So now, looking for Ruby online, I realised I had no idea whether she was still in Chester or what kind of job she was doing. I looked on Facebook first. There were several women there with the same name. I saw a Facebook link to a Ruby Taylor in Chester, but it was set to private and I couldn’t see anything, just a photo of some flowers, so I didn’t know whether it was her or not. There was another Ruby Taylor on Twitter, but again she had no photo and had only used her account to retweet. It hadn’t been used at all for a couple of years. She wasn’t on LinkedIn, which surprised me; it seemed the sort of thing that she’d be on, with a really flattering photo and thousands of qualifications.
Katie sent a message while I was looking for Ruby:
Hope you got home OK yesterday. Try to move on, Hannah. It’s just not worth getting into a state about him. x
She really had no idea. She must have thought my relationship was very shallow, that I could give up on it just like that. I knew that if it had happened to her, she would have been bed-bound, with her mother holding a cold compress to her head, while her father went out to teach the guy a lesson. I was just about to text back saying that I thought Matt was with Ruby in Chester, but I managed to stop myself in time. She already thought I was mad without bringing Ruby into it. She knew about Ruby, of course – I’d phoned her as soon as Matt was back on the train to London that weekend – but I hadn’t mentioned her in years, probably not since Matt had moved in with me. She’d really think I was losing it if I told her my thoughts now. So I sent a quick text saying I was OK and carried on my search.
And then I found her.
34
Ruby was working as a wedding planner. Immediately I had a vision of her roaming around stately homes with a clipboard, wearing one of those headsets with a microphone, ordering the staff around and enjoying the lustful gaze of the groom. The photos on the website showed her in a variety of hats and suits and little dresses, looking as pleased as punch with herself.
The devil is in the detail, the blurb on the website stated.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that.
The offices for the wedding planners were in the centre of Chester, just on the edge of the Roman walls. Matt must have been visiting her, I thought. But he was getting on a train . . . Where was he going? Was he living in Chester with Ruby now, or somewhere else?
At the thought of Matt living with Ruby, my heart started to race. I leaned back, closed my eyes and did the deep breathing a counsellor at university had shown me years ago to help me to cope. It had helped me then, though it took many sessions before I could do it alone. It was soothing to have her put her cool hand on mine and count my breaths in and out. I’d focus on her face, soft and concerned, and she’d nod gently and count until I was calm. I was eighteen then, and wished I’d learned those skills earlier.
I checked the company’s opening times on their website. Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. I looked at the clock. It was 4.30 now. If I was quick, I could be in Chester by 5.15.
Part of me knew it was madness, I’ll admit that. Or rather not madness – I wasn’t going to label myself as mad just because someone had driven me to distraction – but a little over the top. I knew that the last thing I needed to do was to go and confront this woman from the past, but it had suddenly become more important than finding Matt. If he was with her, then I’d become just an isolated incident in his life. A blip. An interruption to the proper course of things. Something he might look back on as he and Ruby celebrated an anniversary. I wondered what he’d think of me, years later.
Then I wondered whether I would give up the chase. Would I accept she’d beaten me? I tried to imagine myself admitting defeat.
I couldn’t.
Within a couple of minutes I was in my car, driving down the motorway, hands gripping the steering wheel, vision blurred, foot heavy on the accelerator. It was just as it was four years ago, when all I could think about was Ruby.
I arrived at her offices just after five o’clock and parked on a meter. The house was a Georgian terrace, with half a dozen steps up to the front door. A black railing ran along the front of the house, and steps led down to a basement. Lamps were lit in the ground-floor rooms, casting a soft, warm glow on the apricot walls. A silver sports car was parked in the residents’ parking spot, its black soft top rolled back to reveal leather seats, and I thought that if that was Ruby’s car and if she was with Matt now, I’d come back that night with bags of sand and fill it to the brim.
