by Rona Halsall
Twenty-Six
Chloe shivered in the cool breeze as she walked back to her gran’s. Tiredness dragged at her, each footstep an effort, and when another thought crawled into her head, she had to stop and sit on a wall for a minute.
Work!
She’d forgotten about work. She was supposed to be in for her shift in the morning, but she couldn’t see that happening. There was far too much to sort out and her mind would be too preoccupied to focus properly. Anyway, she’d have to go and talk to the police in the morning about her apartment and her belongings because there was no way she could do it now. Her head was pounding like a blacksmith was in there bashing away at his anvil. Tension bunched her shoulders, the pressure building inside her like she might burst.
Think of the baby, she told herself as she sucked in a few deep breaths. Stress is not good for babies.
Oh, and there was another thing She needed to see her GP, to make sure she was having all the proper maternity checks. Her to-do list was becoming endless.
She sighed and got back to her feet, plodding down the road like an old woman. It seemed to take much longer than usual to walk the ten-minute journey to her gran’s house and she practically fell through the door, almost too tired now to stay standing. She bumped into the hall table, sending a pile of magazines sprawling all over the floor, and couldn’t stop the frustration from bursting out of her in a long, loud scream.
Footsteps hurried from the kitchen and a tall, middle-aged woman with dyed purple hair dashed towards her.
‘Oh my goodness, what happened? Are you okay?’ She stopped and surveyed the sea of magazines which had slid in every direction, creating a barrier of slippery paper between them.
Chloe leant against the wall. ‘I’m sorry. You must be Janelle?’
A smile lit up the woman’s face, the warmth of her personality clear from the laugh lines that creased around her eyes and mouth. ‘That I am, and you must be Chloe.’
‘That’s me.’ Chloe nodded and looked at the mess, psyching herself up for the inevitable job of picking it all up.
Janelle flapped a hand and pointed to the chair next to the hall table. ‘No, it’s all right. I’ll do it. You just sit and sort yourself out for a moment. Won’t take a minute for me to clear this lot up.’ She crouched on the floor, gathering the magazines as she spoke, while Chloe stood where she was, too surprised by the encounter to think about moving. ‘Sure, it’s my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have left them there, but I was going to put them in the recycling bin, then I got distracted and forgot all about them.’
Five minutes later it was all done, and Janelle stood, the magazines clasped in her arms. ‘I’ll take these out now. Your gran’s in the kitchen if you want to go through. We were just having a cuppa and a quick game of chess. Easier in the kitchen, with the table.’ She laughed. ‘We tried in the lounge, but we kept knocking the damned board over.’
Chloe stood aside to let her pass. She watched her disappear out of the front door where the recycling boxes were stored, leaving Chloe feeling like an outsider in a home she had known since she was a child.
She trudged into the kitchen where her gran was sipping a cup of tea while she studied a chess board. She glanced up and smiled, then frowned. ‘Chloe, you’re back! I thought you were going to stay at your apartment?’
‘Oh, Gran, you wouldn’t believe what’s happened now. I can’t get in. The landlord changed the locks because they said I’d sent a letter relinquishing my lease.’
Her gran looked a bit taken aback. ‘You didn’t say you were moving.’ Her frown deepened, the corners of her mouth pinched downwards into that disapproving look Chloe had come to know so well. ‘But then I seem to be last to know about everything.’
Chloe sank onto a chair, resisting the urge to lay her head on the table and cry. The last thing she needed was her gran getting all uppity with her. What she wanted more than anything was Dan. She wanted him to come and take her away, sort out all this mess and tell her everything would be fine. Because right now, nothing in her world was fine and she had a growing mountain of problems to address.
She sighed. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t send a letter. It wasn’t me.’
Her gran huffed and shook her head, impatient. ‘I’m sorry, Chloe, I don’t think I’m following you.’
