The Great Escape (22 page)

By now – 8.37 pm – Spike is hungry and remembers, slightly too late in the proceedings, that it’s not a good idea to drink on an empty stomach. After another fortifying sip of brandy, he places his mug on the living room carpet and makes for the bathroom to spruce himself up. The white T-shirt and jeans are fine; all he needs is a quick splash of water on his face, plus a cursory check of his nasal hairs and he’s good to go.

At the chip shop at the end of the street, Spike buys a deep-fried sausage and a carton of pale, limp chips, plus a bottle of Croatian red wine from the off-licence next door. He carries his supper home and eats at the kitchen table, eyeing Lou’s collection of beachy finds, which she’s arranged on the shelf above the worktop. Delicate shells, twisted nuggets of driftwood and barnacle-encrusted pebbles are often starting points for her jewellery designs. He feels a tug of regret that she hardly ever makes anything these days, a feeling compounded by the realisation that the sausage, an unsettling combination of grease and an unyielding plasticky skin, has been a very poor choice.

Spike wipes the grease from his lips onto the back of his hand, fixing his gaze upon a cluster of spiky coral. Lou had been such a grafter at college, such a talented girl, winning prizes almost every year. She’d kept up the momentum for their first couple of years in York as an artist-in-residence … so what had happened? Maybe she’ll stick to her word and get back into jewellery when she comes home, Spike reflects. Then she’ll be happier. And he’ll do his CV, he decides, feeling foolish now for going on about spiked truffles and realising, with a sudden inebriated pang, that he misses Lou, and that maybe it’s for the best that Astrid has been so offish.

Sunday night, and Lou’s return, now feels like a terribly long way away. He’ll go to that gig, then – the one Charlie’s doing the sound for. Have a night out, but not a
massive
night out, then get up early tomorrow and try to remember all his qualifications and jobs and any other qualities he can think of to put on his CV.

Yes, that’s it, Spike decides, abandoning his half-eaten supper and the barely drinkable wine. He’ll be sensible this weekend, using Lou’s absence as an opportunity to clear his head. Right now, though, there’s a little brandy left in the Père Magloire bottle, and a whole night of fun to be had.

THIRTY-TWO

Ryan has been thinking about new and inventive ways to market quirky bar snacks but keeps coming back to the fact that, really, all anyone wants is crisps or nuts. Ultimately, it comes down to crispy or crunchy – nice and simple and covered in salt. No one really wants little baked biscuit things. The laptop is hurting his eyes and brain, so he abandons it on the sofa, throws some random ingredients into the wok and pours himself a glass of wine.

Since Petra left with the children, Ryan has also pottered about in Daisy and Josh’s bedrooms – he has reached the age where he potters, he realises – gathering up books, clothes and sweet wrappers from the floor and dragging their duvets up onto their beds. He found a wizened peach, its skin all baggy and wrinkly, a plate of toast crusts and a toffee, which seemed to have melted into the carpet – virtually all the food groups in his son’s room. In Daisy’s bedroom, the rug crunched with tortilla chips, clearly her salted snack of choice. God, his kids are phenomenally messy. Ryan used to be too, but he’s had to force himself to invent routines and systems, all the stuff Petra used to take care of with alarming efficiency, to keep his family clothed and fed and in a reasonably hygienic state. And they’re doing okay, they really are – which gives Ryan a faint glow of pride. He doesn’t want to upset his family’s fragile happiness by grumbling about messy bedrooms.

Now, having finished his uninspired supper, Ryan has drifted up to Hannah’s studio. He’s not sure why, and it feels vaguely like trespassing; he wants her to feel that it’s
her
space, away from his children, who he knows can be surly (he’s tried to tackle them on that score, only to be met with innocent shrugs and protests of, ‘But I didn’t
do
anything!’). It’s a beautiful room during the day, a loft conversion paid for with one of Petra’s performances in Berlin, with light flooding in and an uninterrupted view over the park. In the evening it becomes a cosy den, away from the domestic clutter of the rest of the house.

The landline rings, and Ryan snatches it from Hannah’s desk as if caught doing something naughty. ‘Ryan? It’s me.’

‘Oh, hi, Petra. Is everything okay?’

‘Yes. Yes, everything’s
fine
…’ Only Petra can use the word to mean, actually, everything’s totally
un
-fine. ‘… We’re just going through Daisy’s reading books,’ she adds.

‘She’s done quite a bit of extra work during the week,’ Ryan says quickly. ‘Honestly, Petra, I think she’s doing okay.’