The house looked so much more expensive than I’d imagined. I swallowed hard. I had no idea what I was going to say. Should I pretend I was getting married? But what if they asked for a down payment? I had a vision of being forced into handing over my credit card as a deposit on a wedding when I didn’t even know where my boyfriend was living.
Then a lamp in one of the rooms was extinguished and I panicked. Were they closing now? I jumped out of the car and hurried up the steps. There was a huge brass knocker on the front door, and two bells. One was for the wedding planners; the other had no name. I pressed the bell for the planners and waited.
The huge ornate lamp above the front door came on, and then the door opened. A horsey-looking woman appeared, her silk scarf wrapped around her neck a dozen times. She wore an elegant little cashmere suit and more make-up than I had in my bathroom at home.
She smiled at me. ‘Hello? I’m so sorry, our offices are closed now. Can I help you?’ I felt like tapping my watch and reminding her she still had forty-five minutes to go, but she added, ‘I know we’re closing early, but I’m off to see one of our brides. She just can’t decide whether to go for a train!’
I gawped at her. A train? Imagine being such a bridezilla that you couldn’t get on a train without help.
The woman beamed at me. ‘Fiona King,’ she said, and held out her hand.
‘Oh.’ My palms were damp, and surreptitiously I rubbed them on my skirt before I shook her hand. There was no way I was telling her my real name. ‘I’m Katie Dixon.’
‘I’ll give you my card,’ she said, searching in her bag. ‘Maybe you could make an appointment? Only I do have to dash.’
I just blurted it out. ‘I want to see Ruby.’
‘Ruby?’
‘Is she here? Can I see her?’
‘Oh gosh, are you a friend of hers? Didn’t you know?’ I must have looked completely blank. ‘She got married last week! So quickly, the little minx. We were so cross with her.’
She’d married him?
‘Well, we would have planned her wedding! We would have loved that, she was such a darling. But no, off she went and got married in secret, and now she’s travelling the world. For a year! So romantic.’
‘She’s gone away for a year?’
‘Yes, can you believe it? Not that they’re slumming it, of course. I think it’ll be mostly boutique hotels and yurts. We are so jealous!’
‘But . . .’ Frantically I imagined Matt off travelling for a year. Why hadn’t I thought of that? He loved travelling! He loved being abroad, feeling free. ‘She married Matt?’
‘Matt?’ The woman climbed into the sports car and turned back to me. ‘I’m awfully sorry, I don’t know anyone called that. Goodness, when was the last time you saw her? She married Jonathan Courtney-Cooper. They’d been together for six months. It’s been a positively whirlwind romance!’
I said, ‘How romantic’ and ‘Do pass on my congratulations when you speak to her’ and ‘Gosh, what a surprise,’ but all I could think was Oh thank God. Thank God.
Back in my car, I caught my reflection in the rear-view mirror before I set off. My face was feverishly bright. There was a sheen of sweat on my forehead and my hair stuck to it in strands. My make-up had disappeared, leaving grey marks around my eyes to show where it had been.
So yes, thank God Ruby hadn’t gone off with Matt, but thank God, too, she hadn’t seen me like this.
Did it mean, then, that Matt wasn’t with another woman? And if he wasn’t,
was he sending me those messages, or someone else?
35
When I got back, the house seemed so gloomy and unwelcoming that I couldn’t bear the thought of being there alone. I went upstairs and washed my face, then changed into my running gear. I sent Fran a text asking if she wanted to go for a run, but she replied saying she was tired and wasn’t up for it. I sighed, guessing she was feeling neglected and this was her way of punishing me. She was right; I just didn’t have time for her or Jenny nowadays. But at the same time, I was so fed up of doing everything on my own. For a second I considered staying home, but I knew I had to get out, otherwise I’d find myself lying on my bed, thinking poisonous thoughts and driving myself crazy. I thought briefly of the person who’d filmed me running, and shrugged my shoulders. If I came across him tonight, I’d be ready for him.