Chloe ran a hand through her hair, too tired to explain. She saw the time on the clock which was hung on the wall behind her gran: 11 a.m. Oh God, I’ve got to ring work, get that sorted out. And the bank.
Chloe rummaged in her bag for her phone, catching her gran’s quizzical look.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve just got a couple of calls to make, then I’ll explain it all.’ She heaved herself to her feet. ‘I’ll um go in the lounge, if you don’t mind. I can hardly think straight, and I’ve got such a mess to sort out.’
She bumped into Janelle in the hallway.
‘Sorry, love, are you going already?’ Janelle smiled at her, but Chloe couldn’t bring herself to smile back, anxious now to get the calls made.
She held up her phone. ‘Just got a couple of calls to make, then I’ll come and join you.’
‘Right you are,’ Janelle said, walking past her and settling back down at the kitchen table without a backwards glance.
Chloe slipped into the lounge, closing the door behind her, and blew out a breath, weariness pulling her body onto the sofa. Come on, just make the calls. No big deal. Let’s get this sorted. Of course, this was going to be harder with a new phone as she hadn’t got the direct number for work. She took a deep breath and got on with the job of finding the number for the hospital. Then she had to wait for the switchboard, which took a few attempts, the engaged tone beeping in her ear for quite a few minutes before someone actually answered. Finally, she reached a voice she recognised.
‘Anna! Thank goodness. It’s Chloe.’
‘Oh, you’re back! Go on, tell me, did you have a fab time? I thought you would have posted some pictures, but obviously you were’ She coughed. ‘Too busy.’
Chloe could almost see Anna’s cheeky smile, see the lifted eyebrow. She forced a smile into her voice. ‘Well um, I’ll have to fill you in next time I see you. I just wondered if Marie is there? I need a quick word.’
Marie was in charge of the physio unit, and she needed to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to do her shift the following day. Already she was feeling bad about it.
‘Yes, sure, I’ll go and get her for you. But you should be warned, you’re not her favourite person at the moment.’
Chloe frowned. ‘What? Why?’ She wondered what she’d done wrong, but when Anna didn’t reply she realised she’d put her on hold. Her palms felt sweaty. Marie was not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of; with a sharp tongue and a talent for sarcasm, she’d seen her reduce fellow team members to tears. Chloe’s pulse whooshed in her ears as she waited, unable to think of what she might have done, nervous about Marie’s reaction to the news she was about to give her regarding her shift the following day.
‘Chloe.’ Marie’s voice was cold and snippy. ‘I’m surprised you’ve got the nerve to ring after that little stunt.’
‘Stunt?’ Chloe frowned, confused. ‘What stunt? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Marie huffed down the phone. She was clearly fuming, and Chloe’s body tensed, ready for a verbal onslaught. ‘You could have spoken to me. That would have been the proper thing to do.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Chloe’s voice wavered. ‘I’m not sure what I’ve done.’
‘If you wanted to resign, firstly you should have had the manners to come and tell me in person instead of sending an email. And second, you’re supposed to give a month’s notice.’ Marie’s voice was getting louder and Chloe had to hold the phone away from her ear. ‘We’re understaffed as it is, as you well know. But to just walk away like this… well, it’s indefensible. So, if you think I’m going to give you a reference, then you’ve got another think coming!’
‘Well, how come I got an email last Monday saying you weren’t coming back? I’ve had to get HR involved, of course. We’ve got an agency guy filling in. But honestly, Chloe, I thought you were better than that.’
Panic fluttered in Chloe’s chest. ‘I’m sorry but there seems to have been a misunderstanding. I haven’t resigned!’
‘So, you’ve changed your mind, have you?’
‘No, no, listen to me. There’s something weird going on. I never sent that email. I didn’t.’
Marie huffed.
‘I was ringing to say I wouldn’t be in tomorrow because I’ve come back and there’s loads of weird stuff going on that I need to sort out.’
‘Stuff that’s more important than your job? You know I can’t stand unreliability.’
