The Great Escape (38 page)

‘Of course we don’t!’ Hannah exclaims. ‘I just wish we hadn’t gone on about our own problems.’

‘Maybe that’s exactly what I needed,’ he says. ‘It helped to put things into perspective for me as if …’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. This sounds crazy but it was as if I was
meant
to meet you.’

‘Oh, Felix.’ Hannah puts her arms around him and hugs him tightly. ‘I can’t believe you were meant to be getting married yesterday.’

‘Me neither.’ He pulls away and smiles at her. ‘Perhaps I had a lucky escape. Anyway, I’d better go hassle my staff. They’ll be wondering what’s wrong with me. And, Hannah, I’ll be back in London a week on Thursday … I know you’ll be busy with the wedding so I don’t expect anything finished by then …’

‘Well, I’ll see what I can do,’ she smiles.

‘I’ll leave it completely up to you.’

Hannah nods, draining the remains of the blackberry concoction, just as her old friend Johnny walks in through the door, bang on time at 10 pm.

SIXTY-FIVE

Lou wakes up on a hazy Sunday morning in a bed that’s not her bed. It’s not her bed in the hotel room, either. It’s an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room.

She sits up slowly, studying the grey and cream striped double duvet and the pale blue blind filtering soft morning light. Lou’s entire body is tense and her eyes feel scratchy and dry. She studies the cream-coloured wardrobe and the framed film posters on the wall. One depicts a pensive Steve McQueen in black and white above a blur of cars with the film’s title,
Bullitt
, in red.

‘Why are you on the sofa, Dad?’ The child’s voice gives her a jolt.

‘Because a friend stayed over,’ comes the reply as Lou leans back against the plump pillows, closing her eyes as snippets from the previous night start to replay in her mind.

She remembers the four of them, crammed around the small circular table at Felix’s bar until Johnny checked his watch at ten to twelve and said he had to go. He didn’t usually use a babysitter on his Cal nights but, well, he hadn’t been able to resist coming along.

A small smile tweaks Lou’s lips as she recalls Johnny hesitating, clearly not wanting to leave, and something else – perhaps the effects of Felix’s blackberry cocktail, or that voicemail message from Astrid – pulling her out of her chair and across the floor towards him where she’d murmured, ‘Can I come with you? Just to talk, like we used to?’ And now she replays Johnny saying yes, of course, as she glanced back to see Hannah and Sadie grinning like mad and quickly trying to straighten their faces.

They’d come back here to Johnny’s flat where he’d let them in quietly and introduced her to Miriam, the babysitter with blazing red hair and colossal gold earrings dripping with beads.

Then … chatting. Nothing more than chatting late into the night until the sky lightened with streaks of mauve. Johnny said she could sleep in his bed, he wouldn’t hear of putting her on the sofa, not when she was travelling tomorrow. ‘It’s hardly going to be arduous,’ she’d joked. ‘I’ll just be sitting with Sadie and Han for three hours, drinking coffee.’ He’d insisted, though, whispering apologies for the state of the place as he hastily smoothed out the duvet.

And now, as Cal says, ‘Which friend stayed over?’ Lou recalls a kiss, brief yet head-swimmingly lovely, a goodnight kiss like she’d never had in her life.

‘Her name’s Lou,’ Johnny tells his son.

‘Lou’s boyfriend punched you!’ the child exclaims. ‘What happens if he finds out she stayed here?’

‘I don’t think he will,’ Johnny murmurs. ‘Anyway, listen, d’you want some of that chocolatey Weetabix?’

‘Did you get strawberry tarts yesterday?’

‘No, they didn’t have any …’

‘Ugghhh,’ Cal groans.

‘I know,’ Johnny says levelly. ‘You’re
so
deprived. You should probably get on to social services …’

Lou hears the clink of crockery as she steps onto the grey carpet. She is wearing a plain black T-shirt, man-sized, plus the sensible white cotton knickers that she often suspected Spike found faintly disappointing.
What kind of underwear would Astrid wear for him?
she muses.
Complicated basques and corsets like the kind Sadie made for her degree show?
Lou’s phone beeps with an incoming text, and she retrieves it from the pocket of her jacket, which is draped over a chair. ARE YOU ALIVE? reads Sadie’s text. Lou smiles and texts YES VERY just as there’s a soft knock on the bedroom door.

‘Hi,’ she calls out. ‘Come in.’ The door opens, and Johnny peers around it.

‘Sleep okay?’

‘Yes, really well.’

He pauses, as if fearing that he might be trespassing in his own room. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast. Feel free to have a shower if you like … there’s a dressing gown on the back of the door.’

‘Thanks. And … thanks for last night, Johnny. Sorry for keeping you up so late.’