I dragged my hair back into a ponytail and pushed my feet into my trainers, then I was off, running down the road, my eyes darting from side to side in case someone was filming me, and my heart pumping harder than it should at the thought of Matt with someone else. Of course it wasn’t Ruby; I felt stupid at the thought now. But who could it be? I tried to remember the women he worked with. I could recall some names and the odd comment, but he’d never spoken about the women at work much. I’d never had any concerns about him like that. Not really. It made sense, though, that he’d gone off with someone else, and I wanted to see the look on his face when I confronted him.
Then I remembered the phone in Sam’s glove compartment – a phone he’d said wasn’t working. I knew he was lying. Was Matt the same? If he was seeing someone else, had he bought another phone? For a second I thought of turning round and going to Sheila and Ray’s house to ask Sheila what kind of phone Matt was using when she saw him in the shop. I knew that was pointless, but still I had to force myself not to do it.
If Matt had bought a new phone just to talk to another woman, that meant there was a whole new level of deception going on. Where would he have kept it? My mind ran wild as I thought of him hiding it from me, sliding it out from under the bed when I was in the shower, or parking down the road to call another woman, then hiding it in the boot of his car and coming home to me with a smile on his face. I felt sick at the thought of him racing out to call her at lunchtime, just as he used to do every day when we first met. Sometimes, lately, I’d called him and his phone had rung out. I’d thought nothing of it, but now I wondered: was he talking to her? Was he in his car, his head thrown back with laughter, his eyes soft and loving? Had I called him on his regular phone while he was talking to her, and had he looked at the caller ID and said, ‘Oh, don’t worry; it’s no one’? Had he gone back to his office and hidden his private phone in his filing cabinet and then called me back and told me he’d been in a meeting?
I ran for miles that night, hardly noticing the distance. It was good to concentrate on my breathing and to get rid of some of the anger inside me. Just as it was getting dark, I was running back up the riverside to make my way home when I realised I was near the pub that Matt and I used to frequent if we were going out locally. The Boathouse was an old half-timbered place, full of tiny rooms and real ale and locals who’d been going there for years. We’d loved the pub and used to be regulars, but lately, with work becoming more hectic for both of us, there was less time for socialising. We tended to stay in if we wanted a drink; I suppose that’s what happens when you hit your thirties. Now I stood outside, wondering whether he’d have the nerve to go somewhere so close to our house. I wondered, too, whether any of the people we’d mixed with there would question the fact that I wasn’t with him.
James had asked me whether I’d been in touch with the guys from the pub to ask whether they’d seen Matt, but I hadn’t been able to face it. I didn’t think they’d tell me the truth if they did know, and the thought of them discussing us made me cringe. I didn’t have their numbers, either; it had always been Matt they’d call, though usually we’d all just drift down there on summer nights after a long walk by the river.
The first week he’d gone, though, I came here a few times. I drove down and parked in a side road where I could watch who was coming and going. I saw his friends there one night and I waited all evening, staring out into the dark, but Matt didn’t join them. They all left together at eleven, chatting outside on the pavement before going their separate ways. I had my window open but couldn’t hear them clearly, no matter how much I strained. I thought maybe it was time to do that again. Maybe he was missing his mates and would drop in one evening. Maybe he’d come with someone else.
I thought of them accepting someone new, someone they hadn’t met before, a woman they could impress with their old stories, which, frankly, I was sick of. I looked at the door of the pub. Maybe she was in there with him now. They might be sitting where we used to sit, having a drink with his friends.
I could feel the heat rising in my body until my face was flaming. Maybe she’d become part of the gang. All sitting around having a good time with nobody even mentioning the fact that I wasn’t there. As though I didn’t exist.
A couple came towards me, the woman first, dressed up for a Saturday night. I could smell the heady scent of Calvin Klein’s Obsession, see the soft, wet slick of her lip gloss as she brushed past me. I shrank back, feeling invisible in my running gear, my face make-up-free, sweaty and red.