‘Well, she says so, but after that parents’ evening …’
That
parents’ evening. The one at which Daisy’s teacher happened to comment – quite casually, Ryan thought – that when his daughter didn’t know a word, she was inclined to just make it up. Well, Ryan made things up all the time. At work, he made up the fact that he gave a monkey’s about two more fragrances being added to the Corsican-Maquis-in-your-toilet range. ‘She was telling me about a proper short story she’s written all by herself,’ Petra continues. ‘Something they were doing at school on the theme of … what was it again, Daisy?’

‘An unforgettable experience,’ Daisy pipes up in the background, sounding so much younger than she does face-to-face.

‘Oh! Right. She didn’t mention it to me. That’s good, though, isn’t it? That she’s writing stories? I’ll have a read of it when she comes back.’

‘Would you mind emailing it over?’ Petra asks. ‘She seems really proud of it and I’d love to see it.’

Ryan’s attention is momentarily caught by a young couple walking hand in hand across the park. He wishes Hannah were here now, and they could go out, see a film or have dinner, do things that normal couples do. ‘I doubt if it’s here,’ he tells Petra, ‘if Daisy was working on it at school.’

‘Daisy says it is. Says there’s a copy on Hannah’s computer because they were told to finish it at home.’

‘Really? Okay, give me a minute …’ He fires up Hannah’s PC. ‘Could you ask Daisy what it’s called?’

‘Hang on a minute …’ Ryan hears Daisy explaining something convoluted to her mother. ‘She can’t remember,’ Petra says.

‘Well, could you put Daisy on? Maybe we’ll be able to figure it out.’

‘Sure. Here you go. Daisy, Daddy wants to talk to you.’ There’s a shuffling noise as Petra hands Daisy the phone.

‘Hi, sweetheart,’ Ryan says. ‘So, you want me to find this story of yours?’

‘Uh-huh. Mum wants to read it.’

‘Right, er … so you’ve no idea what you called it?’

‘Mmmm … no.’

Ryan exhales, clicking open Hannah’s document file. ‘Can’t see anything here, darling. It looks like work stuff, mostly, and pictures …’

‘Er … I think … um …’ She tails off. Ryan can imagine Petra standing over her, lips pressed together.

‘Can you remember where it might be?’ As Daisy umms and arrs some more, Ryan glances outside. That couple has stopped in the park and are standing face to face, clutching each other’s hands, their lips almost touching. ‘I can’t remember,’ Daisy says, ‘but I think I emailed it to Jess or Kira ’cause they wanted to read it …’

Ryan bites his lower lip and opens Hannah’s sent emails file. He feels shifty, sifting through them. ‘They’d better not copy it,’ Daisy adds.

‘No, I’m sure they won’t. Look, sweetheart, I’ve looked through all Hannah’s sent emails and I still can’t see anything here. It’d have an attachment, wouldn’t it?’

‘Er … yeah, I think so.’

‘Are you sure you need it right now? I can ask Hannah when I speak to her …’

‘I
really
need it,’ she exclaims, and now Ryan sees Petra, studying their daughter, suspecting that the story doesn’t exist and that Daisy’s just made it up to convince her that she’s doing super-brilliantly at school. It would appear, Ryan thinks, that their daughter doesn’t particularly like books which, in Petra’s universe, is tantamount to admitting, ‘Actually, Brahms isn’t my thing.’ People have been incarcerated for less, Ryan thinks darkly.

He carefully rechecks Hannah’s sent emails file. ‘Daisy, it’s not here. I’m sorry. I’ll have another look through all the documents and call you tomorrow, okay?’

‘But I need it tonight, Dad!’ Daisy’s voice wobbles. ‘Mum was testing my reading,’ she adds in a murmur – Petra must have wandered off now – ‘and I couldn’t read
psychologist
 …’

‘Psychologist?’ Ryan splutters. ‘What on earth were you reading?’

‘Just, I dunno, some book of Mum’s. A grown-up one. Mum says the school ones are too easy …’

‘Oh, Daisy, don’t get upset. I promise I’ll email it to Mum as soon as I’ve found it. Tonight, if I can.’

Daisy sniffs into the phone. ‘Okay, Dad.’

Ryan finishes the call, mutters
psychologist, for crying out loud
under his breath and resumes his search. Yet the only sent emails are to Hannah’s parents, to her friends at work, to Lou and Sadie and a couple of mates from back home in Fife.

