. Polly was coming home, so all would go back to blessed normality, she couldn’t remember that she’d been planning to leave him, and he wouldn’t end up on one of those TV crime documentaries.
But he did let Will into his second thought.
“What was she doing at the bloody seaside? She must have had some sort of a breakdown.”
“It was a special place for her, Dad. I read about it in her creative writing file,” Will answered. “Maybe she went there
hoping to be happy again because her brain must have been ready for blowing up.”
“I know how she feels. My brain blew up when I got your auntie Camay’s bill for that sodding wedding,” Chris grumbled. “I
knew she hadn’t left me for another man. I don’t think she was leaving me at all, you know. I’ve thought about it and I think
she was just bluffing, wanting to make me sit up and notice her. I know I work too many hours and she must have felt neglected.
But I was hoping the wedding would prove how much I appreciate her.”
“Don’t you mean love ?” asked Will.
“’Course I mean love. She’s obviously had some trouble at work which pushed her over the edge.”
Will almost said that if anything had pushed her over the edge, it was probably turning up at her own wedding which she knew
nothing about, but it would have sounded rather snippy and his dad looked as contrite as he’d ever seen him, so he kept schtum.
“She loves the sea.”
“Does she?” asked Chris.
“Yes, Dad, she does.” Will tried his best to keep the impatience out of his voice and be constructive.
“Maybe when Polly comes home you should start to pay her more attention, or you’re going to lose her for good.
You obviously don’t know her half as well as you think you do.
If you did, you’d have been to the police weeks ago and she’d be home now. ”
“You’re right, son. This has been a massive wake-up call for me,” said Chris adamantly. “Let’s go and get her.”
The three hours that followed, Teddy likened to waiting to be executed. He didn’t want Sabrina to go, but he understood why
she had to. He didn’t want her to be lost anymore, for her own sake, because a cycle of deep frustration and depression was
waiting to pounce on her from around the corner if this continued; he’d read all about it. Whatever it took for her to heal
quickly was what he wished for her. Even if it took her away from them. From him.
Marielle was standing by the window looking out for a large black Mercedes van. It would be here any minute.
“Well,” said Teddy, for the want of anything better. He was never usually stuck for words, but he was now.
“Thank you for everything,” said Sabrina.
“You know that if you’re ever around here, call in and you can have a pizza on the house,” Teddy said, berating himself because
it sounded lame, and it wasn’t what he wanted to say at all, which was, Don’t go.
“Thank you, I’d like that.” Her smile was very watery and wavery. Teddy opened his mouth then to say, “ And if you don’t fit back into the space you left, come back here and we will make you belong with us ,” but his mum got in first.
“I think they’re here, love.”
Teddy and Sabrina both jumped to their feet as Marielle went to the door. The blood inside Sabrina was galloping through her
veins like a racehorse. This was it then, the new beginning, though it felt too much like an end.
In walked the young man Sabrina remembered. This was Will, someone she liked very much, and he bounced forward and embraced her hard.
“Oh Polly, thank God you’re all right, you’re safe,” he said. The man who followed him in hadn’t pushed his son out of the
way to grab her first, as Teddy knew he would have done. Tall, slim, good-looking, stiff. He approached Sabrina more warily.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” he said. “Come here.” He opened his arms and when Sabrina walked into them, Teddy thought
they looked like two robots trying each other on for size. He forced himself to concede that this was not a normal situation;
who knew how to react, who knew what to say or do?
“I’ve missed you so much, Pol,” said Chris. “It’ll be good to have you at home again. I’ve been wandering around in it talking
to myself like a lost soul.”
“Thank you so much,” said Will to Marielle and Teddy in turn. He looked genuinely relieved to see her again.
“We’re just glad we could help,” said Marielle. She wouldn’t have put Chris and Sabrina together had she been matchmaking.
He should have embraced her like his son had, she thought.
“Were the police looking for her?” asked Teddy. He noticed then how father and son flashed a glance at each other.
“Yes, we reported it,” replied Chris, which was a bit of a stretch, seeing as all that had happened so far was Will had had
a casual word with his mate on the force for some advice. But they were going to report it that very morning, so it was sort
of true. “We’ve been worried sick waiting for news.”
Chris hadn’t imagined Mr. Bontempi to look like that. He thought he’d be an old bloke, not someone quite so Italian-looking,
with thicker hair than him, taller than he was even. He put his arm around Polly, a territorial gesture more than an affectionate
one.
“I think our Pol must have had a breakdown,” Chris went on.
“She lost her job and it must have been too much for her head. That job was her world. As she is mine.” He turned to her and smiled, and at that moment Chris meant his words because he really had missed Polly.
She was a good, faithful girl, and living out the rest of his life with her didn’t come with any negatives.
He didn’t enjoy coming in to an empty house of an evening; she was a good cook, she never nagged him to turn the TV over from the footie, and she kept the house clean.
They’d have another stab at the wedding thing, but it would be Gretna Green next time, no guests or fancy stuff, and he’d arrange it himself.
“Would you like something to drink?” Marielle asked her visitors.
“Marielle, I think it might be best if we get straight off,” said Sabrina. She didn’t want a protracted goodbye. If she didn’t
go now, her carefully formulated plan might crumble to dust.
Marielle squeezed the living daylights out of her.
“Don’t be a stranger to us,” she said, releasing her and then pulling her back in for a second hug. She thought it was way
too early for her to leave them, but she shouldn’t interfere.
Chris picked up the suitcase that Marielle had packed Sabrina’s stuff into and stepped toward the door.
Teddy kicked against his urge to crush Sabrina to his big Italian chest. It wouldn’t have been respectful, but more than that,
he was worried he wouldn’t be able to let her go. Instead his hands came up to cup her face and he held it as if it were a
precious thing.
“You know where we are if you ever need us,” he said.
And she couldn’t answer because she had no breath in her body. Such a small gesture, yet it lit up every fiber and tissue,
every nerve and neuron in her body.
Teddy and his mother watched the van drive off and waved and stood long after it was out of sight, and Teddy hoped she would
fit into the Polly Potter–shaped hole she had left. It was going to take some doing, and he wished he could be the one to
hold her when it got too much for her head, as it inevitably would, because it was already too much for his and he needed
her to hold him too.