A headache hammered through Chloe’s skull, making thought almost impossible as her life crumbled around her.
‘I’m sorry, Marie. Believe me—’
‘You know I can’t abide excuses.’ The phone buzzed in Chloe’s ear as Marie hung up.
Chloe leant forwards, her fingers rubbing at her temples. What the hell is going on? She definitely hadn’t sent an email to Marie, so who had? Dan. That was the only answer. Was it him doing all this, to make sure she couldn’t come back to her life in Brighton, giving her no option but to move to Menorca? He’d taken her phone, hadn’t he? So, he’d have all her contacts and access to her email. Her hands curled into fists by her side.
How could he? Just wait till I speak to him!
The conversation she needed to have with Dan had now turned upside down in her mind, and instead of asking him to forgive her for running away, she’d be wanting answers to some bloody difficult questions. What’s all that rubbish about wanting to keep me safe? Gran had been right. It was melodramatic nonsense, designed to scare her. But the only person scaring her was him, if she was honest with herself. What sort of man would do this to his wife? Take her life away from her?
She looked at her phone as a headache boomed inside her skull, making her wince. Not yet, she told herself and slumped back on the settee, eyes squinting against the pain.
So many things still to do. But each task she tackled seemed to bring new horror, as she watched her life being taken apart, piece by piece. She hardly dared ring the bank, but that had to be her next job. She closed her eyes and tried to relax a little before she tackled anything else, thinking her blood pressure must be sky-high by now. Her hand gravitated towards her stomach, aware of the new life growing inside her. She needed to rest. Make sure she was eating properly. And she definitely needed to calm down.
There was a weekly class that she did with pregnant women, a whole exercise routine that she knew off by heart to help keep them flexible and make sure they were ready for the rigours of childbirth. She knew what was to come, knew how her body would change, which ligaments would loosen, which exercises would help. In her mind, she ran through the relaxation exercises they did at the end of each session, and after a few minutes, she was asleep.
* * *
She woke with a stiff neck, and checked her phone just as the time ticked over to 2.43 p.m. The bank! Immediately she was wide awake. She had to get that sorted out because she couldn’t function without money and wasn’t going to demean herself by begging from her gran. She took a deep breath, found the number for the bank’s central call centre and settled in for a bit of a wait while another round of tinny music rattled in her ear.
‘Good afternoon,’ said a bored, robotic-sounding voice. ‘My name is Lisa, how may I help you?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a problem with my debit card. The cash machine took it.’
‘Okay. I’ll just take you through security, then I’ll have a look for you.’
Chloe answered all the questions and waited while she was put back on hold. When a voice came on the line again, it was somebody else.
‘Hello, Miss Black, and thanks for holding.’ It was a different woman’s voice, well-spoken and older. ‘My colleague has passed your call on to me. I’ve looked into your query and it seems that your card was taken because your account is closed.’
Chloe gasped, appalled at what she was hearing. ‘No! No, it isn’t closed. I haven’t closed it, what are you talking about?’
‘It’s recorded here that we’ve had signed documentation closing your account. The paperwork arrived last Thursday. So that’s why your card won’t work. The balance has been transferred to your new account.’
Chloe’s jaw squeezed tight and she could hear her teeth grinding. She couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe and disconnected, knowing that there was no way she could carry on the conversation. Then she looked at the phone, wishing she had asked the obvious question: What new account?
Twenty-Seven
Poor Chloe.
Who would want to be in her shoes right now? Not me, that’s for sure. But from my point of view, everything seems to be working out just fine.
I can see her now, as she sits on the sofa, her face covered by her hands, shoulders shaking. Yes, poor thing is sobbing her heart out.
I should apologise to her, because none of this is her fault really. But I can’t feel bad about it. I won’t let myself.
Sometimes it’s a matter of no pain, no gain, isn’t it?
Twenty-Eight
‘Chloe? Are you okay?’
