My Husband the Stranger

by Rebecca Done

  And then I hear it. A loose giggle, followed ever so faintly by a ssshh.

  I hesitate, and then the mortifying realization strikes me. ‘Oh my God. Now’s not a good time, is it?’

  ‘No, Molly, it’s –’

  Another soft giggle.

  I can feel myself blushing. ‘I’m so sorry. You should have said. I’ll speak to you another time.’

  ‘Moll, I’ll call you later –’

  But I have hung up, head already in my hands.

  Graeme is so bizarre sometimes. Why the hell would he pick up the phone to me while he’s with a girl?

  I sigh, switch off my phone and head back inside before I can inflict any more damage on the outside world.

  6

  Alex – 18 March 2011

  ‘I’ve got something I need to tell you.’

  It’s the night before Molly is due to move all her stuff into my flat. We’ve been dating for a mere twelve weeks, but I know – I just know – that she’s the one. In my entire six years of dating Nicola, I was never really struck with the idea that she was the girl I would spend the rest of my life with. Looking back, it’s hard to see how we made it that far.

  But that’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is that I still haven’t told Graeme about Molly. He’s been away on holiday, then she was, and before I knew it several weeks had passed. But it’s been three months now, and still I haven’t confessed.

  It doesn’t end there: I persuaded my landlord to let me stay on in my flat (which curiously enough involved him upping the rent), before turning down the job I agreed to accept in Norwich and ripping up the resignation letter I wrote for my current job. Pissed a lot of people off. Graeme knows I’ve done all that, but he doesn’t know why.

  I figure it’s time to own up.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  We’re rewarding ourselves for our earlier workout by sharing a curry in my flat, half watching some entertainment show, talking about work and about Dad. My plan is to tell him about Molly, then for us all to meet up for beers later.

  ‘Yeah … it’s a bit weird, actually.’

  He looks over at me, hair still damp from the shower, mouth full of Balti chicken. ‘Weird?’

  ‘Well, you know how I decided not to move back to Norfolk in the end?’ It wasn’t a hard decision, actually. Yes, I crave the country, and all my friends were ready and waiting for my big return home – but being with Molly has suddenly made the city seem infinitely more bearable. I simply can’t risk losing her at this point by moving two hours up the motorway and turning us into a long-distance relationship. I’ve never met a girl like her before.

  Graeme waves his fork around my very-much-London-based living room. ‘Er, yeah.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t just … get cold feet. There was sort of a reason.’

  He puts the fork down and beams at me. ‘I knew it! I told Dad. You met someone, didn’t you?’

  I beam back at him. ‘Yep. I did, as it happens. And … I want you to meet her tonight.’

  Graeme shakes his head, rarely fazed by impromptu invitations to socialize, and pops a hunk of naan into his mouth. ‘Bloody hell, I owe Darren twenty quid now. You sly old bugger.’

  Yes, I have been a bit sly, actually.

  ‘So who is she?’

  I hesitate. Why is this so hard? Graeme’s my brother.

  ‘You remember that girl we met just before Christmas at the bar? The one who you were chatting to and then … well, you went off to speak to Rhiannon?’

  Graeme’s expression darkens slightly. ‘Oh yeah. Her. Tray full of cocktails, never to be seen again.’

  I say nothing more, just wait for him to catch my eye.

  ‘Her?’

  From outside the window, a train shoots past on the tracks running parallel to my street, the noise roughly on a par with a plane taking off.

  I try to smile. ‘Yeah, she … it was weird, I bumped into her later and we got chatting.’

  Graeme’s jaw sort of swings. ‘That was the girl you went off with?’

  I’d told him it hadn’t gone any further with the girl I abandoned him for that night. I’d even invented a name – Louise. Lied, essentially. I wish I hadn’t done that now.

  ‘Yeah. Her name’s Molly.’ I shake my head. Funny how it all seemed quite harmless at the time.

  ‘Not Louise, then.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I thought – I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to jinx it.’

  ‘Well, cheers for that, mate.’ He looks more wounded than I was expecting.

