to lie, but I also don’t want to tell him we met, it will only upset him. He’ll think I put myself in danger, when I didn’t see it that way. I never thought I’d be one of those women, hiding things from my partner so as not to upset him. I’m not intimidated by Alex, nor do I need his approval – it’s just easier and will avoid any additional drama this evening. It’s true that love makes liars of us all.
‘He insisted it had nothing to do with him, he was pissed off that I’d even asked him.’
‘It is him though, I’m sure of it. I wish you hadn’t made contact, he might think he’s in with a chance. He could be watching you, and I hate to think of you being alone and vulnerable. I can drive you to and from work,’ he suggests.
‘Thanks, Alex, but I’ll be fine… I’m tired, let’s not talk any more.’
‘Hannah, I don’t want you to be scared, but I do think you need to take it seriously. Go on, let me drive you to work and collect you. We do similar hours, I can work around you.’
He’s mentioned this before, soon after I told him about the note and roses. I like that he cares, but sometimes I think he worries too much. What happened was horrible and upset me, but I don’t want to dwell on it, nor do I want to live in a padlocked place and have him ferrying me around everywhere. It’s like he’s petrified something might happen to me if he’s not there. I suspect it might be a legacy of his childhood. He told me that when his mum died, no one told him. She died in her sleep, and he woke to be told by his dad, ‘the angels have taken her.’
‘I thought she’d been stolen, kidnapped by these wicked angels,’ he’d said. As difficult as the concept of death was to his young mind, the idea of a group of angels ‘taking’ his mother must have been so much harder to comprehend. ‘I was scared of angels throughout my childhood, because they came in the night and stole people you love,’ he’d admitted. It made me cry.
‘The gym’s a lot warmer,’ I say now, trying to do sit-ups on a mat next to him in the icy garage. As romantic as it might be for some people to work out together, it’s not my idea of a couples’ night in. Apart from the fact he’s so much fitter than me, and I can’t keep up, it’s absolutely freezing, as I’d feared. ‘I think I might give your gym a miss, babe,’ I say after an hour of freezing-cold torture. ‘I’m tense with cold, my muscles will ache tomorrow.’
‘Darling, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘What about if I get some heating in here, would you give the garage workout another go?’
‘I might,’ I say doubtfully, ‘but don’t go to any trouble, I’m fine with the gym.’
‘It’s no trouble.’
‘You do so much for me, Alex, and you really don’t have to, you know. I’m not a princess, I don’t need pleasing all the time,’ I say with a smile.
We both laugh at this. ‘Sorry, I just want to make everything – right. I told you I’m a bit too much sometimes,’ he says – a point which was proven earlier this week when he couldn’t get tickets for a play I said I’d like to see. I saw the flickers of anger, the fear of failure when he thought he’d let me down. And now, as we walk back into the house, after he’s double-locked and padlocked the garage, I know he feels as if he’s failed me again because I found the garage too cold tonight.
It makes me feel bad, as if I’m solely responsible for his happiness. I appreciate his attentiveness, but it’s quite a responsibility, especially when it seems to be his mission to make me happy. He’s even started to fill his fridge with my favourite things. He says I’m a slut when it comes to food, and he’s right, but then he moves aside his jars of artisan chutney and pickled artichokes to squeeze in my mini supermarket trifles and ready-sliced cheese. And I know there’s nothing that will stop him loving me. And I keep telling myself that’s good, isn’t it?
I tell Jas about the freezing garage-gym workout when I get to the office this morning, thinking it’ll amuse her