‘Well,’ he says with a smile that warms her heart, ‘we had a lot to catch up on, didn’t we?’

If hearing about Josh and Daisy had made Lou wary of getting to know other people’s children, Cal dispels her fears in an instant. ‘I told Dad to go into that place and talk to you,’ he says cheerfully, shovelling Weetabix into his mouth, ‘but he wouldn’t. He always says to me to be polite and talk to people but
he
wouldn’t—’

‘Cal,’ Johnny says hotly, ‘it wasn’t exactly like that.’

Lou laughs, seeing him flush as he fills her mug with coffee. ‘Yeah it was.’ Cal grins at Lou. ‘Dad was
spying
on you.’

‘Were you, Johnny?’ She mock-frowns at him. ‘I’m very flattered actually.’

‘Yeah, okay, Cal,’ Johnny mutters, plucking toast from the toaster. ‘Anyway, you’d better hurry up and get dressed because we’ve got a few jobs to do at the allotment this morning. You’re welcome to come too, if you like,’ he adds, turning to Lou.

‘I’d love to,’ she says, ‘but I’d better get back to the hotel and pack. We’ve got to check out by twelve, and I think Hannah wants a quick whirl round the shops before we catch our train.’

‘Some other time then?’ Johnny asks.

Lou glances at him as he busies himself with screwing the lids back onto the jars of jam and Nutella on the table. ‘Yes, I’d love that.’

‘Are you coming to stay again?’ Cal asks eagerly.

‘Well …’ She shrugs and glances at Johnny. ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

‘Or we could visit you, couldn’t we, Dad?’

‘Er, yeah. Sometime maybe …’ Clearly flustered, Johnny places the jars back in the cupboard.

‘I hadn’t finished with that,’ Cal reprimands him. ‘I was gonna have Nutella on toast.’

‘But you’ve had cereal …’

‘I’m still hungry.’ Cal fixes his gaze on Lou as his father hands him the sticky jar. ‘You live in York, don’t you?’ he adds.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Lou says, surprised. ‘Have you ever been there?’

‘Yeah, we went on a school trip. We went to this massive church.’

‘It was probably York Minster. It is pretty massive …’

Cal wrinkles his nose as he twists the lid off the jar. ‘That was a bit boring. But then we went to a theme park and there was this motorbike ride and it went from, like, dead still to—’ He makes a whooshing noise and shoots his flattened hand across the table. ‘And I was sick,’ he adds gravely, ‘like, seven times.’

‘That’s awful, Cal,’ Lou exclaims. ‘What happened?’

‘It did something to my brain,’ he says with a trace of pride.

‘He got concussion,’ Johnny says, pulling up a chair and sitting beside his son. ‘Something to do with the velocity. He was fine, though. But if we do visit Lou sometime’ – he catches her eye across the table – ‘and go to that theme park again, we’ll maybe give the motorbike ride a miss.’

‘Awww.’

‘But there are loads of other rides,’ Lou reassures him. ‘There are at least three roller coasters as far as I remember, and one of them has a double loop.’

‘Will you go on them with me?’ Cal wants to know.

‘Yes, I love roller coasters.’ Lou takes a sip of her coffee and munches a slice of toast.

‘Dad hates ’em,’ Cal says darkly.

‘Well, aren’t I just a pathetic specimen of a father,’ Johnny says briskly, clearing the table as Lou gets to her feet.

‘Hardly,’ she says with a smile. ‘But look – I’d better get back. It was nice to meet you, Cal’ – he nods and licks the Nutella spoon – ‘and Johnny, thanks for giving up your bed for me.’

‘No problem,’ he says as sees her to the door. ‘Your train leaves at three, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll come and see you off …’

‘Oh, you don’t have to—’ She stops herself and looks at him, knowing she wants him to, very much.

Three suitcases rattle and bump along the pavement as Hannah, Sadie and Lou make their way towards the station. ‘What d’you think?’ Hannah asks, indicating a dress in the window of a chic wedding boutique.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Sadie exclaims.

‘It’s got your name on it,’ Lou says, craning forward to read an imaginary label. ‘Hannah McShane, it says right here. And look – the shop’s open.’

‘Well,’ Hannah says, her blue eyes shining, ‘I’m sort of thinking …’

‘What – for the wedding?’ Sadie exclaims. ‘But I thought you already had a dress.’