  ‘You’re always telling me to go for it with girls,’ I say hastily, whipping out my only (rather weak) excuse a little too swiftly. ‘I mean, you kept saying it, that night.’

  ‘So you thought you’d go for it with her?’

  ‘Gray, it wasn’t …’

  He smiles faintly. ‘Go on, say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t,’ I protest. I can feel myself getting hot and worked up. ‘I didn’t intend to –’

  ‘What did you tell her to put her off me?’ he asks me suddenly. ‘That I was on the phone to my ex?’

  I stare guiltily down at my plate, mumble a lie. ‘No, of course not. I only bumped into her later on.’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Maybe you should have told her I liked her. How about that?’

  ‘Oh, come on! I bet you’re still sleeping with Rhiannon now.’

  Graeme petulantly shoves another hunk of naan into his mouth and chews furiously.

  ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, maybe I wouldn’t be if I’d had my chance with Molly.’

  ‘Don’t, Gray,’ I mutter. ‘She’s … my girlfriend now.’

  ‘Wow. Don’t tell me you’re in love?’

  I swallow, say nothing and look down at my plate, feeling like a complete and utter tosser. From beyond the window, the pleading wail of a siren calls.

  ‘So are you?’ he presses. ‘In love?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘I’ve asked her to move in with me.’

  ‘In here?’

  I nod.

  He nods back. ‘Right. So you’re definitely not coming home.’

  ‘Not at the moment. Molly’s job’s here, and …’

  ‘She didn’t fancy it? More of a city girl, is she?’

  ‘I haven’t even asked her, Graeme. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you do straight off the bat.’

  ‘So how long’s it been – three months?’

  I nod again, scoop some rice on to my fork and hope we can move on.

  ‘You know what doesn’t make sense, mate? That you’ve taken three sodding months to tell me about her.’

  ‘There didn’t seem to be a good time.’

  Graeme smiles at me. ‘To say I’ve got a girlfriend?’

  ‘There’s just been –’

  ‘I get it. You felt guilty.’

  ‘About what?’ I say, a little indignantly, though I know full well what.

  Graeme shoots me a look I probably deserve, mopping up the rest of his curry with the last piece of his naan. But he remains silent.

  ‘Look, Gray – it’s not as if you said to me you liked her …’

  ‘You knew,’ Graeme says lightly, like my own conscience should have done the talking, which of course, it should have. We’re twins after all. We do have some level of intuition about what the other’s thinking.

  ‘You said you met someone else that night anyway,’ I remind him weakly.

  ‘Yeah, which lasted to breakfast. Actually – come to think of it – not even breakfast.’

  I can’t think of a way to explain that Molly and Graeme having a one-night stand would truly have been a horrible and terrible waste, because Molly is the girl of my dreams. To be honest, even the concept of them hitting it off is a little difficult to get my head around, so I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on it.

  ‘Bumped into her, you said?’ Graeme
says now.

  I nod, lean back against the sofa, pick up my drink.

  ‘Maybe she thought you were me,’ he says, goading me in that particular way only he as my twin brother has the knack for.

  I don’t tell him that for a split second she had mistaken me for him. It’s irrelevant – I corrected her straight away, for God’s sake.

  ‘Graeme – if I’d known you felt that way about her –’

  ‘You did know,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘And you decided to do it anyway.’ He shakes his head. ‘But look – I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. You’re in love, that’s great, well done.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t be like that.’

  He gets up and walks over to the kitchen, puts his curry plate in the sink. ‘Don’t be like what?’

  ‘Look,’ I say, worrying how I’m now going to ask the favour I need from him, ‘I haven’t explained any of this to Molly. It’s all a bit complicated.’ Primarily because I’ve been a bit of an idiot about the whole thing. ‘Can you just … sort of pretend you’ve known about her all along?’

  Graeme smiles at me like he’s only just realized what a fool he has for a twin. ‘She doesn’t know she was a secret girlfriend?’

  I give up trying to explain my bizarre behaviour. ‘No, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Does she know you were about to move back to Norfolk?’