As they entered the pub, I darted behind them, trying to spot whether Matt was there. The door closed in my face, but I just had time to see there were only a handful of men at the bar and none of them was Matt. The windows facing the river were frosted on the lower half, and for a mad moment I thought of jumping up to check who was in the room, but even I knew how that would appear to anyone inside.
I sat on the bench outside, looking out over the river. The offices and warehouses of the Liverpool docks were lit now, lacing the riverbank like a daisy chain. That skyline was one of my earliest memories and one I’d always love. The sky was dark blue with a thin rim of gold as the sun finally set, and a breeze in the air chilled the sweat on my body. I shivered.
I heard a noise at the door of the Boathouse and turned. A couple of men were coming out and shouting their goodbyes to someone inside. In the brief instant that the door was open, I saw James walking to the bar.
I froze.
Earlier that day I’d sent Katie a text asking whether they were doing anything tonight. She hadn’t replied for a couple of hours, and when she did, she said they would be staying in with a box set and a takeaway. It had sounded so much like my life before Matt left that I’d suddenly been furious and had sent a reply saying, Oh very nice. Have a good night. Ten minutes later she sent Thanks x, which had made me even more mad, as I knew she would have clocked my sarcasm.
Remembering that text, I pushed the door open and went into the pub.
James was standing at the bar, chatting to the barman, an older guy who’d worked there for years. As I approached him, he turned, startled, then looked back to the barman.
‘Thanks. Keep the change.’ He moved towards me. ‘Hey, Hannah.’
‘Are you here with Matt?’ I asked.
He seemed amused for some reason, and I saw that as confirmation. I looked around wildly. There were four small rooms leading off the main bar. I knew that if I didn’t move fast, Matt could be out of there without my seeing.
I flashed a glance at the little room behind me. It only seated a dozen or so people and tonight it was half empty. Matt wasn’t there.
I backed towards the door and scanned the room to my left. This was bigger but had just couples in it. I had a quick hard look at the men, but none of them was him.
That left the other side room that faced the bar and a large room at the back. I walked swiftly towards the side room, then stopped abruptly. Katie was sitting in there, alone at a table, twisting a strand of hair around her index finger, her eyes on her empty glass.
36
I felt James’s arm brush mine and turned to find him besid
e me.
‘Going to join us?’ he said.
Katie looked up when she heard his voice, then saw me and jumped. ‘Oh, hi, Hannah!’
‘Fancy seeing you here,’ I said. ‘I thought you were staying in. With a box set and a takeaway.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not meeting my eyes. ‘We were going to, weren’t we, James? It’s such a nice night, though, we thought we’d come out for a walk.’ There was an awkward pause, then she said, ‘So, have you been for a run?’
I looked down at my sweaty tank top, Lycra leggings and running shoes, which had definitely seen better days, then back at her cool summer dress and high wedge sandals showing off a light tan and pretty little painted toes. She looked how I’d looked until a couple of months ago.
I pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. ‘Just had to get out of the house.’
‘Is it safe?’
I frowned. For a minute I thought of the video I’d been sent. ‘Safe?’
‘When you’re pregnant, I mean,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you meant to take it easy?’
‘Oh no, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. Exercise is recommended.’
‘Are you on your own?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t Fran or Jenny go with you?’
I hadn’t even bothered asking Jenny, assuming she felt the same way Fran did. ‘They didn’t feel like it.’
‘Do they know Matt’s gone?’
‘No.’ I was starting to feel as though I was being cross-examined. ‘I only see them when we go for a run. I haven’t told them anything.’
‘I’ll go running with you if you want.’ From the expression on her face then, I think she’d just remembered that 10K race from years ago, when I’d left her standing. ‘Or James will.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s OK. I’ll be all right. I’d rather go on my own.’
‘Fancy a drink?’ asked James.
‘Diet Coke, thanks. Sorry, I don’t have any money with me. I didn’t think I’d be needing it.’
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