get off the phone, but I bat him away. He doesn’t get to take priority over my sister.
‘Alice? What do you mean? What’s happened?’
‘Haven’t you listened to anything? Richard dumped me, he dumped me, Lulu! I couldn’t stand rattling around for the whole of half term feeling like the world’s biggest loser. I can cook and read when you’re at work and we can cosy up in the evenings.’
Charles is getting increasingly agitated and I turn away, irritated by him for the first time.
‘Of course,’ I say, high-pitched and panicky. ‘But where are you?’
‘I don’t know, not far. Where are we?’ she asks someone in the background. ‘Lulu, you won’t believe who I’ve –’
And with that she disappears, swallowed up by a tunnel.
‘Lulu, you’ve got to get going,’ says Charles, jittery with stress.
‘Too right I have,’ I tell him. ‘My sister’s about an hour away, I think…’
Charles looks positively grey. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not just your sister. Bea and the kids are on their way too.’
‘What?!’ I’m too horrified to move, even though I know that donning my knickers should be the priority.
‘She vaguely threatened to come on Monday, but I didn’t think she’d bother. I was trying to tell you last night.’
‘Trying? Trying?! You could have tried a lot harder than that.’
He reaches towards me ineffectually.
‘I know, I know I should’ve. But I wasn’t sure it would come to pass. And last night was so bloody gorgeous, so relaxed and intimate. I couldn’t bear to break the spell, Lulu. You were there too, angel: you must understand.’
And I sort of do. I can’t help but be grateful for the bubble of perfection we experienced even if the fall is as hard as this. That said, I’m still furious with him.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t warn me! How do you think I feel, scrabbling around for my knickers when your wife’s on the doorstep?’
‘You’re right, of course you’re right. I’m just so bloody addicted to you that all logic goes out of the window.’
He’s giving me a look of such pleading affection that I find myself reaching my arms around him, pressing myself against his chest for a brief moment. Is this the last time I’ll feel him against me? Then I race round the room, gathering my things together and giving my teeth a brief brush.
‘I really think they might be on the train together,’ I shout from the bathroom.
‘I can’t bear chasing you out, but I think there’s less than an hour,’ he shouts back. ‘She texted saying they’d reached York.’
Terrified, I tear through the house looking for any traces of my presence, but Charles has already undertaken a Mafioso-like clean-up operation. I realize what a stupid game I’ve been playing with myself, pretending that Bea’s some kind of hologram that doesn’t exist in three dimensions. Disgustingly selfish though it is, I can’t bear the idea that these living, breathing individuals who have so much more claim over him than I do will be making this house their own in less than an hour. Less than an hour? I’ve got to get out. He grips me on the doorstep.
‘We’ll talk about this at work.’
‘Oh God, Charles, what is there to talk about?’ I’m so angry with myself, so angry with him. ‘We made the rules, we’ve got to stick to them.’
‘Lulu…’
I force myself to keep walking, even though part of me wants to prostrate myself, tell him I love him, beg him to be with me. I’m starting to hate myself for what I could become. I get in the car and hurtle down the country road far too fast. I let myself back into my cottage, taking in the debris of Tuesday morning: two coffee cups, two plates of half-eaten toast. I’ve just about got them cleared away when a cab pulls up. Alice is in the front, and Charles’s entire family is squashed in the back. I hover on the doorstep, stricken. Alice jumps out, leaning into the back seat to kiss Bea. I look away, unable to process the horror of it all. The cab pulls off and Alice runs over to me, throwing herself into my arms. Suddenly it’s all that matters: my sister needs me and that’s what counts. It’s a rare thing for Alice to lean on me; it’s normally the other way round.
‘Hey,’ I say, rubbing her back. ‘Come and have a cup of tea. He is SUCH a dick.’