He opens her draft file, wondering if Daisy had pinged the email into here by mistake. There’s just one email, to Lou. Ryan pauses, blinking at the screen. Why has Hannah kept a draft?

It would be wrong to read it, and he isn’t the prying type. He’s only lowered himself to that kind of despicable, sneaky behaviour once in his life – when Petra announced she was leaving – and even then, he’d just had a quick pry through her texts, expecting to find outpourings of love to a conductor or violinist and discovered precisely nothing. But this email, stranded in Hannah’s drafts file as if she’d intended to send it, then had a change of heart – why would she do that? Because it’s
significant
.

Ryan clicks it open and glances over his shoulder towards her studio door, almost expecting her to bounce through it, explaining that plans have changed and she hasn’t gone to Glasgow after all. He sees that Sadie was copied into the mail too, and stares, convincing himself that he’s not reading it, not really. He’s just skimming it.
So excited I can’t tell you … counting the sleeps like a little kid. The hotel’s booked … sandwich poking out from under the bed …

Prickling with shame, but unable to close the email, Ryan averts his eyes to focus on the couple who are still standing out there, embracing. His eyes are dragged back to the screen.
It’s been a funny old week – loads on at work with a new wedding card range, which I should be finding easy with my own nuptials thundering towards me … but somehow I’m not …
Ryan’s back teeth have jammed together.
Ryan’s been looking all hurt as if I’m trying to avoid him …
Well, things did feel slightly odd, he reflects, the few days before she went away. He put it down to prewedding stress and Hannah having so much on at work.
Sometimes, though, I wonder if it’s easier for him and the kids when I’m not around …

Is it easier? Yeah, probably, he thinks bitterly. I mean, here I am, having a fantastic time raking through your private mail …
I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’ll turn out fine … I’m scared now that it won’t. The kids are so rude and surly – Ryan does his best but … There’s something else too … found a crushed cigarette packet in the back pocket of Josh’s jeans … It had one in it. One Marlboro Light …

Ryan gawps at the computer. Cigarettes? He rereads it in case his mind has flipped, and he’s concocted the word in his head. But no. Hannah has not only discovered illicit smoking materials in his fourteen-year-old son’s pocket, but also chosen not to say anything about it.

He inhales deeply and sits back on her swivel chair, a wave of sadness washing over him – for his son, who’s been such a mardy arse lately and is secretly smoking,
deceiving
him, wrecking his health. And for Hannah, too: the sunniest girl he’s ever met in his life, who changed his world when she strode into Nell’s one damp evening and he knew, despite his intense shyness in those sort of situations, that he simply had to speak to her.

And he has to speak to her now, this instant. ‘Han?’ he barks as she answers the call.

‘Hi, darling! How’s things?’

‘Er … good, good …’ Ryan realises he hasn’t a clue what he wants to say, or how he should say it.

‘… so good to be back here,’ Hannah is enthusing, sounding excited and shimmeringly alive. ‘And the train journey, what a laugh, met this guy called Felix … tons of champagne and
truffles
, can you believe it? That anyone would bring truffles on a train?’

‘Ha … no,’ he says flatly.

‘… and we’re so out of touch with Glasgow,’ she goes on, ‘that we decided to come to his bar, that’s where we are now – hang on, it’s a terrible signal in here, I’m going to take this outside …’

‘Sounds like you’re having fun,’ Ryan says grimly. Unwittingly, he has slipped into disapproving parent mode. God, what’s wrong with him? This is the woman he loves, sounding happier than he can remember, enjoying a night out with her best friends.
You don’t want to marry me,
he thinks as her voice bubbles on.
You want to escape.

‘So what are you up to tonight?’

‘Oh, er … nothing much. Petra picked up the kids, I’ve just been pottering about, this and that …’
Wondering what the hell to do about my son’s nicotine addiction …

A small pause. ‘Well, um … have a nice evening. I’d better go back. It’s still hard to hear, you keep breaking up …’

So would you
, Ryan thinks,
if you were me right now.
‘Okay,’ he mutters. ‘Have a great night, give my love to everyone.’

‘Yeah, will do. Love you, darling …’

‘Love you too,’ Ryan croaks. By the time he’s finished the call, he’s forgotten all about Daisy, eagerly waiting for him to email her her story so she can show it to her mother and feel proud. Because right now, Ryan feels crushed. Right now, with his children gone and his beautiful future wife in a cocktail bar owned by some guy she met on the train, Ryan Lennox feels utterly alone.