The Runaway Year

by Shani Struthers

  “No,” replied Angelica without missing a beat, “I said I told his secretary, not him. She rang me to say Easy Travel needed your forwarding address, something about wages owed. A very nice young lady she was, polite. I told her you lived in Trecastle now, worked in the pub there.”

  “But how did he…she get your number?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, darling.” Angelica shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not that difficult nowadays, is it? Not with the Internet.”

  So that’s how Alex had found her—hardly heaven and earth at all, just clever deducing. Deducing he’d probably got his secretary to do, not even making the phone call himself.

  Determined to look on the bright side, however, she said, “Well, at least with Alex I’ll have a home, a future.”

  “With Alex you’ll have a lifetime of heartache and nothing else.”

  “How do you know that?” Layla was getting cross now. “Why is everyone so down on him?”

  “Perhaps because they can see what you can’t?”

  “That works in reverse, too. Perhaps I can see something in him that they can’t, something credible, something real.”

  “Okay then, darling, enlighten me. Tell me one ‘real’ thing about him.”

  About to rise to the challenge, Layla was shocked when her mind went blank.

  “Darling, you must make your own mind up. I can’t and won’t do that for you. It’s not my place. All I can draw on is my own experience. I’m happy with Giorgio, but I don’t love him. No, don’t look like that. As I said I’m happy with him, content. And content is all I ask for now. He gives me the world, like Alex will give to you, but there’s one big difference: I trust Giorgio implicitly.”

  “Mum,” Layla started, fed up of discussing Alex’s infidelity.

  “Let me finish,” insisted Angelica. “You’re twenty-eight, the same age I was when I lost your father. Lost the love of my life. It sounds as if you still might have yours. Okay, he’s angry with you, but he’s alive. Greg was taken from me. I had no choice in it. You do. Don’t throw him away because you think he doesn’t want you. I saw something in his eyes yesterday that told me otherwise.”

  “You’re wrong. Only Alex wants me. Joseph doesn’t.”

  “No, you’re wrong. Find some resolution, whatever that may be. And whilst you’re at it, keep in mind you’re perfectly capable of standing on your own two feet; you’ve been doing so since you were seven. You don’t need anyone to pave the way for you.”

  “I am starting to realize that,” said Layla, feeling as though she were the one being enlightened.

  Angelica yawned. “I’m going to turn in now. All this preaching has tired me to the bone. I’ve got a long journey tomorrow.”

  “Night, Mum,” said Layla, smiling up at her.

  Before she turned to leave, however, she added, “Any time, night or day, I’m here for you. It may be on the other end of the phone, I can’t help that, but I will always make time to listen. No more rushed exchanges. That’s my promise to you, if you promise to do what I ask.”

  “I promise,” whispered Layla, exhausted to the bone herself.

  While Angelica got ready for bed, Layla checked her phone. Alex had texted several times.

  Where are you? Why don’t you ever answer your phone?

  You okay?

  Layla, speak to me. I miss you. I love you.

  I can’t wait til you come home.

  Good news, Jack has signed contracts. The merger

  is complete! The Cristal’s on ice.

  Can’t wait to celebrate with you.

  I’ve drunk the Cristal, couldn’t wait.

  Layla, pick up the phone.

  You’ve no idea how much I miss you.

  I love you.

  After reading them several times over, she switched her phone off, unable to think of a suitable reply.

  Despite Layla telling her not to, that she’d drive her to the airport, her mother insisted on calling Dan the taximan, saying she didn’t want to put Layla to any trouble. Layla suspected, however, it was the thought of cramming into her tiny little Mazda that was really concerning Angelica. She had clearly gotten used to traveling in style.

  As they kissed goodbye, just managing to hold the tears at bay, Angelica said fondly, “Remember, life’s too short for mistakes. Think about what you want, not just what you need. It may be Alex; it may be Joseph. It may be neither of them in the end, I don’t know. Just listen to your instincts, and you won’t go wrong.”

  “Thanks, Mum, for all your advice.” Layla tried to smile.

  “Better late than never, huh?”

  “Better late than never.”