  ‘No. Look – please, Gray?’

  He comes over to me then and takes my face between his palms. ‘I will do my very best,’ he says, ‘not to give you away.’

  ‘Gerroff,’ I grunt, upon which he ruffles my hair, so I can only assume we’ve made up.

  The following evening Molly and I carry the last of her boxes from the car up the two flights of stairs to my (our) top-floor flat. Pausing in the living room, she puts a hand to her chest, breathes heavily. ‘Wow. I seriously need to go to the gym.’

  To me she looks incredible, even in her moving-day T-shirt and jeans. ‘Whatever happened to that New Year’s resolution?’

  ‘Um, life?’

  I draw her into a hug and kiss the top of her head. She’s been working long hours recently, leaving precious little time for anything else. ‘Believe me, you don’t need to worry about it,’ I whisper.

  ‘Charmer,’ she says, beaming up at me happily.

  ‘So,’ I say, as we survey the mound of boxes now taking up all available floor space in the living room, ‘what did you make of Graeme?’

  She smiles at me. ‘Make of him?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I smile back. ‘What?’

  ‘No, it’s just … you say it like he’s a puzzle that needs solving.’

  Oh, Molly. If only you knew.

  The three of us went out for beers last night with two of my colleagues, Ryan and Phil. I’d assumed Graeme was coming back to mine afterwards, since I’d invited him to London for the weekend in the first place. But he made his excuses after closing, saying he was going to meet someone he hadn’t caught up with for a while, and off he went and we didn’t see him again. But then, that’s Graeme – ever since I can remember he’s had a habit of disappearing without telling anyone where he’s going.

  ‘You didn’t think it was odd?’ I ask her. ‘That he went off like that?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘He strikes me as that kind of guy.’

  Ah. Interesting. I suspect deep down I’m still looking for additions to my growing tally of reasons why Molly and Graeme would be the most poorly matched couple in existence.

  ‘What – rude?’ I say then, as a sort of joke.

  She tips her head at me. ‘No, of course not. Just … a bit flaky. Anyway,’ she says, ‘can we stop talking about your brother, and celebrate the fact we just moved in together?’

  I smile down at her. ‘Yes, please.’

  But just as our lips meet, Molly’s phone starts to ring.

  ‘Who is it?’ I ask her.

  She winces. ‘Dad. Again.’

  I met Molly at her parents’ place in Clapham early this morning to load boxes. I get on with them well, but I suspect asking Molly to move in with me less than three months after meeting her in a bar was not exactly the brightest move in their eyes. They’re practising Christians – not devout, but they believe in the proper order of things and brought Molly up in the same way. (She stopped accompanying them to church when she turned eighteen, and I swear that sometimes she still gets overexcited on a Sunday morning because she doesn’t have anywhere to be.)

  But given their beliefs, they do seem pretty cool with our relationship on the whole – maybe because they’re pleased I’m at least ready to commit, or maybe because they see it as a fairly low-risk move on balance: Molly moving in two miles down the road with her new boyfriend, who has neither a serious attitude problem nor an allergy to any form of commitment.

  Just then, the clouds that have been hanging overhead all day finally burst, and a storm begins to rage beyond the window, loud enough to rattle the glass in the pane.

  Molly and I lock eyes, share a smile. ‘Just in time,’ I whisper.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she murmurs, leaning forward to kiss me. ‘I think there’s something romantic about getting soaked together in the rain …’

  Her phone buzzes again.

  ‘Sorry, better answer it,’ she sighs, pulling away reluctantly and putting her phone to her ear. ‘Hello?’ She pauses for a few moments while her dad rambles on about something, shooting me a smile to show it’s nothing to worry about. ‘Yes, Dad. No, they’re all in … yes. Well, Alex has stuff. Yes. Yes. I’m fine, Dad. Yes, I promise. Okay. Love you. Love you. No, I’ll speak to her tomorrow. Love you both. Bye.’ She hangs up, wincing slightly through her smile. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. They love you, they care about you.’

  She makes a face. ‘I think smother’s the word you’re looking for.’

