The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,51

this. Please.

An endless cycle of scolding and cajoling. Message after message, spent on empty air. I wondered if he even still used his Romeo phone or if he’d thrown it away. If he’d bought a new burner phone for her. For Megan. I wondered what name he used with her.

His silence tormented me.

The only thing that kept me functioning were the doctor’s tablets. I stocked up, asking for repeat prescriptions before I really needed them, and stashed them everywhere, within easy reach, in my handbag, in the car, in the bathroom cabinet, in my bedside table.

I wasn’t a fool. I never took more than two at a time. I’d read the dire warnings inside the packet. But I needed them. It was my only chance of getting any sleep at night.

Thirty-Four

The middle of February. Half-term. A week away from school.

I already knew that Ralph and his family were going on holiday to Portugal. Helen, with her librarian’s efficiency, booked everything at least a year in advance. Since the autumn, when Ralph and I first got together, I’d dreaded it, thinking how forsaken I’d feel while they were away together, imagining them having candlelit dinners, sharing a bottle of wine, playing happy families with Anna. Even though I knew their marriage was a sham, it would hurt.

Now I was almost glad. If he was away from me for a week, at least he was away from her too, from Megan. At least I had that.

I spent the week at home, reading in my flat, taking long walks along the river and through the park, trying not to dwell on everything that had happened, trying not to think about Ralph.

The daffodils were out, sudden spikes of yellow along the tree-lined paths through the park. The bushes would soon come into sticky bud. The sunshine, still weak, was tempting people out into the open again after the long, cold hibernation. Elderly couples, well-wrapped in coats and scarves, rested on benches, gloved hand in hand, and watched the river slide by. Young women with pushchairs encouraged their toddlers to climb out and run across the grass, smell the earth, make round, wet stains on the knees of their trousers when they fell.

I was heading back to the flat, tired after a bracing walk but wondering what else I could do to fill these final few days before the return to school, when I saw her. Megan. I stopped, still a distance away, moving to the side of the path so I could observe her stealthily from the cover of a large leafy bush.

She was sitting on the grass with a group of other young people of similar age. They’d spread out a waterproof sheet and, on top of it, a patchwork of jackets and sweatshirts. There must have been half a dozen of them, a mix of boys and girls, lounging there, encircled by bags. They were cradling cans. Soft drinks, perhaps, or alcohol – I didn’t recognise the brands. Chatting and laughing.

There were schoolbooks open on the clothes around them as if they were kidding themselves that they were there to study. Clearly, they were doing very little work.

Megan sat cross-legged, her long limbs folded with ease, her shoes kicked off. Her blonde bob swung as she turned from one friend to another, her face filled with laughter, with life. She wore a strappy top, too skimpy for the season, and frayed jeans. Already, she looked not a schoolgirl but a young woman, ready for university, for independence, for the world.

I hesitated, shaking with emotion at the sight of her, so young, so carefree, so confident. I couldn’t tear myself away. It wasn’t just her youthfulness. I’d been that young once. But I’d never been like her. So easy with the people around her, so natural and, I had to admit it, so very lovely. I couldn’t walk right past them, I simply couldn’t, but I wasn’t ready yet to pull back and find a different path to bring me out higher up the road.

I was still there, shrinking back into the trees and bushes, when she jumped up, pushed her feet into her shoes, grabbed her bag and came bounding down the path towards me, followed by another young woman. I couldn’t move. Whatever I did, she’d see me. If I emerged from the branches and tried to walk away, in whichever direction, she’d know I’d been hiding here. I froze.

She was almost upon me when I stepped abruptly out of the