  As Dan pulled up outside in his shiny blue cab, polished to perfection no doubt to impress her mother whom he looked thoroughly in love with, mother and daughter said their final goodbyes.

  As she was about to step into the taxi, with Dan making a great show of holding the door open for her, Angelica stopped. “Isn’t that your friend? The blond one, Penny?”

  “Penny?” said Layla, looking to where her mother was pointing. “Bloody hell, Penny!”

  Screeching round the corner in her Qashqai was indeed Penny, coming to an abrupt halt in front of Dan’s cab.

  She hadn’t known Penny was turning up. There had been no text to say so. Then again, her phone had been switched off since last night.

  “Another surprise, darling?” Angelica asked with a wink. “It seems the smoke fairies are doing their utmost to make sure you stick around. Good luck. I’ll call as soon as I’m home.”

  “Bye, Mum. Safe journey,” she said, quickly planting one last kiss on her cheek before rushing over to where Penny sat, a look of utter misery etched on her face.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  STEELING HERSELF, PENNY GOT OUT of the car. “Was that your mum?” she said to a bewildered Layla.

  “Er, yeah, she’s been here for a week. A surprise visit.”

  “A surprise visit? That’s a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?” Before Layla could answer, however, Penny rushed on. “Oh, Layla, what a dreadful journey! How I made it in one piece, I don’t know. I nearly crashed about a dozen times on the way.”

  “Why?” said Layla, her eyes wide.

  “You’re not going to believe why. Come on; let’s get indoors. I’m freezing.”

  It wasn’t actually freezing. It was, in fact, an unusually mild day for late October, but she’d been unable to stop shivering since leaving Brighton, her tremors an almost involuntary action. As she headed toward the cottage, she heard Layla call out behind her.

  “What about your bags? Shall I get them for you?”

  “Bags?” Penny called back. “I haven’t got any. There wasn’t time to pack.”

  Layla came racing in behind her. “Penny, I don’t understand. You never travel anywhere without your entire wardrobe in tow. What’s going on?”

  “No clothes, no phone. It’s just me, I’m afraid. Nothing but me.” Slumping down at the kitchen table, she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else, “God, I could do with a drink.”

  Hearing her, Layla went straight to the fridge to find some wine. Quickly Penny said, “No, no, not wine. A cup of tea will do. A really strong cup, though. Big burly builder style. Two sugars. No, make that three.”

  Layla raised her eyebrows at this and duly made tea instead. Penny took a few sips of the scalding hot liquid before promptly bursting into tears.

  Without hesitation, Layla enfolded her in her arms. “Penny, what is it? What’s going on? I thought everything was great with you now.”

  “It is. It was. But it’s gone to shit, just like that. Dylan turned up on my doorstep yesterday evening. He found out where I lived. I’m not sure how. I never told him. He won’t leave me alone, Layla. He’s a head case.”

  “Dylan? I thought Dylan was history.”

  Penny breathed deeply in an attempt to calm down. When she was sure she could speak again without dissolving into tears,
she tried to explain further. “You remember how badly Richard took it when I told him about me and Dylan?”

  “Er, yeah. I’m hardly likely to forget.”

  “And we weren’t speaking for a while?”

  “For a while? That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “Well, you know how furious I was with Richard for reacting the way he did? For completely refusing to accept that he might have played a part in pushing me into Dylan’s arms. For blaming me entirely.”

  “I do. It was unfair¸” soothed Layla, gently stroking her hair.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” said Penny, grabbing hold of her hands, desperate for validation. “Unfair, I mean. I’m not a selfish cow, am I?”

  “Of course not. You tried to tell him a thousand times how lonely you felt. He didn’t listen, wouldn’t compromise. The fault is as much his as yours.”

  “Thanks, Layla. I needed to hear that,” Penny said with a sniffle, grateful not just for her support but for the box of tissues she had provided as soon as they sat down. They were certainly coming in handy.