  ‘Hey, Moll, don’t knock it,’ I say, but then stop. I don’t want to make her feel guilty for being embarrassed by overbearing parents.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says gently. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘No – I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean – you’re an only child, their little girl. Of course they’re going to worry about you moving in with someone you’ve only known for a few weeks.’

  ‘It feels longer,’ she says, perching on a box.

  I smile. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  She laughs. ‘I just mean, I feel like I’ve known you my entire life.’ She sends a little shrug my way. ‘Corny, but true.’

  ‘Well, me too.’ I deliberate for a moment between going back over to her to finish the kiss we started, or heading into the kitchen to retrieve the bottle of champagne I’ve had chilling in the fridge since last night.

  Another good reason for not yet having divulged the details of Dad’s drinking habit to Moll. I can enjoy a bottle of champagne with her and not have to worry that she’s wondering quite what she’s getting into.

  ‘So, what does your dad think?’ she asks me then, taking me a bit by surprise, like I’ve said something about Dad out loud without realizing. ‘About us shacking up together?’

  ‘He’s happy for us.’

  I haven’t yet introduced them, and I haven’t yet sat down and told Dad I’m not coming back to Norfolk for the foreseeable future. He thinks my staying on in London is only temporary, that I’m still due to move out of my flat, that my Norfolk job offer comes with a flexible start date. I don’t want to upset him, so quite shamefully I told him I’ve got a big project on at work that I need to wrap up in order to secure my spring bonus. I’ll be free to move after that, I told him.

  Outside, the rain hammers and the windows shake.

  ‘He’s really ill, isn’t he?’ she asks me gently.

  I swallow and nod. ‘Quite ill, yes.’

  ‘Are you sure … you wouldn’t rather move back there? Be with him?’

  I can’t quite explain why, but there’s something abo
ut the thought of moving back to Norfolk now that suddenly terrifies me. These past twelve weeks with Molly have felt like everything I’ve been waiting for my entire life and the idea of heading back to the country without her is a massive punt I’m unwilling to take. I picture myself living back with Graeme in his flat, listening to him jibe me about being single – or if Molly’s willing to make it a long-distance thing, his predictable jokes about her meeting new guys with all that free time she has now.

  And yet – Dad’s so ill. Am I doing the right thing? Is a visit every other weekend really enough?

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I tell her firmly. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you to move in if I wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s so weird seeing all my boxes here like this,’ Molly says, a delicate change of subject.

  ‘Good weird?’

  ‘Yes! It’s just … I’ve never lived with a guy before. It’s like … my whole life’s in boxes on the floor of someone else’s living room.’

  ‘Well, not your whole life,’ I remind her with a smile. ‘Most of your stuff is still at your mum’s.’ Molly has a lot of stuff – her bedroom barely looked as if we’d touched it, even as we were leaving.

  ‘Well, all the important stuff’s here.’

  ‘Wait there a moment,’ I say then, heading back over to my tiny kitchen to grab the champagne and two glasses. (They called it ‘open-plan’ when I viewed the place, by which they meant it was really just part of the living room.) ‘Now’s the right time for a toast, I think.’

  She smiles. ‘You’re so romantic. Champagne and flowers.’ She nods at the posy of wild flowers I bought her this morning, now tucked neatly into an old coffee jar (I’m not that organized).

  ‘Oh God. You mean cheesy.’ I think guiltily about how many times I’ve berated my brother for being cheesy around girls.

  ‘Definitely not.’ Her eyes are sparkling. ‘But just so you know, I do draw the line at teddy bears holding felt hearts.’

  ‘God, we all draw the line at teddy bears.’ I pretend to shudder before filling the champagne flutes and handing her one. Our eyes meet. ‘I love you,’ I tell her.

  ‘I love you too.’

  We chink gently, then take a sip. The drink’s perfectly chilled, the flat’s warm and everything’s pretty much perfect. Outside, the wind howls, sending sharp slaps of rain against the window. Tonight all the stars are hiding, tucked safely away behind the storm clouds.