Got You Back (28 page)

Upstairs, Katie undressed and, despite her tiredness, had a shower before she crawled into bed. She wanted to wash all traces of Owen off herself.

A few hours later — she had no idea how many — she was jolted from sleep by the front-door bell. Stanley began to bark loudly, just to make sure that if the shrill peal of the bell hadn't woken her, at least he would. Without thinking, she stumbled down the stairs in her pyjamas and opened the front door. On the step sat her shoes with her watch curled up inside one of them. She picked them up quickly, looking around to check that Owen wasn't going to materialize. There was no sign of him.

She went back to bed, turned off her phone and stayed there for the rest of the day.

38

James was struggling to concentrate. He knew he should be looking for somewhere better to live but he didn't really know where to start. He spent twenty minutes or so half-heartedly looking in estate agents’ windows but even the smallest flat was out of his price range. He was starting to regret leaving so many of his belongings behind; he could have done with something to sell, although what and to whom he couldn't quite work out. He bought a
Standard
and scoured it for flatmate-wanted adverts, but it seemed it was the wrong day.

Newsagents’ windows, he thought, that was the answer. He couldn't remember where any newsagents actually were but he decided that if he wandered round for long enough then he was bound to bump into one.

His aimless pottering inevitably took him nearer and nearer to Belsize Avenue, and before he knew quite what he was doing he was in front of his house looking up at the windows and wondering what Stephanie and Finn were doing. Finn, of course, would be getting ready for school and Stephanie would probably be about to go to work, although she worked at home on at least a couple of days a week. He looked at his watch. Eight twenty-five. He could ring the doorbell and explain that he'd been passing and wanted to collect some more clothes. And
then what? There was no point in asking her again to take him back. It had only been two days since she'd turned him down flat. She was hardly going to have changed her mind. He turned away sadly. He needed a strategy.

As he rounded the corner on to Haverstock Hill, his mission to look for room-to-let signs all but forgotten, a taxi passed him, going the other way. A woman who looked suspiciously like Stephanie was sitting in the back, gazing out of the window away from him. James did a double-take. It looked like she was heading home. At twenty-five past eight in the morning? It was too early for her to be on her way back from taking Finn to school. He turned round and walked slowly back up the road. Sure enough, the cab stopped outside his house and Stephanie got out. James found himself stepping into a neighbour's front garden and peering out from behind a tree to avoid being seen. Stephanie was dressed up as if she was going out — pencil skirt, high heels, that little Chanel jacket she loved so much. If you'd have asked him what her expression was like, he would have said that she looked like she was smiling. Smug, almost. And then it hit him: she was coming home after an evening out. Stephanie had been out all night.

Stephanie had woken early. In fact, she had only slept fitfully, waking every time Michael turned over or mumbled in his sleep. Not that he was unusually fidgety or noisy, it was just that it was unfamiliar fidgeting and unfamiliar noise. No doubt it must have been the same for him. They had woken at the same moment, at about five thirty, and they'd sleepily had sex again, this time at
a more leisurely, less frenetic pace. More of an experience, less of a performance.

Afterwards Stephanie hadn't been able to go back to sleep so she'd got up and had a bath and then tried to make herself at home in the strange apartment, poking about in kitchen cupboards to find the teabags and the bread. Really, she had wanted to go back to her own home, to relax for a bit before she had to get ready for work, but she was worried it would seem she was making some kind of statement if she left before Michael had surfaced.

She had no idea if he was a late or early riser. There were a million and one things she didn't know about him, but she did know that the events of the last twelve hours had gone a long way towards giving her back her confidence. She'd decided to wait until eight, and if he wasn't up by then, she would leave him a note and go.

For the next hour and a half, while she'd drunk three more cups of tea, which made her feel slightly lightheaded, she'd tried to decide what exactly the note might say. It couldn't just say ‘Gone to work, love Stephanie’ or he would think there was something wrong, but she didn't know whether she should be chatty (‘Had a bath and then helped myself to tea and toast’), funny (‘So, obviously, I've looked through all your cupboards and I've realized I've made a terrible mistake! We can never see each other again’) or sexy (‘What really turned me on was when you…’ No! She couldn't go there). It had suddenly felt as if this note was the most important thing she was ever going to have to write. As if Michael's lasting
memory of the night they had spent together would be dictated by the impression she left behind on paper.