  “Whilst he wasn’t speaking to me, Richard that is, I carried on seeing Dylan occasionally. No, don’t look so shocked. It was just as friends. I made that crystal clear to him. He was funny, that’s all, and I needed some lighthearted relief from all the crap I was getting at home.” Hesitating slightly, she continued, “I’m not blaming you, don’t get me wrong, but you weren’t around. You’d left by then. Dylan became a bit of a lifeline, I suppose, someone I could have a laugh with.”

  “I can understand that,” Layla said gently. “Really I can.”

  “After that episode with his father, do you remember? He had a suspected heart attack, and Richard called me whilst I was here, to ask me to come home? And I did, the very next day. Well, we got closer after that, Richard and me. As close as we used to be. Everything was going great, except for one thing: Dylan just wouldn’t accept I didn’t want to see him anymore. He started bombarding me with texts—friendly at first, like the ones he sent me whilst I was here, asking me about my holiday and stuff, but they became more threatening as I failed to reply or told him to back off. He said I’d used him, and in a way he’s right, I did.”

  “He texted whilst you were here? You didn’t say. I thought that was Richard texting you all the time. You said it was.”

  “I lied,” said Penny as she burst into tears again.

  Layla continued to try to console her, but it was no good. Penny felt trapped in a tunnel of misery, at the end of which no light prevailed. The walls around her suddenly closing in, she jumped up. “I need to get out. I need some air.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Penny headed out of the cottage and into the soft sunshine, striding into the village and down to the beach, Layla practically running to keep up with her.

  The high street was empty, except for a few people, locals at this time of year she presumed, popping into the grocers or May’s to stock up on provisions. She cast a cursory glance at Joseph’s workshop and the pub as she marched ahead, praying that neither he nor Hannah would choose that exact moment to appear. Except for Layla, she was in no mood to see anyone; she must look wretched.

  Down at the beach, she walked up to the water’s edge, big foamy waves rushing at her like galloping horses, the gulls loud and swooping.

  Layla caught up with her eventually and stood beside her, staring out to sea also.

  “I’m scared, Layla,” said Penny finally. “Dylan’s acting like a man possessed. He won’t leave me alone.”

  “What happened when he turned up on your doorstep? What did Richard do?”

  “He hit the roof, that’s what he did,” said Penny, the salt air stinging her chewed lips. “Thankfully, he managed to refrain from hitting Dylan, although how, I don’t know. I never told you this before, but Dylan had been in trouble with the police when he was younger. He was quite open about it, almost blasé. I just assumed it was for something relatively minor, smoking a bit of weed or something. He never enlightened me otherwise. Not until recently anyway. It was assault he was in for. Did time in Lewes Prison for it. I think he let me know as a kind of threat, does that make sense? Thank God, Richard’s not really the aggressive type. If he’d started on Dylan, he would have probably ended up flattened.”

  “Christ,” said Layla.

  “Eventually Dylan did leave, but only after calling me a prick-tease and a slut. Heaven knows what the neighbors thought; their curtains were twitching madly. Then Richard demanded I tell him every last detail. And I did. I showed him the texts Dylan had bombarded me with, how I had tried to appease him, to get him off my back, and how he had ignored me. I told him every bit of it, leading right up to the confrontation on our doorstep.”

  “Oh, Penny, I don’t know what to say.” Layla was clearly shocked.

  “Neither did Richard,” said Penny, shaking her head sadly. “After I finished speaking, he left. Just like that, without saying a word. I spent the night driving round Brighton trying to find him. I even went to Beachy Head, can you believe it? Just in case. I drove round and round, went back to the house several times to check, but he never showed up. As soon as the birds started singing, I put my foot down and didn’t stop. That’s how I ended up here.”

  Layla held onto Penny’s arms. “We have to contact Richard,” she said. “We have to let him know you’re safe.”

  “As if he cares,” said Penny bitterly.

  “It’s only fair, Penny.”

  “Fair?” Penny screamed. “I was out of my mind with worry last night when he left. Hours passed, and still I didn’t know where he was. He didn’t think how fair that was on me, did he? I told him it was just a friendship with Dylan. Well, it was to me, anyway. My replies to his texts proved that at least. But Richard doesn’t believe me; he believes only the worst.”

