Page 68 of The Girlfriend
“H EY, MUM, I’M JUST GOING HOME TO CHANGE. IF YOU STILL WANT to talk, I’ll come over. If you’re asleep, though, don’t worry, as I’m pretty tired too. We can always do it tomorrow. I’ll give it half an hour or so, and if you haven’t called me back, I’ll assume you’ve gone to bed.”
“To hear the message again, press two, to save, press—”
She’d missed his call. Furious with herself, Laura checked when the message had arrived. Only twenty minutes ago, thank God. She rang him back straightaway, cursing herself for falling asleep and not hearing the phone.
She’d come back from the hospital and tried to keep busy; then as the day wore on, she found herself getting more anxious.
What if he changed his mind? What if Cherry called him about something and he had to go straight home?
As the evening drew in, she’d tried to distract herself by reading, but eventually the toll of the weeks of sleepless nights had overtaken her and she’d fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber.
She got up from the sofa and paced the room, listening. With every ring, her heart sank further, and then she got the dreaded voice mail.
“Daniel, I missed your call. I still want to meet. You said you’d still be up? Please, can you come over? Maybe you’re in the shower or something . . . let me know. I’ll wait up, so don’t worry about it being late.”
She hung up and was suddenly swamped with a sense of isolation.
She looked at the clock: 10:43. There was still time.
She tried to settle down in front of the TV.
After ten minutes, she got up and made a cup of tea, putting her phone in her trouser pocket; she did not want to miss another call.
It was while she was waiting for the kettle to boil that she realized Moses still wasn’t in.
She opened the bifold doors and, standing safely in the light, still inside the kitchen, banged his food dish on the patio.
He didn’t come running. Instead she heard a faint, pitiful meowing from somewhere at the bottom of the garden.
“Moses?” she called, and he answered with a mewl. Something was wrong.
She’d have to go out to get him. She looked out at the dark garden and cursed her cat.
Switching on the outdoor lights, she could see the path through the middle of the lawn, the builders’ plastic barriers, the stainless-steel water feature, but nothing in the shadows at the far end. The end where Moses’s cries came from.
Laura decided to do it as quickly as possible.
She stepped outside and the coolness of the night enveloped her.
Forging up the garden, with more courage than she was feeling, she kept her mind focused on the job at hand, calling Moses until she could locate his mews.
It wasn’t until she got right to the back, where the trees covered the fence, that she saw him, or rather his paw.
It was batting through a piece of broken fence, trying to move it so he could get through.
Laura bent lower so she could see better. Somehow a piece had been dislodged, but it was swinging back over the hole every time Moses tried to move it. The foxes must have done it, thought Laura, as it was only a few inches wide and she’d seen them coming into the garden from the back.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out,” she said, and pushed the fence section to one side, but for some reason he wouldn’t come through.
“Come on, hurry up.” Laura could feel the shadows start to encircle her, and she wanted to get back inside, but Moses still wouldn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, the hairs prickling on the back of her neck.
She turned to look back to the house and it seemed a long distance away, all of a sudden, across a great expanse of garden that she had to cross.
To the sides, beyond the reach of the lights, it was still dark and she could see nothing.
She reached through the fence and tried to grab Moses by the scruff of his neck, but he was reluctant to be caught; then she finally got him.
She put him on her shoulder, where he started purring uncontrollably.
Laura looked back toward the open door of the house, with the light flooding from the kitchen.
The breeze picked up and the trees rustled behind her.
She shivered. As soon as she ran, she felt as if someone was chasing her.
She clutched Moses and heard herself whimper, didn’t dare look round.
Fear pricked at her skin, escalating as she fled across the garden, until finally she leapt inside and slammed the door shut behind her.
She frantically tried to turn the key, but her hands slipped.
She dropped Moses; then with two hands, she wrenched the key across and heard it lock.
Gasping, she peered through the window. There was no one there.
Her phone beeped in her pocket, startling her. It was from Daniel, a text : Sorry, was in the shower. Coming over now.
Oh, thank God. She almost cried with relief. “Daniel’s coming, Moses.”
Laura hated being in the house alone. It was getting late, and would be even later by the time he arrived—maybe she could even persuade him to stay the night.
She sent a quick reply, then went back into the living room and sat on the edge of the sofa, waiting for him to arrive.
Daniel is coming. She was suddenly swamped with a feeling that was almost euphoric.
Her phone was still in her hand. Was it too late to call Izzy? She decided to give it a try.
“What’s happened?” her friend asked quickly .
“Oh, nothing, nothing. Sorry, I know it’s late, but nothing bad’s happened. In fact, the opposite. Daniel’s coming over to chat. I saw him at the hospital today and he said he’d come over after his shift.”
“Oh, darling, that’s brilliant. About time.”
“I think—I think he’s getting a little bit suspicious, or something. Realizes all’s not what it seems with Cherry.”
“ Really. How do you know this?”
“Just something he hinted at in the hospital.”
Izzy took a deep breath. “Hallelujah.”
“I know,” said Laura softly. “I know.”
After they’d said good night, she flicked through the channels to try to pass the few minutes until he arrived.
The 911 shows and dated films from the 1990s did nothing to help her sense of alienation, as if all those with normal lives, normal families, had long since abandoned the TV to the outcasts and the solitary.
* * *
At 11:28 p.m., Laura heard the doorbell.
She jumped up and quickly went to let Daniel in.
Never before have I wanted company so much, she thought as she opened the door.
Almost as soon as she had, she let out a startled wail, but Cherry was already inside and had shut it behind her.
Laura backed away, knocking into the hall table.
“What are you doing here?” she managed.
“I know it wasn’t me you were expecting,” said Cherry, putting her bag on the table as if she lived there. Laura watched, her heart beating rapidly, as she tried to work out what Cherry was doing and saw she seemed relaxed, pragmatic, as if she paid a call on her late at night on a regular basis.
“Where’s Daniel?”
Cherry didn’t answer, just looked at her strangely, and Laura suddenly got a ripple of fear. “What have you done with him?”
Cherry shook her head, amused by Laura’s vigorous imagination.
“Nothing! But that attitude is something we really need to talk about.” She held up a hand and felt herself getting snappy.
“I’ll say this bluntly—you’re way, way too suspicious.
I’m sick of it. If you’d ever given me half a chance, you would have discovered I’m not so bad. ”
Cherry thought that Laura looked agitated, scared even, and for a moment she got a flush of satisfaction before checking herself.
She was here to try to sort this out. Laura didn’t deserve it, but she was willing to bury the hatchet.
She’d done a lot of thinking the last couple of days and, in all honesty, life would be a lot easier if she didn’t have to carry on with this vendetta.
She’d done enough, she thought, to make her point; and if Laura would back down, she was prepared to forget all about it.
At first, pursuing Laura had been satisfying, but it was a time-consuming ordeal and felt rather like trying to break a horse.
How much did the woman want to take, for God’s sake?
Her benevolence gave her a warm feeling, a sense of righteousness. She’d come to her conclusion after a day of waiting, of brick walls and inaction, and she’d been bored—and irritated that for a time she’d lost control of the situation.
* * *
Daniel had been on a later shift today and this had given them the chance to have breakfast together.
The atmosphere had been one of forced amiability, and neither of them had mentioned the night before, even though Cherry was intent on finding out what had shifted his implicit trust, what had made him behave disingenuously around her.
Instinctively, she knew if she asked him outright, he’d pretend not to know what she was talking about.
She discounted the idea he’d found something incriminating of hers; she was careful, so careful, that nothing existed except her hopes and dreams, her plans in her mind.
Anyway, she was an honest and genuine person.
She could love him, support his career, look after their house and children.