That Girl From Nowhere (36 page)

‘Are you sure you don’t mind not having anyone here?’ I asked him.

He kissed under my right ear lobe. ‘Not at all,’ he whispered before raising the camera on my phone above us. ‘Say “nuptials”!’ he said with a laugh.

‘Nuptials!’ I said, and grinned as he imprinted the image of our special day into the space in my phone. Password-protected so no one would ever know.

I’d heard Sienna in the living room watching CBeebies on her own so we’d had to creep out of the flat so she wouldn’t see Uncle Smitty, as she called him. Outside my building, we both stand for a moment and stare at the sea. ‘This is such an amazing view,’ he says. ‘When I was sat out here last night I had a real sense of peace and being connected to something huge.’

‘This way,’ I say to him. I turn towards the main road, intending to head up towards George Street, the main street in Hove. On that small road there are more coffee shops – chains, independents and local chains – than any other type of shop.

‘I saw a café along the seafront. Let’s go there.’

‘No, let’s go up to George Street.’

‘Why? That café looked cool. I’m sure it’s open now. It’d be nice to talk and see the sea. Ha! See what I did there?’

My face musters a smile. ‘No, let’s just go to George Street. There are so many more places. Some of them have nice views, especially if you like to watch somewhere come to life.’

‘Look, what’s the problem with—’

Seth has finally faced me, seen the uncomfortable manner in which I bite at my lower lip, keep my eyes on the uneven black-grey surface of the car park where less than twelve hours ago he watched me kiss another man.

‘He works there,’ Seth states.

I nod.
Owns it, actually
, I should say.
Makes brilliant coffee in the most brilliant cups.

‘I might have known.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I asked.’

‘It means I might have known he’d be someone you see every day.’

‘That doesn’t even make sense – I see the postman every day, are you expecting something to happen between me and him? Or are you calling me a slut again?’

When he doesn’t reply, I say, ‘Well, are you?’

He shakes his head.

‘Well then, stop saying things that don’t make sense or imply you think I’m a slut. I haven’t slept with anyone since you. And even if I had, it’d be no business of yours.’ I sound far more indignant than I am: I’m single, we’re separated, our marriage is over as far as I’m concerned, but guilt is gambolling through me, leaving a sense that I have betrayed him. ‘And I don’t even drink coffee every day,’ I add for good measure.

‘George Street it is,’ he eventually says.

My unwarranted sense of guilt and betrayal makes every step slow, laborious and painful as we walk together to the place where our marriage is going to end properly.

We find our places in the café just at the bottom of George Street. It is old-fashioned on the outside with double-bay tinted glass windows, but the height of modernity on the inside: brilliant white walls with primary colour picture panels containing bright, bold prints in each of the picture panels, and white, distressed-wood floors.

It’s mainly populated by people who are coming in for a coffee on the way to work, or those who have come early with their laptops to stake out a space to work for the day. Seth pulls out a low striped fabric-covered bucket chair for me at the back of the café, then turns towards the counter.

‘The usual?’ he asks.

‘I suppose so,’ I reply. I’m not sure what the usual is any more. Everything feels like it is in flux, nothing set; all that I knew or thought I knew is fluid and changeable. He returns a few minutes later, after I’ve watched him queuing, after he has constantly looked over at me, as though checking I am still there and won’t be running away again. ‘
Where would I run to?
’ I should have called over to him. ‘
It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.
’

He lowers himself into his seat, slowly, dragging the moments out before we need to speak. I have no idea where to start with the process of unravelling. How do we make sense of any of it? It’s like a huge, sheer rock face: the summit so high it’s not easily visible to the naked eye, and I –
we –
need to climb it without any safety equipment. It’s possible, doable, but dangerous, particularly since it is so unknown. Seth and I used to talk all the time. About anything, everything, it was our ‘thing’. We talked and listened to each other. Now, I don’t know what to say; which words to choose to start the conversation.