  “Penny, calm down. This is not tit-for-tat; this is serious. It’s only right we tell him where you are. Everything else we’ll sort out later, when we’ve had a chance to think about it. Now come on; I’m taking you home. By the sounds of it, you haven’t slept for twenty-four hours. You can’t be thinking straight. You need to rest. Let me take care of you.”

  As the ocean roared incessantly in the distance, Penny thought, Yes, that would be nice, someone to take care of me.

  And like a meek child, she allowed Layla to take her by the hand, lead her back down the high street and toward The Outlook, a refuge for both of them now.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I KNOW WHAT I NEED,” said a considerably brighter-looking Penny over breakfast the next morning.

  “What?” said Layla, chewing on a slice of toast.

  “A man’s perspective on my predicament. I’m off to see Joe.”

  Layla almost choked. “Do you think that’s wise?” she said, hoping to imply it most certainly wasn’t.

  “It can’t hurt.” Penny finished the dregs of her tea. “In fact, I’ll go now. Catch you later.”

  As Penny rushed out the door for the second time in two days, Layla was glad she was sitting down. She would have fallen over with shock otherwise. Penny seeing Joseph, or rather flirting with him, was not going to help. It would only complicate matters further.

  Feeling annoyed that she was annoyed, she carried the breakfast plates over to the sink before trying Richard’s phone again. He wasn’t answering, his silence hopefully due to anger rather than reasons more sinister. She sent a text instead, but got no reply to that either.

  Layla had thought she would spend today with Penny, but heaven knew how long she’d be gone for. What shall I do instead? she wondered. But deep down she knew what she had to do: she had to seek out Hannah and apologize. Do the right thing, her mother had said. And it was the right thing, even if the thought filled her with anxiety.

  She headed outdoors, walked past houses and green fields toward the village center, and turned right, away from the pub, toward Hannah and Jim’s road. She rang the doorbell, and it was a few mom
ents before there was an answer. Instead of Hannah standing before her, however, it was Jim, with nothing but a bath towel wrapped round his waist.

  “Oh, hi, Layla,” he said as he rubbed his hair with another, smaller towel. “I’ve just got out of the shower.”

  Embarrassed by his near-nakedness, she started to back hastily away, muttering all the while, “Sorry, Jim, didn’t mean to interrupt you. It was Hannah I was after. No worries, I’ll call back another time.”

  “It’s okay.” Jim smiled at her, not with his usual isn’t-life-just-brilliant smile but more of an isn’t-life-just-totally-fucked-up-sometimes smile. “She’s popped to the shops. Come in and wait. She won’t be long.”

  Reluctantly, she followed him in. She had really wanted to see Hannah first, to get a sense of how the land lay, but perhaps this was fortuitous when she thought about it. Jim was an innocent caught up in the mess she’d made. He deserved to top her list of people to apologize to.

  “Coffee?” he said amicably.

  “Er, yeah, that’ll be great. White, please, no sugar.”

  If she hoped he’d get dressed before he made their drinks, she was disappointed. He had no such intention, clearly unaware of the effect his bare torso could have on a girl. Forcing herself to look around the kitchen instead of at him, she noticed dirty plates, mugs, and bowls piled up on every available surface. On the wall was another of Hannah’s paintings, a huge canvas liberally splashed with oranges, yellows, and golds. A Cornish sunset, if she was not very much mistaken.

  “Sorry about the mess,” said Jim, although it was obvious he couldn’t give a damn. “I’ll clear up soon.”

  “It’s fine. Better things to do in life than housework.” She took the mug from him and continued, “Look, about last week, what I said—or more to the point, what you heard me say—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  He leaned against the countertop, his toned arms folded across his body. “You did mean it, Layla, because it’s true. Hannah’s my first choice, but I’m not hers. I know that.”

  Pushing a plate aside so she could place her mug of coffee down, she said, “Jim, Hannah loves you. She’s told me how much. God, she doesn’t even need to tell me, it’s obvious. And who wouldn’t? You’re wonderful, kind, and caring. She just needs more time, that’s all.”