Hannah pulls a wry smile. ‘I have but …’ She hesitates, turning away from the window to face her friends. ‘… I don’t know what I was thinking when I chose it. It’s plain cream – sorry,
oyster
…’ She winces. ‘And now I think I bought it because it’s the sort of dress I thought a sensible bride should wear. But it’s so …
nothingy
. As if I was desperate not to offend anyone or make the children think I was somehow trying to take their mother’s place.’ She shakes her head, conscious of how ridiculous she sounds. ‘It’s the kind of dress I reckoned Daisy and Josh couldn’t possibly find fault with, and now I’m thinking …’

‘… That’s not really the way to choose your wedding dress,’ Sadie offers.

‘But then,’ Hannah murmurs, pulling out her phone from her pocket, ‘Daisy is really good with clothes …’

‘But she’s only ten, isn’t she?’ Lou laughs.

‘Yes, but you should see the way she throws things together. Hang on a minute …’ Hannah steps towards the window, framing the searing red dress on the screen of her phone.

‘What are you doing?’ Sadie asks.

‘Getting a second opinion,’ Hannah murmurs, sending the image as a text along with the message: OKAY FOR A BRIDE?

‘And
our
opinion doesn’t count,’ Sadie teases.

‘Yeah, we know nothing,’ Lou adds. ‘We’ve only known you since you were eighteen years old …’ Hannah’s phone beeps and she peers at Daisy’s reply: YEAH.

‘Is that all she said?’ Lou asks, frowning, ‘Just
yeah
?’

‘Well,’ Hannah laughs, slipping her phone back into her pocket as she pushes open the door of the shop, ‘from Daisy Lennox that probably counts as a big thumbs-up.’

Two hours later, at Glasgow Central station, Hannah, Sadie and Lou exchange slightly stiff hugs with Cal, who’s clearly not the hugging type and keeps asking his dad if he can have a bagel from the kiosk. Then Johnny and Felix hug and kiss each of the girls in turn before they climb aboard their train.

Hannah has the key to Felix’s flat in her bag and a new, tissue-wrapped dress in a smart paper carrier bag, which she places carefully on the overhead shelf. As the train edges forward, the three girls wave through the dirt-speckled window at a man in an aquamarine top, blond hair askew, and a dad in a sweater, clutching the hand of his boy.

SIXTY-SIX

Lou unlocks the door to the flat, steps into the hallway and inhales the aroma of home. There’s a lingering hint of stale fried food, not unlike the smell at Let’s Bounce. Leaving her case in the hallway, she goes through to the kitchen and studies the items on the table.

There’s a half-empty wine bottle, a mug of black tea and a cardboard carton from the chippie. Lou sniffs the bottle, wincing at its acrid smell, and opens the lid of the carton. There are a few chips in there, pale and flabby, like slugs, and a dark brown, wizened lump which, on closer inspection, appears to be the end of a sausage. One of the fat chips has a cigarette stubbed out into it. It looks, Lou thinks, like a crime scene. She drops the mess into the bin.

Luckily, she had the foresight to eat on the train as she hadn’t expected Spike to have left her much in the way of food. Yet when she opens the fridge she sees that the chicken, noodles and veggies are still there, waiting expectantly, all looking rather sweaty and sorry for themselves. She bins the chicken and noodles, decides the vegetables might just about be okay and wanders through to the living room. On the coffee table sits another bottle – empty this time. Calvados, with a picture of a man in a sort of nightcap on the front. Where had that come from? Lou doesn’t like brandy and she can’t remember buying it. She deposits it in the recycling box, a memory gradually pulling itself into focus – of her and Spike, catching the Dover to Calais ferry, and being so thrilled by the concept of duty-free that they’d come home laden with ciggies for him and wine for her and the brandy because they’d thought it so Continental and exotic. It had seemed a little less so in their scuffed flat, and so it had been shoved to the back of the cupboard. Hot tears fill Lou’s eyes suddenly, and she heads to the bathroom for loo roll.

Here, she surveys the open wax strip packet in the bath, and the tubes and pots lying all over the floor as if they’ve thrown themselves out of the cupboard. Lou bristles with unease as she puts everything back, wondering now if someone has been here – some intruder who had the audacity to sit at the kitchen table eating his sausage and chips while drinking their booze, then trashing their bathroom. She inspects the room carefully, searching for further evidence of wrongdoing.

Draped over the side of the bath, alongside her flannel, is a solitary wax strip. Lou picks it up gingerly and examines it, realising it’s covered in dark curly hairs. What kind of sicko burglar would take a little break in the proceedings to wax himself? Yet there’s no evidence of anyone having broken in – no tampering with the door, no windows forced open. With sickening clarity, she realises it must have been Astrid. Spike must have had her over after Lou left for Scotland. They probably got pissed together, then Astrid must have raked through Lou’s private possessions and treated herself to a little Silken Glide session, making herself all smooth and lovely for Spike … well, she’s clearly not a natural blonde, Lou thinks, shuddering as she drops the strip into the bin.