‘How about we start with this,’ he states. From the side pocket of his trousers he produces a rectangular box and slides it across the table to me. I knew I shouldn’t have bought him a pair of those trousers. I wear combats and workmen’s trousers because it allows me to carry all sorts of things in the various pockets, my own wearable toolbox. He coveted them so passionately I finally bought him a pair. And now look: they’ve let him bring that thing here without me having a clue he was carrying it. What’s that expression about no good deed going unpunished?

I stare at that box, long and oblong with coloured writing and a coloured design. It was the most discreet one on sale, that’s why I chose it. Hid it amongst my other shopping and avoided eye contact with the person who served me. Not that they’d care, but I had cared.

‘There’s only one left in the box,’ he states. ‘I’m assuming there were two when you bought it.’

My gaze goes from the box to him. Calm. He’s calm. That’s good.

‘Here we go,’ the waitress trills. She’s that 1950s vintage Brighton-type with her spotted scarf tied in a bow around the front of her glossy black bun, her lips coated in bright red lipstick, her foundation overly pale and her eyes heavily made up. ‘One café mocha, extra shot of chocolate, and one double-strong latte.’ We each indicate which is ours and continue to stare at one another as she sets the large white cups in front of us. From the corner of my eye I see her notice the box on the table and she visibly winces as it crosses her mind that we’re not going to be having a nice coffee and chat. She winces again, gritting her teeth, then quietly withdraws. When the crowd has died down she’s going to stand behind her counter, pretending to polish her coffee machine while watching how this story plays out.

‘So, one test instead of two?’ Seth asks when it’s obvious I’m not going to restart
that
conversation.

‘I used one just before I came down here.’ The box fascinates me. Why didn’t I throw it away instead of hiding it? I remember dashing out of the bathroom into the corridor when I heard his motorbike pull up outside. I remember thinking it would be the worst thing in the world to be caught with that box so instead of shoving it into my back pocket with the test, I hid it in one of my packing boxes. Why? And why didn’t I take it away when I went back to collect as many possessions as I could? Did I want to get caught?

‘What was the result?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I was so freaked out by everything that I stopped down the road from the flat and threw it into the nearest bin without checking.’

He frowns, the action crinkling his forehead, while he calculates something. ‘That day at the flat, that’s what you were doing?’

‘Yes.’

Obviously the more important thought hits him then: ‘Have you done a test since?’

I sigh before I’m forced to shake my head.

‘So you could be … You could be pregnant right now?’

‘No, I’m not. Which is why I didn’t need to look. I’d know if I was and I’m not.’

‘Have you had a period?’

I sigh again. Stupid box. If it wasn’t for this stupid box this conversation wouldn’t be going this way. I wouldn’t be on the back foot and having to think about this again. No, I haven’t had a proper period since before I left Leeds, but I was incredibly stressed, grief-stricken about Dad and the break up with Seth. I was moving. My mother decided to move in with me. Any one of those things would normally have stressed me out enough to make a period late, but all of them together? It’d be a miracle if my body got itself right again enough to have a period in a decade or so, let alone three months. I glare harder at the box. This stupid box that’s caused all this trouble.

‘Clem? Have you had a period since you took the test?’

‘I am not pregnant,’ I state. I pull the box across the table towards me, drop it in my bag to give me a way to hide my face. ‘I will do this test later, if it makes you happy. But I am not pregnant.’ I was pregnant once when I was seventeen as the result of a split condom and it felt completely different to this. Admittedly that pregnancy lasted for about two days until nature decided to take another course and spare me having to make the decision that my birth mother made, but my body felt different then to how it feels now.

‘Would you tell me if you were?’

‘Yes, Seth, I would tell you. What sort of thing is that to ask?’

My husband reclines in his seat, pushing his legs out before he runs his hands over his haircut. ‘Have you not been living the life where you left without an explanation?’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t have asked if you hadn’t just ended our relationship without talking to me properly.’

‘Marriage. I ended our marriage. We’re married.’

‘I know we’re married.’

‘But no one else does, do they? And why is that? Oh, yes, because of your “
friend
” Nancy.’

