Chapter 56
Polly opened the door to Chris’s house and her own loneliness rushed out at her with the quiet. For the past months, since
she had woken up in hospital, she had been guided by her feelings and instincts; they steered her through the seas of uncertainty
in which she found herself. If common sense had been her only pilot, she knew she wouldn’t have done what she did today, and
she was rather glad it had been forced into a corner and told to shut up. She hadn’t exactly handed in a formal resignation,
but she reckoned there would be no future letter asking her to have a meeting with HR, because there could be no excusing
this time what had just occurred. She hadn’t just blotted her copybook; she’d ripped it up and chucked all the pieces on the
fire, but she’d sleep more soundly in her bed for doing it. Not the little bed upstairs; she wasn’t sure which bed she’d be
in tonight, but she’d spent her last night in this house, and this time she wouldn’t be back.
She’d picked up the hire van on the way home after dropping off the hire car she’d been using. She arranged for the swap to
happen today, to follow the throwing of Ciaoissimo to the wolves, for the people she loved. Now that was done, she was free
to help herself. It hadn’t taken her long to pack up her things, just as she had done twelve weeks ago to the day. It felt
a lifetime away, because it was really. So much had happened in those three months, both bad and good, but she’d had to be
lost to be found.
When Chris came in from work that night, he wondered whose white van was parked outside and why Polly’s blue hire car wasn’t in its spot.
She was in though, thank goodness, because it always put him in a bad mood if there was no one home before him.
The light was on in the kitchen and she was sitting at the table with a jacket on.
He couldn’t smell any food cooking, and he thought that if she was going to announce they were going out for dinner, she’d be sadly disappointed that he wouldn’t be joining her.
“What’s going on?” he asked. He dropped his bag on the floor in that same place, and if ever a single, tiny, lingering doubt
remained that she was doing the right thing, it was snuffed out there on the spot.
“I’m leaving you,” Polly said, no regret, no recrimination in her voice; it was delivered as a straight fact. “I wanted to
tell you to your face.”
Chris stood there arms akimbo, his expression pure What the hell now? “Is this because I haven’t booked a cruise or chucked presents at you since you’ve come home?”
“No, Chris.” It was because he’d been with her for eight years and he didn’t know how she took a cup of tea or that she didn’t
like dark chocolate and he dumped things expecting her to shift them. It was because he’d never walked with her barefoot across
sand or held his arm out for her to link. And it was because he had never taken her face between his hands. She was leaving
him because he didn’t see that the little things were important. The bad little things and the good little things.
“Polly, love...” A sigh of exasperation from someone who absolutely didn’t need this after a hard day’s graft. “See sense.
Give it time for us to get back to how we were. I know you can’t remember properly, but trust me, it was good.”
“I can remember. We are already back to how we were, Chris, and it really wasn’t.”
“Okay.” A note of desperation in his voice. “Let’s get married then, if that makes you feel more wanted. Properly this time.
You pick your own frock and we’ll go away and do it, just you and me.”
“No, Chris.” She shook her head slowly.
“Look, I’ll go upstairs and change, and then I’ll come down and we’ll talk. Okay? I’ll be five minutes if that. You put the
kettle on, Polly.”
He raced up the stairs, but she wasn’t fooled by his urgency. He didn’t want her; he wanted someone, anyone who would warm up the house with their living presence without having to give back anything in return but illusory promises
and procrastinations. Chris was one of life’s takers, not a giver like his son, like Marielle and Teddy Bonetti. She wasn’t
sure there was a place still waiting for her with them, but there was nothing for her here.
She took out the notepad and pen that lived in the drawer in the table. Then she turned to a page and wrote:
Take good care of yourself and be happy, Chris.
Love, Polly xx
She tore out the sheet and propped it up against the salt pot; then she stood and took a last look around at the kitchen with
the broken tiles, the missing slat at the window, the incomplete dining set, and the big work bag in the middle of the floor.
“Goodbye, Polly Potter,” she said.
Then she opened the back door and walked out into the night air.