Page 29 of I Know How This Ends

But the vision has deflated me, as if the cloud I’ve been floating on has condensed into rain. By the time I leave the house

know it’s ridiculous—I can’t expect every vision to be a lovely one—but this feels like a big deal. I don’t want to spend the next nine years being hated. I definitely

don’t want to wear a “costume” or have “catchphrases.”

I one hundred percent don’t want any kind of pet.

Plus the sheer frequency of these visions seems to be speeding up, and it’s a concern. What happens next? Are they going to start crowding together

until I’m just sitting in an armchair, staring into the distance, dribbling into whatever the hell I’ve started wearing? I

don’t think that’s a gift I want; no wonder Macbeth ’s witches look so haggard.

I’ve just returned home for a long bath—attempting to ignore yet another concerned call from my mother—when the doorbell rings.

I rack my brain with all the possible options of who it could be: Eve or Jules. Blimey, I should really start expanding my

social circle.

“One second!” Dripping, I grab the first towel I see. “Hang on!”

The doorbell goes again. Slightly panicked, I shuffle with wet feet a lot faster, very aware that my towel is not really doing

what it’s designed to do, in either drying or covering.

Doesn’t matter; they’ve already seen everything.

“ Wait ,” I say as the bell goes again and I drop the towel while attempting to open the front door. “Jesus Christ, patience , people.”

Barely covered, I stare at Polly standing on the welcome mat, polished and smart in a crisp white shirt and black leggings.

She laughs and I abruptly realize I’m still wearing the bright green face mask I thought I’d be enjoying in private.

“What an impressive early-morning routine,” she grins. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

“And yet you’re here,” I retort, instinctively prickly. I pull my towel down a little and end up exposing too much on top.

“On a Saturday. Ringing my doorbell without sending a text first and waking me up, should I actually be asleep.”

“Sorry.” She doesn’t look sorry. “I couldn’t wait.”

All Polly’s Zen-like calmness has gone. I look down in surprise: she’s bouncing on her tiptoes like a small kid turning up

at a birthday party. Any residual irritation evaporates. It’s not her fault I’m grumpy—it’s the visions, and also probably

too much sex and not enough sleep.

“What’s happened?” My stomach spins. “Is it my Instagram page?”

They’ve blocked me for reprehensible behavior; they’re suing me for fraud. I’m minutes away from being dragged out of my new

flat in nothing but what appears to be a hand towel.

“Nope!” Polly smiles. “You’ve stopped losing followers.”

I blow out in relief. “That sounds good?”

“Oh yes.” She nods. “We’ve put a halt to it, stopped the leak, so to speak. Unlike my bladder after kids. But that’s not what

I’m here about.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Is this the kind of conversation I want to have naked?”

“Probably not.” Polly laughs again. “Sorry. Put some clothes on and come next door.” She starts bouncing down the path, then

pauses and turns. “You know what, I haven’t felt this excited about work for ages. See you in a minute.”

“Right,” I say faintly. “I guess I’ll get dressed, then.”

“Hello!” Polly swings her door open and beams. “Come in! I’ve made coffee. You look like you need one.”

“Rude,” I say flatly.

“You’re welcome.” My neighbor grins, and I grin back: she gets me. “Sorry for the mess,” she adds automatically, gesturing

at her ridiculously spotless kitchen. “Three kids under nine, it’s practically a circus.”

I look around curiously: the room is sophisticated but full of warmth, not unlike Polly herself. Beautifully daubed children’s

paintings are stuck to the fridge in colors that exactly match the decor of pale greens and pinks. I briefly wonder if she

gave the children a color palette before they got too creative, or whether they’re so well trained that they created tonal

pictures of their own accord.

“So what’s going on?” I take the seat she’s pulled out. “My curiosity is piqued.”

“I went for dinner last night with an old friend from university,” Polly says, taking the seat opposite me. “And I mentioned

you.”

“You told them your insane neighbor is having a mental breakdown and is starting random fires in the garden at illegal times

of night?”

“Well, yes.” She smiles. “But then I told her who you were.”

I blink. “Who am I?”

“Margot the Meteorologist,” she says slowly, excitement mounting. “I said I’d taken on a bit of freelance work to help your

brand and she got really excited. Her kids watch your videos too. They’re obsessed and have become weather fanatics, making their own little weather

stations out of plastic bottles and pointing out cloud names and whatnot.”

I nod, slightly embarrassed: the plastic bottle was an early video. I was having a particularly wobbly day and the adult comments

were not very kind.

“Right...” I say slowly. “That’s cool. But I’m not sure what—”

“Margot, she’s really high up in the BBC.”

Polly sits back and watches my blank face in amusement as I struggle to join the dots.

“To be clear, I already knew this.” She grins at my confusion. “Hence arranging a dinner with her straight after seeing you.

I’d been thinking about your page, and your next step seemed obvious. Charlie—that’s her name by the way, Charlotte Taylor—she

agrees. We both think there’s a hole in the market for a children’s weather show fronted by a highly trained meteorologist

with a gift for making it exciting and fun.”