Abruptly Seth’s expression changes – worry and fear dance on his features. Now he’s the one on the back foot, uncertain where this conversation is going to take us. What I’m going to say next.

‘Nothing happened with Nancy.’

Liar
, I think.
Liar.
‘Something
always
happens with Nancy.
Always.
’

He tells me I’m right almost straight away. Not with words, but in the way he slides down in his seat and slowly runs the palms of his hands over his temples, trying to massage away the memory of it all.

‘Smitty—’ he begins.

‘I told you what she did to me, Seth,’ I cut in. ‘I told you how she made my childhood a nightmare, how I couldn’t talk to my mother about it because Mum can’t see what she’s like. And you saw what she was like yourself, how she ruined our engagement party, how she’s tried to ruin other stuff, and you still started a secret friendship with her.’

‘I didn’t start it, it sort of happened.’

‘Everything always “sort of happens” with Nancy. That’s what she does. She starts turning up when no one is around, just for a chat.’

‘She wanted me to help her with her website. That was all. And she kept coming over.’

‘Even though she’s been doing her website for years and has even designed stuff for other people?’

‘It all made sense at the time. But thinking back now, I didn’t do much of anything, not even give her design advice. We sat at the computer together, but she did most of it.’

‘And then she starts bringing over the joints and the beers.’

‘It was only the odd joint and beer.’

‘Even though you don’t ever do drugs, and you very rarely drink during the day, especially when you’re meant to be working.’

He rubs at his temples again. ‘But it made sense at the time. We were just hanging out while I was working. And …’

‘And then suddenly she’s confiding in you about her latest man problem, you’re trying to make her feel better by paying her compliments because men have been shit to her all her life and it’s not her, it’s them. Especially Dylan who you’re even more disappointed in because he’s your friend and he’s abandoned his daughter.’

‘But—’

‘Then, because she’s trusted you, it’s not long before you’re telling her stuff that you wouldn’t normally tell anyone.’

‘It didn’t seem so calculated.’

‘Of course it didn’t. She’s been doing it all her adult life. All
my
adult life. She’s tried it on with every boyfriend I’ve ever had. I told you this.’

‘But she just needed a friend. That’s what it felt like.’

‘I know that’s what it felt like. And that’s fine. But what isn’t fine is that when I asked you about it, you lied to me.’

‘How did you find out?’ my husband asks.

‘Apart from finding her hair in our bed?’ He blanches. ‘Yes, I know she got into our bed naked and propositioned you, it’s part of her repertoire. The other way I knew what was going on was that she was writing stuff on her blog that could only have come from you. I started to read it when I found her hair.’ If it’s possible, more colour leeches out of his skin and he is now as white as the floor of the café.

‘She said she wouldn’t tell anyone she’d done that. She seemed more embarrassed than I did when I turned her down and told her to get dressed. She even asked me if I was going to tell you, and when I said yes, she practically begged me not to. I should have known it was too easy when she said she wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘That’s what she does,’ I remind my husband. ‘She gets you into a situation where you go against your better judgement and suddenly she’s got something over you because you’ve been keeping a secret with her.’

‘You believe that I didn’t sleep with her?’

‘Yes. Of course I believe you. I knew you wouldn’t sleep with her, Seth, but it wasn’t about that. It was never about that. I asked you – practically begged you that last night – to tell me. But you wouldn’t. I knew if I started asking questions you’d panic even more and lie and I couldn’t stand that. I only wanted you to be truthful with me. I have trusted you more than anyone else I’ve met in my life, and you lied to me.’

‘I felt like I couldn’t tell you the truth. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. You were in so much pain and I didn’t want to add to it.’

‘You told her we were starting to try for a baby.’ That hurt more than her getting into our bed.

‘She wrote that on her blog?’

‘No. She texted me saying if we were thinking of trying for a baby that I should talk to her about any tips I might need and not to forget the folic acid. On the surface a nice text from one cousin to another, and if I told anyone else about that text they’d all think I was crazy for being upset by it. In reality, it’s her way of telling me that you’re confiding in her.’