She was starting to get a headache. She had just been wondering whether Natasha would be up yet and whether or not to call and ask her advice when she'd heard Michael moving around in the bathroom. She'd shot over to the cooker and tried to find a reflective surface in the stainless steel to check herself. By the time he'd come into the room she was sitting at the table, reading the paper and giving a good impression of looking casual.

‘Morning,’ he'd said, smiling in a way that had made her heart beat out of her ears. He'd come over and put his arms round her, leaning down to kiss her on the top of her head. ‘I was worried you'd have left already.’

‘I was going to leave you a note,’ she'd said. ‘If only I could have decided what it was going to say.’

‘Well, I'm glad you're still here. Have you got time to come back to bed?’ he'd said, kissing her before she had a chance to say yes.

She'd spent the rest of the morning, after having gone home to change, looking through a bag of Frost French samples with Natasha and filling her in on the details. Natasha had an almost insatiable appetite for the minutiae of other people's relationships. She claimed that living vicariously through her friends meant she was able to stay happy in her own long and completely monogamous situation. Stephanie knew that in reality Natasha and Martin didn't need any kind of outside input to keep them glued together. She had always envied her friend's seemingly idyllic relationship.

She had told Michael she couldn't see him for a couple of nights because she felt guilty about Finn and didn't want to be palming him off on his friends’ parents or calling Cassie in more often than she had to. James would certainly have had him if she asked him to, but she had no idea where James had been since Sunday or where he was going to be living and, besides, she didn't really want to call him anyway. And it was way, way too soon all round to introduce her son to her new boyfriend. Michael had been understanding. They'd arranged to meet for lunch tomorrow, the only day that both of them could guarantee they would get a lunch break, and then again on Friday evening.

‘That's good,’ Natasha said, when she told her. ‘Keeps him on his toes.’ ‘And how are you feeling about James?’ she asked, a few minutes later.

‘Do you know?’ Stephanie said. ‘I have no idea. Relieved it's all over, I guess.’

‘Just don't forget,’ Natasha said, as if she had just remembered that she was always the one with the words of wisdom, ‘Michael is your transitional man. He's your rebound. Don't go taking it too seriously, whatever you do.’

‘I've known him five minutes, Tash,’ Stephanie said, hoping that what she was about to say was true. ‘I'm just having a bit of fun.’

At about twelve o'clock her mobile rang and she saw that it was Katie. She hadn't really expected to speak to her so soon — if, indeed, ever again. Suddenly the whole scheme seemed so long ago. It felt like her life was finally starting over, she wasn't sure if she wanted to dwell on the past. It wasn't that she didn't like Katie, she did, but
they didn't really have anything in common except for James. She answered hesitantly: ‘Katie, hi.’

‘So…’ Katie said expectantly. ‘How's it going?’

For a split second, Stephanie thought she was talking about Michael and nearly said, ‘Well, we've finally slept together,’ but then she remembered that she had never confided in Katie about her new relationship. She didn't know why not, she just hadn't felt like it would be the right thing to do. So, instead, she said, ‘Oh, fine, I guess. He's gone. I don't know where.’

‘Somewhere awful, I hope,’ Katie said, laughing. ‘The village is full of it, by the way, it's all anybody can talk about. I've got so many bookings — you wouldn't believe it. All because they want to hear the whole story, I think. I'm exhausted.’

‘Good for you,’ Stephanie said, and then couldn't think of anything else to say.

‘And how has Finn taken it?’

‘Oh, you know, a bit up and down. I guess things will start to get back to normal once we work out a plan for when he can see James, that kind of thing.’

‘Sam McNeil told me his planning application is almost certain to be rejected, you know. She didn't admit it but I think she's going to make sure it is.’

‘God, really?’ Stephanie said, genuinely shocked. ‘Maybe you could persuade her not to. I mean, there's no point carrying on now, is there?’