I frown. “Which would be...”

“You,” Polly confirms. “Potentially, yes. Obviously you’d have to meet her, we’d have to discuss how it would work. I’d come

on specifically to build your brand, which would be super exciting for me too. But this is just the first step.”

I stare at her. “I can’t be on television.”

“Why not?” She calmly pours me more coffee, which I immediately swig as fast as physically possible. “You’re already making

videos. It’s just a different format.”

“But...” I frown. I only did it out of vengeance and spite doesn’t sound very professional. “I’m not very good .”

“You are,” Polly says firmly. “Sod the adults, it’s the kids who love you. Your excitement about the weather is contagious,

and you explain meteorology in a clear, bright way that really seems to catch their imaginations. Don’t you want to ignite

the minds of an entire generation of budding meteorologists?”

I scowl slightly. “Not particularly, no.”

Polly laughs. “Yes, you do. Bet you didn’t see this coming, huh?”

For a second, I wonder if she knows about my visions, then realize she’s talking meteorologically, which is a relief.

“I need to think about it,” I say slowly, standing up so I can anxiously start circling the kitchen like a tiger in a cage.

“I’m not sure that it’s really... me.”

I’m not entirely sure what me is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that .

“I think it could be.” She smiles as I turn and circle back in the opposite direction. “At least think about it. Think how fun it could be.”

I swallow: think how many kids would be watching me screw up.

“Does she know about...” I pause by the fridge and stare blankly at the beautifully color-coordinated daubing. “You know.

My fraudulent behavior and huge loss of followers and sponsors?”

“Oh,” Polly flicks a hand, “it’s no big deal, Margot. Seriously. You got conned too. The internet just overreacted, as usual.”

I frown, still staring at the fridge paintings. I’m not going to go back to the Met Office, and I’m definitely running out

of steam on Instagram, if I ever really had any to start with. “I suppose that—”

I stop. My stomach goes cold.

In the bottom corner of the freezer door, wonky and presumably stuck there by very small hands, is a photograph. In it, Polly

is beaming at the camera in a green Barbour jacket and wellies—very aspirational—and is covered in three pretty, fair-haired

children as if they’re climbing a tree. Next to her is an extremely handsome man, smiling for the camera. It’s a man I’ve

seen before. A man I had dinner with a couple of weeks ago.

There is no possible way this is happening: the statistical odds are just too low.

“Oh!” Polly gets up to stand next to me. “Not the best photo—look how windswept I am. I think one of the kids stole it from

Pete.”

I blink at the man again. “Pete?”

“Peter, my husband. Really rare to get a photo of him—he’s normally behind the camera, directing us like he’s David Bailey,

not an accountant.”

Peter—or John , as I know him—smiles guilelessly back at us, as if he’s not writing LOL all over his online dating profiles while his wife

makes his house beautiful and single-handedly holds their lives together. Bristol is a relatively small place: this man has

balls of steel. The absolute audacity of him.

Also, I was wrong: “John” doesn’t have two children.

He has three. My bad.

“Um.” I’m breathing way too fast. What the hell do I do? “So, he’s... an accountant?”

I’m stalling, but at least it appears everything Peter said wasn’t a lie .

“Yup.” Polly becomes abruptly aware that I’m having an existential crisis right next to her. “Are you OK, Margot? The news

about the show was too big, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry to lob it at you like that. It’s just... when I think about how happy

it makes me when my kids get excited about something other than cartoons... We could do that but for millions .”

Nope: this is all too much.

I’m desperately trying to do the math. Nearly half a million people live in Bristol, but only 13,000 in Clifton. Roughly halve

that for men, then narrow that pool down to those online dating, in my age range, and suddenly it’s not that improbable I’d

accidentally go on a date with my married neighbor.

But why have I never seen Peter before? I’ve only been here a few months, but still—we’d have crossed paths at some point, right? Except I rarely go

outside, I never look out of the window, and if he works late, and I’m hiding in my bedroom...

“Ah.” I take a deep breath and step backward. “I just need to process, I think.”

More importantly, I need to work out what I’m going to do. I need to tell her, right? That’s the right thing to do. The morally

upstanding thing to do. But how do you casually drop that kind of life-changing information into a conversation? Hey, so I know we’ve met twice, but your husband tried to have sex with me last week. Biscuit?

I don’t think our budding friendship and/or work relationship could survive.

Plus, I really like Polly. She’s sweet, calm and polished in a way I have always known I will never be, even in infinite shades of navy. It’s

been so lovely connecting with someone new for the first time in years. I don’t want to hurt her.

“Of course!” Polly opens her hands out. “Just promise me you’ll think about it?”

“Oh,” I say slowly, tightening my dressing-gown belt until it feels like I’m being cut in half. I feel grotty. Sullied. That

bad, bad man. This poor, poor woman. “I’ll be thinking about it, I can promise you that.”