Janelle’s voice startled Chloe and she looked up, blinking back the tears as she tried to control her sobs. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, fumbled in her pocket for something to wipe up the snotty mess.
‘Here,’ Janelle said, pulling a pack of tissues from her pocket before sitting beside her. ‘What on earth’s the matter? Is it that husband of yours? Your gran told me he’d been playing up a bit. And you know, when you’re pregnant, all those hormones do funny things to your emotions.’
Chloe tried to speak, but her breath juddered in her throat as sobs forced themselves out. She shook her head, not sure she wanted to tell Janelle anything, and a spark of anger flared at the thought her gran had told this woman everything. A woman she’d only known for a week. Practically a stranger. How dare she?
‘Chloe, what’s going on?’
The sound of her gran’s voice made Chloe focus on the packet of tissues in her hand, not sure what to do anymore, who to trust. But then she remembered a favourite saying of her mother’s – a problem shared is a problem halved – and she decided she could really do with her problems shrinking because they were swamping her right now. Her money had gone to a mysterious account, she was homeless, all her possessions had disappeared, she no longer had a job and her husband was acting strangely. She could do with someone putting a positive spin on that lot.
Her sobs finally subsided, and she started to explain everything that had happened since she’d arrived back in Brighton.
‘Oh, my days,’ Janelle said, shaking her head. ‘That’s one heck of a mess you’ve got on your hands, isn’t it?’ She shuffled up the sofa and put an arm round Chloe’s shoulders, giving her a hug. She smelt of something floral, her body soft and comforting, but she was a stranger and Chloe tensed. A hug wasn’t going to be the answer.
‘Right, well, first thing is to ring that husband of yours and find out what’s going on,’ her gran said.
Chloe nodded.
‘You give him a call and we’ll give you a bit of privacy.’ Her gran wagged a finger. ‘But you stand up to him, young lady. None of this submissive nonsense just because he’s your husband. You’re allowed to have your own life and it’s not for him to decide how you live it!’
‘Or where you live it,’ Janelle chimed in.
Once she was on her own, Chloe sat for a few minutes, dazed by how quickly her life had been taken apart. She’d been solid before she’d met Dan. Unexciting maybe, but solid, held in place by routine and responsibilities. Yes, it had felt like sh
e was holding her breath, waiting for her future to spring to life, but she’d felt calm, a contentment of sorts. Had she really been so desperate for a relationship that she’d blocked out all the warning signs of trouble? She’d revelled in Dan’s attentiveness, never imagining it might be the precursor to control. How could she have foreseen this? That he’d whisk her life away without discussion, taking it on himself to make decisions that weren’t his to make, to shape her life in a way that she didn’t want.
Finally ready, she rang his number. Instantly, a woman’s voice told her, ‘Sorry this number is no longer available.’
She frowned and tried again, with the same result. Then she remembered that Dan had bought a new SIM card, a local one because he said it would save money. Had he changed it after he’d rung her gran? Or maybe there was a problem with his phone? What the hell? If his number wasn’t working for some reason, she had no way of talking to him.
Her mind ran round in frantic circles before she realised she could still message him. Not ideal, but at least she could have a conversation of sorts.
‘What now?’ she muttered to herself when her Facebook page wouldn’t load. She tried Dan’s page, but that wouldn’t come up either. She went to her email, but it said her password wasn’t recognised. Same with her Messenger account, and her Instagram and Twitter accounts seemed to have disappeared as well. Gone. In social media terms, she no longer existed and her list of contacts had vanished.
Her fingers rubbed at her temple. Why would he do this?
She lay down on the settee, too tired to sit up anymore, her thoughts racing. Perhaps it isn’t him? She had to open her mind to other possibilities, didn’t she? She chewed her lip as she pondered the question, looking for an alternative explanation. Who else might want to get me out of Brighton? Cause me so much hassle?
After a moment, her thoughts settled.
Lucy and Mark.
Her eyes widened. Now that was a definite possibility.