‘Of course there is,’ Katie said. ‘It's fun.’ She paused for a moment and then laughed again. ‘Only joking. I'll see what I can do. Everyone's being so nice to me, Stephanie. I never knew I had so many friends here.’

‘Great,’ Stephanie said. ‘I'm pleased for you.’ But she felt uneasy. Katie, she thought, didn't believe that the game was over.

39

It was James's first day back at work since his life had begun to unravel. He had been late for his surgery because he had no clock and the hotel had forgotten to give him the alarm call he had booked the night before. He had finally got to sleep at about five, then had tossed and turned feverishly until a car horn woke him at about twenty past nine. He hadn't known where he was at first and, for a brief moment, had been afraid that he'd got himself into some kind of seedy encounter with a stranger, until he'd remembered, bad as that might be, the truth was much, much worse.

He had been intending to walk to work to save money but the fact that he was so late meant that he had had to take a taxi he couldn't afford, which then got stuck in traffic and caused him to be later still. He arrived at the Abbey Road Veterinary Clinic out of breath and sweating at a quarter past ten. There had been times in the past few years when James had enjoyed the fact that, in the London surgery, he wasn't the boss; he didn't have the responsibilities of hiring and firing or balancing the books. But today was not one of those times.

‘Harry's spitting blood,’ Jackie the receptionist said to him, the minute he walked through the door. ‘I've been trying to ring you to find out where you were.’

James could picture his mobile phone lying on the
bedside table at the house he no longer lived in, where he'd accidentally left it. Great.

‘I rang Stephanie but she said she had no idea.’ James noticed she was looking at him as if she sensed something was going on and he tried to keep his face neutral. Jackie continued, ‘Is everything all right?’

‘So where is Harry?’ James asked, ignoring her question. Harry, the owner of the Abbey Road Veterinary Clinic, had a notorious temper and was always fond of reminding James that, skilled and qualified he might be, the fact that he was head of his own practice in the countryside notwithstanding, in London Harry was the boss.

‘He's removing a splinter from Barney MacDonald's paw. Barney was booked in with you at nine forty-five,’ she said ominously, ‘and Harry's already done your nine-o'clock, your nine-fifteen and your nine-thirty.’

‘Well, I'm here now. You can send in my ten-o'clock.’

Jackie looked down at her list. ‘Alexander Hartington is next,’ she said, indicating a pale, middle-aged man with a large ginger cat, either of whom might have been called Alexander. James indicated to the man that he should come on through. It hadn't been a good start to the day. He had been planning on asking Harry if there was any chance of increasing his days — ideally to five a week — but now that didn't seem such a good idea. Once Harry was in a bad mood it tended to last the whole morning.

By lunchtime he was exhausted, lack of sleep and the fact that he was running late with all his patients and so wasn't able to stop for a quick coffee to perk him up conspiring to make him feel like he was never going to
make it to the end of the afternoon. Just as his twelve forty-five left and he could slump back in his chair, and maybe get in a thirty-minute power nap and still have time to eat a sandwich before his next appointment, his phone rang. He thought about not picking it up but he knew that if he didn't Jackie would walk through from Reception and tell him whatever it was she was going to say anyway.

‘It's Stephanie for you,’ she said, when he finally answered and his heart nearly stopped. ‘OK, put her through,’ he said, in what he hoped was a normal voice, but Jackie had gone. She never waited to see whether he actually wanted to take his calls or not.

‘James.’ Stephanie sounded business-like.

‘Hi, Steph, how are you?’ Maybe she was calling to see how he was getting on. Maybe she had been worrying about him.

‘I just wondered whether you wanted to have Finn tomorrow night. Cassie can't make it.’

James thought of his wife, dressed for a night out, coming home at eight thirty in the morning. Unable to help himself, he said, ‘Why? Where are you going?’

‘I don't think that's any of your business any more, James,’ Stephanie said. ‘Can you have him or not?’

She's seeing someone, he thought, and forgetting that he had been living a double life for the past year and that if ever a pot really shouldn't be starting to call a kettle black it was now, he said, ‘Who is he?’